January 1, 2007
Cons, Frauds, and Schemers
by
Lona Manning
They can look you in the eye,
win your trust and melt your heart. They can lie about the past, the present,
and the future. They are chameleons, changing names and identities as easily as
we change our outfits.
They are conmen and women. They are sociopaths.
Some of the names of the victims in this article have been
changed or withheld to protect their privacy.
James Rubin Rowe
It didn't matter to Marina Howard that her wedding
rehearsal dinner was being held on Friday the 13th. She was still the
luckiest girl in the world. Only eight weeks ago, she had applied for work as a
hostess at a steakhouse restaurant and been swept off her feet by the owner,
Mike Grogan. Mike was husky, tall and broad shouldered with dark hair, with
piercing eyes and an easy laugh.
Mike had led a fascinating life. An ex-Navy Seal, he'd
played pro football (and had a Super Bowl ring to prove it). He was fun-loving
and free-spending. Years ago, he'd invested in a little company known as
Microsoft and that was why, at age 39, he was a millionaire. He was incredibly
smart about business and investing. He offered to buy cars in her name so she'd
be able to build up her credit rating. Other friends of Mike's people he'd met
since moving to San Diego six months before were investing all their money in
a computer software company he was starting up.
And so, Marina knew her future was bright. As the time
approached for their friends to start arriving at the restaurant, Marina sat
writing thank-you notes to her bridesmaids. Mike was in the kitchen, talking to
the chef about the dinner, when two U.S. Marshals burst through the kitchen door
and placed him under arrest. Marina's groom-to-be was marched out in handcuffs.
Marina had to come to grips with the fact that her fiancé
Mike Grogan wasn't Mike Grogan. "I was in love with a guy who does not exist,"
she told a reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune a few days later.
Grogan's real name was James Rubin Rowe. He had never been a Navy Seal. He had
never played pro football. He had been married at least two times before and in
fact he was still married to a woman in Seattle. And he was not a millionaire,
although over the years he had conned people out of millions of dollars.
Rowe's wife in Seattle also didn't know her husband's real
name was James Rowe. She thought she was married to Steve Heitman, owner of a
chain of successful ski equipment shops. James Rowe had started up his business
by winning the trust of two Microsoft executives. They bankrolled the stores,
but Rowe drained all the company's cash to fund his lavish lifestyle. He scooted
out of Seattle just before his financial house of cards came crashing down on
him, leaving his investors with the debts. The real Steve Heitman had gone to
high school with Rowe but had tragically died when he was 20. Rowe had stolen
his identity.
And before he was Steve Heitman, Rowe used other aliases.
With his commanding presence, people skills, and self-confidence, he could get
hired for jobs that he knew nothing about, like precision engineering or
drilling wells. He'd hang around long enough to embezzle from his boss and skip
town. In most of his incarnations, he claimed to have a military background and
often showed up in uniform, shoulders back, with a chest full of ribbons. He was
a genius at getting people to trust him. "If you and I sat down in a
restaurant," Rowe told Keith Morrison of Dateline after his arrest, "I
would be able to ascertain what you wanted, and who you were and what I needed
to do to get inside your head, probably within 45 minutes. Within two weeks, we
would be best friends, and you would be investing money."
Rowe had been caught before and had done time in federal
prisons but resumed his conman career as soon as he was released. This time
around, he said he was filled with remorse for the pain he had caused Marina.
Denny Behrend of the U.S. Marshal's Seattle office doubts Rowe's sincerity.
Rowe, Behrend figures, uses women for "their good name and their good credit.
Being married also lends an air of respectability to him."
How did the Marshals swoop down on Rowe just before his
bigamous marriage to Marina? Only because Rowe had bilked so many people over
the years that he accidentally bumped into an old victim. Rowe was looking at
automobiles at a luxury car lot when another customer recognized him and
confronted him. Rowe denied everything, of course, but the angry victim alerted
the San Diego Violent Crimes Task Force, who coordinated the arrest with the
U.S. Marshals.
When he was arrested in San Diego on Oct. 13, 2000, Rowe
claimed innocence, but pled guilty to 12 counts of fraud in Seattle. Rowe is
currently in federal prison in Pennsylvania and is due for release in 2015.
