November 11, 2021 • 42 mins
Mair Smyth goes on trial for scamming reality TV producer Johnathan Walton out of almost $100,000. But her latest con could prevent Walton from being allowed in the courtroom to testify against her. Victims come out of the woodwork to tell the court how she scammed them. Even her own daughter, Chelsea, shows up and tells the judge Mair is a pathological liar. But Mair's attorney casts doubt on everyone's story, threatening to thwart the justice her victims have sought for so long. As the trial reaches a fever pitch, who will the jury believe?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Certain portions of what you're about to hear have been
dramatized based on real life events, eyewitness accounts, and court records.
I didn't ever know if she was scamming people, but
when she did things like that, I was like, you're not.
You're not donating money to cystic fibrosis. Con artist Marianne
Elizabeth Smith is shameless. She used a picture of her
(00:24):
dead daughter. I mean, that's another level. That is another level.
She scams hundreds of thousands from dozens of victims in
Northern Ireland, and some of them don't take it lying down.
It was literally Irish gangsters, mobsters looking for blood. She
even scams the mentally ill while hiding out from the
(00:46):
law in a Los Angeles area group home, pretending to
be mentally ill herself. I think just the promises sex
with what I was doing for those guys. The more
I uncover, the more I've become obsessed with bringing her
to justice, and it's taking a toll on me and
on the people I love. You were going down this
(01:08):
rabbit hole, and I couldn't help but be worried. I
was to the point where I was like, I don't
know if we can be friends, but I just keep
pushing harder and harder until eventually progress A fugitive unit
ended up getting Mr Marannes might in custom each day,
but not surprisingly, she still has a few tricks up
(01:28):
her sleeve. When Marian Smith showed up at Elie's criminal
courthouse today, she was sporting a pair of crutches, and
she pulls her most outrageous and impressive con one month
before trial, and this time she's determined to make me
pay to save her own ass. If a judge grants
this restraining order, you won't be allowed in the courtroom
(01:50):
to testify against her during a criminal trial. I'm Jonathan
Walton and this is Queen of the Con Episode eight,
(02:11):
the Trial. It has been three years since you prosecuted
Mary Anne Smith. Have you ever forgotten it? I've never
forgotten it. No. Los Angeles Deputy d A. Jessica Plastic
(02:31):
handles the preliminary hearing for the People versus Mary Ann
Smith in May. What do you remember most about this case?
Remember most? I think that day in court when you
said I have some other people here, and I turned
around to like the gallery and there are about two
(02:53):
rows of people. They're just very invested wanted to make
sure that you know justice was in a fact served
and and I think I realized just then how important
the case was to you and everyone. I knew how
important it was speaking with you, but to see everyone
there and to see how the support group came about.
There was a legitimate support group, and all of you
(03:16):
needed to lean on each other as much as you
may have needed to lean on them. And that's stuck
with me, not not anything about the case, the legal work,
just so that is not typical. I can't speak for
anyone else, but for me, I realized how important that
case was to you and everyone else there. So that
was one of the most profound things I think for me.
(03:37):
Deputy d. A Plastic does an incredible job during the
preliminary hearing and successfully convinces a judge that a jury
trial is warranted. You were amazing. You were like a bulldog,
like you were so diligent about everything. Thank you, You're welcome.
But a jury trial now raises the stakes of everything
(03:59):
because is convincing twelve jurors that Mary Anne Smith is
a con artist is not going to be easy. All
one juror needs is reasonable doubt about me or my
testimony for Mayor to get away and the restraining order
she files against me can easily do the trick. She
(04:20):
files a bogus restraining order against me. She says, I'm
threatening her life. This is like one month before trial.
And the only reason I found out about it a
because there's a God and be I got a lawyer's
advertisement in the mail, like do you need help with
your domestic violence restraint? I'm like what? So I log
on and with the case number, I'm like, oh my god.
(04:42):
So I hire a civil attorney. And the civil attorney explains,
if a judge grants this restraining order, you might not
be allowed to testify against her in the criminal trial
because you won't be allowed near her. And I'm like,
oh my god. Now, if you're a juror and big
bad wolf Jonathan Wall was not allowed in the courtroom
because he's so damned like that, that's not good for
(05:03):
our case. That's going to look to us, right. This
was her checkmate move. This was her checkmate move, and
somebody would really have to prove that that civil restraining
order was false, which is a whole separate ball because
so I had to pay bucks to hire this lawyer,
and he says to me, how believable is she? And
(05:23):
I'm like, she's very believable, Like she scammed a bunch
of Like she's believable. He's like, well, you don't want this.
You don't want this before judge them, because the judge
could believe her, because in these cases, the judge believes
that the woman like, I'm the man, I'm harming her.
And part of that restraining order, she has a picture
of a bald, fat guy in her church three ps
ahead of her that she says is me, this is
(05:45):
him stalking me in my church. Someone three pms ahead
of he was not stalking you, they'd be behind you.
That you don't stop someone by sitting in front of
them and looking back at them, right. But again, this
is all part of her thing. This was her master plan.
That's that's scared. Did you know about that? No? I
did not brilliant right to accuse somebody of stalking you
in a place of worship by manipulating photographs of not
(06:11):
even the right persons. And here's what's even funnier or
sadder or both, is I was working on I was
producing on that show and Discovery and a Chopper Funner. Yes,
they filed motorcycles. So I'm with my other producer people
and when I find all this out and I have
the picture and I and we try to we try
(06:32):
to duplicate the picture where I sit sideways and pose
and all my friends start laughing. They're like, can it
does look like that's just the worst thing. They could say, Well,
because you neither honesty though, Well no I do, because
I was going to make a case to the judge.
I'm like, this is not me. Your wrun it clearly
it's not me. But they're like, kind of looks like
(06:53):
you because the ball overweight guy side profile looking down praying.
But my buddy Evan disagrees, if only to spare my feelings,
I laughed when you send it to me, because it's
not your face. It's like, you know, side it might
as well be like of the Luckness Monster or Bigfoot.
You can't make any details but the vague shape and
(07:14):
you got a bald head. And it was funny that
she's passing quiver that I'm sure very nice bald fat
man whoever that was off as you what else can
she do? At the end of the day, no one
wants to go to jail, and you will do anything
to get out of jail. The one advantage I have
going for me, though, is that Mayor has not actually
(07:36):
paid a process server to deliver her restraining order to me,
or serve the restraining order as it's known in the
court system. It essentially doesn't exist until it's served. I
only find out about it after receiving a lawyer's advertisement
in the mail, which prompts me to hire a lawyer.
So luckily, the lawyer told me. He's like, have you
(07:57):
been served yet. I'm like no. He's like, well, I
just don't get served. I'm like, what does that mean,
don't answer your door? Do you have a back way in?
