LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Authorities says a Pennsylvania woman has been scammed out of her $159,000 life savings by a man who told her she’d face Mafia retaliation if she didn’t give him money.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro says that man, 45-year-old Yancey Taylor, gambled away the money at casinos.
Taylor is from Donora, a Pittsburgh suburb, but the charges were announced Tuesday in Lancaster County, where the alleged 69-year-old victim lived.
Police say Taylor stole the money from the woman in 2013 and that she received threatening phone calls when she tried to resist. A state grand jury investigated the case, which began when the woman rented some property she owned in Westmoreland County to Taylor in 2012.
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Online court records don’t list an attorney for Taylor, who faces a preliminary hearing June 9.