Patrick Giblin, 58, was sentenced in Camden federal court to 66 months in prison for escaping from federal custody and engaging in a scheme to defraud women over telephone dating services during his latest crime spree.
The Atlantic City man previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler to an information charging him with one count of escape from the custody of the Attorney General and one count of wire fraud.
The romance scammer who has been busted repeatedly for swindling widows, disabled women and single moms allegedly conned about 155 women out of more than $500,000.
“He preyed on vulnerabilities, promising to end the loneliness of a woman who had recently ended a long-term relationship or soothing someone who recently suffered the death of a loved one,” said a report by federal prosecutors. “Giblin would convince these women that he was willing to relocate to their locales but needed money wired to do so.”
He could have faced 25 years in prison for his most recent fraud arrest but he got a light sentence considering that he has been to jail at least four times for scamming women he met through dating services.
Giblin escaped federal custody twice and continued to con vulnerable women while on the lam, according to authorities. In various cases, he lied to victims by telling tham that he’s the son of a prominent judge, a big winner at a casino, or a rich Jersey Shore resident who’s down on his luck.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Giblin escaped from the custody of the Attorney General on July 23, 2020, while traveling from a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, to a residential living facility in Newark, where he had been directed to serve the remainder of a federal prison sentence.
At the time, Giblin was serving a sentence imposed in 2017 for traveling interstate and using an interstate facility to promote unlawful activity in connection with a scheme to defraud multiple women.
Giblin’s 2017 sentence followed an earlier judgment that sent him to prison for 115 months for a 2007 wire fraud conviction for a similar scheme.
Giblin continued to scam women from a federal prison in Estill, South Carolina.
Members of the U.S. Marshals Service located and arrested Giblin in Atlantic City on March 10, 2021.
From April 2019 through March 2021 – including during the time period when he was a fugitive – Giblin posted advertisements and messages on telephone dating services.
Giblin cultivated a rapport with the women he spoke to on these services, falsely claimed that he would be relocating to the woman’s geographic area, and falsely represented that he wished to pursue a committed, romantic relationship with each woman.
Giblin received money from the women he spoke to on the dating services via interstate wire services such as Western Union and MoneyGram.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Kugler sentenced Giblin to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $23,428.
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