Woman pleads guilty to bilking elderly Palatine man of almost $4.5 million

Aug. 04--A woman pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of fraud for bilking an elderly Palatine man out of nearly $4.5 million over a six-year period through an elaborate lottery scam.

Corrine Dziesiuta, 39, who said she lived in Costa Rica before her arrest, faces up to 61/2 years in prison after admitting to a charge of knowingly devising and participating in a scheme to defraud the 87-year-old man. She persuaded him to wire funds from his U.S. bank accounts to banking institutions in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, authorities have said.

"I did make a mistake," Dziesiuta, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, told U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin. "And I am guilty."

Durkin scheduled sentencing for October. Dziesiuta has been in custody since her arrest last October.

According to a criminal complaint, Dziesiuta first contacted the man, identified only as Victim A, in 2010. Dziesiuta, who went by the alias "Lisa Conti," told him he'd won millions of dollars in prize money but needed to pay "various insurance, taxes and other fees" to protect the money because it was located in a foreign country.

To keep the scam going, Dziesiuta sent a letter to the man in January 2015 purporting to be from a U.S. senator who provided assurances that the government was working to protect his interests, authorities said. The letter also stated the man was required by law to pay $386,000 to "re-register" an insurance policy meant to protect his net worth of $600 million, according to the complaint.

The complaint did not make clear when or how the FBI became aware of the scam, but between May and late September 2016, agents recorded 27 phone calls between the man and Dziesiuta.

During one conversation, the man was instructed to tell Dziesiuta his bank would no longer allow him to wire funds, according to the complaint. Dziesiuta tried to persuade the man to switch banks or go through an attorney to send the money, authorities said.

At the direction of agents, the man was instructed to tell Dziesiuta he was only willing to give her the money in person, according to the complaint. After a few months, Dziesiuta made arrangements to fly the man to New York so he could deliver a cashier's check for more than $3.7 million.

Dziesiuta bought the victim an airline ticket and told him she was going to put him up at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan in October, according to the complaint. She went to meet the victim at LaGuardia Airport, telling him she would wear a peach-colored dress so he could easily recognize her, authorities said.

Dziesiuta didn't realize the victim had been cooperating with the FBI for months. When her phone rang as she stood in the baggage claim area, an FBI agent called out her alias, "Lisa." When she turned around, the agent arrested her.

[email protected]

___

(c)2017 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.