Posted in

Guilty: Fake Marine Cons Elderly Couple Out of $320K

by Steve Balm••117
Marc Cheeseman

Several news outlets are reporting that they have sentenced a man after they found him guilty of conning an elderly couple out of $320K by claiming he was a Marine.

Fake ‘Marine’ Who Conned Elderly Bucks Couple For $320K Learns Fate
Mac Bullock | 01/19/2023

The conman who posed as a US Marine Corps veteran to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from an elderly couple in Bucks County is going to prison.

Marc Cheeseman, a 50-year-old Silverdale resident, was sentenced to five to seven years in a Pennsylvania state prison in a hearing on Thursday, Jan. 19, District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said in a statement.

Cheeseman previously pleaded guilty in September to several felony theft charges and one misdemeanor count of impersonating a veteran, the DA said.

In court, prosecutors argued that he carried on a yearslong scheme to bilk a Middletown family for their life savings. Beginning in 2017, authorities said Cheeseman presented himself as a former Marine and friend of his victims in need of some temporary financial help.

Specifically, investigators said Cheeseman told the couple he lived on pensions from the military and a carpenter’s union, but that “his funds were frozen” and that he would need to pay in order to access his money.

To sell the con, officials said the phony Marine cooked up bogus documents and letters from the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of the Navy, the Bucks County Public Defender’s Office, Bank of America, and the New Jersey Department of Taxation. The letters were later found to contain multiple spelling and grammatical errors, the DA noted.

Meanwhile, to assist the man they thought of as a friend, Cheeseman’s victims took out cash advances on their credit cards, made wire transfers, wrote checks, pawned off jewelry, sold two of their classic cars, and took cash out of the family safe, authorities said.

They also loaned Cheeseman a pickup truck with an E-Z Pass, a favor he returned by racking up over $1,000 in unpaid tolls, the DA said.

In total, prosecutors believe the conman robbed his victims of $319,882.65 between June 2017 and November 2020.

The victims called police, who quickly determined that Cheeseman was never a member of any service branch. They also found that he’d lost about $167,000 at area casinos while taking money from his victims.

“You broke them,” President Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. at sentencing Thursday. “You stole not just their money, but you stole their future and their memories.”

The story is also provided here:

MAN WILL SPEND 5-12 YEARS IN PRISON IN STOLEN VALOR CASE WHERE HE STOLE 320K FROM MIDDLETOWN COUPLE

What offered a small hint that it was a con?

To sell the con, officials said the phony Marine cooked up bogus documents and letters from the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of the Navy, the Bucks County Public Defender’s Office, Bank of America, and the New Jersey Department of Taxation. The letters were later found to contain multiple spelling and grammatical errors, the DA noted.

Yeah, go big or go home.  Nothing speaks ‘official’ like spelling and grammatical errors.

You might also like

Montana Supreme Court upholds $1.7 million stolen valor ruling

Marines Want to Combat Fake Profiles

Sarah Cavanaugh, Former VFW commander accused of faking military service arrested. 

117 thoughts on “Guilty: Fake Marine Cons Elderly Couple Out of $320K”

  1. I’d respond by responding “cocksucker”, but that’s a foregone conclusion now that he’s been sentenced to prison.

  2. I’m not so sure about grammar and spelling being the tell…. I’ve reviewed enough Army documents to disagree with that. One of the worst ones was seeing an award nomination with ‘cavalry’ misspelled three different ways.

    1. Documents written with an Oxford comma before every “and” or “or,” capitalization for emphasis, greengrocer’s plurals whether possessive or not and all words over two syllables mispelled– military writin’, yo!

      1. Or when they end a sentence with a preposition or have a dangling participle. Most people are not aware that their participle is dangling.

        2. Such as “Where’s It At?”

          For a while, answer was “Between the A and the T (when I taught school, this was the line I used).

          Still remember being taught in the 2nd grade this rule:

          “Class, it’s NOT ‘Winstons Tastes Good LIKE a Cigarette Should.’ It’s ‘Winstons Tastes Good AS a Cigarette Should.'”

          The days of Candy Cigarettes. Or buying an ink pen shaped AS a Cigarette..

          Yep. We were terrible Baby Boomers, raised by terrible people to buy and eat Candy Cigarettes…😉😎

          My Grandma smoked Lucky Strikes. My Dad smoked those Unfiltered Camels. My Aunts and Uncles were both Camel and Lucky Strike smokers when they were not dipping snuff and spitting tobacoo between two fingers..

