Homeless con man sentenced for bilking women

He wasn't much to look at, but, boy, was he smooth.

How else to explain how Paul S. Krueger, a pudgy, bald 50-year-old homeless man, managed to bilk 13 women out of $102,000 by posing as a record producer-turned-investor on MillionaireMatch.com.

"He was very down-to-earth, nice to everybody. Just a nice guy," recalled Noelle Stehling, 38, one of his victims.

Yesterday, Krueger, who blew the women's money gambling at Atlantic City casinos, pleaded guilty to theft in Montgomery County Court and was sentenced to five to seven years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution.

The gigolo's victims included eight women he met online - several through the premium dating service that defines a millionaire as anyone making $150,000 and above annually - and five people introduced to him by one of the women. The dating scheme ran from April 2007 to last May, when Krueger was arrested sipping a soda at Harrah's.

"He was a suave guy," said his public defender, Steve Heckman.

After Krueger met his victims, who ranged from a Dallas jewelry designer to a Florida singer and swimsuit model, he sent them a photo that he must have thought showed him at his best: wearing a vintage '80s tuxedo and sporting longish hair.

"It was kind of a Chippendale look with a big mustache," said Stehling, a marketing consultant and fitness instructor from California.

After they met in December, Stehling talked to Krueger by phone for months before rendezvousing with him in Atlantic City in April. She considered him a friend and even came up with a plan for him to lose weight.

Though he was older, balder and heavier than in the picture, Stehling said, he was a likable guy who seemed to know everyone in the gambling mecca, from the salesman at the Versace store to the chef at the VIP lounge.

"He was treated like a king," she said.

What she didn't know was that because he blew so much money - hers and others' - at the casinos, he had a number of VIP accounts and was awarded free rooms and meals. So when his "investors" visited, he wined and dined them as if he were a high roller, said Assistant District Attorney Bob Sander.

"They thought he was legit," he said. "He was a good scam artist. A bad gambler, but a good scam artist."

The women agreed to buy into his fake investment enterprise, some giving him as much as $10,000, according to court records.

Some became romantically involved as well.

Though his original intention was to make money, "he didn't turn down collateral benefits," Heckman said.

Though Krueger liked to drop names, such as Gloria Estefan's - at whose Miami studio he supposedly worked - he was low-key and "normal," Stehling recalled.

He even told her that he wrote a song for her that a famous Latin singer was recording.

"There was nothing suspicious about him," she said.

He provided enough realistic details about his life, mentioning his ex-wife and teenage daughter, to make him seem authentic, and led her to believe that he was retiring from the record business and looking to get into a new venture.

"He said, 'I don't need to work. I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life,' " she recalled.

The victims maintain that they never really understood Krueger's scheme, which supposedly involved stock options and a CD and DVD manufacturing plan, according to court records.

But for Stehling, that didn't matter. She thought they were good friends with the potential for romance.

"He's very sweet. I liked that. Who doesn't?" she said.

The con unraveled when a Montgomery County detective called her on the day she was leaving Atlantic City. He told her that Krueger was a phony who had defrauded 12 other women.

She called Krueger right away, and he proclaimed his innocence. A month later, he was arrested.

At the time, he had been living on the Atlantic City streets for over a week. Authorities were tipped off to Krueger in October 2007 by a QVC model who figured out that she was being conned and hired a private detective to investigate.

Around the same time, another victim filed a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, and Souderton police found a bag in a park with a wire transfer of $125,000 to a South American account belonging to Krueger.

The money was never found, Sander said.

The Florida singer and swimsuit model who was duped said she is glad Krueger is going to jail. Nicole (who asked to be identified by only her first name) said he contacted her through her Web site five years ago, pretending to be a record producer.

He even said he was starting his own record label and invited her to the Grammys.

"His stories were so right-on. I'm in the music industry, and to pull off what he did was amazing," said Nicole, 29.

She eventually gave him $5,000, which he claimed would make her a million dollars.

"I know we sound really stupid, but if you could speak with the man -," she said. "We had a friendship for three or four years before money was even mentioned."

While Nicole thinks he got what he deserved, Stehling, with whom she has become friends, said, "I feel bad for him. He definitely has some problems."

Those problems, authorities say, include a criminal history dating to 1992 for theft, credit-card forgery and indecent exposure. He was on probation in Montgomery County for a similar scam from 2005, in which he also posed as a record producer and got a woman to give him $5,000 to invest. He received five years' probation.

Krueger lived in Souderton until his gambling addiction upended his life, Sander said. He lost his house, his wife divorced him, and he ended up living on the streets of Atlantic City.

Heckman said his client was remorseful.

"I think he got carried away with himself a little bit. One matter fed on the other and he was able to inspire this much trust in people," he said.

He couldn't say how Krueger, who is a college graduate but does not seem to have ever held a real job, will pay back the money that he stole.

"But if anybody can raise that kind of money, he can," Heckman said. "Let's hope he does it legitimately."