Nanny in fed case has long history as a ‘scam artist’

A Boston nanny accused of bilking her employers out of $280,000 has a history of passing bad checks, using stolen credit cards and generally wreaking havoc on local merchants, according to court filings.

Stephanie Fox, 30, of Randolph — who was charged in U.S. District Court in Boston Wednesday with stealing $280,000 using her employer’s checks — has multiple criminal convictions dating back to at least 2007, when she stole an American Express card while working as a waitress and used it to make several purchases at a CVS Pharmacy.

The owner of that credit card told the Herald she took it when he picked up an order from a national pizza chain. He was shocked to hear she was still at it.

“They gave her a slap on the wrist. She’s a professional. To make a long story short, she messed up my order and kept my card. She had me so confused I didn’t even realize it was missing,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I didn’t realize she was charging anything, it was a little here and a little there,” the victim said. “What they need to do with her is put her away. She’s just a scam artist. She hurts people.”

When the cops caught up to Fox, she admitted in a video-recorded confession to all the allegations, cops said, and told a detective, “I guess I have a problem.”

Fox — who police say bought two $100 prepaid credit cards with the stolen American Express — received two years’ probation in Quincy District Court in 2007, but violated the terms of her sentence in 2009 and had to serve a year in jail, court records show.

According to multiple Boston police reports, Fox was well-known to Back Bay merchants for passing bad checks in 2010 and 2011.

In March 2011 she bought a stroller and clothes for $620 from a high-end baby outfitter using a bad check. In June of the same year, Fox wrote a bad check to a sporting goods company, police said. The report noted, “This female was known to other South End merchants for similar check offenses.”

She was also convicted of targeting two campus bookstores, where she bought thousands of dollars in textbooks with bad checks.

At Bunker Hill Community College, Fox wrote 12 checks totaling $2,865 off a closed account in her name. Two months after she appeared in court, and while the case in Charlestown was still open, she wrote seven more bad checks for $1,700, according to court papers.

She got six months in jail.

By the time Fox was hired by the Boston family she allegedly bilked for $280,000 in April 2014, she had yet to pay the full restitution from 2011, and was still paying $141 a month. But by December of that year her restitution was cleared up, and she was no longer under court supervision, court records show.