Like wooden stakes for vampires and silver bullets for werewolves, is fatal to professional scammers. My pain turned into a deep determination. I started a blog detailing how Mair extorted all that money from me. Soon other victims of this woman from all over the world started contacting me.
One of them claimed that Mair had extorted $10,000 from her by posing as a psychologist. She would also have obtained from the owner of our building $12,000 by claiming to have cancer.
I did some digging and found out that Mair actually had iron deficiency anemia and was purposely avoiding iron rich foods to get admitted to the hospital for iron infusions. Lying in a hospital bed for a few hours, she would ask a nurse to take a picture of her, then email that image to her victims to better sell her cancer fable. She used this particular trick a lot.
I even got a call from a police detective in Northern Ireland. He told me that the authorities in Belfast had been looking for Marianne Smyth for years. In 2008, employed as a mortgage broker, she allegedly defrauded many people before disappearing.
This is only a small part of the stories I discovered. In all, Mair Smyth has assumed at least 23 false identities. Under the name “Mair Aine”, she worked for years as a clairvoyant, robbing vulnerable people by exploiting their most private secrets and confidences. She was also convicted of fraud and aggravated robbery in Florida and Tennessee under the name “Marianne Welch”.
Determined to get justice, I called the Los Angeles Police Department every day. They ended up spending 11 months investigating my case.
Eventually, in early 2018, a year following I last saw her, Mair was arrested and convicted of aggravated robbery for defrauding me. She was released on personal bail, which turned out to be a big mistake. I never approached her, but a month before the trial, Mair filed for a restraining order once morest me, claiming that I had threatened to assault her. I still had to pay $1500/€1400 in attorney fees to defend myself once morest his lies.
“If a judge grants the restraining order, you will no longer have the right to testify once morest her in a criminal trial,” the lawyer explained to me.
Was it a checkmate on his part? I wondered. I was beside myself.
Fortunately, the judge denied the restraining order and Mair’s trial went as planned. The prosecution presented a mountain of compelling evidence. Although she was only convicted for her crimes once morest me, the judge allowed the testimony of three other victims to demonstrate that my case was not unique.
Mair did not testify in his own defense. As the witnesses described how she had defrauded them, she was content to sit, her face impassive. This is certainly what really betrayed her in the eyes of the jury. She was a brilliant actress as part of her scams, but surprisingly she didn’t know how to play the innocent.
The only defense his attorney had for the jury was to claim that I made up the whole thing. I supposedly persuaded all the other witnesses – people I didn’t know before Mair came into my life – to lie under oath in order to make a gripping documentary regarding my experience with Mair. He was terribly convincing.
I had actually decided to make a documentary on Mair. When I took the stand, her lawyer asked me why I was testifying once morest her.
“I want to warn people once morest it,” I replied. When I’m done with Marianne Smyth, the world will know her face and she will never be able to cheat anyone once more.”
Testifying at trial was particularly trying. The prosecutor detailed every dollar extracted. Reliving this experience in front of a room full of strangers awakened my rage and my shame, as well as regrets in a new painful cocktail. I was in all my states.
Redouble your vigilance and read the testimony of this man who got scammed by email.