Patrick Giblin, who twice escaped from federal custody, 'went after the lonely, and broken hearted,' said Kathy Waters, executive director of Advocating Against Romance Scammers.
Patrick Giblin was like the American version of the "Tinder Swindler" -- but without the private jets,He wooed women with stories about his respectable family -- his father was a judge, he said -- and beachfront property in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he said he worked in the casino industry, according to a federal criminal complaint. He told them was ready to settle down and was more interested in a woman's inner beauty than her outward appearance.
Prosecutors say Giblin even scammed women from prison while he was serving time on similar charges, and after he became a fugitive for failing to show up at a halfway house in Newark, New Jersey. Giblin would then build a rapport with the women over long phone conversations before he started asking them for money, court documents said. He gave them various excuses for financial emergencies, including that his car broke down or that he needed funds to free up winnings from a gambling tournament, court documents said.
Giblin's scams were first exposed after he was charged with one count of extortion in New Jersey for allegedly scamming a woman in Ohio. That was in March 2005. "The amount of romance scam victims Giblin violated in the US over the years is a number we've never seen tied to one scammer," Waters said. "Not reporting the crime is common for those who have been romance scammed. Often times scrutiny goes along with reporting, which leads to shame and embarrassment."
A few weeks later, federal authorities found him in an Atlantic City hotel, gambling away funds from women he'd scammed from telephone dating services while on the lam, according to court documents. He'd checked into the hotel under an alias, "Michael Patrick." In December 2013 he was freed from prison again, this time to start supervised release in New Jersey, federal documents said. As a condition his release, Giblin was to notify his probation officer of any plans to leave the state, but a federal agent later arrested him at a hotel in Colonie, New York.
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