US judge backs request to extradite ‘Irish heiress’ swindler to Northern Ireland

Her elaborate schemes, among them posing as the heiress to an Irish fortune, swindled people out of huge sums and left Marianne Smyth with two felony convictions.

Now Smyth (54), an American, will most likely be extradited to Northern Ireland to face eight separate accusations of theft and fraud there, a federal court ruled Thursday, saying there was “sufficient evidence to sustain the charges”.

She will be turned over to the custody of the US Marshals Service, pending a final decision on her extradition by the US secretary of state, according to court documents filed in the US District Court in Maine.

Smyth became known as the “Irish heiress” after one of her former victims, Johnathan Walton, started a podcast in 2021 about his experience. The two became close friends after meeting in 2013, and Walton, a reality television producer, said that Smyth had claimed to be from a prominent Irish family.

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But she was facing money problems, she told him, and was battling relatives in Ireland over an inheritance worth tens of millions of dollars. Sympathetic, Walton lent her money and the use of his credit card, an amount that totalled more than $63,000 (€58,450).

When he realised that she had deceived him, he reported Smyth to police, and in 2019 a jury convicted her of stealing from him. She was sentenced to five years in prison but was released early, in 2020, according to court documents.

The podcast’s listeners would report sightings of Smyth to Walton, who vowed to track her down and said he had passed on potential leads to Northern Ireland authorities. Others have told him that Smyth has used other false personas, he said, including masquerading as a psychic and a satanic priestess.

Smyth was arrested in Maine in February on the charges from Northern Ireland, and authorities in the United Kingdom had formally requested her extradition under a treaty with the United States.

Smyth has said that she is not guilty of the charges and that there is no “probable cause” to believe she committed the crimes, according to a response filed on her behalf in court.

Those charges date to between March 2008 and October 2010, when Smyth was living in Northern Ireland and working there as a mortgage adviser, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maine. Smyth abused a position in which she was expected to “safeguard” the financial interests of her clients, the complaint says, and instead stole about £135,000 (€157,000) from five people.

Those accusations were first reported to authorities in Northern Ireland in 2009, but British diplomatic officials did not request her extradition until last year.

One couple said they had given Smyth about £72,000 to purchase an investment property, according to the complaint. Smyth produced paperwork that appeared to confirm the sale and sent them “rental payments” each month, purportedly from tenants. When the payments stopped, the complaint said, the couple eventually found that the sale had never happened.

Other victims said they had given Smyth £20,000 to invest in what she described as a “high-interest-bearing account” with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the complaint says. One called the bank, only to discover that the account did not exist.

Attempts to contact Smyth or track her down, the complaint says, were fruitless.

Walton said in a text message Thursday that he was “pinching himself” regarding news of the extradition, which he said he had been fighting to make happen for years.

He thanked his podcast’s listeners, who he said had sent tips, videos and audio recordings that he submitted to prosecutors in the United Kingdom. That evidence, he said, “helped fashion the noose that is now tightening around her neck.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.