Con Artists

David Paul Hammer was a prisoner at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester a few years ago when he bragged to a reporter for an alternative magazine that he had received at least $176,000 from 1,500 to 2,000 people he had duped into sending him money. "The trick is making them fall in love with you through letters and on the phone," Hammer told the Los Angeles-based magazine, the Advocate.

Three days after listing a house for sale, real estate agents Richard and Jean Murphy of Portland, Maine, began receiving a surprising number of calls — not from buyers but from would-be tenants. It turns out the callers were answering an ad that said the place was for rent, "and at a really low price," the agents for Harborview Properties recall. Worse, the "owner" was not the Murphys' client. It was someone living in another state who told callers that if they sent $1,500, the place would be theirs.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is warning the public of a telephone scam being run from county jails by inmates. In the scam, inmates charge collect calls to unsuspecting consumers through call forwarding, according to Deputy Robert Boese. Here's how it works: A person receives a telephone call from a person claiming to work for a public safety agency or hospital. The caller will say that a relative of the recipient has been hurt in an accident or jailed, and then instruct him to call a phone number that starts with the prefix 72 for more information.

"House of Lies," which premieres Sunday, is a new series from Showtime about management consultants. The job is described as impossible to describe, but the general idea is that they're con artists who make troubled corporations dependent on their own company's advice. As legend-in-his-field Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) puts it, the goal is to "make them think they can't live without us .... while we infect the host and bleed them dry. " Among other things, the show — based on a memoir by Marty Kihn, once head writer for VH1's "Pop-Up Videos" — seems to me a product of the knowledge that "Californication" can't last forever, and that it would be good for the network to have another male-targeted sex fantasy on hand when it goes.

Among the pointers matchmaker Helena Amram shares with clients is that they should not expect love at first sight. Even so, cat lover Sally Dahl wasn't quite prepared for the guy so allergic to her three pets that he couldn't stop sneezing. Nor was engineer Herbert Summers entirely ready for the woman who was "not quite divorced," but was quite fed up with her husband. "I felt like I was doing therapy," Summers says.

Three days after listing a house for sale, real estate agents Richard and Jean Murphy of Portland, Maine, began receiving a surprising number of calls — not from buyers but from would-be tenants. It turns out the callers were answering an ad that said the place was for rent, "and at a really low price," the agents for Harborview Properties recall. Worse, the "owner" was not the Murphys' client. It was someone living in another state who told callers that if they sent $1,500, the place would be theirs.

A charming scam artist claiming to be an assistant to rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen successfully used his chicanery in the San Fernando Valley this week, convincing a nurse to give him the keys to her convertible, police said Thursday. Then the man not only stole the car but disappointed 22 quadriplegics, whom he had promised the musician would visit and possibly play for. The thief, calling himself Steven Brokaw, briefly checked himself into St.

NEXT week, the American Cinematheque series of new Argentine films is showcasing some of the South American country's biggest recent hits, including a long-awaited cinematic exorcism of the Falklands conflict and a tribute to director Fabian Bielinsky, who died this year. From a historical perspective, the two-month Falklands War between Argentina and Britain is a blip in the grand scheme of global contretemps. The issue of the archipelago's sovereignty wasn't even resolved (and still isn't).

Police have arrested a 30-year-old man suspected of being a con artist who was able to dodge authorities for three months while allegedly using his victims' identities to obtain a new car, motor home and a pair of jet skis. Douglas Alan Green, who was also wanted on felony theft warrants totaling $145,000 out of Riverside County and Washington state, was arrested Thursday by Anaheim police outside a Fullerton residence.

Re "Preying Through the Pulpit," Column One, Jan 13: With all the Ponzi-related stories in the news, it's amazing to me that intelligent adults can still get scammed into parting with their money by snake-oil salesmen promising impossible rates of return. Maybe it's time for our school administrators to consider incorporating life lessons into the curriculum so students can learn how to avoid being conned this way. It takes 10 minutes to explain how a Ponzi scheme works, but apparently nobody is getting the message.

