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My question is, where's Kim Gandy???? |
Posted on 06/26/2004 1:23:33 PM PDT by wagglebee
SPOKANE, Wash. -- The former owner of a title company in Republic who fell for the so-called Nigerian letter scam has been sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Donna Burbank, 49, stole more than $670,000 from clients so she could participate in the bogus get-rich-quick scheme.
U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush sentenced her to the minimum of 37 months in prison on Thursday.
Burbank pleaded guilty last August to embezzling from federally insured financial institutions.
Public defender Gerald Smith asked for a lighter sentence, citing a mental evaluation that he said showed Burbank suffered from "deep-seated psychological problems."
According to Burbank's confession to the FBI, she got a letter in January 2001 from a Dr. Udo Udoma, who offered her a share of his $21.5 million fortune if she would help him skirt financial regulations in transferring the money out of Nigeria.
The FBI says con artists such as the fictitious Udoma use the ploy often.
The perpetrators persuade their victims to put up more and more of their own or other people's money to cover expenses that supposedly will lead to vast rewards.
Burbank told authorities she began by sending $20,000 of her own money. Eventually, she and her now-estranged husband were invited to Newark, N.J., where two Udoma associates showed them four packages of black paper the size of currency.
The men washed five of the papers in what they said was a chemical that cost $125,000 a bottle, and the papers turned into $100 bills.
After that, Donna Burbank gutted the family's assets and began stealing from her title office customers, including federally insured banks and credit unions, to buy what Quackenbush dubbed the "magic chemical."
She raided her escrow trust fund and took money she was supposed to have transferred to banks in real estate transactions, leaving people holding the bag when the deals collapsed.
In some cases, the failed transactions were covered by title insurance policies Burbank issued as an agent of Stewart Title and Guaranty, and the company wound up paying about $500,000 to reimburse victims.
Some individuals still lost substantial sums.
"We had just retired. Our savings are gone," Curlew resident Karen Dubuque told Quackenbush. "Our credit was completely destroyed."
Dubuque said she and her husband lost $11,236 after reimbursement by Stewart Title.
The judge also ordered Burbank to repay her victims approximately $670,130.
People fall for this all the time.
ping!!!
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My question is, where's Kim Gandy???? |
Yeah, STUPIDITY!
Wasn't there a platitude about can't cheat an honest person?
You sound surprised. If it wasn't for people like this lady, the DemocRAT Party would cease to exist.
ATTN: Director/Ceo , With due respect, trust and humanity, I write this letter to you seeking your help and assistance though Its difficult since we have not met before. I got your good contact from the internet research online regarding your business profile and sincerity. I believe that you are capable and reliable in handling this urgent international transaction of this sort. I am James Border Gezi, the son of the comrade Border Gezi the Zimbabwean former Minister for Youth & Gender Equality who is also a businessman and politician, in the Zimbabwean political arena . My father was the famous politician who stood firm against President Mugabes idea of continuous fight in Democratic Republic of Congo and my father also stood against the seizure of white owned farms and the distribution of it to the blacks without compensation to the white owners. Because of my fathers sincerity he was killed on 14th April 2001 by a planned motor accident along Mashonaland in Western Mashona Province of Zimbabwe, the planners of the accident is to be said dissidents soldiers suspected to have the backing of the Government and President Mugabe himself. when this accident occurred at about 10:15 am Zimbabwean time my father did not died on the spot rather he was rushed to Harare hospital by unknown soldiers and my father managed to call my younger brother and me through his assistance, and when my brother and I rushed to the hospital my father only managed to sneak a written message to us, explaining his condition concerning one diplomatic box he concealed under the roof of his private bedroom containing US$25 Million (Twenty Five Million United States Dollars) and other vital documents which was meant for his political campaign in the past election June 2002. He instructed me to take my brother and my younger sister with the box and leave Zimbabwe immediately for our safety, which we have successfully did and now we are in South Africa with the money deposited in a Private Security Company with the original documents of deposit intact. But because of the countrys exixsting law which bars asyllum seekers / refugees like us to operate an account that exceed US$2,000.00 and the fear of money not raising eyebrows here in South Africa, I decided to write to you to seek for your help for this money to be transferred into your private bank account as all arrangements for a hitch-free transfer have been fully taken care of. I want to assure you also that this transaction is 100% risk free as no other person knows about this box apart from my younger brother and i. as for your reward for your kind assistance we have resolved to give you 20% of the total amount, 10% for any expenses that might be incurred in the course of this transaction. We planned to invest the rest of the money in your country under your guidance. If you are willing to help us try as much as possible bear it in mind that our lives solely depend on this fund and we do hope that this money will be safe when finally transferred into your account. I do hope of establishing a rewarding and good relationship with you and your family after this transaction. Hoping to hear from you as soon as possible. Thank you for your co-operation and God bless Best regards James Gezi.
You mean it's a scam?
There are Harvard professors who fell for this scam.
I get one of those emails at least once a week. I just DELETE it.
Harvard professors have routinely advocated communism, the homosexual agenda, atheism, anti-Semetism, terrorism and every other leftist cause. Basically, if it wasn't for the religious connotation they would probably still believe in Santa Claus. So I'm not really surprised they would fall for this.
I thought you folks might enoy this website, devoted to the fine businessmen of Lagos
http://www.scamorama.com/
I just give them my credit card number and they go away.
You'd be surprised. A friend of my wife's works at a bank and she said they're always on the lookout for their customers (usually elderly widows) requesting large wire transfers overseas.
On the bright side, I have a friend that strung along one of these scammers and eventually nailed him with a particularly vicious virus. My buddy packaged it in a Word document that supposedly contained his bank account information.
No great surprise there either. These types are often bitterly disappointed when they alight from their ivory towers into the real world. Witness their ongoing affinity for Marxist economics, long after it has ceased to have any releveance outside campus cloud-cuckoo-land.
I recall Buckley saying he would rather be ruled by a hundred names picked at random from the Boston phone book, than by the faculty of Harvard.
I quit after I lost $100k.
pinging the master
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