A Life Devoted To Fraud - Crime - Nairaland
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| A Life Devoted To Fraud by Recognise: 6:46pm On Jul 18, 2009 |
[size=16pt]A life dedicated to deceit: The middle-class squatter couple and a husband who devoted his life to fraud[/size] They were the middle-class squatters who - a court heard this week - posed as wealthy home buyers then lived in houses rent free for 18 months. But, as this investigation reveals, that was just the START of their web of lies . . . From the moment Cindy Fraser-Tait set eyes on the message sent to her on a lonely hearts website, it seemed almost too good to be true. A tall, single, athletic millionaire in his 40s, Rick Jerome had it all. He may have been too shy to post a photograph on the internet, but once his luxury home in Barbados and a personal fortune of more than £500million were taken into account, such an omission could be easily overlooked. Sadly for Cindy, herself an attractive, successful businesswoman, who at 53 was emerging from a painful divorce, 'Rick' really was too good to be true. [center][img width=580 height=780]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/17/article-0-05B659A6000005DC-121_468x777.jpg[/img] Fraudsters: Richard and Hazel Jerome have both been given jail sentences[/center] In truth, he was Richard Jerome, a married father of three and career conman. But Cindy would not discover the full extent of his deceit for another five years, until she opened her copy of the Daily Mail this week to see his pudgy face glowering from the page. By this time the career conman had destroyed not only Cindy's life - she lost her home and ended up bankrupt after falling for his elaborate scams - but also those of a procession of vulnerable women, all of whom believed his lies. The deceit had been going on for years. Indeed, the police officer who secured his conviction first arrested Jerome for fraud 28 years ago. But it was only this week that he was given the jail sentence he so richly deserved. Huntington Crown Court in Cambridgeshire heard how Jerome, 62, and his 64-year-old wife, Hazel, duped two couples into allowing them to live in their homes without charge for 18 months. On each occasion they pretended to be interested in buying the homes, both well appointed properties in sought-after, middle-class areas, and asked to rent until the sale went through. [center]The police officer who secured his conviction first arrested Jerome for fraud 28 years ago[/center] Once in the house, they refused to cough up a penny and became Britain's unlikeliest squatters. The fraud - for which Richard Jerome received a 15-month jail term and his wife a suspended sentence of ten months - was devastating for their victims. Janet Jarvis, who counted Hazel Jerome as a friend because the pair were teachers at the same primary school, died from cancer not knowing what would happen to her home. Their next victim, Marion Smullen, also lost her husband to cancer before the end of the court case. At least, you may think, the courts had given this couple their just desserts. For Cindy and her friend Patricia Leslie, however, his conviction brought back painful memories of the manner in which Richard Jerome wrecked their lives five years ago. 'When I read about what Rick had done to those poor women, it brought everything flooding back and I felt physically sick,' says Cindy, now 58, who lives on the Isle of Wight. 'I was coming to terms with the end of my marriage and a serious heart problem when he came into my life on that dating website. 'I had my suspicions from the start, because tall, athletic millionaires don't grow on trees. But when he phoned me up and started chatting, all that faded away. 'At the time I was wealthy myself, the business I ran with my ex-husband was doing well, I was living in a beautiful house. I even had my own helicopter, so I wasn't after him for the money. [center]  Swan Cottage, Stoke Hammond: The Jeromes squatted here for six months[/center] 'He told me he was an entrepreneur and he was always on the lookout for properties to invest in and, after a few conversations, we decided he should come over to the island.' Their first meeting at the ferry port was far from auspicious. While Cindy scanned the arrivals lounge for a 6ft 2in, athletic man in his 40s, she became aware of a squat, bearded man in his late 50s gazing at her out of the corner of his eye. 'I took one look at him and said: "Don't tell me - you're Rick?" ' says Cindy. 'He was sheepish and I knew there and then that there wouldn't be any romantic involvement, but that didn't stop him from trying it on.' It is testament to Cindy's manners, and Jerome's devious charm, that instead of bidding him goodbye she took him on a tour of the island's botanical gardens. It was then that the lies really started to flow. Jerome told Cindy he was a supremely wealthy man, having recently sold his shipping line and hotel chain for £500 million. He wanted to invest in property on the Isle of Wight and offered Cindy a job with the grandiose title of UK Consultant Property Director, which came - he boasted - with a six-figure salary. Cindy, who had been running a successful manufacturing business despite her serious heart condition, was beguiled. [center]'I can't believe I was so stupid, but he was so plausible'[/center] Eager to move on from her shattered marriage, she handed the business to her ex-husband and, at Jerome's exhortation, remortgaged her beautiful £850,000 detached home to release funds to keep her going while the new venture was established. Cindy threw herself into the job, finding stunning properties as far afield as Lyme Regis in Dorset for Jerome to view. On one occasion Jerome travelled over to the Isle of Wight to look at Barton Manor, which was on the market for £8million, and told its owner, the legendary music impresario Robert Stigwood, that he was interested in making a firm offer. 