Multimillion-dollar swindler

Sandino Hernandez* and his wife Dorothy*, a retiree, were overcome with compassion when a woman they met in June last year approached them for financial assistance three weeks later.

The “timid, soft-spoken woman”, Jessica Fry*, indicated that her daughter was sexually assaulted and impregnated by a family friend and said she needed $600,000 to pay for surgery to correct life-threatening post-abortion complications, Hernandez claimed.

Her story, he claimed, was even more convincing when she told the couple that she was trying to escape an abusive relationship to rebuild her life.

Dorothy, a retired counsellor with a soft heart for young women, agreed to help with the surgery, he recounted.

Hernandez said his wife drove Fry and her daughter to a clinic, but had to remain in the car because she was not allowed to go inside or speak to the doctor or anyone else.

He told The Sunday Gleaner that Fry returned to the car with a medical document “and this is how my wife started to give her money”.

“The surgery was for $650,000 and my wife gave her some through online transfer and some through cash,” he alleged.

Gwendolyn Martinez* was at her St Andrew hair supply store in July last year when a woman she met three weeks earlier called her telephone in tears.

Martinez and the woman, who she identified as Fry, were introduced by one of her customers and became fast friends through frequent visits to the store, she recounted during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner.

The businesswoman alleged that an emotional Fry reported, during the telephone call, that she needed money to hire an attorney because her daughter was sexually assaulted by a family friend and she was fearful that she would be arrested on a charge of neglect.

“She said she don’t have any money right now, so she ask me if I could give her $45,000 towards getting a lawyer,” the beauty shop operator recounted during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner on Friday.

“I gave her the money because I felt sorry for her, you understand?”

Over a seven-week period ending in mid-July last year, Fry used the same story with a slightly different twist to fleece nearly $7 million from both Martinez and the Hernandez family, they alleged in separate interviews.

And investigators believe there is a string of other complainants who have not yet come forward.

Hernandez said he and his wife lost cash and goods from their electronics business totalling $4.6 million, some of which they will have to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court to recover.

This figure, he claimed, included a $1 million down payment on an apartment he and his wife believed they were ‘buying’ from Fry and $750,000 worth of electronic and other items they advanced her on credit.

Martinez estimated her losses at a little more than $3 million.

Fry has been charged with obtaining money by false pretence and her case is pending before the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court, records show.

Hernandez claimed that he has already received reimbursements totalling $475,000 through the court.

Martinez claimed that Fry has failed to make weekly court-ordered payments to her and said she plans to notify the court.

Obvious red flags

Hernandez said he and his wife blame themselves “every day” for missing some obvious red flags.

Martinez expressed disbelief during the interview that she was so trusting of someone she barely knew.

“Looking back on everything, and going to court and everything is read back to us, we are like ‘we really mek this happen to we?’,” said Hernandez.

“There was lots of stuff that I could have picked up on or my wife could have picked up on. We dropped the ball entirely on everything that was going on. I blame myself 100 per cent.”

Hernandez and his wife were introduced to Fry by a family friend in June last year and quickly forged a ‘friendship’ over her tales of domestic abuse.

According to him, the fraud accused soon indicated that she was engaged to a wealthy American doctor and presented herself as someone who could help them expand their business and provide investment opportunities.

“I can remember clearly one time we gave her close to $1 million as a down payment for an apartment. She showed us documents for an apartment complex she was constructing with her fiancé,” he recounted.

“She got someone to call us and talk to us as if that person was a lawyer and my wife went to the site and was taken around the place.”

He claimed, too, that after introducing Fry to some of their suppliers, they advanced her appliances, furniture and other items, valued at $750,000, to help kick-start her own business.

“But then she went and took appliances and furniture worth $500,000 from three of the suppliers and used my wife’s name. And then we had these suppliers calling us for their money,” he charged.

The alleged ruse began to crumble after Fry ‘gifted’ Dorothy a 2019 BMW luxury motor car she claimed she purchased for her, he said.

Hernandez was gifted a 2018 Honda Civic by the fraud accused, who was driving a 2019 Audi Q3 luxury sport utility vehicle, he recounted.

‘Abusive relationship’

The vehicles were Fry’s way of showing the couple that she appreciated the “love and support” they showed during the ‘abusive relationship’, he said, recounting how his wife happily recorded videos with her new luxury car.

“At one point, I was like this was too good to be true,” he admitted.

But soon Hernandez said he saw all three vehicles in a video posted on the social media platform TikTok by a company that was trying to locate them.

“So I called the company and the owner sent me some pictures of the cars with the same licence plates attached,” he said.

According to him, the owner of the company revealed that the vehicles were out on rental for several months, but alleged that the renter had defaulted on the payments and failed to return the vehicles.

The business owner confirmed to The Sunday Gleaner that she has regained possession of the vehicles, but declined to comment for this report.

Hernandez said his experience will change the couple’s outlook on helping others.

“[If] another person come to us for help to buy one sweetie, we nah look pan dem. That has tarnished any sort of goodwill we have in terms of helping anybody.”

*Names changed to protect identities.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com