SABRINA Taylor was jailed for defrauding more than $600,000 dollars from her friends by lying to them about her health.
She claimed to be living with multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition that affects the central nervous system, but this was eventually revealed to be an elaborate lie.
Sabrina spent much of the money she obtained through fraud on trips to TokyoGetty Images
Many of the people that Sabrina targeted were also interested in anime and Japanese cultureAFPSabrina’s scam
Not much is known about Sabrina’s early life, but her love of comic books, Japan and Japanese culture is well documented.
She would often travel to the country and stay with friends, before going on whirlwind shopping sprees through anime stores in Tokyo.
Sabrina told her friends that she was visiting them while on holiday from being a Master’s student at the University of Washington and also claimed to be working as a research assistant at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre.
Her life as a student meant that people believed her when she said that she was strapped for cash, having made the cross-continent journey from West Coast America.
Sabrina’s MS battle
Sabrina claimed to be living with MS and often used it as an excuse to get out of plans that she had made with friends.
Although this annoyed her friends, they trusted her enough to believe her when she said that days out to her favorite theme parks were less exhausting.
Sabrina’s lies began to become more elaborate, though, and she began to claim that she was running out of money because of then-President Donald Trump’s health policies.
With her friends now believing that she was struggling for money, Sabrina decided to add another layer to her scam.
She claimed that her bank account had been hacked and drained of more than $22,000, before uploading a video to social media where she said that the incident had caused her to become suicidal.
Wellwishers began to offer up money to support her and, soon, money began pouring into Sabrina’s account.
Sabrina’s insistence on more money made three of her friends in Japan suspicious, as they all realized that they had been lending her cash.
Sabrina enjoyed busy days out to Disneyland Tokyo, despite claiming to have MSAlarmyThe scam unravels
Eventually, her three friends, Kathryn, Ebony and Lauren decided to investigate their friend’s cash-flow problem.
Lauren logged onto Sabrina’s iPad, while Sabrina was visiting Universal Studios, and found that she didn’t have a work account set up on Slack despite her claim that she used it for her job.
Also, there were no emails in her inbox related to the University of Washington or to her cancer research work.
Lauren eventually uncovered that her friend had attended Seattle Central College and that she was on academic probation there.
Then, a search of Sabrina’s bag revealed that she didn’t carry any of the vital drugs needed to manage MS.
The three friends were torn between confronting Sabrina immediately or waiting until they returned to America.
Mid-flight, Ebony decided to expose Sabrina’s scam with a shocking post on Facebook.
She wrote: “I’m writing this because I believe in truth, integrity, and also because I cannot allow any more people to give money to a person who is lying,”
“I and others are attempting to notify any and all authorities so that she cannot continue these travesties against queer people, women, and people of color, the communities she claims to support but who she has primarily targeted.”
Lauren then met up with a friend of Sabrina’s, who had been scammed out of more than $40,000 and called an FBI hotline.
An investigation was launched which uncovered that Sabrina had only briefly been enrolled at the University of Washington, that she had never been employed in Washington State, and that she had never been diagnosed with MS.
It was also revealed that her scam had started before she arrived in Japan, as she had taken over $100,000 from an ex-partner before falsely accusing him of domestic assault.
Three years later, Sabrina was charged with wire fraud and jailed at the age of 41.
Love Cheats
The UK Channel 4 documentary series Love Cheats dives into Sabrina’s elaborate scam, which saw her defraud over $600,000.
The show examines fraud that takes place within relationships and has previously explored a fireman who was revealed to be, in fact, a conman and a man who claimed to be Lord Bertie Underwood.
The episode detailing Sabrina’s case is named The Comic Con, after her love of anime, and will air on October 28, 2024, at 10 pm UK time.