Hipster Grifter Kari Ferrell's Victims Speak Out!
Kari Ferrell, the crazy pathological liar and scammer now legally known as the "Hipster Grifter," is already an internet superstar! We have new stories about her from unfortunate acquaintances. And the cops are everywhere!
Ferrell made the Salt Lake City PD's most wanted list because she has six outstanding warrants for stealing a total of $60,000. And Det. Mark Evans, who is leading the grifter hunt, says he now has an extradition order that allows him to fly out to any state where she's arrested and drag her back to Utah. "Normally, the only times SLC extradites is for rapists and murderers, but since she's left such a large path of victims here, we were able to convince a judge to make her extraditable."
Evans didn't have any new info about her whereabouts, but he said he got a call last week from someone claiming to be Ferrell's friend. "I've never spoken to her, though," he says, "so it could have been her trying to get the details on how extensive our investigation is." It is very extensive, Kari.
If you think you may know where she is, be sure to let us know. Online posses have already formed Myspace and Facebook groups to hunt her down. Victims of her lies are speaking out on their blogs. [Doree Shafrir has started a meme!]
And a few people have emailed us already about their run-ins with Kari. One guy says he thinks he met her at a gallery show in Brooklyn last Saturday and had dinner with her, and that she said she was pregnant. Another tipster says he had the misfortune of living with Kari, just this month:
My roommate and I had the pleasure of Kari living with us for maybe a week this very month.
There's a reason she's made the rounds without being tarred and feathered. She's LIKABLE. We found her via Craigslist and were happy to have found so personable and fun a girl to live with. Then, by luck, I came across Vice Magazine's blog entry about her, titled "Oopsies. We hired a grifter." That evening I told her we quite sadly must part ways.
Among her stories were:
"Someone stole my XBox account number and bought $3,000 of media content with it."
"That check from my last roommate bounced? That bastard! I'll pay you tomorrow."
"What you don't get is that I was the victim in Utah. I was simply trying to protect myself when this all went down."
"I cleared up that little thing in Utah. It's nothing more than a missed court date."Five warrants for $60,000 and a line of Internet denizens looking for your head on a platter... because of a missed court date?
Oh Kari. We hardly knew ye, and are glad that it stayed at "hardly".
Not as bad as it could have been! But the most detailed tip we got was from a guy who says he knew her back in Utah, and that she hasn't changed a bit. His story is below:
For starters, Kari is a bona fide sociopath. She grew up in South Jordan in one of the many stucco middle to upper-middle class neighborhoods that emerged overnight in the Salt Lake Valley. She was adopted, had a younger brother (also adopted) who lived with their mother in Arizona. I always felt bad for her dad, Terri. He bore much of the brunt of her frequent damage until he finally Pontius Piloted her out of his life, refusing to help or do anything else to enable her.
I knew Kari when I was 19. One of my favorite Kari-tales goes as follows:
She invited me to go to a midnight showing of The Shining at an art house theatre down the street from me. She had told me she lived downtown, but, for some odd reason, she needed to pick her up in South Jordan 20 miles away in the heart of mouth-breathing Mormondom. Not a problem, I thought. I met her in a parking lot and drove back. On the way, she told me a.) she was a vetrinary assistant, b.) while a vetrinary assistant she was the victim of racial prejudice and c.) this racial prejudice resulted in her dog being killed by a co-worker. Uh, what? This was a pretty typical sort of chain-lie that Kari would tell, but should show that Kari lied about EVERYTHING, not just select things. I digress. We went to the movie. It was crowded; packed, even. The lights went down and, almost instantly, her clammy hand made way for the Croatian Coast. Yes, right there, in the middle of a crowded theatre. I had hardly known her a week and was sitting in a crowded theatre so I wasn't having it. I pushed her hand away. We sat in silence the rest of the movie and drove home, largely in silence. When I finally dropped her off, she made an attempt at a kiss. Shudder.
Anyway, it was amusing for a minute, but got old real quick when she staged a fake trip to the hospital complete with maudlin, bathos-ridden texts. I had had enough and cut her off. Completely. Nevertheless, every couple of months I would get unsolicited statements like "I joined the Peace Corps and now I'm off to Mozambique" or "I'm having a book of poems published." Ha, fucking ha. In addition to the texts, Kari would invade different circles of friends, triggering their sympathies through a chain of predictable-albeit-unmanaged lies while tempting them with her cool, fictional connections or professions. The scam always worked, for a while anyway. I'm amazed at how many people I meet around the city in the 18-27 range that have been duped by her. The worst, however, was last summer, when Kari had infiltrated a group of friends, against my advice and common fucking sense. She dated one friend, Brandon; but he dumped her when she wound up in jail for, drum roll, check fraud. After Brandon threw her curbside, she made a move for Brian, who requited. During this time, she still maintained that she worked for TicketMaster and totally had connections to national touring acts. The coup de grace came in July came when she told all of them, again, against mine and everyone elses' adivce, that she could get them backstage all-access passes to the festival and even arrange to meet Sonic Youth after they played Daydream Nation in its entirety. They all bought, pricey tickets and even gave her some money on the side. The day before they are scheduled to leave, Kari outright disappeared, emerging a week later with some lie about a stolen phone or hospital visit. Brian continued to date her ('cause, you know, masochism totally rawks!) and even posted bail the last and final time she was busted before leaving for Brooklyn to work that totally not-fake TicketMaster job. She broke parole, missed court dates and Brian had to eat the entire hat, $6,000 price tag and all.
I'm not surprised that she repeated the same patterns in Brooklyn. I would almost re-lose faith in humanity if she didn't, actually. I just can't believe how quickly it blew up.
I've already been texting people that were either totally boned or, like me, just endlessly annoyed and occasionally entertained by her. Ah, schadenfreude, more enriching than mother's milk.
Good luck finding that blood tic.
[Earlier coverage; Pics via Maciekjasik.com. Anyone with more info, email us]