Flatbush Man Cons $20K Out Of 91-Year-Old Grandpa: Queens DA

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — A Flatbush con artist scammed $20,000 out of a 91-year-old man by pretending to be his grandson and demanding money for bail, said prosecutors.

George Etienne, 27, was sentenced to up to a decade in prison Tuesday for phoning the elderly California man on Nov. 2, 2017, claiming he'd hit a woman with his car and was in need of money to post bail, according to the Queens District Attorney's office.

A person posing as an attorney then ordered the nonagenarian to hide $20,000 in cash in a magazine, stuff it into a FedEx package and send it to an address in Glendale, Queens, said prosecutors.

The "lawyer" also told the elderly man not to tell anyone about their arrangement, prosecutors said.

The 91-year-old man mailed the cash one day later and when the FedEx package arrived in Queens Etienne tried to use a fake Pennsylvania driver's license to sign for it, said prosecutors.

The FedEx driver refused to hand over the delivery, dropped it in the mail slot and left, prosecutors said. Police arrested Etienne later that day, after he asked the people who lived in the address to give him his package, which he said had been sent to their home by mistake.

A jury found Etienne guilty of criminal possession of stolen property and a forged instrument in Queens Supreme Court earlier this year and on Tuesday he was sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

"This heartless scammer preyed on the victim’s love for his grandchild," said Acting District Attorney John M. Ryan. "The sentence imposed by the Court today is more than warranted.”