Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / ELITE CON WOMAN TRICKS $2.8 Million from Aging Holocaust Survivor

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ELITE CON WOMAN TRICKS $2.8 Million from Aging Holocaust Survivor · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: A raven haired thirty six year old Florida woman apparently
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Speaker 1: scams an eighty seven year old Holocaust survivor out of
0:19
Speaker 1: nearly three million dollars his entire life savings. He's booted
0:26
Speaker 1: out of his home while she, using all of his money,
0:31
Speaker 1: is living in luxury How did that happen? Repeat? A
0:36
Speaker 1: raven haired thirty six year old Florida woman scams an
0:42
Speaker 1: eighty seven year old Holocaust survivor like he hasn't lived
0:47
Speaker 1: through enough already, out of his entire life savings nearly
0:51
Speaker 1: three million dollars. He is thrown out of his home
0:57
Speaker 1: while she lives in a luxury abode. How does it happen?
1:02
Speaker 1: I may see grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you
1:05
Speaker 1: for being with us here at Fox Nation and series
1:08
Speaker 1: x SEM one eleven. First of all, take a listen
1:11
Speaker 1: to our friends at crime Online.
1:13
Speaker 2: An eighty seven year old Holocaust survivor living in Manhattan
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Speaker 2: is enjoying a nice retirement when he decides to look
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Speaker 2: for some companionship online, someone nice, someone to pass the
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Speaker 2: time with, and he found her or did she find him?
1:27
Speaker 2: It was a dating app that connected thirty six year
1:29
Speaker 2: old Peaches Strgo with the eighty seven year old, wealthy,
1:32
Speaker 2: retired gentleman. Sterco finds the man easy to talk to
1:35
Speaker 2: and he looks forward to chatting with her. Then one
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Speaker 2: day she shares a small problem with him. She was
1:41
Speaker 2: in an accident a while back, and the lawyer that
1:43
Speaker 2: represented her is now demanding to be paid before he
1:46
Speaker 2: will release her funds. She wasn't asking for the money,
1:49
Speaker 2: just alone to pay the lawyer. She would pay him
1:52
Speaker 2: as soon as she accessed her money. He asks where
1:55
Speaker 2: to send it.
1:56
Speaker 1: Wow, this woman, peaches Stergo aka Alice. She's playing the
2:05
Speaker 1: long game. She's got her eye on the prize. This
2:09
Speaker 1: scam took almost four years. So that's almost what almost
2:16
Speaker 1: a million dollars a year, seven hundred and fifty thousand
2:20
Speaker 1: dollars per year that she steals from a Holocaust survivor
2:27
Speaker 1: take a listen to more from Sydney Summer.
2:29
Speaker 2: The conversations with Stgo and her octogenarian friend continue. Stergo
2:34
Speaker 2: tells her gentleman friend that the money has been deposited
2:36
Speaker 2: in her TD Bank account. Oddly enough, there's a small
2:40
Speaker 2: problem with her TD Bank account and she needs a
2:42
Speaker 2: little more money. If she doesn't get the money soon,
2:45
Speaker 2: her account will be frozen, and not only will she
2:47
Speaker 2: lose her money, but she also won't be able to
2:50
Speaker 2: pay back her gentleman friend. She really wants to make
2:52
Speaker 2: sure she pays him back, so he writes another check.
2:56
Speaker 1: This poor guy, eighty seven year old Holocaust survive her
3:00
Speaker 1: living by himself, lonely, goes online to make a friend,
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Speaker 1: and he, of all people, finds Alice Peaches stgo joining
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Speaker 1: me an all star panel to makes sense of what
3:15
Speaker 1: we know of this, But first straight out to crimeoonline
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Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter Dave Matt Dave I was noticing
3:24
Speaker 1: the way Sidney Somner was explaining it that she has
3:28
Speaker 1: this online conversation going and they talk on the phone
3:32
Speaker 1: as well, and they send pictures, so he's got a
3:35
Speaker 1: picture of who he thinks is a beautiful woman talking
3:39
Speaker 1: to him. And then after weeks have passed, then suddenly
3:45
Speaker 1: out goes the hook. She says she has a small problem,
3:51
Speaker 1: a small problem regarding an accident that happened a while back.
3:55
Speaker 1: Now the lawyer wants money. Totally believable, so she basically,
4:00
Speaker 1: you know, wraps him up in a contoon of complacency
4:04
Speaker 1: and then bam, puts out the hook.
4:07
Speaker 3: You mentioned early on the Long Con. You said it,
4:11
Speaker 3: and you're dead on right. What she does is she
4:14
Speaker 3: paints herself as a double victim. She was in a
4:17
Speaker 3: car accident and she was hurt bad enough that she
4:20
Speaker 3: had to get a lawyer to go after a settlement
4:23
Speaker 3: money and the lawyer apparently won. But she's still a
4:27
Speaker 3: victim because now the lawyer says, well, I'm not freeing
4:29
Speaker 3: up your money until I get paid. So she is
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Speaker 3: able to present this gentleman who look, he's looking you
4:36
Speaker 3: mentioned he's lonely, he's looking for a friend. And in reality,
4:40
Speaker 3: when you are talking about somebody who's got a couple
4:42
Speaker 3: of million dollars, twenty five thousand probably doesn't sound like
4:46
Speaker 3: that much, not like does to me. And the way
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Speaker 3: she pitches it is, Hey, this money is already here.
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Speaker 3: All I've got to do is borrow it from you
4:54
Speaker 3: so I can get all of mine and then I'll
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Speaker 3: pay you right back. That's the hook and that's the carrot.
5:00
Speaker 3: All at the same time.
5:01
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about the scam that she pulled on
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Speaker 1: this guy. Dave meg joining me Crime online dot Com
5:08
Speaker 1: investigative reporter also with me, Debbie Montgomery Johnson, a real
5:14
Speaker 1: life victim of cyber love. She's now an international speaker,
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Speaker 1: best selling author, victim's advocate, and founder of The Woman
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Speaker 1: Behind the Smile at the Woman behind the Smile dot com. Debbie,
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Speaker 1: what happened to you?
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Speaker 4: Similar but not the same? I mean, it was as
5:32
Speaker 4: long as our last gentleman said, it was a long time.
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Speaker 4: It actually happened after my husband passed away suddenly, and
5:38
Speaker 4: I went online due to friends saying get a life.
5:42
Speaker 4: They wanted me after six months after lud died. They said,
5:44
Speaker 4: get a life, you know, get out and date, put
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Speaker 4: yourself out there. And I thought online dating then was safe.
