Police:  Former Upstate Inmate Scams Family Out Of Thousands

    It’s a story so strange Angela Phillips is still in disbelief.  “I’m a very trusting person,“ she says.  Phillips says the whole tale started behind bars, at the Leath Women’s Correctional Facility in Greenwood.  Phillip’s daughter, Kathy, was incarcerated there, and befriended fellow inmate, Wendy Fowler.  From her home hundreds of miles away in West Palm Beach, Florida, Phillips would hear regularly of the friendship.  “They worked together inside,“ she says.  When Fowler was released in December, Phillips quickly became friends with her too.  “My daughter was having issues there, and she said she had an attorney that was a friend of hers and she would call to see if there was anything he could do to help her.“

    Police say that’s where Fowler’s crazy tale begins.  She told Phillips’ family she would get local lawyer, Billy Whitney, to help their daughter out of jail.  “I talked to that voice several times over the phone and I had no idea it was actually her.“  The lawyer, who actually has an office in Union, was unaware of the whole thing.  Union police believe Fowler was using his name to pull off the scam.  Soon, Phillips had wired Fowler more than $8000 for the lawyer’s services, all for the promise that her daughter would be released from prison early.  “The worst part of it is what she did to my two grandchildren.  She’s devastated those kids.

    Union police arrested Fowler for the scam, and charged her with obtaining money under false pretenses.  When Newschannel 7 showed up at her home, she was still in jail.  But her mother, Susie Bridges, is defending her.  “She never accepted $8000 like they claim,“ she says.  “She could have never gotten rid of that much money.  Anybody with common sense would know that.“  Angela Phillips is hoping she has more common sense from now one, saying she’ll think twice before she trusts anyone else again.  “It opens your eyes.“