Like\u00a0tens of thousands of other Americans<\/a>\u00a0who engage in online dating, Johnson said she was scammed. She warned her daughter and shared her story through local media appearances.<\/p>\n Brian Brainard Wedgeworth, 46, swindled Johnson of thousands of dollars in 2017, federal prosecutors said. A grand jury\u00a0indicted<\/a>\u00a0him in October, and he was arrested in Nashville shortly afterward.<\/p>\n Wedgeworth, who prosecutors said is known by at least 13 aliases and has remained in federal custody, is expected to plead guilty Thursday morning in federal court in Tallahassee. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud and mail fraud as well as 10 years for money laundering. Prosecutors believe that he scammed at least 21 women across eight states and amassed over $750,000 through years of schemes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear whether Wedgeworth would be able to reimburse any of his accusers from the money prosecutors say he stole from them, if the judge orders restitution in the case.<\/p>\n Prosecutors said his ex-wife lives in Tallahassee, but Wedgeworth has no home of his own. \u201cWhen he is not in prison, the defendant typically lives with the women he victimizes,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Keen wrote to the judge. The judge agreed with prosecutors that Wedgeworth was so dishonest he couldn\u2019t be trusted to remain free between his arrest and trial.<\/p>\n Johnson and the women represented in Wedgeworth\u2019s indictment \u2013 most were not identified by name, and a few identified only by initials \u2013 say the Alabama-born romance scammer made them believe he was a single surgeon looking to settle down.<\/p>\n Romance scams typically take place over online dating platforms and involve one party feigning romantic interest to earn another\u2019s trust and access their finances. They have grown more common and costly. The FBI\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0monetary losses in romance scams amounted to more than $1 billion last year.<\/p>\n This reporting is based on a five-month investigation of Wedgeworth and the case against him,\u00a0 including a review of records in his federal court case and more than 400 pages of police reports and court documents from states outside Florida where he has been accused \u2013 and in some cases convicted \u2013 of similar conduct.<\/p>\n It is also based on interviews with Wedgeworth\u2019s sister, Juanicca Wedgeworth, and Johnson\u2019s oldest daughter, Tiffany Maximin, as well as excerpts from Johnson\u2019s social media posts and podcast interviews. Johnson died one month before Wedgeworth\u2019s indictment, but she spoke in 2017 to a Jacksonville television news station about her encounter with Wedgeworth.<\/p>\n Romance fraud has proliferated alongside a steady incline in usership of online dating platforms. More users means more prospective victims.<\/p>\n Wedgeworth has earned the moniker the \u201cCasanova Scammer\u201d over accusations that he made a career of targeting women in search of romance. The indictment said he impersonated a wealthy doctor and surgeon. He has pleaded guilty to similar charges before, including to dozens of counts of fraud and forgery in Georgia and Alabama. When he was arrested in Tennessee last year, he was also wanted by law enforcement in Ohio and Alabama, court records showed.<\/p>\n Wedgeworth declined through his lawyer, Joseph DeBelder, to discuss the case against him.\u00a0 \u201cWedgeworth will not be speaking to any media under the advice of his counsel,\u201d said DeBelder, Wedgeworth\u2019s public defender.<\/p>\n Outside the federal case, at least seven women in five counties primarily across the Southeast have filed police reports against Wedgeworth for fraud.\u00a0Online<\/a>\u00a0forums<\/a>\u00a0have sprung up to connect his possible victims. And, like Johnson, some have devoted hours to launching amateur investigations into his whereabouts before he was arrested in Tennessee.<\/p>\n Johnson scoured through social media and appeared on television, but she never managed to track down Wedgeworth after he vanished from her life. She never knew she had a chance at redemption, either.<\/p>\n Johnson died one month before Wedgeworth was charged, but her story is almost certain to play a role in determining the outcome of the federal case in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n Trapping Tekesia Johnson<\/b><\/p>\n Johnson thought she had her trajectory mapped out.<\/p>\n She had been comfortable around hair since she was a teenager, cutting and braiding for friends and family when they couldn\u2019t afford salons. She knew the importance of image.<\/p>\n When her mother, Jacqueline Brown, suffered kidney failure, Johnson watched as she lost not only her hair but her confidence. Johnson searched for treatments and styles to counteract Brown\u2019s hair loss, to help her regain control. Some methods showed results that encouraged both mother and daughter. Then Brown passed away in 2016.