5:49
Speaker 4: It was safer than doing it in person. I'd been
5:52
Speaker 4: married twenty six years and I wasn't ready for somebody
5:54
Speaker 4: in the house. But I did want a friend, just
5:57
Speaker 4: as this gentleman he wanted a friend. Men particularly are
6:02
Speaker 4: subjective to the white night syndrome kind of like he
6:05
Speaker 4: wanted to take care of her, and I wanted my
6:08
Speaker 4: guy to take care of me. But you know, I
6:10
Speaker 4: didn't give willingly to get him out of trouble. Obviously,
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Speaker 4: I was helping his company, his business, and I was
6:18
Speaker 4: assured also being paid back, and so it's not it's
6:22
Speaker 4: not aimed at people who necessarily lonely. In this case,
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Speaker 4: this is elder fraud. And that gentleman was lonely. He
6:29
Speaker 4: was by himself. And I always say be aware, you know,
6:32
Speaker 4: be aware of what family are doing, what your friends
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Speaker 4: are doing, and listen to them, watch them. I wonder,
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Speaker 4: you know his son found out about this later on,
6:40
Speaker 4: but who was watching him write sixty two checks? Where
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Speaker 4: was the bank?
6:43
Speaker 5: You know?
6:44
Speaker 4: And the biggest thing I want here is is we
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Speaker 4: all look at it like an eighty seven year old
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Speaker 4: man Holocauster Biber.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's bad.
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Speaker 4: But you've got sixty year old women, seventy year old women,
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Speaker 4: eighty year old women being taken every single day around
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Speaker 4: the globe. And we look at these women as, oh,
7:01
Speaker 4: that was really stupid of them. Why did they do that?
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Speaker 4: There's no victim blame here. This is pure manipulation. She
7:06
Speaker 4: is a criminal and she has gone after this gentleman
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Speaker 4: and just ripped his heart out, ripped his home away
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Speaker 4: from him. And you know, I'd put her, But it
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Speaker 4: happens every single day to people just like you and me.
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Speaker 1: How much money were you scammed out of Debbie over
7:23
Speaker 1: two years I.
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Speaker 4: Last a million, a million dollars.
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Speaker 1: Oh, dear Lord in heaven, and the guy said that. Actually,
7:29
Speaker 1: let's hear it in Debbie's own words in Our Cup
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Speaker 1: forty three, speaking to CBS, I.
7:34
Speaker 6: Wasn't lonely, desperate, lonely. I really I wanted someone to
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Speaker 6: talk to.
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Speaker 7: Debbie Montgomery Johnson signed up for an online dating service
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Speaker 7: after the sudden death of her husband Lou in twenty ten.
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Speaker 6: I thought, oh, that's safe.
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Speaker 1: I can do it from my home, Mike.
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Speaker 7: That's where the widowed mother of four met a British
7:52
Speaker 7: businessman who called himself Eric Cole.
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Speaker 6: I talked to him a few times. I mean we messaged.
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Speaker 7: Every day, Johnson said, as she and Cole engaged in
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Speaker 7: a two year online relationship but never met in person.
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Speaker 1: Over the course of their.
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Speaker 7: Relationship, Johnson says she gave Cole more than a million
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Speaker 7: dollars in increments.
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Speaker 6: At this point, your heart rules your head, and I
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Speaker 6: was doing what my heart wanted me to do.
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Speaker 7: In twenty twelve, Johnson says her life stopped when Cole
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Speaker 7: came clean over video chat, revealing who he really was
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Speaker 7: a young man in Nigeria.
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Speaker 1: Bas honest face.
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Speaker 6: Can we keep this going, and I'm thinking, can we
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Speaker 6: keep this going? Are you out of your mind?
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Speaker 1: Can we keep this thing going? And keep this scam going?
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Speaker 1: Is what he meant to say. A million dollars from
8:39
Speaker 1: a woman who was vulnerable. Debbie had just lost her
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Speaker 1: husband that she loved so deeply, and in an effort
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Speaker 1: to quote, get out there, this is what happened. So
8:52
Speaker 1: one story leads to the next, and there's another problem
8:55
Speaker 1: and another problem. That's exactly what happened to our holocaust.
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Speaker 1: Her vibe or take a listen hour cut three.
9:01
Speaker 2: Strugo continues to have emergencies and a lot of bad luck.
9:05
Speaker 2: She seeks advice from her occagenarian friend, sharing emails from
9:09
Speaker 2: TD Bank, official letters from a TD Bank employee, as
9:12
Speaker 2: well as invoices to show that she is trying to
9:15
Speaker 2: get things paid off so she can get her money
9:17
Speaker 2: freed up. When that's done, she tells the retiree she
9:20
Speaker 2: can pay him back. But now the man doesn't have
9:23
Speaker 2: any more to give, and he calls his son for help.
9:26
Speaker 2: A few years ago, he had enough money to live
9:28
Speaker 2: a financially worry free retirement, and now he's going to
9:31
Speaker 2: lose his apartment.
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Speaker 1: Losing everything, joining me. Jeffrey Wolf, Denver based cyber crime lawyer,
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Speaker 1: founder and manager of Wolf Law Colorado dot com. Jeffrey,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. You know, it's not
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Speaker 1: hard at all. It's not difficult to fake an official
9:53
Speaker 1: looking bank statement or an American Express email. I remember
9:59
Speaker 1: almost got taken in by an email. It looks just
10:04
Speaker 1: like American Express emails, except it said something that didn't
10:08
Speaker 1: make sense to me. And you know it always says
10:11
Speaker 1: click here and then you get a ton of malware.
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Speaker 1: Before I clicked. I read it again. I'm like, this
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Speaker 1: just isn't right, This isn't the way my account would
10:21
Speaker 1: normally be. And it turns out it was fake. But
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Speaker 1: I was always impressed by the fraudstre's ability to fake
10:29
Speaker 1: such a legitimate looking American Express email. So here's an
10:35
Speaker 1: eighty seven year old guy living alone and this woman
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Speaker 1: piecees Strgo sends him letters from her bank, letters from
10:45
Speaker 1: credit cards and lawyers and they all look real.
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Speaker 8: Yeah. Absolutely. That ends up being part of the fraud
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Speaker 8: in these cases is that somebody who you have a
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Speaker 8: genuine relationship with, who needs money from you, doesn't feel
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Speaker 8: the need to send you proof that they need it.
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Speaker 8: That is lying one oh one. The more somebody talks,
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Speaker 8: the more they're lying, the more proof that they're saying
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Speaker 8: they can show you, the more likely it is that
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Speaker 8: they have fabricated that. And so I tell anyone who's
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Speaker 8: dealing with anything online that you always want to make
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Speaker 8: sure that you are only dealing financially with people. You know,
11:21
Speaker 8: that you are only dealing with portals and websites, that
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Speaker 8: you know that you're never taking anybody's word for it.
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Speaker 8: You're never responding to emails. You pick up the phone,
11:30
Speaker 8: you call the number on the back of your credit
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Speaker 8: card when your bank emails you, because then you know
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Speaker 8: you're talking to them and not whoever has emailed you.
