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A sob-story guy gets three years in prison, agrees to leave state after his release

Williams

A Dorchester man who admitted conning people out of money last fall through a convincing sob story was sentenced to three years in state prison yesterday, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

As part of a plea agreement in which he was branded "a common and notorious thief" on 25 counts of larceny and "uttering" (writing bogus checks), Williams also agreed to leave Massachusetts within 60 days of his release from prison - and to stay out until at least Dec. 7, 2021 - the District Attorney's office reports, adding Williams already has a 30-page criminal record featuring 35 convictions for larceny-related offenses.

The DA's office says the suit-wearing Williams, also known as Ray Diamond, Rudy Diamond and Ruby Diamond, would typically approach people with a sob story about needing to get his car out of the shop. At least a dozen people handed over money, in some cases losing up to $1,000, the DA's office says:

Frequently wearing a suit and claiming to be from out of town, Williams would present victims with check to deposit, either asking for all of the face value in cash or offering the victim a small percentage to keep for himself. Each of the checks either had a forged signature or was itself a forgery. All of them later bounced.

In one incident, after presenting the victim with a forged $1,500 check to deposit, Williams took the man's driver's license as bogus "collateral" until the next day, when the victim would give him $1,500 in cash. That victim became suspicious and notified police. Williams never appeared for their scheduled rendezvous.

Boston Police and Suffolk prosecutors assigned to the case linked the various incidents not only through Williams' appearance and consistent modus operandi, but also through a telephone number he gave to nine of his victims: Williams had set up an outgoing voice mail identifying it as the number for Diamond Engineering, which linked up to the "Ray Diamond" and "Rudy Diamond" aliases he used in his cons and bogus checks made out to Diamond Engineering that two of his victims accepted and deposited.

In a statement, DA Dan Conley said the Williams case showed why people should always be suspicious of sob stories from strangers:

There's a saying that you can't cheat an honest man, but we've seen many people with only the best intentions fall victims to scams like this. Most of the victims in this case felt suspicious at one point or another, and I'd advise everyone to follow their instincts in a similar situation.

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Comments

I saw this guy at Logan a few times; he was dressed in a suit and claimed that he was stranded because his wallet and passport had been stolen. He didn't appreciate my suggestions that he go to the State Troopers who were at the other end of the concourse to ask them for assistance. By the third time he approached over a course of a few months, I finally just told him that his scam was old and that if I wasn't late for a flight, I'd go grab the cops. I never bumped into him again there. I'm sure he just started going to a different terminal or something, but I'm glad he was caught.

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Well jeepers, why don't we do this more frequently?

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Yeah, I've never heard of a state kicking someone out, especially if they're a U.S. citizen. Is it constitutional?

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They didn't "kick him out" as Will stated. They agreed to reduce his sentence contingent upon him agreeing that he's guilty and to leave the state for the determined period of time. If he were to show up again before then, breaching his side of the plea agreement, then they'd go back to court and prove that his plea agreement were violated and therefore he should go to jail for the remainder of what would have been his sentence.

So, he's voluntarily leaving the state in order to avoid more jail time.

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If he doesn't leave, he gets more jail time. That's not exactly voluntary.

There are a lot of things the state can't ask you to agree to in exchange for a reduced sentence. I'm surprised this isn't one of them.

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You want criminals hanging around here? I sure don't. That's a great deal: beat it or go to jail. Go be somebody else's problem. I don't overpay to live in the Northeast to have scum in my community.

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Yay, good riddance! I've bumped into him twice in the Kenmore/Fenway area; each time he claimed that his car broke down and he just needed $20 to "get a dry battery" from the hardware store.

On one of these times after I turned him down I took out my cell phone (totally coincidentally, I was waiting for my wife and wanted to see if she'd texted) and he got freaky paranoid--he yelled "What are you, I Spy?" (???) and ran across Beacon Street to dodge me.

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@BillTerrier - I work in Fenway/Kenmore, and I was approached in that area by a guy with a flat tire story like you just shared. But I'm trying to imagine whether it's the same guy from this check scam story. I don't recall my guy looking like the picture here - my guy seemed a bit older and wore glasses, although he was well dressed and was complaining about a car problem. In order to be the same man from Adam's story, he would have escalated his scams - the man in the story was ultimately busted for forging checks of $1000 +.

Seems certain at least that your guy and my guy are the same. Similar stories: your guy asked for $20 to get a battery at the hardware store; rather than ask me for $20, my guy kept saying that he needed to find $20 to buy a can of fix-a-flat, but specifically asked me for a ride to the hardware store rather than for cash. I had just parked and stepped out of my car when he found me. It was a Saturday morning, he said he just came out of church and his car was a couple blocks away with a flat. He was well dressed.

I declined, said I was going going into work right now (and was, I had a bag lunch and paperwork in hand and I was moving into the doorway of the building) and I suggested he ask any of the other people currently getting into or out of cars along the street. I pointed at several, but he didn't even look, just kept following me. Very insistent, not rational. I stayed polite but after two minutes I ended it and said, I want to help you get home, but I'm due at work right now, here is five dollars toward a can of fix-a-flat, I hope you can find a ride to the hardware store from one of these nice people. This set him off. He yelled, expanded his body language - I thought he might swing - chastising me for offering him money, that he hadn't asked for money he only asked for a ride, and how dare I assume that a black man asking for help is begging for change. Nevermind of course that he had stated repeatedly that he needed to get $20 for fix-a-flat, or that offering an ostensibly church-going man $5 toward getting home is hardly throwing change at a beggar. He was furious and stormed off toward Beacon St.

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Hey, I've arrested this guy before, and after playing the fake name game for awhile i learned he had like 8 warrants..... and he was wearing a suit

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instead of waiting three years and incurring the cost of housing and feeding him?

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