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And he likes horses too!
That's what Lauren Mendelsohn thought when a Baltimore man messaged her in September 2005 on Jdate.com, an online service for singles.
"I ride show jumpers," the divorced mother of two said on Wednesday. "He supposedly bred race horses. I say supposedly because almost everything he ever told me was a lie."
So began Mendelsohn's anything-but-fruitful relationship with Hillard Jay Quint, whom Illinois authorities say conned at least 10 women from several states out of more than $1 million (Dh3.67 million) through elaborate scams.
The lead investigator on the case in the Chicago suburbs said he is trying to get federal authorities involved.
Mendelsohn said she loaned him more than $150,000. Authorities said another Baltimore-area woman gave the man another $100,000.
Arrested
Late last week, Quint, a 42-year-old disbarred lawyer, was arrested in suburban Chicago on warrants from Georgia accusing him of forgery and violating his probation on a theft conviction. Officials said they are in the process of extraditing him to Georgia. When Mendelsohn met Quint, she said he boasted of owning a waterfront townhouse in Baltimore's Canton section, owning a white Hummer, shopping for Lear jets and crisscrossing the world to compete against wealthy shaikhs for the next, hot thoroughbred yearlings.
All lies, Mendelsohn said. The townhouse was a rental, the Hummer a lease and the Lear jet a fantasy, according to Mendelsohn. "When I kicked him out," Mendelsohn said, "he had the shirt on his back, a computer and $200".
The case came to light this week when Chicago-area police announced Quint was posing there as Matt Goldstein, a businessman from California. To one paramour, the Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday, he even showed off a business magazine cover with the headline: Achiever of the Year 2006.
No charges
After a two-week investigation, Deerfield Police Detective Juan Mazariegos said, police discovered that the man was Quint.
"Basically, he's a con artist," Mazariegos said.
No charges have been filed related to the alleged scheme to defraud women. But authorities say they believe there are victims in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, Texas and Florida.
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