Fake Cheerleader Busted in Virginia

Meet Tasha Mitchell. She has been on some kind of bizarre nationwide crime spree, posing as a cheerleader, magazine salesman, or cancer advocate and has been scamming people out of money by going door to door asking for donations.

Supposedly she has a real job selling magazines, but I couldn’t find any website for the business- maybe its a front for a cult, organized crime ring, or something similar- but she’s been coast to coast in a van with a couple of friends according to police reports in Oregon here.

She got busted in Virginia and pleaded guilty to obtaining money under false pretenses. And she is going to spend time in the Fairfax County Jail. When she gets out, she gets to go down to Spotsylvania County in Virginia to stand trial there for the same crimes.

From NBC 4 here:

In Fairfax County, a young woman pretending to be a cheerleader pleaded guilty to conning people out of cash in Great Falls.

Police said Tasha Marie Mitchell went door to door in several areas of Northern Virginia with two false stories. In one, she said she was a cheerleader collecting donations, police said. In the other, she claimed to be raising money for cancer victims.

But for one stay-at-home mom, something didn’t seem right. The woman sent Mitchell away and called Langley High School to check out her story. When the tale didn’t check out, she called police.

Officers arrested the 20-year-old a few blocks away, police said. Before long, they learned Mitchell had been arrested for similar schemes across the country, including California, Oregon and Texas, police said.

Mitchell pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of obtaining money for false pretenses, prosecutors said. She will serve nine months in jail and three years probation.

Video here. Her Myspace page is here, and she lists as her hobby cheerleading.