Pocono News Section

Police Following Couple As They Scam Elderly Man

Police Following Couple As They Scam Elderly Man - Friday, November 16, 2007 at 5:49PM EST

Reported by: Jeff Chirico
Friday, Nov 16, 2007 @05:49pm EST
DALLAS TOWNSHIP, LUZERNE COUNTY --Two people are behind bars for allegedly scamming a senior citizen out of $10, 000. But the case was solved quickly because police were already on the suspects' tail when it happened.
Undercover cops say they spotted the two at a known drug dealing spot in Wilkes-Barre. Police followed the pair to the victim’s neighborhood in Dallas Township.

"I'd like to get him by the neck. That's what I'd like to do," says the victim, whose name WBRE NEWS is withholding. The 87-year- old Luzerne County man is still fuming about being scammed out of $10,000. He says "I got a phone call from the bank that it's my daughter calling me. There's some checks bounced and she need some money.”

Court papers say Grace Ross of New York City allegedly placed the call and Valentin Lakatosz of New Jersey posed as a banker who came to the victim's home to collect. When the suspects left and drove away down the street that may have been the last time anyone saw them. But police were watching and parked around the corner.

Two hours earlier the couple caught the attention of undercover state police at the Red Roof Inn in Wilkes-Barre. Cops call it a known drug-dealing spot. They tailed the two to the victim's neighborhood and then to the Lehigh Valley while Dallas Township police knocked on doors to find a victim.

Dallas Township Police Chief Robert Jolley says "they were being followed all the way down to the Allentown area where they were taken into custody and brought back to Luzerne County."

A neighbor, Bill King calls the suspects a “bunch of scumbags taking advantage of elderly again." The victim's neighbor doesn't think it’s random. Police are looking into it.

The victim says “when I heard stories like this I never figured it would happen to me."