North Las Vegas police are investigating allegations that a man tried to scam a couple that lost seven relatives in a crash last month, city officials announced Monday.
Days after the Jan. 29 crash, a stranger arrived at the grieving couple’s house and offered to help, Erlinda Zacarias, who lost four children, a brother and two adult stepsons, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday.
Initially, the man who spoke with broken Spanish and identified himself as Steve Prz appeared to help. The couple later learned that was not his real name.
The next day, the couple were leaving home when the stranger arrived and told them, “don’t leave because the mayor is coming,” Zacarias said in Spanish.
And he was.
North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee and his wife appeared on their doorstep, bearing flowers, condolences and an offer to let the family use their church to host the funerals, Zacarias said.
Later, the alleged scammer gained the couple’s trust when he produced copies of birth certificates of the victims after Zacarias could not find the originals.
“He’s helping us,” Zacarias said she and her husband, Jesus Mejia-Barrera, thought. He helped them with paperwork and accompanied them to the funeral home. “It’s someone who really wants to help us,” she added.
‘Not the person he said he was’
Zacarias said the man then went on to claim that he had secured anonymous donations to cover the full cost of the funerals, which prompted her to stop a GoFundMe…