Three women lose quite a bit of money (and pride) to a dashing chameleon con artist in the Bollywood confection "Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl," a colorfully busy splash of romantic comedy nonsense that won't fool any seasoned moviegoer with its bad-boy-taming schematics. The title is something of a head-scratcher, because we don't learn hunky star Ranveer Singh's character's real name until the last moments, after he's played a variety of swindling smooth talkers under various names, opposite a wealthy party girl (Parineeti Chopra)

Ring(tone). Ring(tone). “Hello?” “Is this Mrs. Smith?” “Yes, it is.” “I'm calling from (fill in a country) to inform you that your grandson has been arrested.” Thus begins the nightmare - but this one isn't about the humiliation of having a grandchild in trouble. It's about the humiliation of falling for a scam while trying to get your grandchild out of trouble. And the real trouble is that you're about to be parted from the $3,000 or more that the caller says is needed to get your grandchild out of jail.

A simple scam aimed at hijacking just one or two mortgage payments from unwary homeowners is making the rounds once again. The scheme works like this: Con artists send letters telling borrowers that they should begin sending their payments to a fictitious company that has assumed the management of their loans. By the time borrowers who fall for the fake transfer find out they've been had, they're out one or possibly two payments. That's not much in the greater scheme of things.

Barry Minkow, who billed himself as a reformed con man, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiring to manipulate the stock of homebuilder Lennar Corp. Minkow, 45, served seven years in federal prison for defrauding investors in the ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning fraud he engineered as a San Fernando Valley teenager. He had become a minister and FBI tipster. He entered his plea in a Miami federal court Wednesday to one count that carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Con artists are soliciting cash and other valuables in Japan under the guise of collecting funds for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on Thursday to condemn such "opportunistic crimes" and urge the nation to pull together. "At a time we must overcome a disaster, it's extremely important that people trust each other," Edano said. "Also, for the people who were affected by the quake and tsunami and who are living in extremely tough conditions, such heartless acts add insult to injury.

Federal prosecutors have drafted a new chapter in the life story of Barry Minkow, making it a tale of a teenage con man who straightened out, only to go bad again. Sent to prison more than two decades ago after the carpet-cleaning firm he started in his parents' garage in Reseda was exposed as a $100-million scam, Minkow in recent years had pursued twin careers as a Christian minister and a for-profit fraud investigator. He issued reports alleging wrongdoing at a number of companies and was credited by the FBI with helping bring several Ponzi schemes to light.

The holidays--and a time of increased charitable giving--are upon us. Unfortunately, it is also a time when con men get serious about their work. Panhandlers and homeless people tend to get more donations during the holidays, whether they are truly homeless or helpless. For many years, I avoided making eye contact with anyone requesting money or food. But then something happened that changed my perspective. I was in downtown L.A.

A North Hollywood man was ordered Monday to serve a year in jail for establishing an airline that didn't fly and a movie promotion with no films. Kevin Von Feldt, 37, termed a "career con artist" by City Atty. James K. Hahn, was sentenced by Los Angeles Municipal Court Commissioner Juelann K. Cathey after pleading no contest to 10 counts of violating state laws prohibiting false and misleading advertising.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is warning the public of a telephone scam being run from county jails by inmates. In the scam, inmates charge collect calls to unsuspecting consumers through call forwarding, according to Deputy Robert Boese. Here's how it works: A person receives a telephone call from a person claiming to work for a public safety agency or hospital. The caller will say that a relative of the recipient has been hurt in an accident or jailed, and then instruct him to call a phone number that starts with the prefix 72 for more information.

SERIES Life Unexpected: Base considers a future with Emma, not realizing she has a secret about her romantic past in the season finale (8 p.m. KTLA). No Ordinary Family: When a gang of thugs takes over the police station, Jim (Michael Chiklis) is the only hope of getting everyone out of the situation alive, even if it means outing his crime-fighting alter ego, in this new episode (8 p.m. ABC). Pioneers of Television: The season premiere of this documentary series remembers such iconic shows as "Star Trek" and "The Twilight Zone" with reminiscences from William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and others.