Seattle (KONP staff) – A 40-year-old Tacoma woman appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle on a criminal complaint charging wire fraud for her scheme to defraud friends and acquaintances of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sabrina Taylor allegedly lied about her health, her employment status, and her education to steal more than $550,000 from people who had offered to help her.
Court records show that between 2016 and 2019, Taylor convinced various people to provide her with large amounts of money by claiming she needed the money to purchase medicine for multiple sclerosis, or to pay her tuition for college. She also claimed to need the funds to bail her brother out of jail.
In fact, Taylor was not ill with multiple sclerosis, was not paying tuition to UW as claimed, and her brother was not in jail.
Taylor told other stories about how she planned to repay the loans, lying about her employment, a litigation settlement with a local bank, and funds she expected to receive from her parents.
Some of the people she defrauded she met online through shared interests such as Japanese anime, comic books, or video games.