A 73-year-old Long Island woman received a phone call that would send most into a state of shock: her grandson had recently been busted for driving under the influence, and was in jail awaiting bail.
The thing is, the woman, who wants to be known only as "Jean," knew it was a scam from the get-go.
You see, Jean doesn't have a grandson old enough to drive, so she knew whoever was on the other end of the line was trying to score a quick payout from an innocent old person. So Jean decided to play along.
After a few more calls back and forth, Jean ended up talking to a man claiming to be her "grandson's lawyer," who was asking for $8,000 in order to bail him out of jail. THEN, she talked to a "bail bondsman" who told her he'd come pick the money up.
A meeting was arranged at her home, though the entire time she was on the phone with all of these characters, Jean was also on the phone with the police, who set up a sting operation.
Well the fateful day of the meetup came, and when the man arrived at her home, Jean handed him an envelope stuffed with cash, in reality paper towels, and then the police ran out her front door and tackled the perp.
They placed 28-year-old Joshua Gomez under arrest, and he is now facing charges of third-degree attempted grand larceny. It is unclear at this point if Gomez was portraying everybody Jean talked to, or if he was working with others on the scam.
Jean hopes her story serves as a cautionary tale for others, telling ABC7, "I feel like, 'I gotcha!' I feel like so many people fall for this, and you only hear about it on the other end after they've lost $8,000."
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