Speaker 1: Certain portions of what you're about to hear have been
Speaker 1: dramatized based on real life events, eyewitness accounts, and court records.
Speaker 1: She put me in a prison without bars, and I
Speaker 1: feel she should be stopped so as not to do
Speaker 1: this to anyone else. Long before I meet Mayor Smith
Speaker 1: in my downtown Los Angeles apartment building. She lives in
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland for almost ten years and scams half a
Speaker 1: million dollars from twenty six victims there. Local police plan
Speaker 1: to extradite her now that they know where she is.
Speaker 1: She's left a trail of devastation in her and Mayor's
Speaker 1: own daughter not only witnesses her scam people in Northern Ireland.
Speaker 1: I mean she was always a pathological liar, but Mayor
Speaker 1: actually tricks her into helping when she's just a child. Oh,
Speaker 1: she used me for all sorts of things. I used
Speaker 1: to forge signatures. In two thousand nine, when police started investigating,
Speaker 1: Mayor flees Northern Ireland for Tennessee and buys her way
Speaker 1: back into her other daughter's life. Marianne started sending money
Speaker 1: to Courtney's account, but then the money stops. Mayor suddenly
Speaker 1: disappears and a group of angry men with guns drawn
Speaker 1: show up looking for her. And what did they tell you? Exactly? Well,
Speaker 1: they threatened that if we didn't tell them where Marianne was,
Speaker 1: they were going to kill Chelsea. They're gonna kill Stephen,
Speaker 1: They're gonna kill myself, They're gonna kill Courtney and her
Speaker 1: newborn daughter Avery. I'm Jonathan Walton and this is Queen
Speaker 1: of the Con Episode seven, The Hunt. I can only
Speaker 1: imagine what was going through the mind of Mayor's son
Speaker 1: in law Joshua Askavish that night when a group of
Speaker 1: belligerent men show up on his doorstep, desperately searching for Mayor.
Speaker 1: Josh is a military vet who served in Iraq. He's
Speaker 1: seen his share of life threatening situations, but this is
Speaker 1: markedly different. It was literally Irish gangsters, mobsters looking for blood.
Speaker 1: What made you think they were Irish gangsters? Did they
Speaker 1: identify themselves as like we're the Irish mob or what?
Speaker 1: What made you think when they spoke? I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever seen the movie The Devil's Own with
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, the way he speaks on there,
Speaker 1: that's exactly how it was. Stupid. Mom, Mr Burke, you're
Speaker 1: only seeing based on him, between you and the money,
Speaker 1: it shows me to the bony even think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's scared the living hell out of me.
Speaker 1: What did these men look like? They were wearing dark clothes,
Speaker 1: trash coats, automatic rifles, A couple had black leather gloves on,
Speaker 1: one guy had long hair, and three of them they
Speaker 1: just kind of stood back. It was the long long
Speaker 1: hair that spoke as canna wear Mary Anne was. All
Speaker 1: of them had automatic guns, yes, and I will safely
Speaker 1: assume they were a K forty sevens. And why did
Speaker 1: you think they were looking for her? Well, obviously when
Speaker 1: they show up with automatic rifles and you know, speaking Irish, okay,
Speaker 1: I knew someone has royally screwed up somewhere along the lines.
Speaker 1: And obviously they're not friendly. They're looking for blow or money.
Speaker 1: And what were you feeling at that moment? I was
Speaker 1: in shock, you know, instant dry them out, just looking
Speaker 1: at and going, okay, what the fund did I do?
Speaker 1: And then they told you what They asked where mary
Speaker 1: Anne was, if she was staying there? And what did
Speaker 1: you tell them at that point? Well, at that point
Speaker 1: I didn't even know where she was exactly, other than last,
Speaker 1: I knew she was somewhere in kid See and were
Speaker 1: they happy with that? They left after that, they believed you.
