One of the worst parts of my job is hearing from people trying to help someone they know break free from an ongoing scam. They’ve tried everything to persuade these friends or family members to break off contact with online criminals — romance scammers, crypto scammers, timeshare scammers, it doesn’t matter — but nothing has worked. The victims are “under the ether,” as some experts say. And somehow, they find me. I try to help, but I’m rarely able to.
It’s hard to imagine anything more frustrating than watching a loved one give every last penny they have to a criminal, and being unable to stop it. I’m sometimes contacted and asked to speak to these victims as a last resort. These desperate folks think perhaps an independent journalist can convince this victim that the crypto site is fake, or that “lover” isn’t really stuck on an oil rig somewhere in the Middle East. Sadly, my powers of persuasion can’t compete with the stories criminals tell.
I’ve heard many tragic stories about such desperate attempts to “break the ether,” but none of them compare to the tale of Chris Mancinelli, who spent seven years working with his brother to talk their dad, Alfred, out of a set of online scams. I interviewed Chris and his wife Christie for this week’s two-part episode of The Perfect Scam.
Dad’s life had been marked by tragedy; his wife had died when she was just 40, and the couple had earlier lost a daughter to leukemia. That made dad particularly vulnerable to “rescueing” scams, in which fake friends and lovers would get him to send money to “hospitals” for emergency treatments.
Dad had accumulated about $1 million in a retirement account, but after years of victimization, he’d given all that away — it had been stolen by these criminals. Chris thought he’d reached a “breakthrough” when dad asked for a $5,000 loan — he had nothing left — and agreed to go to therapy and to extensive monitoring of his online activity. But even that didn’t help. Then, things somehow got even worse.
Dad inherited more than $100,000 when his brother died. And when Chris tried to prevent his father from accessing the money, he was sued by his father. Their relationship entirely severed, Chris settled the suit and returned the money, which dad gave away to criminals within just a few weeks. Soon after, dad trips and falls and perishes from his injuries.
As Chris talks about going through his father’s belongings after the death, the story just drips with sadness. There were photos of alleged online “lovers” on the fridge next to the grandchildren. And dad was in the process of selling his home so he could give that away to criminals, too.
This story has no happy ending, but I think it’s important to share because Chris is hardly alone. Right now, friends and family members around the U.S. and around the world are desperately trying to persuade people they love to end these kinds of financially abusive relationships — and failing. It’s a lonely, lonely feeling, but I want them to know they aren’t alone. And I want them to know that sometimes, you can do all the right things, and people you love will still get hurt.
In part two of this story, we will hear from an expert who’s done research on these situations. She has a few suggestions about what friends and family members can do, but more important, she talks a lot about what makes people vulnerable to such heinous crimes. And how far criminals will go to find those vulnerable people.
Even though this one is a tough listen, I’ll hope you’ll take a few moments to hear from Chris directly about what his family has gone through. But if podcasts aren’t your thing, a partial transcript is pasted below.
———-PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT————–
[00:12:18] Bob: After a few months, Chris can’t accept Dad’s vague explanations anymore, and during a visit to help with some financial paperwork, the problem becomes clear.
[00:12:28] Christie Mancinelli: I, I think we, we had visited him at his house and he had his email pull-, pulled up and there were all sorts of these solicitations for you know I, I guess we call it like the Nigerian Prince scam and things like that, and um, and I recall you just kind of you know very gently like taking him aside and saying, “Hey, you’re not really responding to these, are you?” And your dad was like very cavalier about it. He said, “Oh yeah, well you know, I’m the one who’s stringing them along, and I’m outsmarting them.”
[00:12:57] Chris Mancinelli: That’s true, yeah, out scam the scammer he would say.
[00:12:59] Christie Mancinelli: Yeah, and, you know, we’re like, okay, but you know… uh… we didn’t feel comfortable with that, but he did try to, I guess reassure us in, in sort of like a, an overconfident kind of way. “Oh, I know what I’m doing,” and “Yeah, I’m tricking them.” And so it just makes me wonder if there was some point where he started to get in too deep with stuff and it got away from him.
