Woman pleads guilty to fraud and theft spree
Audrey Annette Bishop pretended to have cancer so people would give her money.
She stole a tandem bicycle from a visually impaired boy knowing it had been purchased for him by service clubs in Amherstburg.
She bilked a recent widow out of more than $90,000, alienating the woman from family and friends by convincing her she was being watched by mobsters and that her life was in danger.
With several of her victims looking on in a Windsor court Thursday, Bishop, 53, pleaded guilty to 31 counts of fraud, theft and forgery. As part of a plea bargain that avoids what would have been a lengthy trial, the Crown and defence will recommend a sentence of three years in a federal penitentiary when Bishop returns to court for sentencing early next year.
Court heard Bishop’s lies were as varied as the victims she bilked. She would pass bad cheques or borrow money and never repay it. She shamelessly signed promissory notes with no intention of honouring them and would steal money from one friend to ingratiate herself with another.
She ran a thrift shop called Audrey’s Attic on Concession 4 North in Amherstburg. While most of her schemes involved befriending people and then defrauding them, the business gave her the opportunity to swindle money out of people she didn’t have to get to know.
Clients would bring Bishop items to sell on consignment. Bishop would sell the items, but never turn over the proceeds.
The business was in a barn, owned by a woman Bishop had befriended. Bishop convinced the woman to lease the building to her, but never paid the agreedupon rent.
Bishop noticed her landlord had a nice, new tandem bike. The woman told Bishop the Kinsmen Club and other service clubs in Amherstburg had donated the $2,500 bike to her son who was visually impaired. When the woman noticed the bike missing one day, she confronted Bishop.
“Don’t be mad at me,” Bishop began, telling the woman she had lent it to a friend who also had a son who was blind. In reality, Bishop had sold the bike for $300.
Police tracked down the appalled owner who returned the bike without ever getting his money back.
Bishop befriended a student struggling to pay her tuition at Wayne State University in Michigan. Bishop concocted a private lender who would pay the $10,000 bill up front. The thankful student had paid back $2,750 of the loan before learning her tuition hadn’t really been paid at all.
Bishop would offer to buy vehicles from friends. In one case, she stole the ownership, but usually they would simply trust her to take the vehicles on a promise to pay at a later date.
Bishop sold a Corvette, a pickup truck and a trailer without repaying their owners.
Perhaps the most sinister of Bishop’s crimes involved the manipulation of a vulnerable widow, Joann Cazabon-Hicks. Bishop, posing as someone herself grieving the loss of her longtime boyfriend, would visit Cazabon-Hicks daily, bringing her a coffee and offering a shoulder to cry on.
Bishop introduced CazabonHicks to a man named Ken Dupont, the best friend to Bishop’s fictitious dead boyfriend. The widow never met Dupont in person, but the two would exchange emails regularly. A year into the relationship, Dupont revealed that he was a mobster and the widow, by virtue of knowing that, was involved now, too.
Bishop, posing as the Dupont character, convinced CazabonHicks that she was being watched. Dupont knew details of her life she hadn’t shared, so Cazabon-Hicks believed the scenario. She estranged herself from her daughter and grandchild for a year because she was afraid someone would hurt them. On Dupont’s instructions, she went to Mexico for four months, during which time Bishop tried to sell Cazabon-Hicks’s home and other assets.
Cazabon-Hicks, in court Thursday with a friend, a court support worker and a civil lawyer, said she is still recovering from the mental anguish Bishop inflicted on her.
She said she’ll have more to say when she delivers her victim impact statement at Bishop’s sentencing hearing.
Before coming to Amherstburg, Bishop lived in Nova Scotia, where she told people she had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In February 2011, members of the Pugwash Chamber of Commerce gave her two cheques totalling nearly $5,000 to help her fight the cancer she feigned.
Bishop fled the jurisdiction, but the Nova Scotia charges caught up with her and were rolled into her guilty plea Thursday.
Appearing in court in jeans and sandals, Bishop spoke softly as she entered a guilty pleas.
Before taking a seat beside defence lawyer Daniel Topp, Bishop sat in the front row of the public gallery with a caseworker from the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Assistant Crown attorney Bryan Pillon said Bishop is the subject of an arrest warrant out of Montana.
Outside the courthouse Thursday, Topp said he felt badly for Bishop’s victims. He said he expects Ontario court Justice Lloyd Dean will order Bishop to pay back the $150,000 to 15 known victims.
“She has pleaded guilty, most importantly. This will bring some closure to them.”