Celebrity is Scammed Out of Thousands in Food and Drinks

Twenty-five-year-old Jemine Thurton is making headlines tonight for scamming a popular Belize City restaurant and bar out of thousands of dollars in food and drinks.  Between March twenty-fourth and May first, she ordered generously from Celebrity’s menu, requesting shots of tequila, nachos, Heineken beer, shrimp alfredo and an extensive list of other food and drinks amounting to three thousand, two hundred and twenty-eight dollars.  Thurton never paid for any of it and has been charged with two counts of obtaining property by deception.  It is alleged that Thurton, a regular customer of Celebrity’s, scammed the establishment by making fraudulent online payments.  Taylor Fuller, an administrator at the restaurant, grew suspicious when he observed two payments dated May fifteenth and seventeenth, respectively.  According to Fuller, the online banking system does not make mistakes with time and dates as it is an automated process.  When he visited Belize Bank to make a query, Fuller was informed that the transactions were illegitimate.  He then did a review of all the previous payment transactions made by Thurton and discovered that none of the payments were legitimate.  On Sunday, a police report was filed by Fuller and Thurton was arrested and charged.  She appeared in court earlier today where she was charged with two counts of obtaining property by deception.  She pleaded not guilty to both charges and was offered bail in the sum of five thousand dollars, plus one surety of the same amount.