D.A.: Pacifica Woman Scammed $100,000 Posing as Disney, Tech Employee

A 22-year-old woman has been charged for scamming more than $100,000 from people by selling fake tickets to Disney theme parks and offering fake jobs at tech companies, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

Jennifer Anne Cardema is facing 27 charges, 25 of which are felonies, including grand theft, identity theft, insufficient funds checks and aggravated white-collar crime enhancements, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Deng said.

If convicted Cardema faces up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Cardema used to live in San Jose and recently moved to Pacifica, where she was arrested Thursday, Deng said.

She has been booked into the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas where she is being held without bail, according to jail records.

There are 14 identified victims, either acquaintances or friends of acquaintances, who she conducted informal business with, Deng said.

Cardema allegedly claimed she was a Disneyland employee as regional director of operations and sold discounted annual passes and hotel rooms over the course of two years, prosecutors said.

Some of the victims involved Santa Clara County families who traveled to Disneyland in Anaheim or Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., where they found out their passes were invalid and rooms hadn’t been booked, according to prosecutors.

She is also suspected of creating a phony LinkedIn profile, fake Disneyland passes and fraudulent Disneyland emails, according to prosecutors.

She allegedly created false business decorated with the Disney characters Mickey Mouse and Elsa from the 2013 film “Frozen,” Deng said.

Cardema also allegedly cheated people starting earlier this year by presenting herself as a recruiter for Intel and YouTube, and used information from their job applications to open credit cards in their names, according to prosecutors.

She would send the cards to the victims under the guise that they were corporate cards, had them buy items on her behalf and said they would be reimbursed for the purchases, according to Deng.

She claimed to be director of litigation at YouTube and was looking for a personal assistant, Deng said.

Many of the victims asked for a return on their money, but Cardema allegedly sent checks that bounced back for insufficient funds, prosecutors said.

She is also accused of conning her mother’s ex-realtor into believing she would purchase a $4 million home in Fremont last year, Deng said.

Cardema allegedly provided false bank records and a $100,000 check to purchase the residence, Deng said. The realtor pieced together the scam and reached out to the district attorney’s office.

Investigators were able to learn of other victims in the county, according to Deng.

“We can closely quantify the loss of money in fraud cases. What we can’t easily quantify is the trauma of fraud,” Deng said. “This investigation is ongoing and we hope that anyone else who may have been victimized by this person will come forward and speak with us,” Deng said.

Any additional victims are asked to contact District Attorney Investigator Richard Fong at (408) 792-2983.

--Bay City News Service, photo courtesy of the Santa Clara County Deputy District’s Office