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Speaker 8: And it's no different than when you're looking at one
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Speaker 8: of these romance cons is that the more proof they're
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Speaker 8: trying to give you, the more likely it is that
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Speaker 8: some or all of it is fraud.
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Speaker 1: Almost every time, Jeffrey Wolf joining me Denver Base cyber
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Speaker 1: crime Attorney, you brought up something I never actually verbalized
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Speaker 1: or thought through. When people keep saying, look, here's a
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Speaker 1: letter in you never asked to see the letter. Time
12:16
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Greece joining me right now, is the
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Speaker 1: Queen of body language interpretation. Susan Constantine. She can spot
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Speaker 1: a lie a mile away. Deception is her specialty. She's
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Speaker 1: president of the Human Behavior Academy. Oh my goodness, I
12:36
Speaker 1: can just imagine that cocktail party, everybody watching each other
12:39
Speaker 1: as they move around the room. Author of how to
12:43
Speaker 1: Spot a Liar in seven Seconds or left. She says
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Speaker 1: Susanconstantine dot com. I don't want to go to your party, Okay,
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Speaker 1: as if I was going to be invited, But Susan Constantine,
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Speaker 1: with all those body language experts at the Human Behavior Academy,
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Speaker 1: Oh dear Susan, I never thought of it till Jeffrey
13:02
Speaker 1: just said it. That when people suddenly start trying to
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Speaker 1: offer you proof of the claim of their request when
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Speaker 1: you didn't ask them for it. True.
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Speaker 9: And so that's one of the clues that people will
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Speaker 9: give you unsolicited information. They will give you a lot
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Speaker 9: of additional information without actually asking answering the question. So
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Speaker 9: anytime we hear or I hear additional extraneous information, that
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Speaker 9: is a really big red flag because they're what they're
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Speaker 9: trying to do is convince you and to try to
13:35
Speaker 9: gain your trust when they don't feel confident themselves.
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Speaker 4: They keep on.
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Speaker 9: Going until they feel that they have convinced you before
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Speaker 9: they'll go on to the next subject.
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Speaker 1: Susan Constantine, give me some tips, okay, Karen Stark, renowned
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Speaker 1: psychologists joining us out of Manhattan. I want you to
13:54
Speaker 1: take all this in percolate. Okay, then for me the
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Speaker 1: perfect cup of analysis. Okay, Susan Constantine. What should we
14:02
Speaker 1: look for when we're looking for lies? Okay?
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Speaker 9: So when we were looking for lies, we're looking for
14:08
Speaker 9: incongruencies between what they say and there. Well, if in
14:12
Speaker 9: this case they didn't get to this person, didn't get
14:15
Speaker 9: to know them, you know, in person. But in the
14:18
Speaker 9: real world, what we're looking for incongruencies. We're looking for
14:22
Speaker 9: differences between what they say in their body language. There
14:25
Speaker 9: they're not congruent. So anytime you ever see any sort
14:28
Speaker 9: of shift or deviation from there, that is always a
14:31
Speaker 9: red flag for me. The other thing is they want
14:33
Speaker 9: to build your trust very quickly. They really in build
14:36
Speaker 9: themselves very quickly and rapidly into your life. They are
14:42
Speaker 9: very likable, approachable, they are easily to get to know,
14:46
Speaker 9: They build your trust very easily, and and those are
14:50
Speaker 9: really big clues for me. So language is a big one.
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Speaker 9: They generally don't put their own name into it. They
14:56
Speaker 9: eliminate pronouns like I, me, and my. Those are really
14:59
Speaker 9: big red flags. Tend to use third person pronoules like they,
15:02
Speaker 9: them and those guys. They use a lot of red
15:05
Speaker 9: verbal red hearings which I could go into and for
15:08
Speaker 9: a long time. But they use third person gimmicks. They
15:11
Speaker 9: use loophole, line, They use a lot of these different
15:13
Speaker 9: techniques to be able to gain your trust and also
15:17
Speaker 9: too when you're looking at their body language. You know,
15:20
Speaker 9: oftentimes we say they don't make eye contact with you.
15:23
Speaker 9: Well that's not true, because they tend to really lock
15:26
Speaker 9: eyes with you. Their eye tends to kind of move
15:29
Speaker 9: or jog around or really not assign a deception, but
15:32
Speaker 9: rather look for these little micro movements, you know, where
15:35
Speaker 9: they're a little one side of their shoulder will shrug
15:37
Speaker 9: a little bit. They'll have a smirk or a smile
15:40
Speaker 9: or a laugh or puffing out of air when they're
15:43
Speaker 9: talking at the end of the sentence, or maybe at
15:45
Speaker 9: the end of their sentence, they'll raise their pitch. So
15:48
Speaker 9: any kind of vocal clues, vocal tremors that are kind
15:51
Speaker 9: of off their baseline, Those are all indications of deception.
15:54
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I want to mention Season Constantine,
15:57
Speaker 1: author of How to Spot a Liar in Seven Seconds
16:00
Speaker 1: or Less, Susan, I think some of their discussions were
16:05
Speaker 1: over zoom or FaceTime because he is in Manhattan and
16:08
Speaker 1: she's in Florida, so I think he did get to
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Speaker 1: see her. But of course he's eighty seven years old,
16:15
Speaker 1: he's been through HL and back. As I mentioned, he's
16:19
Speaker 1: a Holocaust survivor, which may have played into some of
16:23
Speaker 1: his feelings of loneliness and abandonment and looking for comfort.
16:29
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm just a JD, not an MD or
16:31
Speaker 1: a shrink like some of you guys. But him being
16:35
Speaker 1: alone in his apartment in Manhattan, surrounded by millions of people,
16:41
Speaker 1: but not really knowing anyone, Well, take a listen to
16:46
Speaker 1: what happens when he finally calls his son. Take a
16:50
Speaker 1: listen to our cut four.
16:51
Speaker 2: When the eighty seven year old Holocaust survivor's son gets involved.
16:55
Speaker 2: It isn't long before he reaches out for help the
16:58
Speaker 2: United States Justice Apartment in Best Gates and finds out
17:01
Speaker 2: that Peaches Sturgo, who friends sometimes call Alice, didn't get
17:05
Speaker 2: the money from an injury settlement. There was never any
17:08
Speaker 2: injury or lawyer. The email address was fake, and so
17:11
Speaker 2: were the official looking documents from TD Bank. It was
17:14
Speaker 2: all a fraud. But while the old man lost his
17:17
Speaker 2: life savings and had to give up his apartment, Stergo
17:20
Speaker 2: was living large with his life savings while her old
17:23
Speaker 2: friend is losing his apartment. Stergo lives in a gated
17:26
Speaker 2: community and owns a condo, numerous cars, a boat, and
17:30
Speaker 2: she spends thousands of his dollars on designer clothing and
17:33
Speaker 2: vacations at the Ritz Carlton.