I'm like, I'm a gay guy. Of course I got
a back way in. He left too, So she tried
to serve me like twenty times and I just didn't
(08:19):
answer the door. Is that a crime? No, when they
had to prove your avoiding service? Right, Well, I'm in
l A. I'm not answering the door. If I don't
know you're coming, I'm not answering the door, right. I
don't only answering the door for anyone st Idaho, right,
but really, in a big city. You know who's coming
to visit you. If you have a strange knock on
your door. My advice don't answer. Yeah, I wouldn't answer
(08:40):
to you. That's how home invasions, especially with all these impersonations. Yes,
come on, let's look that way out of here in
the first place. Exactly, So a week before the trial,
knocking on my door trying to serve me this bogus
or straining order, and the trial starting, and luckily the
trial started without me ever getting served, so it was
never a problem, and a civil court judge ends up
dismissing Mayor's both gugus restraining order, altogether clearing the way
(09:03):
for me to be in the same courtroom as her
for the trial People versus Marry three. There are a
total of seventeen court appearances over a ten month period
before the trial actually begins in January of which is
(09:23):
almost two years after I first go to police. Los
Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Fields wants Mayor to settle,
meaning he wants Deputy DA Jeff McGee, who's prosecuting Mayor,
to offer her a plea deal so the city of
Los Angeles can spare the expense and the uncertainty of
(09:46):
a trial offer conveyed for Max's five years, and we
would started the out of mao auviation and offer her
to may tournament two years, which in charges for partners
and of two years is one year. I fail college
(10:06):
algebra five times, but that much I know. So the
d A is offering Mayor one year in jail if
she just pleads guilty to scamming me, as opposed to
the maximum five years sentence she'll get if she's convicted
at trial. But Mayor quickly rejects the police offer, so
the judge asks her attorney. Apparently Mayor Smith is confident
(10:35):
she can convince a jury to find her not guilty.
That seems crazy, but if you know one thing about
con artists, it's that they love to take chances. Why
because the phrase con artist is actually short for confidence artist.
They use their victims confidence in them to scam them,
(10:56):
and they're also audaciously confident themselves in how they walk,
how they talk, and how they lie. You can never
know what they're really thinking. As Mayor freely admits to
one of the victims she's scamming on that life coaching session,
I have a poker face. If I don't want you
(11:16):
to see what I'm feeling, you are not going to
know that a mad or angry, or happy or sad.
But will the jury fall from hers poker face? We
shall see people are president represented. My buddy Evan Goldstein
(11:38):
has watched me push this giant boulder of a case
up the steep hill of the justice system from the
very beginning. So you've gone, ultimately what a year or
two now like trying to build a case against her.
You do all this leg work, you talk to the victims,
you make this case. You're sitting in court. How does
(11:58):
it feel at that point? What's happening in your head?
I was a basket case. I wasn't sleeping, and the
trial was traumatizing for me. Thankfully though, I'm not in
this alone and never left. Remember the Newport Beach engineer Bob.
(12:24):
He agrees to testify against Mayor after fighting right on hinder,
how did you person your act? First three tests? And
we even talk about hockey blacks Jersey text. The whole
reason Deputy d J F McGee wants Bob on the
(12:46):
stand is to show jurors a pattern that Mayor used
her Irish inheritance scam on a lot of other people,
not just me. What did anything did smith on you
about her financial situation? Should trust one back in iron
she said it was twenty five billion. At some point
(13:09):
did the Irish inheritance that she mentioned become important in
your interruption? I was she was using that money to
purchase a home the time was listed at fifteen million.
She's we're going to financial deal of buying at home.
She's we're also part of that fancial deal. She was
gonna pay off my two homes. There's talk but me
(13:32):
on title for her home. When she was pursues in
hand and in front of the mark and exchange, I
would put her around title in my two points. I
just want to put her exchange for you going on
the title to the home that she was supposedly playing
the purchase. She was asking you to put her as
(13:53):
a co owner of the houses that you've already owned.
Mayor even writes up a detail financial plan on a
piece of paper showing Bob how she's going to spend
her million dollar inheritance. Thank god, Bob has the presence
of mind to snap a picture of it before Mere
crumples it up and throws it away. That piece of
(14:15):
paper is now projected on a big movie screen for
the entire court to see. What is that document? Is
the financial plan? And and Mayor even uses Bob's own
kids to strengthen her influence on him. The prosecutor zeros
in on that while going down, Mayre's a list of
(14:37):
future expenditures La Lamborghine. She was going to buy the
arghine or that was The entire courtroom is transfixed except
for Mayor. Yeah, she's got her poker face on. Can't
(15:00):
what she's thinking. Her attorney, though, tries to discredit that
financial plan, grasping at straws at all this information that
you guys are sitting down there doing it occasions, okay,
where are you drinking wine? Points for effort right. In
(15:24):
a stunning turn of events, the next witness called to
the stand is Mayor's own daughter, Chelsea Welch. Prosecutors are
putting Mayor's daughter Chelsea on the stand to prove that
(15:47):
Mayor's irish inheritance claim is a ball faced lie. Any
sort of trust fund and gritted wealth, any sort of
sorts of advices to unfortunate, absolutely hot, you had nothing
(16:14):
to gain by this. You live a cross country in Tennessee.
The district attorney had to fly you out to l A.
You got held up in Dallas for a day. It
was a nightmare. You had to miss work. Why did
you testify against your mother? Why did you go so
far out of your way? Why did you do that?
I feel like she has skated by just everything in
(16:35):
her life, Like she is never going to receive any
type of reprimand for this behavior. And it just it
disgusted me, and I knew that just unfortunately, like based
on my childhood of living with a person that's obsessed
with true crime, I wasn't convinced that she was going
(16:56):
to get prosecuted if I didn't go, because realistically, the
things that she did, like they're obviously very morally long legally,
the courts could have just been like, you know, you
guys were silly. You gave her this money. You shouldn't
have believed her. Sorry. So I was like, they have
to know this isn't like some new thing that's happening,
(17:19):
because that's definitely the picture they were going to try
to paint that it's just you know, like she was
struggling or they were going to pull some mental thing out,
and I was just thinking, like, this is your only chance.
The love and gratitude I feel towards Chelsea for doing
this is immeasurable. If you're a juror and you see
(17:42):
the defendant's own daughter testifying against her, what would your
takeaway be? The Deputy d A knows exactly what to
ask Chelsea understand. He's not allowed to ask about Mayor's
criminal history or prior bad acts that would be inadmissible.
But there's more than one way to skin a cat
(18:02):
or a con artist in this case. As you said,
do you have strong games about your mother one way
or the other? Yes, and one of those games. My
mother in my entire life has been a compulsion wire
and has often fabricated stories that no one else can corroborate.
(18:25):
I think that she's a very troubled person who has
used her intelligence malevolently, and the things that she has
been a kes of I'm absolutely disgusted by. While Chelsea
is testifying, Mayor is whispering things into her attorney's ear.
(18:49):
He then uses what Mayor tells him to try and
discredit Chelsea understand, but Chelsea isn't having it. Is your
set the mother or. It is safe to say I
was upset at being a liven years old having to
a lot of people about movement to meet someone that
(19:12):
she berry name rank. But I have no sermatism that.
The next witness to testify is one of Mayor's former
psychic clients, who later becomes Mayor's life coaching client and
who she scams out of ten thou dollars by pretending
(19:35):
to be a psychologist. She portrayed herself as being certified
in psychology and she had togree in psychology. But the
jury isn't allowed to hear how Mayor scammed this victim
out of ten grand No prior bad acts allowed. Remember,
the d A does want her to corroborate Mayor's Irish
(19:57):
inheritance story. Though over the posit shop with her, did
she say into you about her personal finance? You have
numerous occasions. I know that she came from Irish Royalty,
and I saw a house that she was supposed to inherit,
her family and d Cork she was a supposed to
(20:17):
inherit twenty five million dollars. Did anything about the comments
that she made ever around decision? Yes, it just did
make sense that someone has this idea be space to
inherit on our million dollars. And she was also there's
money taking out on my accounts and in prescatitions. There
was different activities that she's always funny as she strapped.
