An American woman who posed as an heiress to the fictional Irish royal family has been found guilty of defrauding people of more than £100,000 (€115,000) in the North.
Marianne 'Mair' Smyth stole from friends and customers while working as a mortgage adviser between 2008 and 2010 - then fled overseas to con others.
Speaking as she was convicted, one of Smyth’s victims, TV producer Johnathan Walton, who was swindled out of almost $100,000, said it ‘thrills me no end’ to see her be found guilty by a jury in Downpatrick Crown Court.
Johnathan has documented his experience in his podcast Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress and it was after the pod went live in 2021 that a listener contacted him with Smyth’s address in Maine.
He told the Guardian after the trial: ‘I feel like this is why I got scammed – I was meant to stop her. I was meant to shine a light on how these people operate.’
He added on Instagram: 'When the verdicts were read, and she was found guilty on all counts, all of the victims erupted in tears. And even I teared up, and I’m not a victim in this case. But I feel for them deeply. I felt I was in the right place at the right time having done the right thing.'
Smyth was sentenced to five years in a California jail in 2019 for taking the money from Johnathan but had dodged justice in the North for more than 15 years. He claims that Smyth had told him she stood to inherit $40million from the 'Irish royal family’.
Once Johnathan was provided with her Maine address, he passed it on to authorities and she was extradited from the US to the North last year after being arrested in February 2024.
Smyth had begged for this not to happen as she claimed she’d be ‘murdered’ by the IRA.
During the trial at Downpatrick Crown Court, the court heard how Smyth swindled £115,750 (€133,500) out of four victims. Among her victims was Derry GAA legend Dermot McNicholl.
He told the court how he and his wife gave Smyth a cheque for £67,750 for a house in Newcastle, Co. Down, but that she had concocted an 'entirely fictitious' bill of sale and rental agreement.
A jury of eight men and three women took just 20 minutes to convict her unanimously on all six charges - three of theft and three of fraud by abuse of position.
Judge Sandra Crawford remanded Smyth in custody for sentencing on October 16 - Smyth is expected to get a three-year sentence. It is thought that she’ll be deported to the US after serving her time.
As well as his podcast, Johnathan has also written a book called Anatomy Of A Con Artist.
