Kriti Mehrotra
With ‘Hollywood Con Queen’ delving deep into the tale of how a single man managed to impersonate several entertainment professionals before scamming unwitting up-and-comers both financially and psychologically, we get a documentary series unlike any other. After all, it incorporates not just archival footage but also exclusive interviews to really shine a light upon precisely what transpired, who was behind it, and how private investigator Nicole Kotsianas played a major role in blowing this matter wide open.
Who is Nicole Kotsianas?
It was reportedly back when Nicole Kotsianas was just a young girl growing up in New Jersey that she first developed a keen interest in media as well as communications, only for it to continue expanding as the years passed. She’d thus always planned on pursuing a degree in the same from Emerson College upon graduating high school, yet everything turned upside down for her just shortly before as her father ended up incurring a massive loss in an investment. She hence settled for Rutgers University, where she earned a Bachelor’s in Journalism, plus incredible experiences.
We actually state this because Nicole had found herself working for the country’s second-oldest collegiate newspaper, Daily Targum, while attending classes, just to fall in love with it. She thus dedicated every bit of her time to the same, ultimately resulting in her becoming the paper’s opinion editor as well as landing a spot on the editorial board. So, of course, once she’d graduated, she decided to continue on this path and kickstarted her journalism career as a reporter at The Press of Atlantic City in 2005. However, she switched positions within a few months, only to be a real estate market specialist reporter/investigator at Institutional Investor.
Nicole reportedly stayed at this organization for three years (October 2005-September 2008), that is, until she got a better opportunity – an opportunity to serve as an Assistant Editor at Debtwire. She served here for a total of four years before moving on to Kroll Bond Rating Agency Inc. as an Associate Director for another three years, just to then find herself at K2 Integrity. This firm is a corporate security and investigations outfit that reportedly doesn’t ever discriminate when deciding which clients to take on, meaning they handle everyone from celebrities to scorned partners to elderly citizens.
So, when Investigations and Disputes Team leader Nicole learned that producer Amy Pascal feared she was being impersonated, she immediately jumped on the matter. It actually took her less than a few weeks to figure out that whatever was going on was a long-running scam involving multiple victims, driving her to continue working on the matter even after Pascal’s impersonation had stopped. The fact K2 agreed to give her the resources to do the same was a big deal too, especially as they technically didn’t have a client anymore – they simply wanted to do the right thing.
Little did anyone know this investigation would last for years before Nicole could actually hand off all her reports to the FBI with more than a million dollars being scammed by Hargobind “Harvey” Punjabi Tahilramani. It did take a toll on her since Harvey had somehow figured out she was the one responsible for the breakthrough in his case and had begun calling her during all hours of the day, yet she didn’t let it get to her. Instead, she focused on her other official cases, continued conversations with victims to remind herself why she does what she does, and did her best to spend as much time with loved ones as possible.
Nicole Kotsianas is a Family Woman Today
The truth is Nicole Kotsianas had become a little obsessed with this whole Hollywood Con Queen matter, so she checked Harvey’s social media platforms plus WhatsApp availability several times a day to figure out what he was up to. To her relief, he went silent on December 3, 2020, shortly following which the FBI confirmed that he’d been arrested in Manchester, England, on eight charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and deception. He’s still fighting his extradition to the US while detained in England, but this hasn’t stopped Nicole from being open about her belief that he alone was behind the long-term scam, wherein he took advantage of over 500 victims for $2 million.
Coming to Nicole’s current standing, from what we can tell, she parted ways with K2 in 2022 so as to join Mintz Group as a Managing Director. However, she left this organization just a little more than a year later to become the proud Principal at Jetty Partners in New York City, New York, in April 2024. As for her personal life, it appears as if Nicole is a happily married mother, meaning she’s dedicating every bit of her time to her loving family whenever she’s not at work or running after a case.
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