Mary McDonnell, 75, allegedly posed as an heiress to dupe a California bank out of $14.7M — now the FBI is hunting her

McDonnell was the chief executive officer of Bellum Entertainment LLC, a Hollywood production company that churned out true crime shows such as “I Married a Murderer” and “It Takes a Killer.”

But since an arrest warrant was issued in 2018, McDonnell has been in the wind, and she was recently added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters List.

‘Intent to defraud’

McDonnell is wanted on charges of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, and the FBI alleges that, from July 2017 to May 2018, she “knowingly, and with the intent to defraud, devised and participated in a scheme to obtain money, funds, assets, and property owned by a California bank” — specifically, the Banc of California.

The fraud totaled $14.7 million, and the FBI alleges McDonnell “also defrauded additional financial institutions in a similar fashion.”

McDonnell allegedly claimed she was an heiress of the McDonnell family (the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, an aerospace manufacturer, produced military aircraft, merging to become McDonnell Douglas in 1967, later merging with Boeing in 1997).

The FBI alleges McDonnell claimed to have “an $80 million secret trust to which she will have access.”

A CBS Los Angeles report from November 2017, detailing a lawsuit from May 2017 brought by Pacific Business Capital against McDonnell — that suit claiming she failed to repay a $2.7-million loan from 2014 — includes a document from her attorney that makes the claims about the trust fund, and the aerospace family.

The letter reads: “Ms. McDonnell is the beneficiary of an irrevocable trust established by her parents many years ago that holds assets (primarily real estate), the value of which is well in excess of $400 million, of which Ms. McDonnell’s share exceeds $80 million. It is my understanding from Ms. McDonnell that the trustees are prohibited from disclosing any information or documentation relating to the trust pursuant to a court order issued after the kidnap and murder of Ms. McDonnell’s sister Marilyn Holly McDonnell, at age 11, in response to a request from Ms. McDonnell’s father with the objective of protecting his other children.”

According to a Rolling Stone report, McDonnell’s real sister did die “in 1966 when a playmate from her special-education school stabbed her in the back with a hunting knife,” but McDonnell “would twist the story later [...] claiming her sister had been held for ransom and murdered, ostensibly as a roundabout way to signal evidence of her family’s fortune.”

McDonnell may share a name with a famous aerospace family, but she is not related to them. Her family owned “a beloved corner grocery that operated in Kirkwood, Missouri,” according to a Business Insider report.

A web of fraud

Financial institutions aren’t the only ones claiming that McDonnell didn’t pay them.

Former employees of her Hollywood production company, Bellum Entertainment, as well as freelancers, have said that McDonnell failed to pay them.

According to Rolling Stone, “nearly 100 complaints were lodged against Bellum, according to California’s Department of Industrial Relations, all from workers alleging they were stiffed by McDonnell for anywhere from a few hundred dollars for day players and background actors to tens of thousands for producers. One source estimates McDonnell owes around $4 million total to Bellum employees.”

The Rolling Stone report also alleges that even McDonnell’s own sons found themselves tangled in her web of fraud. The report says that, according to court papers, McDonnell “allegedly forged their signatures on documents in August 2017 after she missed a payment on a $2.5 million loan from a quick-payday firm.”