Speaker 1: They were quite Larara at first, and then Courtney also
Speaker 1: came to the door and told him, looked last, we
Speaker 1: knew she was in Tennessee. And they asked how long
Speaker 1: ago that was, and that was within a month, and
Speaker 1: then they left. Yes, what did you and Courtney stay
Speaker 1: to each other as they walked away? And you guys
Speaker 1: didn't get shot. We were just in awe. We really
Speaker 1: didn't even say anything, just kind of stared, like did
Speaker 1: that really just happen. The real tragedy here, though, is
Speaker 1: just three years after those men with guns come knocking.
Speaker 1: Mare's a strange daughter. Courtney dies at the age of
Speaker 1: twenty three of cystic fibrosis, a respiratory illness she was
Speaker 1: born with and suffered from her entire life. I knew
Speaker 1: that my sister, like she wasn't expected to be alive
Speaker 1: for a long time. Chelsea only gets to know Courtney
Speaker 1: for a handful of years near the end of her
Speaker 1: life growing up, though Courtney is not around. Remember, the
Speaker 1: Courts found Mayor to be an unfit mother and awarded
Speaker 1: soul custody of Courtney to Mayor's ex husband in Michigan. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: Mayor invokes Courtney's name frequently around Chelsea, and not in
Speaker 1: a good way. She would regularly tell me that she'd
Speaker 1: wished that I was sick and not my sister. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is such a damage in vain as little girl, Jesus,
Speaker 1: And how did you deal with it? Did it hurt
Speaker 1: you then or did it roll off your back? It
Speaker 1: did not roll off my back. I mean I was
Speaker 1: severely depressed as a teenager. I had several suicide attempts.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was bad. Gosh, I'm so sorry. I
Speaker 1: can't even fathom how you got to where you got.
Speaker 1: Two Now. More disturbing than what Mayor tells her daughter
Speaker 1: Chelsea while being in Northern Ireland is what she gets
Speaker 1: her to do. Mayor uses Chelsea and her young cousin
Speaker 1: as chills. My mom was like raising money for cystic fibrosis,
Speaker 1: like in general, and was making us take buckets around places.
Speaker 1: I didn't ever know if she was scamming people, but
Speaker 1: when she did things like that, I was like, you're not.
Speaker 1: You're not donating money to cystic fibrosis. You and your
Speaker 1: cousin were going door to door with buckets collecting money. Wow,
Speaker 1: using kids, you know, using young girls, like who would
Speaker 1: not give? Right, you're coming around with a bucket, like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at this adorable girl. Here you go. It's a
Speaker 1: great racket, as deplorable as it is, she knows what works,
Speaker 1: and Mayor is equally adapt at refreshing her cons to
Speaker 1: keep up with the times, because five years later, after
Speaker 1: her daughter Courtney dies of cystic fibrosis, Mayor creates a
Speaker 1: go FUNDI page in Los Angeles to raise money in
Speaker 1: the name of her dead daughter. She had a child
Speaker 1: that had passed away from this disease. It was Mother's
Speaker 1: Day and she had decided to start a campaign to
Speaker 1: get money and donated to the research of this disease.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles filmmaker friend Lozano happily donates. I mean, who
Speaker 1: wouldn't It's a good cause, you know, So yeah, I
Speaker 1: donated fifty dollars and I shared it on my Facebook
Speaker 1: page and say, hey, this is somebody I know. If
Speaker 1: you have it in your heart and you have some
Speaker 1: extra money, this is a good cost. Of course, it
Speaker 1: isn't a good cause, but it is a good con
Speaker 1: Mayor Smith raises sixt four hundred and sixty dollars through
Speaker 1: her go fund me scam, and when I check with
Speaker 1: Assistic Fibrosis Foundation, they tell me they never see a
Speaker 1: dime who does that. She used a picture of her
Speaker 1: dead daughter. I mean, that's another level. That is another level.
Speaker 1: Just when I think she can't get any worse than
Speaker 1: a dog murderer, she uses her estranged daughter's tragic death
Speaker 1: to prey on people's charity. She really is the fucking devil.
Speaker 1: I encourage friend to report Mayor to police, which she does,
Speaker 1: as do a bunch of other victims of that go
Speaker 1: fund me scam. Mayor's ex son in law, Joshua Askavish,
Speaker 1: is a guest. What really got to me the most.
