Source: Newscast / Getty
CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) –
It looks like alleged Facebook scammer Zienup Sbeih-Maddox won’t be leaving Las Vegas.
At least not yet.
On Monday, the 24-year-old Cleveland woman told a Clark County, Nevada judge that she plans to fight extradition to Ohio, where she has been charged with multiple felonies.
Sbeih-Maddox was arrested by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on August 1, more than a year after the Cleveland Division of Police charged her with theft and telecommunication fraud and issued a warrant for her arrest. Her next court date in Nevada is scheduled for October 25.
Cleveland 19 Chief Investigator Carl Monday was first to expose Sbeih-Maddox in a hidden camera investigation in June 2017.
Sbeih-Maddox is accused of using Facebook to scam hundreds of people across the United States and Canada out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. She ran a Facebook group called “Zee’s Place,” where she sold everything from heavily discounted baby products to Disney vacations.
Many of the victims who belonged to the group say Sbeih-Maddox never delivered the goods they had purchased.
Investigators say Sbeih-Maddox pulled in over $200,000 as part of the scam. At the same time, she was living in public housing in Cleveland and paying less than $80 per month in rent.
Sbeih-Maddox is also accused of using money from her victims to fund a jet-set lifestyle.
According to sources close to the criminal investigation, Sbeih-Maddox visited Dubai, Italy and Mexico in early 2017, before a warrant was issued for her arrest. In addition to the international destinations, we’re told she also traveled within the United States, including a trip to the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida
The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Police Department also launched its own investigation into Sbeih-Maddox in 2017. On September 25, 2017, she was indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on felony charges of grand theft, theft and tampering with records related to housing and food stamp fraud.
A Cuyahoga County judge signed off on a second warrant for her arrest, this time through the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office.
It was the Cuyahoga County warrant that popped up when authorities in Las Vegas arrested Sbeih-Maddox last month.
READ MORE: Cleveland19.com
Article Courtesy of WOIO Cleveland 19 News
First Picture Courtesy of LOIC VENANCE and Getty Images
Second Picture Courtesy of Newscast and Getty Images
Facebook Scammer Fighting Extradition from Vegas Back to Ohio was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