<\/p>\n Johnson lost her biggest supporter, but she gained the inspiration to make a leap. She left her career as a medical coder to open a salon and spa in Jacksonville: Perfected Creations. She wanted to help others find and boost their confidence, like she had done for her mother in her final moments.<\/p>\n The business plan signified a new chapter in Johnson\u2019s life and made her excited for the future. One piece missing was a partner.<\/p>\n Johnson created a Plenty of Fish account to start dating. The platform is reputable and free to use. She began messaging a man who identified himself as Brian L. Adams in May 2017. Adams told her he was a thoracic surgeon. He seemed educated, passionate and cautious. He asked Johnson to FaceTime him to confirm her identity. That made her feel safe \u2013 she could trust him. But at some point he questioned Johnson about her financial status. That was a red flag for Johnson.<\/p>\n She told Adams she was broke. If he were a scammer, she thought that surely he would lose interest.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Adams said he was searching for someone to settle down with and marry. He told Johnson he needed his future wife to be financially stable, so he offered to support her by paying off her debts. The gesture signaled to Johnson that he saw a future for the two of them. Adams sent her more than $20,000 for her mortgage within a few days of their fledgling relationship.<\/p>\n Johnson was 46, a single mother of two and had just endured a loss. Despite her suspicions about Adams\u2019 generosity, she gave him a chance. After all, she was looking to settle down, too. Then he asked her for a favor.<\/p>\n He requested that Johnson deposit money into separate bank accounts in exchange for paying off her credit card balance and mortgage. He also asked Johnson for a Rolex watch. If she could finance it, he told her, he would pay her back. That way the purchase could help her build credit. On paper it would only stand to benefit her. He framed it as another act of generosity.<\/p>\n Skeptical, Johnson didn\u2019t feel comfortable financing a Rolex. But she still held some faith in him. She spent $3,000 on two lesser-brand Movado watches. Adams met Johnson at Jacksonville\u2019s St. Johns Town Center Mall to pick up the watches she purchased.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when her fears were realized. Johnson received word from her bank that Adams\u2019 attempts to pay off her bills had bounced due to non-sufficient funds. She Googled him. A thorough search yielded Adams\u2019 mugshots under the name Brian Wedgeworth.<\/p>\n Wedgeworth had been jailed in DeKalb County, Georgia, for similar instances of fraud. In June 2014, three years before he met Johnson, Wedgeworth pleaded guilty to forgery in the first and third degree, identity fraud and driving with a suspended license.<\/p>\n Embarrassed, Johnson blamed herself.<\/p>\n Her bank prevented the fraudulent payments from processing, but she never got back the $3,000 she spent on watches. The cost of the watches set Johnson behind on paying her bills and pushed back her business plans by months.<\/p>\n She shared her story with her then 25-year-old daughter, Tiffany Maximin, as a cautionary tale. Johnson did what she could to warn others. She appeared on\u00a0local TV news<\/a>\u00a0and shared her story across her social media; she knew just how easy it was to lose big. Yet despite her best efforts, other victims followed.<\/p>\n The tactics that Johnson said Wedgeworth used against her are not unique \u2013 but they can be effective.<\/p>\n He used at least 13 aliases, most a variation of his own name: Brian Mims, Brian Adams, Brian Anderson, Brian Edmonds, Brian Ammerson. He claimed to be affiliated with at least eight different reputable hospitals. His scams have reportedly taken place over at least 10 dating platforms and roped in nine banks through false checks and wire transfers, according to court records.<\/p>\n Successful scams are built on trust and deceit. Prosecutors said Wedgeworth garnered trust by meeting women in person, offering to pay off their debts and even sending fake\u00a0digital<\/a>\u00a0presentations<\/a>\u00a0in an attempt to authenticate his doctor or surgeon persona.<\/p>\n His actions are similar to those of other high profile and international scammers.<\/p>\n Shimon Heyada Hayut, who called himself Simon Leviev on Tinder and was the subject of the \u201cTinder Swindler\u201d documentary released on Netflix in February, had a similar strategy.<\/p>\n Hayut, like Wedgeworth, operated primarily on Match Group platforms. He made extravagant financial gestures in order to solicit future funds as favors. He had a website fraudulently linking him to a diamond tycoon and traveled across countries to visit his victims in person and authenticate his simulated identity.