Man jailed after conning his fiancée and her family out of thousands

A 50 year-old man has been jailed for 12 months and ordered to pay £5000 in compensation after defrauding his fiancée and her family out of thousands of pounds.
Matt Jaeger of Albany Street Lane, Edinburgh pleaded guilty to eight charges of fraud by false representation at Derry Magistrates Court.
Jaeger who has been on the run for a number of years, committed the offences between July and November 2010.
Interpol has also been made aware of a ‘vast amount’ of similar allegations about the defendant in England, Scotland and the US.
It was revealed Jaeger was not detained by police for six years, despite extensive searches.
The court heard how Jaeger first came to Derry in 2010, meeting the victim’s son through a company he was working for, providing training courses.
A relationship developed between the victim and the defendant.
The pair kept in contact after Jaeger left the country with Jaeger agreeing to visit Derry on a number of occasions which did not come to fruition, the death of his father was used as an excuse.
In July 2010 Jaeger moved to Derry where he then moved into the defendant’s home.
A short time later, the 50-year-old proposed to the victim.
The court was told the victim ‘funded virtually everything throughout the course of their short relationship’ after Jager claimed he had his credit cards, passport and wallet stolen.
Jaeger claimed he had a ranch in Texas, where their wedding was ‘supposedly’ to be held in November 2010.
He also claimed he would use a contact to get flights at a corporate rate.
Eight people gave money for these flights, totaling £4560.
The victims brother started to question the situation when they did not receive any confirmation about the booking.
Jaeger kept saying there must have been a mix up ‘but not to worry.’
He then went to Austria at the beginning of November, claiming he had a new job organised which was going to pay him a substantial amount of money.
Nine days before the wedding, the victim received a text message from Jaeger claiming the firm organising the flights had gone bankrupt.
From then, he never returned to Northern Ireland.
However contact was made on a number of occasions between Jaeger and the victim by text message, at on stage claiming he had cancer.
The court heard Jaeger used two of the woman’s credit cards, racking up more that £1,000 in debt.
During police interview, the defendant claimed no definite wedding date had been set, but ‘it would have been in the pipeline’.
He also denied offering to buy flights and claimed he used the injured party’s credit cards with her authority.
The court heard the victim was ‘so embarrassed and ashamed’ by what happened she ‘scraped together the money to repay her family in full’.
Passing sentence, District Judge Barney McElholm said ‘these were absolutely despicable crimes. He wormed his way into this family and preyed on them’.
The judge said given Jaeger’s history of absconding he would not consider adjourning the case for compensation to be paid as ‘this man has had since 2010 to compensate the people he defrauded and made no attempt to do so’.
He added: “This man cares about one person in this world and that is himself. He has shown himself to be a liar, a cheat and a dishonest rogue’.
The judge said the maximum sentence for the offences is six months but this was ‘wholly inadequate’.
He told the court sentencing guidelines suggest he deal with all three separate classes of victim in this case together.
Judge McElholm questioned this stating ‘do individual victims not deserve someone to get sentenced in respect of the pain and suffering they have caused, to say nothing of the financial loss?’
The judge then agreed to fix bail for appeal.
However, he refused to release Jaeger and the case is listed for Monday.