On Friday, the former proprietor of three firms in San Diego that offered surrogacy consulting services to potential parents was found guilty of stealing money from her customers and received a sentence of two years in jail for her actions.
According to federal prosecutors, Lillian Arielle Markowitz, who is forty years old and founded the companies My Donor Cycle, Surrogacy Beyond Borders, and Expecting Surrogacy, entered a guilty plea to the charge of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from escrow accounts that were established for her clients in order to pay for surrogacy services.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office, Markowitz has admitted in his plea deal that he has submitted fraudulent escrow disbursement requests to the escrow company. One of these requests included a counterfeit client signature.
According to the prosecution, the cash belonging to nine additional clients were not transferred into escrow accounts as was promised; rather, they were deposited into a business checking account that she used to pay for other business and personal costs.
The United States Attorney’s Office claims that Markowitz, who also went by the name Lillian Frost, began collecting money from clients in 2018, when the company began experiencing financial difficulties, according to the prosecutors.
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According to a sentencing brief written by Jessica Oliva, the defence counsel for Markowitz, the financial problems that afflicted her client not only interfered with her capacity to pay for the services of her clients, but they also caused her to struggle to pay for her day-to-day living expenditures.
“Facing mounting debt and desperate to fulfil the guarantees she had promised to hopeful parents, she made catastrophic choices,” according to the correspondence.
Additionally, as part of her agreement to plead guilty to a federal wire fraud allegation, she agreed to make restitution to her former clients in the amount of at least $389,142.
