A woman in Las Vegas has been brought to justice after attempting to marry and defraud fourteen men to fund a gambling habit.
Using fake ID, Jiaying Chen married five men in just one month. Overall, she submitted 14 marriage applications and received seven certificates. The 34-year-old persuaded her victims to give her over $100,000 in total, claiming it was for sick relatives in China, before squandering it at a Las Vegas casino.
At sentencing, she was ordered to spend her first year of probation in a detention centre, attend counselling for her gambling addiction and pay a $280,000 restitution fee.
Distress
District Judge Crystal Eller warned that without support, there is “zero chance that she’s not going to do this again.”
The police reported that Chen “would break all communication” with the men when she received their money, telling officers that she “could make as much as $20,000 from one marriage”.
One of the victims, Raymond Tam, told the court: “Mentally, every day, I’m distressed and I’m not able to sleep”.
Serious consequences
In the UK, an estimated 1.3 million British adults identified as problem gamblers last year.
The annual survey on gambling, published by the Gambling Commission, has shown little change in the past couple of years, with almost half of Brits admitting to having gambled in the past month.
Among 18 to 34-year-olds, 3.6 per cent experienced violence or abuse as a result of another’s gambling, 4.6 per cent suffered relationship breakdown, and 2.4 per cent committed a crime to fund someone else’s gambling or to pay off their gambling debts.
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