Fight Bigamy

Serial Bigamist Charles "Ed" Hicks Has New Alias--Charles Greene

Former jailbird (see jailbird uniform to left and mugs shots below) and convicted serial bigamist, alleged sociopath Virginia state felon Charles Edward Hicks, sometimes referred to as Ed is now calling himself Charles Greene. Mr. Hicks or Greene or whoever he is now got the longest sentence in the state of Virginia for bigamy.

This Charles Greene also has a new email address: e111h444@yahoo.com. I am surprised Charles Greene can remember that one, since he is 64, but he will tell you some younger birth year. I imagine the "e" stands for Ed and the "h" for Hicks; I don't know where the ones come from but 444 could mean his birth year that he always lies about.The real year is 1944.

He is still telling the same lie about owning property in the Bahamas. He doesn't own squat. At one time he lived in the back of his van and used a kitty litter box for a bathroom. He rigged up lights and put insulation around the van for warmth. He van was parked along the street in Alexandria, VA until he found a woman in North Carolina who took him in and hit her up for $500.00 a month. He is a piece of work, and if he gets near you RUN!

Read everything you can under "Ed Hicks aka Charles Greene News" and "Ed Hicks aka Charles Greene Missives" on this site.

Also See a report on Dating Psychos, search under "Hicks" and look at the one without the photograph;  read the one with the photograph as well.  Also read another comment below from Players & Psychos.com.

Comment from another victim:
	He never stops. He's back online using the name "CHARLES GREENE" - talks about his land in the Bahamas (doesn't own jack), he's an ace sailor (not), he's retired from the gov't (he was FIRED and disgraced after being sentenced for bigamy!), people are telling nasty stories about him (sure... NOT!) and he's got a new yahoo address. Beware ladies - don't let this charmer in your door

Woman Marries Several Military Men; Claims a Psychological Disorder

For nearly a decade, investigators say a woman known as Shauna Keith traveled all around the United States meeting, marrying and then leaving military men.

She left behind a trail of at least five broken marriages, financial problems and three children. Investigators say she was sometimes married to more than one man at a time.

Now, Keith, 27, is in a Georgia jail being held on bigamy, fraud and identity theft charges.
KATU News talked to Keith's mother, who lives in Gresham, Oregon.

"She lives in her own reality," Cynthia Gibson said. She also said that her daughter started telling lies at age 12 and that the problems escalated from there. Shauna is the oldest of four daughters, and her birth name is Shauna Marie McDonald. Police are holding her under the name Shauna Keith.

Keith has been diagnosed with Münchhausen syndrome, a psychological disorder where people tell stories, usually lies, or intentionally harm themselves to attract attention.Keith also reportedly made her first child sick in order to get attention, a condition known as Münchhausen Syndrome by Proxy.

Investigators say Keith first married a sailor in San Diego back in 1999. A short time later she moved on to Colorado and married a man in the U.S. Air Force.

Marriages to soldiers from Kentucky and Kansas followed. Detectives say she most recently married a Marine in North Carolina, but the Marine's family became suspicious while boxing up her possessions to ship to the base where the couple planned to live.

They said they discovered doctored identification and called police to report the possible fraud. Keith was then arrested.

Over the years, Keith gave birth to three children. Her mother, Cynthia, is caring for two of them, both boys. She says her daughter is currently pregnant with another child, but has convinced herself it is her first child.

Investigators in the case say Keith used multiple aliases and identifications over the years. They say she would search for military men using online military-oriented dating services. Keith's mother says she even researched the various branches of the armed forces.

"I hope that the families of those she hurt will find it in their hearts to forgive here," Gibson said.

By Derek Sciba and KATU-TV web staff.

George Dumstorf Allegedly Juggles Lives for 20 Years

He stands accused in Florida of bigamy, for allegedly carrying on marriages to two women at once, during which time he proposed to a third.

Over 20 years, former Louisville, KY businessman and educator George W. Dumstorf Jr. juggled three wives and a girlfriend, the women say, in what prosecutors call "a scheme to court single ladies ... and make money off of them."

To explain his frequent absences, he told the women, who didn't know each other, that he had a secret job at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, that he was an Air Force general, that he worked for the CIA. None of it was true, according to spokesmen for those agencies.

"He was a great teller of stories," said Stephanie Dumstorf, his first spouse, a former teacher at St Gabriel Catholic School in Louisville.

Now George Dumstorf, 69, whose family owns an appliance company, The Trend Cos. of Kentucky, is in trouble in his hometown too. According to an indictment unsealed Jan. 3 in U.S. District Court in Louisville, Dumstorf allegedly passed counterfeit certificates of deposit to Stock Yards Bank & Trust Co. as collateral for $850,000 in loans. The bank is suing him for fraud, as are two of his siblings, who allege that he looted their mother's estate in the amount of $500,000 with a doctored power of attorney.

Dumstorf didn't respond to e-mails, faxes and requests for comment passed through one of his attorneys. He lives in a trailer in the woods 40 miles north of Tampa, according to his third wife, Martha-Irene Gaunt Weed.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges in Florida and Kentucky and denied the fraud allegations in the lawsuits. He faces a maximum of five years in prison if convicted on the bigamy charge and 30 years on the fraud charge. Trials are set for Feb. 15 and Feb. 28, respectively.

The accusations against Dumstorf have stunned his family, his ex-wives and former girlfriend, who say they've been left to wonder if he ever really cared about them.

"My world collapsed -- the sun rose and set with him," said Weed, a Tampa lawyer who married Dumstorf in 2004, a few years after representing him in his divorce from his second wife, Judy Howell, who says she didn't know about his marriage to first wife Stephanie Dumstorf until near the end of her own marriage.

George Dumstorf's younger brother, Joseph, president of The Trend Cos., said that he was flabbergasted to discover that his brother had any wives besides Stephanie, with whom he had seven children.

