CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) - A Cleveland woman charged with running a lucrative scam on social media was arraigned in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Tuesday morning.
Zienup Sbeih-Maddox, 24, pleaded not guilty to the charges of grand theft, theft and tampering with records.
Judge set bond at $100,000.
Sbeih-Maddox, who eluded law enforcement for more than a year, was arrested on a fugitive warrant in Las Vegas in August. She had been living under an alias at a Las Vegas youth homeless shelter since May.
Officials confirm she was transported back to Cleveland this past Sunday, Nov. 25 and locked up in the Cuyahoga County Jail.
Sbeih-Maddox is accused of using Facebook to scam hundreds of people across the United States and Canada out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. She ran a Facebook group called “Zee’s Place,” where she sold everything from heavily discounted baby products to Disney vacations.
Many of the victims who belonged to the group say Sbeih-Maddox never delivered the goods they had purchased.
Investigators say Sbeih-Maddox pulled in over $200,000 as part of the scam. At the same time, she was living in public housing in Cleveland and paying less than $80 per month in rent.
The Cleveland Division of Police issued a warrant for Sbeih-Maddox’s arrest on July 28, 2017 after charging her with telecommunications fraud and theft.
The Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority Police Department also investigated Sbeih-Maddox for public housing fraud. On Sept. 25, 2017, she was indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on felony charges of grand theft, theft and tampering with records.
Sbeih-Maddox will be back in court on Dec. 3.
We’re also told more evidence against Sbeih-Maddox, and possibly others, could be presented to a Cuyahoga County grand jury in the coming weeks.
Stay with Cleveland 19 News for updates as this story continues to develop.
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