A Matteson man was due in Will County Circuit Court today on charges he bilked several Southland victims out of money by pretending to be a Marine in need of help.
Daniel Robinson, 34, 5345 Stanford Lane, has the look of a Marine, with a shaved head and a muscular build.
Perhaps that helped him pull off a series of cons in which police said he persuaded victims to withdraw hundreds of dollars from their bank accounts to help bail out Robinson’s supposed fellow Marine.
Only Robinson was making up the whole story, police said.
In reality, he had spent the better part of the past 14 years running up a long record of arrests and convictions for theft. In 2007, he was sentenced in Will County to two years and served 131 days.
Most recently, he was arrested by Tinley Park police in December for persuading a man he met at DeVry University’s Tinley Park campus to give him money from the man’s bank account, authorities said.
Several of his victims were approached at area colleges. As in the case at DeVry, Robinson told victims he would wire money into their bank accounts because he said his Western Union account wouldn’t allow a large enough transaction, police said.
For helping, victims were told they would get additional money from Robinson.
In November, Robinson allegedly swindled a Glenwood man he met at Prairie State College out of $400 from his account at a bank in Homewood.
The Glenwood man then drove the con artist to the Super 8 Motel in East Hazel Crest, where Robinson said he’d be right back, but he never returned, police said.
A similar scam was pulled in December on a person at Robert Morris College in Orland Park. The victim withdrew $100 from a Flossmoor bank and gave it to Robinson, police said.
Earlier this month, Flossmoor police charged Robinson with felony theft by deception.
Similar theft reports have been filed with police departments in Country Club Hills, Tinley Park, Midlothian, Oak Forest and Highland, Ind.
Bail for Robinson originally was set at $100,000. He remained Monday in the Will County jail.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services