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.
Well, he seemed to be consistent in his con—driving someone else’s nice vehicle made him look “good” so he “house shopped” –or pretended to —is more correct, in high end houses making his new dates think he was a rich catch for them.
All they had to do was to marry this guy who thought they were so wonderful and then”in 3 to 5 days the trust fund would pay off” and they would have the life style and the man of their dreams.
Maybe since there are multiple women scammed with essentially the SAME story that there will be a PATTERN of criminal behavior. Maybe they could get him under RICCO,
Thanks for an interesting article, Donna.
Good article, I don’t remember seeing anything like this before. I never wanted to go to the police to try to get back the money I loaned… figured they would laugh me out of the station… even Judge Judy yells at women who loan men money. Why did I think I was responsible for everyone elses problems? I don’t think that way anymore.
I love the exposure and mug shot because my spath was the exact opposite. He enjoyed making more money than I did because it gave him another reason to belittle me. He spoke of getting married but I wouldn’t dare and he left it at that. My spath was too proud to drive my car and not have his own. He no doubt cheated on me but he enjoyed the fact that women may seek him and want his money so that he could belittle, beat, and shame them. Both monsters but different bite!
Dear Chic,
I dont know why I thought it was my responsibility to fix everyone else’s problems either (read: give them money) but I did.
Interestingly I found a tape last night when I was going through a box of tapes (shows how out dated my music collection is) to put on to listen to as I went to sleep and I came across a tape labeled in son C’s printing “aug 1992 P-brother” which would have been a few months after P-son was arrested for the murder in January 92.
It was about 15 minutes of a taped phone conversation between son C and P-son who had called collect from jail to talk to my husband and me, and son C told him we weren’t home and talked to him for a while.
The conversation was unremarkable until toward the end when P-son started bragging about how he was going to get out soon (on bail I assume) and how he didn’t need any commissary money because he would be out in a few days and he would probably come up and see us, he had FRIENDS that would help him, and as soon as he got out on bail he was going start making $400 per day working for some “moving company”–son C questions him on how working labor for a moving company would pay that kind of wages and he back peddles a bit.
Then he starts in on what pieces of carp my husband and I are because we had just bought an airplane for $120,000 and wouldn’t give him the “sweat off their balls”—son C said, “yes, they bought a plane for a business investment but it wasn’t that much” So P-son goes, “Oh, well whatever….they don’t give me anything”
I hadn’t ever listened to that tape, or if I did I didn’t remember it, but it was interesting listening to it, the Sense of ENTITLEMENT he showed, the sense of GRANDIOSITY, the LACK of SHAME for being in jail awaiting trial for murder. The other thing I noticed too, was that the sound of his voice, the sounds of their voices, didn’t bother me. Which in a way is amazing to me that it didn’t.
Turned out to be just an interesting example of how the psychopathic mind works. Nothing personal.
Oxy, yes that is very interesting, I would love to come across a tape like that. P just waved you and your husband off by saying “oh, well whatever… they don’t give me anything” probably saying that after a lifetime of you giving and giving. I’m glad you are out of the fog and have taught people like me what these people are really like… and how I can get out and stay out of the fog.
I think the fact that hearing their voices and not being upset is a testament to how far you have come along in your healing. You have peace and contentment now. You have accepted reality and come to terms with it and have created a life for yourself that you are happy with. God Bless
Dear Chic,
Yea, it was kind of a surprise to find it in among those old tapes I hadn’t even looked at in years. If I ever listened to it before I don’t remember doing so.
Yea, he was so mad that my husband and I had made a business investment instead of sending the money to him to pay his bail. I’m not sure how much his bail would have been but I am sure tens of thousands of dollars.
Funny too that he had had the opportunity the FIRST time he got out of prison to come home, but he had “punished” me by not coming home…and I realize now that if he had come home it would have been me that was murdered not her. He told me the reason he didn’t come home was he knew “if I got in trouble with the law you’d turn me in.” I told him “you got that right”
I think actually now that that comment was more of a threat than anything. He still is angry that I turned him in when he was 17 and I caught him with a bunch of stolen stuff. The girl he killed had turned him in to the law so in his mind the killing was JUSTIFIED. I still can’t get my head completely around that concept, but that’s what it was.
Listening to the tape and NOT getting a big adrenaline rush was sort of eye opening for me, and does confirm my feelings that I am farther down the road toward healing than I had even thought. Mostly what Ii feel for him now is more disgust like the guy that the above article is about. Pure disgust.
I hope that other people have learned from my experiences that they CAN heal no matter how badly they think they have been damaged. I thought that there was NO WAY I could quit hurting. NO way that the pain would ever let up, much less go away. That feeling that it won’t ever be any better is part of what holds us back I think.
If I had only one thing to say to someone newly escaped from a predator psychopath it would be THE PAIN WON’T LAST FOREVER!
Again this reminds me of Jim.
He is a hoarder and he is a thief.
His house is a trash can where he has to walk on garbage. He doesn’t even have a pathway. It is wall to wall garbage, bottles of pee, and who knows what other unmentionables are in the mix.
Then he is a thief. He steals but it becomes a part of his hoard. He leaves it outside to rot in his yard. It doesn’t make sense. The only theft he uses is the money he cons out of people.
Oh Oxy…..I bet he’s getting nothing but ‘butter balls to lick’ in prison!
How about the exagerations….they believe themselves too…..their prices quotes, their time reflections…..the only thing they don’t exagerate is age!
The spath used to exagerate how long we had lived in this area…..like it was an award or somehting…..
I didn’ notice it at first…..then when I startted paying attention, it bugged me but I kept quiet….THEN….the exagerateions doubled…..we have been in yada land for 20 years.
I started trying to remember when we moved here……Um, NOT 20 years at that point….I HAND”T EVEN BEEN OUT OF HS FOR 20 YEARS!
At my 20th reuniion a few years back, he was telling people we’d lived here for 25 years…..DID ANYONE COCK AN EYE AT THAT ONE?
My highschool is 550 miles from here…..
He did the same thing about how long we were married…..and I know for a fact that he really did know…..because the day after our divorce he was caught on tape telling a friend of mine (along with threats)…..WE WERE MARRIED FOR 19 years and 1 DAY!
It clouded my reality also……..I let it!
Dear EB,
He was 17 when he was first arrested, out for a few months, arrested at age 18 and did 2 years, got out at age 20, stayed out a few months, went back to prison at age 20 for MURDER, and “turned 21 in prison….”
so essentially he has never had any relationships but he tells other convicts he killed someone who murdered his “wife”—rather than killing a defenseless 17 yr old girl—and he also wrote on his intake papers that he had a “BS in Computer Science”–wonder when he got that….let’s see, dropped out of HS his senior year, went to jail/prison out for a few months, and back to prison—must have been a CRASH COURSE!
Sure, he’s smart—no doubt about that! Even the major that found his cell phone inside an electric razor (he can weld with a wire and a #2 pencil) said “he’s an electronic genius, isn’t he?” YEP!!!!
Heck, he got his GED when he was in jail awaiting trial for murder—so when did he get his BS? The only degree he has is a BS in BS, or maybe he has a masters degree inm BS by now! LOL
Yea, they doooo have a hard time keeping their “truths” straight! LOL
Dear Jeannie,
I have an “ex” friend who is that kind of hoarder/thief! Stole anything that wasn’t nailed down even though she didn’t need or want it…just a klepto!