A court in Northern Ireland on Thursday found an American woman who had posed as an Irish heiress guilty of theft and fraud, prosecutors said.
Marianne Smyth, whom the United States extradited to Northern Ireland last year, was found guilty of three counts of theft and three counts of fraud by abuse of position, according to the court. Her sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 16, when she could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The charges against Ms. Smyth stem from the period from March 2008 to October 2010, when she was living in Northern Ireland and working as a mortgage adviser, according to U.S. court documents tied to her extradition. In total, she swindled her victims in Northern Ireland out of more than 115,000 pounds ($155,000), the court records said.
According to the documents, one couple gave Ms. Smyth £20,000 to be invested in a high-interest savings account with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. But when they called the bank, the account did not appear to exist.
Another couple said that they gave her about £72,000 to buy an investment property, according to the court documents. Ms. Smyth sent them papers that appeared to detail the sale, as well as monthly payments from supposed tenants, the transaction had never taken place.
Ms. Smyth moved to Northern Ireland in 2002 after meeting a postal worker there through a dating site, according to the Times of London. Over the years, she has been accused of using deception to swindle hefty sums of money in schemes that led to two felony convictions in the United States.
Ms. Smyth has used multiple aliases, according to a website by Johnathan Walton, a Los Angeles-based reality television producer who has fought to expose Ms. Smyth after she was convicted of stealing more than $63,000 from him. He hosts a podcast, “Queen of the Con,” whose first season focused on Ms. Smyth.
Mr. Walton said Ms. Smyth had told him that she came from an established Irish family and they became friends. He said she had targeted victims in multiple states and used an array of names, including Lucia Belia, Marianne Clarke, Marianne Welch, Mair Ellis and Marianne Andle.
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
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