Woman dates an army captain she met online. Then she gets an unexpected call and finds out who he really is: ‘I thought it was some kind of joke’
A deception no one anticipated.
A woman already serving a prison sentence after hoodwinking a former romantic partner by pretending to be a man has been found guilty of the same crime again. 44-year-old Blade Silvano was convicted of sexual assault by penetration on six counts in Caernarfon, Wales, after her latest partner learned of the great lengths she went through to conceal her identity.
Silvano appeared before Caernarfon Crown Court on Tuesday, Nov. 10, where the jury heard that she committed the crime between November 2022 and June 2023. Silvano reportedly connected with the victim through the online dating platform Plenty of Fish and lied about being a man named “Hunter” who served as a captain and surgeon in the armed forces, according to The Guardian.
Silvano messaged the victim before eventually meeting with her in person to have intimate relations. The court heard that Silvano was able to maintain the trickery by telling the victim that she did not want to be intimately touched and by keeping the lights dimmed to the lowest setting. In one instance, Silvano reportedly claimed that “his” condom broke, but reassured her that it was “very unlikely” that a pregnancy would come as a result of their intimacy, stating, “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
Silvano was engaged to a woman as a man
The victim eventually began to doubt Silvano’s explanations, describing their relationship as “odd.” The court heard that the victim also noticed Silvano’s voice occasionally sounded “a little feminine.” The victim is said to have discovered the fake identity when another woman, who claimed to be the 44-year-old’s long-term partner, contacted the victim and revealed that “Hunter” was a woman.
“I thought it was some sort of joke,” the victim told the court. “I believed I was in a relationship with a straight, heterosexual man; I would never go out with a woman.”
The events surrounding the incident echoed those of Silvano’s court case in 2023, which involved another woman, resulting in Silvano being ordered by the Cambridge Crown Court to serve a 10-year prison sentence. At the time, she was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault by penetration, The Guardian reported.
During the two-year relationship that began in 2016, Silvano reportedly introduced himself as “Blade Mendez.” The two even became engaged as man and woman at one point, before the wedding was ultimately called off. The presiding judge at the time described Silvano’s fraud as “skillfully carried out and maliciously maintained,” and put her on the sex offender registry indefinitely, per BBC.
Both women maintained that they were completely unaware they were being tricked by Silvano during the relationship. Prosecutor Philip Clemo even agreed that Silvano was a gifted con artist. Nevertheless, this hearing may have extended Silvano’s time in prison. She is scheduled to appear in court next month for her final sentencing.
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