"I don't know my brother," Joseph Dumstorf said. "The person I thought I knew does not exist."

Read the remainder of Andrew Wolfson's article in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

One Man, Four Women, and Many Stories for George Dumstorf

The women in George Dumstorf's life took his word, until they found out about each other.

The women in George Dumstorf's life took his word, until they found out about each other.
Divorce attorney Martha-Irene Weed had seen her share of spiteful spouses looking to sucker punch an ex. "Good people at their worst," she says.

So she wasn't fazed when a man came into her South Tampa office and said his wife of 15 years wanted a divorce. The wife accused him of leading a double life, having stayed secretly married to another woman who bore his children. Mudslinging, Weed thought. 

She believed George W. Dumstorf Jr., a handsome white-haired man who spoke of a distinguished career. He smoothly contradicted his wife's claim and told Weed his first marriage ended almost a decade before his second began.

Weed took his case, settled his divorce and got rid of the bigamy complaint. But in February, Dumstorf will stand trial on another bigamy charge. A different lawyer will be at his side because, this time, Weed is the accuser.

Dumstorf, 69, says he has performed top-secret work for the Air Force and NASA. He says he got married, divorced, remarried, divorced, then remarried again, in that order. He says he has five children.

His three wives tell a different story. So does a fourth woman who says Dumstorf was her boyfriend for 20 years. For 16 years, they say, he had two wives and a girlfriend at the same time. 

Across five decades, he convinced them all that work kept him away for weeks. He took them to launches and VIP tours at Cape Canaveral but said other parts of his work were too sensitive to reveal.

He took control of their finances and investments but never showed them his paychecks. The women loved him too much to suspect deception. And that, they say, is what he counted on. 

Wife No. 1
"You've got to remember," Dumstorf used to tell his future brother-in-law in the 1960s, "for every lie you tell, you've got to tell two to cover it up."

That was near the beginning, when Dumstorf, son of an appliance store owner, worked in the development office at Bellarmine College, his alma mater. He and his wife, Stephanie, whom he married in 1960, lived in his hometown of Louisville, Ky., with their five children. 

As the kids grew, so did George's absences. He told his family he had been hired by the space administration, requiring a commute to Cape Canaveral, Stephanie said in a deposition last year. She declined to comment for this story.

Two more births, seven baptisms and five high school graduations later, George and Stephanie moved in 1988 to the Florida city of Melbourne.

Wife No. 2
Judy Howellwas the first to doubt George Dumstorf. A divorced mother of three, she began dating him in the mid-1970s in Louisville. In the early 1980s, they settled in Dania, a town in southeast Florida, and then married.   

He spent pieces of holidays with her, arriving in a bomber jacket and helmet, telling her he was running test flights. "You know you're not supposed to ask me questions," he would say, if she wanted details.

She started asking anyway in 1999, after Dumstorf said he wanted a divorce. Howell learned that George Dumstorf had a homestead exemption in Melbourne with Stephanie, and public documents still listed them as husband and wife.

Howell found newspaper clippings from Brevard County that referred to him as the father of two daughters she didn't know about, born long after she had started dating him.

She confronted Dumstorf at a deposition for their divorce case in October 1999. He seemed to have an answer for everything.

Under oath, he claimed Stephanie had filed for divorce but he didn't know where. He said she had her sixth and seventh children with another man. Howell, now 65, can't forget the way Weed, then Dumstorf's attorney, scoffed at the suggestion of a double life. "I think it would be a waste of time and money to go chasing after that dead horse," Weed said during the deposition. 

Howell tried anyway, reporting Dumstorf to law enforcement agencies in several counties. But she says no one took her seriously. She had diabetes and had to go on an insulin pump. When her doctor said the stress might kill her, she accepted $100,000 in alimony and let go.

The girlfriend
Not long after Dumstorf made a home with Howell in Dania, a new relationship blossomed 12 miles north in Plantation. Julie Jones, then a divorced mother with a successful travel agency, says she met Dumstorf through the local chamber of commerce.   

For the next 20 years, Jones says, they took frequent cruises to Europe and the Caribbean and visited her family in Michigan. Jones, 63, says Dumstorf persuaded her to invest more than $250,000 in CDs, which he said would be issued by the Kennedy Space Center Federal Credit Union.

She received official-looking green certificates in the mail. Much later, she learned there was nothing official about them.

Wife No. 3
Weed, 57, is a high-mannered woman who wears large hats to public functions and uses the antique dining table of her childhood in her law office conference room. She has never been in trouble with the Florida Bar.

After she settled Dumstorf's divorce from Howell in 2000, Weed says he charmed his way into becoming more than a client. "He was the most wonderful, caring, thoughtful, smart, protective, fantastic man," she said recently in her mahogany-paneled law office. "Just fantastic. I just loved him in a way that I hadn't loved anybody." 

She trusted him, sometimes blindly. If he told her to sign a financial document, she did so without reviewing it. When he fussed that terrorists might notice his name on the sign for her 80-acre Brooksville cattle ranch, she took it off.

When he talked of marriage, the board-certified divorce attorney demanded a church wedding. And the Episcopal church, she said, required proof of Dumstorf's divorce from Stephanie. Weed looked everywhere for the decree. Dumstorf said he looked, too. They couldn't find it. 

She says one e-mail, dated Jan. 4, 2004, changed everything.

It appeared to have come from Karen Dumstorf, one of the two daughters George claimed not to have fathered. It said Stephanie Dumstorf had died the previous August in a car accident in Haiti. Implausible? Not to lovestruck Weed. She no longer needed the divorce decree. 

She became Mrs. George Dumstorf that March in Bay County. She wore a pink suit and matching hat; he wore an Air Force tuxedo with a Vietnam service ribbon pinned to the jacket.

Revelation
A fellow lawyer, Ashley Myers, told Weed they needed to talk. 

It was April 2006. Weed's two-year marriage had become the envy of her circle of female family law attorneys and a source of pride to her father, a World War II veteran.

