BUSTED: Publisher who pretended to be a Trump adviser charged with wire fraud for web of lies to clients

On Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported on the saga of Christine Favara Anderson, a "book publisher" facing charges of wire fraud after inventing a convoluted series of lies and scams to rip off independent authors.

"Christine Favara Anderson loved to brag about her success," reported Justin Rohrlich. "The founder and CEO of an independent publishing house, she told people she was flush with $60 million in MGM stock that Kirk Kerkorian gifted to her, and she spoke of flying in the casino resort's private jet. She talked of being an adviser to former President Donald Trump, was tight with Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, and maintained a close friendship with NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. She was just as open about the state of her health: She told people she was battling stage 4 cancer, that surgery had failed to stop the march of the malignant cells, that she was on the brink of death."

According to prosecutors, she is actually a convicted securities fraudster — and all of these claims were lies calculated to take people's money.

"Anderson — who previously spent five years in federal prison for securities fraud — is now facing federal wire fraud charges, accused of ripping off aspiring authors and duping a close friend out of $1 million," said the report. "Anderson is also perfectly healthy, according to the FBI, which says Anderson's vast wealth and relationships with the rich and famous were completely made up. Anderson is now detained in a Virginia jail. Her court-appointed lawyers, Don Pender and Erin Trodden, did not respond to requests for comment."

One of her victims was a young adult romance author named Krys Fenner. "Fenner says Anderson told her to pay $1,000 upfront for her 'hybrid publisher' services — a sort of 'assisted self-publishing' concept somewhere between traditional publishing, in which the book company pays the author, and a vanity press, where the author pays the whole bill. She allegedly told Fenner she would copyright the book for her, launch a promotional campaign, publish it online, and print physical copies for sale in major retailers including Target, Walmart, and Costco. They would then split the profit ... But Fenner says Anderson never did any of the things she promised, and she never saw a dime in royalties."

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