(20:42):
So just to makes sense, nothing there says makes sense
under the harsh fluorescent lights of a courtroom. I'm the
last witness to prosecution puts on the stand. Everything is
writing on me and speil yours say for the record, Um,
Jonathan Walton, j O ag and N. I'm a nervous
(21:05):
wreck and I'm scared. I've been working two years for
this very moment. There's no turning back now. At any point,
at this beginning stage or your friendship, did she say
to you about her fincial situation? She did? What were
(21:25):
the representations and she doesn't inerta? Do you have all day?
I got under her attorney skin almost immediately. What sort
of statements did she make to you about her financial
situation at this beginning stage in relationship? So early on
she told me she was from Ireland. She had this
(21:48):
picture hanging in her apartment and it was she said,
the Irish constitutional. I don't know much of lit Ireland,
so I just believed her. She said her uncle had
signed the Irish Constitution. Does she had friend in her
heart end and she presented herself as especially Irish Royalty. Way.
(22:08):
She told me about this twenty five million dollar in
estate that's being dissolved and she's going to get a
cone of it, and her cousin Finton is fighting with her.
You know, that's why she's never right, because she doesn't
get well with family in Ireland. And she had a
strange accent that I just I guess that Irishers. So
I just accepted everything and faced out, and you know,
(22:31):
she was my friend and the things she was I
explained to the court how Mayor tricks me out of
tens of thousands of dollars over the course of our
four year friendship, using an elaborate series of confidence tricks,
inventing an evil Irish family, inventing an inheritance, and making
me believe all her bank accounts were frozen as this
(22:52):
personal back. So if you've ever matched out in credit cars,
they raised your rate till twenty four point nine. I
was swimming like two three grand a month in interest charges.
After I tried to say above, what are I tried
to pay off what I could. I tried to call PayPal,
and I called the credit card companies. They're trying to
(23:12):
explain what happened to me. I'm giving them the police support.
I'm being interviewed by the l A p D. I
had not I had to file for bankruptcy like this
financially ruined me. And what affect is fil the names
they have my credit. I can't even buy a sofa.
My credit is destroyed. Did any other steps this has
(23:36):
been a twenty two month quest to bring her to justice.
I took many steps. I had six prime investigators in
every stage she had. Ploni's thirty nine victims contacted me
through the website I started. So, yeah, I took steps.
So I th you created a website. Yes, let's the
nature I want to say to warn people about her.
She has twenty three different aliases. M Mayor's defense attorney
(24:04):
begins his cross examination, hitting back hard with this false
narrative to the jury that I'm just making everything up. Yeah,
this blog, if you create this is the only place
you're able to find on the internet where she olderly
is an Irish ars is that I will sending into
(24:28):
your part. He's really pissing me off. You're asking a
witness that he has seen any documentation anywhere else other
than things that he's okay, it's a it's a scam
with that, it's that where matter that he does, a
big difference. Sorry, if the truth is a sticking one
(24:49):
for you. First of all, I'm a dude, Okay, we're important.
I realized that I'm not as familiar as you where
you're claiming to with a quotram. Isn't it true, Mr Walton?
When you let I am my you me Curt lining
exhuge and bass crate. That is partially true. I wouldn't
a little to hurt the money she didn't make up
(25:11):
all the lies to so you're missing a huge part
of that. So it's not that simple. I'm sorry because
it's also true that you are working at a document
that I'm currently working at all. Absolutely, I'm trying to
warn the world about her do public service. God knows,
I wish someone made a documentary one has friends with her.
By making that documentary, you have to sort of spice
(25:33):
out of it. Is it true that you're sort of
the sensational Germans? No, that's not true. Goal okay, but
you're a reporter. I was, and the people who you
have right stories or your friends, No, that is completely false.
The only reporters I know are in Houston, Texas, where
I used to work. During the trial, when you were
(25:56):
on the stand, did you get emotional at all? The
trial was hard for me because her defense attorney made
up a whole ulterior reality, and he was just so
confident that I'm making everything up to make a documentary,
that I got all these other witnesses to lie. That's
(26:17):
what he's telling the jury in his questioning to me,
that I'm getting all these witnesses to lie, that I
have my friends at newspapers and TV stations doing stories.
He paints me as this movie making Svengali with all
this power to get all these things done. And as
he's doing this, I'm livid. I'm like, what the it's
(26:38):
like abuse, Like I'm a victim here and she had yeah, yeah,
I don't know. She got fired from the travel agency
(27:01):
if everyone, dude, I couldn't truth on my side. All right,
let's see you keep saying she told you that her
bank a Hapro prosecution post him. You're testing the truth. Okay,
I remember on the stand, like he would say something
(27:22):
and you could literally hear it in your voice, like
just how you'd respond to him, like fuck you. She
was doing this, you were still going out with her,
And write your basis. I don't like going out with
her because that implies a romantic relationship. I'm not going
out with the woman had possession of her proper people
(27:43):
while while she was getting a slap on the wrist
three days in jail, she gave me a box to
her Scotland set and her property. So it was while
she was doing it. Threte days in jail, I discovered
I was scanned everything she told me the case was alive.
So I got scared and I went through her property,
(28:05):
actual patures of everything that I submitted those pictures and
an exploration and I police report and I when I
saw her in front of her and handed her back
her property. And I have the audio recording to prove
it on my phone. If you went here, now you're cold,
take that's okay. What terrified me was all they needed
(28:26):
was one juror not to believe me, and then you
have a hung jury, you have a mistrial, then you
have to do it all again and I guarantee you
Bob wouldn't testify again. Chelsea would not testify again. Like,
no one wants to go through that again. I sure
as fund didn't want to have to testify again. It
was traumatic, But that's all you need is one jury
to think maybe Jonathan is making everything up for a movie.
(28:48):
And that's exactly what Mayor's defense attorney stresses to the
jury during closing arguments. Mr Walton created law and he
began to attack. This was all Mr wants. I told
you we're here, we had and thank god we do.
(29:19):
The trial comes to an end after four days of testimony.
Mayor refuses to testify in her own defense, and she
wasn't even able to find a single solitary witness to
testify on her behalf, but jurors are instructed not to
hold that against her as they begin deliberations. I remember
(29:40):
glancing at the jury while I was being questioned, and
I remember all the times I skipped out on jury
duty or made up excuses not to be in a jury.
Everyone you know fights jury duty. And I swore to God,
I'm like God, if you get me a conviction, I
will be a juror. Because I was hoping the jury
was smart enough and paying attention and could see through
(30:01):
the lies that her defense attorney was saying. And I
made a vow to God that if he just lets
them see the truth, the next time I'm a call
for a jury duty, I will serve happily, and I'll
apply myself, and I'll be the jury foreman, and we'll
we'll try for justice. Serving on a jury is so
important because their lives hanging in the balance, you know,
like mine was. And they need smart people, not just
people who can't talk themselves out of jury duty cures.
(30:24):
You say birth, so you have an unanimous worth in
the stage in jurors reach a verdict in just three hours,
which could be good or could be really bad. I'm
on pins and needles right up to the moment the
verdict is read aloud in court California carry in Los Angeles, California,
(30:50):
first injury and about the cattle fashion in guilty and
that actually apply as charge. She had the information gave
the Sarthew January, and she doesn't that change in general
jury insisting law, Yes, m work. You like to have
(31:16):
the jurorshold h jury comes back guilty verdict Like how
do you feel. It was like a huge weight had lifted.
It was just relief and joy and satisfaction and just
a swirl of emotions, but all of them good, all
of them happy, all of them. I was thrilled. It's
(31:36):
like that moment where everything you worked for it paid off.
