Showtime’s latest docuseries, Love Fraud, exposes serial bigamist and scammer Richard Scott Smith as the creators team up with the women he wronged to track him down in the hopes of bringing him to justice. Co-directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, the four-part series is driven by the stories of women Smith manipulated and stole from. For more than 20 years, Smith evaded consequences as he hopped from town to town in the midwest.
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The women who teamed up for Love Fraud represent dozens of more women Smith dated, married, and ultimately stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from. In an interview with Refinery29, Grady said they spoke to about 30 women in total while working on the series and, according to Ewing, more have come forward since the trailer for Love Fraud was released.
Sabrina is one of the women, who offered to speak up for the series, never thought she would go through something like this. “This is stuff you see on 20/20 and all these crime shows and I got involved with this guy? It was sickening,” said Sabrina after finding out that Smith manipulated countless other women in the same ways he did to her. According to Sabrina, she and Smith met at her salon where she works as a hairdresser and began dating shortly after in May 2016 before the relationship came to an end that October. “When I found out, it was like somebody literally took a baseball bat and bunched me in the gut. Wow. And I just left him because he was being a dick.” However, the breakup was just the beginning.
Sabrina lost everything as Smith racked up immense credit card debt. In total, Smith spent tens of thousands of dollars in her name. She filed forgery charges in November 2016. “All in all, with lawyers involved, him signing my name on stuff and starting accounts, it was about $100,000,” Sabrina told Refinery29. “I lost everything. Everything went out the door in about two days. It was insane what I went through.” Sabrina originally worked with a detective who discovered that Smith was on probation at the time for domestic abuse charges. The detective found enough for the District Attorney in Kansas to charge Smith with forgery. Smith denied the allegations but still turned himself in.
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Finally, you might be thinking to yourself, but not so fast. As Sabrina recalls, Smith’s uncle paid his bail bond in a matter of hours and he was back out in no time. “The system does not work in your favor, I’ll just be honest,” said Sabrina. “The state of Kansas views forgery as a criminal charge, but on paper, a first-time offense doesn’t mean anything.” It was Sabrina’s understanding that a violation like that guarantees at least 10 months in jail; however, Smith’s sentence was lessened to 18 months probation. Meanwhile, Sabrina was working tirelessly to financially recover as she learned more about her ex. “His history, what he was doing behind my back, everything...I just checked out for a long time. It was a rollercoaster.”
Sabrina wasn’t alone in her shock and grief for long. “His current wife contacted my Mom through LinkedIn and that’s how we met. We met that same week, I met her and Sandy. After I met with them, that’s when I knew I was screwed. I did not know what to do,” said Sabrina. She also came upon a blog, created by one of Smith’s ex-wives, in the hopes that no one else would fall victim to his lies and it was full of stories from different women who fell prey to Smith’s scam. While investigating Smith for Love Fraud, Grady and Ewing found 11 marriage certificates. He would often date women outside of those marriages and there were even times where marriages would overlap, but because they weren’t in the same state, his actions went unnoticed. Smith had a routine. He would meet a woman, charm her, make her believe that she was the only one for him, then try to get as close and involved as possible before disappearing, oftentimes with as much money as he could.
Still, Sabrina hopes that Smith will eventually face some form of charges for what he’s done; however, she’s not optimistic. “I do not have faith in the system,” she said. “The system has let me down during this whole process.” What she does hope for is that Love Fraud reaches a wide enough audience that Smith will never be able to trick another woman again. “From what I’ve heard, his little world is coming to an end. I’m hoping that someone is going to get him,” Sabrina continued. “He’s greedy, he’s self-centered, a psychopath, and he only cares about himself….whatever his game is, is ending around him.”
The first episode of Love Fraud airs on Showtime on August 30 at 9:00 p.m. ET.