Organizers were excited to book singer Mariah Carey for the 2016 Grand Rapids Pride Festival's LGBTQ celebration. Trouble was, she didn't know about it. Grand Rapids Pride Center had fallen victim to a scam. It had negotiated a contract with two men who falsely posed as Carey's representatives, an indictment says. The organization lost $130,000.
"As unfortunate as the situation was at the time, we learned many lessons and today we are proud of how strong the Grand Rapids Pride Center has become in our community," Mike Hemmingsen, the board president, said in a statement to MLive and The Grand Rapids Press.
California residents Allen Dean Gordon Clayborn, a.k.a. Allen Meme, and Raul Jejia Pereida, a.k.a. Raul Mejia, have been indicted in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids on charges of wire fraud, a 20-year felony, and aggravated identity theft, a two-year felony to be served consecutive to any other sentence.
"The defendants falsely held themselves out to be business representatives of singer Mariah Carey and accepted approximately $130,000 from organizations, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and elsewhere, which had signed bogus contracts prepared by the defendants to engage their services," Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy VerHey wrote in the indictment.
He said that the "defendants produced false contracts, false bank records, false emails and false text messages, all designed to convince their victims that they represented Mariah Carey when in fact they did not." He said that Grand Rapids Pride expected their payments to bring Carey to Grand Rapids in June 2016.
"Instead, the defendants used the funds for their own purposes," VerHey wrote. "Carey, knowing nothing of the contracts, payments or arrangements, did not appear or perform."
He said that the defendants communicated with victims in West Michigan and other places through telephone calls, emails and text messages. Most of the funds were sent via interstate wire transfers from Grand Rapids to a bank in California, he said. The government filed a sealed indictment in late March. It was recently unsealed upon Pereida's arrest.
Pereida, a citizen of Mexico, is not a legal U.S. resident, court records showed. The FBI could not find him until a judge authorized use of cellphone-location information. He was arrested in Avon, Colorado, where he worked at a restaurant and lived with his sister, court records said. He has a detention hearing on Friday, October 26. His co-defendant was arrested Wednesday, October 24, in Phoenix.
The government has developed evidence that Pereida has also engaged in a concert-promotion scheme in Huntington Beach, California, and plans to introduce such evidence at trial. Other evidence includes concert contracts, bank records, altered Marian Carey concert tickets, emails, false bank records and recorded phone calls, the government said.
The Grand Rapids Pride Center is cooperating with authorities. "Over the last two years, we've worked long and hard with authorities and are happy that our collective efforts are finally bringing these crimes to justice," Hemmingsen said. "We will always be grateful for the overwhelming support and guidance we received that pulled us through this difficult time."
He said the center "works diligently each year to bring relative and large names to the Grand Rapids Pride Festival to celebrate our LGBTQ Community." He said that non-profits and other groups around the country fell victim to the scam.
(MLive)
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