Conman who travelled the world posing as F1 driver dies

A conman, who travelled the world posing as a Formula One driver and rock star to swindle women out of cash, has died after 30 years of avoiding justice, reports telegraph.co.uk.

Jonathan Kern, 71, died in France last month from a stroke and a heart attack while wanted by authorities in the US, one of his victims has revealed.

Kern rose to attention in 1996 after being featured on US documentary series Unsolved Mysteries where he was described as a “sweetheart swindler” for conning Elizabeth Ballard, now 69, after posing as a British racing driver.

Ms Ballard met Kern in Miami in 1994 while he was posing as Jonathan Palmer, a former Williams F1 driver, on a business trip. She was dining alone at an outdoor café in South Beach when Kern arrived in a forest green Jaguar and introduced himself.

He wooed her with a British accent and designer clothes, and promised her ski trips to the Alps. After about three weeks he moved into her home in Milford, Connecticut.

When she questioned why he wanted to settle down with her she claims he said he was “tired” of jet-setting.

During their six-week whirlwind romance, however, Kern drained Ms Ballard’s bank accounts of $250 a day, without her knowledge and emptied her savings account.

Kern convinced Ms Ballard to rent a mobile phone and used it to make calls under false pretences.

“He told me he was staying in the US for me,” Ms Ballard said. “He didn’t have personal credit cards because he wasn’t planning to stay long, so I let him use mine.”

After he had stolen $15,000, he left without a trace.

“I remember coming home one day and everything was gone – his cars, his suitcases,” Ballard, a retired clinical monitor from Chapin, South Carolina, said. “I called him, and he just laughed it off.”

After checking her phone bill, she discovered calls to unfamiliar numbers including one which led to Kern’s supposed cousin in Los Angeles, another connected her to his mother in England.

“She told me, ‘Jonathan’s ruined my life too’,’” she said. “I couldn’t afford rent or even my car payments. I had to borrow money from my aunt just to get by.”

An $8,000 cheque Kern had given her from an Italian bank bounced nearly a year later, leaving her responsible for the amount and she was forced to file for bankruptcy on her 40th birthday.

Ms Ballard began piecing together Kern’s identity and a call to the real Jonathan Palmer’s office confirmed he was not the racing driver.

Kern had been impersonating the F1 driver across Europe and the US, defrauding victims with similar schemes.

Ms Ballard worked with US Federal Marshals to identify Kern using evidence such as photos of him with his sports car. They told her he was a career conman with an extensive history of fraud.

Having begun his criminal career at the age of 18 when he was convicted of impersonating a police officer, he went on to pose as various celebrities including Mick Taylor, former Rolling Stones guitarist, and the Kid Rock, the US singer.

While she filed charges in Milford, Connecticut, including felony larceny, second-degree forgery, and criminal impersonation, Kern fled the jurisdiction before authorities could apprehend him.

Authorities issued warrants for his arrest in multiple jurisdictions as he grew increasingly known for impersonating Palmer as the real driver’s office became inundated with unpaid invoices, clothes, jewellery and outstanding hotel bills and even escorts.

In 1998, Ms Ballard testified against him in a Paris court case involving another woman he had conned. That helped lead to his conviction and jail time, but he was released before he could be extradited to the US.

Kern was also convicted in 1999 of stealing a Lotus from the company’s headquarters after posing as a journalist who wanted to test drive it for the weekend.

Authorities across the world struggled to make Kern serve significant jail time due to jurisdictional challenges, as many of his crimes occurred across multiple states and countries.

“It took me 10 years to get back on my feet,” Ms Ballard admitted. “My self-confidence was gone.”

While rebuilding her career and life, she continued to hear from other victims over the years.

“I wanted to forget about it,” she said. “But every time I tried to move on, someone else would reach out with their story.”

Ms Ballard heard he had died on March 12 in Lunay, France, after suffering strokes and a heart attack, according to his death certificate.

The Hartford Courant, a Connecticut newspaper, reported that Det Marilisa Anania of the Milford Police Department, which still had an active warrant, wrote in an email to Ms Ballard: “I am sorry we were unable to ever serve the warrant, but your dedication to your case has helped many others in similar situations.”

Ms Ballard now feels a sense of closure after decades of hearing his name. She found love with, Stephen, 70, a retired US Air Force veteran who become her husband.

“I’m feeling tremendous relief that this journey is over,” she said.

The allegations were put to Kern a number of times over the years, but when the New Haven Register, another newspaper in Connecticut, reached out to him in 2018, he said that Ms Ballard “really needs to get a life”.

“Her accusations are exaggerated and fictitious and my family, colleagues and I are fed up to the back teeth of this attention seeker,” Kern said.

The newspaper said he posted a video of himself on YouTube which broadly describes his exploits around the globe, “pretending to be a famous rock star or racing driver”.

In 1999, while serving time for the Lotus theft, he gave an interview to The Guardian where he claimed he pushed back against claims he was a “James Bond figure” or a “professional conman”.

“I ended up paying a very heavy price for what had started out as nothing more than a bit of fun,” he said.