Wonderbra conwoman spared jail
... after using a new alias to woo ‘sugar daddy’ aged 83
A ConWoMAn who once posed as a Wonderbra model to swindle wealthy men used a new identity to accept £70,000 in gifts and cash from a tycoon.
Tanya Rowe, 42, told her 83year-old ‘sugar daddy’ she was Mia Cavalli, a manager for Cartier jewellers.
In reality, she was a serial con artist who had been jailed for five years for using another alias, Ryley Cruz, to trick victims out of £61,000.
Her latest crime saw her given a suspended jail sentence following a trial at Chester Crown Court.
Rowe, who was charged under her Mia Cavalli alias, was cleared of defrauding the tycoon.
But she admitted taking money and gifts from him and pleaded guilty to a separate charge of using faked Cartier payslips that enabled her to rent a £250,000 apartment. Appearing
by video link from her bedroom, she said she had mental health issues and was too ill to attend court. Rowe had met the businessman in Chester in September
2019 after winning early release from the prison sentence imposed three years earlier. Prosecutors say she told him she had breast cancer, had not been paid by Cartier and was facing eviction.
He gave her £2,200 for rent, followed by smaller payments of £200-£400 for ‘expenses’, then a further £28,000 the following January. He also bought her a £7,850 Rolex watch and paid £13,000 to buy a car for her son Charlie Smith, 24.
In his testimony the tycoon, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, insisted the money was a loan and would be paid back with interest.
He believed Rowe was selling a £3.8million house, which the chef Heston Blumenthal was interested in purchasing.
When asked about their relationship, he insisted it was ‘100 per cent not physical’ and denied she had told him she was a sexual escort.
But he said when they met up one evening she was halfnaked, jumped into his arms
‘Faked Cartier payslips’
and they ended up on the couch for ‘a fumble’.
Rowe insisted the money was given voluntarily in a ‘sugar daddy sexual relationship’ and he started paying her £300 for sex. She and her son, who lives in Windsor, were acquitted of fraud over the car.
A jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether she had defrauded the businessman out of money by falsely claiming to work for Cartier and to have had breast cancer.
Rowe, who grew up on a council estate in Tottenham, north London, wept on Monday as she was sentenced to 15 months in jail, suspended for 18 months, and told to complete 20 days of rehabilitation activity.
During her previous threeyear fraud spree, Rowe posed variously as an Italian heiress waiting to inherit £30million, a leading barrister, an interior design guru, a Wonderbra model and a terminally ill cancer sufferer. She also claimed to bank with Coutts.