The con man and the convent: Sisters never suspected they had taken in a smooth-talking swindler

star ledger ^ | November 11, 2007 | JEFF WHELAN

[Coleus]

Bordered by loose stone walls and rolling woodland, the Melrose Convent is a picture postcard of peace and seclusion just 60 miles from Manhattan on a lazy, winding country road. Episcopal nuns have called it home the past 50 years, tending to two farmhouses and the gardens on a few bucolic acres near the village of Brewster, N.Y. They also run a retreat, offering sanctuary to church groups and others looking to pull back from the world. One calm November day seven years ago, a smiling, well-dressed man with glittering references and a gift for gab came knocking on the convent door.

He wore a tailored suit, boasted of his days working for hotel queen Leona Helmsley, and carried a letter from a monsignor at St. Patrick's Cathedral. He said he wanted a quiet place to stay a few days a week in between business trips to the city. The nuns took in the friendly stranger with the sweet smile.

"Richard is a charmer," said Sister Catherine Grace. "He was very dear to us."

But the man who called himself Richard Maldonado was actually Richard Tagliamonte, a con man who stole identities of the rich, the famous and the ordinary with the silken aplomb of a master magician.

And he managed to turn Melrose Convent into his own private headquarters, pulling off a series of intricate and audacious scams aimed at some of the biggest names in the business world. Within a year, he hijacked the identity of a shipping company once owned by Aristotle Onassis, defrauded Tiffany and Neiman Marcus out of tens of thousands of dollars, and stole the identity of an oil-rich Texas billionaire.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

He should have become a politician.

[Clint Williams]

In today's information-driven economy, identity theft is increasingly common, with nearly 10 million Americans falling victim per year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Most crimes are by repeat offenders, reports the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit group.

So why aren't we registering these scum?

[Red_Devil 232]

Sisters never suspected they had taken in a smooth-talking swindler

Bill Clinton or AlGore?

[basil]

Bookmark for later.

[Gondring]

Or chopping them up for parts... ;-)

[Old Professer]

Novels? You’re publishing novels?

Nine pages on full screen to learn the guy’s a crook?

[Popocatapetl]

"Pardon me, Sister, but I saw a kitten fall into this hole in the floor, and my arms are too short to reach it. Would you mind?"

[Cacique]

btt