US podcaster who helped convict ‘Queen of the Con’ disappointed at short sentence

Johnathan Walton and Marianne Smyth. She was later found guilty of scamming him of thousands of dollars. Photograph: Johnaathan Walton/AP

A US podcaster and author who helped UK authorities convict a woman derisively known as the “Queen of the Con” of defrauding a group of Northern Irish mortgage advice customers has expressed disappointment in her being sentenced on Friday to only four years in prison.

“She scams or tries to scam everyone she meets, and she will never change,” Johnathan Walton said in a statement after Marianne “Mair” Smyth’s sentencing closed the books on a transatlantic case against her.