She got convicted. You know it wasn't in vain. I
was relieved by the time a Los Angeles jury convicts
(32:06):
Mayor of grand theft by false pretense. I'm out seven
hundred and eighty four dollars total. Most of it is
what Mayor scammed for me. The rest I had to
spend on lawyers, private investigators, and paying credit card interest.
During sentencing, Mayor's attorney goes along for a hail Mary
pass instead of jail time. I'm gonna use. Can't blame
(32:39):
a guy for trying right. The judge sentences Mayor to
the maximum five years in jail, but she'll only actually
have to serve two and a half. To stem jail
over crowding and to incentivize inmates to behave while locked up,
Los Angeles County only requires them to serve half their time.
(32:59):
If may had taken the plea deal of one year
in jail before the trial. She would have been out
in six months. And while the jury wasn't allowed to
hear the full history of all of Mayor's cons the
judge was, and he unloads on her during sentencing because
he realizes now what I've known for the past two years.
(33:21):
She is really an in better thief and someone who
is I think classically referred to the associatedgy. Showed no remorse,
no sense of contrition of any sort whatsoever, while we
were hearing testimony about how previously impacted the victim in
(33:43):
the state Mr Walton was by her behavior. I have
people who, without any apparent justification or bought, take the
lives of other people. You didn't do that here in
the strictest sense, but you damaged one. So I don't
(34:06):
know what to say for you, other than that you've
got to stop her wing the sort of thing. You've
got to live not on your wris but instead on
hard work, and I hope that you change your ways.
So Mayor goes to jail in January. Watching her lead
out of the courtroom in handcuffs, crestfallen and haggard almost
(34:29):
makes me feel sorry for her. Almost She's supposed to
be released from jail in two and a half years
in June of Northern Ireland is ready to extradite her
as soon as she is. But then our top story,
we're learning more about the states plan to release inmates
from jails and prisons across California in an effort to
(34:52):
stop the spread of COVID nineteen. In December, seven months
before she's scheduled to be released, Mayor gets sprunk. She's
at a jail right now, right because of COVID. She
got out early because they were releasing a lot of
non violent criminals early, and COVID has helped in another way.
(35:14):
She was supposed to be extradited to Northern Ireland when
she was released from jail here in Los Angeles, but
because of COVID, Northern Ireland's on lockdown because they're surging
in cases, so they're not putting any importance on extraditing
a non violent criminal, you know. So I went on
LinkedIn and I found some l A County parole officers.
I reached out to like a dozen of them. A
(35:34):
couple of them got back to me. I just wanted
information how the parole system works, so I got one
on the phone talked to her for like an hour
and she told me point blank. So if she stopped
showing up her parole every month, we won't know she's
missing at least for like a year, because every pro
officer has four dred cases. They're dealing with four hundred
parole leads they gotta check in with every month, and
(35:57):
it takes months before they realize that one's missing. So
she could very well escape into the ether and never
be heard from again. You know, I like how your
eyes lived up like that. That was a good line,
though I liked it because the producer and may I
liked it. If it was me, like, my first inclination
would be to run away and hide, Like if I
(36:18):
got took for all that money, like I would feel ashamed,
you know, Like I feel like I questioned myself because
you talk to people and immediately like, oh, yeah, she
stole money, But a lot of these you found out
a lot of these people didn't come forward. Why do
you think that is? Well, everyone is so ashamed, and
I've learned everyone is so embarrassed and shackled by the
thought of what will people think. But as an openly
(36:40):
gay man, and I think any openly gay person has
that advantage that the others don't have, because when you're open,
when you come out of the closet, the world is
not anxious to greet you with hugs and kisses and acceptance.
I made peace with not giving a funk what people
think when I was thirty, you know, sixteen years ago,
when I came out, because you can't as an openly
(37:02):
gay person, you can't care what people think, or you'll
die because most people don't approve they're parts of the world.
Gay people are still being put to death, even in
the United States of American gay people who being kicked
out of their families, kicked out of their apartments, fired
from their jobs for being gay. So to come out,
you already have to divorce yourself from caring what people think.
So I didn't have that, and that helped me. Never
(37:25):
for a second did it occur to me, well, what
are people going to think? I was so angry and
I wanted justice. It didn't even occur to me to
care what people think, and that was an advantage. Do
you hate her now? I did hate her for a
long time, but I have made peace. I don't hate her,
and in a weird way, I'm grateful. I'm grateful she
(37:46):
scammed me because it revealed in me a person I
didn't know existed, someone I didn't know I could be.
I've become, and I like that person. I'm like a
private investigator. I'm helping victims of other cons get ASTI
I'm you know, I like who it turned me into.
It's like you with your train wreck of a marriage.
(38:06):
Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? It was a trainer actor.
Just look at you now? You have a beautiful wife,
You're a beautiful kid. Look at the amazing life you
have only because you went through that train wreck of
a divorce. I guess sometimes you gotta just go through
hell to come out the other end. And I'll ask
you a same question. Do you hate your ex wife? No,
not at all? After but she did, you don't hate her? No,
(38:27):
not at all. I wish you the best. I can't
say I wish Mayor the best, because to wish her
the best means she's gonna scare more people. But I
don't wish her ill. Even though I'll say I hope
she gets help and becomes a better person, I don't
think she's capable because I don't think she has a soul,
which sounds harsh. I don't take it personally that she
scammed me. I was just in her way. It's like
if you get attacked by a shark, you can't hate
(38:49):
the shark. The shark is just doing what sharks do.
There's no prethought or planning. You're just in their way.
They're going to attack you. She's a con artist. She's
gonna con whoever's around her. She's always been conning since
she was a girl, and now she's fifty two. She's
not going to change. Mayor's daughter. Chelsea has known that
(39:10):
for thirty years now. At this point, nothing surprises her.
So your mom got released early because of COVID, That's
what I was figuring. How does that make you feel?
Are you worried she's gonna come after you? Oh, I'm
not worried if she is really that idiot, Like, I'm
just hoping that she knows now in this situation, like
(39:32):
I am the alpha and I'm not scared, and she
will never touch me again. She will never harm me again.
She will never have power over my emotional state. But
because she knows, I basically put her in jail. I
will always have power over her, and I have no
trouble asserting that now until the day I take my
(39:54):
last breath, or she does whatever happens first. Wow, I
know how she feels. I'm trying to keep tabs on
Mayor's whereabouts in Los Angeles. Now I'm parked out front
(40:14):
of the last place I saw her eighteen months ago,
but she's not there, and I have no idea where
she is. Neither does the private detective I hire to
track her down, which is troubling because Marianne Elizabeth Smith
is a master of disguise. She's also had a bunch
of plastic surgery. Google her. The way she looks in
(40:37):
Northern Ireland pulling cons as a blonde, is completely different
from the way she looks in Tennessee, pulling cons as
a brunette, which is completely different from the way she
looks in Los Angeles, pulling cons with jet black hair.
Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. The next
(40:57):
time a kind and friendly stranger offers to help you
with something. It could very well be mary Anne Smith,
but that won't be the name she's using. I assure you,
so pay close attention. You've all been warned for exclusive
(41:17):
photos and other bonus material. Follow at Queen of the
Con on Instagram, and if you're enjoying Queen of the Con,
tell your friends about it and leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Queen
of the Con. The Irish Heiress is a production of
(41:39):
a y R Media and I Heart Radio, Hosted by
Me Jonathan Walton, Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton
Productions and E Liza Rosen for A y R Media.
