The Hollywood Reporter uncovered one of the biggest celebrity con artists ever. (The Hollywood Reporter)
A new investigation by The Hollywood Reporter reveals that there is a very clever con artist out there that’s scamming people out of thousands of dollars by impressively impersonating some of Hollywood’s most powerful and influential women.
The investigation uncovered a scheme that authorities believe to be spearheaded by a woman with a brilliant attention to detail and penchant for faking accents and doing impersonations.
For more than a year, Hollywood big shots like Amy Pascal, Kathleen Kennedy and Stacey Snider have been used by the con artist to trick unsuspecting newcomers to the business into traveling the world and spend vast sums of their own money on the promise that they would be reimbursed by her deep pockets. Those reimbursements, however, never come.
Not only does the imposter take great pains to know everything about the person she’s impersonating, but her marks get the same treatment as well. This allows her to give a very convincing performance that's won over even the most skeptical of people, including former U.S. Marines.
“The woman comes across as intense, intelligent and authoritative. Her rapid-fire speech is delivered smoothly and without any hint of deception,” the report from THR reads.
She only asks for small sums of money at a time and manipulates her marks into believing that, while the thousands of dollars are coming out of their pocket, it’s mere pennies to a big Hollywood producer.
The imposter doesn’t just want money from her marks. In several instances, her conversations and demands became sexual in nature. In one story reported by the outlet, a former U.S. Marine, Rudy Reyes, who worked on HBO’s “Generation Kill,” was contacted on the premise that he was being eyed for a role in “Indiana Jones 5.” However, when they spoke, Reyes explained that she started to make comments about her husband being away and demanded to know what he’d do for her if she made him a star.
She would later contact other former Marines under the guise of forming a private security team only to engage in one-sided video calls that quickly turned sexual. All the while, she was convincing them to spend money and travel for security work that simply never came.
Despite a growing awareness of this person’s crimes, the hunt to bring them to justice continues. So far the person’s face has not ever been seen. However, THR obtained the first audio of her, which showcases her accent work.
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