When the television production company Jeff Nimoy worked for began falling behind on payroll in 2017, the Los Angeles showrunner wasn’t alarmed.
Bellum Entertainment was a “machine,” he said, producing a steady slate of true crime shows, children’s TV and documentaries. At one point, the company had upward of 30 shows on air or in development, including “It Takes a Killer.”
Like his colleagues, Nimoy also believed the company’s CEO, Mary Carole McDonnell, was a wealthy aviation heiress with access to millions of dollars.
“I was like, there’s no way this thing’s going down, they’ve got too much capital,” said Nimoy, who believed at one point that he would spend the next 20 years of his career at Bellum.
But that dream vanished when his paychecks stopped and Bellum Entertainment abruptly shut down. Nearly a decade later, Nimoy is still waiting to be paid over $16,000 — and McDonnell is a fugitive sought by the FBI after, it says, she falsely posed as the heir to the McDonnell aircraft family to defraud California banks out of nearly $30 million total.
“Everybody was right, and I was wrong,” Nimoy said.
This month, the FBI released a most-wanted bulletin seeking information about McDonnell, 73, who was federally indicted in 2018 on charges of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Investigators allege that from July 2017 to May 2018, McDonnell used forged documents and claimed she had access to a secret $80 million trust fund as part of her scheme.
Federal investigators believe McDonnell is in Dubai.
While McDonnell faces criminal charges that she duped banks, former Bellum employees, family members and court records describe what they say was her fall from being a prolific television producer to an alleged con artist who left a long trail of victims.
“We have been seeking her whereabouts,” FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller told NBC News, noting that new information about allegations of continued misdeeds abroad has prompted the FBI to ask the public for help.
The McDonnell aircraft family eventually sold the corporation. The James S. McDonnell Foundation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
An alleged false legacy
The only biographical detail in McDonnell’s aviation dynasty story that a relative knew to be accurate was her ties to St. Louis. The relative asked not to be identified to protect other family members.
McDonnell was born in Michigan and has ties to Alabama, the FBI said. But the relative said McDonnell grew up in the St. Louis area, where the McDonnell Douglas aircraft company was founded.
The relative said that while McDonnell’s father was “well off” and owned a successful grocery store, she would “inflate her value” and make up stories about being connected to McDonnell Douglas Corp. The company was known for producing airplane parts during World War II, developing the Navy’s first carrier-based jet fighter and shaping space exploration and aviation.
“I talked directly with her dad … and he laughed and said, ‘No, there’s no connection there,’” the relative said. “I was silly enough not to challenge her on that. But she would continue to tout that connection, adamant that she would inherit this huge sum of money.”
Details of McDonnell’s early career and when she relocated to California aren’t immediately clear. According to former Bellum Entertainment employees, McDonnell continued to claim she was a dynasty scion.
‘I had a lot of bounced checks,’ ex-Bellum worker says
Brian Testa was hired as a producer and director for Bellum Entertainment’s Burbank location in July 2016. He initially saw the opportunity to work on true crime re-enactment shows like “Murderous Affairs” and “Deep Undercover” as a new adventure.
“I came from a lot of reality [television]. So scripted, while keeping the story true to the person who was the victim, usually it was murder, I would tell that story as visually entertaining as I could,” he said. “It was a challenge.”
Testa said his crew often worked 12-hour days scouting locations, filming and getting the props needed for shows. McDonnell was always in and out of the office, he said.
Testa said McDonnell projected wealth — driving a Porsche, working out of an office with “rich wood everywhere” and carrying herself like someone who would enjoy “five-star hotels and definitely the lavish lifestyle.”
“She dressed nice … but always seemed slightly disheveled,” he said, adding that the office rumors suggested she came from money. “I definitely heard two different stories while I was there. One was the McDonnell Douglas heiress, and then the other was that there was a family trust set up for her.”
When the checks started bouncing and the facade of generational wealth began to crumble, Testa said, McDonnell always had an explanation for the late payments. Sometimes she would blame them on a line of credit that didn’t come through, and other times she’d tell her employees that there was “significant bank fraud” affecting company finances, Testa said.
When people did get paid, Testa said, there was a rush to cash the checks.
“There would be a mad dash out the door to get them to the banks before the banks would close so you could cash them, because they would move money around,” he said. “I had a lot of bounced checks.”
For Carlos Franco, doubts about Bellum Entertainment began almost as soon as he was hired as a production assistant at the company’s New Orleans office in 2016.
He began hearing complaints from his colleagues about not being paid while he was working on “Murderous Affairs.” Then, his first paycheck was late, and the excuses started.
