$5K Grandson Call Scheme Leads To Theft Charges In Falls Township

FAIRLESS HILLS, PA —Three months after a warrant was issued, a Reading man has been charged in a call scam in which a grandmother in her 90s was duped out of $5,000 to get her alleged grandson out of prison, police said.

Christopher Enmanuel Mauricio of Reading has been charged with theft by deception and receiving stolen property, Sgt. Christopher Clark of the Falls Township Police Department said.

He was preliminarily arraigned by Magisterial Judge Daniel J. Finello on Wednesday, Nov. 23, with $10,000 in unsecured bail and no victim contact.

Clark said Mauricio had been out on an arrest warrant since August. He said the victim was in her 90s.

According to the criminal complaint, Falls Township Officer Stephen McCreary II, responded to meet with an elderly woman regarding a scam.

The woman told police that at 9:30 a.m. that day, she received a call on her landline with the caller identifying himself as her grandson. He told her of being in prison in Allentown for being involved in a traffic collision, that he rear-ended a pregnant female and needed $5,000 for bail money.

The caller then handed the phone to "James Lee," a paralegal of attorney, "Lewis Clark," who said the bail was needed to have her grandson released from prison that day.

According to McCreary, the victim hung up the phone, and went to the bank to withdraw $5,000. She then called back and was told that a "courier" —later identified as Mauricio —would arrive at her home to pick up the money.

Police said the suspect kept the victim on the phone for about three hours and would not let her hang up, only putting her on hold to say he needed to talk to the attorney.

The victim was told to place the money in an envelope and label the outside of it with the case number he provided her. She was told that "the courier" is out front of her house. He instructed her to not hang up but to walk outside and give the envelope to Mauricio.

She was then instructed to walk back inside the home and get back on the phone. Police said Mauricio provided her with a handwritten receipt, receipt #933029, and drove off.

Later that day, Falls Township Police Detective Sgt. Michael Callahan was contacted by Det. William Shafer of the Southern Regional Police Department who stated that he was conducting an investigation involving a series of frauds on elderly individuals.

Through the investigation, Shafer named Mauricio as a suspect, as well as a target vehicle.

Shafer received authorization to affix a GPS tracking device to the target vehicle, and he found that the vehicle was parked in the area earlier that day.

Shafer believed that the vehicle was possibly in the area in relation to his investigation and provided a plotted map of Mauricio's location on that day.

On July 28, Shafer interviewed Mauricio, who did not specifically speak of this incident, police said. However, he did explain in detail other similar incidents where he drove to a victim's address, picked up money from the victim, issued a handwritten receipt from either "James Lee" or "Lewis Clark," and then left.