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-Caveat Lector- Police capture fraud suspectArrest in Iowa ends search involving various police agencies around the U.S. and Canada.
TROY - Deputies cautiously approached the driver of the Colorado van on an Iowa interstate.
The driver calmly identified himself as Mark Osmon, but a passenger in the same car said he had known the driver for three years as Clayton Steeves.
The driver turned out to be neither, nor was he any of the other two dozen aliases police say he has used in flimflamming his way across North America, duping salespeople and eluding the law for the past several years.
His luck ran out Oct. 20 at Dudley's Corner, a truck stop along Interstate 35 where police say he tried to use a stolen credit card to fuel up.
Police say the arrest of Delmart Edward Vreeland brings an end to a two-decade run of fraud and identity theft across the United States and Canada. When he was caught, Vreeland was sought by police in nine Metro Detroit suburbs and five other states for a variety of offenses. In his possession were 22 ID cards, seven dates of birth, several Social Security cards and a stolen Canadian passport.
Colorado authorities tipped off Iowa enforcement officials. According to Franklin County (Iowa) Sheriff's Department Deputy Chief Ken Lubkerman, Colorado authorities want to charge him with child prostitution in their state, where Vreeland claims to have lived for two months.
Locally, police in Troy, Rochester, Warren, Clinton Township, Detroit, Bad Axe and the Macomb County Sheriff's Department all have outstanding warrants on Vreeland. Others believe he is a suspect in other cases, including robbery and burglary. An extradition hearing will determine which jurisdiction will handle Vreeland first.
After being caught in Iowa, he eventually told police his true identity. "Back in the lockup, he admitted who he was, that the FBI was looking for him and he was tired of running," Lubkerman said. "He's a real gem. Everyone, including Canada, wants a piece of him."
Police have been chasing him for years. Vreeland, now 38, has been arrested 29 times since 1984 and was on the Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard's Most Wanted list for more than four years.
Troy Police Lt. Keith Frye has been searching for Vreeland for five years. Frye said Vreeland - who has served time in Michigan for check fraud, and breaking and entering - used stolen and counterfeit credit cards bearing both his own name and fake names and account numbers of legitimate cardholders to defraud businesses.
No one can accuse the former resident of Rochester Hills and Bloomfield Hills of living modestly. Police say Vreeland enjoyed $150 bottles of champagne, thousands of dollars worth of furniture, jewelry, exotic sports cars and six-figure speedboats and yachts - all with other people's money.
He's also tried to get out of pending forgery charges against him by attempting to work out a deal.
In 1998, he turned star witness for the prosecution when he testified against a stepbrother-in-law, Bobby Moore, who was charged with burning down a St. Clair Shores steak house bearing his name.
Vreeland said Moore paid him to set the fire, but District Judge William Crouchman called Vreeland "the least credible witness I've ever seen."
Judy Horigan, a former salesperson for the now-defunct Scott Shuptrine furniture store in Troy, said Vreeland fraudulently obtained thousands of dollars in furniture.
"He is the smoothest con artist," said Horigan, who now lives in Virginia. "When I heard today he was caught in Iowa, I was ecstatic. I figured the world is now less one super crook. And that's all he is, a crook. I just wonder if he's smooth enough to talk himself out of this one."
Horigan said she was so obsessed with finding Vreeland that she spent "a small fortune" on a private investigator, who tracked Vreeland for more than a year. In Florida, Vreeland allegedly took a 32-foot Daycruiser out for a test drive, leaving a trusting salesman holding a $127,436 personal check written on a nonexistent account. The boat was abandoned near Tampa, according to authorities.
Vreeland eventually went north to Canada, where he landed in a Toronto jail.
"One day in June 2001 he supposedly called the warden and wrote a one-page note that he told him not to open until Sept. 13," Horigan said. "In it, he told of the September 11 tragedies. I think he just befriended a terrorist along the way somewhere, that's all. But he used it to impress the Canadians."
Vreeland, who has often conned police into releasing him in the past, tried to pass himself off as an international U.S. spy who has smuggled documents out of Moscow for the Navy and CIA. He told Canadian journalists he tried to warn U.S. authorities of the September 11 attacks while in jail and even had a hand in the design of the Star Wars defense system, a U.S. space-based missile defense program of former President Reagan.
Vreeland also somehow set up a voice mail on a phone number at the Pentagon with a recording identifying "Delmart Vreeland's office," further duping Canadian authorities and journalists who spent months trying to make sense out of his stories from jail. He was eventually successful in getting released from jail.
Horigan recalls first meeting Vreeland in 1998 at the Troy furniture store where she was a senior saleswoman.
"This nice young guy, who was referred to me by his mother, picked out $35,000 in furniture," she said. "His credit was $10,000 short so we didn't deliver. He came in furious with his stepdad, who co-signed for the rest on his charge card. Several months later, his dad calls me saying how he was stuck for the $10,000 - plus interest when he (Vreeland) didn't pay."
In 1999, four days before Christmas, Vreeland returned to the store and told Horigan he was moving and needed furniture, but would only buy it if she remembered his name.
"How could I forget?" Horigan said. "He ended up buying $45,000 in furniture and pulled some kind of scam with the office girls in which he used a fake American Express card."
Vreeland tipped both drivers $400 each for delivering the furniture to a West Bloomfield Township apartment complex, Horigan said..
"The next day, before I could even have it checked out, he returned saying he needed accessories - that came to another $20,000 and he demanded that I load them myself into the Expedition," she said.
But Vreeland wasn't done yet.
"He said he was so tired from deliveries that he wanted to buy one of our pre-decorated trees from the showroom," she said. "We've never sold those before so I called one of the managers who said to tell him it cost $3,000 and that would be the end of it. It wasn't. He said put it in the car."
Vreeland was eventually evicted from the apartment for nonpayment of rent and the Ford Expedition was rented at the airport, Horigan said. It was one of two Expeditions Vreeland obtained under aliases, police said.
"He never really owned a car, he would rent them under another name and drive it around until it got hot, then drop it," she said. "Later that winter he went to Indiana and saw the car of his dreams - a red Porsche - at a dealership. He went back and burglarized the place, took the car, and left a rental behind. He also stole hard drives from all the computers. Why? Because he is a con artist and uses the information to assume identities."
You can reach Mike Martindale at (248) 674-7226 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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