If you're going to rip off your own mom for ten grand, you might as well get your money's worth, right? So goes the tale of Miriam Garmas, a 34-year-old from Stock Island who police say committed the perfectly stereotypical South Florida crime by defrauding her mother out of more than $10,000 in bogus credit card accounts, all to pay for a boob job and some Victoria's Secret lingerie.
Garmas was arrested just before midnight yesterday after her mother, Miriam Perez Zaragosa, called police to report she'd discovered thousands in unauthorized charges.
Zaragosa stumbled on the fraud, which began in 2009, while checking her credit score, according to a police report. The report showed $10,021 in charges in her name, when Zaragosa's only line of credit was for a car.
Police say Garmas soon confessed to blowing $4,200 on breast augmentation at a plastic surgeon's office on Coral Way. A nurse at the surgeon's office also picked her out of a lineup.
She also admitted to spending $445 at Victoria's Secret, $321 at Old Navy, $2,333 on a Dell Computer, and more than $6,000 to various banks.
Garmas, who is unemployed, faces seven felony counts of fraud.
It's apparently not her first brush with credit card fraud. Garmas was charged with grand theft and fraudulent use of a credit card in 1996, according to Riptide's records search. That case was not prosecuted.
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