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Patrick Giblin, 56, was being transitioned from a federal prison in Lewisburg, PA to serve out the rest of a sentence at a halfway house in Newark when he bolted on July 23, 2020, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
Giblin had already served six years for a 2007 wire-fraud scheme when he was sentenced in 2017 to five more years after admitting he duped several women in an online dating scam.
He was barely a year short of freedom when he skipped.
It was the second time that Giblin had escaped federal custody just short of completing a sentence.
He’d bolted a halfway house the last time and immediately went back to scamming women, federal authorities said.
Giblin found his victims in the second case, as in the first, by posting ads and messages on telephone dating services throughout the U.S., they said.
Claiming that he was moving to or visiting nearby, Giblin developed virtual relationships with them before claiming that he needed a loan for relocating or travel expenses.
Giblin got some victims to wire him cash via Western Union and MoneyGram and others to make transfers onto a debit card that federal authorities said he used.
Some of the money went to more airtime for cellphone calls to new victims, they said.
Overall, authorities said, Giblin victimized 10 women in various states.
Following his recent escape, U.S. Marshals found Giblin in Atlantic City and arrested him last week, Honig said Monday.
He remains in a secure facility and faces up to one year in prison if convicted of escaping federal custody, she said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gabriel J. Vidoni of Honig’s Criminal Division in Camden is handling the case for the government.
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