Written by Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate
producer Eric Newman. Sound as Mine by Baked ZD Media,
(42:02):
mixed and mastered by Elliott Herman. Audio engineering by Elliott Herman,
Studio engineering by Chris McMasters. Voice acting performed by Neil Goldstein.
Legal counsel for A y R Media, Gianni Douglas, executive
producer for I Heart Radio Chandler Mains
Certain portions of what you're about to hear have been
dramatized based on real life events, eyewitness accounts, and court records.
I didn't ever know if she was scamming people, but
when she did things like that, I was like, you're not.
You're not donating money to cystic fibrosis. Con artist Marianne
Elizabeth Smith is shameless. She used a picture of her
(00:24):
dead daughter. I mean, that's another level. That is another level.
She scams hundreds of thousands from dozens of victims in
Northern Ireland, and some of them don't take it lying down.
It was literally Irish gangsters, mobsters looking for blood. She
even scams the mentally ill while hiding out from the
(00:46):
law in a Los Angeles area group home, pretending to
be mentally ill herself. I think just the promises sex
with what I was doing for those guys. The more
I uncover, the more I've become obsessed with bringing her
to justice, and it's taking a toll on me and
on the people I love. You were going down this
(01:08):
rabbit hole, and I couldn't help but be worried. I
was to the point where I was like, I don't
know if we can be friends, but I just keep
pushing harder and harder until eventually progress A fugitive unit
ended up getting Mr Marannes might in custom each day,
but not surprisingly, she still has a few tricks up
(01:28):
her sleeve. When Marian Smith showed up at Elie's criminal
courthouse today, she was sporting a pair of crutches, and
she pulls her most outrageous and impressive con one month
before trial, and this time she's determined to make me
pay to save her own ass. If a judge grants
this restraining order, you won't be allowed in the courtroom
(01:50):
to testify against her during a criminal trial. I'm Jonathan
Walton and this is Queen of the Con Episode eight,
(02:11):
the Trial. It has been three years since you prosecuted
Mary Anne Smith. Have you ever forgotten it? I've never
forgotten it. No. Los Angeles Deputy d A. Jessica Plastic
(02:31):
handles the preliminary hearing for the People versus Mary Ann
Smith in May. What do you remember most about this case?
Remember most? I think that day in court when you
said I have some other people here, and I turned
around to like the gallery and there are about two
(02:53):
rows of people. They're just very invested wanted to make
sure that you know justice was in a fact served
and and I think I realized just then how important
the case was to you and everyone. I knew how
important it was speaking with you, but to see everyone
there and to see how the support group came about.
There was a legitimate support group, and all of you
(03:16):
needed to lean on each other as much as you
may have needed to lean on them. And that's stuck
with me, not not anything about the case, the legal work,
just so that is not typical. I can't speak for
anyone else, but for me, I realized how important that
case was to you and everyone else there. So that
was one of the most profound things I think for me.
(03:37):
Deputy d. A Plastic does an incredible job during the
preliminary hearing and successfully convinces a judge that a jury
trial is warranted. You were amazing. You were like a bulldog,
like you were so diligent about everything. Thank you, You're welcome.
But a jury trial now raises the stakes of everything
(03:59):
because is convincing twelve jurors that Mary Anne Smith is
a con artist is not going to be easy. All
one juror needs is reasonable doubt about me or my
testimony for Mayor to get away and the restraining order
she files against me can easily do the trick. She
(04:20):
files a bogus restraining order against me. She says, I'm
threatening her life. This is like one month before trial.
And the only reason I found out about it a
because there's a God and be I got a lawyer's
advertisement in the mail, like do you need help with
your domestic violence restraint? I'm like what? So I log
on and with the case number, I'm like, oh my god.
(04:42):
So I hire a civil attorney. And the civil attorney explains,
if a judge grants this restraining order, you might not
be allowed to testify against her in the criminal trial
because you won't be allowed near her. And I'm like,
oh my god. Now, if you're a juror and big
bad wolf Jonathan Wall was not allowed in the courtroom
because he's so damned like that, that's not good for
(05:03):
our case. That's going to look to us, right. This
was her checkmate move. This was her checkmate move, and
somebody would really have to prove that that civil restraining
order was false, which is a whole separate ball because
so I had to pay bucks to hire this lawyer,
and he says to me, how believable is she? And
(05:23):
I'm like, she's very believable, Like she scammed a bunch
of Like she's believable. He's like, well, you don't want this.
You don't want this before judge them, because the judge
could believe her, because in these cases, the judge believes
that the woman like, I'm the man, I'm harming her.
And part of that restraining order, she has a picture
of a bald, fat guy in her church three ps
ahead of her that she says is me, this is
(05:45):
him stalking me in my church. Someone three pms ahead
of he was not stalking you, they'd be behind you.
That you don't stop someone by sitting in front of
them and looking back at them, right. But again, this
is all part of her thing. This was her master plan.
That's that's scared. Did you know about that? No? I
did not brilliant right to accuse somebody of stalking you
in a place of worship by manipulating photographs of not
(06:11):
even the right persons. And here's what's even funnier or
sadder or both, is I was working on I was
producing on that show and Discovery and a Chopper Funner. Yes,
they filed motorcycles. So I'm with my other producer people
and when I find all this out and I have
the picture and I and we try to we try
(06:32):
to duplicate the picture where I sit sideways and pose
and all my friends start laughing. They're like, can it
does look like that's just the worst thing. They could say, Well,
because you neither honesty though, Well no I do, because
I was going to make a case to the judge.
I'm like, this is not me. Your wrun it clearly
it's not me. But they're like, kind of looks like
(06:53):
you because the ball overweight guy side profile looking down praying.
But my buddy Evan disagrees, if only to spare my feelings,
I laughed when you send it to me, because it's
not your face. It's like, you know, side it might
as well be like of the Luckness Monster or Bigfoot.
You can't make any details but the vague shape and
(07:14):
you got a bald head. And it was funny that
she's passing quiver that I'm sure very nice bald fat
man whoever that was off as you what else can
she do? At the end of the day, no one
wants to go to jail, and you will do anything
to get out of jail. The one advantage I have
going for me, though, is that Mayor has not actually
(07:36):
paid a process server to deliver her restraining order to me,
or serve the restraining order as it's known in the
court system. It essentially doesn't exist until it's served. I
only find out about it after receiving a lawyer's advertisement
in the mail, which prompts me to hire a lawyer.
So luckily, the lawyer told me. He's like, have you
(07:57):
been served yet. I'm like no. He's like, well, I
just don't get served. I'm like, what does that mean,
don't answer your door? Do you have a back way in?
I'm like, I'm a gay guy. Of course I got
a back way in. He left too, So she tried
to serve me like twenty times and I just didn't
(08:19):
answer the door. Is that a crime? No, when they
had to prove your avoiding service? Right, Well, I'm in
l A. I'm not answering the door. If I don't
know you're coming, I'm not answering the door, right. I
don't only answering the door for anyone st Idaho, right,
but really, in a big city. You know who's coming
to visit you. If you have a strange knock on
your door. My advice don't answer. Yeah, I wouldn't answer
(08:40):
to you. That's how home invasions, especially with all these impersonations. Yes,
come on, let's look that way out of here in
the first place. Exactly, So a week before the trial,
knocking on my door trying to serve me this bogus
or straining order, and the trial starting, and luckily the
trial started without me ever getting served, so it was
never a problem, and a civil court judge ends up
dismissing Mayor's both gugus restraining order, altogether clearing the way
(09:03):
for me to be in the same courtroom as her
for the trial People versus Marry three. There are a
total of seventeen court appearances over a ten month period
before the trial actually begins in January of which is
(09:23):
almost two years after I first go to police. Los
Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Fields wants Mayor to settle,
meaning he wants Deputy DA Jeff McGee, who's prosecuting Mayor,
to offer her a plea deal so the city of
Los Angeles can spare the expense and the uncertainty of
(09:46):
a trial offer conveyed for Max's five years, and we
would started the out of mao auviation and offer her
to may tournament two years, which in charges for partners
and of two years is one year. I fail college
(10:06):
algebra five times, but that much I know. So the
d A is offering Mayor one year in jail if
she just pleads guilty to scamming me, as opposed to
the maximum five years sentence she'll get if she's convicted
at trial. But Mayor quickly rejects the police offer, so
the judge asks her attorney. Apparently Mayor Smith is confident
(10:35):
she can convince a jury to find her not guilty.
