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Alberta romance fraudster declared a dangerous offender, locked up indefinitely
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A serial romance fraudster with a decades-long pattern of using relationships with women as a ruse to con them out of money has been labelled a dangerous offender.
Jeffrey Paul Kent, 55, was given the label intended for Canada's most violent criminals and sexual offenders last week in Edmonton.
Court of King's Bench Justice Melanie Hayes-Richards handed him an indeterminate sentence, concluding it's the only way to manage the risk he poses.
Kent was arrested on his most recent charges in 2018, and he's been in custody ever since. He pleaded guilty in 2022 to defrauding five women in Edmonton, admitting to using fake names and personas to lure them into relationships.
He then concocted phoney investment schemes or made-up scenarios where he needed money to convince them to hand over cash. In total, he scammed the five women out of more than $175,000.
"[Kent] is a predator who targeted vulnerable single women, some of whom were recently separated, and some of whom had young children," Hayes-Richards said in her decision.
"Using lie upon lie, he inserted himself into his victims' lives, promising a bright and secure future. Instead, he wreaked havoc. He destroyed their finances and left some financially destitute. He shattered their confidence, self-worth and ability to trust others."
Kent has other fraud and theft convictions under similar circumstances that date back more than three decades. Beginning in B.C., in 1990, he gained women's trust, then stole their money, typically spending it on gambling.
Some lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kent, and two became so deeply involved that they had a child with him, learning only after they were pregnant about the extent of his deception.
Dangerous offender status can be considered only if someone is convicted of a "serious personal injury offence," and fraud isn't typically in that category.
But Hayes-Richards found that even in the absence of physical violence, Kent's elaborate romance frauds inflicted "severe psychological damage" on his victims, and the dangerous offender scheme applies.
"At the core of the pattern is the deep deception Mr. Kent uses to get what he wants: a place to live, vehicles and cellphones for his exclusive use, access to the victims' finances," Hayes-Richards said.
"It is Mr. Kent's deep deception that causes severe psychological damage to the victims, not the victims' economic loss alone."
Retired lawyer Gary Botting, who co-authored a 2021 book on dangerous offender law in Canada, said it's extremely unusual to see the framework applied to a fraud case.
"Usually it's reserved for … repeat offending of a more serious personal nature in terms of assault or attempted murder, or sometimes drug offences that have resulted in people dying — that sort of thing."
Botting said he expects the decision will be appealed.
Fake identities, investment scams
The names of the five women Kent victimized most recently are under a publication ban.
Each of them met Kent in 2016 or 2017 through a dating website. Using the name "Jeff Sheridan" or "Jeff Sheenan," he told the women he was a criminal defence lawyer, or a retired Crown prosecutor from B.C., or a law professor with special training in legal ethics.
He added embellishments about being a successful real estate investor who owned hotels and mobile homes, which would come up later when he told them he urgently needed money to finalize a deal or get in on a good investment opportunity.
Nearly everything Kent told each woman, the judge's decision notes, was a lie.
He already had numerous fraud convictions on his record, and had spent time in prison — the fraud against the first woman he targeted began shortly after the end of his sentence.
Kent went to significant lengths to make his stories appear real: dressing in suits, staging fake business meetings or calls about "legal cases," and bringing some of his partners to the racetrack or casino, where he appeared well-known and successful.
He also made dramatic displays of love and devotion very early in the relationships. He told one woman about his plan to buy her an engagement ring within a month of meeting her, and took her to shop for homes priced at up to $6 million.
Each time, Kent's behaviour changed as the relationship progressed, sometimes after the women questioned parts of his story or became more insistent that he repay money he owed them.
He told two women he had brain cancer and began faking seizures in front of them.
He made efforts to cut off another woman from her friends and family and deleted her social media accounts.
He sometimes became demeaning and volatile, threatening one woman with legal action if she kept pushing for her money back, and saying he would kill himself if she left him.
Each described a lasting impact from discovering how deep Kent's lies had gone, and each testified during the dangerous offender hearing about struggling with their mental state, feeling unable to trust people and withdrawing from their social lives.
One woman, Hayes-Richards wrote in her decision, "went through a cycle of hating herself for being duped and putting so much faith in someone she barely knew.
"She was eventually able to acknowledge that she was not alone, other intelligent women like her had been scammed, and anyone could be duped. She still doubts her ability to read people and believes she needs to toughen up."
'Effective pathological liar'
The decision describes nine other victims of Kent's romance frauds that came before his latest convictions. One woman was left with $300,000 of debt in the wake of Kent's time with her.
Kent went to prison in 2010 for fraud offences against three women and two credit card companies. Six days after he was released on day parole during that sentence, he began speaking to another woman on a dating site, eventually taking more than $10,000 from her and spending it on gambling.
After she found out what was happening and reported Kent to police, his day parole was revoked in 2011, and he was convicted of an additional count of fraud, which added more time to his sentence.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Bruce Monkhouse, who treated Kent in prison from 2012 to 2014, testified that he believed at the time that Kent was genuinely remorseful and motivated to engage in treatment. But Kent reverted to the same behaviour with new victims shortly after getting out of prison.
Another expert, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Alberto Choy, assessed Kent in detail for the dangerous offender hearing. Choy concluded Kent has antisocial personality disorder with a high degree of psychopathy, as well as a gambling disorder, and any benefit from past treatment hasn't lasted.
Choy said gambling is part of Kent's motivation for his behaviour, but he also lies for "the thrill of manipulating others to extract resources from them.
Choy concluded Kent would have to achieve "monumental changes" to his personality in order to lower his risk, but that will take "decades, not years," if it's possible at all. Without intensive community supervision that goes beyond his past parole conditions, Kent poses a high risk of reoffending, Choy told the court.
Hayes-Richards concluded Kent's risk is evident even in his expression of remorse during the court hearing.
"Mr. Kent's carefully crafted expressions of responsibility and understanding came after he heard Dr. Choy's evidence about the significance of his regressions," she said.
"I do not believe the sincerity of Mr. Kent's expressions to me. They simply corroborate the expert evidence that Mr. Kent is a pathological liar who will say whatever he believes is necessary to manipulate a situation."
Calling him an "intelligent, manipulative and effective pathological liar," Hayes-Richards said there's no way to address Kent's behaviour other than an indeterminate sentence. Because he's already been in custody for years, a sentence on his five most recent fraud convictions would have put him in a position to be released based on time already served.
"Mr. Kent appears to have an intentional disregard for how his criminal behaviour affects his victims," Hayes-Richards said.
"He knows his behaviour inflicts psychological harm on his victims, yet that fact does not deter him from engaging in the same behaviour over and over again."