Speaker 1: It was a picture of Courtney and my daughter Avery.
Speaker 1: And that's where really just made my blood boil. The
Speaker 1: fact that she's even got the goal to even post
Speaker 1: a picture that includes my daughter. Mayor's got the goal,
Speaker 1: all right. There's a special place in hell for a
Speaker 1: con artist who uses the illness and death of her
Speaker 1: own daughter to scam people. As the months pass, every
Speaker 1: time I find a new victim and a new scam,
Speaker 1: I update the l A p D. This has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with your case, they tell me. So I
Speaker 1: just try harder to dig up more evidence and find
Speaker 1: more victims. It becomes an obsession, and it starts taking
Speaker 1: a toll on my life. You are such an extremist
Speaker 1: that I was worried that you were harming your marriage.
Speaker 1: I was worried you were harming your own mental well being.
Speaker 1: You know, because even a good cause taken too far
Speaker 1: can do you in. My former TV reporter friend, Eileen
Speaker 1: Factus has known me for twenty years, and I really
Speaker 1: look up to her today. She runs a bilingual YouTube
Speaker 1: channel called kid Time story Time, reading books to kids
Speaker 1: using puppets, songs and a thousand voices like a ray
Speaker 1: of sunshine, this soul. Wait a minute, oh green bear,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of the story. Yeah, I question.
Speaker 1: I've always come to Eileen for advice. She's a real
Speaker 1: force for good in my life, and I usually listen
Speaker 1: to what she has to say. This time, though I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear it. I just felt like you
Speaker 1: needed a break. Even if you didn't think you needed
Speaker 1: a break, you were going down this rabbit hole, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but be worried. You were already so
Speaker 1: obsessed about it, and obsession about anything is bad, right,
Speaker 1: even though it's coming from a good place. But then
Speaker 1: at the same time, I see it's doing a number
Speaker 1: on you emotionally. You're stressed out, you're not sleeping, you
Speaker 1: leave work constantly to do this. I could see your
Speaker 1: husband was not happy. He was stressed out about it.
Speaker 1: My buddy, Evan is worried about me too, I think
Speaker 1: worried about you. As an understatement, Yeah, we'd talk and
Speaker 1: you weren't Jonathan anymore. For years you were this just
Speaker 1: kind of jovial, funny, easygoing guy, quick to help people.
Speaker 1: You know, just everything was light. Life is good, Evan,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're always so positive. And that's not
Speaker 1: the person I was talking to. And it wasn't just
Speaker 1: me that saw this. You were beyond obsessed. Man. I
Speaker 1: talked to Pablo about you behind your back, and we
Speaker 1: were just like, what the fund are we going to
Speaker 1: do about Jonathan? Like Jonathan is gone. He's not only obsessed,
Speaker 1: he is talking different, he is angry, he is unhappy.
Speaker 1: Anyone who knows you before this, it's a one eight.
Speaker 1: It's not you man, you know, and really the thing
Speaker 1: that I was. I was to the point where I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know if we can be friends. Listen.
Speaker 1: I know my obsession with bringing mary Anne Smith to
Speaker 1: justice is hurting me, and at a certain point I
Speaker 1: let it go. I try. I try to let it go,
Speaker 1: I really do, but I just can't. It gnaws at me.
Speaker 1: It haunts my dreams. I would rather die than let
Speaker 1: that woman get away with what she did to me
Speaker 1: and what she did to all those other people, what
Speaker 1: she did to Chelsea. So I doubled down and work
Speaker 1: even harder and obsess even more. And thankfully I'm not alone.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I looked at it. We're all in
Speaker 1: this together at this point, you know. And I do
Speaker 1: want to see justice served, and I don't want her
Speaker 1: to be It was mostly about keeping her from doing
Speaker 1: this to anyone else again. You know. Remember Bob's nanny,
Speaker 1: Sarah Coffin, who Mayor tricks Bob into firing while trying
Speaker 1: to scam him and adding her name to the titles
Speaker 1: of his two multimillion dollar New Poor Beach properties. Sarah
Speaker 1: is as passionate and committed to taking down Mayor as
Speaker 1: I am, and she didn't even get me financially. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't about money with me. She really fucked my
Speaker 1: head over. She really fucked me up. She ruined this
Speaker 1: relationship that I had with this family, like I'd known
Speaker 1: them for so long and been closed for so long,
Speaker 1: and for her to come in so fast and hard
Speaker 1: and just suck everything up incredibly was just amazing to me.