That seems crazy, but if you know one thing about
con artists, it's that they love to take chances. Why
because the phrase con artist is actually short for confidence artist.
They use their victims confidence in them to scam them,
(10:56):
and they're also audaciously confident themselves in how they walk,
how they talk, and how they lie. You can never
know what they're really thinking. As Mayor freely admits to
one of the victims she's scamming on that life coaching session,
I have a poker face. If I don't want you
(11:16):
to see what I'm feeling, you are not going to
know that a mad or angry, or happy or sad.
But will the jury fall from hers poker face? We
shall see people are president represented. My buddy Evan Goldstein
(11:38):
has watched me push this giant boulder of a case
up the steep hill of the justice system from the
very beginning. So you've gone, ultimately what a year or
two now like trying to build a case against her.
You do all this leg work, you talk to the victims,
you make this case. You're sitting in court. How does
(11:58):
it feel at that point? What's happening in your head?
I was a basket case. I wasn't sleeping, and the
trial was traumatizing for me. Thankfully though, I'm not in
this alone and never left. Remember the Newport Beach engineer Bob.
(12:24):
He agrees to testify against Mayor after fighting right on hinder,
how did you person your act? First three tests? And
we even talk about hockey blacks Jersey text. The whole
reason Deputy d J F McGee wants Bob on the
(12:46):
stand is to show jurors a pattern that Mayor used
her Irish inheritance scam on a lot of other people,
not just me. What did anything did smith on you
about her financial situation? Should trust one back in iron
she said it was twenty five billion. At some point
(13:09):
did the Irish inheritance that she mentioned become important in
your interruption? I was she was using that money to
purchase a home the time was listed at fifteen million.
She's we're going to financial deal of buying at home.
She's we're also part of that fancial deal. She was
gonna pay off my two homes. There's talk but me
(13:32):
on title for her home. When she was pursues in
hand and in front of the mark and exchange, I
would put her around title in my two points. I
just want to put her exchange for you going on
the title to the home that she was supposedly playing
the purchase. She was asking you to put her as
(13:53):
a co owner of the houses that you've already owned.
Mayor even writes up a detail financial plan on a
piece of paper showing Bob how she's going to spend
her million dollar inheritance. Thank god, Bob has the presence
of mind to snap a picture of it before Mere
crumples it up and throws it away. That piece of
(14:15):
paper is now projected on a big movie screen for
the entire court to see. What is that document? Is
the financial plan? And and Mayor even uses Bob's own
kids to strengthen her influence on him. The prosecutor zeros
in on that while going down, Mayre's a list of
(14:37):
future expenditures La Lamborghine. She was going to buy the
arghine or that was The entire courtroom is transfixed except
for Mayor. Yeah, she's got her poker face on. Can't
(15:00):
what she's thinking. Her attorney, though, tries to discredit that
financial plan, grasping at straws at all this information that
you guys are sitting down there doing it occasions, okay,
where are you drinking wine? Points for effort right. In
(15:24):
a stunning turn of events, the next witness called to
the stand is Mayor's own daughter, Chelsea Welch. Prosecutors are
putting Mayor's daughter Chelsea on the stand to prove that
(15:47):
Mayor's irish inheritance claim is a ball faced lie. Any
sort of trust fund and gritted wealth, any sort of
sorts of advices to unfortunate, absolutely hot, you had nothing
(16:14):
to gain by this. You live a cross country in Tennessee.
The district attorney had to fly you out to l A.
You got held up in Dallas for a day. It
was a nightmare. You had to miss work. Why did
you testify against your mother? Why did you go so
far out of your way? Why did you do that?
I feel like she has skated by just everything in
(16:35):
her life, Like she is never going to receive any
type of reprimand for this behavior. And it just it
disgusted me, and I knew that just unfortunately, like based
on my childhood of living with a person that's obsessed
with true crime, I wasn't convinced that she was going
(16:56):
to get prosecuted if I didn't go, because realistically, the
things that she did, like they're obviously very morally long legally,
the courts could have just been like, you know, you
guys were silly. You gave her this money. You shouldn't
have believed her. Sorry. So I was like, they have
to know this isn't like some new thing that's happening,
(17:19):
because that's definitely the picture they were going to try
to paint that it's just you know, like she was
struggling or they were going to pull some mental thing out,
and I was just thinking, like, this is your only chance.
The love and gratitude I feel towards Chelsea for doing
this is immeasurable. If you're a juror and you see
(17:42):
the defendant's own daughter testifying against her, what would your
takeaway be? The Deputy d A knows exactly what to
ask Chelsea understand. He's not allowed to ask about Mayor's
criminal history or prior bad acts that would be inadmissible.
But there's more than one way to skin a cat
(18:02):
or a con artist in this case. As you said,
do you have strong games about your mother one way
or the other? Yes, and one of those games. My
mother in my entire life has been a compulsion wire
and has often fabricated stories that no one else can corroborate.
(18:25):
I think that she's a very troubled person who has
used her intelligence malevolently, and the things that she has
been a kes of I'm absolutely disgusted by. While Chelsea
is testifying, Mayor is whispering things into her attorney's ear.
(18:49):
He then uses what Mayor tells him to try and
discredit Chelsea understand, but Chelsea isn't having it. Is your
set the mother or. It is safe to say I
was upset at being a liven years old having to
a lot of people about movement to meet someone that
(19:12):
she berry name rank. But I have no sermatism that.
The next witness to testify is one of Mayor's former
psychic clients, who later becomes Mayor's life coaching client and
who she scams out of ten thou dollars by pretending
(19:35):
to be a psychologist. She portrayed herself as being certified
in psychology and she had togree in psychology. But the
jury isn't allowed to hear how Mayor scammed this victim
out of ten grand No prior bad acts allowed. Remember,
the d A does want her to corroborate Mayor's Irish
(19:57):
inheritance story. Though over the posit shop with her, did
she say into you about her personal finance? You have
numerous occasions. I know that she came from Irish Royalty,
and I saw a house that she was supposed to inherit,
her family and d Cork she was a supposed to
(20:17):
inherit twenty five million dollars. Did anything about the comments
that she made ever around decision? Yes, it just did
make sense that someone has this idea be space to
inherit on our million dollars. And she was also there's
money taking out on my accounts and in prescatitions. There
was different activities that she's always funny as she strapped.
(20:42):
So just to makes sense, nothing there says makes sense
under the harsh fluorescent lights of a courtroom. I'm the
last witness to prosecution puts on the stand. Everything is
writing on me and speil yours say for the record, Um,
Jonathan Walton, j O ag and N. I'm a nervous
(21:05):
wreck and I'm scared. I've been working two years for
this very moment. There's no turning back now. At any point,
at this beginning stage or your friendship, did she say
to you about her fincial situation? She did? What were
(21:25):
the representations and she doesn't inerta? Do you have all day?