Weed sometimes passed along published stories that Dumstorf e-mailed her about his work.

Myers received one such article from a military publication about "Maj. General George W. Dumstorf" getting commissioned by NATO to work as a civilian contractor after his retirement from 46 years in the Air Force and government service.

Something about the story struck Myers as odd. She found the Web version. It never mentioned Dumstorf. She called the author. He hadn't heard of Dumstorf. Alarm bells went off in the colleague's head.   

For several days, she conducted a discreet inquiry. Then, an Internet search revealed shocking news: Stephanie Dumstorf was alive and working as a writing teacher at Brevard Community College. Weed couldn't believe her colleague's findings.

Admittedly, her third marriage wasn't perfect. Dumstorf wouldn't introduce her to his children, and he complained that he needed to take out loans because she didn't make enough money. But she was determined to make things work. Weed immediately called the Brevard college.  "She's teaching there now?" Weed asked. "Yes," came the answer. Weed hung up and gasped for breath. 

A letter
Four months later, a curious message arrived in Weed's mail. Martha, I believe you know who I am. If you think it would be beneficial for us to speak to each other, please feel free to contact me. The letter had no signature, just an e-mail address and a phone number. Weed called the number. By then, she had spent months tracking her husband's claims. She knew nothing of the woman who picked up the line. It was Julie Jones, the 20-year girlfriend. Her son, too, had checked out Dumstorf's NATO story. 

Comparing notes
In isolation, each woman doubted everything. But together, they sifted truth from lies, sharing their stories and Dumstorf's e-mails. In one to Weed, titled "My try at the truth," Dumstorf acknowledged that Stephanie was alive but in bad shape from the Haiti accident. The women's case against Dumstorf grew. 

The Air Force and NASA have no record of him. One of his attorneys, Brett Geer of Tampa, says those agencies aren't acknowledging Dumstorf to protect his sensitive work status. But an Air Force official said even if Dumstorf performed classified work, he would show up in databases as a member of the service.

The women learned that in January 2006, Dumstorf traveled to Walt Disney World separately with Weed and Jones. After several days with Jones, Dumstorf complained of back trouble and said he needed to see his doctor at Cape Canaveral. He went to Weed's hotel instead.

They learned that the Kennedy Space Center Federal Credit Union does not issue CDs.

The women realized he borrowed their family names for his own purposes. A Kentucky bank trying to validate Dumstorf's credit union CDs got an e-mail signed by "Martha-Irene Weed, federal program compliance and verification officer." And e-mails regarding Jones' investments came from a "chief of staff" whose name was identical to the daughter of wife No. 2.

They learned to question everything he had told them. When Jones pressed Dumstorf about the state of her CD investments, he stalled, claiming in an October 2006 e-mail that his younger son, Mark, had died. But family members in Louisville say Mark is alive.

Dumstorf's relatives reeled, too. No one in the tight-knit Kentucky clan had met Jones or knew Howell or Weed as his wives. His mother's estate accused him in a lawsuit of altering a power of attorney document to secure more than $1-million in loans. His family can't explain Dumstorf's actions. "It lasted for so long," said Joseph Dumstorf, George's younger brother. "That's the amazing thing." 

Dumstorf's defense
Dumstorf wouldn't grant an interview. His defense team characterizes Weed as a masterful manipulator who is out to destroy his credibility and go after his assets.

They say his version of events goes like this: Weed lured him into a sexual relationship while she was still married and still his attorney. She persuaded him to borrow money and co-sign loans to skirt her bad credit. She knew Stephanie was still alive when they married in 2004.

Weed denies she was still his attorney when their affair began.

In August, Dumstorf sued Weed for professional malpractice. He wants to evict her from her South Tampa office; he says he owns it, but she says he led her to believe they both did.

He is fighting the bigamy charge, filed in Bay County where he and Weed married. Jonathan Dingus, his criminal defense attorney, says Weed led Dumstorf to believe that he was legally able to remarry.

"He put his trust in her, and she failed him," Dingus said.

Dumstorf thinks his first wife and Jones changed stories to help Weed incriminate him, said Geer, his Tampa civil attorney. Stephanie Dumstorf knew her marriage to George had ended, knew he had not fathered two of her children and knew about his marriage to Howell, Geer said.

The Dumstorf children didn't want to comment. Their uncle, Joseph Dumstorf, says that, physically, the youngest two daughters are "spitting images" of George.

Geer disputes Jones' claims of romance, saying their relationship was "simply a long-running instance of two friends helping each other out financially."

More trouble
On Nov. 8 - a year to the date of Dumstorf's arrest on the bigamy charge brought by Weed - three FBI agents and two sheriff's deputies handcuffed him near a rundown trailer in the woods of Spring Hill, his home since Weed kicked him off the Brooksville ranch. 

A Kentucky grand jury indicted him on federal bank fraud charges. He is accused of using fake CDs as collateral for an $850,000 loan.

Moving on
The February bigamy trial in Bay County could unite the women for the first time.

After 46 years of marriage, Stephanie Dumstorf, 69, bucked her Catholic distaste for divorce last year. She said she didn't divorce George after learning about Howell, wife No. 2, because he said theirs wasn't a real marriage. "He's a very good teller of stories," Stephanie said during her deposition.

Howell lives with her daughter and doesn't want Dumstorf to know where. She believes Weed was genuinely blind-sided. "What goes around comes around I guess," she said. "I feel sorry for her."

Jones, the girlfriend, hasn't seen Dumstorf or her $250,000 investment since she confronted him about Weed. She had to leave retirement to pay her bills.

Weed filed for an annulment. She is repaying more than $800,000 in loans, which bought a new roof for Wife No. 1 and covered alimony for Wife No. 2. She calls this chapter of her life "the blackest, most awful time."

"It's going to be a long time before I can even consider an emotional commitment," she said. "I just really question whether or not I'll ever be able to really, really, really trust."

