Michigan con man passed himself off as Canadian
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An alleged swindler who swept through several U.S. towns passing himself off as a Canadian multi-millionaire turns out to have been fabricating his nationality, too. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is heading a continentwide search for the suspected con man, whose supposed plan to transform sleepy Sweetwater, Tenn., into a retail mecca left a trail of victims that included his abandoned accomplice-girlfriend from northern Ontario, a dairy farmer fooled into selling all of his cows, a car dealer tricked out of six new vehicles and two police officers who quit their jobs to become the faux tycoon’s security guards. Now, U.S. investigators say the man who falsely called himself Jamie Lee Turpin — an identity borrowed from the Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., woman he’d been travelling with — was actually Todd Joseph Sweet, an escaped prisoner from a jail in northern Michigan. The 34-year-old Sweet, a Michigan man who was serving time for various larceny and fraud convictions, walked away from a prison work program last May near the U.S.-Canada border, according to the TBI. Using a doctored Ontario driver’s licence, Sweet allegedly presented himself as the scion of a wealthy Canadian family with major real estate and casino investments in Las Vegas. The suspect scammed dozens of Tennessee residents as part of a scheme in which he promised to bring a Wal-Mart, an upscale restaurant and other commercial projects to the community. He even wrote a cheque for $29 million to purchase a farm on the outskirts of town, the TBI said, and convinced two veteran police officers to work for him. As the swindle unravelled, police arrested the Canadian woman — Jamie Lea Turpin — but failed to capture Sweet, who left town with a new girlfriend he’d met in Sweetwater. The Canadian woman faces charges in connection with the scheme, but was also described by police as a victim of Sweet and is co-operating with investigators. “I lost two good officers — both went to him because he was going to pay them $1,000 a week and give each a Lincoln Navigator,” Sweetwater Police Chief Eddie Byrum told Canwest News Service last week. “It’ll be tough for them to get rehired, because they lost their jobs in a field where you shouldn’t get swindled.” Byrum said the con artist was also suspected of similar offences in small towns in Nevada, Utah and Ohio over the past year. The TBI put the suspected swindler John Doe on the state’s Ten Most Wanted list last week, but days later identified the manhunt target as Sweet, the Michigan escapee. |