Actress and singer Hayley Orrantia’s ex-boyfriend -who happened to serve in the US Marines- was forced to pay restitution after stealing thousands of dollars from her- and the act has left her “haunted.”
The Texas actress of The Goldbergs fame fell in love with Marine veteran Brandon Pelletier after meeting him on the set of her ABC show, when he arrived with part of the veteran tour group.
“I found him very charming,” she told People magazine. “He was handsome and charismatic and able to draw the attention of the room.”
After starting a long-range relationship, the couple lasted around a year and a half- at least until Orrantia found out the Marine veteran stole almost $9,000 through fraudulent credit card charges and bank withdrawals.
“It was heartbreaking,” she said. “I thought we were going to get married one day.”
Working her frustrations out in the form of writing music, the actress and singer eventually learned that she wasn’t alone.
“To be honest, the more I talked about it, the less it became mine,” she said. “And I was always hoping that there would be somebody that would hear about it and go, ‘Oh, that happened to me.’“
Pelletier was eventually caught and arrested in 2017. Despite his crimes, he still has to pay the actress back.
“He didn’t spend any time in jail, but he has to pay me restitution,” Orrantia said of the court order for probation and restitution. “So I got that. I kept asking myself, ‘Why do I need to do this?’ And really it’s for myself. It’s the fact that I’ve always been a truth teller.”
Orrantia reportedly spent a lot of time in therapy in order to learn how to trust and love again, but plans on bouncing back one day.
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