CRUEL TRICKSTER | Fraudster cons Eastenders actress out of fortune by pretending to film Hilary Clinton TV show
A FRAUDSTER was warned she faces jail after scamming a pal out of a fortune by pretending to make a TV show about Hillary Clinton.
Anne Leuser, 63, convinced Eastenders actress Helena Breck that she was jetting to the US to follow the presidential hopeful for a documentary.
She claimed she needed cash to cover meetings with TV bosses, travel and to pay her rent on a flat in London.
In reality she was jobless and living off benefits in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire – while Beeb managers and Clinton’s team later revealed they had never heard of her.
But Helena, 70, believed the fantasies and reckoned she handed over £120,000 to her former friend over six years.
Jurors took about an hour to find her guilty of fraud at Peterhead Sheriff Court.
Beak Craig Findlater released her on bail ahead of sentencing next month, but told her: “You have been convicted of what is a serious offence.
“Whilst all sentencing options are open custody is very much at the forefront of the court’s thinking.”
Helena appeared on the hit telly soap as the wife of evil rapist James Wilmott-Brown and was also the voice of self-service checkouts at Tesco.
She revealed Leuser was once her agent and the pair had been friends for almost 30 years.
Giving evidence Helena said: “Anne was always full of ideas and they were good.
“She would come up with the idea and I would write up the synopsis.
“We both had contacts in the TV industry. She would tell me of people she knew and when I went along to meetings with them, I thought ‘God, you do know this person.”
The court was told that between 2011 and 2017 Helena sent regular payments of almost £1,000 to her friend.
This was to cover rent on a flat in London that didn’t exist as well as trips to the states.
Prosecutors revealed payments for shopping at Morison’s in Peterhead were made while Leuser claimed she was in America filming Clinton.
The Press and Journal revealed Breck broke down as she gave evidence and told how she had to leave her father’s deathbed to send cash to her friend after another desperate plea.
She said: “I never doubted Anne.
“So much of what she said was true, about knowing this or that person. I had met some of them with her.
“I feel like an idiot now. The fact that this was a friend for 27 years. I even got her to read at my dad’s funeral. It has been devastating.”
Prosecutor Ruraidh Mcallister blasted Leuser over the scam.
He said: “Anne Leuser continually lied to her friend. She lied and she fabricated.
“She took things with a little hint of believability and exaggerated them to make her good friend think she was in dire financial need.
“She fabricated a whole web of lies. She lied about what country she was in. She fabricated meetings with TV commissioners in Glasgow.
“The scheme crumbles and reality bites. There isn’t a spin you can put on this.
“Anne Leuser is a cynical fraudster. A person who takes advantage of a caring friend.”
The callous plot fell apart in 2017 when Leuser was jailed for duping filmmakers into believing she could get them access to Clinton’s campaign.
She was locked up for 44 months for trying to scam the crew out of £120,000.
She even paid someone £5,000 to pretend they were Clinton’s director of communications Jennifer Palmieri.
Helena called in cops when she suddenly realised she had been conned.
Leuser denied any wrongdoing but was found guilty of fraud after a four day trial.
She’ll be sentenced next month.
