Police in Alpharetta, Georgia, have asked the public for assistance in tracking down Dwayne Keith Gardner, who has a history of conning women. Here’s a report from Fox TV in Atlanta:
Police say Dwayne Keith Gardner travels the southeast claiming to be an attorney for an NFL team, a former navy seal or a retired naval officer. He targets single older women by conning the women into lending him large sums of money.
Gardner also steals physical items from his victims. After committing the theft, he flees the area, say police.
Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for felony theft against Gardner. Gardner is believed to be in the Metro Atlanta region. Police believe there are other victims of his crimes who have not come forward. Police are asking anyone who has been a victim of this activity to come forward to file a police report.
If anyone knows the location of Dwayne Keith Gardner, they are urged to contact the Alpharetta Dept. of Public Safety’s tip line at 678-297-6307.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this news item. In fact, I was shocked. In the five years that I’ve been running Lovefraud, I’ve never seen the police actually try to locate someone who goes around taking money from women. Usually, the authorities can’t be bothered with sweetheart scams.
But this man has left a trail of destruction all over the country. Five different complaints are filed on the Ripoff Report website about Dwayne Keith Gardner, aka DeAndre Roche. Here are excerpts:
May 10, 2007
Woman from El Paso, Texas
Dwayne Keith Gardner or DeAndre Roche claims to have a trust fund, to be an attorney/sports & entertainment agent, retired baseball player (Devil Rays, Rangers, Padres), former Navy SEAL, says he is of Creole decent, born in Paris, France (actually born in New Jersey). He’ll say his mother Isabella, a federal judge and his sister Joy, a doctor, were murdered November 2001 and case not solved. Out of all this only the name Dwayne Gardner is true.
He married me in September 2004 and by late October moved us to San Antonio, TX where he claimed to be opening a restaurant and a hotel. All he did while there was set up women to send him money and rip off “employees” from Georgia whom he’d promised employment in Texas.
He corresponded with a “business partner” in Las Vegas and told her I was a cousin’s ex-wife he was helping out ”¦ In December 2004 he left for Las Vegas again on business, I later learned he married his business partner although he was already married to me. ”¦ I searched his so called private papers there were letters from other “wives” in Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee, in addition to several photos of women in varying stages of undress, these I destroyed. After leaving San Antonio I learned he was wanted on a felony arrest warrant by the Chattanooga, TN authorities.
March 13, 2008
Elaine of Charlotte, North Carolina
Dwayne Gardner and I were married August 22, 2004 ”¦ He had claimed after we were married that we were going to purchase this home, to which he had me going out and checking out home. He then found a brand new home with a price ticket of $1,357,800. Dwayne never once gave up a dime, saying the money would come from the family trust funds.
After a few weeks of Dwayne’s promises I finaly told the builder to forget it. Cause Dwayne would disappear. And then reappear, claiming he had to go to Vegas for client relationship dealing.
Now finding that not only was he married to me that August, but got married again that following month to someone else ”¦ Now seeing this report on him and the woman to whom he had married prior to me, and now finding that he is currently locked up in Tennessee.
December 30, 2008
Angie from New York, New York
This man will do and say anything to get a woman, any woman to marry him. Ladies, he will say he has never been married (a lie), that he is an attorney and his client list includes past and present sports stars (lie), that he is a retired baseball player (lie), that he was once a Navy SEAL (lie) that he manages existing and up and coming musical talent (lie) and that he has a multi million dollar trust fund at his disposal (lie).
If he picks you up in a vehicle you can be sure that it is not his, most likely it belongs to his latest “wife”. This man has no income of his own and no desire to. He will be perfectly happy to spend yours or anyone else whom he is able to convice that he is handiling some sort of legal work for them.
Early on in your courship he will take you on a tour of high end homes for sale and will actually negotiate a contract to “purchase” one. He’ll tell the real estate agent that his “lawyers” will wire the full purchase amount to an escrow account within 3-5 days of the buyer submitting a signed contract; of course this never happens. He finds some reason to “back out ” of the deal and promises to purchase a more suitable home.
He’ll do the same with car dealerships. He picks out a luxury vehicle for himself and his new wife. The dealer writes up the purchase agreements and patiently waits for the money to be wired within 3-5 days. Again the deal falls through. In the mean time you find yourself supporting him and yourself; this guy likes to eat and he likes his meals on the high end (salmon steak, talapia, sirloin, rib roast etc.)
