I was the victim of a multi-year scam that resulted in ongoing harassment, terrorizing, and a suicide attempt. This was a deliberate scam. She lied from the very beginning about her real name, her photos, where she lived and her entire life history. The scam also involved multiple characters.
Central to this scam were three people (all fictitious identities) : 1) Karen Faye Pratt (KFP), 2) Ai Tominaga, and 3) Lynn Motley. When a friend of mine recently discovered the photos that Karen had sent me of herself years ago, she did a "google reverse image" search and found out that the photos were of this famous NYC model named Sara Ziff. Not only did my friend discover that "Karen Faye Pratt" was using fake photos but she discovered that "Karen" was also forging the "email headers" of her emails, which made emails appear like they were from a specific company she pretended to work for when they were in fact from a Gmail or Yahoo account.
KFP and I first met on an online dating site. We quickly developed a connection and were communicating online for many weeks and months. A couple months into our correspondence she introduced me to her friend "Ai", who she said was Brazilian/Japanese. Later, Lynn Motley was introduced.
KFP said she was an only child originally from London (Belgravia), but was half Indian (on her mother's side) and a mix of European nationalities (on her father's side). In speaking to her on the phone over the years I have every reason to believe that she is Indian, given certain word pronunciations. She had more of an international accent, but certainly had British tones and intonations. This could simply be b/c she was educated in British schools in India and not necessarily b/c she is from the UK. She claimed to go to Northwestern University, obtaining both her bachelors and MBA. After she worked in the world of consulting / finance (e.g., Goldman Sachs, Bain, etc.), first in Chicago and then in NYC, before going to work at Givenchy within LVMH. When we first "met" online, she was working at Givenchy in NYC. She claimed to be a model as a teenager, but was also somewhat of a prodigy who was more interested in academics and intellectual pursuits. She was clearly quite smart, well-read, and knowledgeable. She spoke many languages, including French, Spanish, Arabic, and some Indian dialects.
We exchanged tons of photos – most of Karen Faye Pratt were of modeling (the photos I later found out were of Sara Ziff), which I of course liked but also thought odd that there weren’t as many candid shots. She shared candids as well, but they were fewer and far between. Which now makes sense to me since they were of another person.
Karen Faye Pratt had a very soft voice, which she said was the result of battling throat cancer in her early 20s. According to her, she had lost the ability to speak for some time, but had regained it over time albeit with a weakened voice. Though she was a high-energy person with a busy schedule, there was a fragility related to her health that always was at bay. This will come into play later.
Her friend Ai Tominaga was a colleague of hers at Givenchy, where he worked as a stylist. If you Google "Ai Tominaga" you will find the name of a very famous asian female model. This is a crafty cover because whenever you will google this name, only that famous model will come up. KFP's friend According to their story, Ai was gay man and of Japanese descent, but born in Brazil. He had a very funny way of speaking and writing that was quite endearing and would be difficult to fake. Over time, I became nearly equally close to Ai as I did to KFP.
In the beginning of our relationship there were always near misses with KFP when we were supposed to meet up. Mostly it was work, or travel related to work that would pull her out of the city or force her to cancel plans. In the beginning I didn't think much of it since we were both in our mid-20s and living in NYC - that stuff just happens. I also had a full time job, traveled a lot and was always on the go. However, it became an ongoing challenge and a series of near-misses. I believe all of this was intended to create a sense of heightened emotion and wanting.
Nonetheless we continued to communicate and grew much closer with time. This lasted over many months and I'd say we began to develop what seemed like real emotions for each other. More that we just really liked each other and were a bit exasperated that we hadn't been able to connect in person.
Maybe 4 months into this situation, another character, Lynn Motley, was introduced. Lynn apparently lived across the hall from KFP's former boyfriend Mark. She - according to KFP - had a single-white-female-ish obsession with KFP. To cut to the end - and believe me I would have paid a million dollars to know this back then - KFP and Lynn are the same person. Lynn is the evil version of KFP - the counter to all of KFP's purity and sweetness. Lynn was the enforcer. The vigilante. The story was very delicately woven and I can't exactly remember how Lynn came into the picture. First it seemed like Lynn had an obsession with KFP, who would keep her around just to keep her close and so as not to upset her. Then Lynn turned more of her attention to me, believing I was someone evil and not good enough for KFP and that she was out to protect KFP at all costs. For weeks and months Lynn would alternate between threatening the both of us – she served to bring me and KFP closer together at times, but also to tear us apart and create hurt between us. Lynn would apparently threaten KFP, while also acting as her savior. Lynn would change emails and IP addresses when threatening us, terrorizing us, and threatening to expose intimate photos I had taken for KFP to my employers. I was very close to hiring my own lawyers to deal with the situation when KFP’s father apparently did so. I tried to insert myself in the case, but KFP insisted on taking care of it (I now realize that she didn't want me to go to the authorities because she was in fact behind all of this). I had a few email conversations with lawyers to aid KFP’s alleged investigation but Lynn was always one step ahead of things, until she apparently made a mistake and wrote from her work address (PWC). KFP was so excited to tell me about the big break and that finally she was getting the upper hand on Lynn. This eventually led to Lynn getting fired from PWC for violating company policy and also a court case that led to Lynn having to service jail time (according to KFP). I think this was said because they (ai and Karen) were afraid that I would finally go to the police and get lawyers to report the online threats being committed against us.
