Florida girl accused of swindling $2.8M from Holocaust survivor in romance rip-off

A 36-year-old Florida girl used a romance rip-off to defraud a Holocaust survivor of his $2.8 million life financial savings, federal prosecutors stated Wednesday.

Peaches Stergo of Championsgate, southwest of Orlando, was arrested Wednesday in Florida and is charged with one rely of wire fraud, the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York stated.

Stergo, who additionally goes by “Alice,” met the sufferer, an 87-year-old Manhattan man, on a courting web site six or seven years in the past, officers stated.

In 2017 she requested for cash — claiming she’d acquired a settlement from a lawsuit however wanted to pay her lawyer to be able to obtain it, prosecutors stated.

A sequence of lies over 4 years adopted, in keeping with an indictment.

Stergo falsely claimed she wanted increasingly more cash or else her TD Financial institution accounts can be frozen and he would by no means be paid again, in keeping with the indictment.

She additionally faked emails pretending to be from TD Financial institution, and faked invoices to offer to the sufferer’s financial institution to elucidate the big transfers, the indictment says.

In all 62 checks for $2.8 million had been deposited in her accounts, in keeping with the indictment.

It stopped in October 2021 when the person informed his son he’d given his life financial savings to the lady however was promised he’d be repaid, and the son stated he’d been scammed, in keeping with the indictment.

An lawyer for Stergo was not listed in on-line federal court docket paperwork. A quantity listed as belonging to her didn’t seem like operational.

Stergo spent the cash on a house, a rental, a ship, journeys, vehicles and Rolex watches, prosecutors stated.