[00:13:22] Bob: And it got away from him quickly.
[00:13:26] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah, so the um, the money kind of, the money-giving was escalating. But I think, I think it did kind of like, what Christie was saying, there was some point where it really did spiral out of control, and I think the money was kind of going in, in several directions, like he was chatting with several different, I’ll them romance scammers.
[00:13:44] Christie Mancinelli: But I think the signal was, I think, I think you, you saw some transactions happen that, that was something like either for it was, I don’t know 4- or 5-figure transaction. And then I, and it was a, it was around you know the early part of COVID, and I think there was like a 5-figure transaction that happened, and I think uh both you and Alan uh went into high, high alert mode.
[00:14:10] Bob: In some cases, $10,000, even more has been transferred out of Dad’s account with no good explanation. And even as Chris, Christie, and Alan start trying to put the pieces together and come up with a plan, it becomes obvious that things are even worse than they realize.
[00:14:27] Chris Mancinelli: It, his bank, um, actually kicked him out, his bank you know said, you know this is potentially fraudulent activity. Um, they, you know, said they, they don’t want him banking with them anymore. And so he had to find a different bank. And it was around that time that I also became concerned because of the way he was, you know, giving money or like sending money away. I guess that the withdrawals in the account, I had a fear and one of the scams that happened to him is when the scammer puts deposits into your account that’s not real money but it looks like it is, and then asks you to send real money back instantly, you know like, “Oh, I just deposited 8000 by mistake,” or, or um, “I need your help, you know, and if you send me 5000 you can keep the extra 3000.” So my dad thought, you know fell into these traps. And I had a fear that he would become, go into debt which would then also become my responsibility as a co-owner. Then I actually called the bank to confirm that would be the case and, and so then I told him I actually don’t want to be co-owner on your accounts if you’re going to continue, or if this activity is going to continue.
[00:15:33] Bob: At this point Chris still doesn’t know how much of his dad’s money has been stolen, but his relationship with his father is still good enough that he’s able to persuade him to go to the police.
[00:15:44] Chris Mancinelli: In 2018, my dad was part of an inheritance scam, um, and he even filed a police report, uh about it. Um, I had encouraged him to file a report. You know I didn’t, I didn’t know, you know number one, it kind of makes it real. I didn’t expect he was going to get any of his money back but at least it’s on record, just, I don’t know, just in case. After that there were at least one or two more times where he was involved in something, some kind of scam-related thing where the police were involved.
[00:16:14] Bob: But even with the police Alfred is evasive.
[00:16:18] Chris Mancinelli: And there was another time where like Christie’s saying, where a detective showed up at the house and I really struggle to remember the details of like what precipitated that. And it doesn’t help that my dad was very evasive about the whole thing. Like he tells you part of the story but not really all the details to give you a full understanding. And it seems that the, any time the police were involved, it was almost like he, he felt like, oh wow, yes, I have been scammed and this is bad and, and you know it was like the authority figure was the only person that could make it real for him.
[00:16:48] Bob: Sure, sure.
[00:16:49] Chris Mancinelli: And um…
[00:16:50] Bob: Makes sense.
[00:16:51] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah, and so, and, and I know in 2020, in mid-2020 in June, was one, another one of these times when he made a police report, and this was related to fake bank transactions, kind of like I mentioned earlier where it looked like he was getting deposits, but they weren’t real. So he lost money through that.
[00:17:08] Bob: But he initiated the police contact.
[00:17:11] Chris Mancinelli: In that case, yes, yeah.
[00:17:13] Bob: So I mean he certainly was aware to some extent that he was a victim of a crime.
[00:17:17] Chris Mancinelli: He was. Yes.
[00:17:19] Bob: I mean this sounds like such a tortured existence. He’s going back and forth between being a victim and then signing up for things and thinking he’s, he’s actually got the goods on them and that sounds so painful.