Report #406209
April 27, 2009
Angeline, in Miami, Florida
This man contacted me on an online dating site. He left me his phone number and asked me to call and talk to him. During our conversation he said he was an attorney who handled clients in professional sports and the entertainment and music industry. He seemed very nice over the phone so I agreed to meet. He showed up driving a late model SUV. After about a 3o minute conversation his cell phone rang and said he had to leave as a client needed to see him.
A couple of days later he picked me up and asked me to accompany him as he shopped for a new house for himself as he was new to the area. I was blown away by the homes he was considering, very high-end real estate. At one property he met with the agent and made an offer to pay the full asking price, filled out all the necessary paperwork and promised to wire the funds to an account. A day or two later he took me along as he searched for an other vehicle saying that he had decided to give his current one to a relative. On the way home he asked me to marry him. When I asked why he was in such a rush he said he knew that I was the one for him and he did not want to wait any longer.
To make a long story short; the SUV he was driving when I first met him was not his but belonged to the woman with whom he was living and she was the one who called him during our first meeting not a client. The luxury house he was buying was all a sham, he never followed through with the deal.
He has done all this so many times in the past and will continue to do this for as long as he can get away with it. He has been behind bars for the past 2 1/2 years and is anxious to get started again.
June 2, 2009
Scammed Realtor in St. Petersburg, Florida
Dwayne Gardner was at work in the St Pete area during mid June 2009. He was looking at high end homes and put a “cash” offer in on one. Problem is, he just couldn’t get the money out of his Grandfather’s estate. “The damn lawyers and accountant kept jerking him around.”
This is the guy who scammed me. I had to be the guy to tell his latest “wife,” whom I had been in contact with, that she had been defrauded. Also confirmed with his previous “wife” that he was a con man.
September 1, 2009
Mobile County Alabama
Dwayne Keith Gardner, 46 of Hudson, Florida, and a 52-year-old woman from Slidell, Louisiana.
So now, a year after the most recent marriage that I could find, the police are after Dwayne Keith Gardner. I hope they find him.
More importantly, I hope this means that police will start to take cases of bigamy and marriage fraud seriously.
Oxy, I’m glad you won that stupid court case. Sometimes I think you attract as many P’s as I do! I guess that’s how it goes when the genes are in your family.
Divorced,
LOL, LF girls will laugh.
I have another story that I would love to get feedback on from anyone who has input.
Two women were talking in a coffee shop and I overheard one say that she takes care of a special needs girl who becomes abusive to anyone that begins to show love for her. The girl is 10 years old. I piped up and told her that she is describing a narcissistic personality disorder. We talked for a bit, she described some of the girl’s behavior. Controlling, emotional outbursts, etc… nothing we all haven’t seen here. BUT in a 10 year old? And only to people who show her love? OMG. I wish I could remember better what her special needs were. It was like autism, I think. But not quite. She had a need to control her environment. I wish I had listened better.
We’ve all experienced exactly this behavior but in adults so we assume it is calculated. Could they be doing things without understanding? BTW, the girl was adopted and I got the impression it was from Mexico, but didn’t ask.
sky – perhaps it was Aspergers, and perhaps she has a dual diagnosis. be careful about this – a lot of behaviors may look similar on the outside, and not be the same on the inside.
People with Aspergers get very overwhlemed with ANY social interactions (and people who care for us ten to want more from us, and try to give us more). their relationships to their own emotions and to the emotions of others is different also – but I think that’s where the similarity ends; i don’t think in any way that someone with Aspergers is put together like someone who is n.
You do hear about people cross referencing n/p/s/ with Aspergers – wondering if/ what the connections are. We had a someone on here for a while who said they had Aspergers, who was always comparing spath to Asp. (hmmm, for whatever THAT’s worth. maybe I should say, pretended to be the aspergeric husband of someone who really is autistic. i don’t know the whole truth of that story. my gut told me it was a ‘story’. The research I did about them turned up some curious facts and connections and a lot things that were inconsistent to what was being posted and. my bullshit detector was flashing mightily)
Sky,
Sometimes “psychopathic traits” although it is not called that before age 18, will show up early at 10 or so, but the MULTIPLE DIAGNOSIS problem is more likely a combination of any number of different things. ADHD can be BAD at that age, and or bi-polar and any number of other things!!! I’m just not sure what is going on.
