During a two-year period, a Texas woman allegedly scammed her Indiana online boyfriend out of $1.2 million and spent the money visiting casinos in Oklahoma 300 times.
A local station reported Lorraine Rew, 46, was arrested in mid-November on charges of corrupt business influence and counterfeiting.
“Sadly, this is a case in which the victim’s heart was in the right place and the alleged perpetrator took advantage of that,” according to Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton.
As detailed in court documents, Rew met the Indiana man on social media and the pair began dating. Between October 2020 and February of this year, he sent her $1.2 million.
Apparently, Rew told the victim that she needed the funds to pay for her daughter’s medical procedures and prescriptions, along with her own heart medication, according to the station.
She claimed that her insurance would reimburse her later after she paid upfront, so she could repay him, Fox59 reports.
According to Fox59, neither the Fort Worth woman nor her daughter have accounts with a local hospital, and a postal inspector found no record of Rew using the money for medical purposes.
In reality, investigators discovered that Rew used the money to finance her lifestyle, which included 167 visits to one Oklahoma casino and 157 to another over a two-year period.
Prosecutors are working to extradite Rew back to Indiana from Tarrant County Jail in Texas.