Police near Richmond, Virginia arrested a man who allegedly impersonated a McDonald’s corporate compliance officer to defraud hotel and rental car companies.
David Scott Goldstein, 47, of Minneapolis, Minnesota wore a McDonald’s dress shirt with the company’s logo.
At McDonald’s restaurants, he went into secure areas and took corporate documents. He later used those documents to convince people he worked for McDonald’s, police said.
He had an earlier arrest in Bloomington, Minnesota for posing as a McDonald’s corporate employee. He stayed in a hotel near the Mall of America and said McDonald’s would pay his bill.
He was charged then with felony fraud.
He was later arrested by police in Virginia when he didn’t pay his bill at a Homewood Suites in Sandston.
“An employee at the hotel advised [police] that Goldstein’s form of payment had been declined,” Henrico police spokesman Lt. Chris Garrett said in an email to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Goldstein drove out of the hotel parking lot while police were inside talking with the clerk.
Police caught Goldstein and charged him with defrauding an innkeeper, identity theft, eluding police, and two traffic offenses.
Police said Goldstein ran the alleged scam throughout the Midwest and New England.
In August, police in Rutland, Vermont warned the public that Goldstein was in the area posing as a McDonald’s compliance officer and stealing from businesses.
Rutland police said Goldstein would walk into businesses dressed in a red shirt with the McDonald’s logo and carrying a binder with the McDonald’s emblem.
In Bloomington, at a hotel a block from a McDonald’s, Goldstein told the staff he crashed his rental car and wanted them to arrange a replacement.
“He was kind of rude to my staff, obnoxious,” the hotel manager told the Star Tribune.
Goldstein has a preliminary hearing in Virginia on December 13.
He was denied bail.
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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
1 Comment
What audacity. Upsized!
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