After a long investigation and hundreds of complaints, a grand jury in San Diego has charged three people involved in a publishing scam that the government contends defrauded elderly authors across the U.S. of almost $44 million.
According to the indictment, Gemma Traya Austin of Chula Vista, Calif., was the organizer and registered agent for PageTurner Press and Media LLC, a Chula Vista–based company that claimed to be a book publishing business. Also indicted were Michael Cris Traya Sordilla (her nephew) and Bryan Navales Tarosa, both of the Philippines, who were executives at Innocentrix Philippines, a business process outsourcing company. The three had been previously arrested in December by authorities.
The indictment alleges that between September 2017 and December 2024, the defendants used PageTurner to operate a book publishing scam in which the conspirators working for Innocentrix Philippines contacted individual authors through unsolicited calls and emails. As part of the scam, the conspirators falsely represented PageTurner as a book publishing business that worked with literary agents, major motion picture studios, and popular video streaming services, claiming that PageTurner acted as a liaison between individuals who sought to publish their books or have their books turned into motion pictures or television series.
Both the Authors Guild and Writers Beware had received hundreds of complaints against PageTurner Press and Media (not be confused with other companies of the same name). The Guild issued a scam alert in April 2023, which resulted in more reports of fraud. The FBI subsequently interviewed Guild general counsel Cheryl Davis as part of its investigation.
For her part, Victoria Straus of Writers Beware reported that she began receiving complaints about PageTurner in 2018 and recently posted her account of tracking the fraud.
As part of the conspiracy, the scammers falsely told victims that their works had been selected for acquisition by publishers or movie studios, and fraudulently convinced victims to send PageTurner payments for various services. To date, the FBI has identified more than 800 victims of the scheme. The Guild said it is aware of a victim who lost $800,000.
Sordilla and Tarosa were arrested on December 9 in San Diego. Austin was arrested on December 12 in Chula Vista. All three are charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The FBI also seized the PageTurner website, pageturner.us.
If convicted, all three face heavy fines and up to 20 years in prison.