Billy Clark
James Rowe says he can't resist conning people because he
can't resist stealing money. Another conman, Billy Clark, couldn't resist the
opportunity to play the hero.
Early on Sunday morning, May 26, 2002, a barge smashed
into the Interstate 40 bridge at the Arkansas River near the small town of
Webbers Falls, Okla. The impact caused a 500-foot section of the bridge to
collapse into the murky water, taking almost a dozen cars and trucks with it.
Fourteen people died in the catastrophe. As news of the accident spread, scores
of volunteers, law enforcement officials and rescue personnel rushed to the
scene. Among those was a burly, sandy-haired officer dressed in army fatigues.
He said he was Captain William Clark, just back from Afghanistan, and he was in
charge of the recovery operations.
Clark, 29, commandeered a new Ford truck and reserved
eight hotel rooms for himself and his team who would be arriving shortly. In
addition to issuing orders and giving interviews, Clark hinted that one of the
victims had sensitive information in his laptop, which would have to be
recovered from the river. The bridge disaster was not only an economic
catastrophe and a personal tragedy, it was also a national security issue of
some kind.
Locals had their hands full responding to the disaster and
didn't have time to think about, let alone check, Clark's bona fides for
several days. "He walked the walk and talked the talk," the mayor explained. But
Clark's insistence that he was in charge of operations finally irritated the
mayor, who pointed out that unless the governor declared a state of emergency,
the local authorities were still in charge. "One of our men from the medical
examiner's office called the military to check him out. There is no record of
him ever being in the army," the mayor later told the National Post.
Clark abruptly fled town and the FBI was notified. Clark
next surfaced in Canada, in Tobermory, a small town north of Toronto. Once
again, he presented himself as a Special Forces officer from Afghanistan. His
bragging about his exploits and his aggressive overtures to young women made him
conspicuous in the little town. The local harbormaster saw a newspaper article
about the Oklahoma bridge conman and realized who their visitor was. Provincial
police arrested Clark.
Back in Tallapousa, Mo, Clark's hometown, the sheriff
explained that Clark routinely impersonated police officers or firemen and
passed bad checks. "It's just the way he makes his living: I don't think he's
worked in a day in his life."
Yet, even after his arrest, Clark continued to insist that
he was an army officer, serving in a top-secret "black ops" unit. He was sent
for an extensive psychiatric examination and was initially ruled unfit to stand
trial, having convinced authorities, for a time at least, that he was not
deliberately conning people, but was delusional. His own cousin isn't even sure
if Clark knows what the truth is: "He tells so many lies he believes it. I've
argued with him lots of times about him being in the military. He says he is."
Clark is currently serving time in a federal prison in
California and is scheduled for release in 2007.
Dr. Barian Baluchi
Any judge who wants a psychiatric evaluation of a conman
should consider the cautionary tale of Dr. Barian Baluchi, the conman asked to
give a psychiatric evaluation for a conman.
Professor Barian Samuel Baluchi MB, ChB, MSc, PhD, was a
respected Harley Street psychiatrist in England. Baluchi's success in his field
was evident in his shiny Mercedes Benz and his $1.3 million home. He had trained
in England and Spain, as well as Harvard. He was an expert on stress and mental
trauma. The British government consulted him frequently on the mental-health
problems experienced by immigrants. He authored a book on the subject and ran a
resource center for immigrants, for which he received $2.5 two million in grant
monies. He developed his own therapeutic methods, which he called "holistic
interactive trauma therapy."
In addition to his regular counseling practice, Baluchi
made a handsome income as an expert witness in court cases. His specialty was
testifying on behalf of asylum-seekers fighting deportation. (He had himself
successfully sought asylum in Britain as an immigrant from Iran in 1978. He
married an Englishwoman, but divorced her once he obtained permanent residency
status.) Over 1,500 asylum seekers won the right to stay in Britain, partly on
the strength of Baluchi's professional opinion that they would suffer too much
trauma if deported.
In a bizarre twist, the fake psychiatrist testified on
behalf of a fake doctor. A Kurdish refugee named Iskender Dilek was convicted of
raping immigrant women while posing as a gynecologist. Baluchi gave his expert
opinion that Dilek was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In this
instance, however, Baluchi didn't sway the judge, who sentenced Dilek to 10 and
a half years.
