(DM) - After over a year of denials, Renata Shamrakova, the pretty personal assistant of hedge fund manager Todd Meister admitted she did steal nearly $1 million while working for him. The glamorous 28-year-old had maintained since her February, 2012 arrest that all the money she illegally spent was gifted from Meister, but in court on Monday she finally came clean to avoid a 15-year prison term. Admitting identity fraud, Shamrakova escaped any time in jail by promising to pay back $821,000 to Meister within the next to years - although her parents have had to sell their upstate New York home to finance this.
Last year prosecutors said that they would accept nothing less than a one year prison stretch after they accused her of huge fraud against Meister, famous for a quick marriage and divorce to Paris Hilton's younger sister, Nicky. In court she confessed to taking out two American Express cards in Meister's name and spending $900,000 traveling to Aruba, Canada, France and Italy.
She also bought thousands of pieces of jewelery which she then sold online for cash and paid off the credit cards by writing checks from her lover's JPMorgan account without his knowledge. The Ukranian-born swindler spent the money while working as his assistant between March 2011 and January 2012 - and while no court records have identified her employer - it is a well known fact that it was Meister.
In addition, she tried to spend some of the stolen money on starting up a jewelery curating business called Karat & Ice which she called a 'trusted carrier of authentic quality designer merchandise.' If she fails to pay back the $821,000 within the two year allotted time then she will go to prison.
The remarkable turnaround came after she spent the whole year denying stealing the money from Meister. Arrested in February, Assistant Manhattan district Attorney Cory Jacobs accused Shamrakova of using his client's checking account as a 'personal piggy bank' blaming her for taking $500,000 from it to pay for the credit card bills. But, at the time, Shamrakova's attorney, Mark Agnifilo, said the allegations were not as 'neat and tidy' as prosecutors were making out and that he was investigating the possibility there may be a romantic component between the two. He said: 'It's a he said-she said. He said this is a theft. She said it is not because there was a relationship.'
