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Scam victim hopes to get back $400K

HARVEY, N.D. (AP) — A 90-year-old North Dakota woman who was robbed of her life savings by a Jamaican lottery scam says she has been paid back only $287 of the $400,000 she’s owed.

Edna Schmeets of Harvey, a small central North Dakota town about 77 miles (124 kilometers) northeast of Bismarck, was the victim whose case launched what became the first large-scale Jamaican lottery scam case prosecuted in the U.S. All 31 defendants have been prosecuted, including 14 Jamaican nationals who were extradited from that country. Authorities identified victims of the scam in 31 states, with more than 100 mostly elderly American bilked out of more than $6 million.

“I’m so disappointed,” Scmeets told the Bismarck Tribune of the small amount she’s gotten back. She said she was told another check for $138 is pending.

Federal prosecutors pledged to get at least some of the victims’ money back. But offenders’ inability to pay often limits the collection of restitution. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, many victims wait years before receiving any money, and many never received the full amount they were owed.

Most restitution ordered in federal court cases is never collected, according to a federal government report last year. The U.S. Government Accountability Office studied Justice Department data and found that at the end of fiscal 2016, $110 billion in previously ordered restitution was outstanding, and federal prosecutors had identified $100 billion of that — or 91% — as being uncollectable due to the offenders’ inability to pay.

“Sadly, what you’re seeing here (in the scam case) is all too typical, where victims are promised substantial restitution but the reality is much less,” said Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor and special counsel with the National Crime Victim Law Institute.

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