Bozeman woman gets jail for selling fake diamonds

 BOZEMAN (AP) — A Bozeman woman has been sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay more than $111,000 in restitution for selling fake diamonds online.

District Judge Holly Brown also gave Georgia Cold, 48, a five-year suspended sentence.

Cold pleaded no contest to felony theft in May in a plea agreement that recommended a three-year deferred sentence, but Brown said Tuesday that Cold wasn’t taking responsibility for what Brown called a repeated and intentional crime.

“She sold him a bill of goods that weren’t the goods being billed,” Brown said.

Court records say Cold placed a Craigslist ad saying she was liquidating an inherited gemstone business. Between May and August of 2012, a man said he bought 70 items from Cold for nearly $90,000. He paid another $22,000 in September 2012 for 17 gemstones Cold said were diamonds, but were actually synthetic diamond substitutes.

When the man received the 17 gemstones he recognized they were Moissanites, a synthetic diamond. Court records said he called Cold, who said she wouldn’t deposit his cashier’s check. It was cashed and Cold told the man it had been accidentally deposited by an employee. Investigators obtained images from bank surveillance camera showing Cold depositing the check.

Employees of the business that sold the Moissanites to Cold said she knew what she was purchasing.

During Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, defense attorney Jami Rebsom suggested that if the buyer had the gems evaluated sooner, Cold could have addressed the issue earlier.

“He relied on a representation,” Judge Brown said. “The representation was untrue. (Cold) had documentation. She knew what she was providing.”

Investigators determined Cold had not inherited any gemstones and that she had taken more than $111,000 from the man and provided him with Moissanites worth just over $26,000.