Speaker 1: Like that she was that destructive. Funny thing about the
Speaker 1: justice system, it's slow, painfully slow. Remember that Pacific Island's
Speaker 1: case from seventeen, where Mayor pleads guilty to stealing two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and pays for restitution by scamming me so
Speaker 1: she can avoid a five year jail sentence. Even though
Speaker 1: Mayor has already pled guilty and served her easily thirty
Speaker 1: days behind bars months ago, the case is still going on.
Speaker 1: Mayor's attorney is now disputing how much money she actually
Speaker 1: stole from Pacific Islands, and there are monthly court appearances
Speaker 1: happening that Mayor has to attend to hash everything out.
Speaker 1: As soon as I get into this, I act Mayor
Speaker 1: Smith has been so deep inside my head for the
Speaker 1: past several months. It's high time I get deep inside
Speaker 1: of hers. So I organized you everyone who would come.
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's go in a crowd and stare that
Speaker 1: bitch down and let her know you're not getting away.
Speaker 1: I was so grateful to you, because at that point
Speaker 1: it was hard getting an adherence, it was hard getting
Speaker 1: victims to come forward, and but you jumped on. Remember
Speaker 1: you came to all those court appearances for the Pacific
Speaker 1: Islands case where we could fucking stare daggers at her.
Speaker 1: That was the best. Remember, yes, I do. And one time,
Speaker 1: I like me, Heather, Bob friends sitting when Mayor sees
Speaker 1: us all sitting in court, smattering of the disparate victims
Speaker 1: she conned all together now staring her down, she turns white.
Speaker 1: She's saying something to the bailiff and pointing at us like,
Speaker 1: god knows what she told the bailiff. Maybe we're like
Speaker 1: criminal or something. And then my favorite memory that I'd
Speaker 1: played over and over, we were, but she's a criminal.
Speaker 1: And also we had every legal right to be there, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's a public form. And then remember when so that
Speaker 1: that day is over, everyone's walking out and we're walking
Speaker 1: behind Mayor and her attorney, and then Mayor is like,
Speaker 1: you can tell mayor is like trouble that. We're all there,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's not even looking at us. And
Speaker 1: then she gets on the elevator with the attorney and
Speaker 1: we don't get on the elevator and you kind of
Speaker 1: like wave at her. I finger gunned at her. It
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, that's what it was. It was a
Speaker 1: finger gun look at and then her attorneys like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell the judge you did that, and you're like,
Speaker 1: what that I waived? That was great. It never felt
Speaker 1: less threatened in my life. That was hilarious, and like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you tell us, you tell the judge and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Absolutely nothing happens. Apparently pointing at someone and making a
Speaker 1: sound is perfectly legal in these United States, though it
Speaker 1: does intimidate the hell out of Mary Anne Elizabeth Smith
Speaker 1: because she doesn't want to face us ever again. So
Speaker 1: the next month, she's doing court for another Pacific Island's
Speaker 1: restitution hearing. We're all there, finger guns holstered and ready,
Speaker 1: but mayor is a no show. Word from the d
Speaker 1: a is. Mayor gets out of going to this court
Speaker 1: appearance by taking an ber to a mental hospital and
Speaker 1: convincing them she's going to kill herself. Of course, they
Speaker 1: believe her and admit her for treatment. She gets out
Speaker 1: of going to court for a couple of months using
Speaker 1: this suicide scam, but the hospital eventually releases her into
Speaker 1: the custody of a boarding house for the mentally ill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no one she can scam there, right. I still haven't
Speaker 1: recovered fromhem. To tell the truth, I never met a
Speaker 1: woman that did that to me. To protect his identity,
Speaker 1: we'll call him Ned. He's a seventy nine year old
Speaker 1: military vet who's been living at this group home for
Speaker 1: the mentally ill about an hour south of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: since he finds my blog about Mayor Smith being a
Speaker 1: con artist and calls me up and tells me his story.