          Eventually, they all quit. Cigarettes costs too much.

                  2. Funny thing that picture…when my uncle returned from Viet of the Nam, the stereo system he bought in Japan was top of the line, and similar to that photo.

                    1. Wonder if he still has the stereo system?

                      Somewhere in an attic or garage are portions of that system to include the speakers..

                      And our collection of 33 1/2 and 45s…

                      Still have this album. Must have worn the grooves out from playing that song..

                      Maintaining the turntable with a diamond needle…

                      Our parents did not buy us our system. We bought them on our own, as working adults, saving our money for purchasing these items. Rent, Food, Used Cars to go to work if we were lucky to have a car, etc came first as priorities in life.

                      Those were considered luxery items in those days…well, in our eyes…

                    4. Mine too. It was Sansui, but I bought it on R&R in Hong Kong. I also bought custom tailor-made suits and uniforms.

              2. SFCD, young Poe’s five year old cousin spent a creative half hour using one of those to brand interesting patterns in the burled wood dashboard of his daddy’s days-old Cadillac back in the early fifties.

                He survived the beating and grew up to be a rich little queen… 😉 

            3. Kinda like the foot clicker on the floorboard of an older car. I suspect most here know what I’m referring to.

              3. What about the Mercury’s push-button transmission!!!

                Either 1957 or 58. Dad’s favorite car memory.

                I remember playing with the buttons when left in the car at the commissary. Back then only ID card holders were allowed in the commissary, and minimum age was 12 for an ID; if you were a child under 12 …. you stayed in the car and played on the steering wheel and pushed buttons till Mom came back.
                (^___^)

            7. A good Age Check is to ask: Where do you take a busted tranny?
              A) A good mechanic
              B) Gender Afirming Care clinic

            9. Little brother torture device – I’m tougher than you – hold it near his hand till he screams and then by the time you do it it’s cold

          3. In 1992, Virginia was considering another cigarette tax hike. My granddad said that if they pulled that shit, he’d quit smoking (in his mind he thought he would be sticking it to the Commonwealth). Sure enough, he was in the middle of a cigarette when the news announced the tax hike. “Goddamn Communists!” is all he said

            He snuffed out the cigarette and never smoked again, because he was a stubborn old man. Lived to almost 100.

            1. Great story, Carlton…

              Our family must have good genes, because majority of them lived to be in their 90s….They were meat eaters (think Pork), cigarette smokers, moonshiners, collard greens cooked in fatback, cornbread cooked in an iron skillet using lard, buttermilk..

              They also physically worked hard for a living…😊

              1. It’s that latter part that helps solve a great many health issues…it’s not a guarantee, but it certainly helps…I know too many hard workers who’ve retired and did next to nothing who were dead within a year or two not to have decided for myself there’s some sort of link there…

                1. VoV:

                  You NAILED IT…

                  We believe genes MAY be a factor, yet we noticed the same thing, i.e. keeping busy physically helps.

                  Thank You for that feedback…👌👌👌

              2. Well, they lived so long because their generation did not know that stuff was bad for you.

              3. What today is known as “soul food” is actually Southern common-people’s food (regardless of color).

                Yeah, black-eye peas, collard greens smothered in pepper sauce, cracklin’ biscuits with red-eye gravy …. what else can I remember ….. pig’s brain, chiterlings (chitlins … never ate those!!!), lots of Crisco or bacon fat. Pleanty of real flavor!

                1. Oh! and crumbled up biscuits in an ice-tea glass, smothered in buttermilk. Eaten with a spoon like an ice cream sunday

          5. My great-gramma Nana used to dip scotch snuff! She’d spit it off the front stoop from her patio swing.

            West Point, Georgia …. 1960.

            She must have been in her 80-90s

            1. rgr1480:

              Yep! Our GreatGrandparents/Grandparents/Aunts, Uncles used that snuff…it came in a small container…I think it was called “Top?”

              Backwoods of Moore County, North Carolina…1940s/1950s/1960s..Near Fort Bragg…REAL Backwoods..No indoor plumbing. Wood stove in kitchen, Outhouse, a Well for water, a garden for collards..They did have electricity and finally got a small Black and White TV with Rabbit ears…

              Relatives would sit on the porch…they did not use a can…spit it thru two fingers…it was fasninating to watch..