[00:17:29] Chris Mancinelli: It does. It does. Yeah, I often thought about wondered what, what his motivation was, like was it an adventure for him or exciting? Like sometimes you know I, I’d try different methods to, to get through to him, you know. He thought, you know, for the inheritance scam he said, “Oh, it’s like a gamble.” You know, like maybe, maybe it’s a scam, but maybe it’s not. And maybe I’ll come, you know, make out on this.” And, and I would say, “Dad, no. It’s never, you’re never going to make out. These are not designed that you can ever win.”
[00:17:55] Bob: But that’s more like buying a lottery ticket, right?
[00:17:57] Chris Mancinelli: Right, then going to a casino.
[00:18:01] Bob: But Dad is still convinced he can make money working with some of these criminals. Chris tries to stay on the same side as his dad to draw more out from him.
[00:18:10] Chris: But I’d say if there’s an opportunity here to, to make some money, tell me more, let me get in, let me make money too. You know not intending to get involved, but to learn more about them. And, and he wouldn’t open up in those cases either. You know I thought by joining him, maybe that was a tactic that I could use to get more info and, and he’d say “Just let’s see how this plays out.” And, and then invariably he’d always lose at the end.
[00:18:34] Bob: But Chris does persuade his dad to get some help.
[00:18:37] Chris Mancinelli: But he did see, so he did agree to see a care manager. That was a start, I think. We had an elder care manager go to his house and meet with him. The, the care manager you know, so I hired her and then she gave me, you know, an evaluation of, of how it went, um, and she gave recommendations of what we should do as a family moving forward, you know, understanding the story, you know, that he’s repeatedly being scammed and you know she had all the background.
[00:19:02] Bob: But if Chris and his brother had ideas about doing something more drastic, to take control of Dad’s finances, well that’s not in the cards.
[00:19:10] Chris Mancinelli: So while she was there, she did, um, kind of a cognitive evaluation and she said, “Actually, he’s very sharp.” So, for example, if we were trying to get conservatorship so that we could manage all of his, you know, affairs, she said no judge would ever, would ever agree to that because your dad is very, uh very cognizant, very aware. He’s very sharp even uh some of the, the tests she gave him, he does better than like a teenager. So mentally he’s really, he’s really there. Um, she said there’s no evidence in the house of, you know that he’s like, he’s got food. Things are, you know, clean enough, you know things are orderly enough. Like he’s cooking for himself. Like he’s, he’s living a good life by all means. So um, you know the recommendation she gave was really about you know more oversight, give him more purpose that uh she thought that he’s, he lacks purpose and that he might be bored. So try to, you know, she recommended maybe move down there with him, which was impossible for, for me, and my brother lived in the same neighborhood. But um, you know also to establish some kind of um, like a trust or something that we could have more control over his money even if we could, and his assets, you know his home as well, and even if we couldn’t get a conservatorship which actually we weren’t looking for a conservatorship to, we don’t have, you know we wouldn’t be able to like manage fully his whole life. So…
[00:20:32] Bob: Sure, sure.
[00:20:33] Chris Mancinelli: And we didn’t want that. And he doesn’t, he didn’t want that, you know, he was very independent.
[00:20:37] Bob: So, so the care manager had some good suggestions, but also essentially says he’s, he’s fine.
[00:20:42] Chris Mancinelli: Right, he’s just making bad choices.
[00:20:45] Bob: Sure, sure, and he’s, he’s a free person, he’s an adult, so he’s entitled to make bad choices, right?
[00:20:50] Chris Mancinelli: Right.
[00:20:52] Bob: Feeling helpless, Chris keeps observing more and more bad transactions in his father’s bank account.
[00:20:59] Chris Mancinelli: We set up a trust, so he, my brother and my dad and I sat down, we agreed to set up a trust and we went through that whole process which took some time. Meanwhile my, my dad continued to give money away, and he had investments that he had saved throughout his whole life in Vanguard, and um, you know I started to see the Vanguard accounts being depleted. So now not only did he give away any cash savings, but his investments were being liquidated and then that money was just being given away, and that was through the beginning of 2021.