17:35
Speaker 1: And to our Cuts five and six are friends at
17:37
Speaker 1: Fox thirty five.
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Speaker 10: Investigators says Stergo's actions forced a victim to lose his home,
17:43
Speaker 10: all the while, they believe Sergo was using that money
17:46
Speaker 10: to buy cars, boats, and even a home Right here
17:50
Speaker 10: in Central Florida. Peach's Alice Stergo is accused of stealing
17:54
Speaker 10: two point eight million dollars from an eighty seven year
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Speaker 10: old Holocaust survivor. Investigators believe the two men on a
18:02
Speaker 10: dating app in twenty seventeen, they say, not long after
18:06
Speaker 10: the fraud began.
18:07
Speaker 1: Their creativity doing no bound.
18:09
Speaker 10: Investigators believe Stgo repeatedly lied to the victim, convincing him
18:13
Speaker 10: into sending her fifty thousand dollars a month. The indictment
18:18
Speaker 10: states she made the victim believe that her bank needed
18:21
Speaker 10: more money or her account would freeze and she'd lose
18:24
Speaker 10: it all. Out of fear of losing his money, the
18:26
Speaker 10: victim said sixty two checks worth over two point eight
18:30
Speaker 10: million dollars.
18:31
Speaker 1: Joining in right now, John Muffler, former Chief Inspector for
18:34
Speaker 1: the US Marshall Service. You can find him at Equitossglobalsecurity
18:39
Speaker 1: dot com. John. Thank you for being with us. John.
18:42
Speaker 1: A problem is going to be how do the FEDS
18:45
Speaker 1: track her down? Because this is clearly wire fraud. She's
18:50
Speaker 1: using the phone, she's using the computer. She's getting financial
18:54
Speaker 1: transactions across state lines, and that's how the FEDS get
18:59
Speaker 1: a hold of you. She's in Florida, he's in New York.
19:03
Speaker 1: These fraudulent transactions used wire, which is like bank transactions
19:07
Speaker 1: or credit card transactions and checks financial transfers. But how
19:13
Speaker 1: do they find her? How can they track her down? John?
19:18
Speaker 6: Yeah?
19:18
Speaker 11: I think it's a relatively easy case for the Bureau
19:23
Speaker 11: in that you know, this information is all trackable because
19:27
Speaker 11: it's all the electronic communications Bank accounts, social media, correspondence,
19:35
Speaker 11: phone calls. All that's very easily trackable. I imagine they
19:40
Speaker 11: have a very lengthy list of not just the crime,
19:45
Speaker 11: but potentially other victims as well. I can't imagine she
19:50
Speaker 11: came out of nowhere to begin her first act as
19:54
Speaker 11: a con artist with this particular victim. So I think,
19:58
Speaker 11: you know, again, there's an it's an easy dots to
20:01
Speaker 11: connect in an investigation.
20:03
Speaker 1: But I mean physically how do you do it? I mean,
20:05
Speaker 1: you've got accounts that she's having the money, it's being deposited,
20:11
Speaker 1: and then so what you go to the bank and
20:14
Speaker 1: you get an idea of whose account that is and
20:16
Speaker 1: where they live. How do you do it? How do
20:18
Speaker 1: you physically do it?
20:19
Speaker 11: Yeah, you're looking at getting you know, the appropriate you know,
20:24
Speaker 11: information to the courts for her particular bank information, her
20:31
Speaker 11: social Security number, her data, birth information they'd be able
20:34
Speaker 11: to get from her, and then able to research through
20:40
Speaker 11: the different credit bureaus where that money may be what's
20:43
Speaker 11: connected to her. So again it takes takes some little
20:46
Speaker 11: bit of due diligence on the agent's part, but I
20:49
Speaker 11: think fairly easy to connect her name to you know,
20:53
Speaker 11: the different accounts that she's been using to deposit.
20:57
Speaker 1: Wait till you hear how Peaches used this poor man's money.
21:03
Speaker 1: Take a Lissnaur cut nine w sh.
21:06
Speaker 12: A Florida woman is facing federal charges after a prosecutor
21:09
Speaker 12: say she swindled an eighty seven year old Holocaust survivor out.
21:12
Speaker 1: Of nearly three million dollars.
21:14
Speaker 12: The man met thirty six year old Peaches Stirgo, also
21:17
Speaker 12: known as Alice, on a dating website several years ago.
21:20
Speaker 12: She used a variety of excuses to get him to
21:22
Speaker 12: send her money, always with the promise that she would
21:24
Speaker 12: pay him back now. Instead, we're told she used that
21:27
Speaker 12: money to buy a home in a gated community, a condo,
21:30
Speaker 12: a boat, and several cars.
21:32
Speaker 1: Including a corvette.
21:33
Speaker 12: By the time the man admitted to his son what
21:35
Speaker 12: he had done, he'd given her his entire life savings.
21:39
Speaker 1: Karen Start joining me, high profile psychologist out of Manhattan.
21:43
Speaker 1: You can find her at Karenstart dot com Karen with
21:46
Speaker 1: a C. Karen. We heard earlier the so called White
21:51
Speaker 1: Night Complex. What happened here.
21:55
Speaker 5: It's so heartbreaking, Nancy, because someone is taking thatantage of somebody,
22:02
Speaker 5: an elderly person, and that is what happens. They look
22:06
Speaker 5: for people who are vulnerable, and so he he's looking
22:12
Speaker 5: for a companion and has an instinct to want to help.
22:16
Speaker 5: That's that white Knight. He wants to come in and
22:19
Speaker 5: save her, and he doesn't realize he's being scammed.
22:22
Speaker 1: And the thing that is most.
22:25
Speaker 5: Upsetting to me in situations like this is that the
22:29
Speaker 5: person like this gentleman, he doesn't think to get in
22:32
Speaker 5: touch with his family. He doesn't think to ask anybody
22:36
Speaker 5: does this make sense? Or can you look at what
22:39
Speaker 5: I'm doing? And nobody knows to check on him. And
22:44
Speaker 5: so someone who has been through the worst that anybody
22:47
Speaker 5: can possibly imagine, also hard experience, is now being scammed
22:54
Speaker 5: out of all of his money because he's a good
22:56
Speaker 5: person and the least he's helping somebody.
22:59
Speaker 1: And this woman spent the money on multiple rolex watches,
23:06
Speaker 1: a boat, two cars, luxury items, expensive jewelry, pocketbooks, you
23:15
Speaker 1: name it. What does that say to you? Susan Constantine tells.
23:20
Speaker 9: Me that she's a con and she's a scammer and
23:23
Speaker 9: this is all about her.