In fact, Baluchi produced so many reports on behalf of
immigrants that he aroused the suspicions of an immigration official. A
government investigation revealed that although the walls of Baluchi's office
were covered with certificates, attesting to his certification in psychiatry and
plastic surgery, the astounding truth was that Baluchi had no medical
qualifications whatsoever. He had gotten himself registered as a doctor in
Britain with stolen credentials from a Spanish physician.
Baluchi was actually a former taxicab driver.
"He took in people from all walks of life," prosecutor
Louise Kamill charged, "from the newly arrived asylum seeker to senior officials
at the Department of Health, local authorities and established charities, from
people practiced in detecting dishonesty such as the judges sitting at the Old
Bailey, the immigration appeals tribunal, criminal solicitors, to his own
personal acquaintances, including his English first wife. Each one believed him
to be a qualified doctor and trusted him."
Baluchi was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January
2005.
Vicky Allan
Baluchi was able to convince even his colleagues that he
was a Harvard-educated psychiatrist. But for sheer audacity, few can match Vicky
Allan of British Columbia, Canada. When the single mother met Gary Mayhew, a
flooring installer, she spun a tale he couldn't resist. Allan posed as a widow
who could only inherit her late husband's millions if she got remarried. Her
father-in-law had recently died, she explained, and left her the family fortune,
but only on the condition that she remarries so that her daughter, his
grandchild, could have a father. The 40-year-old single mother promised Mayhew
she would split the fortune with him if would he would marry her. Mayhew readily
agreed, but as soon as Vicky became his wife in December of 2000, her promises
of riches turned into demands for all his savings. She spun a web of deceit and
paranoia, telling him that other relatives of her late husband were out to kill
them so they wouldn't inherit the money. She said they had kidnapped her brother
and she needed ransom money. By the time Mayhew realized he'd been conned and
left his wife after five months of marriage, she had drained his life's savings
of $170,000.
Mayhew got a restraining order from Vicky, but he was to
learn the truth of the adage that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
In early March of 2002, Mayhew's divorce from Vicky was
finalized. That same month, he got a call to meet a potential flooring customer
at a local motel. When Mayhew showed up at the appointed room, three muscular
men jumped on him and roughed him up. As he struggled and tried to scream for
help, they yelled that he was getting what he deserved. "How do you think Tracey
felt?" one asked. They blindfolded him and strapped him to a chair with duct
tape. His heart pounding, Mayhew heard his ex-wife saying, "Well, let's go for a
coffee. Part of the movie scene is for him to be left there for awhile." His
three assailants left the room with his wife.
Mayhew dreaded what would happen when Vicky returned. He
managed to free himself and ran from the room, calling for help. But Vicky heard
him and sent her three goons to catch him. He was dragged across the parking lot
into the motel room again. He continued to struggle against the three men, who
were all stronger than he was. He began to fear for his life. Fortunately, his
three assailants, surprised at the struggle he put up, decided to abandon the
fight and run away. Mayhew escaped a second time and ran for help.
When the police arrived, they found Mayhew taking refuge
in the motel lobby and three very confused bodybuilders.
The police untangled an incredible tale: Vicky Allan had
approached three young men at a local bodybuilder's gym and told them she was a
casting agent for an upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. She was holding
auditions at a local motel and if they could convincingly act the part of three
men giving vigilante justice to an abusive husband, she'd hire them for the
movie. She would provide the actor they were to terrorize.
At first, the young men believed Allan's story, but, as
the judge who heard the case put it, "They were surprised at the vehemence with
which Mr. Mayhew resisted them, thinking that it was probably even excessive for
the scenario. Eventually they were persuaded that there was something wrong with
the situation they found themselves in and they fled."
At first, Vicky told police her husband had set her up,
but she couldn't lie her way out of this one the evidence of the bodybuilders
and the motel clerks was overwhelming. When her first story didn't work, she
pled guilty but tried to spin a tearful tale of spousal abuse, charging that
Mayhew had beaten and terrorized her when they were married. She simply wanted
to give him a taste of his own medicine.