The divorce attorney keeps her wedding scrapbook in her office, evidence of a promise broken.

Fast Facts and Key players
George W. Dumstorf Jr: Told women he worked for the Air Force and NASA. Says, through attorneys, that his three marriages did not overlap.

Stephanie Dumstorf: Wife No. 1. Met Dumstorf through a Catholic student group. Married him in 1960. Says they had seven children and were married 46 years.

Judy Howell: Wife No. 2. Met Dumstorf through work in Kentucky, then married him in 1984 after they moved to Florida. Had no children with him. They divorced in 2000.

Julie Jones: Calls herself Dumstorf's girlfriend of 20 years, until 2006. Says they talked about getting married when he retired from the military.

Martha-Irene Weed: Wife No. 3, a South Tampa lawyer. Represented Dumstorf in his divorce from Howell, then married him in 2004. Now seeking annulment.

Timeline
1960: George W. Dumstorf Jr. marries Stephanie Schmida in Akron, Ohio.

1963: Dumstorf says he begins working at Cape Canaveral.

1984: He marries Judy Howell in Lehigh Acres.

1986: He meets Julie Jones.

1988: Stephanie says she and Dumstorf move to Florida.

2000: Dumstorf and Howell divorce in Hillsborough.

2004: He marries Martha-Irene Weed in Panama City Beach.

May 2006: Weed files for an annulment.

July 2006: Stephanie Dumstorf files for divorce.

November 2006: George Dumstorf is arrested on a Bay County bigamy charge.

August 2007: He sues Weed for professional negligence.

November 2007: He is arrested on federal bank fraud charges.

By Colleen Jenkins of the St. Petersburg Times. Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Colleen Jenkins can be reached at cjenkins@sptimes.com or 813 226-3337.

Virginia Bride Says "I Do" To Learn Her Husband Already Has a Wife

He knelt in front of her parents and her church family and asked her to be his wife. She accepted and then launched into a whirl of wedding preparations -- finding the perfect ivory gown, glittering tiara and venue for the formal ceremony and reception. 

But there would be no happy-ever-after for this 50-year-old, second-time bride. Barely three months after her February wedding, Brenda Scruggs got news that the charming pastor who'd won her heart had been arrested on a bigamy charge.

The Rev. Ledell Adrice Carr, had, in fact, been married to another woman since 1975. Though he hadn't divorced that wife of 32 years, in the decades since, court records show he had asked three other women for their hand in marriage. Scruggs was the most recent. Before her, there was Carole Ann Byrd in 1999; before that, Donna Marie Pantin in 1993; and before that, Gwendolyn Witherspoon Carr in 1975.

Byrd married the pastor in front of 150 guests at the St. Petersburg Women's Club. It wasn't until early this year -- after their divorce -- that she learned that the 1999 Snell Isle wedding had been a charade. She notified police. "I'm not a vicious woman. I'm not trying to scandalize him," the 57-year-old said. "I was victimized. I was lied to. I don't want to see this happen to other women."

Carr, 52, was arrested on Mother's Day at Solomon Temple Church of Christ inFlorida, where he is pastor, and was quickly free on bail. He declined to be interviewed, but his lawyer, Tamara Dudley, says the arrest was based on a misunderstanding.

Gwendolyn Witherspoon Carr, the woman whom Carr married in 1975, filed for divorce in North Carolina in 1987, the lawyer said. Reached by telephone in North Carolina, Gwendolyn Carr, 52, refused to discuss details of her marriage, except to say that she and Carr are still married and that she doesn't want to add to his troubles.

"He believed that the divorce had been finalized," Dudley said in a written statement. "He only recently became aware that the divorce had not been completed. We believe that Bishop Carr will be cleared of these allegations as he reasonably believed that he was free to remarry."

The St. Petersburg, Florida preacher eventually filed for divorce from Gwendolyn in January of this year. Four weeks later, with his long-standing marriage to Gwendolyn still intact, Carr donned coat and tails and married Scruggs in a religious ceremony in Richmond, Va.

Scruggs, a loan officer and also a pastor, said she met Carr when she traveled to St. Petersburg to conduct a revival at his church in August.

"He asked me to marry him in September," she said. "It was wonderful,  because he appeared to be a man of God."

The wedding, with four bridesmaids and groomsmen and about 125 guests, was at a Sheraton hotel in Richmond. The flowing gown and train "cost me a good $700," Scruggs said. "My sister flew from Colorado Springs to be here. His brothers were in the wedding. He had other family members there," the mother of three said.

Shortly after the Valentine's week wedding, Scruggs packed up her furniture and set up house with her new husband in Brandon, FL. He had picked out a place in a gated community for them to rent, she said, adding that she paid $26,000 to lease the property for a year.

He was to pay her back monthly and they were going to put that money in a bank, she said. The honeymoon was brief.

"We hadn't made two months before he packed up all his things and moved out of the house---because I kept catching him in a lot of lies. He started staying out all night long," Scruggs said.

She learned about the bigamy charges from a St. Petersburg detective. "It blew my mind," she said. "I've never in my life met a lying pastor like that. He was supposed to be honest. He'd talked to my parents. He talked to my children. He talked to my siblings, my church and friends, and his thing was that he was going to take care of me and I didn't have to worry about a thing. That everything was going to be good."

Carole Ann Byrd Carr, the St. Petersburg woman the pastor married before Scruggs, said he is a very likable person. "You can't not like the man, and he said the right things," she said. He is a charismatic preacher, she added.

According to Carole Ann Byrd Carr, her former husband moved to St. Petersburg about 10 years ago from Jacksonville and established Bethlehem Temple Church of Christ. He later changed the name of the tiny congregation to Solomon Temple Church of Christ.

Carole Ann Byrd Carr, who once owned an Allstate agency, said she met the pastor when he walked into her office to buy insurance. She married him a year later wearing "a very elaborate ivory dress." They were divorced last summer, almost seven years to the day of their fashionable wedding.

