A former Hollywood CEO has found herself in her own stranger-than-fiction story.
Mary Carole McDonnell, the former CEO of Burbank’s defunct production company Bellum Entertainment, has joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list. The FBI is offering $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of McDonnell, with the 75-year-old now believed to be living in Dubai.
If you haven’t heard of Bellum Entertainment Group (formerly LongNeedle Entertainment), it was a Burbank-based TV company founded in 2004 that shuttered in 2017 after the United States Department of Labor began investigating over misclassified workers and missed payrolls.
That’s around when McDonnell’s troubles really started as well, as the FBI has listed the former CEO as wanted for a fraud scheme that started in Los Angeles and Orange Counties in July 2017.
“McDonnell is alleged to have knowingly, and with the intent to defraud, devised and participated in a scheme to obtain money, funds, assets and property owned by Banc of California,” the FBI’s report stated. “Through this scheme, McDonnell allegedly and fraudulently obtained a total of approximately $14.7 million from the bank to which she knew she was not entitled and has not paid back.”
The report continued: “It is alleged that McDonnell also defrauded additional financial institutions in a similar fashion, with an estimated loss of over $15 million. McDonnell falsely claims to be an heir to the McDonnell Aircraft Family, with an $80 million secret trust to which she will have access.”
This roughly $30 million fraud scheme led to a federal arrest warrant issued against McDonnell in Dec. 2018 in the United States District Court, Central District of California located in Santa Ana, Calif. McDonnell was charged with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
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