Woman Jailed For Posing As Firefighter's Wife, Scamming People During Wildfire

A woman has been jailed for scamming more than $2,000 from people after pretending her partner was a firefighter who was battling the fires in California in August 2018.

Ashley Bemis, a wedding planner from San Clemente, California, pleaded guilty last week to several charges after she encouraged people to donate money to her so that she could, pass it to the fire department that was battling the Holy Fire that hit Orange County and Riverside County last year in August. Bemis claimed to be in a relationship with a firefighter named Shane Goodman, who didn’t exist. She was also accused of faking three pregnancies and claiming she gave birth to a stillborn child.

The court convicted her of one count of grand theft, four counts of second-degree burglary, six counts of dissuading a witness from reporting a crime and as many as two dozen fraud counts. The judge sentenced her to 177 days in a county jail Monday.

Bemis, 28, was investigated after she posted pictures of herself with a firefighter, she claimed was her “hubby” named Shane. The local fire captain saw this and reported her. This led to the local authorities investigating her for a month during which they found out about the other crimes she had committed.

In her Facebook post, where Bemis convinced people to donate money, she described her enthusiasm to donate money and supplies like socks, sports drinks, water and camping equipment to the firefighters. “My Shane works for Cal Fire and is out on the Holy Fire right now. I also have two other family members and many friends out on this fire and other fires burning here in California. I received a text today from Shane saying it’s pretty much a living hell out there battling the unpredictable. I wanted to put it out there to everyone and say I will happily meet you and pick up any donation to the firefighters and first responders that are on the front lines right now,” her post said.

To make her plan seem more authentic, she supposedly went to the Holy Fire command post in Irvine to drop off some of the items she got. However, she kept a pile of the items for herself. During the course of the investigation, authorities discovered Bemis had been scamming people for years.

In 2012, she convinced Quinn and Starla Bork, her friends from San Clemente, to hold a baby shower for her, making them spend several hundreds of dollars. According to Quinn, the money Starla spent on the baby shower wasn’t the money she could really afford to spend, but did so for Bemis. She used prosthetics to fake her pregnancy and told another friend that the baby was a still-born. Later, she re-sold all the gifts she received at the baby shower.

Bemis was arrested in December 2018. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department said, at the time of Bemis’ arrest, “San Clemente Police Services investigators suspect Bemis created the fictitious husband with the intention of soliciting donations to defraud victims. They also became aware, through additional social media posts from members of the community, of past fraudulent activity by Bemis, including multiple prior faked pregnancies in an attempt to illegally obtain money from unsuspecting victims.”

Before her arrest, Bemis made an appearance on “The Dr. Phil Show,” where her victims confronted her about the Holy Fire donations. She claimed she was “honestly trying to help the firefighters” at the time.