CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A man used telephone dating services to lure and defraud women out of thousands of dollars while on probation for a similar scheme, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Patrick Giblin, formerly of Ventnor, New Jersey, faces a wire fraud charge. He made his initial court appearance Monday, when a judge ordered that he be detained. Giblin could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if he’s convicted.
Prosecutors claim that from December 2012 to December 2014, Giblin sought to lure women in the U.S. and Canada into relationships and then ask them for loans that he did not intend to repay. Giblin would falsely claim, among other things, that he was moving to a victim’s location, that he owned oceanfront property in Atlantic City and that he worked in the casino business, prosecutors said.
Giblin was sentenced in April 2007 to nearly 10 years in federal prison on wire fraud charges related to a similar scheme in which he defrauded more than 50 women out of more than $200,000. Prosecutors say that while he was on supervised release in that case, he fled to Colonie, New York, and continued to get money from victims until he was arrested in December 2014.
Giblin received a two-year sentence last October for violating the terms of his supervised release. He was taken into custody Monday after he completed that sentence.
The federal public defender’s office represents Gibbs. As a matter of policy, the agency does not comment on pending cases.
The complaint filed in the case included only a sample of the victims involved in the scheme, prosecutors said. It discusses eight victims in five states and Canada, who lost more than $7,000 overall to Giblin.
The investigation remains ongoing, prosecutors said.
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