Jonathan Walton Jonathan Walton
may not be super famous, but the shows he has helped produce are household names.
Reality shows such as Shark Tank and American Ninja Warrior rank at the top of his resume.
Besides being a reality tv show producer,
Jonathan's personal life was relatively uneventful until a strange woman
entered the picture and turned his quiet existence into a blockbuster crime film.
Mair Smyth Jonathan first
met our mystery woman in his high-rise apartment building in downtown Los Angeles. He was trying
to organize a few like-minded neighbors to protest the closing of the building pool,
and the most passionate person he could find was an Irish woman named Mair Smyth.
Together with other neighbors who wanted their pool back,
Jonathan and Mair took charge of the dispute with the owners. According to Johnathon,
Mair proved to be the most passionate, protesting the issue harder than anyone else.
After the pool dispute, Jonathan and Mair hit it off and began developing a friendship. Jonathan
says Mair wanted to get to know him and his husband. So, the gregarious Mair offered to take
Jonathan and his husband out to a nice dinner. However, Jonathan didn't realize exactly how nice.
The bill arrived, totaling $600. Jonathan recalls how nonchalant Mair was about the expensive bill.
From then on, Jonathan knew Mair had money... he just didn't know where it came from.
Royalty As Jonathan got to know Mair better,
she gradually told him her bizarre--almost too-good-to-be-true life story and continued
to shower him with gifts and fancy dinners. Mair wanted Jonathan to know she had money. Anytime
they were out and something pricey needed to be paid for, Mair would whip out her card.
Eventually, Mair revealed the source of her wealth. While her story might seem
absurd to the average person, hearing the tale straight from a friend is much
different. In Jonathan's own words: "who would lie about something so specific?"
Mair told Jonathan in convincing detail that she is originally from Ireland,
where her family is political royalty. In her apartment, Mair showed Jonathan her
framed copy of the Irish constitution. Among the signees is her great uncle, who she claims was
the former head of her family. Mair explains that her uncle is head of the family estate,
which is worth 25 million euros. Of that 25 million, Mair will inherit 5 million.
Mair says her uncle is close to death, and his estate is being divided between her family.
However, the other members of her family are not too keen on Mair inheriting her share.
Family Matters Jonathan recalls Mair telling him
how her family perceives her as the black sheep. To them, Mair's moving to the United States,
getting a regular job, and thinking independently forced a wedge between her and the family.
Jonathan remembers how Mair "painted" a clear narrative depicting herself as a
creative maverick juxtaposed by her uptight aristocratic clan.
It is unclear whether or not Mair meant her story to affect Jonathan so deeply,
but it did. When Jonathan came out to his family, they disowned him. Since then,
Jonathan has not been invited to any holiday celebrations by one side of his family.
After hearing Mair's story, Jonathan developed a connection with his new friend. He assumed
they were both the black sheep of their families and allowed the empathy to bring
him closer to Mair—so close that Jonathan considered her family. Jonathan describes
the trio eating dinner almost every night, even after Mair moved into a new building.
Naturally, since they spent so much time together, Jonathan
and Mair told each other everything about their lives--including Mair's job at a travel agency.
Irish Princess Scam Mair told him she worked for a travel agency
in LA, but Jonathan noticed she didn't spend much time there. He recalls Mair bragging about
how easy the job was, and he assumed Mair only worked at the agency to make extra spending money.
However, Jonathan would later find out the real reason why Mair worked at the travel agency.
Mair explained to Jonathan that she landed her easy-breezy job at
the agency due to her family's connection with the business.
Ever since Jonathan had known Mair, the self-proclaimed Irish-heiress had been showing
him text messages from barristers and family members in Ireland to prove her story. Jonathan
saw plenty of texts and emails to get emotionally involved and actively invested in Mair's drama.
Forfeiture According to Mair,
if she were to be convicted of a felony, she would forfeit the inheritance. Jonathan put
two and two together and explained to Mair that her family might use their connections
at the travel agency to accuse her of some type of workplace crime.
Jonathan says that he had seen enough news stories "about husbands who knock their wives off for
million-dollar insurance policies." However,
Mair did not heed Jonathan's warning and continued working at the travel agency.
Sure enough, Jonathan answers a frantic call from Mair. The agency has accused her of stealing
$200,000. The phone call came from a local jail where Mair--who brushed off
Jonathan's warning as far-fetched--was desperately looking for someone to bail
her out. Jonathan didn't hesitate to fork out $4,200 to get his best friend
out of jail under the assumption she would pay him back upon her release.
Jonathan trusted that his rich friend would pay her debt, and she did. As soon as Mair was
released on bond, the supposed Irish heiress paid Jonathan back in full. From then on,
Jonathan's trust in Mair was firmly cemented in his psyche. At least until the trial.
Shining Armor After bailing Mair out of jail,
Jonathan felt like a "knight in shining armor." He felt determined to help his friend defeat
her snotty family and claim the 5 million euro inheritance that was rightfully hers.
But if victory was to be obtained, Jonathan had to help Mair win her trial.
Before any court dates were set, Mair jumped right back to normal life, moving into a new
$6,000 per month apartment building and restarting their fun-loving relationship.
Despite Mair's best efforts, life would not normalize itself so easily. The $6,000
per month apartment proved to be an irresponsible choice after all of Mair's
income stopped coming in. Nevertheless, the rent was due. And Jonathan—still
enveloped in his chivalrous mindset—was more than happy to lend Mair some rent money.
