I saw this
Boynton writer's hopes dashed when literary agent arrested
By Scott Travis
Education Writer
Posted November 30 2003
Stanley Weinstock spent five years trying to become the next great mystery writer -- a dream shattered when he learned his literary agent was arrested and charged with fraud.
Weinstock, a retired social work consultant who lives in Boynton Beach, had sent his manuscript and $1,000 to a North Myrtle Beach, S.C., agent who identified herself as Melanie Mills. But authorities think Weinstock, 73, and nine other budding writers were victims of a scheme.
"Much of my retirement years, all my hopes and aspirations, were sort of down the drain in the scam that Melanie Mills pulled," Weinstock said Saturday.
Authorities think Melanie Mills is a pseudonym for Elisabeth Von Hullessem, who may have faked her own death to evade fraud charges. North Myrtle Beach investigators told the Myrtle Beach Sun News that Von Hullessem, 49, is wanted in North Myrtle Beach, two counties in Arkansas and Stone County, Mo., on charges including fraud and attempted murder of her mother.
North Myrtle Beach Police Department Detective Carl Farmer told The Associated Press that Hullessem served 27 days in a jail in Banff, Canada, after a conviction for setting up a bogus literary conference in October. She was arrested on seven counts of fraud, two counts of false pretenses and theft.
She was scheduled to be released Nov. 25 on time served, he said.
But Farmer said she must be extradited from Canada to face charges in South Carolina, and the charges aren't serious enough to go through the expense.
"There's not a lot we can do. Our hands are tied. Hopefully, she will come back to the United States," Farmer said.
She also faces attempted murder charges in Arkansas, where police say she tried to run her mother over in a car.
Weinstock said he first made contact with Von Hullessem in April 2002. He had sent query letters to about 100 literary agents, whose names he had found on the Internet.
Von Hullessem, identifying herself as Melanie Mills, was one of only two that expressed interest in his novel. The two spent the next year exchanging e-mails and phone calls.
She told him the book needed revisions and offered to edit them for a fee. He paid her $1,004.
A woman who identified herself as Mills' assistant sent him an e-mail in May 2003 saying that Mills was out of the country, but the manuscript had been sent to St. Martin's Press.
Then, earlier this year, that same person sent an e-mail saying Mills had died in a car accident in Germany.
Weinstock started chatting with other writers on the Internet who had worked with her and became suspicious. He checked with German authorities and the Myrtle Beach newspaper and found no evidence that anyone with that name had died. St. Martin's Press had never heard of the book, Weinstock said.
He learned from a Canadian newspaper that she had been arrested. Weinstock said he was surprised he fell victim to what he thinks is a scheme.
"She seemed very legitimate and very professional for the most part," he said.
Information from The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
Scott Travis can be reached at
[email protected] or 561-243-6637.