Pinellas Park Police have arrested a man they say conned one elderly person out of nearly $4,000.
Police say 41-year-old Christopher Miller worked as a meat sales/delivery person for Gourmet Grocery when he befriended and stole thousands of dollars from at least three elderly victims. One of those victim's is a 78-year-old man with Parkinson's Disease.
"I (trusted him) at first, but then I realized he was scamming me," 78-year-old David Kenner said.
Kenner says the scam started late last year with a knock on the door. He says he took a look at the steaks Miller was selling and decided to buy a few. Later, he looked at his credit card statement.
"Charged me double, triple, 4 times over," Kenner said.
But the con continued.
Miller would apologize and promise to make things right. He would ask for different credit cards, take the numbers and continue to make charges, according to Kenner and his caretaker and friend Donna Parker.
Kenner says Miller gained his trust by being friendly and talking about religion.
"He would say 'Hi. How are you my friend?' He would talk to me about church, you know," Kenner said.
At one point, Miller sold Kenner a deep freezer that he installed on his front porch. Like the milkman, he would fill the cooler when he needed meat.
"It was like, we're doing a scam on this man and we're doing it up good," Donna Parker, Kenner's friend and caretaker said.
"Eventually we put the cooler in the house and locked the door. Then he would bang on the door and have a face to face stand-off with me," Parker said.
We did some digging and found out Miller has been arrested for crimes like this before. In 2007, he was arrested for exploiting the elderly in Sarasota County. He is currently being investigated by the Pinellas County Sheriff's office for the same crime.
"I hope he gets jail time," Kenner said. "He deserves it."
We talked to the owner of the company, Gourmet Groceries. He said Miller was contracted out to sell their product and was fired as soon as they learned about the allegations. When asked if they did a background check, the owner said "no, we don't do that."
