Sabrina Michelle Taylor was in Japan from May 17th to May 28th, 2018. On May 18th, $22,000 was withdrawn from Sabrina’s bank account in America. It would turn out to have been a legal removal of funds owed for an unpaid loan.
Randy Navarro has been a friend of Kathryn for 20 years. He was introduced to Sabrina online and later met Sabrina during her previous stay in Tokyo. His latest trip to Japan, to visit a few friends, overlapped with Sabrina’s time there.
This post contains part one and half of part two of Randy’s four-part FB posting about Sabrina. The rest of part two and further parts will be posted later.
This has been a difficult post to write. Not because it is a difficult subject matter to talk about, but because there is simply SO MUCH to talk about. Every time I think I have a full picture, I get an inbox or reply notification and it’s someone else with a story. So this will be the first part of a series.
Part 1: Overview
Sabrina Michelle Taylor is a grifter who has successfully defrauded no less than half a dozen individuals out of money and property. She targets across a spectrum of individuals but her biggest tool is the network of people she has surrounded herself with. It’s allowed her to invade Queer spaces, Black spaces, POC ally spaces, Queer and Trans inclusive Women’s support groups, Nerd spaces, etc.
Once there she plays the character of a Black/One-Quarter Japanese student on the verge of a life-changing career opportunity. To live abroad and study Genetics at one university or another. She takes on the mantle of the very real struggles a queer black woman has and plays it for pity. When called out by others she decries colorism and doubles down.
Eventually she’ll single out emotionally vulnerable members of her network to let them know there is a problem. Or sometimes an opportunity. Like, her doctor is willing to get her a year’s worth of a prescription at a discount just so long as it’s paid up front and in cash to the tune of several thousand dollars. And she’s successful. She’s had several years of practicing on smaller amounts on similar marks. $600 becomes $12,000 becomes more.
#sabrinataylorscams
Part 2: My week as an emotional hostage negotiator.
(Editor note: Randy’s redacted name has been changed to create consistency between narratives. Money1 is now redacted1 so they are searchable as the same person across all our accounts. Kathryn is referred to as Kayt here.)
This is the second in my series on Sabrina Michelle Taylor, grifter. Because this post will briefly cover the events of the past week there will be quite a bit of overlap with the posts of others who were there and already posted about their experiences.
Out of respect for those taken advantage of there will be a redacted name: redacted1
The problem with life is that horrible news arrives even when on vacation. Kayt’s friends back home had recently been traumatized by events wherein they learned someone amongst them was leading a horrible and criminal other life. Kayt was regularly helping out by setting up emotional triage, sharing difficult to hear information, and making sure others were informed. This is a severe mental drain. But when Sabrina breaks the news that she lost her phone, wallet, and someone cleaned out her bank account? Kayt was tagging in like a champ and setting up an emotional triage for Sabrina. Asking the difficult questions about the situation, etc.
And that’s when the cracks Ebony noticed became clearer. Sabrina is excellent at grift on a person-to-person basis. She can slip into a character and own it while deflecting inconvenient truths. But she forgets that she isn’t the only person with internet access. She forgets that people sometimes actually talk to each other in conversations she was not privy to. And she makes the mistake of letting people see the character she is playing for someone else.
So while I’m trying to get more information on the collection agency that wiped her account and feeding information to Ebony (Sabrina refused to call the bank) to get to the bottom of it, I’m getting concerned messages that either Sabrina is having a temporary mental break from reality, or she’s too frantic not to keep track of her lies and is hiding really important information. I get this from Kayt:
- [K] Um.
- [K] I hate to be saying this.
- [K] I love Sabrina but their are strange shifting inconsistent facts….about things that doesn’t matter and things that do….and dramatic mood shifts.
- [K] I haven’t seen this from her before. It’s a little scary.
- [K] I’m not worried about suicidal behavior, I am worried a little with by her relationship with truth.
- [K] I hope it’s temporary.
- [K] I’m trying to plant the seeds of maybe not doing Disneyland for financial reasons.
Sabrina really wants to continue her vacation. Everything is Fine! Her parents wired her money! She has paid her rent for two months! (Both of these facts later were ignored, changed, forgotten).
But also, Sabrina asked me for money:
- [S] So my friend ( redacted1 ) is crazy. Literally. And is loaning me most of what I need.