23:25
Speaker 4: So, you know, I think that.
23:26
Speaker 9: She became very obsessive about it once she find found
23:29
Speaker 9: that she really got a good fish on her hook.
23:32
Speaker 9: And she was all how easy it was for her
23:34
Speaker 9: to be able to gain more of his trust. Then
23:38
Speaker 9: the more that fueled her, So the more it fueled
23:41
Speaker 9: that narcissism in her, She felt that she could she
23:44
Speaker 9: was invincible, so she could still still continue to take
23:47
Speaker 9: from him and ask money because she knew that she
23:50
Speaker 9: knew exactly what his triggers were. She knew how to
23:53
Speaker 9: work those triggers for her advantage, and that's that's how
23:56
Speaker 9: she got the money.
23:57
Speaker 1: Guys, what are some red flags look out for? Take
24:00
Speaker 1: a listener cut seven.
24:02
Speaker 13: There's typically a sense of urgency and some reason why
24:06
Speaker 13: the money chain has to continue.
24:08
Speaker 10: Experts say romance fraud crimes like this are on the
24:11
Speaker 10: rise nationwide and are affecting people of all ages. Experts
24:16
Speaker 10: say scams like this are preventable.
24:18
Speaker 14: If they feel to be told the only way to
24:20
Speaker 14: get their money back is by investing additional funds.
24:24
Speaker 3: That's a huge red flag.
24:27
Speaker 1: The only way to get the money back is to
24:29
Speaker 1: spend more money. That is a huge red flag. Guys.
24:34
Speaker 1: We were talking about an eighty seven year old Holocaust
24:37
Speaker 1: survivor that lost his entire life savings, and I think
24:41
Speaker 1: part of it to Wie Montgomery Johnson, who was herself
24:46
Speaker 1: a cyber victim now an international speaker, is that he
24:51
Speaker 1: didn't want to tell his children, his son what he
24:53
Speaker 1: had done because he probably knew that some would disapprove
24:57
Speaker 1: of a relationship with a much, much young woman in
25:00
Speaker 1: another state that he was loaning money to, so he
25:04
Speaker 1: probably didn't want that judging.
25:06
Speaker 4: Well, that's absolutely true, Nancy. And I know when my
25:08
Speaker 4: kids said, Mom, don't, don't don't, I say, hey, i'm
25:10
Speaker 4: the adult here, leave me alone, and I shut them out.
25:13
Speaker 4: And that's exactly what this woman, or a part of
25:16
Speaker 4: me cannot believe that she did this by herself, because
25:19
Speaker 4: typically they work in groups. This is very involved in
25:23
Speaker 4: what she did here, but she actually got him to
25:26
Speaker 4: not talk about it. And that's what the scammers, the
25:29
Speaker 4: criminals do, is he said, don't listen to those people.
25:32
Speaker 4: You know, I'm going to take care of you. I'm
25:33
Speaker 4: there for you, and i'll make sure that you get
25:36
Speaker 4: your money back, typically with interest, you know. But they
25:39
Speaker 4: isolate because they don't want you to listen to anybody else,
25:42
Speaker 4: just them, And that's devastating when it all falls apart,
25:45
Speaker 4: because now you've isolated yourself from friends and family who
25:48
Speaker 4: could have helped, would have helped, but didn't know what
25:51
Speaker 4: was going on, and that's part of the con.
25:53
Speaker 1: So, Debbie Montgomery, when you were victimized online and lost
25:58
Speaker 1: a million dollars to the scam artist, why is it
26:03
Speaker 1: you did not want your family to know what was.
26:06
Speaker 4: Happening because I was home alone. I was, you know,
26:08
Speaker 4: I was see lew had died and I was working
26:11
Speaker 4: my company from the house, and I didn't want to
26:13
Speaker 4: bring the kids into it because when they started being
26:16
Speaker 4: the naysayers, I felt like, it's not any of their business.
26:19
Speaker 4: They weren't living here. My youngest was here, but my
26:21
Speaker 4: oldest was. My older three were out of the house.
26:23
Speaker 4: They had lives of their own, and actually it was
26:27
Speaker 4: it was. It was very going to say intoxicating. I'm
26:29
Speaker 4: not a drinker, but I loved the feeling that I
26:32
Speaker 4: got when I was involved because I felt like young again.
26:36
Speaker 4: I felt like I was desirable again. It was very
26:39
Speaker 4: interesting the emotions that go on when you're in the
26:42
Speaker 4: middle of this and you don't see the red flags.
26:44
Speaker 4: I looked back and call them pink flags now, but
26:47
Speaker 4: those red flags weren't hard red flags. And when my
26:49
Speaker 4: kids wanted to say, Mom, don't I'm like, just leave
26:53
Speaker 4: me alone. I'm okay, you know I was. I was
26:55
Speaker 4: not a dummy. I was well and I'm well trained,
26:59
Speaker 4: well educated. I had a good company, and I didn't
27:02
Speaker 4: need my children, who I thought, you know, they.
27:04
Speaker 1: Were good kids.
27:05
Speaker 4: But it said, I don't need you to tell me
27:07
Speaker 4: what to do right now, and I shut them out.
27:10
Speaker 4: And that's what happens, and that's what the scammers bank on,
27:12
Speaker 4: and they go, they're laughing their way to the bank
27:14
Speaker 4: because you are home alone now and you're left by
27:18
Speaker 4: yourself with no one to support you, even though you've
27:20
Speaker 4: done it, basically done that to yourself. You isolated yourself
27:24
Speaker 4: from family because of the encouragement of the scammers.
27:27
Speaker 1: Dave mank joining me Crime online dot Com investigative reporter.
27:30
Speaker 1: What are some of the things she purchased from the
27:34
Speaker 1: eighty seven year old's life savings?
27:37
Speaker 3: You know, Nancy, the one thing that really caught my attention,
27:40
Speaker 3: and you pointed this out that while he had to
27:43
Speaker 3: give up his apartment in Manhattan, she not only had
27:48
Speaker 3: a house in a gated community, but she also bought
27:51
Speaker 3: a condominium. So well, he lost everything and didn't have
27:54
Speaker 3: a place to stay. She had two places to stay,
27:57
Speaker 3: paid for it by him. She also bought a number
28:00
Speaker 3: of cars. Noted was a Corvette, but also a white
28:05
Speaker 3: twenty two fifteen hundred pickups. Now I don't undert I
28:10
Speaker 3: don't know the rolex heights that there are not my
28:13
Speaker 3: kind of thing. But she bought a Rolex Oyster perpetual
28:16
Speaker 3: day date forty with Presidents bracelet, date just forty one
28:20
Speaker 3: with Jubilee bracelet, and a date just forty one with
28:23
Speaker 3: Oyster bracelet and Roman numeral dial.
28:26
Speaker 1: Are all of those Rolexes?
28:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are all three Rolexes.
28:29
Speaker 1: Well, she bought three rolexes. You lost me on Oyster.
28:32
Speaker 1: She bought three Rolexes. Yes, ma'am, correct me if I'm wrong,
28:35
Speaker 1: Dave Mack. Did she buy expensive trips?
28:39
Speaker 8: Yep?
28:40
Speaker 1: Did she study at places like the Ritz Carlton on
28:44
Speaker 1: his money, Yes she did. Did she spend tens of
28:46
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars on expensive meals? Yes, gold coins yes,
28:52
Speaker 1: gold bars, yes, jewelry yes, rolex watches, yes. Designer clothing
28:57
Speaker 1: from stores like Tiffany, Ralph Lauren and Marcus Louis Vatan.
29:01
Speaker 5: Yes.
29:02
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't claim credit for knowing all that because
29:06
Speaker 1: I am reading directly from the indictment against her. Peaches
29:11
Speaker 1: Stergo aka Alice time stories with Nancy Grace. Just so
29:33
Speaker 1: you know, mister victim out there, who we are not naming,
29:39
Speaker 1: You're not the only one. You're hearing our friend Debbie
29:43
Speaker 1: Montgomery Johnson speaking the founder of The Woman behind the
29:46
Speaker 1: Smile and international speaker after what happened to her losing
29:52
Speaker 1: a million dollars. They're not the only ones, guys. Take
29:56
Speaker 1: a listen to the case of Janet Cook and our
29:59
Speaker 1: cut forty two.
30:01
Speaker 15: I got lonely so and I spent a lot of
30:03
Speaker 15: time on the computer playing games, and I just happened
30:07
Speaker 15: to go to the date site.
30:09
Speaker 16: When Jennet Cook went looking for love online seventeen years
30:13
Speaker 16: after losing her husband, she found a suitor on the
30:17
Speaker 16: very first day.
30:18
Speaker 15: I liked him because he was he said sweet things, and.
30:21
Speaker 1: He was charming.
30:22
Speaker 16: After four months of courtship, including emails and phone calls
30:26
Speaker 16: but never meeting in person, the man, who claimed to
30:29
Speaker 16: be a contractor from Virginia was suddenly stuck somewhere in
30:33
Speaker 16: Africa and in serious trouble.
30:35
Speaker 15: According to the story, he became very ill and he
30:41
Speaker 15: was in the hospital he claimed to have had a
30:44
Speaker 15: kidney transplant.
30:45
Speaker 16: The money started to add up, and before Janet realized
30:48
Speaker 16: she was being swindled, the seventy six year old widow
30:51
Speaker 16: was out roughly three hundred thousand dollars.
30:55
Speaker 1: Okay, Jeffrey Wolf joining me, Denverbay, cyber crime lawyer, Jeffrey.
31:01
Speaker 1: There's so many red streaming bills of alarm right there.
31:06
Speaker 1: So the person you've been talking to that flatters you
31:09
Speaker 1: all the time suddenly gets stranded in Africa. And if
31:13
Speaker 1: that's not far fetched enough, what they can't get applying home?
31:18
Speaker 1: If that's not far fetched enough've been Suddenly they need
31:20
Speaker 1: a kidney transplant? I mean, really, how does this happen?
31:27
Speaker 1: How can people fall for this? Jeffrey, Well, we live in.
31:29
Speaker 8: A time where people are extremely disconnected and extremely lonely,
31:33
Speaker 8: especially coming out of COVID. These numbers have ticked up
31:36
Speaker 8: incredibly because of how isolated people have been for the
31:40
Speaker 8: last several years. And the bottom line is, if you
31:42
Speaker 8: ever heard the term not my circus, not my monkeys,
31:46
Speaker 8: that is what it is. When somebody you just met
31:48
Speaker 8: needs hundreds of thousands of dollars and you know it's
31:52
Speaker 8: a situation where when you find somebody who is vulnerable,
31:55
Speaker 8: who is alone, who is recently widowed, or you know,
32:00
Speaker 8: just coming out of COVID and lost touch with all
32:02
Speaker 8: of their friends, it makes it so much easier to
32:05
Speaker 8: have them so yearning for human contact that they'll believe anything,
32:09
Speaker 8: they'll do anything, and they'll spend anything to try and
32:11
Speaker 8: do it. It makes no sense when you look at
32:14
Speaker 8: it from one thousand feet in the air, But when
32:17
Speaker 8: you're in those moments, people get victimized very very very
32:21
Speaker 8: quickly because they so yearn for that human contact and
32:24
Speaker 8: that affection that they are being given, that love bomb
32:27
Speaker 8: that they get from this person.
32:29
Speaker 1: You were hearing about another victim, Janet Cook, who was
32:34
Speaker 1: playing online seventeen years after losing her husband. Well, then
32:40
Speaker 1: there is another victim. Take a listen. Howur cut forty
32:44
Speaker 1: four zero from WMAR.
32:46
Speaker 17: His name at least he told me his name was
32:49
Speaker 17: Tony Richard, and he sent pictures of a very handsome doctor.
32:55
Speaker 13: These are photos of a real doctor, but they're not
32:58
Speaker 13: of the person who contact did Kate Kleinert on Facebook?
33:02
Speaker 13: The impostor told her they shared similar interests, and their
33:05
Speaker 13: chats quickly morphed into daily phone calls. He claimed to
33:08
Speaker 13: be in Iraq working on a un contract as a surgeon,
33:12
Speaker 13: and due to safety concerns, he couldn't FaceTime.
33:15
Speaker 1: Or carry money on him. So after four months.
33:19
Speaker 13: Of communicating, Tony asked a favor for his daughter.
33:22
Speaker 17: She needed a gift card, and that started the whole business.
33:27
Speaker 13: Kate bought a one hundred dollars VISA gift card, took
33:29
Speaker 13: a photo of the numbers, then sent it to Tony.
33:32
Speaker 1: Then came more requests.
33:34
Speaker 17: All told, I gave him thirty nine thousand dollars.
33:38
Speaker 1: Thirty nine thousand dollars. Well, first of all, a red
33:43
Speaker 1: bell of alarm was and he calls himself Tony Richard.
33:46
Speaker 1: That's Richard with a funky accent. But explain to me,
33:52
Speaker 1: Jeff Muffler, former chief inspector US Marshal Service and a
33:57
Speaker 1: strategic advisor for the Gavin de Becker and Associates Group.
34:02
Speaker 1: John Muffler, we hear that she gave him money for
34:07
Speaker 1: a gift card for his daughter, the photos of the
34:10
Speaker 1: numbers and then sent it. Did he use that to
34:16
Speaker 1: ultimately rack up those numbers from the visa thirty nine
34:19
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of debt?