With the social situation now in this country most young women who are preg before marriage etc. do not give up their babies, and it so happens that the higher number of “healthy” expecially white babies in this country up for adoption come from very disordered genetic backgrounds so there is a high rate of “disordered” situations in children available for adoption. It has been a higher than average percentage for a LONG time but especially since “normal” young women or families don’t give up infants very often now unless there is something else going on.
Even when it was “noticed” that there was a high rate of disordered or out of control young adults from among the adoptees all kinds of excuses were made for this phenom from “they feel unloved because their birth mother gave them up” and all this kind of carp! At that time no one wanted to admit that a child was NOT a blank slate at birth upon which environment wrote all. Of course now, we know that genetics AND environment both play roles in what we become.
Also ADHD and BI-polar tend to be fairly common in people who are also psychopathic as well, and so while any one of those three problems is or can be bad in itself, to put all three into one individual might be to create a BOMB!
I have professionally worked with a few kids who were 6-10 that were out of control, hyperactive and with all the signs of a budding psychopath, and totally fearless of any consequences whatsoever. They would not seek affectionor praise or respond to it. They were very scary individuals to me.
I rermember the little boy that his adoptive mom from Tennessee sent back to Russia. I think he was 10 or 12,, and I can see him as one of those children. I feel sorry for the adoptive mother feeling she was forced to do what she did, but at the same time, it is sad that these children are born in to a world in which it seems they cannot adjust except with violence.
Dear One, there is no way we can “vet” posters here for their sincerity or truthfulness except sometimes it becomes apparant when they “act out” violently with words—name calling etc. We just more or less have to accept people for what they are, all the while realizing that they may not be that. There are deliberate trolls who come here from time to time, and usually they are easily spottable and given the potted plant treatment and they go away.
Go back and find that article Dr. Leedom wrote that started off with a letter from a BPD who was involved with a psychopaath….many times the “loser” of a gasoline and fire relationship (2 disordered people involved with each other)—comes here and presents as a “victim.”
At what point are they less of a victim than we were/are?
The psychopath who is bested in a situation will present as a victim, lying to the next victim s/he picks telling them what horrible people WE were—and we feel like they victimized us so we tell our next relationship what a psychopath our last relationship was. Who is truthful? Where is the shade of gray? Which of us is black, which of us is white?
More questions than answers.
Dear Divorced from Gaslighter,
ROTFLMAO that’s a good one! Glad to have another good humor on board! Welcome!!!
I’m not sure I would want to date a REAL navy seal, either…I’m finding that guys who are too much into hardship and real danger are too high fliers in other ways as well. Risk taking to the max has its own kind of problems.
Hey, Ox Drover — It IS funny when you start to see a pattern develop, and it does seem as though every bigamist whose story has been told in the media over the past few years has told at least one of his multiple wives that he was currently or formerly a member of the Delta Force or the Navy Seals.
And I agree that the “extreme sports” type of guys generally have to live life on the edge to feel as though they are alive. Endless moves, multiple affairs, overspending, etc. For the typical woman who wants to have a cottage with a picket fence, they make the worst possible husbands, even if they are not actually sociopaths.
Dear Divorced,
My husband was a professional pilot and lived a life of adventure, and to some extent I have also done a lot of adventurous things, but I’ve got the “picket fence” (actually barbed wire) LOL part too, and he and I enjoyed being here on the old family farm…he built himself a little airport and had plenty of guys to “play with” and I had my critters and plenty of folks to “play with” too, so we had a great time settled down in the boonies. A few months before he died he told one of our hired hands that the 12 years (at that time) that we had been here had been the happiest of his life!
So even the high fliers can settle down and be very content, but for the most part, you’re right I think! My husband wasn’t into unnecessary risk at all so was maybe an exception most of them I think. BTW he was NOT in Delta Force or the Navy Seals, and he turned down a BIG salary as a civilian helicopter pilot in Viet Nam–said he wasn’t ever going to fly anywhere people were shooting at you if he had a choice, not for any amount of money! LOL