Speaker 1: She came to this group poem somehow she got wind
Speaker 1: or something that I wanted to do some things in
Speaker 1: Hollywood with some TV shows and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: she kind of came on to me saying since she
Speaker 1: wanted to like get involved in me and maybe even
Speaker 1: like marriage, you know, and wanted me to sign over
Speaker 1: half of all the things I always gonna make in
Speaker 1: Hollywood if I things were successful. Wow, I should mention
Speaker 1: here that I don't know what Ned's exact mental illnesses.
Speaker 1: But I don't think Mayor wants to marry him so
Speaker 1: she can own half of his TV show ideas, because
Speaker 1: Ned is receiving thousands of dollars in Social Security and
Speaker 1: veterans benefits every month, and Mayor is probably in a
Speaker 1: hurry to marry Ned so she can start receiving both
Speaker 1: when he dies. And forgive me for being morbid here,
Speaker 1: but that might not be too far away. So she's
Speaker 1: hiding out in Ned's group home for the mentally ill
Speaker 1: from me and all the other Los Angeles victims. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: she's targeting Ned, carefully, constructing a house of cards he
Speaker 1: can relate to. She told me she was a graduated
Speaker 1: with a master's in business degree from Northwestern University, and
Speaker 1: we used to talk about I was from Ohio State,
Speaker 1: so we used to talk about Ohio State and Northwestern
Speaker 1: and the rivalry in the big town and whatnot and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and it was really amazing when it
Speaker 1: was like, probably none of that's true, you know, none
Speaker 1: of that. No, she never went to college, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: She totally fooled me. Mayor then tries over and over
Speaker 1: again to pressure Ned into marriage using sex, or rather
Speaker 1: withholding sex. We had a kind of a cross eyed
Speaker 1: fantasy kind of sexual relationship a little bit, so she
Speaker 1: must have thought that I would, yeah, some leverage. But
Speaker 1: we didn't never had any real sex or anything. So
Speaker 1: she started with this stuff about signing stuff over and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. She just wanted the rights to everything
Speaker 1: I had to, you know, half of everything. Wow, and
Speaker 1: she was making sex. Continued upon that she wanted me
Speaker 1: to sign an agreement on that. Ever, cunning Mayor never
Speaker 1: tells Ned her last name, probably because she doesn't want
Speaker 1: him googling her and finding my block. Ned just knows
Speaker 1: her as Mary Anne. But when she starts pushing Ned
Speaker 1: really hard to marry her, he gets curious. When Mayor
Speaker 1: isn't looking, he grabs her prescription bottle and discovers her
Speaker 1: last name is Smith. She didn't tell me I got
Speaker 1: it off for medication thing, and so she didn't tell
Speaker 1: me her last name. That came to me the idea
Speaker 1: to google her name and your stuff came up. I
Speaker 1: just saw that, and I just wanted to thank you.
Speaker 1: For some reason. I have a master's degree and two
Speaker 1: years around the master's degree in psychology. You know, I
Speaker 1: graduated from Ohio State and University. As heard so and
Speaker 1: so forth. I just got so frustrated with the whole
Speaker 1: thing and I couldn't handle it all by myself. So
Speaker 1: I called the FBI. I just flat I called them
Speaker 1: and said, google's go. You know she's here, whatevers. I
Speaker 1: don't understand what's going on. Do you know what she
Speaker 1: was telling other people? No? No, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: do not, But I know. I think she tried to
Speaker 1: come on there, most of the people there, and find
Speaker 1: out their story and stuff, because, like she was, she
Speaker 1: used her attractiveness and was friendly with the guys, and
Speaker 1: she had them all now the palmer in her hand. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know she was sleeping with any of them? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I don't think so, and her and
Speaker 1: I never start together either, But I think just the
Speaker 1: promise of sex with what I was doing it for
Speaker 1: those guys. I never knew I could think less of
Speaker 1: Mayor Smith than I already do. But I was wrong.
