- The Bangor Daily News March 23rd, 2024

'POSTED INPOLICE AND COURTS'

'She wasn’t an Irish heiress. She was from Bangor, Maine.

by Emily Burnham 9 hours ago

Maine native Marianne Smyth crafted a handful of different identities over the years to con numerous people out of thousands. Credit: Composite by Leela Stockley; Photos courtesy of Johnathan Walton

After more than 30 years traveling throughout the U.S. and the United Kingdom under more than 10 different aliases while allegedly committing multiple acts of fraud and theft, Marianne Smyth is back where it all started: Maine.

Instead of her hometown of Bangor, however, Smyth is being held at the Piscataquis County Jail in Dover-Foxcroft, awaiting an April 17 extradition hearing that may see her transported to Northern Ireland to face eight counts of fraud and theft. She was arrested in the town of Bingham on Feb. 23 and was denied bail on March 7 after a judge deemed her a flight risk.  

Smyth faces up to ten years for each of the eight charges leveled against her by Northern Irish prosecutors — potentially a total of 80 years.

Jonathan Walton, a Los Angeles resident and reality television producer, is among the people who have claimed to have been scammed by Smyth over the years. He has produced a podcast, “Queen of the Con,” about her.

Between 2013 and 2017, Walton said Smyth became one of his closest friends. But over the course of that friendship, Walton said Smyth conned him out of nearly $100,000 in bogus legal fees and for other made-up emergency situations.

“She made me her best friend. She had me under her spell,” Walton said. “And once I realized I’d been taken by someone who I’d previously considered my best friend, I knew I had to make sure no one else had the same thing happen to them.”

Several requests for an interview with or comment from Smyth were not answered by Smyth’s attorney, Kaylee Folster of Bangor firm Vafiades, Brountas and Kominsky.

The information gathered about Smyth’s alleged crimes and the charges for which she was convicted comes from a combination of court records, Walton’s podcast, articles published in both the U.S. and in the U.K., and interviews by the Bangor Daily News.

The arrest in Bingham was the latest development in a decades-long saga that involves fraud and theft in two countries, claims of being an Irish heiress and “satanic self-help” services, with Smyth — also known as Marianne Clark, Marianne Welch, Mair Ellis, Marianne Andle, Mairaine Ni Clerigh, Elizabeth Smyth and Lucia Belia — at the center of it all.

Born in Bangor

Smyth was born in Bangor in 1969 as Marianne Clark, the middle daughter of Charles and Wilda Clark’s five children. In 1974, Wilda divorced her husband and married Robert Andle, and changed at least two of her children’s last names to Andle. It’s not clear where in in the city Smyth actually lived, as her childhood friend, Bangor resident Jen Westwood, said she tended to exaggerate or obscure the details of her life to her schoolmates.

Westwood recalled being invited over to Smyth’s house when they were both 12 years old. Upon walking into the Little City home, however, it became clear to Westwood that the house they were in was not actually Smyth’s.

“She had me pose and take a picture with stuff that belonged to a girl that lived there who was also named Jennifer, who she said was her sister. She had me put on her sweater and take something from the house,” Westwood said. “It wasn’t her house. It was so strange.”

Marianne Andle, seen in her 1987 yearbook photo from Bangor High School. Marianne Andle, as she was then known, spent a life conning thousands out of numerous people’s pockets. Credit: Courtesy of Johnathan Walton

Smyth graduated from Bangor High School in 1987. She later joined the U.S. Navy, where, according to Walton, she was stationed in Florida for several years, serving as a corpsman. She was arrested on charges of forgery and grand theft during her time in Florida, according to an arrest record provided by Walton.

Smyth later moved around to multiple states. While living in Michigan, she met her first husband, Jeff Welch, with whom she had a daughter, Courtney. Smyth also had another daughter, Chelsea Fowler, who told Walton on his podcast that she still doesn’t know who her real father is, and that her mother was both emotionally and physically abusive.

According to Fowler, in 1992, Smyth, along with Chelsea, moved back to Tennessee, where Smyth’s parents had moved from Bangor a few years prior. Smyth then went off the radar, having no contact with her family for nearly five years, finally resurfacing in 1997. Both Walton and Fowler say they don’t know what Smyth was up to during that period.