[00:21:30] Bob: Gosh, that’s awful, so he would either meet them through something as simple as a Nigerian letter or did they play Words with Friends or anything like that? I mean how did he meet these people?
[00:21:37] Christie Mancinelli: He did play Words with Friends. He did.
[00:21:39] Chris Mancinelli: He did.
[00:21:41] Christie Mancinelli: Yeah.
[00:21:41] Chris Mancinelli: He did. And they would reach out just um, he would respond to people who’d just reach out and say, “Hi, how are you?” And then so he’d say, “Do I know you?” And then they’d say, “Oh, I think so.” You know that’s it.
[00:21:54] Bob: Once these people connected with Alfred, they’d pull on his heartstrings. In many cases the criminal would claim to be injured or sick and at a hospital being denied critical treatment unless Alfred paid the bill. That technique really seems to work.
[00:22:10] Bob: And when it comes to say paying a hospital bill, it was, he never sent money to a hospital, right? He would somehow send them bitcoin or something like that?
[00:22:16] Chris Mancinelli: It was almost always bitcoin. He also used Zelle. He also sometimes used direct wire transfers. But bitcoin was the largest amount and so he’d get cash, he’d convert it to bitcoin, and then send the QR code, but sometimes he thought he was sending it directly to hospitals. So he, they would pass him around. So the, the main person would say, “Talk to the doctor directly,” and then on the same chat, so not on a different chat, they would say, “This is the doctor you’re talking to now, sir. You need to pay these bills or we cannot release, you know, the person.” And he’d say, “Well just send me the code so I can send the bills, you know, stop holding them hostage.” You know he really thought it was a real scenario and, and that he was talking to a doctor and sending money to a hospital, but it was always you know bitcoin. And I, I would ask him, “Dad, what hospital do you know accepts bitcoin?” And he says, “Oh, you don’t know, like they all do now.” Like that’s the, “You’re behind the times, son.”
[00:23:11] Bob: But even as things seem more and more dire, Chris still tries to pierce the spells his father is under in caring and clever ways.
[00:23:20] Chris Mancinelli: And um, and I would also say, “Are you getting bills?” Like, hey, this is your romantic interest in a hospital? Don’t you want to send flowers, like don’t you know where, do you know where the address is, do you know what room she’s in? You know send, to send a gift, like you know does anything makes sense? And he’d listen to me, and he’d seem to sometimes accept what I’m saying as, yeah, this isn’t making sense. But then we’d get off the phone and he’d just be right back into it.
[00:23:48] Bob: It is hard to imagine anything more frustrating than what you’re describing to me. What does that feel like?
[00:23:54] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah, it felt terrible. It felt um, you know I guess um, I was trying to build an authentic relationship with my dad and then you know it was very hurtful actually to see.
[00:24:05] Bob: He was listening to you but he wasn’t listening to you.
[00:24:07] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah. (choked up) Excuse me, I’m sorry.
[00:24:12] Bob: Christie tries to support Chris through all of this, but it’s not easy.