'It was all so exciting,' says Cindy. 'And while we were there Rick turned to me and said quietly: "You know Cindy, when our business is up and running, you and I will live here." 'It was around then I found this amazing house called Rockmount and introduced him to Pat, the owner. Looking back, I can't believe I was so stupid, but he was incredibly plausible.' Pat is Patricia Leslie, 64, a former model and beauty queen. Her husband, the computer games mogul Victor Leslie, had died in her arms a year earlier from anaphylactic shock after being stung in the throat by a wasp. It was a freak, tragic event which was compounded by the discovery a few months later that she was suffering from breast cancer. With money tight due to a disastrous omission in Victor's life insurance, Patricia had reluctantly decided to sell her home, a stunning Victorian house with panoramic views across the English Channel. 'Just as I was finishing eight weeks of radiotherapy, Rick came along and offered to buy Rockmount off me,' says Patricia. 'He asked me to take it off the market straight away, because it was only a matter of transferring the money from an account in the Caribbean, which would take a little while. [center]  Bradville, Milton Keynes: The Jeromes lived rent-free in this house for a year[/center] 'I was vulnerable at the time and he clearly spotted that. He started paying me a lot of attention and telling me all these tall tales about his house in Barbados, and how he was going to live there for part of the year. 'On one occasion, when I let him stay over at my house, I woke up in the early hours to find him standing next to my bed stark naked. I screamed at him to get out. By then I was very suspicious of him, and I asked a friend of mine who works in the property business to check him out.' Those inquiries soon revealed that Rick Jerome was not as straightforward as he seemed. In the process of making bids on a number of properties, totalling well in excess of £10million, Jerome had presented a sheaf of documents backing up his claim to be a wealthy businessman. [center]'My children saw this man destroy me as a person'[/center] The documents detailed offices dotted around the globe, with a focus on Barbados and the Dominican Republic. It's not clear what links he had with Barbados - or, indeed, if he had ever even been there - but he talked about the island as if he knew it. He had even gone to the trouble of ensuring that when a telephone number was called in the Caribbean, a voice would answer and say: 'Mr Jerome, the president and chief executive officer, is out of the country at the moment.' Once nudged, however, the house of cards came tumbling down. Jerome's two named 'colleagues' in the Caribbean turned out to be a man who had died three years earlier, and the manager of a humble Holiday Inn (information easily gleaned from an internet search). Even the brand new Saab convertible which he drove did not belong to him - it was simply borrowed from a car showroom, no doubt thanks to another deluge of silver-tongued patter. But why go to all this trouble when ultimately the deceit would always be uncovered? And was his behaviour genuinely harmful or just a pathetic charade carried out by a deeply insecure liar? The reality, according to Detective Sergeant John Baston, who finally brought Jerome to justice, is distinctly unpalatable.  Marion Smullen QC: Marion Smullen QC: She and her husband are believed to have lost £167,000 as a result of the deceit 'Jerome is a career fraudster whose sole motivation in targeting these women was to take their money,' says DS Baston. 'He had an established pattern of tricking them into funding his lifestyle. And make no mistake - people have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds to this man and his wife.' In Cindy Fraser-Tait's case, she lost her home because she was unable to pay the mortgage. 'That six-figure salary never materialised and I became really ill, so in the end I just handed the keys back to the mortgage company,' she says. 'The house ended up being sold for £300,000 below the market value and I lost everything. 'When I met Rick, I was living in a beautiful detached house with 21/2 acres of grounds. Now I'm in a poky flat with no garden. When I found out what Rick was up to, I kept ringing and emailing him, but he just cut off all contact. I was devastated. This is a small island and I just wanted to go and hide my head in shame because I had been part of this fraud without realising it. 'My children saw this man shatter my confidence and virtually destroy me as a person. I doubt if I will ever fully recover.' Patricia Leslie uses more forthright language. 'I think he's a fat, ugly pig,' she says. 'Because of his lies, I ended up selling my house for £300,000 less than it was on the market for when I met him. But looking back I had a narrow escape. He spent months trying to persuade me to invest the proceeds of my house sale with him. 'He was suggesting an elaborate arrangement where he would buy a house for me somewhere else if I let him move in to Rockmount, but I was never going to let anyone into my house until I had the money in my pocket. 