Peaches Stergo (Photo from U.S. Justice Department)
A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to cheating an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor out of his more than $2.8 million life savings and his apartment to fund her life of luxury, Ritz Carlton vacations, a home in a gated community, and condo in a “sick and sad” romance scam, authorities said.
Peaches Stergo, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, a charge that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release on Friday. She must pay more than $2.83 million in restitution and forfeit the same amount, along with over 100 luxury items she bought with the proceeds from her fraud, including Rolex watches, designer purses and clothing, and large amounts of gold and jewelry, officials said. She’s set to be sentenced on July 27.
“Peaches Stergo stole the life savings from an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who was just looking for companionship,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “This conduct is sick – and sad. Using the millions in fraud proceeds, Stergo lived a life of luxury, purchasing a home in a gated community and a Corvette, taking vacations at hotels like the Ritz Carlton, and buying thousands in designer clothing while at the same time causing her elderly victim to lose his apartment.”
The scheme started when Stergo met the victim, who was not identified, on a dating website about six or seven years ago, authorities said.
In early 2017, she asked him if she could borrow money to pay her lawyer, who she claimed was refusing to release funds from an injury settlement, officials said.
The victim gave her the money, and she said the settlement funds had been deposited into her TD Bank account, but no such settlement existed, authorities said. And her TD Bank account was built off a fake email account, phony letters and made-up invoices, authorities said.
“Stergo created fake letters from a TD Bank employee, which falsely claimed her account had a hold which would only be lifted if many tens of thousands of dollars were deposited into her account,” the indictment said. “Stergo also created fake invoices for the victim to provide to his bank after the bank began questioning the large and repeated transfers of money to Stergo.”
Stergo repeatedly demanded money from the victim over the next four and a half years, claiming her accounts would be frozen and he would never be paid back if he did not deposit money into her accounts, authorities said.
According to the indictment, the victim wrote checks about once a month, often in increments of $50,000. Officials said the victim wrote 62 checks totaling over $2.8 million that were deposited into one of two accounts controlled by Stergo.
From the proceeds, she took expensive trips and spent tens of thousands of dollars on expensive meals, gold, jewelry and designer clothing from Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, and Hermes, authorities said.
Federal prosecutors claim that the hustle came crashing down in October 2021, when the survivor told his son that “over time, he had given his life savings” to Stergo.
“The victim’s son told his father that he had been scammed,” the indictment said. “After that, the victim stopped writing checks to Stergo.”
Law&Crime’s Adam Klasfeld contributed to this report.
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