[huud-l] FW: Scam Artist Terry Johnston

[Mary Andrus-Overley]

Heartlanders:

Another scam artist alert from the UUA, for your awareness and
self-protective action.

Mary
 
Mary Andrus-Overley, LCSW, ACSW
District Executive
Heartland District of the Unitarian Universalist Association
445 N. Pennsylvania St., Ste. 330
Indianapolis IN 46204-1889
888-948-4883 toll free
317-634-5384
317-634-5385 fax
317-313-7013 cell
 
 
Services from your Heartland District Office and Staff are possible only
because congregations in our district make fair share contributions to
the Heartland District and the UUA Annual Program Fund.  Thank you for
your generosity!
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Kay Montgomery [mailto:KMontgomery at uua.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:08 AM
To: Barb Greve; DL Leadership Council; # District Staff
Subject: RE: Scam Artist Terry Johnston


Thanks Barb.  To the rest of you: fyi.  K

-----Original Message-----
From: Barb Greve 
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 12:20 PM
To: Kay Montgomery
Subject: FW: Scam Artist Terry Johnston


Kay - I'm not sure if this is a scam itself or not, but since it sounded
similar enough to the situation we had a couple of years ago with a guy
impersonating our ministers to get money from some of our congregations
I thought you should at least know about this. - Barb

-----Original Message-----
From: technetronic [mailto:technetronic at airmail.net]
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 1:12 PM
To: technetronic at airmail.net
Subject: Scam Artist Terry Johnston


Hi my name is Martina and I belong to the North Texas Church of
Freethought in Irving Texas (http://church.freethought.org).  I need
your help in prosecuting a scam artist who goes by the name of Terry
Johnston.

In short Terry Johnston called our church line indicating that he had
full blown AIDS and needed help.  Here's what he told me when I called
him back. He indicated that he had made a trek from Baltimore to Dallas
in the hopes of reconciling with his Christian family.  He hoped that
his family seeing his horrific state would make amends with him.  It
took him 4 weeks to make it to Dallas due to several hospital stays
which had totally depleted his funds.  His family let him stay one night
and then kicked him out.  A friend put him up in a hotel room and
someone else has secured him a bus ticket back to Baltimore.  All he
needed from us was 3 days worth of food money for his bus trip back home
the next day.  My boyfriend and I agreed we would give him $40.00.  When
Terry seemed very unhappy with such a small amount of money, told us he
was to weak to meet us in the hotel lobby and other various oddities our
suspicions of a scam were realized.

My boyfriend and I starting surfing the net.  We found the 4 Web sites
below were Terry using the same name has pulled the same scam for the
past 3 years.  His targets are mainly UU, pagan, atheist and other
organizations that are open to the gay and lesbian life styles.  Feel
free to do your own search and let me know what you find. We only spent
about an hour searching.

I had hoped that this documentation would be enough to get him arrested.
We contacted the authorities and filed a police report.  The police went
to the hotel manager and got Terry's personal information, physical
description and so on.  Unfortunately, because I know its a scam my
giving him money now would be considered entrapment. The swindle
department in Dallas and other various law enforcement agencies I called
stated the best thing we could do to put a stop to this scam was to
contact as many organizations as possible and have them file similar
reports giving authorities as much information as possible.

If you have heard of this guy or have donated any monies to him please
file a police report in your area.  We could then get enough evidence to
have him arrested, fined or at least make him come up with a new scam.
It is realized he moves from place to place but if he is using the same
name and story it won't be long before he is caught.  If you run into
him don't let him know we are onto him.

I have been working with Detective Grady at the Dallas Swindle unit
214-671-3511.  You can email your police report numbers to him at
mrswindle at yahoo.com and he can take it from there.  If you would let me
know that would be great too, that way I can pester Mr. Grady a bit to
insure he doesn't forget about us.  There are only two guys in that
department so if no one answers the phone just call back, should you
wish to speak with Mr. Grady yourself.  They are swamped though.

Now for the final hitch, one of the 5 Web sites makes a claim that they
knew about this scam but helped Terry anyway because he really had AIDS.
They say they visited him in the hospital.  If they are just saving face
I don't know or maybe he was there for a drug overdose; who knows.  Of
the people who saw him they indicate he looks very thin and sickly.  I
called a local AIDS organization and they stated for someone to have
full blown AIDS for 3 years and be living in various hotel rooms all
across the US would be an extremely difficult and very doubtful.

I cannot thank you enough for your help.  Any information you could
email me would be most appreciated.  If possible keep the subject line
the same because I am sending this email to 1000's of organizations
nation wide.

Should you wish to send me information confidentially go to my web page
and fill out my contact form. http://www.technetronic.net/martina2

All of our organizations have worked hard to give back to our
communities it is hoped you agree that this swindler should not be
allowed to take advantage of our philanthropy.

Web sites mentioning Terry:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/5649/AllAreWorthy.htm

http://www.betwixt.org/fullarticle.asp?ID=61

http://www.ucc.org/ucnews/oct00/letters.htm

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:IcT4NdryfYYJ:groups.yahoo.com/group
/Cir
cles-EBSN/message/1354%3Fsource%3D1+%22aids%22+%2B+%22hotel+room%22+%2B+
%22c
hurch%22+%2B+%22scam%22+%2B+%22money+for+food%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8