A US podcaster and author who helped Northern Ireland authorities secure a fraud conviction on Thursday against a woman derisively known as the “Queen of the Con” says he hopes the case prompts the public to realize “these people are literally everywhere”.
Johnathan Walton said “it thrills me to no end” that Marianne “Mair” Smyth – who was initially convicted of scamming nearly $100,000 from him in Los Angeles by posing as the heiress to a $30m fortune – was found guilty by a Downpatrick crown court jury of swindling more than £115,000 ($155,000) from four people while working as a mortgage adviser.
Walton documented his victimization at the hands of Smyth in both the podcast Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress as well as a new book titled Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters and Thieves. The reporting at the heart of both projects prompted a decisive tip about her whereabouts in Bingham, Maine, in February 2024 that led to Thursday’s guilty verdict against her roughly 3,500 miles away.
“I feel like this is why I got scammed – I was meant to stop her,” an emotional Walton, who traveled to Northern Ireland for the verdict, said by telephone after Smyth’s conviction. “I was meant to shine a light on how these people operate.”
During her four-day trial in Northern Ireland, prosecutors established that Smyth stole from mortgage advisement customers – including one who considered her a friend – between 2008 and 2010. One of the victims testified that he gave Smyth £72,570 for the purchase of a buy-to-let house meant to fund his children’s university education, yet she never bought the property, the UK-based Times reported.
Three other victims, including a couple, reportedly testified that they gave the US-born Smyth £43,000 meant for either high-interest or high-investment bank accounts. But the accounts never existed. And, after allegedly killing more than a dozen dogs living with her at the time, she fled Northern Ireland for Los Angeles as UK officials moved in to arrest her.
Smyth befriended Walton in LA while he was earning his living as a reality television producer, and she convinced him that she was a wealthy Irish heiress locked in a legal battle with her family. Walton gave Smyth nearly $100,000 that she duped him into believing would allow her to secure her inheritance – but instead she used a considerable amount of that money on dispensing with a 2016 guilty plea which she entered on charges of stealing from a travel agency that employed her.
Ultimately, Walton investigated Smyth’s background, learned she was a skilled swindler and persuaded Los Angeles authorities to charge her. She was convicted of grand theft by false pretense but spent less than two years in prison as California officials sought to limit the size of the state’s incarcerated population amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Walton’s Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress podcast in 2021 detailed how Smyth defrauded him as well as her victims in Northern Ireland. Eventually, a listener of the podcast alerted Walton to where Smyth was staying in Maine. He in turn informed the police of Smyth’s whereabouts, and they arrested her on 23 February 2024 in connection with the unresolved charges in the UK.
She had been flown from the US to the UK by early July 2024, setting the stage for the trial that concluded on Thursday.
Walton, who has since launched a number of other true crime podcasts and in August released Anatomy of a Con Artist, said he was stunned at how brief the jury’s deliberations were. The Times estimated that the eight men and three women on the jury deliberated for about 20 minutes before finding Smyth guilty.
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Smyth’s sentencing is tentatively set for 16 October. Because she has been incarcerated since her arrest in Maine, she may not be sentenced to much if any additional time in custody, her attorney Gary McHugh said, according to the UK’s Sunday World.
McHugh also said the UK government had filed papers indicating Smyth faced immediate deportation whenever she was released from custody.
Walton remarked that Smyth’s Northern Ireland victims – as well as the authorities who pursued her – approached him at the Downpatrick courthouse and expressed their gratitude to him, which touched him.
“It is … a surreal experience,” Walton said. “I feel like justice has been served.”
