A 48-year-old woman who pretended to be the twin daughters of American-born English poet T.S. Eliot was jailed for seven years for tax fraud, a media report said on Friday.
Alison Reynolds, a con artist was jailed on Thursday for VAT frauds totalling £120,000, the Daily Express reported. She pretended to be both Claire and Chess Eliot, who she insisted were the twin daughters of the poet. In fact the poet never had any children, the Exp-ress said. She used wigs, stage make-up and a variety of costumes to portray herself as at least 32 different people via a string of fake companies, including one theatre firm aptly named Myths And Mirrors. Rey-nolds posed as a producer and director and falsely claimed VAT credits in the name of bogus dramatic companies. She even wrote a “to do” list of the VAT frauds she was planning.
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Galliano sues lawyer over fraud
Paris: Fashion designer John Galliano, facing trial for a drunken anti-Semitic rant, is suing his former lawyers for embezzlement and is being counter-sued for defamation, the two sides’ legal teams said on Friday.
“John Galliano brought a complaint on April 13 for aggravated breach of trust against his former legal counsel” Stephane Zerbib, Galliano’s lawyer Aurelien Hamelle said. Galliano, 50, the former chief designer at the Dior label, accuses Zerbib of embezzling nearly $4.4 million from his own account and one of his companies, a source close to the case said. Zerbib’s own lawyer Emma Lapijower told AFP meanwhile that Zerbib plans to sue Galliano in turn for defamation over the allegation. Galliano formerly hired Zerbib to run a company managing the rights to the designer’s image and gave him control of his accounts, Europe 1 radio reported. —AFP