Bride Jailed for Scamming her Maid of Honor
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A bride is jailed after conning her maid of honor out of £27,000 with false claims of a share in a bogus multi-million-pound inheritance.
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Angela Kitchener is jailed for three and a half years.
On her wedding day, Angela Kitchener told her best friend, Nicola Reynolds, that she was about to receive more than £5million ($6,663,250) from the sale of her ex-husband’s haulage business, subsequently conning her out of £27,000.
The 54-year-old promised to pay off her debts and mortgage as a grateful gesture for her friendship, painting a picture of a luxurious future filled with new cars and holidays.
On the same day, she later asked mother-of-five Miss Reynolds to be the guarantor on a £10,000 loan, telling her she would pay it back when the £5million came through.
For months Kitchener, who worked as a quality assessor for a defense contractor, made excuses for why the money had not materialized, saying she was waiting for it to be transferred.
Miss Reynolds, 41, agreed to help tide her over, buying her friend a new sofa and television plus £1,000 worth of clothes.
In addition, Kitchener also claimed she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer but was keeping the truth from her fiancé Paul, whom she wed in November 2017.
The following year, Kitchener told Reynolds that her first husband had been killed in a farming accident and her pay-out was up to £77million but extra paperwork was delaying the money.
However, Miss Reynolds became suspicious when she learned Kitchener had persuaded another friend to guarantee a loan.
Some amateur detective work revealed that far from owning a haulage business, her ex-husband simply drove lorries for it – and his new wife confirmed that he was alive and well.
Kitchener, of Barnsley, admitted two counts of fraud and was jailed for three-and-a-half years last Friday.
Judge David Dixon told her she was a ‘fantasist’ who had concocted ‘blatant lies’ to defraud her best friend.
Nicola Reynolds said: "She was like family to me. I hope she will finally begin to realize the pain, hurt, and suffering that she has caused."
