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A former wedding photographer who apparently couldn’t get to first base with the opposite sex on his own instead resorted to slime-ball tricks to lure dozens of women into his den of deceit.
But those women pushed back and now Mario Antoine of Raymore, Mo., faces a life behind bars. On Monday he was indicted before a federal grand jury on 21 counts.
Antoine, 33, is accused of posing as a talent manager, photographer and videographer for made-up pornography websites and auditioning women to be models on websites he concocted in his head like “Playboy Worldwide” and “Playboy Asia.” His scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, included promising tens of thousands of dollars to women once they agreed to contracts to model and have sex with him, which he shot and recorded — because that’s what you do at an audition.
Only Antoine never paid the women, and then when they complained about not getting their cash, the con man turned to blackmail, threatening to send the victims’ nude and lewd images to employers and significant others to keep them from ratting him out.
And it wasn’t as if Antoine jumped into this scheme unaware that he was committing a crime or of the potential repercussions. According to a news release, he searched on Google for “rape by deception,” “rape by deception Kansas,” and “Illegal to trick girls into sleeping with you.”
Antoine got his start in fraud as a wedding photographer. He would defraud brides and grooms out of wedding photos, limousine rides, DJs and other services, according to FOX4 in Kansas City. He then violated the terms of his five-year probation by defrauding another couple.
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But Antoine couldn’t stop there, instead moving on to even bigger schemes of deceit. Now in federal custody, Antoine faces 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.
The federal indictment says Antoine would lure prospective victims online to his made-up audition for his made-up website while using a made-up name. Then he’d show them pictures of past victims that he shot as proof that his operation was legit.
And it was anything but.
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In one case outlined on the news release, he told one victim he failed to pay that she could pay him $9,000 and in exchange he wouldn’t sell or distribute her compromising images — or she could have sex with him. The news release says the victim had sex with him.