She said Carr's son with Gwendolyn was at the wedding. She didn't know then that her new husband had been married to the young man's mother. The only marriage Carr mentioned to her before their August 1999 wedding was the one to a Jacksonville woman named Donna Marie Pantin, she said.

Pantin, 38, who is originally from Trinidad, didn't want to discuss her 1993 marriage to Carr. She said she wanted to keep the past behind her.

Bigamy isn't uncommon,  said Bruce Jacob,  a professor of criminal law at Stetson University College of Law. "Sometimes,  it's a kind of a technical thing when a person might think they have a valid divorce," Jacob said.

But, he added, "There are people out there that deliberately marry more than one woman and shuttle back and forth, or they marry one and leave her and marry again, without bothering to get a divorce."

Bill Loughery, division director at the state attorney's office, said Carr's case is still being investigated. In his experience, Loughery said, bigamy is unusual. It's a third-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of five years, he said. "The reality is,  unless you have a bad criminal history,  you're probably going to get probation," he said.

Carr has one previous arrest, in 2003, for an insufficient funds check.

By Waveney Ann Moore of The St. Petersburg Times.

Donna Andersen Writes About Bishop Anthony Owens on the Lovefraud Blog

' Bishop' Anthony Owens was the third Lovefraud true case history. Owens served two years in prison on bigamy charges and has been jailed again for allegedly trying to marry more women.

Owens, a 35-year-old formerly of Duluth, GA, is in a Gwinnett County, GA jail after at least four women claimed he proposed to them after being released from prison in November 2005. Officials also say there is no evidence he divorced the eight wives he had married before going to prison.

Be sure to read Donna Andersen's latest blog post about Owens and learn what you need to know about sociopaths.

Very Bad Men, the Ed Hicks Story, Airs on WEtv Friday, May 18

Predators. Swindlers. Bigamists Masters of Fraud. The men who prey on friends and complete strangers alike. Very Bad Men is a seven-part, true crime series that exposes some of the most notorious cons on record. 

Very Bad Men, first shown in Canada on Global TV and filmed by Make Believe Media is now showing on cable's WEtv each Friday evening, with repeats early Saturday morning.

Meet the men who took what they wanted at any cost. The Don Juan of Con--bigamist William Michael Barber, The Sweetheart Swindler, The Man Who Married Too Much--bigamist Ed Hicks, The Messiah of Death, The Sweetheart Swindler, etc.
               
These men and their crimes fall across the spectrum - fraud, bigamy, larceny, crimes of passion, and murder.

Their methods, the tricks of their trade and the horrendous impact on their victims' lives - it's detailed in every episode - leaving little doubt that these are definitely some Very Bad Men.

The story of serial bigamist Ed Hicks airs Friday, May 18 at 10 PM. As many of you know, I was married to serial bigamist Ed Hicks, and as a result of my personal experience with bigamy, I began this blog in September 2005. Working together with the wife before me, Julie, we ensured that Ed Hicks was slapped with the toughest sentence ever handed a serial bigamist in the state of Virginia.

Read an overview of the episodes on WEtv's website. Read more in John Hopkins' Virginian-Pilot article.

British Serial Bigamist Cons Women in Canada

A serial bigamist who has conned women in Edmonton, England and Ontario is at it again, says a shell-shocked Vancouver woman who just came "this close" to marrying him.

"My objective in telling my story is to warn other women and make sure they don't go through what I've just gone through, because it's pretty cruel," said Lesley, who didn't want her last name used.

Last October, a beguiling Brit named Michael (Mick) Waring showed up in a Vancouver neighbourhood pub and swept Lesley off her feet. The 48-year-old dog walker wasn't looking for a boyfriend, but found herself totally smitten by the affable Waring.

"He's just charming and funny, someone you can hang around with and laugh with," said Lesley.

Waring was a construction worker, but claimed to also be a member of the Special Air Service, an elite and highly secretive unit of the British Army.

He won over not only Lesley but her friends and other patrons at the pub, regaling them with war stories of his work with the SAS.

Within two months, he'd moved into Lesley's basement suite and asked her to marry him. She eagerly said yes.

Little did she know that Waring has been steadily collecting wives for 17 years.

Last September, he was convicted of bigamy in an Edmonton court for marrying a city woman, Lori Waring, in August 2005, while still married to Briton Angie Waring. He married her in February 2003.

According to Sun sources, Waring is still married to Lori Waring, Angie Waring and Ontario resident Debbie Waring.

Angie's mom Susan told Sun Media that Angie - who came to Edmonton and busted him leading a double life last year - has not divorced him because she has no idea of where he is.

Waring would disappear from time to time, said Lesley. Once, he told her his SAS unit had been dispatched to Afghanistan to blow up terrorists.

When he returned from one of the missions, he told his pub friends he'd been awarded the "George Cross" and showed off a letter of praise from a British lord.

Perhaps Lesley's first inkling that something was off came when she noticed the letter was full of typos.

But their relationship carried on, and last month a jubilant Waring announced he'd closed the deal on a $1-million house with a breathtaking view for them to live in.

Waring told her he also owned two houses in Edmonton and one in England. He didn't mention the bank foreclosed on his $315,000 west Edmonton home after he fell behind on the payments while in jail for bigamy.

Days later, Waring told Lesley he'd been called away again - this time to Spain on SAS business.

But Lesley found out he hadn't put a deposit down on the new home and they were in danger of losing the deal. She tried to reach him, but his cellphone was off.

It was when she looked through her computer that Lesley's world came crashing down on her.

She discovered her dashing fiance had been using her eBay account. Her stomach turned when she saw some of the online auction items Waring had been bidding on - a George Cross, an SAS medal and a United Nations military medal from Cyprus, said Lesley.

When Waring finally called her, she told him it was over. He has since skipped out of Vancouver, leaving Lesley reeling over how close she came to being Mrs. Waring No. 4.