<\/p>\n Hayut is accused of scamming several women across Europe for approximately $10 million in just two years. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison in Israel. He only served five months.<\/p>\n Wedgeworth\u2019s indictment said he devised his defrauding scheme from October 2016 through March 2021. Crime and arrest reports from 10 law enforcement agencies show that Wedgeworth began scamming over two decades ago.<\/p>\n At least seven women have filed complaints against him.<\/p>\n His alleged victims were reluctant to share their stories, but their narratives were outlined in police reports. They offer insight into what prosecutors described as Wedgeworth\u2019s target demographic, his use of defrauded funds and his strategy for scamming.<\/p>\n All seven were Black women between the ages of 31 and 43 and lived in middle class households, averaging an annual income between $40,000 and $126,000.<\/p>\n Rather than pose as an entirely different person and target people over 60, Wedgeworth\u2019s accusers said he targeted women within his age group and used his own likeness. He never hid his face or his voice, only his intentions.<\/p>\n Apart from the checks and wire transfers, his indictment said that Wedgeworth defrauded his victims of luxury goods like Rolex watches and a 2018 Sugar Bowl ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a victim of identity fraud, and the man who stole my identity is a scammer who called fraud \u2018the best job in the world,\u2019\u201d said Francesca Gervascio-Franzen, an administrator of the Beware Romance Scammers Facebook group. \u201cHe received a sentence of 14 years because his prosecutors were convinced he would go right back to doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n Gervascio-Franzen has communicated with hundreds of scam victims through the Facebook group in the past year. The page has over 8,500 members and thousands of posts outing scammers. She advises all the group members to report their fraudsters to local and federal law enforcement and guides others through the process. But she said most scammers never get caught.<\/p>\n Romance scamming is becoming a more popular crime. Likelihood of conviction is usually low and the possible profits only grow higher the more people flock to digital dating.<\/p>\n Match Group reported a 25% increase in total revenue from 2020 to 2021 in its\u00a0annual SEC filings<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 an even larger increase than the 17% jump from 2019 to 2020. As revenue\u00a0increases each year<\/a>\u00a0by the millions, so does the number of members and, in turn, the likelihood of scams.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci5.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/YPHYpPwF8aji118UkCSt8I_tgE_GMpTzEBrIu2tpoC7WjUXiXZ9PIoguaPcs6nMbnEgPoZUMi0pvjEO9S35EZFzTCnJDOOSo2i_fBVcy6z1I=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/www.wuft.org\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Wedgeworth-238x300.jpg\")
Wedgeworth never hid his true appearance when communicating with his alleged victims. He sent these images to Johnson as a way to authenticate his identity, and she said he even asked that she FaceTime him to ensure that she was not a scammer.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci4.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/bCQJIw1gEHb-zOX5DvFecDLEpJ459PeOa3pqt2zYMRP3LI3pvSneY8-NlFQIo2HZYB6v_1LWJuWOsGWDVm-XP_BROsxzKdCuhAJpgp-MQUZdVLQNBQ=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/www.wuft.org\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/textwedgeworth-169x300.jpg\")
Wedgeworth\u2019s alleged victims, including Tekesia Johnson, say he worked to ensure that his suitors trusted him before advancing with financial requests. Conversations between Wedgeworth and Johnson are pictured in these screenshots. She provided the images to Tenikka Hughes at Action News Jacksonville before Johnson passed away.<\/p>\nAnatomy of the scam<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/wZLzqxXRKMUtUvcl1K4vJp9ndK8MCMtLYe6vTb7bNT7JDgKW5KU6y9JNxpUBP6hVggDvJMXxRXcQWRuamgDUwm1ArdLke4lZfsQUx3hsluPkmXV_UrFwNKib1_ChhB_UiFO2r607Zg=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/www.wuft.org\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/One-of-his-fake-presentations-March-2017.png\")
Prosecutors say Wedgeworth posed as a wealthy, single surgeon to build trust with his scam victims. These presentations, published on Issuu, claim he is a Harvard University Ph.D. qualified biochemist. They were published in 2017, the same year Johnson met Wedgeworth as Brian L. Adams before she discovered his true identity and shared her story to local news stations.<\/p>\n