Maybe 6 months into this we still hadn't met, even though Lynn was finally out of the way. KFP had given me her address on the Upper East Side b/c I wanted to send her some flowers. They never made it there b/c she didn’t live there and when I confronted her on this – on why she would give me a dummy address – it led to a big fight. I had had enough and I yelled at her, telling her how messed up it all was. KFP started to cry and apparently cried so hard that she supposedly damaged her vocal chords, which water-falled into a series of illnesses. This new phase is when the emotional component got kicked into high gear. KFP’s illness served a dual purpose: 1) it continued to prevent us from meeting, and 2) it created an overwhelming amount of guilt within me – since I was the cause of it – that kept me in this terrible situation b/c I just wanted to make it right at all costs. I know how messed up that sounds, but this continued for years and years. I thought I was responsible for ruining this girl’s life – this talented and desirable person was rendered to a hospital bed and in and out of serious illness. KFP had gone back to London for treatment, so I was very far away from her. Eventually, she said she went back to India. It was at this time that I became much closer to Ai and relied on him for information on how KFP was doing since she wasn’t always able to talk and was sometimes apparently in critical care at a hospital. It was also at this time that Ai convinced me to create intimate photos of myself and share with KFP b/c it was the only thing that would make her feel connected to the real world since she was in a hospital bed and had no desire to live. I felt so guilty that I would do anything – even something so compromising – if it gave this girl a chance at wanting a normal life again.
Psycho Lynn would come back into the picture after she was out of serving time. KFP’s illness only emboldened Lynn’s belief that I was evil and she was right all along…that she was KFP’s guardian. Lynn would terrorize me and threaten to send these images and videos I had made for KFP (which she said she obtained by breaking in Karen's email) to my friends, family, and employers. She never asked for money or anything remotely close to that. It was more always about asking for more photos and videos of myself to make someone feel better, playing on the guilt I felt for her health situation.
While all this was happening, I wanted to send things and letters for Karen but I had no address for her in India so they gave me the address of her "cousin" or family friend (i dont remember which it was) and told me that he would bring her the things to India since he was traveling there for work. Now, the interesting part about all this is that this person truly exists (it's the only person in this entire story that actually has a physical address in the US, a linkedin profile that is well established, a real job in the real world, etc). Moreover, the gifts were received at this address in Hoffman Estates, Chicago (which interestingly enough is also the location of the IP addresses of many of the emails Karen hadn't been savy enough to forge). Also,the gifts were returned to me from that address many months later, with a warning from Ai or Karen that they would be sent back. So we know for a fact that someone at that address (which I still have) is in contact with Karen or Ai. Or at the very least knows them. Or perhaps even resides there and pretended to be in India at the time.
We currently have the cybercrime unit of the FBI investigating this crime since we found out there are many more victims and that many more personalities and identities (all with fake photos) were created along the way.
A few others on Facebook(just to name a few):
1) Saul Pires (using the photos of famous Bernardo Velasco) facebook.com/saul.pires.92?fref=ts
2) Jenny Sandra (using the photos of two different models :Fernanda Schonardie and Jessica Barton.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007756367674&fref=ts
3)Liza Maria Oyzoyli (using the photos of Alessandra Ambrosio but she now removed those photos at Facebook’s request)facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004781477736&fref=ts
…. and the list goes on and on and on…
Karen's profile has been disconnected since we started our investigation and communicated to her via the Ai email address that we were investigating her... but her profile remains on this link: http://profileengine.com/people/59871042/karen.faye.pratt
If you have been a victim of this person or of anything similar, please come forward and post what happened to you here. We will transfer this information to the FBI crime unit working on the case. This person is dangerous and needs to be placed behind bars.
We have reasons to believe that this scam has turned into a ring involving many different individuals who scam people online asking them for sensitive photos and then threatening them to post them publicly if they don't send them money right away, often via western union.