[00:24:17] Christie Mancinelli: It was hard to watch, and this was when I, I think the most intense period of activity where Chris was monitoring his dad and, and watching how his dad interacted with people online, I think the most intense time was during COVID, right, you know 2021 timeframe and you know it just got to this point where, and I know, you know Chris was trying to help his dad understand that these people are not real. Um, some of the situations that they would, they would say that they need money to pay for medical care for I mean and these are supposedly you know attractive young women, it just doesn’t fit. And, and Chris would do his best then explain this to his dad, like this is not real. Why don’t you have a room number? What hospital is it at? Oh, Cleverland Clinic. That’s not real. There’s no such place. There’s Cleveland Clinic. Why, you know Chris would question everything? Why do you have to go through an intermediary in Mexico? There was all sorts of holes that Chris was poking into it and, and Chris was, it was like a constant battle of, of fighting against some of these really, I mean these contradictory, this contradictory information that we’re getting just from piecing together the information that the scammers would send. And so it, I watched Chris kind of repeatedly just try this over and over, like nearly every day, or if, if it wasn’t an active discussion, just watching this happen and unfold in front of him. And, and I think there was one point where I just got really frustrated and I’d say, you know, why is it that you, Chris, have to constantly prove to your dad that these other people are lying? Why can’t your dad just believe you instead of always you know always making it, you know, Chris’ responsibility to, to disprove these scammers instead of taking you know Chris’ side. Um, I, I think I just got so frustrated at that point. I, you know I, I’m like I, and I’m just, what I saw happening to Chris was that it really hurt him, you know like repeatedly seeing that his dad would hop right online and give the money anyway. And it just upset me to see Chris hurting, and, and just trying over and over again, just banging his head against the wall trying to get his dad to understand. That’s actually when I lost hope.
[00:26:28] Bob: Of all the fake lovers Alfred had online, all the manipulative stories he’s been told, none compares to the relationship he supposedly had with a woman named Alexa Bliss.
[00:26:40] Chris Mancinelli: Alexa Bliss is a real-life um, wrestling um, personality. She’s young, attractive, um, married I think now, but um, she uh is the name, the name Alexa Bliss was used by scammers to get my dad to, to convince my dad that he was in a relationship with Alexa Bliss. So he um, yeah, so I mean that’s who Alexa Bliss is, um…
[00:27:08] Bob: And so at, at some point someone pretending to be Alexa Bliss contacts him and gets involved in a virtual romance with your dad, right?
[00:27:16] Chris Mancinelli: Yes, that’s right, that’s right.
[00:27:18] Bob: Um, and, and asks for money and some, it’s under some circumstances because of her crazy relationship with Vince McMann, right?
[00:27:26] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah, it was really, it got really um, um, complicated, I suppose. So the, the Alexa Bliss scammer, um, would make, you know, make up stories and, and just draw from, I guess whatever they could find online, um, and they used pictures from online to try to convince my dad, but uh, basically the story was that, you know Vince McMann was very uh like oppressive to her and the other wrestlers. Didn’t give them their money. So even though she was making millions, she had no access to it. Uh, he was very controlling so that they weren’t allowed to make phone calls or do video chats. Um, they weren’t allowed to like visit fans, um, the whole thing was very controlling. So and then she would get sick a lot. She would get hurt. She had um, her, the real Alexa Bliss has a, had a real-time boyfriend now, husband, Ryan Cabrera who is a singer, I think. And I learned all of this because of my dad. Um, and uh, you know Ryan and his thug friends would chase her down because she was trying to get away from Ryan, so sometimes she’d get beat up by the thugs and end up in the hospital again. But in every scenario, there was a request for money. So she couldn’t eat because Vince McMann had all her money. So send money for food. You know, so another 5000 or 10,000; it was just thousands and thousands all the time for anything.
[00:28:57] Bob: Now did you…
[00:28:58] Chris Mancinelli: I think he was the most smitten by Alexa. There were other names and other personalities, Toni Storm was another, is another wrestling person who would come along asking for money. Um, but Alexa was kind of, I would say the biggest and the most persistent, and he had photos of Alexa Bliss in his house and …
[00:29:17] Bob: On his refrigerator actually, right next to pictures of the grandkids. In a desperate effort to get Dad to see the Alexa Bliss relationship isn’t real, Alan, his older son, takes Alfred to a WWE show to see Alexa in real life.
[00:29:33] Chris Mancinelli: It turned out the WWE was coming to DC and my brother got tickets for him and my dad to go see Alexa Bliss, you know, live at a wrestling event. They went. They watched her perform. You know that, and so um, and then my brother is like, “Hey, so you know, isn’t she going to, you guys are in a relationship, right? Isn’t she going to come see you, like she’s in town? She knows where you live. Don’t you want to hang out or something?” But, of course, Vince McMann would never let that happen. So that’s what Alexa, the scammer, told my dad that Vince McMann prohibited any chance of them meeting, but she was so happy that he went to the event.
