DA: Woman busted in Tiffany jewelry scam

Neither the so-called Tiffany jewelry a Stony Brook woman has been selling nor the cause buyers thought they were supporting were real, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said Wednesday while announcing her arrest.

The jewelry was as fake as the woman's claims that the proceeds were going to the Greater Port Jefferson Food Pantry, Spota said. Maryann Bell, 69, of 5 Seabrook Lane, was arrested Dec. 1 and charged with second-degree trademark counterfeiting, a felony. She faces a maximum of 11/3 to 4 years in prison if convicted.

As a result of the scam, Spota said, Bell made about $150,000 a year while the pantry fell into neglect. Investigators executing a warrant at the pantry, where Bell was the director and the only employee, found spoiled and rusted cans of food, he said.

"She never provided food or clothing," Spota said. "She was essentially using the food pantry to advance her criminal activity."A handwritten sign reading "Pantry Closed" hung on its door Wednesday.

The Rev. Francis Pizzarelli, director of Hope House Ministries, a church-based social services entity in Port Jefferson, oversees the pantry and declined to comment.

So did Bell, who was issued a desk appearance ticket after her arrest and has not been arraigned.

"Oh, please," she said as she drove away from her home.

A man identifying himself as her son-in-law said the charges are "ridiculous" and that she feeds and clothes hundreds.

At a news conference Wednesday, investigators displayed tables of cheap jewelry stamped with the Tiffany's logo and Tiffany boxes, wrongly colored a pastel green instead of its trademark baby blue. A sign seized by investigators said "Factory Seconds at Affordable Prices."

Spota said Tiffany contacted his office after people started trying to return products they bought from Bell that were discoloring or breaking.

She told undercover detectives posing as buyers that the jewelry she was selling were seconds made in Europe. But Spota said all of Tiffany's silver jewelry is made in Rhode Island and that it destroys anything not good enough for it to sell.

Detectives found Bell was buying jewelry from China for about $5 a piece and selling it for $40 each. Unlike authentic Tiffany silver, which is 92.5 percent pure, her jewelry was no more than 4 percent silver, and sometimes much less.

"It's junk jewelry," Spota said.

Bell typically set up tables in hospitals or nursing homes and told buyers that their purchases were tax-deductible because proceeds went to the food pantry, Spota said.

"It's outrageous," Spota said. "It's wrong."

He said others are under investigation, but said no one at Hope House knew about the scheme.

In a statement, Tiffany thanked the district attorney's office for the investigation.