"I loved him to death. I've never given myself to anyone like I gave myself to him," said the heartbroken woman.

By Eliza Barlow of Sun Media

Sociopaths, Bigamy, and the National Marriage Database Featured in The Press of Atlantic City

Meggan Clark writes in her Press of Atlantic City article recently about men who win your hearts and take your money via Internet love connections. Clark speaks of "countless women across the country and around the world — women who have been left destitute by serial bigamists who fabricate an entire life of lies in order to win their victims' hearts and take their money".

The article features Lovefraud.com author Donna Andersen's story as well as Donna Layne Roberts'. Also there are comments from an expert on sociopaths from Rutgers University and comments from Rhoda Cook, the national coordinator of the Citizens United to Find Fugitives (CUFF).

In addition there is a sidebar article about the push for a National Marriage Database. Read the entire article online.

Bigamist Con Man William Micheal Barber Story on the Montel Williams Show Monday, August 14

Michael William Barber is a serial bigamist and conman who is believed to have married at least 12 women, cheating many out of their life savings.

Police say he used at least 20 different aliases including William Barber, Chris Barber, and Chris James, and had five different social security numbers.

Barber swept women off their feet and then he cleaned out their savings accounts, lied to them, cheated on them, and even allegedly abused some. He told one wife he was a surgeon on sabbatical, he told one he was a former professional football player, he told another he was a Vietnam vet, and yet another he was a bio-terrorism expert. He told people he was shot in Vietnam. He said John Ashcroft was a good friend of his. He even told one wife he had leukemia. Nothing he said was true.

Tune into the Montel Williams Show on Monday, August 14. For show times in your area, check the local listings. Be sure to share your opinion about the show.

Donna Layne Roberts, who began the petition for the National Marriage Database, will appear with two of Barber's other wives, a former business associate and his wife, as well as Barber's sister.

Bigamist Con Man Eric Cooper Receives 15-Year Sentence for Tampering With a Government Document

Eric Eugene Cooper pleaded guilty late this morning and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

State District Judge Mike Wilkinson imposed the sentence after Cooper, 30, changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. A jury convicted him Tuesday of tampering with a government document for altering the car title of one of his wives.

Cooper had requested that the judge assess his penalty instead of the jury, so jurors were excused Tuesday after delivering their verdict.

The jury concluded that Cooper, who has been married at least seven times and was convicted last year of bigamy, signed his name to one wife's car title without permission and forged her father's name on the document.

Jurors heard testimony from four ex-wives and one former girlfriend. All testified Cooper claimed to be a Naval lieutenant, boasted of having a master's degree in business administration and quickly asked them to marry him.

In closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutor Dorian Cotlar pointed at Cooper and said, "This defendant is a wolf in sheep's clothing. There's no better way to describe it. He is a predator. ... a wolf in a naval uniform."

Read the remainder in Peggy O'Hare's Houston Chronicle article. Read more from KHOU.com. View a video on Click2Houston.com.

Bigamy and National Marriage Database Featured on Fox News Baltimore

The National Marriage Database and bigamy were featured as the "Cover Story" on Fox-45 News in Baltimore, MD last night.

You can view the entire video. From the drop-down list, select 'Bigamy', click 'Go' and select your format and speed for viewing.

It is important to note that Donna Layne Roberts began push and the petition for a National Marriage Database and it was she that was married to the 'Don Juan of Con', William Michael Barber.

Dr. Phil Con Man Bigamist Show To Air Again Friday, August 11

Tune in to Dr. Phil on Friday, August 11 for a show on con men...and bigamists. This is a re-run of the original show that aired on December 12, 2005.

As a result of the original airing, serial bigamist Ed Hicks was arrested in North Carolina immediately after the show aired when a viewer recognized him as the man who had just proposed to her sister. Hicks was sentenced for felony bigamy in May and received a five-year prison sentence; four years were suspended.

Read a synopsis of the show. View a video preview at Dr. Phil.com. And post a message on Dr. Phil's message board.

Check the Local Listings for the time and channel in your area.

Alleged Bigamist Gary Davies on Indiana's Most Wanted List

British citizen, Gareth (Gary) John Davies, is running across the USA illegally. His visa expired five years ago. Davies preys on women online. He has an outstanding warrant for domestic abuse and dentity theft and is on Indiana's most wanted list. He is also being sought in llinois, Arizona, and Europe.

Davies is a bigamist with a wife in Germany, a wife in England, and who knows how many in the United States. Within two months of meeting a woman in Arizona, he had asked her to marry him, persuaded her to buy him a truck, and then he went off to Vegas with stolen credit cards. He applied for credit online in her name and gambled away $10,000. He may be in the Vegas or Reno area right now. The last known woman he was after was in California. Read more about this predator at Exposing Online Predators and Cyberpaths.

Bigamist Sociopaths: Shameless Boldness, Flagrant Juggling Acts, and Fraud

Men like Ed Hicks and James Montgomery are charming, smooth talking, but they are consummate liars and they are con artists. Both men are bigamists, and they used online personals' sites to prey on trusting women. A word to the wise--men and women like Hicks and Montgomery are all over the Internet oozing their charm--BEWARE. Most importantly learn the signs of the con and the key symptoms of the sociopath. Both Hicks and Montgomery display the traits of a sociopath, in my opinion. Learn all you can about online predators of adults, sometimes often referred to as cyberpaths.

No Conscience, No Remorse, Shameless Behavior

The Ed Hicks' and James Montgomery's of the world possess no conscience, no remorse, and are always thinking about themselves. It is apparent in the way they manipulate others around them and can juggle several women at the same time. I learned that while I was dating serial bigamist Ed Hicks that he was married to Julie Flint and also was dating at least four other women at the same time. Now, that is exhausting work!

