An impressive resume and flattering, edited photos led a Montgomery County man to a dating app meetup that scammed him for more than $400,000.
The 72-year-old woman behind the scam has a very small online footprint.
JaNay Sears, who also goes by JaNay St. Clair, has one LinkedIn account that shows her picture. Her account says she’s the CEO of a consulting firm called “H50 Media” in D.C.
It notes her attendance at prestigious prep school Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in the 1990s. At that time though, Sears would have been in her late thirties.
That’s followed by attendance at Boston University and a master’s degree from a Harvard University extension program. The credentials, not yet unverified by News4, likely impressed the then 50-year-old victim, who invited her to live with him in his home after their first meeting in 2019.
“You never know if a person is what they portray themselves to be,” Montgomery County State’s attorney John McCarthy said. “That certainly proved to be the case here.”
McCarthy described it not as a romantic relationship, but a situation where Sears eventually convinced the man, a federal government employee, to let her invest his money with promise of big returns.
“She saw that she had a mark,” McCarthy said. “She had somebody she could take advantage of and claiming she was gonna send the money to Goldman Sachs to invest it in Pfizer stocks.”
Instead of investing the money, prosecutors said Sears spent it. Financial forensic investigators found she dropped more than $100,000 at casinos, including MGM and Maryland Live. They also showed jurors how Sears bought herself a 2022 Alfa Romeo Giulia for $55,000.
The jury deliberated 75 minutes before convicting her. At her sentencing in August, Sears faces a maximum penalty of more than two decades in prison.
News4 is attempting to locate her attorney for comment.