- [S] I’m shocked.
- [R] That’s great! It gives you security
- [S] I just need to borrow the difference, which is what I wanted to talk to you about.
I’m thinking okay, her friend loaned her rent and needs some cash for bills or food.
- [R] Ok. What would you need?
- [S] It’s $3000 😦
- [S] You can totally tell me to suck it.
RED FLAG! She was literally trying to borrow back up to her full account balance instead of trying to figure out what she actually needs to live on. So I try to steer the conversation towards getting a crisis budget together
- [R] I wouldn’t be able to lump sum that. But I can help out with smaller amounts here and there
- [S] Oh! Yes!
- [S] That would be awesome.
- [R] In the end I think figuring out an “emergency budget” and going off of that until things can settle
- [S] OK are you sure?
- [R] I meant that as a suggestion. I have found that having an alternate crisis budget to fall back on already planned helps with the panic a teensy bit
- [S] I did have a crisis budget kinda….they took it when they drained all my accounts.
There would be no further talk about budgeting with her.
Kayt at this point needs to slow down. To re-center and frankly deal with more troubling events back home. But every time the focus shifts away from Sabrina, she gets jealous and makes it all about herself. And how everyone is angry at her for having FEELINGS.
Sabrina has now doubled down on her habit of complaining about person X to person Y. In efforts to sow division.
By Sunday none of us want to continue this charade. She keeps representing herself online in completely contradictory ways than what she is actually saying and doing in person. She’s bleating how her life is over. How she’s suicidal. So much that her large-hearted friends begin a fundraiser in her name. More information about her is rolling in. About the sheer depth of her lies. People are privately sending messages to Lauren about Sabrina owing them money.
It’s around this time that Sabrina switches to an “I’m helpless in Japan” character. Which is weird, because she’s literally lived there. WE SAW HER WHILE SHE LIVED THERE. She’s done simple things like ordering food. Using google maps. Getting on a train. This character would continue for the rest of the week. It became absurd.
By Monday we learned that Sabrina Michelle Taylor hasn’t been telling the truth about anything. She Hasn’t been a student for a while. Wasn’t accepted into Kyoto. Japanese grandma is new. Probably has been lying about having MS for a while. Has lied about being a DV victim before. She specifically targets broke people, lavishing them with gifts, until its time for her to need money. Her recent targets are white girls who know the issues she faces as a black women are real…but won’t see how she is deploying those issues for her own gain. And butch-genderqueer, vulnerable and resonate with her vulnerability. She doesn’t care as long as she gets to have fun and an exciting life. (redacted1 ) has loaned her a large sum of money previous to this.
Also at this point she’s told Mara that her Japanese Grandmother was a Shinto Priestess.
Because why the fuck not?
So now it’s my turn to play the grifter. I become the face and put on the character of harmless but doting. It’s my job to distract and deflect. To put cheery messages in our group chat. To be on standby to entertain Sabrina if needed to keep her from pestering Kayt and Ebony. And in the shittiest heist movie ever we set up an Airbnb and relocate all the luggage so Ebony can get her house to herself and not further expose her child to Sabrina. Lauren carefully rearranges her plans so she can have less time around Sabrina. Kayt gets time to herself. And all this time Sabrina keeps apologising for being so stressed and making everyone mad at her for having feelings. This combined with her “I’m useless in Japan” character gets so stressful to us that we almost break cover during the Airbnb mission. And the absurdity of the Airbnb mission is a story I only tell in person. Sorry.
As more and more people come forward with “Um, Sabrina stole money from me too” our final mission is to get through the week without Sabrina cancelling Lauren’s plane ticket. Thankfully Sabrina already set a schedule for herself and doesn’t give a fuck about what people are doing. They do go to Disneyland, but according to her online posts, she didn’t want to go and is only there because person Lauren or Mara dragged her. Eventually Mara is brought into the loop.
It’s no surprise that Sabrina finds ways to get more money out of Lauren. And she’s selfish to the point where her actions cause extra expenses to get back to the airport. She also leaves a big mess in the Airbnb on checkout. (Lauren was in Kyoto picking up a rescue kitten at this time) Of course since it was Lauren’s Airbnb account she will forever have a terrible review on it.
SabrinaTaylorScams 