Adult chatline girls who ‘conned lonely widowers out of £600,000 life savings’
A FAMILY of adult chatline workers have gone on trial accused of swindling more than £600,000 in life savings from a string of lonely widowers.
Michael Decelis, 40, his wife Cenzina, 42, and their daughter Mariella, 20, lined up in the dock alongside Cenzina’s sister, Palma Giove, 50.
The clan invented several sob stories about family tragedies or financial hardship to con callers to a premium-rate lonely-hearts line called Vicky’s Club, the jury was told.
Prosecutor Justin Widgoder said the women would tell widowers they had dreamt about their dead wives and pledged to be their ‘guardian angels’.
He told Nottingham Crown Court they also fabricated lies about having a daughter who was kidnapped and had died, to trick the vulnerable pensioners into lending them money. The defend- ants claim the callers knew that personas had been made up and said they were merely indulging in role play.
Donald Gardiner, 83, who has since died, cashed £30,000 of premium bonds and National Savings Certificates in a bid to help the family.
In a statement, Mr Gardiner, from Sheffield, had said he called the phoneline in 2012 – 11 months after the death of his wife – after receiving a flyer through his door. He added: ‘These women were totally real to me and I believed the details they gave to me were completely genuine. I became emotionally caught up in the women.
‘I have never asked them to act out a role as someone else as a fantasy.’
All of the defendants deny allegations of fraud. The trial continues.