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Woman posing as military member on dating site scams person out of $7,500, NC cops say

dating site (Santeri Viinamäki/WikiCommons)

A woman is accused of lying about being in the military on a dating site to scam a user out of thousands of dollars.

Jo Ann Burkey, 63 of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, told the victim who she met on the site that she was a member of the military and needed money to ship her belongings home from overseas, according to the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office.

The person sent her $7,500, the sheriff’s office says.

The sheriff’s office says it “took a report of fraud” about the scam on Jan. 29 and, after investigating, accused Burkey of being behind the scam and using a fake name.

Burkey “surrendered to detectives” at the Pitt County detention center on Thursday, the sheriff’s office says.

She was charged with “accessing a computer to defraud or obtain property,” “obtain property by false pretense” and “attempt to obtain property by false pretense.”

Burkey was released on a $25,000 unsecured bond, the sheriff’s office says.

No other information about the case was released as of Monday.

Pitt County is in Eastern North Carolina, about 82 miles from Raleigh.

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© 2021 The Charlotte Observer

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