Elaborate scam (long)

I returned yesterday from a trade show in Atlantic City. My colleague and I stayed at Resorts and were having a drink in the bar there at about 9:30 on Tuesday night.

We were seated at one of the tables when we noticed this drunk guy dancing wildly nearby. He was by himself and he was doing this obnoxious drunk-guy dance to the piped-in casino music. He ended up at our table. He was about 55 - 60 years old, average build, a jacket covering an inside-out t-shirt, unshaven with what looked to be a growing out shaved head. He had a very thick East Coast accent, and he had three full drinks in plastic cups lined up on one of the booth tables.

He casually mentioned that he hadn%26#39;t slept in 81 hours, which naturally begged the question ';Why?'; He proceeded to tell us that he had been a cop on the AC police force for 22 years. The second highest ranking cop in AC. He is leaving for Brazil in 25 days.

OK, so what%26#39;s in Brazil? Well, he knows somebody down there. See, what happened was, his only son (also a cop on the NYC police force) and his wife were killed 11 days ago in a car wreck. He begins to choke up and real tears come streaming down his cheeks. He describes how he got a call from one of his partners on the force that he needed to come to the scene of a crash because someone he knew had died. When he got there, he found his wife, decapitated. His son was next to her and he was holding his son%26#39;s head together while he died. Now, to hear me tell the story, it sounds ridiculous. But this guy was pausing to compose himself, crying real tears, and swearing like mad to make his points. It was pretty authentic.

All the while he was interjecting stories about his days on the force and in the Navy Seals. His 7 brothers (all cops) and his one sister (an attorney). His rough upbringing. His $37 million net worth due to the two bars and land he owns in New York. He%26#39;s got a brand new house on the beach that just finished being built and he%26#39;s never been there because it was finished the day after the crash and he can%26#39;t bring himself to go. All sounding very grandiose and hard to believe, but he%26#39;s naming details that seem hard to fake. And he%26#39;s not screwing up at all. This stuff is all coming out of his mouth very fluidly.

He is also occasionally telling us that no one should ever f___ with him. He will kill them. And judging by the story about his family, that seems reasonable. It would be near-impossible for anyone to go through that without taking on a ';just try me'; attitude. He knows all of the pressure points on the human body that will subdue anyone. He attempted to show my colleague by telling him to trust him while he reached for his throat. He refused and before I knew what happened the guy%26#39;s fingers were pinched around my throat. I knocked his hand away and asked what the hell he was doing. He replied that he was trying to teach us to defend ourselves and no disrespect was intended. My throat hurt. Bad.

Now I was pretty frightened since all of this activity right in the middle of the bar had apparently attracted the attention of no one. I was envisioning this guy killing me in plain view of the bar patrons and casino cameras without flinching. I%26#39;m not a small guy and I don%26#39;t back down that easily, but for whatever reason I was pretty freaked out at this point and didn%26#39;t want to push this guy.

He would occasionally get up and wander over to the bar to talk with some random person. We should have bailed when this happened but we didn%26#39;t for unknown reasons.

He kept getting up from our table and running (literally) into the casino to race after a ';hooker';. One time that he did this, a girl at the bar came over to us and asked us if we knew him. When the response was ';no';, she said she recognized him somehow but couldn%26#39;t figure out how. When he came back he asked what we were talking to her about. We said she just mentioned she was from Long Island and he got quiet for awhile.

Somehow he convinced my colleague to buy him a drink on our tab. Fear is the only explanation for this lapse in judgment. His story was becoming more and more doubtable at this point as he pointed out ';hookers'; that he had locked up in the past that were walking by in the casino. One was a 50 year old woman with her husband. He then asked us to come with him as he would get us laid within 15 minutes.

Now we knew we had been played. As soon as he ran off to track down one of the ';hookers'; in the casino, we bailed quickly.

Later, we saw the girl from the bar at a blackjack table. She had figured out how she knew him. She met him in Long Island last year and he told her this story about how his wife and son were killed a few days earlier and he was on the police force there.........

This scam was incredibly elaborate. All he got out of it in the end was a drink and a chance to slightly injure me, but it could have ended much worse. I tell you this long, sordid tale to make you aware that this stuff doesn%26#39;t just happen west of Pacific Ave, but right in the middle of a casino bar. If you ever see this guy in the vicinity of Resorts, consider getting security immediately and be very wary. You%26#39;ll probably recognize him from the dance.