Mayhew vehemently denied her accusations, telling reporter
Marshall Jones, "I believed her lies and she forged numerous checks. Twenty-two
years of my life savings, she wiped out. I used to have a perfect credit rating
and now I can't get a credit card."
At her sentencing hearing, Judge B.J. Grannary noted that
Vicky accused her ex-husband of beating her in the motel room before the police
arrived, giving her a concussion, when in fact Mayhew had escaped to the lobby
after the bodybuilders fled. Making false accusations was as natural as
breathing, to her.
Over the previous 20 years, Allan had been convicted of
theft and fraud in six different cities. When Mayhew met her, she hadn't just
become a grieving widow, she was just out of prison. As part of their
investigation, police learned that Vicky Allan had paid for the motel room with
what else? a stolen credit card.
At the sentencing hearing, Judge Grannary called Vicky
vindictive and malicious, adding, "She ambushed [Mayhew]. She trapped him. She
set him up. She planned it. She deliberated over it. She calculated over it. She
arranged for these three men to come and beat him up and tie him up. She had the
tape. She had the blindfold. She had the location. She had other people call her
husband to ensnare him in the trap
." Grannary charged that Allan "intoxicated"
the three bodybuilders "with expectations of riches and fame."
Allan, Grannary concluded, "feeds on a diet of the
gullible and she has no difficulty in finding gullibility in her life."
On Aug.15, 2002, Vicky Allan was sentenced to two years
less a day for terrorizing her ex-husband. As Judge Grannary pronounced
sentence, she tried to interrupt, but he cut her off. "Tell it to somebody who
is going to listen to you," he said.
If she is out of prison again, someone, somewhere,
probably is.
Protect yourself learn how to spot a conman
"Sooner or later, you will have a run-in with a
sociopath," warns Donna Anderson of Lovefraud.com. Anderson was the victim of a
con artist who lied his way into marriage and left her in debt. Anderson's
website gives tips on how to spot a con artist.
Conmen often claim to have served in the military, usually
in Special Forces on secret missions. This website
http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies.htm
exposes military frauds.
The story of the whiz-kid con man, Barry Minkow, who got
caught, got religion and now educates others about fraud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Minkow
Bibliography
James Rubin Rowe:
"The perfect stranger: His web of deceit snared love,
friendship and wealth -- until he tried one con too many," by Jennifer Hanrahan,
San Diego Union-Tribune, October 29,2000
"Profile: Jim Rowe changes identity and cons many,"
Dateline NBC transcript, July 5,2002
"Conman tells of misdeeds, denies lacking a conscience,"
by Jennifer Hanrahan, San Diego Union-Tribune, October 21, 2000
William Clark
"Fainting spell led to barge crash, bridge collapse, NTSB
concludes," By Steve Tetreault, Arkansas News Bureau, Sep 1, 2004
"Disasters are a gift to imposters," by Jessica Leeder,
National Post (Canada), July 13, 2002.
"Oklahoma barge crash - U.S. fugitive was hitting on local
women," by Jessica Leeder and Odile Nelson, National Post (Canada) June
11, 2002
"Impostor at bridge collapse has history of false
identities, authorities say," Associated Press, June 12, 2002
Barian Baluchi
"Bogus Doctor `Frittered Away' £1m," by Melvyn Howe, Press
Association Newswire, October 12, 2006
"Jail For Fake Doctor Who Helped Convict Sex Pest," by
John Carvel, Birmingham Post, January 27, 2005
"How doctors and lawyers all fell for King Con," By Lech
Mintowt-Czyz; Ben Leapman; Bo Wilson, The Evening Standard (London),
January 21, 2005,
"Bogus Doctor Conned Charities, Patients And Government,"
by Melvin Howe, Press Association Newswire, January 17, 2005
"Refugee Rapist Picked On Fellow Turks," by Shenai Raif,
Press Association Newswire, January 9, 2004
Vicky Maureen Allan
Regina v. M****, Oral Reasons on Sentence by the Honorable
Judge B.J. Grannary, Provincial Court of British Columbia, 2002 BCPC 0671, File
No: 30910-2H
"Ex-husband speaks out after woman's guilty plea, by
Marshall Jones, Kelowna Capital News, July 5, 2002
"Female con artist given two years," Kelowna Daily
Courier, August 16, 2002
