SERIAL fraudster Brenton Jarrett is back with a new name and a new game just six months after pleading guilty to a string of frauds committed under a fake identity in Albury.
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Using the name Joshua Rankin Kells, the 40-year-old convicted conman has resurfaced as the boss of a modelling agency, according to
As well as heading Vexus Models, Kells is a former designer for Italian fashion label Versace - or he would be if he were real.
Vexus was registered as a business in New South Wales on January 31 by Brenton Jarrett. On March 19, ownership of the business was transferred, official documents show, to Ernest Brian Hitchcock.
The relationship between the Jarrett and Hitchcock names is a strong one. In March 2010, The Age reported that Brenton Jarrett, whose list of convictions stretches back to the 1990s, had surfaced as "Joshua Hitchcock’’.
Professing to be the grandson of film director Alfred Hitchcock, Joshua claimed he was about to launch film and television production company Hitchcock Media International (HMI) with a Melbourne-based remake of the US sitcom Cheers. But the Cheers remake, HMI and Joshua Hitchcock were all fabrications.
In 2010, police investigated claims that Jarrett’s motivation had been to meet women in a bid to lure them into having sex with the ‘’powerful’’ producer. It was alleged he had met up to 60 women and at least two had had sex with him, but no charges were ever laid.
The construction of the Josh Kells identity follows a similar pattern. In early October 2011, references to Joshua Rankin Kells began to appear on fashion forums online. On October 12, ‘’Joshua Kells’’ posted: ‘’As a designer at Versace I try to be influenced by anyone and everyone. If you were working for a high-profile label how would you separate pressure from creativity to get a result?’’
What makes that entry especially notable is that it was posted just hours after Brenton Jarrett had appeared in Albury Local Court on charges relating to a fraud at Woy Woy on the central NSW coast in 2007. He pleaded guilty and was convicted, but given an 18-month good behaviour bond.