'In the end, there were too many questions, and once Rick realised I'd got somebody to look into his background he quietly disappeared off the scene.' By this time you would imagine the game was up, but, incredibly, Jerome simply went on his way and did the same thing all over again. In fact, he was so brazen that the majority of his crimes were committed in the same county. And when he conned his victims, he always refused to spend any money on credit cards, saying: 'I don't believe in credit cards. If you deal in cash you know where you are.' Of course, he never had cash to hand. DS Baston first arrested Jerome way back in 1981 for fraudulently claiming a mortgage and selling cars which did not belong to him. He escaped with a suspended sentence, and subsequently evaded justice for more than a quarter of a century. Married for more than 30 years, the Jeromes have always lived in the Milton Keynes area - indeed, the only job Jerome is known to have had was as a minicab driver in the town. And yet he and his wife lived in a succession of beautiful houses, while driving expensive new cars with no apparent means of supporting themselves beyond Hazel's job as a primary school teacher. Meanwhile, they have raised three daughters - now aged between 20 and 28. Their youngest is at university, while their middle daughter was married while the couple were defrauding Marion Smullen, a barrister who ended up with the Jeromes squatting in her beautiful thatched cottage in the village of Stoke Hammond, also near Milton Keynes. Even the wedding reception was held in the Smullens' back garden. Exploiting his air of respectability, Jerome targeted a string of people in the area using property scams, even using the same estate agents and solicitors, who were apparently equally oblivious to his duplicity. So how did he get away with it? He was undoubtedly aided by the fact that many people were simply too embarrassed to admit how easily they had been duped. Such as the lonely single woman who met Jerome on a dating website having recently lost her father, for whom she had been the main carer. Her identity has been protected at her request. [center]'As a barrister, I'm used to liars, but even I was taken in'[/center] Jerome wooed her, claiming he was divorced and the only reason he saw so much of his 'ex-wife' was because she was dying of cancer. It was a particularly reprehensible lie to a recently bereaved and vulnerable woman, and one which she says enabled him to steal a 'substantial sum of money' from her via his usual claims about not using credit cards. And it was not just women. One gentleman, whose identity has also been protected, has come forward since the court case to reveal he was defrauded by the Jeromes nine years ago. Again, the scam centred around property, with Rick Jerome posing as a successful businessman who made his fortune out of refitting luxury cruise ships. On this occasion he managed to secure free housing with empty promises of a well-paid job working for a non-existent company. 'He's an accomplished liar and highly plausible,' says Marion Smullen. 'Poor Janet Jarvis reached her dying day unable to get over the fact that she felt so stupid for having trusted the Jeromes. But I'm a criminal barrister who has spent a quarter of a century in court with people who are lying through their back teeth, and I was completely taken in.' As for the part played by Hazel Jerome, few of the victims believe her claims to have been oblivious to her husband's criminal activity. Even Cindy Fraser-Tait and Patricia Leslie, who were under the impression Jerome was single, recall his home telephone being answered by a woman who habitually trotted out the line: 'Mr Jerome is out of the country at the moment.' And Marion Smullen has no doubt that Hazel Jerome was complicit in the crimes. 'This wasn't just a sudden desire on their part to enter into a fraud because of difficult circumstances,' she says. 'This was planned. 'They could talk the talk and they apparently had the lifestyle to back it up. My husband and I have been to Barbados a number of times and Richard Jerome talked about it very knowledgeably. 'And I'd like to make clear that while his wife likes to portray herself as the dupe and the victim, her role as a teacher made the whole sham of respectability all the more believable. 'We met them at least twice, and on both occasions she was fully involved in the misrepresentations being put forward. 'My thoughts are that he's a lifelong criminal - an experienced fraudster who has been doing this all his life.' Tellingly, despite the convictions meted out to the Jeromes this week, no confiscation order was made because they have no assets and are officially of no fixed abode. So when Rick Jerome emerges from jail in the New Year, having served only half his brief sentence, he will finally be recognised for the homeless, penniless crook he really is. And for all the vulnerable women logging on to dating websites in the quest for someone to trust, there is a simple message: if that tall, athletic millionaire seems too good to be true . . . he most probably is. for SOURCE: Click here |
| Re: A Life Devoted To Fraud by Tudor6(f): 1:56am On Jul 19, 2009 |
Wow! This jerome guy is really talented! At least thank heavens he aint nigerian or we for hear am. |
| Re: A Life Devoted To Fraud by Virgo83(m): 3:52pm On Jul 25, 2009 |
at 1st I thought the Subject was a Nigerian and when I get to see the content it pains me, I wish they are Nigerian |
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