I got under her attorney skin almost immediately. What sort
of statements did she make to you about her financial
situation at this beginning stage in relationship? So early on
she told me she was from Ireland. She had this
(21:48):
picture hanging in her apartment and it was she said,
the Irish constitutional. I don't know much of lit Ireland,
so I just believed her. She said her uncle had
signed the Irish Constitution. Does she had friend in her
heart end and she presented herself as especially Irish Royalty. Way.
(22:08):
She told me about this twenty five million dollar in
estate that's being dissolved and she's going to get a
cone of it, and her cousin Finton is fighting with her.
You know, that's why she's never right, because she doesn't
get well with family in Ireland. And she had a
strange accent that I just I guess that Irishers. So
I just accepted everything and faced out, and you know,
(22:31):
she was my friend and the things she was I
explained to the court how Mayor tricks me out of
tens of thousands of dollars over the course of our
four year friendship, using an elaborate series of confidence tricks,
inventing an evil Irish family, inventing an inheritance, and making
me believe all her bank accounts were frozen as this
(22:52):
personal back. So if you've ever matched out in credit cars,
they raised your rate till twenty four point nine. I
was swimming like two three grand a month in interest charges.
After I tried to say above, what are I tried
to pay off what I could. I tried to call PayPal,
and I called the credit card companies. They're trying to
(23:12):
explain what happened to me. I'm giving them the police support.
I'm being interviewed by the l A p D. I
had not I had to file for bankruptcy like this
financially ruined me. And what affect is fil the names
they have my credit. I can't even buy a sofa.
My credit is destroyed. Did any other steps this has
(23:36):
been a twenty two month quest to bring her to justice.
I took many steps. I had six prime investigators in
every stage she had. Ploni's thirty nine victims contacted me
through the website I started. So, yeah, I took steps.
So I th you created a website. Yes, let's the
nature I want to say to warn people about her.
She has twenty three different aliases. M Mayor's defense attorney
(24:04):
begins his cross examination, hitting back hard with this false
narrative to the jury that I'm just making everything up. Yeah,
this blog, if you create this is the only place
you're able to find on the internet where she olderly
is an Irish ars is that I will sending into
(24:28):
your part. He's really pissing me off. You're asking a
witness that he has seen any documentation anywhere else other
than things that he's okay, it's a it's a scam
with that, it's that where matter that he does, a
big difference. Sorry, if the truth is a sticking one
(24:49):
for you. First of all, I'm a dude, Okay, we're important.
I realized that I'm not as familiar as you where
you're claiming to with a quotram. Isn't it true, Mr Walton?
When you let I am my you me Curt lining
exhuge and bass crate. That is partially true. I wouldn't
a little to hurt the money she didn't make up
(25:11):
all the lies to so you're missing a huge part
of that. So it's not that simple. I'm sorry because
it's also true that you are working at a document
that I'm currently working at all. Absolutely, I'm trying to
warn the world about her do public service. God knows,
I wish someone made a documentary one has friends with her.
By making that documentary, you have to sort of spice
(25:33):
out of it. Is it true that you're sort of
the sensational Germans? No, that's not true. Goal okay, but
you're a reporter. I was, and the people who you
have right stories or your friends, No, that is completely false.
The only reporters I know are in Houston, Texas, where
I used to work. During the trial, when you were
(25:56):
on the stand, did you get emotional at all? The
trial was hard for me because her defense attorney made
up a whole ulterior reality, and he was just so
confident that I'm making everything up to make a documentary,
that I got all these other witnesses to lie. That's
(26:17):
what he's telling the jury in his questioning to me,
that I'm getting all these witnesses to lie, that I
have my friends at newspapers and TV stations doing stories.
He paints me as this movie making Svengali with all
this power to get all these things done. And as
he's doing this, I'm livid. I'm like, what the it's
(26:38):
like abuse, Like I'm a victim here and she had yeah, yeah,
I don't know. She got fired from the travel agency
(27:01):
if everyone, dude, I couldn't truth on my side. All right,
let's see you keep saying she told you that her
bank a Hapro prosecution post him. You're testing the truth. Okay,
I remember on the stand, like he would say something
(27:22):
and you could literally hear it in your voice, like
just how you'd respond to him, like fuck you. She
was doing this, you were still going out with her,
And write your basis. I don't like going out with
her because that implies a romantic relationship. I'm not going
out with the woman had possession of her proper people
(27:43):
while while she was getting a slap on the wrist
three days in jail, she gave me a box to
her Scotland set and her property. So it was while
she was doing it. Threte days in jail, I discovered
I was scanned everything she told me the case was alive.
So I got scared and I went through her property,
(28:05):
actual patures of everything that I submitted those pictures and
an exploration and I police report and I when I
saw her in front of her and handed her back
her property. And I have the audio recording to prove
it on my phone. If you went here, now you're cold,
take that's okay. What terrified me was all they needed
(28:26):
was one juror not to believe me, and then you
have a hung jury, you have a mistrial, then you
have to do it all again and I guarantee you
Bob wouldn't testify again. Chelsea would not testify again. Like,
no one wants to go through that again. I sure
as fund didn't want to have to testify again. It
was traumatic, But that's all you need is one jury
to think maybe Jonathan is making everything up for a movie.
(28:48):
And that's exactly what Mayor's defense attorney stresses to the
jury during closing arguments. Mr Walton created law and he
began to attack. This was all Mr wants. I told
you we're here, we had and thank god we do.
(29:19):
The trial comes to an end after four days of testimony.
Mayor refuses to testify in her own defense, and she
wasn't even able to find a single solitary witness to
testify on her behalf, but jurors are instructed not to
hold that against her as they begin deliberations. I remember
(29:40):
glancing at the jury while I was being questioned, and
I remember all the times I skipped out on jury
duty or made up excuses not to be in a jury.
Everyone you know fights jury duty. And I swore to God,
I'm like God, if you get me a conviction, I
will be a juror. Because I was hoping the jury
was smart enough and paying attention and could see through
(30:01):
the lies that her defense attorney was saying. And I
made a vow to God that if he just lets
them see the truth, the next time I'm a call
for a jury duty, I will serve happily, and I'll
apply myself, and I'll be the jury foreman, and we'll
we'll try for justice. Serving on a jury is so
important because their lives hanging in the balance, you know,
like mine was. And they need smart people, not just
people who can't talk themselves out of jury duty cures.
(30:24):
You say birth, so you have an unanimous worth in
the stage in jurors reach a verdict in just three hours,
which could be good or could be really bad. I'm
on pins and needles right up to the moment the
verdict is read aloud in court California carry in Los Angeles, California,
(30:50):
first injury and about the cattle fashion in guilty and
that actually apply as charge. She had the information gave
the Sarthew January, and she doesn't that change in general
jury insisting law, Yes, m work. You like to have
(31:16):
the jurorshold h jury comes back guilty verdict Like how
do you feel. It was like a huge weight had lifted.
It was just relief and joy and satisfaction and just
a swirl of emotions, but all of them good, all
of them happy, all of them. I was thrilled. It's
(31:36):
like that moment where everything you worked for it paid off.
She got convicted. You know it wasn't in vain. I
was relieved by the time a Los Angeles jury convicts
(32:06):
Mayor of grand theft by false pretense. I'm out seven
hundred and eighty four dollars total. Most of it is
what Mayor scammed for me. The rest I had to
spend on lawyers, private investigators, and paying credit card interest.