              Never saw my Dad use snuff. He smoked those nojfiltered Camel cigarettes…and quit the day he retired from the US Army..

              Yep. 4 kids in a car. All in the back seat. Dad would light up a cigarette and smoke away while driving. With the windows closed if it was cold outside. Opened windows in the summer. No AC in car. No seat belts.

              Thank You for sharing!

              😉😎

      2. Don’t you be mocking the treasured Oxford comma, just because the heathens have dropped it and said it’s acceptable doesn’t make it so…

        1. Yeah, what he said! Next thing you know they’ll mock the use of punctuation followed by end-quote, champion the use of end-quote before punctuation, followed by a laugh at the mighty semi-colon; but wait, “there’s still more,” he said.

  8. Is this the same Buck County, PA when this Dude was sentenced in September 2021 for posing as a POW?

    “Chalfont man sentenced in stolen valor, fraud case”

    https://buckscountyherald.com/stories/chalfont-man-sentenced-in-stolen-valor-fraud-case,12094

    The story said Richard Meleski will be serving more than a 3 year prison.

    Well, guess what. Just as we predicted.

    He was released 27 September 2022.

    Dude only served a year…UNLESS, perhaps, he died while in Prison…

    Name: RICHARD MELESKI
    Register Number: 77622-066
    Age: 61
    Race: White
    Sex: Male
    Released On: 09/27/2022

  9. This “man” is obviously a piece of garbage but for Heaven’s sake how dumb was this family? Getting taken once for $500 because in a moment of compassion you didn’t exercise discernment is one thing, but come on.

    Makes me think there is more to the story. Possible cuckolding? Only time will tell.

  11. > Guilty: Fake Marine Cons Elderly Couple Out of $320K

    I’m still waiting for this headline: Guilty: Fake President Cons Taxpayers out of Billions

    Let’s go Brandon!

  12. I have family that I love dearly that I would never loan more than a grand to at any given moment in moment in time….who in their right mind gives a “friend” $300k….

    I’d have given him a hearty handshake, best wishes that he resolve his situation and sent him on his fucking way…and maybe a $100.00….

    I read these stories and I’m certainly glad that the piece of shit conman is going to wind up in jail, but for fuck’s sake people stop giving tens or hundreds of thousands to those who are not your children…what in the hell is wrong with these people?

    As I’ve gotten older I even tell young men in the service if they have property or a decent investment vehicle don’t get married without a pre-nup…and if she won’t sign you know all you need to about her character as well…

    Protect your money because no one else will.

    1. I kept giving a girl named Destiny money for college, one dollar bill at a time. I lost track after a while, but should could have gone to medical school with what I gave her.

  13. We were so poor we couldn’t afford a TV with a remote. Instead, we used vice grips to quickly flip through channels. 😉

            1. I remember those, vaguely. Something like 2 rings were ours, 3 rings was the other family’s call. And you could pick up and hear them …. but they (or you) could hear the pick-up “CLICK.”

                1. I used to know our old number from the late 50s…similiar to yours, Jeff..

                  What a small world…😎

            2. Yep.

              Party Lines…

              My Grandparents finally got a phone with a party line…and they used to listen to other folks conversations…

              😅🤣😆

              My Dad would ask “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” to my Grandma with a big grin on his face..she would look at us with this with a smile and give us a ink…

              That is how we found out about the gossip around the area. They would all sit outside on the porch, spitting snuff..and talking about everyone and their business…

              Good Times…

              🤭😉😎

          1. 😎😉🤭😆🤣

            Hey, you may be older than us..or we may be older than you, but we are Forever Young!

            There are others on TAH older than the ninja family! And they are all cool!

            We Love finding those Old TV shows on YouTube to watch…”Queen For The Day” “I’ve Got A Secret” “What’s My Line” “You Bet Your Life” “The Honeymooners” “Amos And Andy”..etc etc…

            When we had a TV, every Saturday morning we got up early to watch Bugs Bunny…the 3 Stooges..

            Summer time we watched Captain Kangaroo…Mr Greenjeans…Mr Moose…Bunny Rabbit…Dancing Bear..He always made cool stuff with shoe boxes, crayons, scissors..

