January 09, 2009 NEOSHO, Mo. — Marty W. Rickey, alleged home invader and swindler of the elderly, is back in the Newton County Jail on fresh charges of running the same old game.
By Jeff Lehr
NEOSHO, Mo. — Marty W. Rickey, alleged home invader and swindler of the elderly, is back in the Newton County Jail on fresh charges of running the same old game.
Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said investigators in his department believed Rickey, 33, of rural Seneca, to still be in custody in Kansas, where he was sent after being acquitted by a jury in November of charges related to a three-state crime spree in 2005 involving his brother and another man.
But when a report surfaced Thursday of a 72-year-old man who got into a scrape inside his home on Goldfinch Road with a younger man trying to squeeze money out of him for phony roof repairs, the scam seemed all too familiar. Copeland said his department checked with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department and learned Rickey was no longer in jail there.
A man falsely claiming to be with Tamko Roofing went to the door of the man on Goldfinch Road and tried to get him to pay for repairs to his roof, Copeland said. When the man refused, the would-be swindler hit him in the face with his fist and the two began wrestling inside the house, the sheriff said.
The younger man claimed to have a gun and threatened to use it on the older man when the older man gained a hold on him. That caused the older man to let go and run to another room to grab his rifle, the sheriff said. The home invader then fled the house. The sheriff said a second suspect was believed to have been waiting outside in a pickup truck, and the two drove off.
“A photo lineup of possible suspects was shown to the victim, and he picked out a photo of Marty Rickey as being the assailant,” Copeland said.
In the meantime, Joplin police had been developing their own case against Rickey in connection with the attempted swindle of an 85-year-old woman on the south side of town a little more than a week previously. The Newton County prosecutor filed a charge of financial exploitation of the elderly in that case against Rickey on Wednesday and an arrest warrant was issued. But he hadn’t been picked up yet.
A probable-cause affidavit states that Rickey on Dec. 30 contacted the woman on Grand Avenue and told her that her roof needed fixing. He asked her for a check for $2,120, the affidavit states.
The affidavit states that the woman also identified Rickey in a photo lineup.
James Rickey and Gaston were convicted of both home invasions in Newton County and assessed prison sentences. But the Newton County prosecutor’s case against Marty Rickey was complicated by the death of one of the victims before she’d been deposed for the purpose of trial testimony, and James Rickey’s claim that Gaston was lying when he testified for the state that Marty Rickey was with them.
Marty Rickey was charged in Cherokee County, Kan., with kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary and misdemeanor theft a year ago while out on bond. Following his acquittal in Missouri, he was transferred to Kansas on those charges.
But the Globe was unable to determine late Friday if he had posted bond on the charges or if the charges in Kansas had been dropped.
Abridged
SOURCE: Joplin Globe
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