Richard Jerome posed as an international financier with a personal fortune of more than £500m and made large cash offers for a series of houses in the South of England even though he had only just been released from jail for an identical series of frauds in which he targeted rich professional single women.
He and his teacher wife, Hazel, went round Devon, Cornwall and the East Midlands pretending to be super rich ex-pats who had just come back from tax exile in the Caribbean and were searching for their ideal retirement home.
He told his victims he was an international banker who acted as consultant to the relief charity Unesco.
In truth Jerome was a mini-cab driver with less than £200 to his name
He had previously served a 15- month sentence for fleecing an accountant out of $100k, however within less than a week of release – the con man had already created a new false identity to commit similar crimes.
Jerome used a string of aliases to go on upper-crust dating websites to target professional women, telling them he was a multi-millionaire with business interests around the globe and an annual income of £1m.
In one case, the fraudster made an offer of £310k, and then blamed delays on his serious illness and his need for recuperation.
In another case, the jury heard how the couple allegedly used a false surname, Ausson, to broker a cash deal for a £750k cliff top property in Sidmouth, Devon, with sea views.
Jerome, 66, and ex- wife Hazel, aged 62, are both accused of making false representations that they had the funds to purchase Valhalla, in West Looe Hill, Looe, and Gazebo, in Peak Hill Road, Sidmouth, Ambleside House and Badby Lodge Farm, both near Daventry, Northamptonshire, between 2009 and 2011.
Jerome also faces three charges of obtaining more than £1k worth of surveys on the properties by deception and the $100k fraud against London based accountant Lalita Lalvani in 2011.
All his property deals fell through when estate agents learned his true identity and found newspaper cuttings dating back to his previous conviction in Huntingdon Crown Court in 2009.
Judge Erik Salomonsen said:
“He knows he is facing a long prison sentence."
Adding:
"You know the score. You are a confidence trickster. You are a menace. You were a menace when you were convicted before and you continue to be a menace.”
The couple are expected to be sentenced in three weeks.
