KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City-area man who posed as an adult filmmaker and talent agent pleaded guilty in federal court today to a fraud scheme to dupe women into having sex — which he recorded — under the guise they were rehearsing for porn movies.
Mario Ambrose Antoine, 34, admitted he defrauded at least 10 victims in a scheme that lasted for five years up until this past October. Antoine promised the women, who signed contracts and modeling release forms including 18 U.S.C. § 2257 documents, they would be paid thousands of dollars by several fictitious entities for their auditioning and modeling activity.
Those fictitious entities included the websites he registered — Playboy-Worldwide.com and Playboy-Asia.com — that purported to be associated with Playboy Enterprises Inc.
Victims of the wire fraud scheme were promised payments cumulatively totaling at least $550,000 and as much as $1.5 million.
Prosecutors alleged when the women complained about not being paid, Antoine forwarded images of the sexual activity to their employers or significant others.
Antoine had numerous aliases, including “Mario Sixstring,” “Mario Ferrari,” “Mario Danger,” “Chris Campbell,” “Dalton Wayne,” “Ryan Bollman,” “Reyna Dash,” “Carmen Resben,” “KindaGuitarded” and “Nikki.”
“In order to demonstrate the authenticity of the enterprise and assure prospective victims, Antoine prepared forged and fraudulent payment checks — purportedly issued to other 'models,' IRS tax forms and Department of Homeland Security employment forms,” according to a release by the U.S. Attorneys Office. “He registered the domain name playboy-asia.com and created the e-mail account casting@playboy-asia.com, which he used to communicate with victims.”
Antoine, who also was a wedding photographer, originally faced 12 counts of wire fraud, two counts of cyberstalking, two counts of online enticement, two counts of making false statements to federal law enforcement agents, one count of obstructing justice, one count of extortion and one count of falsely registering a domain name.
Under the terms of today’s plea agreement, Antoine will be sentenced to 10 years in federal prison without parole and must pay restitution to his victims, pending the court’s acceptance of the plea agreement at his sentencing hearing on Sept. 13.
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