“It was always some issue with the bank or the money that they were supposed to be getting wasn’t released to them yet, or they had to change banks, or they were getting a loan,” he said.
Unaware of the payroll issues alleged to be plaguing Bellum, Aaron Cadieux began working for the company in 2017 after having been contacted to help with a show, “Mysteries of the Unexplained.”
The production company wanted Cadieux as its director of photography for an episode filming in Massachusetts about the Bridgewater Triangle, a roughly 200-square-mile area in the state known for what some people believe is paranormal activity.
Cadieux, who lives in Massachusetts and owns a video production company, had never heard of Bellum — but he jumped at the opportunity. The company paid him $500 upfront, which he said gave him “some peace of mind” and even provided him with a camera.
“I think they even provided lunch and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it was a skeleton operation. It wasn’t like some huge-budget thing, but I was completely at ease,” he said.
Like the others, Cadieux said he began quickly noticing red flags. While the two-day shoot wrapped in the spring of 2017, he said, he was still waiting to be paid his remaining $2,000 invoice by the end of the summer.
Cadieux said he sent emails and called Bellum for months for updates on his payment.
“I apologize for the delays in payment. We have fallen a bit behind. A payment is being processed and will be sent out this week,” a Bellum employee who worked in accounts payable said in a July 26, 2017, email that Cadieux shared with NBC News.
Cadieux said he never received the July payment. In a Nov. 10, 2017, email, the employee suggested that Cadieux’s check had been mailed and apologized for the delay. When Cadieux once again didn’t receive his money, he told NBC News, he eventually emailed McDonnell and threatened to create a website exposing her for not paying employees.
“They wired me my money. I got paid, but what about the rest of these people? So I said screw it,” he said, noting that he only briefly launched the website.
Around the same time, Bellum’s troubles began to make headlines, and the company was eventually slapped with dozens of wage claims lawsuits in Los Angeles County. Online court records show that McDonnell has been named in numerous civil cases.
In 2017, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office investigated Bellum after roughly 50 employees filed unpaid wage claims, the entertainment site Deadline reported at the time.
“The claims mostly allege non-payment of wages and have been filed by actors, producers, crew members, and others,” a spokeswoman for the Labor Commissioner’s Office told Deadline at the time. “Some have settled, and some have not and are in different stages of the wage claim process.”
The Labor Commissioner’s Office didn’t immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment but said it was working to obtain information about its investigation of McDonnell.
Facing mounting pressure, the company abruptly shut down after a planned weeklong break to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday in 2017.
“The night before we were supposed to return, it was something like, we’re experiencing some delays, we’re going to extend the break two more weeks,” Nimoy said. “That’s when I called my boss and said, ‘We’re never coming back.’ He agreed, and we never heard from them again.”
Testa said that after the company closed, he began protesting outside the office to demand back pay. Days later, he received a check for the $3,000 he said the company owed him.
But other Bellum workers weren’t so lucky.
Franco filed a complaint with the California Labor Department in September 2017 and won a judgment of $12,395 — but he says he is still owed $1,250 in unpaid wages. Nimoy said the company owes him $16,650 in back pay.
From allegedly stiffing employees to allegedly swindling banks
The FBI alleged that behind the scenes, McDonnell was running an even bigger con. A 2018 federal indictment accused her of obtaining $14.7 million from Banc of California by falsely claiming she was related to the McDonnell Douglas family and had access to an $80 million trust.
In an amended federal civil complaint filed in December 2018, the bank said that during a meeting with McDonnell and her former lawyer, Barry Rothman, McDonnell said she was the heir to the founder of McDonnell Douglas Corp. and the beneficiary of the family trust. McDonnell said she was set to receive a cash distribution from the trust but needed a loan to tide her over, the complaint alleges.
The bank alleged that the scheme involved her forging documents and falsely claiming that she would repay the loan from the trust. The bank sued her for intentional misrepresentation/fraud, conspiracy to defraud and breach of written contract. Rothman, who died in March 2018, wasn’t named as a defendant in the case.
Federal investigators alleged in an indictment that McDonnell used similar tactics to defraud more than $15 million from other financial institutions.
On Dec. 12, 2018, a federal arrest warrant was issued for McDonnell on charges of aggravated identity theft and bank fraud. But by then, federal authorities believe, she had fled to Dubai.
The FBI said it has received information that McDonnell is still alleged to be engaged in fraud abroad.
“Publicity is an investigative tool,” said Eimiller, the FBI spokesperson. “We were at the point where the case was kind of cold, and we were receiving information that she was continuing to defraud, and we decided that it was the strategic time to go public.”