Gypsy scammer charged in Hamilton robbery

Thursday, February 09, 2006

By KEVIN SHEA

Staff Writer

HAMILTON -- A Philadelphia man with at least one conviction for swindling elderly people is the second suspect charged with the robbery of a 99-year-old township woman and her 82-year-old brother last month, police said.

Sonny Stanley is charged with robbery, kidnapping and related charges for his alleged role in the Jan. 25 crime that started as a suspected scam and turned into the robbing of almost $100,000 from the two Soden Drive residents.

Stanley, who police describe as a gypsy, was still at large late yesterday. He has three birth dates in police files. Hamilton detectives are using the one that makes him 30 years old, Detective Lt. James Kostoplis said.

Police also made public a picture of Stanley in the hope someone will recognize him. He uses the aliases Al Tan and Mandingo, police reports say.

Police have identified the other man accused of the crime as Larry Mitchell, 22, of Vineland.

Stanley, his wife and her mother made headlines in January 2005 when Philadelphia police announced their arrest as part of an alleged scheme that used attractive women to dupe elderly men into forking over millions of dollars.

Seven female suspects told police they were part of a gypsy clan related by blood or marriage, published reports say.

According to published reports, police charged Stanley's wife, Sandra Anderson, then 28, and her mother Paula Marion, then 48, with deceiving an 80-year-old Upper Darby, Pa., man into giving them $314,000, supposedly for a liver transplant for Anderson.

Anderson, officials said, befriended the man and and convinced him she would die unless she got a liver transplant.

Stanley was part of the scheme, Philadelphia police said at the time, and their investigation linked Stanley, Anderson and Marion to a ring that targeted lonely older men from New York to Florida and may have netted up to $3 million.

Police who investigate gypsy scammers say that when arrested, they often offer cash restitution to their victims, knowing the charges are likely to be dropped.

That is what occurred with the Upper Darby victim. Philadelphia area newspapers reported in May 2004 that Stanley, Anderson -- also known as Sandra Alexander -- and Marion -- who also uses the name Rose Fortunato -- pleaded guilty to theft and conspiracy and were sentenced to house arrest or probation after agreeing to pay back the victim.

Philadelphia police Officer Lou Sgro, a nationally know expert on gypsy crime, worked that case and is assisting Hamilton detectives in their probe of Stanley.

Kostoplis said Mitchell, also a gypsy, and Stanley were on Soden Drive on Jan. 25, along with a third man.

The robbery began as a typical scam, police said. One man knocked on the door and asked about three tires sitting on the victims' front lawn that had a "for sale" sign next to them. He then coaxed the son out of the house.

A second man entered the home and engaged the mother in a conversation. With both residents busy in conversation, a third man slipped into the house and began to ransack the bedrooms. But he stumbled onto a large safe and ultimately ordered the mother and son to open it or be killed. The woman was able to slip away and dial 911, but the trio fled before police arrived.

The safe contained about $100,000 in cash and some jewelry, police said.

Mitchell was arrested Jan. 31 at his home in Vineland. But on Jan. 27, two days after the Soden Drive crime, he was sentenced to five years probation for trying to scam an elderly woman out of valuables at her home in Lehigh County, Pa., in December 2004.

Mitchell, who posted $150,000 cash bail in Hamilton after his arrest, was in court Monday in Northampton, Pa., to plead guilty to a theft charge for another scam of an elderly woman in 2004. He was again sentenced to probation.