Speaker 1: She's some kind of predator, you know. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: There is a light at the end of this dark
Speaker 1: and depressing tunnel. Though, to quote the great Dr Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Jr. The arc of the moral universe is long,
Speaker 1: but it bends towards justice. One year after filing my
Speaker 1: police report, Marianne Elizabeth Smith is charged with grand theft
Speaker 1: by false pretense for scamming me and Mrs Will I'm
Speaker 1: just calling to give you up data on your case.
Speaker 1: I'm producing a show shifting gears for the Discovery Channel
Speaker 1: in April. When I missed the call that police actually
Speaker 1: arrest Mayor at that boarding house for the mentally ill
Speaker 1: where she's hiding out, I fuge it is ended up
Speaker 1: getting Miss mary Anne's my custody today. It works. This
Speaker 1: court should be scheduled in morning. Likely you will be
Speaker 1: receiving a subpoena, but I will keep performed once I
Speaker 1: get further details regarding the case. All right, time to soon.
Speaker 1: I am thrilled, though merriorly spends a few days in
Speaker 1: jail after that arrest, because she's released into the custody
Speaker 1: of that partyhouse for the mentally ill again to await
Speaker 1: a preliminary hearing. I'm still ecstatic because my case is
Speaker 1: finally moving forward in the justice system and ship's happening. Hi,
Speaker 1: Mr Walton, my name is Jessica Classic. I'm a deputy
Speaker 1: dish attorney, the attorney who are actually be handling the
Speaker 1: preliminary hearing, the matter of people versus Marianne Elizabeth Smith,
Speaker 1: the people versus mary Anne Elizabeth Smith. I just love
Speaker 1: the sound of that. I now have the freaking people
Speaker 1: on my side. Not to mention diligent and hard working
Speaker 1: attorney in the Los Angeles d A's office, Jessica Plastic.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of people would look at it first
Speaker 1: and think this person was so naive to get the
Speaker 1: money to somebody. But when you look deeper into it
Speaker 1: and you see the statements that were made and the
Speaker 1: level of criminal sophistication, I think it was easy for
Speaker 1: me to take kind to your case because I felt
Speaker 1: that you were a bleeding heart that kind of got
Speaker 1: taken advantage of and I could really relate to that.
Speaker 1: So I think immediately when the case was assigned to me,
Speaker 1: I was like, I mean justice on this one. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things I learned about the justice system
Speaker 1: is a phrase called no prior bad acts, which basically
Speaker 1: means a person charged with a crime has to be
Speaker 1: prosecuted for that crime, only you're not allowed to bring
Speaker 1: up all their former crimes or prior bad acts, which
Speaker 1: really sucks because Mayor has been charged with felonies for fraud,
Speaker 1: grand theft and for passing bad checks in the past,
Speaker 1: and police in an I and are also trying to
Speaker 1: extradite her for scamming five hundred thousand from twenty six
Speaker 1: victims there and none of that is admissible in court. Yeah, generally,
Speaker 1: you can't really use propensity evidence to say that all
Speaker 1: of this person did it before, they probably did it
Speaker 1: this time. There are certain cases, maybe like domestic violence
Speaker 1: or child sexual abuse, where you can make the argument
Speaker 1: that it should be able to come in under the
Speaker 1: evidence code. But in a case like that, like a
Speaker 1: theft case, even though she had a prior bad act,
Speaker 1: the judge wouldn't necessary or the jury, i should say,
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily know about that prior act. It could be
Speaker 1: like bifurcated, you know, when you deal with the prior
Speaker 1: allegations outside the jury or in a separate trial or hearing.
Speaker 1: Propensity it's like propensity evidence. Generally, a propensity evans, So
Speaker 1: you couldn't use somebody's prior theft against them to say
Speaker 1: they stole this time, they probably stole this time, but
Speaker 1: don't you think you should be able to yes and no.
