A Toronto man whose exploits were exposed in a Citytv documentary was sentenced to almost six years in jail for his role in romance-type scams that bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting victims.
Steve Coelho pleaded guilty last summer to three counts of fraud over five thousand dollars and several other offences for crimes that the judge in the case called “despicable.”
In the most recent case, Coelho admitted to duping three victims out of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a year. He used a variety of aliases in person and online, including Nicolas Mogilaivich, the supposed billionaire son of a Russian mobster, and others.
“There was Terry, his brother, Anna, his twin sister. There was Alex, the head of Annonymous. El Jeffe, the head of the Colombian cartel,” said one of Coelho’s victims, Jennifer, who spoke to Citytv for the documentary.
Jennifer believed she was legally married to this man, going so far as to move her ailing father from Nova Scotia to Ontario, to complete her picture-perfect family. It was a move that would eventually lead to her father selling his home and declaring bankruptcy, after Coelho raced up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debut in his name before emptying his bank accounts.
Coelho also drained tens of thousands of dollars from Jennifer’s savings and those of neighbour.
The Citytv investigation learned Coelho would use similar tactics repeatedly, telling victims he would pay for their vehicles but putting loans in their names, often with false information.
In court, prosecutors pointed out that Coelho already had four convictions for fraud, part of a lengthy criminal record.
None of his victims appeared in court on Wednesday.
Years of pre-sentencing custody and the deplorable conditions at Maplehurst Correctional Complex have reduced Coelho’s incarceration to six months.
The court also ordered Coelho to reimburse his victims approximately $270,000 over the course of the next 12 years.