            The original Micky Mouse Club…years later, went to a Chicago concert…turns out the Drummer was Cubby from the Micky Mouse Club.

            David Crosby just died. You know you are getting older when you find out he was 81…and Paul McCarthy is 80…

    2. Stately Stone Manor Home Entertainment System (Black & White RCA with a Cathode Ray Tube, which was the style then). When the plastic knob broke/became misplaced, the field expedient fix action was to use a church key similar to this. Used that little hole, which conveniently was just the right size to grab the dial post.

      1. Church Key..

        Haven’t heard that term for years..

        We still have a couple of those in our kitchen draws…and still use them to open Carnation Milk cans…and use the other end to open a bottle of Coke..

        We also remember using it to open cans of Coke before sodas had pull rings.

        And of course, we still have our original “can opener” still on the chain with our dog tags…it still works after all these years…(comes in handy for uses as well).

        Thanks for sharing!

        1. Mine’s a nice dark grey-brown color. They don’t seem to rust, either. Easily a 1980s issue … might even be a 70s issue.

          1. rgr1480…

            YES! It’s not the same nice shiny color it was…and you are right about not rusting!

            We will ALWAYS treasure our first P38s!

          1. Jeff:

            Just for a test and for fun, we always asked some dudes who panhandle for money in our AO and claimed to have been serving during the Vietnam War Era if they liked those Ham and MFs…

            You should have heard some of the stuff they said back to us…and that is when we said “Nope!” to them on money when they had no clue what a P38 was…or C-Rats….or Ham and MFkers..🤭

      2. Still have a couple of “Church”keys in the kitchen drawer. Used to have one on a key chain when I was onboard the OKI 3. They were given out at beer/soda/ice places when one was buying cases of beer/soda.

        1. Again, have not heard “Church Key” in a long time!

          If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it!

          😉😎

          1. When I was a kid, I put the caps on the long necks after Dad siphoned the home brew into them.

            It was my job to keep several long necks carried up from the basement and put in the fridge to get them cold.

            Dad had a cast iron/painted bottle opener mounted to a shelf in the basement that was a crazy man with four eyes and his buck teeth was the opener.

    4. We had the 45 RPM record player that worked off of the TV set which played stacked records and if you were a collector, the damaged caused by the falling record put in a lot of scratches. Those players didn’t need the little disc with the hole in it because these players only played 45’s.

      2. My Dad before he left this planet gave us a 45 RPM record player from the 1950s…

        Kinda looks like this?

        We have it somewhere boxed up.

        Does your record player look like the one we have, Jeff?

    5. You had the vice grips because somebody in your family broke the plastic channel selector knob. Until the late 60’s, TV’s didn’t have a remote. The Hitachi I bought in Boston in 1972 only had the channel knob.

      2. The first VCR that Hack purchased (1984 while on Okinawa) had a wire remote that plugged it NRO the front panel. Believe that wire was maybe 20 or 30 feet. How big is your living room that you sit 30 feet from the television/VCR?

  14. I guess Lori Benton did not come through.

    All-Points Logistics is hurting right now. A man of this caliber and “Phildoesqueness” will be tough replace.

    Somewhere Phil Monkress weeps….

  15. I knew right away this guy wasn’t a MARINE.
    He doesn’t have the classic, chiseled, brutally handsome features, and steely eyes of a REAL MARINE, such as I.

  16. I found out how this guy was busted.

    Apparently, at no time while using a bathroom did he draw a dick on the wall.

  18. May the Boys in Cell Block C prepare this lying, thieving POS for the Barbed Cock of Satan when he starts to spend Eternity in Hell. Is it too late to make a motion for a Deployment of the TAH As(s)teroid of Insults? Can I get a SECOND and an AYE?

    Buncha Old Farts here that recognize those artifacts of our growing older (no we haven’t “grown up”). Marantz 4415 quad rcvr/amp, SP1200 Sansui & Marantz Imperial 7 Spkrs, Panasonic DD Turntable (didn’t get custody of the Teac R2R). Audio Club/PX, Wiesbaden, FRG 1973. I have P38, church keys, and a car cigar (proper 1st term) lighter. LS/MFT! S&H Green Stamps? Coupla books of those here. Full disclosure; the Digital HD TeeVee upstairs is attached to a set of rabbit ears and pulls in 29 channels of broadcast signal, free TV, that’s ME.

Comments are closed.