34:21
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's usually the beginning of the hook. Right, So
34:25
Speaker 11: a gift card overseas, I can't connect. That's the mo
34:30
Speaker 11: of a lot of these. And once once that transaction begins,
34:35
Speaker 11: you know, the gift card or just a couple of
34:37
Speaker 11: dollars here, they become you know, invested into that exchange.
34:43
Speaker 11: And so again, gift cards can be tracked and a
34:46
Speaker 11: little harder to do than say credit cards or whatever.
34:49
Speaker 11: But certainly you know the beginning of of that transaction
34:55
Speaker 11: between con artists.
34:57
Speaker 1: And victim thirty nine in w. Montgomery's case a million dollars.
35:03
Speaker 1: In the case of this Holocaust survivor, nearly three million dollars,
35:07
Speaker 1: he's thrown out of his apartment, while she has not
35:10
Speaker 1: only a condo, but she also purchased a house, a
35:13
Speaker 1: Corvette Rolex watches designer clothes. Take a listen to our
35:17
Speaker 1: cut thirty nine. Our friends at Fox thirty five.
35:20
Speaker 5: We are learning new details about the smooth talking man
35:23
Speaker 5: who's now behind bars after police say he swindled a
35:26
Speaker 5: woman out of eighty thousand dollars.
35:29
Speaker 1: Boys in Franklin, Tennessee say.
35:30
Speaker 13: John Martin Hill here tried to hide under a table
35:34
Speaker 13: in a hotel conference room when they confronted him late
35:38
Speaker 13: Tuesday night.
35:38
Speaker 18: He smiled at his mugshot after he was arrested on
35:41
Speaker 18: a fugitive's warrant. Fox host Porsche Brunner has more on
35:45
Speaker 18: what we've learned about the man who's charmed lended him
35:48
Speaker 18: in a jail cell.
35:50
Speaker 14: John Martin Hill flashed that now infamous smile after police
35:54
Speaker 14: arrested him in Franklin, Tennessee, Tuesday night. He was taken
35:57
Speaker 14: into custody just hours after Gwynett count Police released these
36:01
Speaker 14: photos of him, and.
36:02
Speaker 13: The tip came into one of our supervisors in the
36:04
Speaker 13: Special Victims Unit.
36:05
Speaker 14: According to police Corporal Michelle Taiharra, that tip came from
36:09
Speaker 14: a woman in Franklin who saw the story Tuesday about
36:12
Speaker 14: the Alpharetto woman who says Hill swindled her out of
36:15
Speaker 14: eighty thousand dollars just one week after they met and reportedly.
36:20
Speaker 1: Fell in love. Susan Constantine joining me, body language expert
36:23
Speaker 1: specializing in deception, author of How to Spot a Liar
36:27
Speaker 1: in Seven Seconds or Less online? What are the alarm
36:33
Speaker 1: signs that you advise people to search for when they
36:38
Speaker 1: are communicating?
36:39
Speaker 4: Sure?
36:40
Speaker 9: So, one of the things that I've noted just to
36:41
Speaker 9: myself and by the way we offer those service at
36:44
Speaker 9: my company. We have a Facebook SCM investigator that worked
36:49
Speaker 9: for as chrissel Gato. But one of the things that
36:51
Speaker 9: I noticed is, first of all, the inconsistency with these photographs.
36:54
Speaker 9: A lot of times are photographs. When you're looking at
36:58
Speaker 9: the different photographs between he or she with look to
37:03
Speaker 9: see how they are communicating, and they're what photos they've
37:07
Speaker 9: actually put up on the Internet, and what the story
37:11
Speaker 9: they're trying to tell, you'll see start to see some inconsistency.
37:15
Speaker 9: A lot of times they'll be just like a little round,
37:17
Speaker 9: little picture of themselves and then they'll keep repeating it
37:19
Speaker 9: over and over and over again. And usually they're a
37:22
Speaker 9: military where they're some high official someone that is like
37:26
Speaker 9: unobtainable for the average person. The other thing is that
37:29
Speaker 9: I look for too, is in their language. There's always
37:32
Speaker 9: a cut and taste piece of it. So when you're
37:34
Speaker 9: looking at how they actually praise words, they'll have misspelled words,
37:38
Speaker 9: which is incongruent with of course their educational level, et cetera.
37:42
Speaker 9: And then they'll pop in a piece that is like
37:45
Speaker 9: in doesn't even make sense, Like you can tell that
37:48
Speaker 9: they're not very well educated. So those are big signs
37:51
Speaker 9: for me, and that they tend to really build up
37:55
Speaker 9: the person they speak about things that are the romance
37:59
Speaker 9: side of them, things that they find what they'd want
38:02
Speaker 9: to do with their partners, the you know, the the
38:05
Speaker 9: long beaches walks and the sunsets and the dinners and
38:10
Speaker 9: all this kind of things, which is kind of enticing
38:13
Speaker 9: for our lonely purpose on the other end of it,
38:15
Speaker 9: that they've never met before. One of the things that
38:17
Speaker 9: I always recommend that they do. Number One, do your
38:20
Speaker 9: background check on them. Take the name in there and
38:23
Speaker 9: start to look her. They can go right and truth
38:24
Speaker 9: find her and see who this guy is. See where
38:26
Speaker 9: there's any photographs of the person. I've caught more people
38:30
Speaker 9: just even on that which is a commercial website, and
38:33
Speaker 9: found scammers on it many times over truthfinder dot com. Yep,
38:38
Speaker 9: that's it.
38:39
Speaker 11: Can I jump in and add something there?
38:40
Speaker 1: Yes, go ahead, please?
38:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
38:42
Speaker 11: I've heard charm and niceness a few times during the conversation,
38:46
Speaker 11: especially from the victims that have participated in the call.
38:50
Speaker 11: But you know, to add what she just said is,
38:53
Speaker 11: you know, think of it as you know, charm and
38:58
Speaker 11: niceness is not a credential for good intent, right, So
39:03
Speaker 11: that is not is not as not a character trait.
39:08
Speaker 11: So you got to think of it that way. I mean,
39:10
Speaker 11: she's just said then done. But for victims, if they're
39:14
Speaker 11: hearing such charmingness niceness, there's a reason for that, that's
39:19
Speaker 11: a big red flag I would.
39:21
Speaker 12: Add to that list also.
39:23
Speaker 1: So guys, let me ask John Muffler or Jeffrey Well,
39:25
Speaker 1: I'll start with you, John, how do we get this
39:28
Speaker 1: victim's money back?
39:30
Speaker 11: That money that she is stolen from the victim, you
39:35
Speaker 11: know that will be resold and you know he will
39:39
Speaker 11: be able to get some of that money back. It's
39:44
Speaker 11: probably not anywhere near the two point eight million that
39:47
Speaker 11: was stolen from him, but he will be able to
39:49
Speaker 11: recover some of that some of that.
