Adele Ferguson - Another year end offering, some Ripoffs & Rotters

OK, it’s time for my end of the year list of Ripoffs and Rotters.

I usually have enough to make a couple of columns, the world being full of folks who are ripping somebody off and got caught at it or are just plain rotten to the core, but I lost my file in June so have to rely on what I’ve clipped since.

SEATTLE—A Capitol Hill woman who worked as a dog walker and house sitter until her arrest last year for stealing jewelry and credit cards from her clients was sentenced in King County Superior Court to 22 months in prison.

Mary Chodl 64, was accused of the theft of a $55.,000 wedding ring, a gold watch and other jewelry from a Medina home.

She sold the jewelry to a Redmond pawnshop for $1,500.

She used credit cards belonging to another woman for whom she house sat for purchases at a jewelry store, a pharmacy and a gas station.

Her criminal history dates back to 1978 when she was convicted of grand theft and employee embezzlement in California, plus a bank robbery in 1985.

Her FBI record shows more than a dozen aliases.

She blamed “mental problems.”

SPOKANE—An 82-year old Spokane woman was bilked out of more than $17,000 of her savings in October by swindlers who persuaded her to wire them money, purportedly to bail her grandson out of trouble with the law in Canada.

She got a phone call one evening from someone who sounded like her grandson who lives in Montana.

The caller said he was on a fishing trip in Canada and had picked up two hitchhikers.

That police pulled them over and found cocaine on the two men.

The caller said he was in jail and needed bail.

A bogus cop came on the line and told Alexander to wire $3,000 to Manchester, England.

The “grandson” called again for money to get his car out of impoundment.

then to pay a lawyer, until Alexander had sent him checks totaling $17,807.

She finally called police and learned she was one of five such cases this year since spring in Spokane alone.

She said she felt “stupid” but was just trying to help.

BELLINGHAM—A woman who put a chemical cleaner in two malts at the Ferndale Dairy Queen pleaded guilty to second degree assault. Alexandra M. Dale, 43, Ferndale. was sentenced in Whatcom County Superior Court to 14 months in prison. Two men who bought malts in February suffered chemical burns and one man was hospitalized for two days with ulcers on his esophagus. A surveillance video showed Dale added deep fat fryer cleaner to the malt dispenser. A deputy prosecutor said the woman had applied for a different job with the company and thought she had been given short shrift.

SEATTLE —The owner of a local chain of popular Thai restaurants pleaded not guilty to charges of paying employees thousands of dollars to enter into “sham marriages” with her relatives from Thailand so they could stay in the U.S. Varee Bradford, 43, who operates five Thai Ginger restaurants in Seattle and the Eastside, was released pending trial in U.S. District Court. She was arrested at her Issaquah home after a grand jury indictment was unsealed, charging her with four counts, including immigration document fraud and conspiracy to commit immigration fraud.

The charges carry a potential prison sentence of 35 years, prosecutors said.

She had been under investigation for three years after US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement received a tip about her activities.

She was arrested after arranging a sham marriage with a man who turned out to be an undercover immigration agent.

Her husband, co-owner of the restaurants, declined comment.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98349.)