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, once an abuser, always abuser,
Speaker 1: Once cheater, always a cheater. You know, there's there's some
Speaker 1: things to that, right, but but I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of comes into the domestic violence. Right You're gonna say, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't hit her this time, but now you have
Speaker 1: a propensity. You know, that cycle of violence is something
Speaker 1: like that. But if I go and steal come from
Speaker 1: the store and I'm misidentified as stealing GOM a second time,
Speaker 1: should somebody be out to be like, I know what
Speaker 1: is you because you did it before? You know, so
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah, I mean there are scenario Yeah, I
Speaker 1: see what you're saying. But in her case, she had
Speaker 1: felony charges for fraud, grant theft, passing bad checks, but
Speaker 1: no convictions on those in other states. And the only
Speaker 1: reason she had no convictions is if it's your first
Speaker 1: felony in another state, um, the judge is very lenient
Speaker 1: and a lawyer can talk out and get you community
Speaker 1: service or whatever. And you're not convicted. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that could happen. You know, there could be
Speaker 1: a delay bring you know, to an arraignment. It could
Speaker 1: be dismissed for that it could be put over for
Speaker 1: further investigation. Maybe they didn't feel that they could prove
Speaker 1: it beyond a reasonable doubt. Basically, evidence that they had
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that the person didn't do it though, or
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have been good for it if the evidence
Speaker 1: was there. But they're also scams two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: from that Pacific Islands travel agency in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: bringing that case up may not be allowed either, which
Speaker 1: could hurt my case because the way she tricked all
Speaker 1: that money out of Pacific Islands demonstrates a level of
Speaker 1: criminal sophistication that proves she's a con artist. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how much you knew about luxury travel, but
Speaker 1: I now know more than most. So the only reason
Speaker 1: she got caught is because she was on vacation. That's
Speaker 1: the only reason they caught her while she was so,
Speaker 1: she had this PayPal account that she named Pacific Islands
Speaker 1: and she was taking customers payments because she took advantage
Speaker 1: of a loophole that exists in luxury travel that when
Speaker 1: you pay for your vacation your vacation, they're not paying
Speaker 1: for your plane in hotel until the day before you go,
Speaker 1: so all that money gets into a big pot. No
Speaker 1: one's really keeping track. So she was able to get
Speaker 1: in there and get out two grand over two years
Speaker 1: by taking payments in her PayPal. No one was the wiser.
Speaker 1: They knew they were missing money, they didn't know from where,
Speaker 1: because she would fill out all the paperwork correctly and
Speaker 1: make it look like the money went into the pot
Speaker 1: when it didn't. It went into her PayPal, but they
Speaker 1: didn't know. The only reason she got found out she's
Speaker 1: on vacation. A customer calls to book another vacation and says, well,
Speaker 1: Mayor's out. Talked to this lady, well can I pay
Speaker 1: with PayPal like last time? And they're like, we don't
Speaker 1: take PayPal. So that triggered an investigation and they caught
Speaker 1: her red handed. That is kind of clever to figure
Speaker 1: out the lay of the line pretty quickly at that
Speaker 1: place and know how you can exploit it. It was
Speaker 1: about to the tune about and had she not taken vacation,
Speaker 1: like how how much longer would she would have been
Speaker 1: five d thousand it would have been a million. They
Speaker 1: didn't know. They knew they were missing money. They didn't
Speaker 1: know from where, and she was so good at covering
Speaker 1: up the paperwork in the tracks. She was their best sale,
Speaker 1: this woman. They never suspected her. They loved her. JP
Speaker 1: loved her because whenever JP was short on sales, he'd say, Mayor,
Speaker 1: we need sales, and she'd bringing a hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. But I'm sure now like a lot
Speaker 1: of that was fake. Right, let me pull out on
Speaker 1: my own accountant. Yeah, Deputy d a Plastic gets the
Speaker 1: preliminary hearing set for on that day. A judge is
Speaker 1: gonna look at all the evidence and look at Mayor
Speaker 1: Smith and decide if there's enough here to go to trial,
Speaker 1: or God forbid, decide to dismiss the case entirely. So
Speaker 1: much is writing on this day, and Mayor still has
Speaker 1: a few unbelievable tricks up her sleeve. As local ABC
Speaker 1: News reporter Rob Hayes witnesses firsthand, when Marian Smith showed
Speaker 1: up in Elie's criminal courthouse today, she was supporting a
Speaker 1: pair of crutches. What happened to your foot? But Jonathan
Speaker 1: Walton says, save your sympathy. We knew she was going
Speaker 1: to pull something today, but to show up and crutches.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget when she did show up on crutches,
Speaker 1: but I was gonna get that. She'd been coming to
Speaker 1: court just fine for the arrangement and for all the
Speaker 1: other hearings. But on the day of the preliminary hearing,
Speaker 1: when a judge is going to be deciding if there's
Speaker 1: enough for a trial, she comes in. She's on crutches,
Speaker 1: and she looks like a homeless bag lady. And it
Speaker 1: was more shocking for me than for you, because I
Speaker 1: knew her as an Irish heiress, you know, makeup hair clothes,
Speaker 1: Jimmy choose, like, that's the Mayor Smith that I knew.
