Two Men Facing Prison Time for Pretending to Represent Taylor Swift
An attorney in White Plains, N.Y. and another man are facing accusations that they pretended to represent Taylor Swift and then swindled $225,000 from a Los Angeles concert investor. The two men, attorney Emmanuel “Kojo” Bentil and Derrick “Suits” Robinson supposedly stole the money by ripping off Kachik Mouradian, the chief executive officer of Omega Alpha Enterprises, according to LoHud.com.
In order to pull off their scheme, the two men allegedly made up a concert in Phoenix, even providing Mouradian with false documents complete with a false signature from Central Entertainment Group (CEG Talent) CEO Michael Schweiger.
According to the Westchester County District Attorney’s office, the first document was an “artist offer letter” presented to the defendant in December of 2009. The second, presented just one month later in January of 2010, was a “performance agreement” providing that Swift would play a March 9, 2010 show in Phoenix for a fee of $500,000.
Meanwhile, Swift’s camp knew nothing about the false documents — and to top that off, CEG Talent doesn’t even represent her. When the show failed to happen, Mouradian confronted Bentil on the issue and received $150,000 of his investment back before pressing charges. Now, both men suspected of being involved in the scam are facing felony charges of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and second-degree grand larceny, which could mean up to 15 years in state prison.
Just this morning (March 22), Bentil was arraigned with a bail set at $100,000 and an order to appear in court again April 11. Robinson is free on a $5,000 bail, but is due in front of a judge on April 2.