It could be a good plot for the next Ocean’s 11 sequel, but then again, maybe not.
According to police, last week, a man from Oklahoma was arrested at a Tulsa casino for allegedly faking his own kidnapping, in the aim of collecting ransom payments from his wife and friends.
Jonathon Michael Davis, age 34, of Owasso, Oklahoma, had not come home for three days since February 27 when his wife reported him to be missing. According to the wife, she received text messages from her husband’s cellphone on March 1, supposedly from her husband’s kidnapper.
The messages from the ‘kidnapper’ demanded that money must be deposited into a PayPal account.
Owasso police Deputy Chief Jason Woodruff said, “One message showed a photo of a broken finger and said that ‘they were going to continue breaking fingers until they pay’.” The ransom amount was $375.
The same night that he was reported missing, police then tracked Davis’ cellphone and it pointed to the River Spirit Casino in Tulsa, where they found him unharmed and actually gambling alone at a table, and the cellphone used to send the ransom texts is in his pocket.
About the broken finger, Woodruff said, “If you do a Google search of broken fingers that image pops up. I can’t imagine putting your family through this for a few hundred dollars, making them think it was a real kidnapping and there was someone out there hurting him. It is a lot to put your family through and a lot of trauma for a family to turn out to be a false report. He wasn’t very good at this. I don’t know if he was thinking about it long term.”
Davis was arrested and charged on March 1 with extortion and false reporting of a crime.
He was transported to the Tulsa County Jail on a bond of $10,000.
He was scheduled to appear in court Friday, March 9.
Source: http://people.com/crime/oklahoma-man-allegedly-faked-kidnapping-for-ransom/
