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SUFFOLK COUNTY ---A 29-year-old Islip Terrace man was arraigned Thursday in Suffolk County court for allegedly scamming an elderly man by falsely claiming he needed money for life-saving cancer surgery.
  Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said Patrick Ruotolo (left), and his wife Lori Ruotolo (right), convinced a Pennsylvania widower, whose wife was a cancer victim, that Lori Ruotolo "had been diagnosed with lung tumors but they couldn't afford the surgery that would save her life".
"The evidence in this case shows the Ruotolos' solicited two $5,000 checks from the victim by claiming surgeons needed the money upfront, and that they'd pay him back by holding a community fundraiser," DA Spota said.
The district attorney explained that the elderly victim "saw his wife suffer from cancer for five long years" before her death in 2001. "He was especially vulnerable to this cruel con game," Spota said.
The district attorney said the victim became suspicious when Mrs. Ruotolo called him from her Islip Terrace home to say "she had the surgery the day before and was recuperating at home, instead of recovery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital".
In his statement to police, Patrick Ruotolo said they swindled the victim because they were in dire financial shape. Ruotolo told detectives he was behind in the mortgage and in payments for the couple's Mercury Mountaineer and Cadillac Escalade.
Lori Ruotolo, 38, is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 28. 9-21-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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