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
LOCAL NEWS: Facebook Scammer Fighting Extradition from Vegas Back to Ohio was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
