Peaches Stergo (Photo by US Department of Justice)
A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to cheating an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor out of his savings of more than $2.8 million and his apartment to fund his luxury life, a vacation at the Ritz Carlton, a home in a gated community and a condo in a “sick and sad” romance scam, authorities said.
Peaches Stergo, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, a charge that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release Friday. She must pay more than $2.83 million in restitution and lose the same amount, as well as more than 100 luxury items she bought with the proceeds of her fraud, including Rolex watches, handbags and designer clothes, as well as large amounts of gold and jewelry, officials said. She is due to be sentenced on July 27.
“Peaches Stergo stole the life savings of an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who was just looking for company,” US attorney Damian Williams said. “This conduct is sick – and sad. Using the millions in fraud proceeds, Stergo lived a life of luxury, buying a house in a gated community and a Corvette, vacationing at hotels like the Ritz Carlton, and buying thousands of designer clothes while forcing his elderly victim to lose his apartment.
The scheme began when Stergo met the victim, who has not been identified, on a dating site about six or seven years ago, authorities said.
In early 2017, she asked if she could borrow money to pay her attorney, who she said was refusing to release funds for a personal injury settlement, officials said.
The victim gave her the money and she said the settlement funds had been deposited into her TD bank account, but no such settlement existed, authorities said. And his account at TD Bank was constructed from a fake email account, fake letters and fake bills, authorities said.
“Stergo created fake letters from a TD Bank employee, who falsely claimed that her account had a hold that would only be released if several tens of thousands of dollars were deposited into her account,” the indictment reads. ‘charge. “Stergo also created fake invoices for the victim to provide to their bank after the bank began to question the repeated large money transfers to Stergo.”
Stergo repeatedly demanded money from the victim over the next four-and-a-half years, saying his accounts would be frozen and he would never be reimbursed if he did not deposit money into his accounts. authorities said.
According to the indictment, the victim wrote checks about once a month, often in $50,000 increments. Officials said the victim wrote 62 checks totaling more than $2.8 million that were deposited into one of two accounts controlled by Stergo.
From the profits, she took expensive trips and spent tens of thousands of dollars on expensive meals, gold, jewelry and designer clothes from Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton and Hermès, the authorities said. authorities.
Federal prosecutors say the unrest came crashing down in October 2021, when the survivor told his son that “over time he gave his life savings” to Stergo.
“The victim’s son told his father he had been scammed,” the indictment reads. “After that, the victim stopped writing checks to Stergo.”
Adam Klasfeld of Law&Crime contributed to this report.
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