Ed Hicks was sentenced for felony bigamy last Monday. Hicks showed no remorse for his victims when speaking to the judge just prior to his sentencing. He never said he was sorry to Julie Flint, wife six, nor did he apologize to me---wife seven, Sandra Phipps.

The first thing Hicks told the judge was that I was a liar for stating that he had run up debt on my credit card and that it was HE who had debt because of me. The other thing he said was that all HE wanted was mutual love (here we go with "In love with love" again) and HE wanted mutual admiration. Apparently, the judge wasn't too impressed with Hicks remarks---his brazen lack of empathy, his unwillingness to accept responsibility for his actions, and his predatory behavior. For the judge sentenced him to five years in prison and suspended four years, which means Hicks has four years hanging over his head the next time he does something illegal. Furthermore, he was given an undetermined amount of supervised probation.

Can't Get Blood from a Stone

James Montgomery commited bigamy twice. And like Hicks, he juggled several women at the same time and frauded them. A New Jersey court found Montgomery guilty of fraud, and he was ordered to pay ex-wife Donna Anderson $1.25 million. She collected just over $517.00. Montgomery fled to Australia and has been exposed there for military fraud. In the meantime, five years after their divorce, Donna had him served with her New Jersey judgment; he was forced into bankruptcy and has lost his job in Australia.

I awarded a divorce this past Wednesday by a Fairfax County judge, and I received the property Hicks and I purchased in the Bahamas. In no way will the sale of this property make up for what I lost financially. Ed Hicks was terminated from his employment from the Federal Government and for a long time prior to his termination, he was living in his van using a kitty litter box as a bathroom when he wasn't living with Barbara Grant of North Carolina and taking $500 a month from her---a woman on disability. One of Ed Hicks' favorite quotes he used when poking fun of those with nothing or very little: "he doesn't have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of"!

For More Information

Read more about "The Amazing Audacity of Sociopaths" with further information on Hicks and Montgomery in Donna Andersen's latest post on her Lovefraud Blog.

Bigamist Con Man William Barber Now in a Homeless Shelter

April 9, 2006; New York Post by Sue Edleman -- Bigamist scam artist William Barber - who left a trail of wives heartbroken and financially ruined - is down and out in a Paterson, N.J., homeless shelter.

The Casanova con man's new address since being sprung on parole from a New Jersey prison March 27 is the Emergency Men's Shelter in a renovated basement under St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

The shelter is just 27 miles from the suburban Wharton, N.J., home of the last of his at least six wives, devastated Joyce Reynolds, who helped put Barber behind bars after she discovered his history of wife-hopping, aliases, forgery and fraud.

"It makes me a little nervous," she told The Post of his close proximity. "I don't know how angry he is."

Looking pale and gaunt, Barber was clearly irked when a Post reporter found him shuffling around the shelter in a brown fleece sweatsuit, turquoise socks and slippers.

"Have a nice day," he said grouchily. "I have no comment for you today, and I'll have no comment in the future, on any topic."

After trying to block a photographer's view, he emerged in a suit.

In a blow to his betrayed ex-wives, Barber, 54, served less than 10 months of a three-year prison term for tampering with public records. He admitted using a false name and birth date when he wooed and wed Reynolds in 2001.

He's now sleeping with homeless guys in a large room with 40 beds and bathing in a communal shower. He is served two hearty meals a day by community volunteers. No female visitors are permitted.

He's also being offered an array of services aimed at helping the destitute get back on their feet. Barber has not yet landed a job, state parole spokesman Ed Bray said last week.

The Lothario louse deserves his new digs, Reynolds said. Barber looted her bank accounts, took out credit cards in her name and used her Social Security number to stick her with his taxes, she said.

"Good," she said. "All the women he conned lost everything they had. Why shouldn't he be down and out for a change?"

When Your Husband, William Micheal Barber, Is A Con Man

NBC's Keith Morrison's reported on William Michael Barber. This Dateline special aired Sunday, October 16.

From the transcript:

Donna Layne Roberts has been hard of hearng since she was 3 years old. She married Barber in 1997. He told her he was a former POW, a retired NFL player, and a cancer survivor. She said he was so sick sometimes, he threw up blood.

So she forgave his sometimes insensitive behavior and the times he didn’t seem to take into account her disability.

Donna Roberts: When he talked to other people he would say things under his breath and I wouldn’t catch it.

What was he hiding? She never knew until the day, after four years of marriage, when he simply walked out the front door. Gone.

Donna Roberts: I went to the bank to withdraw some money to go to the grocery store, there was no money. It was all gone.

She says he took — everything close to $400,000. And she too went into bankruptcy.

Donna Roberts: I lost the house and became homeless. That was a very very hard time for me.
Broke and broken-hearted, Donna soon learned her husband had been seducing his next victim from their home computer.

Rember Joyce, in New Jersey? Barber married Joyce eight days after leaving Donna.

Read the transcript in its entirety and view a video. Be sure to visit Donna Layne Roberts' blog.

Fugitive Michael Soutar Captured on Yacht in Boston Harbor

Bigamist Con Man Captured

(Boston, MA)— Attorney General Patricia Madrid announced  that Michael Soutar, a convicted white collar criminal who escaped from a Bernalillo County Detention Center work detail in December 2004, was captured Tuesday morning on a yacht in Boston, Massachusetts. Soutar was arrested with an unnamed woman identified as his “girlfriend” on the 53-foot yacht docked in Boston Harbor.
Attorney General Madrid said, “Since Michael Soutar first moved to New Mexico in 1991, he has been involved in numerous white collar crimes, including forgery, fraud and spreading of bad checks. I commend the work of law enforcement both here in New Mexico and in Boston to bring Soutar back to justice. I want to especially recognize the efforts of Special Agent Mike Sandoval of my office who pursued justice in this matter for the many victims of this career criminal.”

Michael Soutar was involved in an illegal investment scheme related to the Santa Fe Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico in late 2004. Soutar was on probation at the time and failed to advise investors that he was a convicted felon. Soutar was arrested then sent to an Albuquerque jail for probation violations on August 10, 2004.