[00:30:15] Bob: So no, no backstage passes.
[00:30:18] Chris Mancinelli: (chuckles) Unfortunately, no.
{Break … part 2}
[00:09:17] Chris Mancinelli: He was still giving money to the scammers. I was watching him. He’d give, it was now only like a few hundred or 50. It was small enough that I said, look, I’ll just leave it. Maybe this is his wean off period. I’m not going to hassle him about it, and he doesn’t have much to give anyway. So maybe things are going to just like peter out. And we, and we did feel like he was intentionally trying to change. But then, unfortunately, in October his brother, his only brother, a younger brother, and they had been estranged for I don’t know 30, 40 years um. They had never talked to each other for a long time, but he passed away. So my Uncle Mike, my dad’s brother passed away and it turns out, we never knew this, my dad never knew this, but he had a bank account which was joint ownership with my dad. So my dad got, in October of ’21 when he had almost nothing left, he got $120,000 that he now owned.
[00:10:10] Bob: So Dad who was basically penniless but still giving away his last few pennies to criminals suddenly has access to more than $100,000.
[00:10:20] Chris Mancinelli: And um, that really scared my brother and I because uh-oh, now what’s going to happen? So I was in Japan on business at the time. We got onto a family call, and we agreed that since the, you know, the estate is going to be probably going through probate and need a lot, we had a lot to figure out, that my dad agreed he would not touch the money. He promised me and my brother and, you know, where they would see what’s happening with the estate.
[00:10:46] Bob: But that promise doesn’t stand a chance against the manipulative powers of the criminals Alfred is still talking to.
[00:10:54] Chris Mancinelli: By the time I got home a few weeks later, my dad had already taken $20,000 out and given it, given it away.
[00:11:02] Bob: And at this point, Chris takes the most drastic action he can think of.
[00:11:08] Chris Mancinelli: So now it was down to about $100,000. And this is when I kind of took the nuclear option because I said like he’s not, you know this is all he’s got left. And I know he liquidated all of his Vanguard investments; he’s going to have capital gains taxes to pay on that. He’s got no money and if he, if we, if he just, this $100,000’s going to be gone, you know, in a month. So I went to the bank, um, after getting home from, from Japan. I went to the bank and I; I had co-ownership on the account at that time because you know after I agreed to help, I came back into the scene, and I um, had the bank transfer the $100,000 to a separate account that he had no access to.
[00:11:48] Bob: So Chris moves the rest of the money to a place where his father can’t touch it, and well that sets in motion the chain of events that spirals downhill to the darkest of places.
[00:12:00] Chris Mancinelli: What I didn’t know is right at that same time he was on his way to withdraw $5000 to send to Alexa Bliss scammer, the scammer, and um, when he got there, he couldn’t get any money out because I had just moved it. So the timing was really bad, ’cause I was intending to move it and then tell him, so he couldn’t prevent it from happening. But um, he learned by being at the bank trying to get money, and then of course, that made him panic, and he called me and he’s screaming at the bank people like that he has money and that they won’t give it to him. But it turns out, yeah, I had moved it. When he found that out, he screamed at me, and he was, you know, very abusive on the phone and, you know, demanded me to give it back. I said I would not, and um, that was on December 7th of 2021. So just a few months after he had come to the house, you know, hat in hand, and, and it was like, I felt like it worse than, than ever, because the way he was like cursing and screaming at me it was, he was, I, I didn’t think I deserved that kind of abuse.
