Con man allegedly scammed jail deacon
Wrote counterfeit checks in Boston, officials contend
At one time, the Catholic deacon thought the con man he met while volunteering in a federal prison had really turned his life around and was com- mitted to changing his life of crime.
Yesterday, Deacon Gerald J. Beeman said he hopes Shawn R. Pelley spends the rest of his life behind bars, so others will not fall victim to Pelley, as he did.
“I wish I’d never met him,’’ Beeman said in a phone interview from his home in Pennsylvania.
“I was taken in, I really believed him. He said he never wanted to spend another day in prison as long as he lived.’’
According to Beeman and Boston police Detective Steven Blair, Pelley agreed to launch a consulting company in Boston to teach communities how to help prisoners reenter society, beginning with seed money from Beeman.
“He and I sort of hit it off,’’ Beeman said. “One day he said he looked upon me as a father figure.’’
Instead of starting a new way of living, Pelley was behind bars yesterday, just 285 days after he was freed from the federal prison in Pennsylvania where Beeman and Pelley first met.
Pelley allegedly never used Beeman’s money to start the company, but did use his friendship to gain financial information about Beeman’s church in Bradford, Pa.
Pelley is accused of using the information to write some $48,000 in counterfeit checks on the church’s account.
“While he was in jail, he was able to talk the deacon into a scam,’’ said Blair, who is investigating Pelley’s activities for the second time.
“He is as smooth as they come when you talk to him.’’
Pelley was arrested by Boston police and US marshals Tuesday in Boston. When surrounded by police in his car, Pelley tried to drive past the officers and then had to be wrestled to the ground, police said.
He was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court yesterday and pleaded not guilty to counterfeiting checks, fraud, and larceny by scheme. He was ordered held on $25,000 cash bail.
But Pelley, 33, - who lists Centerville, on Cape Cod, as his hometown - also must face a federal judge after he failed to keep a court date this spring. In 2003, Pelley pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to repay Fidelity Investments $96,500.
Pelley is suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, especially from lawyers whom he preyed on before he went to prison in 2003, according to court records.
In a 2002 Boston magazine interview, Pelley said he spent freely on jewelry and clothing, expensive cars, and on travel and hotel bills as he moved around the country using stolen identities to pay for it all.
Since being freed from prison, Pelley had been staying with people he met on Facebook, Blair said, and when he was taken into custody, Pelley had identification belonging to roommates of the people who let him into their homes.
“He plays everybody,’’ Blair said.
Beeman, 69, is a former Army intelligence officer, hospital administrator, and Veterans Administration official.
He chose to volunteer at the prison because it was a demanding challenge.
He said that he sometimes feels like an idiot for believing in Pelley and that he wants to ask the man who once described him as a father figure a few questions.
“Why? And why me?’’ Beeman asked.
“Why did you do this to me, of all people, someone who was giving you an opportunity to change your life?’’ 