39:53
Speaker 1: And how do you go about doing that?
39:54
Speaker 8: Jeffrey, Yeah, yeah, Nancy, that's going to be through the
39:57
Speaker 8: restitution process at the courthouse and the seizure powers of
40:00
Speaker 8: the federal government when you commit a crime.
40:02
Speaker 1: So Swama is never paying restitution, Okay, yes she is.
40:06
Speaker 8: It's going to be a part of her plea bargain.
40:07
Speaker 8: They're going to seize her property.
40:09
Speaker 1: Where you make the victim pay restitution. The victim is
40:12
Speaker 1: already broke, so she's never paying anything out of her pocket.
40:15
Speaker 1: What the state will have to do is seize all
40:18
Speaker 1: of her assets what they can find, what they can trace,
40:21
Speaker 1: and the state gets it and sells it. She's never
40:24
Speaker 1: going to willingly write a check to anybody. But how
40:28
Speaker 1: do we go about tracking her accounts, getting those rolexes back,
40:34
Speaker 1: finding the cars, selling the condos, selling the house. Who
40:38
Speaker 1: does all that? The government?
40:40
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely, this is a federal case. So the Federal
40:42
Speaker 8: Bureau of Investigation in the Attorney General's office are going
40:46
Speaker 8: to be in charge of tracking the money down, tracking
40:49
Speaker 8: her assets down, seizing them under federal seizure laws, and
40:53
Speaker 8: then selling them, and then the proceeds will go to
40:56
Speaker 8: this victim. That is the way the federal government is
40:59
Speaker 8: going to work a case like this. So while she
41:01
Speaker 8: may not write him a physical check because she's about
41:03
Speaker 8: to go to prison for a maximum of twenty years,
41:07
Speaker 8: but she doesn't need to write the check. The government's
41:10
Speaker 8: going to write him the check. You're right that he
41:11
Speaker 8: may not get that almost three million dollars that he's
41:14
Speaker 8: out of pocket, but they have a lot of assets already.
41:17
Speaker 8: We've read in the indictment the assets that they have
41:20
Speaker 8: already seized. He is going to get a lot of
41:22
Speaker 8: money back, and he darn well should get all that
41:24
Speaker 8: money back.
41:25
Speaker 1: I hope so so. Debbie Montgomery Johnson, a victim of
41:29
Speaker 1: cyber crimes now international speaker. Bottom line, what's your advice?
41:34
Speaker 4: And beware and be aware. And I can't say that
41:37
Speaker 4: this man is going to be lucky, but he is
41:39
Speaker 4: going to get his money back. Most most, if not all,
41:41
Speaker 4: of the victims or survivors that I work with, have
41:44
Speaker 4: gotten nothing back because you can't you can't find the money.
41:47
Speaker 4: It's gone overseas. So I just watch out for those
41:51
Speaker 4: red flags. If it seems to be too good to
41:53
Speaker 4: be true, then it probably is. Do a like I
41:56
Speaker 4: love to do the background check. When my brothers told
41:58
Speaker 4: me to do that, I said, don't be ridiculous. This
41:59
Speaker 4: is a dating person, but do a reverse search on pictures,
42:03
Speaker 4: Get a dating buddy, get someone to help you out,
42:06
Speaker 4: because you know your your heart rules your head and
42:09
Speaker 4: your endorphins takeover and you don't want to listen to
42:11
Speaker 4: the logic. And as the fellow said, here, yeah, looking
42:15
Speaker 4: back behindsas twenty twenty. When you're in the middle of it,
42:18
Speaker 4: you can't see what's happening.
42:20
Speaker 11: You can't.
42:20
Speaker 4: You're feeling. You feel it what you like. You want
42:23
Speaker 4: it to be true, and you will make it true
42:26
Speaker 4: until it crashes and burns, and people lose everything. They
42:30
Speaker 4: lose all their money, they lose their homes. Many of
42:33
Speaker 4: the women I've known have lost their lives. And that
42:35
Speaker 4: is just devastating. And this is elder abuse at its prime.
42:40
Speaker 1: Karen Stark. But you also have to check our own ego.
42:44
Speaker 1: When you are an eighty seven year old man, what
42:49
Speaker 1: do you think a thirty six year old woman is
42:52
Speaker 1: interested in? You know, let's make it. Let's take it
42:57
Speaker 1: away from this victim. My husband had a friend in college,
43:01
Speaker 1: perfectly normal, wonderful wife, wonderful marriage. He goes to some
43:08
Speaker 1: guy event, to a strip club. I've told you this
43:11
Speaker 1: falls for a stripper. By the time she's through with him,
43:16
Speaker 1: he has sent her son through private school for like
43:19
Speaker 1: seven or eight years, got him set up for college.
43:23
Speaker 1: He's lost his entire bank account. He was like a stockbroker.
43:27
Speaker 1: He loses his job because he went bankrupt, and he
43:31
Speaker 1: loses his marriage, and then she dumped him. Now you
43:35
Speaker 1: have to ask yourself, why does this person want me,
43:38
Speaker 1: And that's a hard question when you want to believe
43:42
Speaker 1: they love you.
43:42
Speaker 5: And I think, Nancy, what you are describing, and I
43:46
Speaker 5: have encountered with the people that I work with, is
43:49
Speaker 5: that it's so difficult to get somebody.
43:53
Speaker 11: To pay attention to that that to say to.
43:56
Speaker 5: Somebody who's mayby seven years old, you know, why would
43:59
Speaker 5: this young woman be wanting you've been. They are so
44:03
Speaker 5: excited about the idea that there is someone who wants
44:07
Speaker 5: to and there's a whole fantasy aspect that takes control.
44:12
Speaker 5: And as your guests pointed out, I mean, you are
44:14
Speaker 5: so embroiled in it and excited about the idea that
44:18
Speaker 5: somebody loves you that it's very hard to be logical,
44:22
Speaker 5: which is what you're talking about.
44:24
Speaker 1: You know, Karen Stark, I asked a illogical question, because
44:28
Speaker 1: everybody on earth wants to be loved, whether they acknowledge
44:33
Speaker 1: it or not. And when you think you found somebody
44:36
Speaker 1: that loves you, you don't say, Wow, what's wrong with
44:39
Speaker 1: that person? Why would they love me? You think, oh,
44:42
Speaker 1: my stars, I'm so lucky this person loves me. So
44:48
Speaker 1: it's like screaming up and down I seventy five and
44:51
Speaker 1: expecting the pavement to hear you. It's just you've got
44:54
Speaker 1: to watch out for the red flags that we've heard
44:56
Speaker 1: about and what Susan Constantine was explaining. I pray this
45:02
Speaker 1: poor guy, this Holocaust survivor, gets his money back. We
45:06
Speaker 1: wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye friend,