Speaker 1: So to see her on crutches that day, with this big, giant,
Speaker 1: like beach bag, like a homeless lady, I knew it
Speaker 1: was a con. But then I started wondering, is it
Speaker 1: obvious it's a con, Like did you believe it for
Speaker 1: a second that she legitimately needed crutches. I have to
Speaker 1: reserve my comment on that one, and so does Mayor.
Speaker 1: She won't talk about her new crutches or anything else
Speaker 1: for that man. There a lot of people are accusing
Speaker 1: you of scamming them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: Do you have any comments on that? Smith refused to
Speaker 1: answer any of our questions, But she'll be facing more
Speaker 1: questions in the court room, will she. Though Mayor's attorney
Speaker 1: skillfully manages to keep kicking this case down the calendar,
Speaker 1: a jury trial is eventually set for November, and one
Speaker 1: month before her trial is scheduled to start, Mayor Smith
Speaker 1: pulls the most brilliant con of her career, a conduct
Speaker 1: sure to rally the jury to her side, a con
Speaker 1: that's so insane it just might work. One month before trial,
Speaker 1: Mayor files a restraining order against me, claiming I'm threatening
Speaker 1: her with violence. She encloses a picture with the filing,
Speaker 1: She says, is me stalking her at her church. I'm
Speaker 1: forced to spend fifteen hundred dollars on an attorney who
Speaker 1: shockingly explains to me, if a judge grants this restraining order,
Speaker 1: you won't be allowed in the courtroom to testify against
Speaker 1: her during a criminal trial. Could this be Mayor Smith's
Speaker 1: checkmate move? Next time, on Queen of the con Mayor
Speaker 1: Smith goes to any length to stop me from taking
Speaker 1: the stand. Somebody would really have to prove that that
Speaker 1: civil restraining order was false, which is a whole separate ball,
Speaker 1: and her attorney tries to convince the court that I'm
Speaker 1: the perpetrator, but will a jury believe me or con
Speaker 1: artist Mary Anne Smith Jury Fashion. For exclusive photos and
Speaker 1: other bonus material, follow at Queen of the Khan on
Speaker 1: Instagram and if you're enjoying Queen of the Khan, tell
Speaker 1: your friends about it and leave us a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Queen of
Speaker 1: the Khan The Irish Heiress is a production of a
Speaker 1: y R Media and I Heart Radio, hosted by Me
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton, Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions
Speaker 1: and Eliza Rosen for A y R Media. Written by
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate producer Eric Newman.
Speaker 1: Sound designed by baked ZD Media, mixed and mastered by
Speaker 1: Elliott Herman, Audio engineering by Elliot Herman, Studio engineering by
Speaker 1: Chris McMasters. Voice acting performed by Tim Cunningham, Neil Goldstein
Speaker 1: and Carmel O'Reilly lee Goal Council for A y R Media.
Speaker 1: Gianni Douglas, Executive producer for I Heart Radio Chandler Mays,