Shortly after the $6,000 loan, Mair came to Jonathan with a 5 figure request:
$54,000. Mair explained to Jonathan that she needed some money to pay her legal fees,
with most of the funds going towards hiring a top-notch attorney. Jonathan rode in on
his armored steed with $4,000 in cash and $50,000 worth of credit cards, saving the day yet again.
At this point, Jonathan found himself $60,000 deep. The plan was for Mair to pay Jonathan
back when she won her trial and became eligible for her inheritance. According
to texts and emails provided by Mair, the trial was going well... until Mair got arrested again.
Lies Continued Through tear-filled eyes,
Jonathan listened to Mair tell him why she was in jail. The judge presiding over Mair's
case found out she paid for her attorney's using Jonathan's money and sentenced her to
30 days in jail for money laundering. However, Jonathan lending money to Mair is not illegal,
nor is it money laundering. But Jonathan doesn't know that.
All Jonathan knows is he wants to visit his best friend. However, during their phone call,
Mair adamantly tells Jonathan not to visit her in jail. Her reason is embarrassment;
she doesn't want Jonathan to see her in jail.
Out of loving defiance, Jonathan decides to visit her two weeks into her sentence. When
Jonathan logs on to a city website to schedule a visit, he first has to find
and select which inmate he wants to see on a kiosk screen. He looks up her jail profile,
which includes basic information like her name, age, and criminal info.
Mair's crime should have been money laundering. Instead, Jonathan found himself reading the words'
grand theft felony.' Jonathan says he felt "heat rushing" over his body as he
realized his friend lied to him about the 30-day money laundering sentence.
Jonathan left the jailhouse and went into detective mode. The former TV reporter
sifted through case records and discovered that the $54,000 had paid for a different
kind of legal fee: a plea bargain for a 6-figure embezzlement. Mair had actually stolen $200,000
from the travel agency, and she pled guilty to it. Prosecutors negotiated a deal with Mair:
spend 30 days in jail, cough up some cash, and the state would forgive her.
In the plea bargain, Jonathan found that the $54k he loaned to Mair was
used as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors. He also learned that only
$40,000 was necessary to meet the bargain requirements.
Jonathan spent the rest of the day crying on his husband's shoulder. Once the shock wore off,
Jonathan knew the next step was to confront his Irish friend with the newly found truth.
Confrontation Jonathan picked up Mair
from jail on the day of her release. He pulled up in his car, pressed record on his phone,
and let his former friend into the passenger seat of his car. Their conversation began with
Jonathan revealing his newfound knowledge and Mair tearfully denying his accusations.
Investigation Though their friendship
ended, Jonathan's interest in exposing Mair lingered. He began an investigation,
starting with her social media. From there, Jonathan found other victims,
including his own landlord who told Jonathan that Mair was $12,000 behind on rent.
The landlord revealed Mair's excuses to dodge her payments,
like claiming she needed to pay for cancer treatment. As the investigation went on,
Jonathan noticed similar patterns involving cancer treatments and equally bizarre lies.
Up to that point, Jonathan's investigation was beginning to stagnate. Then,
he remembered he had access to Mair's AOL email account. Jonathan logged in
and jumped into the con artist rabbit hole that is Mair Smyth.
He discovered many of the email addresses she had shown him were fake,
including one Jonathan believed to belong to actress Ashley Judd. But, most importantly,
Jonathan found out how deep Mair's scheme ran.
Truths? Mair had
many aliases and hair colors to go with them. While scouring through social media, Jonathan
found Mair wearing various disguises, each one coinciding with a different name and story. He
also dug up evidence that Mair had been through several plastic surgeries to alter her appearance.
Jonathan uncovered 23 different email accounts--each belonging to a fake cousin, a fake
persona, and several fake celebrities like Ashely Judd. And through talking to other victims,
Jonathan learned how Mair used these personas to lie about being an heiress, a hockey player,
an Irish mobster, a cancer patient, and other fake identities that existed online and in person.
As for the Irish heiress story, Jonathan discovered Mair did indeed have Irish
ancestry and even lived there for a time with her stepfather. However,
her lineage was relatively normal; not a drop of royal blood to be seen.
Johnathon’s Revenge Even before Jonathan
made these surreal discoveries, the victim-turned-vigilante attempted
to charge Mair with grand theft using treachery as a means to commit the crime.
In January of 2019, 6 years after they met, Mair was found guilty of grand theft and sentenced to
5 years in jail. Jonathan had spent around $20,000 on private investigators and hours of his own time
gathering evidence to convict the person he loved like a sister. But he didn't stop there.
Despite his successful conviction of Mair, Jonathan is still pursuing extradition for a
mortgage scam she pulled in Ireland years ago. If Jonathan's extradition to Ireland succeeds,
Mair's time behind bars could be extended much longer than anyone expected.
Aftermath Jonathan is currently
producing a 6-part documentary detailing Mair's career as an international con artist. Initially,
Jonathan's doc was supposed to be a regular one part. After his investigation,
Jonathan unearthed 45 corroborating stories from other individuals who have been scammed by Mair.
The film will ideally tell the story of her victims to thousands or even millions
of people. Because of the film, Mair, or anyone like her, will face a more informed community.
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