Police: Dating This Guy Cost a Woman $80K

But police have arrested the suspect, John Martin Hill
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted May 22, 2019 6:00 PM CDT
Police Say He Met Her Online. Then Came the $80K Scam
John Martin Hill.   (Gwinnett County Police)

Have a bad online dating experience? At least you didn't go out with John Martin Hill. The alleged scammer was caught Tuesday after police say he met a woman on Match.com and swindled her out of $80,000, NBC News reports. Hill, 35, apparently convinced the woman from Alpharetta, Georgia, that he was a millionaire and they were in love—and within a week they agreed to get married. Then police say he got her to give him more than $80,000 to buy a house and furniture. "Following the exchange of money, the suspect ceased all contact," per a police report. But after police released a photo of Hill, several women said they were having a relationship with him or knew women who were having one.

That led police in Franklin, Tennessee, to track Hill to a Marriott hotel, where he apparently ran into a hotel conference room and ducked under a table. Officers ordered him to come out and arrested him, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Police say Hill actually lives in Duluth, Georgia, with a woman and child, and recently purchased a 2014 BMW that he painted black. Seems he was previously known as "Gregory Hill," a name that turns up articles, websites, and a Facebook page that describe him as a swindler of women. He was even arrested in New Jersey in 2011 for allegedly scamming money out of prospective female employees, per Patch.com. He's now facing a charge of theft by deception and is behind bars on a $500,000 bond. (In April, a GoFundMe scammer pleaded guilty.)

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