Who Is Derek Alldred? New Details About The Con Artist Who Catfished 25 Women
He scammed 25 women.
getty Let's face it, dating is the pits. Dating sites and apps are supposed to make things easier, but they really don't, plus people can pretend to be anyone they want online. People are quick to call out B.S. on the Internet, which is why it is so strange that Derek Alldred got away with his scam for so long. Between 2014 and 201 Alldred used dating sites as a platform to scam at least 25 women in California, Nevada, Hawaii and Minnesota. It seems like there is a con man and con artist around every corner. Seduced by Evil is a new documentary on the Oxygen network that details the ways in which con man Derek Alldred preyed on and destroyed the lives of the women he dated before he was finally arrested in Texas. Who is Derek Alldred?
1. His scam
Derek Alldred is in his mid-to-late 40s. He met women on dating sites and charmed them out of their money and credit card information. He regaled the women with lies about his high-profile jobs. Alldred went by a number of different names and pretended to be an attorney, a professor, and a Navy pilot. He moved in with his girlfriends and even planned a wedding with one of them. Alldred convinced one woman in Minnesota that he was a lawyer and opened a credit card in her name without her knowledge and then ran up $17,000 in charges on that card.
2. The perfect guy
All of the women who met and dated Alldred during the time he ran his scam thought the smooth talking con artist was the man of their dreams. They fell in love with him. Several of his victims detail how they thought he was the perfect guy, how they thought he was the one, how he sent four dozen roses for Mother's Day.
3. Linda
In 2016, Alldred successfully scammed a woman named Linda Dyas. He lived with her for several months before she even began to supsect that he was not who he said he was. He told her he was a Navy Seal named Rich Peterson and had a Navy Seal uniform and Purple Heart medal to back up his claims. One day she discovered paperwork for a $100,000 college fund he had started for her son.
4. Missi
In the Spring of 2016, Missi Brandt was 45, sober for three years, and wrapping up a contentious divorce. She was a flight attendant living in St. Paul, Minnesota with her three preteen daughters. She made a profile on OurTime.com, a dating site for middle-aged people. She came across a 45-year-old man named Richie Peterson. He was a career naval officer who served in Afghanistan. He was in Minnesota to finish his doctorate at the University of Minnesota. Missi "liked" his photo and he sent her a message right away. They bonded over their sobriety, their divorces, and their kids. They met up and got into a relationship that turned serious quickly. One day, driven by a nagging feeling she couldn't identify, Missi looked inside his wallet. Inside was a Minnesota ID with a photo that was Richie, but the name on the ID was Derek Mylan Alldred. The wallet also contained credit cards beloning to Linda Dyas.
5. Putting the pieces together
Missi googled Derek Alldred and a bunch of mug shots of him popped up. News articles about him calling him a career con man with a long history of deception also popped up. He had posed as a fireman and scammed drugs from a hospital. He had dated a woman in California and stolen almost $200,000 from her bank account. He had married a woman, pretended to pay the bills on their house, and then disappeared when it was foreclosed on. He had posed as a surgeon, checked into a luxurious hotel with a woman and her two daughters, ran up $2,000 in charges, and then skipped out on the bill — and the woman.
6. The credit cards
Missi tracked down the owner of the credit cards in Alldred's wallet on Facebook and sent her a message. When Linda got Missi's message, she was in the house she shared with Rich Peterson, her boyfriend of seven months. She had started having the feeling that things between her and Rich were wrong in some way. It took her a few days to read the links that Missi had sent her. When she did, her first thought was, "How do I get him out of the house?" Rich needed to go to the hospital (a recurring issue with him) for the pain he was in from his old "war wounds." Linda dropped him off and called the police. At 3am, Derek told her he'd take an Uber home form the ER. Linda alerted the police. When she saw Derek get arrested outside of her window, she sent Missi a message telling her he was in custody. Linda eventually figured out that Derek Alldred had not only been lying about his name, his job, and his past — he’d been siphoning money from her savings. All in, he scammed Linda out of $325,000.
7. The other women
Brandt and Dyas launched their own investigation into Alldred and met other women he had also conned. Alldred targeted at least 25 women from 2014 to 2016. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Amy Lamare is a Los Angeles based freelance writer covering entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion, fitness, technology, and the intersection of technology, business, and philanthropy. She is deeply devoted to her chocolate Labrador and an avid long distance runner. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.