Police arrest man accused of scamming woman, then mocking her for falling for it
by Pat Reavy ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Ronnie Carlos Hernandez was arrested for investigation of aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping.
- He allegedly conned a woman into giving him $1,900 at gunpoint.
- Hernandez, described as a 'known scammer,' mocked the victim on social media, police say.
MAGNA — A man who some acquaintances say is a "known scammer" has been arrested and accused of conning a woman into attempting an illegal transaction and then robbing her at gunpoint.
Ronnie Carlos Hernandez was arrested Wednesday for investigation of aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping.
On April 22, a woman received a message on Facebook "offering her an opportunity." The woman did not know the person who sent her the message, "but stated she is a single mom and is always trying to make more money for her children," according to a police booking affidavit. Unified police say as of Thursday, they don't know how Hernandez found the woman or why she was allegedly targeted.
The woman agreed to meet Hernandez in a store parking lot in Magna near 3500 South and 8400 West. She arrived in her car with her two children and pulled up next to Hernandez and got out of her car.
"As she approached the vehicle, she saw the suspect sitting in the driver's seat with the passenger window down, holding a gun and pointing it at her. (She) stated the male suspect told her to get in the car, which she did. She said she feared for the safety of her children and kept thinking at this point how stupid she was for meeting with this unknown individual," the affidavit states.
Hernandez handed the woman a blank check, which he claimed he paid $700 for, and told her to make the check out for $4,100. He then told the woman to go to a nearby bank, cash the check and say that the money was for a business, the affidavit says.
The woman went into the bank but did not get the money, police say.
"This upset the male suspect, who sent her back into the bank to take out $1,999 from her account. (The woman) stated she returned to the bank and withdrew $1,900, all in $100 bills," according to the affidavit.
After she gave him the money, police say Hernandez told the woman that he knew where she lived, warned her not to contact police, and then left.
The woman did not call police, "but posted a story on her Facebook (page) regarding the male and his profile. Several people reached out to her stating that the male was a scammer and had scammed multiple people," according to the arrest report.
She then received a message on Instagram saying that the man who robbed her was Hernandez, "a known scammer," the affidavit alleges. The tipster claimed he bought a car from Hernandez that he didn't know was stolen and ended up being arrested and serving time in prison.
On April 24, the woman contacted police, who looked up Hernandez and confirmed that he was the same man who had contacted her. The woman also replied to the original Facebook message she had received and Hernandez "mocked her for falling for it and then blocked her. She also said he posted a video of him at a jewelry shop after the robbery and believes he went there," according to the affidavit.
"Ronnie Hernandez has posted multiple videos in the last several weeks on his Facebook of him showing off multiple $100 bills. Adult Probation and Parole stated that he has not had a steady job and most recently worked for a temp agency," the affidavit says. "Two other conversations were located within (his) Facebook account in which two other people accused him of stealing $2,000 from them as well on the same day," including one woman who "said that she works hard as a single mother to make her money and that he does so by robbing people. Ronnie says to her, 'I got your rent money in less than 10 minutes,'" according to the affidavit.
Police say Hernandez was on probation at the time of his arrest.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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Pat Reavy
Pat Reavy interned with KSL in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL or Deseret News since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.