Karen Faye Pratt Reviews
I was the victim of a multi-year scam that resulted in ongoing harassment, terrorizing, and a suicide attempt. This was a deliberate scam. She lied from the very beginning about her real name, her photos, where she lived and her entire life history. The scam also involved multiple characters.
Central to this scam were three people (all fictitious identities) : 1) Karen Faye Pratt (KFP), 2) Ai Tominaga, and 3) Lynn Motley. When a friend of mine recently discovered the photos that Karen had sent me of herself years ago, she did a "google reverse image" search and found out that the photos were of this famous NYC model named Sara Ziff. Not only did my friend discover that "Karen Faye Pratt" was using fake photos but she discovered that "Karen" was also forging the "email headers" of her emails, which made emails appear like they were from a specific company she pretended to work for when they were in fact from a Gmail or Yahoo account.
KFP and I first met on an online dating site. We quickly developed a connection and were communicating online for many weeks and months. A couple months into our correspondence she introduced me to her friend "Ai", who she said was Brazilian/Japanese. Later, Lynn Motley was introduced.
KFP said she was an only child originally from London (Belgravia), but was half Indian (on her mother's side) and a mix of European nationalities (on her father's side). In speaking to her on the phone over the years I have every reason to believe that she is Indian, given certain word pronunciations. She had more of an international accent, but certainly had British tones and intonations. This could simply be b/c she was educated in British schools in India and not necessarily b/c she is from the UK. She claimed to go to Northwestern University, obtaining both her bachelors and MBA. After she worked in the world of consulting / finance (e.g., Goldman Sachs, Bain, etc.), first in Chicago and then in NYC, before going to work at Givenchy within LVMH. When we first "met" online, she was working at Givenchy in NYC. She claimed to be a model as a teenager, but was also somewhat of a prodigy who was more interested in academics and intellectual pursuits. She was clearly quite smart, well-read, and knowledgeable. She spoke many languages, including French, Spanish, Arabic, and some Indian dialects.
We exchanged tons of photos – most of Karen Faye Pratt were of modeling (the photos I later found out were of Sara Ziff), which I of course liked but also thought odd that there weren’t as many candid shots. She shared candids as well, but they were fewer and far between. Which now makes sense to me since they were of another person.
Karen Faye Pratt had a very soft voice, which she said was the result of battling throat cancer in her early 20s. According to her, she had lost the ability to speak for some time, but had regained it over time albeit with a weakened voice. Though she was a high-energy person with a busy schedule, there was a fragility related to her health that always was at bay. This will come into play later.
Her friend Ai Tominaga was a colleague of hers at Givenchy, where he worked as a stylist. If you Google "Ai Tominaga" you will find the name of a very famous asian female model. This is a crafty cover because whenever you will google this name, only that famous model will come up. KFP's friend According to their story, Ai was gay man and of Japanese descent, but born in Brazil. He had a very funny way of speaking and writing that was quite endearing and would be difficult to fake. Over time, I became nearly equally close to Ai as I did to KFP.
In the beginning of our relationship there were always near misses with KFP when we were supposed to meet up. Mostly it was work, or travel related to work that would pull her out of the city or force her to cancel plans. In the beginning I didn't think much of it since we were both in our mid-20s and living in NYC - that stuff just happens. I also had a full time job, traveled a lot and was always on the go. However, it became an ongoing challenge and a series of near-misses. I believe all of this was intended to create a sense of heightened emotion and wanting.
Nonetheless we continued to communicate and grew much closer with time. This lasted over many months and I'd say we began to develop what seemed like real emotions for each other. More that we just really liked each other and were a bit exasperated that we hadn't been able to connect in person.
Maybe 4 months into this situation, another character, Lynn Motley, was introduced. Lynn apparently lived across the hall from KFP's former boyfriend Mark. She - according to KFP - had a single-white-female-ish obsession with KFP. To cut to the end - and believe me I would have paid a million dollars to know this back then - KFP and Lynn are the same person. Lynn is the evil version of KFP - the counter to all of KFP's purity and sweetness. Lynn was the enforcer. The vigilante. The story was very delicately woven and I can't exactly remember how Lynn came into the picture. First it seemed like Lynn had an obsession with KFP, who would keep her around just to keep her close and so as not to upset her. Then Lynn turned more of her attention to me, believing I was someone evil and not good enough for KFP and that she was out to protect KFP at all costs. For weeks and months Lynn would alternate between threatening the both of us – she served to bring me and KFP closer together at times, but also to tear us apart and create hurt between us. Lynn would apparently threaten KFP, while also acting as her savior. Lynn would change emails and IP addresses when threatening us, terrorizing us, and threatening to expose intimate photos I had taken for KFP to my employers. I was very close to hiring my own lawyers to deal with the situation when KFP’s father apparently did so. I tried to insert myself in the case, but KFP insisted on taking care of it (I now realize that she didn't want me to go to the authorities because she was in fact behind all of this). I had a few email conversations with lawyers to aid KFP’s alleged investigation but Lynn was always one step ahead of things, until she apparently made a mistake and wrote from her work address (PWC). KFP was so excited to tell me about the big break and that finally she was getting the upper hand on Lynn. This eventually led to Lynn getting fired from PWC for violating company policy and also a court case that led to Lynn having to service jail time (according to KFP). I think this was said because they (ai and Karen) were afraid that I would finally go to the police and get lawyers to report the online threats being committed against us.