During sentencing, Mayor's attorney goes along for a hail Mary
pass instead of jail time. I'm gonna use. Can't blame
(32:39):
a guy for trying right. The judge sentences Mayor to
the maximum five years in jail, but she'll only actually
have to serve two and a half. To stem jail
over crowding and to incentivize inmates to behave while locked up,
Los Angeles County only requires them to serve half their time.
(32:59):
If may had taken the plea deal of one year
in jail before the trial. She would have been out
in six months. And while the jury wasn't allowed to
hear the full history of all of Mayor's cons the
judge was, and he unloads on her during sentencing because
he realizes now what I've known for the past two years.
(33:21):
She is really an in better thief and someone who
is I think classically referred to the associatedgy. Showed no remorse,
no sense of contrition of any sort whatsoever, while we
were hearing testimony about how previously impacted the victim in
(33:43):
the state Mr Walton was by her behavior. I have
people who, without any apparent justification or bought, take the
lives of other people. You didn't do that here in
the strictest sense, but you damaged one. So I don't
(34:06):
know what to say for you, other than that you've
got to stop her wing the sort of thing. You've
got to live not on your wris but instead on
hard work, and I hope that you change your ways.
So Mayor goes to jail in January. Watching her lead
out of the courtroom in handcuffs, crestfallen and haggard almost
(34:29):
makes me feel sorry for her. Almost She's supposed to
be released from jail in two and a half years
in June of Northern Ireland is ready to extradite her
as soon as she is. But then our top story,
we're learning more about the states plan to release inmates
from jails and prisons across California in an effort to
(34:52):
stop the spread of COVID nineteen. In December, seven months
before she's scheduled to be released, Mayor gets sprunk. She's
at a jail right now, right because of COVID. She
got out early because they were releasing a lot of
non violent criminals early, and COVID has helped in another way.
(35:14):
She was supposed to be extradited to Northern Ireland when
she was released from jail here in Los Angeles, but
because of COVID, Northern Ireland's on lockdown because they're surging
in cases, so they're not putting any importance on extraditing
a non violent criminal, you know. So I went on
LinkedIn and I found some l A County parole officers.
I reached out to like a dozen of them. A
(35:34):
couple of them got back to me. I just wanted
information how the parole system works, so I got one
on the phone talked to her for like an hour
and she told me point blank. So if she stopped
showing up her parole every month, we won't know she's
missing at least for like a year, because every pro
officer has four dred cases. They're dealing with four hundred
parole leads they gotta check in with every month, and
(35:57):
it takes months before they realize that one's missing. So
she could very well escape into the ether and never
be heard from again. You know, I like how your
eyes lived up like that. That was a good line,
though I liked it because the producer and may I
liked it. If it was me, like, my first inclination
would be to run away and hide, Like if I
(36:18):
got took for all that money, like I would feel ashamed,
you know, Like I feel like I questioned myself because
you talk to people and immediately like, oh, yeah, she
stole money, But a lot of these you found out
a lot of these people didn't come forward. Why do
you think that is? Well, everyone is so ashamed, and
I've learned everyone is so embarrassed and shackled by the
thought of what will people think. But as an openly
(36:40):
gay man, and I think any openly gay person has
that advantage that the others don't have, because when you're open,
when you come out of the closet, the world is
not anxious to greet you with hugs and kisses and acceptance.
I made peace with not giving a funk what people
think when I was thirty, you know, sixteen years ago,
when I came out, because you can't as an openly
(37:02):
gay person, you can't care what people think, or you'll
die because most people don't approve they're parts of the world.
Gay people are still being put to death, even in
the United States of American gay people who being kicked
out of their families, kicked out of their apartments, fired
from their jobs for being gay. So to come out,
you already have to divorce yourself from caring what people think.
So I didn't have that, and that helped me. Never
(37:25):
for a second did it occur to me, well, what
are people going to think? I was so angry and
I wanted justice. It didn't even occur to me to
care what people think, and that was an advantage. Do
you hate her now? I did hate her for a
long time, but I have made peace. I don't hate her,
and in a weird way, I'm grateful. I'm grateful she
(37:46):
scammed me because it revealed in me a person I
didn't know existed, someone I didn't know I could be.
I've become, and I like that person. I'm like a
private investigator. I'm helping victims of other cons get ASTI
I'm you know, I like who it turned me into.
It's like you with your train wreck of a marriage.
(38:06):
Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? It was a trainer actor.
Just look at you now? You have a beautiful wife,
You're a beautiful kid. Look at the amazing life you
have only because you went through that train wreck of
a divorce. I guess sometimes you gotta just go through
hell to come out the other end. And I'll ask
you a same question. Do you hate your ex wife? No,
not at all? After but she did, you don't hate her? No,
(38:27):
not at all. I wish you the best. I can't
say I wish Mayor the best, because to wish her
the best means she's gonna scare more people. But I
don't wish her ill. Even though I'll say I hope
she gets help and becomes a better person, I don't
think she's capable because I don't think she has a soul,
which sounds harsh. I don't take it personally that she
scammed me. I was just in her way. It's like
if you get attacked by a shark, you can't hate
(38:49):
the shark. The shark is just doing what sharks do.
There's no prethought or planning. You're just in their way.
They're going to attack you. She's a con artist. She's
gonna con whoever's around her. She's always been conning since
she was a girl, and now she's fifty two. She's
not going to change. Mayor's daughter. Chelsea has known that
(39:10):
for thirty years now. At this point, nothing surprises her.
So your mom got released early because of COVID, That's
what I was figuring. How does that make you feel?
Are you worried she's gonna come after you? Oh, I'm
not worried if she is really that idiot, Like, I'm
just hoping that she knows now in this situation, like
(39:32):
I am the alpha and I'm not scared, and she
will never touch me again. She will never harm me again.
She will never have power over my emotional state. But
because she knows, I basically put her in jail. I
will always have power over her, and I have no
trouble asserting that now until the day I take my
(39:54):
last breath, or she does whatever happens first. Wow, I
know how she feels. I'm trying to keep tabs on
Mayor's whereabouts in Los Angeles. Now I'm parked out front
(40:14):
of the last place I saw her eighteen months ago,
but she's not there, and I have no idea where
she is. Neither does the private detective I hire to
track her down, which is troubling because Marianne Elizabeth Smith
is a master of disguise. She's also had a bunch
of plastic surgery. Google her. The way she looks in
(40:37):
Northern Ireland pulling cons as a blonde, is completely different
from the way she looks in Tennessee, pulling cons as
a brunette, which is completely different from the way she
looks in Los Angeles, pulling cons with jet black hair.
Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. The next
(40:57):
time a kind and friendly stranger offers to help you
with something. It could very well be mary Anne Smith,
but that won't be the name she's using. I assure you,
so pay close attention. You've all been warned for exclusive
(41:17):
photos and other bonus material. Follow at Queen of the
Con on Instagram, and if you're enjoying Queen of the Con,
tell your friends about it and leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Queen
of the Con. The Irish Heiress is a production of
(41:39):
a y R Media and I Heart Radio, Hosted by
Me Jonathan Walton, Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton
Productions and E Liza Rosen for A y R Media.
Written by Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate
producer Eric Newman. Sound as Mine by Baked ZD Media,
(42:02):
mixed and mastered by Elliott Herman. Audio engineering by Elliott Herman,
Studio engineering by Chris McMasters. Voice acting performed by Neil Goldstein.
Legal counsel for A y R Media, Gianni Douglas, executive
producer for I Heart Radio Chandler Mains
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