Today, Tracey Anne Gordon, is setting the record straight

By Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa 06 November 2016, 12:00AM

Tracey Anne Gordon. Never heard of the name, nor seen the kind of person she was, until that photo of her was published in the Samoa Observer, on 4 November 2016. 

And there she was, a woman of substance with the face of an angel exuding warmth, kindness; a strong mouth that looked as if it was incapable of uttering a deceiving word, and yet it now appears that it was all a sham; what a terrible shame!

Still, what an amazing woman!

A number of hotels here have confirmed that Ms. Gordon had stayed in their premises, she’d left without paying for her rent but then their owners would not comment, why? 

“Samoa is a small place,” they say. “We’d rather not.”

And so instead, they have referred their grievances to their lawyers.

In New Zealand though, it appears that the media knows quite a bit about the woman named, Tracey Anne Gordon. 

A news report published in the New Zealand Herald on 3 September 2016 said: “An Auckland hotel is out of pocket after an apparently well-heeled, long-term guest left behind a debt of $18,000.”

“The guest was Tracey Anne Gordon who was sentenced to jail a decade ago for fraud and has a string of ill-fated ventures behind her, including one her own lawyer described in court as ‘fairyland stuff’.”

The report went on to say: “Gordon left The Surrey Hotel in February telling staff she was going to San Francisco on business.”

“She stayed on and off at the hotel in Grey Lynn for more than two years, and regularly paid her bills using her father’s credit card.”

“But her father, marine explorer Keith Gordon, told the hotel they should have asked him before the credit card was used the last time, and he cancelled the payment,” hotel management said.

They also said “Gordon had grand plans. She told staff she was trading in aviation fuel and she offered a staff member a job as her personal chef on a yacht she planned to buy.”

“She was going to buy an apartment at the Stamford [Hotel], another in Sydney. The apartments were worth millions and she would have the brochures to back her up.” 

Management said she never saw evidence of the purchases or big business deals being concluded.

“As for Gordon, she was sentenced to jail a decade ago after admitting eight charges of fraud.”

A Herald report about the case described her as “petite, smartly-dressed, a forger and a thief with a penchant for Hilton hotels.”

Management also said “they wrongly assumed Gordon’s father would pay his daughter’s last bill because he always had previously.”

This time though he said to management: “You should have called me. It’s almost like he’d had enough of her.”

But then the Police told management it was a civil matter. 

“It’s a very bitter pill to try to have to swallow,” they said. “We feel we have been 100 per cent ripped off. Her father is not part of it in any way, but he could have warned us that he was no longer going to pay her bills.”

In any case, it appears that Tracey Anne Gordon’s father, Keith Gordon, is a wealthy man.

According to the Herald, he’s the author of Deep Water Gold, a book about the R.M.S. Niagara which was sunk carrying 590 gold bars near the Hen and Chicken Islands, north of Auckland, by German mines in 1940. 

All but five were salvaged in 1941 and 1952.

Gordon’s company SeaRov Technologies owns deep dive vehicles. He reportedly holds salvage rights to the wreck but the UK Treasury owns the gold.

His daughter though, Tracey Anne Gordon, is something else.

In January 2006, she was convicted on eight charges of fraud, including using and altering documents and obtaining $128,000 by deception from 2001 to 2004, the Herald said.

An Auckland District Court official confirmed her sentence included a reparation order and jail.

Back in 2005, the Herald said her lawyer told the court that Gordon had “difficult personal characteristics”, she was gullible rather than devious, and her frauds were unsophisticated.

It also said that those left out of pocket back then painted her as a picture of a fabulist. One of them said: “I don’t think your average human being could think up the stories and the tales and make them sound as plausible as she does.”

Indeed, “her frauds stretched across three continents. Those stung included family, former friends and men she met in bars. She claimed to be an investment banker, to have an in on high-yield low-risk deals and she liked to stay at five star hotels at the expense of others.”

“She’d say she needed some cash to pay her hotel and that she was waiting for some funds to transfer, or her father’s credit card, or she couldn’t get hold of her father, so I would give her some money,” an American said at the time. 

“He claimed to have lost $117,000 but charges against her that involved him were dropped after Gordon revealed in court they had been in a relationship.”

“Ten years later, she had some interesting yarns to tell those who cared to listen at The Surrey Hotel.”

“And then Gordon was gone. And this time Dad’s credit card did not come to the party.”

Here in Samoa though, Tracey Anne Gordon says she is disappointed with the accusations that had been made against her, so this time she’s decided to talk.  

“I have been advised that it’s best to keep quiet and let people go on and on,” she said. “But I’ve had enough.”

And today she is ready to talk.

She says: “I was in the hospital when the first story came out on Sunday.” 

“So I was not aware of anything like emails, because I was under medical care of a medical team because I do have some health issues, and I am still recovering from it.” 

“I had an email from my legal team in New Zealand, I have a medical issue and I had to ask my legal team to handle things for me.”

But today she is out to set the record straight. 

Read about it on the front page of today’s Sunday Samoan.

In the meantime, have a peaceful Sunday Samoa and may the love of God, be with you always.

By Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa 06 November 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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