California beauty queen accused of stealing millions from friends in Ponzi scheme

An indictment unsealed this week alleges Dickerson, 47, registered a business in 2020 in California, the same year she won a Ms. Woman Nevada pageant. She called the business Creative Legal Fundings, which was a rip-off of a legitimate business with a similar name that Dickerson allegedly swindled her investors with. She told potential victims that her business lent money to lawyers to finance personal injury lawsuits and promised fixed rates of return, authorities allege. She also claimed to have financial backing from two high-powered executives, including the CEO of a multinational casino company.

None of this was true, according to the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which charged Dickerson with various types of fraud. Dickerson posted a lot on social media, showing off on private jets, with luxury products and competing in adult beauty pageants. Dickerson actually won a Ms. Elite Nevada pageant during the time her Ponzi scheme was allegedly going on.

Authorities say her beauty queen image was designed to trick investors into giving her money. Dickerson then spent millions on herself, according to the indictment. In 2021, she paid $93,000 for a Mercedes-Benz GLE350 and another $150,000 in 2022 for a Mercedes-Benz EQS V4. He also spent thousands at casinos and bought a sprawling mansion in Sacramento for $1 million in cash and spent $30,000 filling it with new furniture, court documents show.

Dickerson, who is Filipino American, targeted other Filipinos in her scams, authorities allege, and she used new investor funds to pay off previous investors to keep the Ponzi scheme going. She raised a total of about $10 million from 140 investors, according to the indictment. Last year, dozens of people sued Dickerson in Washington to try to recover their investments, which ranged from $5,000 to $145,000. Filipina actress Rita Magdalena was caught in the Ponzi scheme and posted on Instagram that many of her friends in San Diego were also friends of Dickerson, leading people to believe her claims were legitimate.

“Never trust anyone,” Magdalena wrote last year.

Dickerson now faces a litany of 24 counts of wire fraud, seven counts of money laundering and one count of securities fraud. According to the Department of Justice, she could face up to 50 years in prison and nearly $13 million in fines and penalties.

“As alleged, the operations of Creative Legal Fundings were neither creative nor legal. This was nothing more than a fraud perpetrated against retail investors, many of whom were members of the Filipino-American community,” Monique Winkler, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office, said in a statement.

Dickerson’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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