[00:13:05] Bob: And from there Dad just cuts off his son. They stop communicating entirely. The next time he hears from dad…
[00:13:13] Chris Mancinelli: In early 2023, I get a mail–, I get a letter in the mail that I’m being, I’m going to be sued by my dad for that money that I had, had moved. And then I had to, you know, um, get my own lawyer. I’d never been sued before. I had no idea. You know I was; I was actually scared. I don’t need to be sued, you know I’m trying to help him and now I have to go to court? Like I don’t know what’s going to happen next, you know. It’ll be on my permanent record. Am I going to have to go to jail? Am I going to have to pay penalties? Um, apparently it went to a fairly high court because the dollar value was about, it was 130,000, so I think over 100,000 it goes to like the circuit court which is one step below federal court. And how the heck did I get myself here?
[00:13:58] Bob: Does the suit accuse you of what, the fraud of stealing the money?
[00:14:02] Chris Mancinelli: It does. What does it say, what did it say exactly? In essence yes, it, it accused me of taking it without permission, so I guess stealing, yeah.
[00:14:10] Bob: It’s hard for me or anyone, I think, listening to this to not imagine a, a, an immediate phone call between your lawyer and your dad’s lawyer would clear this up. But that, that didn’t happen?
[00:14:22] Chris Mancinelli: My dad’s lawyer was, I don’t know, playing hardball? I don’t know.
[00:14:27] Bob: Oh my God.
[00:14:27] Chris Mancinelli: And just says, “You know that’s fine. But you know Alfred wants the money back.” And, and I said from the start, even with my lawyer which was hard to find a lawyer too by the way, and which gave me more anxiety because once you get, served papers, now the time–, the clock starts ticking. It was very an–, anxiety-inducing, the whole thing. You know within 30 days if you don’t reply, you could default, and I was being asked to repay the money plus damages plus interest plus lawyer’s fees. So I didn’t, I don’t know what all of this was going to end up adding up to that I’m going to be out-of-pocket for, for what?
[00:15:01] Bob: So Chris makes the only rational choice he can. He surrenders. The criminals have won.
[00:15:09] Chris Mancinelli: So I told my lawyer, “I don’t, I don’t want to, I’m not trying to fight a lawsuit here. I’ll give the money back. He can give it away if he wants.” At this point I, I don’t know what, what’s left for me to do. So just please settle it. I don’t want to pay his lawyer’s fees and all that, but so if he can get that eliminated, great. But I was even almost willing to pay it just to have it all be done. But um, at the end we settled that I would give him the money back plus interest which was like a few dollars interest in a checking account over a year, it was like a dollar, I don’t know, and then we settled. I gave the money back and then that the lawsuit was dropped.
[00:15:45] Bob: Chris gives the $100,000 back to his dad with interest and the outcome is predictable. Within just a few weeks Alfred sends all that money to various online criminals. And then and even deeper tragedy strikes.
[00:16:02] Chris Mancinelli: So he, he was out, the neighbors had told us, early July, he went out to chase down the mailman for something but tripped and fell in the street and uh hit his head which broke his neck during the fall. So they went to the emergency room. He got surgery, but he didn’t survive. So 10, 10 days later he had passed away after um, you know surgery for a broken neck.
[00:16:25] Bob: It’s a tragic task going through Alfred’s things after his death. When Chris walks into the house they see pictures of girlfriend Alexa Bliss all over the place, and what’s more…
[00:16:38] Chris Mancinelli: What we found when we went through his house my, my brother and I, you know um, we found, you know, his bank statements, uh, which um, showed that that $100,000 that I had given back in May was gone in a month. So he had um, just continued to give it away until he was back down to zero. He did pay his taxes though. So I guess that’s…
[00:17:00] Bob: Hmm, did you, did you ever speak to him after the settlement?
[00:17:03] Chris Mancinelli: No, no I didn’t, we didn’t.
[00:17:05] Bob: Sorry.
[00:17:06] Chris Mancinelli: I hope it’s understandable. I was in no mood to speak with him after that. Um, I, I had no idea how we would speak to each other again after that. Um, we, you know um, so I guess I, I just thought, well I did think probably there’d be more time, maybe there’d be a pathway to, to some kind of relationship but, but I expected him just to continue, you know I gave the $100,000 back, I expected that he was going to give it away. Of course I didn’t expect him to die shortly after.
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