Elaborate scam (long)

While there are ';scams'; , I get the feeling that this was just a loud mouth drunk exchanging wild stories for a free drink .Most scammers like to keep a low profile . Possibly it was a variation on the Murphy scam where they get a guy, usually a married convention guy and/or a big winner , into a room with a good looking woman . Then the scammer comes in steals your money and walks out with the girl .

Elaborate scam (long)

Two Words

Call Security

A little easier said than done when the guy is standing right next to you and following you around when you get out of your seat.

The guy was intimidating. He was supposedly on the edge after losing his family. I had no doubts (when I actually believed his story) that he was ready to go down and take as many as he could along.

Call security. Piece of cake. I%26#39;ll just shout for them and they%26#39;ll be there.

All i am saying to you and others in that situation is that of course some people would feel intimidated / nervous / scared and If the guy is standing right next to you and following you around than you get out of your seat and ask the bartender etc.. or walk over to one of the many security people on the ffloor.It is far better than sitting there with this Lunatic.

CHEERS !!!!!!.

And thank you for your post incase someone else runs into this or any Lunatic like him.

CHEERS !!!!!!

Good warning .

As a frequent visitor , I see a lot of the youngsters enjoying themselves with the free drinks etc . . It would be a shame if one of the young ones with a little to much alcohol took him up on his hooker offer and wound up in deep s**t .

You want to believe that the guy is all bluster , but , better safe than sorry .

What I don%26#39;t quite understand is.... if the guy was just clamoring for free drinks, why did he have three full PLASTIC CUPS (casino floor drinks, not from the bar I wouldn%26#39;t think) in front of him. Wouldn%26#39;t his sad talk be more believable if he had three empty glasses in front of him? I see a guy like that with full drinks, I think ';slow drinker';, not ';down on his luck';.

My point? I don%26#39;t think the guy really had drinking in mind at all. Not exactly sure what I think his motives were.... I do think it a bit strange that he really wanted one of the two to feel the throat/pressure point thing. Something homoerotic going on here? Maybe trying to get the MilBucksFans to go with him for ';hookers'; was really an attempt to get them alone for something else....

In any event, I am surprised his silly dancing didn%26#39;t attract attention; unless everybody in that bar was drunk, someone would find it pretty annoying....

Bud , Good point on the three plastic cups . Maybe they were his ';hooker'; friends ? .

I%26#39;m going to keep a lookout for this guy and find out his story !

Are we all sure this wasn%26#39;t Bruce Willis ? !

Your point about the three full plastic cups is completely valid. I have no idea where he got them from as the bar was serving drinks in glass tumblers. He was drinking out of one of the plastic cups when he came to our table. My first thought was really that he was on a bender and just lining them up to drown his sorrows.

What his true intentions were, I really have no idea. I do know he got a good stiff drink out of us, but what else he was scheming I truly don%26#39;t know. My whole point in relaying this story was to, first, find out if anyone else has encountered this guy and, second, to warn everyone about him so that maybe this can be ended quicker.

One point I forgot to mention was that about two minutes into his story about the accident (while he was crying), he pulls a cell phone out of his pocket which is supposedly on vibrate and it%26#39;s his mother and he%26#39;s saying ';I%26#39;m OK mom. Really, I%26#39;m here at Resorts with a couple of guys, we%26#39;re just talking, everything%26#39;s OK. I%26#39;m not going to do anything stupid.'; That was just another well-sold detail that led me to believe this was legit.

I was naive. No question. My heart bleeds for people like that and I want to believe they%26#39;re being truthful. I%26#39;m only telling the tale so no one else falls into the same trap.

milbucksfans~~Thanks very much for sharing your experience.

I think allure%26#39;s idea is excellent. I will, and we all should, keep a lookout for this guy. Anything we can do to prevent this guy from hurting anyone else%26#39;s throat, or worse, is good for everyone that visits AC.

Why think it could have been poor Bruce? He%26#39;s not the only rich guy that might have problems? I was also in Resorts a few days ago. Didn%26#39;t see that guy, but did see one that looked like Mad Mel doing his new image.

Let%26#39;s all keep a lookout, and put the heat on in any way we can.