A credit-card scammer’s root-canal surgery took a painful turn when the cops busted her as she sat in her dentist’s chair, a Manhattan jury was told yesterday.
Adiam Testamichael-Berhane, 28, bit off more than she could chew when she showed up at her dentist at 250 W. 57th St., last March after running up a $70,000 bill on a fake credit card during wild shopping sprees, federal prosecutors said.
Credit-card investigators at Merrill Lynch tracked the shopaholic to the dentist, Roland Hassan, when she used the fake card to pay a $950 bill three days before her arrest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Virginia Chavez said.
Cops pounced on Testamichael-Berhane, of West New York, N.J., after Hassan told them when she was due back for follow-up root-canal work.
“When she found out the police were coming, she was in the dentist’s chair,” Chavez told the jury in her opening arguments. “The spending spree ended when the police caught her red-handed.”
Testamichael-Berhane put aside her dental woes with a three-week rampage through New York’s finest fashion boutiques last February and March, regularly running up bills of more than $5,000 a day with her partner Johnny Pelzer.
Pelzer, 31, of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to conspiracy and credit-card fraud last November.
Court papers show that in one day the pair racked up a bill of $11,465.50 after flashing their plastic at Roberto Cavalli, Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Fendi.
The jury was told Testamichael-Berhane, who is also charged with conspiracy and credit-card fraud, had expensive tastes, picking up a designer shirt for $2,500, an $800 skirt, $1,000 worth of shoes and a $1,200 vacuum cleaner.
Testamichael-Berhane faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.