A man who allegedly swindled an elderly Vancouver couple out of $60,000, and has a history of conning Washington and Oregon residents, was formally charged Wednesday in Clark County Superior Court.
Michele Bocci, 37, appeared in custody and pleaded not guilty to first-degree theft, first-degree criminal impersonation and tampering with a witness. Judge Suzan Clark set bail at $250,000, and a trial was scheduled for Sept. 3, according to court records.
A search warrant was filed April 30 after Vancouver police conducted interviews and reviewed bank and phone records to tie Bocci to the alleged theft. At the time the warrant was filed, Bocci was an inmate at the Washington County Jail in Oregon for a parole violation, according to online records.
Vancouver police Detective Michael Day began the probe April 20 after an officer took a report about financial exploitation of an 80-year-old woman. The woman’s daughter reported the theft, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Bocci met the woman’s 83-year-old husband at the Vancouver Mall Starbucks, the affidavit states. The man said he was speaking with a friend about Christian teachings when Bocci approached them, pulled out a worn Bible from his backpack and sat at their table without being invited to join.
The man and Bocci met at the coffee shop several more times, and Bocci helped him with errands. Bocci also drove him around and gave him money for a medical exam, among other kind gestures, according to court records.
Bocci claimed he was stabbed and shot after helping a woman who was being attacked along the Columbia River, leaving him comatose for two months, according to the affidavit. He also said he lost his job and home due to the medical costs, the search warrant states.
Eventually, the man introduced Bocci to his wife, who told police she felt sorry for Bocci and wired money to his bank account on several occasions, according to the affidavit. One of the transfers for $2,400 was supposedly going to be used by Bocci to purchase and register a car, the affidavit states.
Days later, the woman loaned him $25,000 for a deposit on a condo in Jantzen Beach, Ore. When Bocci asked for more money, she doubled the loan, the search warrant says.
Despite repeated reassurances, Bocci never paid back the woman, according to the affidavit.
“(The woman) explained she was so upset because she has always been very tight with her money and yet she just threw it around like water when Michele asked for money,” the search warrant states.
The Vancouver couple recovered about half of the stolen funds after a fraud investigator at Twin Star Credit Union realized something wasn’t right and froze Bocci’s account, the search warrant states. The woman has requested $32,366.02 in restitution, according to a court document filed Tuesday.
Bocci’s prior convictions include at least four schemes.
He was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay back $23,000 earlier this year to a woman he tricked into believing his daughter was sick with leukemia, according to KATU News. Bocci was also convicted of criminal impersonation and second-degree theft in September 2017, first-degree theft by deception in June 2018 and making false statements to a public servant in August 2018.
