![]() ![]() The shady, audacious figures at its center exist on a spectrum, from folk hero to disgrace. Grifter season comes irregularly, but it comes often in America, which is built around mythologies of profit and reinvention and spectacular ascent. And Jill Stein, we learned, was doing exactly what we expected her to do with the seven million dollars that she raised for an election recount: spending the money, largely in secret, without any recount having ever taken place. A Colombian man pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft after successfully pretending to be a Saudi prince for the past three decades. Mace-Archer-Mills, Esq., a frequent media commentator on the British monarchy, was revealed to be some guy from Albany named Tommy Muscatello, who had learned his British accent in a high-school production of “Oliver.” A twenty-five-year-old was accused of posing as an aristocrat explorer and scamming luxury tourists out of nearly seven hundred thousand dollars. (The company raised nearly a billion dollars from venture capitalists and private investors before Holmes was accused of fraud she recently reached a settlement with the S.E.C., which required her to pay a fine and relinquish control of the company, among other penalties.) Elsewhere, Thomas J. ![]() (Delvey is currently on Rikers Island, awaiting trial on charges of grand larceny and attempted grand larceny.) Elizabeth Holmes returned, too, in the pages of John Carreyrou’s new book, “ Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup,” which tells the story of Theranos, Holmes’s biotech company, which boasted of a miraculous blood-test technology that lived only in its founder’s imagination. Anna Delvey, the young woman with messy hair and a vague European accent who allegedly convinced the superficial people and institutions of New York City night life that she was a millionaire heiress, was back in the public eye, thanks to an instant-classic New York feature by Jessica Pressler. This year, the last week in May marked the beginning of grifter season: the wind changed, the pressure dropped, and the scent of scamming was suddenly everywhere in the air. Photograph by Matteo Prandoni / BFA / Shutterstock Anna Delvey has been celebrated as a sort of Bling Ring icon, throwing a spotlight on people who seem to have more money than substance. ![]()
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