A Texas woman is behind bars after allegedly scamming her online boyfriend out of $1.2 million — and then using the money at casinos.
It all started when Lorraine Rew of Fort Worth met a man from Indiana on social media, FOX News reports. She and the victim started a relationship and he sent her $1.2 million between October 2020 and February 2022. Rew would reportedly tell the man she needed the money to pay for her daughter’s surgical procedures and prescriptions and her own heart medications.
“Sadly, this is a case in which the victim’s heart was in the right place and the alleged perpetrator took advantage of that,” said Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton.
To send Rew the money, the man used his personal IRA, bank accounts and savings. Rew told him that her insurance would reimburse him after she paid upfront so she could pay him back.
A postal inspector, however, was unable to find a record of Rew using the money for the reasons she told the victim. There were no records of her daughter at a hospital, either. It turns out Rew was using the money herself at casinos — she visited two Oklahoma casinos over 300 times over the two years she was “dating” the man she met online.
Rew was arrested mid-November and is currently being held at Tarrant County Jail. She’s being held on one count of corrupt business influence and 10 counts of counterfeiting. Prosecutors are working to extradite her to Indiana, where her online boyfriend is from.