Peaches Stergo, 36, allegedly met sufferer on courting website and deceived him into paying 62 checks over 4 years
A Florida lady is accused of defrauding an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor out of his $2.8m life financial savings in a romance rip-off lasting years.
Peaches Stergo, 36, of Championsgate, south of Orlando, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with one rely of wire fraud, mentioned the US lawyer’s workplace for southern New York.
“Immediately we allege the defendant callously preyed on a senior citizen merely in search of companionship, defrauding him of his life financial savings,” mentioned FBI assistant director Michael J Driscoll.
Stergo, utilizing the identify “Alice”, met the sufferer on a courting web site roughly six or seven years in the past, mentioned prosecutors.
In 2017, they mentioned, she requested him to borrow cash for a lawyer after claiming funds from an damage settlement case by no means arrived. However prosecutors say no such settlement case existed.
For years, Stergo allegedly deceived the sufferer for more cash, typically receiving month-to-month checks in $50,000 increments, reported CNN.
Stergo, prosecutors mentioned, would inform him that if she didn't obtain cash, her checking account could be frozen and that he would by no means be paid again.
Stergo can also be accused of impersonating a financial institution worker and forging financial institution paperwork and emails to reassure the sufferer that he could be paid.
Over a interval of 4 years, the sufferer allegedly wrote 62 checks to Stergo, ultimately dropping his life financial savings of $2.8m and his condo.
In the meantime, prosecutors mentioned that Stergo used the sufferer’s cash to dwell a “lifetime of luxurious”. She purchased a house in a gated neighborhood, a condominium, a ship and several other luxurious automobiles, they mentioned.
Stergo, they alleged, additionally took extravagant holidays and spent tens of hundreds of dollars on jewellery, gold bars, and designer clothes.
The rip-off lastly got here to an finish in October 2021, prosecutors mentioned, when the sufferer confided in his son that he had given away his life financial savings however could be paid again.
When the sufferer’s son instructed his father that he had been scammed, the sufferer allegedly stopped writing checks.
Stergo may faces 20 years in jail, if convicted. She is anticipated to look in a Florida federal court docket.
Roughly 24,000 victims misplaced over $1bn resulting from romance scams throughout the US in 2021, mentioned the FBI, noting that older folks might be particularly susceptible.
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