Fowler said on Walton’s podcast that her mother concocted stories, including that she was a former figure skater who was bound for the Olympics, or that she had cancer and needed help with medical bills. She also said her mother’s appearance changed constantly — she had weight loss surgery and plastic surgery procedures, and dyed her hair different colors.

In the early 2000s, Smyth met a man online, Stephen Smyth, a postal worker in Northern Ireland, according to Fowler. In 2002, she took Fowler to visit him — only to end up marrying Smyth and settling in Northern Ireland.

The big scam

Marianne Smyth lived in Northern Ireland with her daughter and new husband for more than seven years.

While there, she worked for a mortgage company, where, according to the charges from the country’s Public Prosecution Service, she swindled more than 20 people out of more than $600,000. In most cases, she allegedly kept her clients’ down payments, though according to the charges in Northern Ireland she also convinced clients to invest in property schemes that turned out to be false.

Police in Northern Ireland received reports of Smyth’s fraud and theft in July 2009, according to an article published on March 21 by NBC News. But she had already left the country in June of that year, Joel Casey, an assistant U.S. attorney, said during Smyth’s March bail hearing.

When they met in California in 2013, Walton said Smyth claimed to be a psychic with multiple celebrity clients, including Jennifer Aniston. He also said she told him she was a “descendent of Irish royalty,” and was due to inherit millions from a wealthy uncle.

“She had a framed Irish constitution on her wall and said her great great uncle was a founder of Ireland, which made her royalty,” Walton said. “It all seemed real to me. I was so taken with her. She had a way of making you believe her.”

Smyth also worked for a travel agency called Pacific Islands Travel, from which she stole more than $200,000, according to an article published in the Belfast Telegraph in Northern Ireland. Smyth was eventually caught and charged with grand theft in 2016, for which she was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation.

At the time, Walton said Smyth claimed her family in Ireland had “set her up” so it looked like she’d stolen the money, so she would not receive her inheritance. She convinced Walton to lend her more than $90,000 to cover legal fees and other expenses in the period leading up to her incarceration.

“Of course I eventually find out that that is a complete lie,” Walton said. “That’s when I realized she was a con artist.”

After Smyth went to jail, Walton began looking into Smyth’s background and quickly learned his friend was not who she said she was. She wasn’t an Irish heiress. She was from Bangor, Maine.

Walton began amassing evidence against her, as well as accounts from other people who said Smyth had scammed them during her time in California. Among them were neighbors of Smyth’s in the apartment complex both she and Walton lived in, and two affluent men in the Los Angeles area.

By 2018, the Los Angeles Police Department had enough evidence to charge Smyth with felony grand theft again, this time for defrauding Walton. She was convicted in January 2019 and sentenced to five years in jail. She ended up serving less than two years of her sentence. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on, California officials released thousands of non-violent offenders to stem the spread of the virus in prisons and jails statewide.

Smyth was released in December 2020. In early 2021, she returned to her home state.

Back to Maine

Along with Bingham, where she was arrested in February, Smyth also lived in at least Madawaska at some point during her past three years in Maine, according to the March bail hearing.

While in Maine, she has registered at least one business, called Satan’s Eye of the Storm LLC, incorporated in Kennebunk. Smyth, under the name Lucia Belia, purported to offer hypnotherapy, ritual magic and satanic self-help services. She also offered similar services through a website named Lucia Belia, and wrote a book called “Eastern Star Rising: How Satan’s Eye of the Storm Was Created.”'

During her time in Maine, Smyth also allegedly solicited donations for purportedly running rescue missions to help refugees in Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, according to The Guardian.

These alleged scams, along with the case law enforcement officials in Northern Ireland had spent years building against her, finally came to a head last month when Smyth was arrested in the town of Bingham, according to the transcript of Smyth’s bail hearing. If she is extradited, Smyth could get up to ten years in prison for each of the eight total charges of fraud and theft she faces in Northern Ireland.

Walton, who has devoted much of his life in the past seven years to making sure Smyth sees justice, breathed a sigh of relief when he heard about the arrest.

“I know what it’s like to get scammed. And I want to make sure people know how to protect themselves from these people,” Walton said. “People like Marianne have wrecked people’s lives, and I am really hopeful she’s going to see justice.”'