A mother and daughter from Long Island have been charged with racking up $850,000 in fraudulent credit card purchases for over a decade.
Karan Geist, 61, and her daughter Alyssa Geist, 33, both pleaded not guilty to grand larceny, fraud and other charges in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday.
They’re alleged to have used 14 different credit card companies to run the 13-year-long scam to buy designer clothes and expensive vacations, according to the New York Post.
Manhattan prosecutors accuse Karan Geist of falsely reporting the nearly $1million between 2008 and 2021.
They say she got credit placed on her statements when she would call banks and report phony charges. On separate occasions, she got $205,000 put on an American Express card and $155,000 put on a Chase Card.
Long Island woman Karan Geist (pictured) and her daughter have been charged with racking up $850,000 in fraudulent credit card purchases for over a decade
Karan Geist, 61, and her daughter Alyssa Geist (pictured), 33, both pleaded not guilty to grand larceny, fraud and other charges in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday
DA Albin Bragg’s office said the purchases ‘ranged in nature from the luxurious to the mundane.’
The Geist women would travel on the card to destinations as wide-ranging as Paris, Milan, Norway, Costa Rica and Hawaii. A photo posted online shows the two walking the famous Abbey Road in London.
Assistant District Attorney Catherine McCaw said in court: ‘She booked tickets in her own name, car rentals in her family member’s name, hotel stays in her own name, and other luxurious purchases like watches and handbags while she was traveling.’
As Bragg’s office called out, she wouldn’t just use the credit for extravagancies, she would use it at dollar stores or to pay simple bills for veterinary care, in addition to the occasional department store shopping spree.
Prosecutors say that Karan Geist started alone but eventually got daughter Alyssa – a former schoolteacher in New York City – in on the hoax for about half a year.
The Geist women would travel on the card to destinations as wide-ranging as Paris, Milan, Norway, Costa Rica and Hawaii
Prosecutors say that Karan Geist started alone but eventually got daughter Alyssa – a former schoolteacher in New York City – in on the hoax for about half a year
They were once observed entering a Barclays to report a fraudulent charge on surveillance footage in 2016.
The Geist heist was put to an end by a police raid in 2021 at her Huntington, Long Island home and discovered over 100 credit cards and receipts for transactions reported as fraud.
The women were set free on supervised release after a Friday hearing and are scheduled to return to court September 14. Their passports were confiscated.
Alyssa’s attorney, James Pascarella, told the Post: ‘My only comment [is] she is not guilty. She is completely innocent here and it will come out in the end.’