A former true crime television producer who pretended to be an aerospace heiress to scam banks out of $30 million has been added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Mary Carole McDonnell, 73, is wanted for the massive fraud scheme in Southern California, according to the FBI’s press release. She’s believed to be hiding in Dubai.
McDonnell previously ran the now-defunct Bellum Entertainment, a production company behind TV shows such as “It Takes a Killer” and “I Married a Murderer.” But the company ran into financial trouble in 2017, leading McDonnell to take drastic and illegal measures, according to the feds.
From July 2017 through May 2018, McDonnell fraudulently obtained $14.7 million in loans from Banc of California, the FBI said.
To convince the bank to lend her money, McDonnell posed as an heiress to McDonnell Douglas, an airplane manufacturing company and defense contractor, according to the feds. The company was purchased by Boeing for $13 billion in 1997.
McDonnell also went to other financial institutions and bilked them for more than $15 million with the same scheme, the FBI said. She claimed to have access to a secret $80 million trust account, which did not exist, investigators said.
An arrest warrant for McDonnell was first issued in December 2018, from a federal court in Orange County, Calif. She was indicted on charges of bank fraud and identity theft, but she has not been seen since. The FBI added her to the Most Wanted list on Dec. 5.
Prior to the fraud and her disappearance, Bellum Entertainment was sued by multiple parties. One lawsuit said Bellum bailed on multimillion-dollar contracts, while others accused the company of not paying its employees. In November 2017, McDonnell’s nephew told Deadline even he was owed $10,000 for work done at his aunt’s company.