Maybe 6 months into this we still hadn't met, even though Lynn was finally out of the way. KFP had given me her address on the Upper East Side b/c I wanted to send her some flowers. They never made it there b/c she didn’t live there and when I confronted her on this – on why she would give me a dummy address – it led to a big fight. I had had enough and I yelled at her, telling her how messed up it all was. KFP started to cry and apparently cried so hard that she supposedly damaged her vocal chords, which water-falled into a series of illnesses. This new phase is when the emotional component got kicked into high gear. KFP’s illness served a dual purpose: 1) it continued to prevent us from meeting, and 2) it created an overwhelming amount of guilt within me – since I was the cause of it – that kept me in this terrible situation b/c I just wanted to make it right at all costs. I know how messed up that sounds, but this continued for years and years. I thought I was responsible for ruining this girl’s life – this talented and desirable person was rendered to a hospital bed and in and out of serious illness. KFP had gone back to London for treatment, so I was very far away from her. Eventually, she said she went back to India. It was at this time that I became much closer to Ai and relied on him for information on how KFP was doing since she wasn’t always able to talk and was sometimes apparently in critical care at a hospital. It was also at this time that Ai convinced me to create intimate photos of myself and share with KFP b/c it was the only thing that would make her feel connected to the real world since she was in a hospital bed and had no desire to live. I felt so guilty that I would do anything – even something so compromising – if it gave this girl a chance at wanting a normal life again.
Psycho Lynn would come back into the picture after she was out of serving time. KFP’s illness only emboldened Lynn’s belief that I was evil and she was right all along…that she was KFP’s guardian. Lynn would terrorize me and threaten to send these images and videos I had made for KFP (which she said she obtained by breaking in Karen's email) to my friends, family, and employers. She never asked for money or anything remotely close to that. It was more always about asking for more photos and videos of myself to make someone feel better, playing on the guilt I felt for her health situation.
While all this was happening, I wanted to send things and letters for Karen but I had no address for her in India so they gave me the address of her "cousin" or family friend (i dont remember which it was) and told me that he would bring her the things to India since he was traveling there for work. Now, the interesting part about all this is that this person truly exists (it's the only person in this entire story that actually has a physical address in the US, a linkedin profile that is well established, a real job in the real world, etc). Moreover, the gifts were received at this address in Hoffman Estates, Chicago (which interestingly enough is also the location of the IP addresses of many of the emails Karen hadn't been savy enough to forge). Also,the gifts were returned to me from that address many months later, with a warning from Ai or Karen that they would be sent back. So we know for a fact that someone at that address (which I still have) is in contact with Karen or Ai. Or at the very least knows them. Or perhaps even resides there and pretended to be in India at the time.
We currently have the cybercrime unit of the FBI investigating this crime since we found out there are many more victims and that many more personalities and identities (all with fake photos) were created along the way.
A few others on Facebook(just to name a few):
1) Saul Pires (using the photos of famous Bernardo Velasco) facebook.com/saul.pires.92?fref=ts
2) Jenny Sandra (using the photos of two different models :Fernanda Schonardie and Jessica Barton.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007756367674&fref=ts
3)Liza Maria Oyzoyli (using the photos of Alessandra Ambrosio but she now removed those photos at Facebook’s request)facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004781477736&fref=ts
…. and the list goes on and on and on…
Karen's profile has been disconnected since we started our investigation and communicated to her via the Ai email address that we were investigating her... but her profile remains on this link: http://profileengine.com/people/59871042/karen.faye.pratt
If you have been a victim of this person or of anything similar, please come forward and post what happened to you here. We will transfer this information to the FBI crime unit working on the case. This person is dangerous and needs to be placed behind bars.
We have reasons to believe that this scam has turned into a ring involving many different individuals who scam people online asking them for sensitive photos and then threatening them to post them publicly if they don't send them money right away, often via western union.
I hope this never happens to anyone else.