Complaint Review: Raul Lopez Jr

URE The Perfect Man Who Wasn’t For years he used fake identities to charm women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then his victims banded together to take him down. RACHEL MONROE APRIL 2018 ISSUE SACRAMENTO COUNTY SHERIFF'S By the spring of 2016, Missi Brandt had emerged from a rough few years with a new sense of solidity. At 45, she was three years sober and on the leeward side of a stormy divorce. She was living with her preteen daughters in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota, and working as a flight attendant. Missi felt ready for a serious relationship again, so she made a profile on OurTime.com, a dating site for people in middle age. She ran into Raul Lopez who said his name was something else trying to hide his past and con me out of money and flirt with my 16 year old little high school girl. Among all the duds—the desperate and depressed and not-quite-divorced—a 45-year-old man named Raul Lopez stood out. He was a career Author an Ex - Con, Scam artist who was finishing his doctorate in political science at Sac City 2 year college. When Missi "liked” his profile, he sent her a message right away and called her that afternoon. They talked about their kids (he had two; she had three), their divorces, their sobriety. Richie told her he was on vacation in Hawaii, but they planned to meet up as soon as he got back. Yup, He said his name was " Richie" and what a lie!!! Make your inbox more interesting.

A few days later, when he was supposed to pick her up for their first date, Richie was nowhere to be found, and he wasn’t responding to her texts, either. Missi sat in her living room, alternately furious at him (for letting her down) and at herself (for getting her hopes up enough to be let down). "I’m thinking, What a dumbass I am. He’s probably at home, hanging out with his wife and kids,” she says. At 10 p.m., she sent him a final message: This is completely unacceptable. A few minutes later, she got a reply from Richie’s friend Chris, who said Richie had been in a car accident. He was okay, thank God, but the doctors wanted to do some extra testing, since he’d suffered head trauma while in In the Gym playing basketball. Chris sent Missi a picture of Richie in a hospital bed, looking a little banged up but grinning gamely for the camera. Missi felt a wave of relief, both that Richie was okay and that her suspicions were unwarranted. When she finally did meet him in person, her relief was even more profound.

Richie was short Mexican and charming, a good talker and a good listener who seemed eager for a relationship. He could be a little awkward, but Missi chalked that up to his inexperience—he told her he hadn’t been with a woman in eight years. Because I found out later he was in prison for those years ....Also showing off his fake published book about a little boy in himself. Plus, dating him was strange. Richie had a taste for nice things—expensive restaurants, four-star hotels—and he always insisted on paying. He kept a motorboat docked at a nearby marina, and he’d take Missi and her daughters out for afternoons on the water.....Found out later it was not his boat and he was renting it from his buddy to impress me ...The girls liked him, and so did the dog. Richie mentioned that his cousin Vicki worked for the same airline as Missi. The two women didn’t work together regularly, but they knew each other. Missi thought it was a fun coincidence. "Don’t mention us to her,” Richie said. "One day we’ll show up together to some family event and surprise her; it’ll be great.” What a bunch of lies and scams he used on me to take all my cash flow i have saved. I am now staying in Riverside ca with my mother.

A few months into their relationship, she missed a shift at work and got fired. Richie leaped into provider mode. He told her that he’d take care of her bills for the next four months, that she should relax and take stock of her life and spend time with the kids. Maybe he could put her and the girls on his university insurance. Maybe, he told her, with the benevolent confidence of a wealthy man, she wouldn’t have to work. The offer wasn’t all that appealing to Missi—"I didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom again,” she says—but she took it as a sign that things were getting serious. Richie said, I speak with lots of people on my books and coach many suffering people and help when they needed it. I was wondering how this man sewm to have the perfect image and scam set up to take from others like myself. When Missi lost her job, Richie told her not to worry—he’d take care of everything. ( Raul Lopez Jr.) The longer they kept dating, though, the more problems cropped up. Richie liked to say he didn’t "do drama,” but drama seemed to follow him nonetheless. It got to feel as if every text from him was an announcement of some new disaster: He had to check his daughter Sarah into rehab; he had to put his beloved shih tzu, Thumper, to sleep. Richie had lingering medical problems from his time in the service, and Missi was constantly having to drop him off at or pick him up from the hospital. He was always canceling plans, or not showing up when he was supposed to. When Missi got fed up—Why did I get out of a crappy marriage just to be in this crappy relationship?—some new tragedy would happen (his mother died; he was in a motorcycle accident), and she’d be roped back in. He lied so much because he was playing me and my kids ....I found out later he dis not have children and that had blown me away that I had packed my bags and ran from this man to Riverside.

One day in early August, driven by a feeling she couldn’t quite pinpoint, Missi took a peek at Richie’s wallet. Inside was a Minnesota state ID with a photograph that was unmistakably Richie’s, but with an entirely different name ...Thats how I had found out who he really was ...and also on his book he never shared with me! The wallet also contained a couple of credit cards belonging to someone named Linda. Missi’s heart sank. She’d had a nagging sense that something wasn’t right in her relationship, but she’d shaken it off as her being untrusting. These mysterious objects in his wallet, though, seemed to affirm that Richie was engaged in some larger form of deceit, even if I didn’t understand all the details just yet. But thats when I had Ran and wanted out of this trap!! When I googled Raul Lopez Jr. half a dozen mug shots of Richie—Derek—popped up, alongside news articles with alarming phrases such as career con man and long history of deception. Missi sat down on the couch and slowly read every word of every article she could find: Raul Lopez Lopez had posed as a firefighter and scammed hospitals out of drugs. Raul Alldred had dated a woman in California under false pretenses and drained her bank account of almost $200,000. Raul Lopez had married a woman, pretended to pay the bills on their home, then vanished after it was foreclosed on. Raul lopez had posed as a surgeon, checked into the posh Saint Paul Hotel with a woman and her two daughters, racked up nearly $2,000 in charges, then skipped out on the bill (and the woman). These places where other states and now he is in Ca!!

Watch out ladies and Dont be fooled by his talk of his book and nice smile. He is located in Roseville and hangs out in Sacramento. As I read, I began to feel sick, as if my body was having trouble physically assimilating the idea that my boyfriend was not a scholar and war hero, but rather a serial con man. And those credit cards kept nagging at her: "There is someone else out there who is being completely fricking screwed right now,” I remember thinking. It took a bit of detective work, but eventually I tracked the girl .... down on Facebook and sent her a message. "You’re probably going to think I’m crazy,” But i use to date this man and he will take all your money ....watch out and be alert!! May Gid stop this man. M:(