On December 16, 2004, Soutar was indicted by a Santa Fe Grand Jury on 22 felony charges for his criminal involvement in The Santa Fe Market. The Grand Jury indicted Soutar for securities fraud, unregistered security sales, tax evasion, forgery, embezzlement, writing bad checks and racketeering. On December 17, 2004 at approximately 2:30 PM, Soutar was on a work detail near Stove and Tenth Street by the Albuquerque Zoo. A maroon four-door vehicle drove near where Soutar was working. Soutar got into the vehicle and managed to escape.

The nationally syndicated television program, “America’s Most Wanted” profiled Soutar in two different shows. He was also the subject of an Arts and Entertainment Network (“A&E”) documentary called “Intimate Deceptions.”

Soutar has had at least six felony cases filed against him in Albuquerque between 1992 and 1994. Soutar will likely be extradited back to Albuquerque to serve his sentence.

Bigamist William Micheal Barber jailed for deceiving latest wife

Con man, William Micheal Barber, sentenced to three years for creating phony identity

BY PEGGY WRIGHT
DAILY RECORD

A 53-year-old con man, who has 19 aliases and has wooed women by pretending to be a surgeon, NFL football player or war hero, was sentenced Thursday to three years in state prison for marrying a Wharton woman in 2001 under a phony name and birth date.

William Michael Barber stood in a courtroom in Morristown in an orange jail-issued jumpsuit and barely uttered a word, even when his latest wife, Joyce (Reynolds) Barber, calmly told a judge she believes that Barber will never stop lying.

"If someone steals your car, your furniture, your computer, money can replace it. When someone steals your pride, your dignity, your self-respect ... no amount of money or time the defendant spends in jail can replace your pride, your dignity and your self-respect," the 49-year-old deceived wife told Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone.

William Barber pleaded guilty on Sept. 22 to tampering with public records. He admitted to the judge that he applied on Jan. 5, 2001, for a license to marry Reynolds, whom he met over the Internet in late 2000 and wedded a week after he came to New Jersey. He said he used the fake name James Micheal Barber and added six years to his age for the license.

Annulment plea

Reynolds is expected to be in Superior Court again next week to ask a judge to annul the marriage on the basis of fraud. One of her attorneys, Jeffrey R. Pocaro, said he has proof that Barber was still married to a woman named Donna Layne Roberts when he married Reynolds on Jan. 19, 2001, in a ceremony performed by the mayor of Wharton.

In a pre-sentence report prepared for the judge, Barber denied being a bigamist, Falcone said. But the man who said he was born in St. Louis, Mo. admitted to having three wives before Reynolds. He said the last wife divorced him in 1993 while he was serving a sentence for fraud. He claims to have three children.

Falcone said he got a letter from Donna Roberts, a school teacher who claimed that she knew Barber as Christopher James Michael Barber. She wrote that he deserted her on Jan. 11, 2001, leaving behind bounced checks and bankruptcy filings for failed trucking businesses. When they met, Barber was in a wheelchair and had leukemia but miraculously recovered, the judge said.

"He claimed he was healed because of their love," the judge said of Roberts' relationship with Barber.

Jilted Missourian

He said he also heard from Diana Barber, a Missouri resident who cast William Barber as "a habitual, conniving, chronic fraud," who owes her $51,000 in back child support for their son, who is now 18.

Barber had told Reynolds he was a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon taking a sabbatical after his child died. According to the judge, he told another paramour he was a former professional football player.

Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Joseph D'Onofrio said that Barber has been committing fraud-related crimes since 1970. He has convictions in Illinois, Missouri, California, Wisconsin, and Louisiana, with his last prison term six years in Missouri for passing bad checks. D'Onofrio said that Barber tends to seek out "people looking for some connection" in their lives and then preying on them, as he did with Reynolds. He said he does not expect Barber to change, though Reynolds told the court she believes he needs psychological help.

"Only Mr. Barber knows who he is or what he's about,"D'Onofrio said. "There's the saying 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks.' Mr. Barber has committed these tricks his whole life. When he gets out, he'll probably be back to the same thing."

No degree

When Barber pleaded in September, he told the judge he got a degree in business administration in 1972 from the University of Missouri. Reynolds told Falcone Thursday she learned the purported education never happened because Barber was in jail in 1972. The judge understood her reference; he had received a letter on Sept. 27 from a woman in Arkansas, whose husband had partnered a few years ago with Barber in forming a fugitive recovery, or bounty-hunting, service to catch bail jumpers. This woman told Falcone that Barber in 1972 was serving a federal sentence in Kansas. Barber had told his bounty-hunting partner he was a war hero, with 30 years of experience in the U.S. Army.

Barber's life with Reynolds started unraveling in June, after his bounty-hunting partner got suspicious about a story Barber told of being arrested for being $50,000 in arrears on child support. Barber had told the partner, who started digging into his past, that he was married to the same woman for decades. This partner, along with Barber's sister Pamela Gaines, were instrumental in getting police to check into Barber's marriage to Reynolds in Wharton.

Notorious Con Man Exposed, Charged, Jailed

Alerting the Public About Con Artists--Donna Layne Roberts is committed to helping put conmen and conwomen behind bars where they belong.

Never Trust a Charmer

Michael William Barbar is his real name. Below are his known aliases. Barber has been arrested, charged, jailed, and exposed.

• aka Gaianvanno, Miceal      
• aka Barber, William Micheal      
• aka "Doc" Barber      
• aka CJ Micheal Barber      
• aka Micheal Barber (2005 name)      
• aka James M. Barber
• aka Chris Barber Barbarino      
• and MORE (up to 24)

If you too, have been a victim of this con man, know of other con men, or have been a victim of a con man, please contact Donna Layne Roberts via her blogspot.

Read more about this con man bigamist at the POW Network site and search for Barber.

CON MEN