Dateline NBC - The Mysterious Music Man

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

In this Dateline classic, Dennis Murphy tells the story of a group of smart, successful women with big dreams who, with a click or two, met a man who they believed could make their dreams a reality. But was any of it real? Originally aired on NBC on April 12, 2009.

Let's just say you happen to turn out like a swimsuit-issue babe. Blonde, alluring, skimpily attired. Then you might think cruelty and disappointment would pass over your particular patch of beach. But the genetically gifted, of course, aren't inoculated. They're just like the rest of us. They, too, sometimes turn to the Internet for life, liberty, and pursuit of the really good guy your friends all tell you

you so richly deserve. This is a story about a group of, by any measure, attractive, successful women who decided not just to click on the worldwide wheel of fortune, but to dive headlong where its arrow pointed.

It conjured exotic places they'd only dreamt of, air kissing the biggest stars in the world, and how sweet it would be to open plump earnings statements every month from your soaring investments. The right guy could make it virtually all happen. Music is my passion. It's my life. Meet Nicole Tindall from Detroit. When we met her in 2009, she was living in Florida, poised on the threshold of making it in an industry of sharp elbows, the music biz. That's what I live and die for. Former Baywatch actor, bikini model, accomplished producer-performer of electronic dance tracks,

and single. If you want to get in touch with her, as many thousands have, you can find Nicole online, just as a certain music producer called Paul Kruger did. He found me through my website. He approached me with the whole music thing. I think you're talented. We have a lot in common. In Paul's e-chat introduction, he explained he was an experienced music producer with his own studio in Satterton, Pennsylvania. He knew the biggies. Clive Davis, Quincy Jones, Babyface. He worked with Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston. Dude, you name it, man.

He knew them. Right. But you're not saying, oh, come on, you're full of it. Dude. I'm not going to say that to somebody, you know what I'm saying? As the online stars aligned, Paul emailed that he wanted to collaborate with Nicole. So she did the old-fashioned thing and phoned him, and he gave her his pitch. I would like to do some remixes. I have new material.

I know all these people, different producers, that it's hard to get in touch with. You know the business. Was he talking your business? Were you speaking the same language? In this business, it's all networking. I'd love to say how talented you are, but when it comes right down to it, it's all networking. I'd love to say it's how talented you are, but when it comes right down to it, it's who you know. And Nicole wanted to know this Paul person from online, now her regular phone pal. He was very flamboyant. He was just, oh, very perky and happy-go-lucky and always laughing, always laughing. Good energy.

Charming guy, Paul Kruger, but Nicole was cautious. After all, who knows who anyone really is online? I Googled him, and I'm thinking, oh, why isn't he coming out? You know, maybe I'm spelling his name wrong. So you're putting in Quincy Jones, Clive Davis, Paul Kruger. Yeah. Nothing's coming out. Yeah.

When Nicole quizzed him, Paul was only too happy to fill in some blanks. First came a photo of himself, sophisticated, good-looking, and tuxed up at the Grammys when he tried not to brag he'd been nominated. But chasing his successful music career had left his personal life in tatters. His marriage with a wife and teenage daughter hitting the rocks. I can relate to the way the engineers work. They're always in the studio, 24-7. And I can see how that could really wreck a marriage. So you really became friends and talked about your own lives back and forth? Yeah.

He seemed like a very lonely man. I sympathized with him. I wanted to be there for him. And he offered her just that chance, a business deal. He could place Nicole and her music with an indie label about to break it big. He approached me with putting me on his label that he was doing with Clive Davis. The Clive Davis, music producer extraordinaire. With his armload of Grammys and an eye for spotting up-and-coming talent that earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,

Paul Kruger was offering Nicole what just might be her breakthrough opportunity. I was interested in the whole strong independent label because we had established a relationship on the phone. I trusted him. Nicole sent him samples of her dance tracks and Paul called back with good news. He had said, oh, I just got back from Clive Davis's office in New York City. I give him your package. He loves the material, but he wants more material. Jazzed by the interest, Nicole went back to the studio. Paul, meanwhile, said he was preparing for his next gig at the Grammys, this time as a backing artist. He said he was doing ushers, mixing while he was on stage,

and I'm thinking, oh, that's pretty cool. And I'm like even watching the grammy's like, oh, maybe I'll see Paul. And then it all turned into a slow dance. Paul wasn't getting Nicole's new track spotted and onto a label. Maybe he suggested if he and Nicole put their heads together under a palm tree with some rum drinks and coconuts, they could figure out their next move together. He said something about going on vacation, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings. No, I never had any interest in him in a dating sense. Paul got it that the romance thing was going to be a non-starter,

so he focused on their business collaboration. He told Nicole he knew all the ins and outs of the money side of the entertainment industry, and he could get Nicole a piece of the action. He proposed that Nicole become one of his indie artists, and then she could share in the expected fat proceeds from his startup DVD business. The getting in price? $10,000. I have lost money before, and he said, take 10 grand, and I can guarantee that we can make it into a million. Struggling musician as she was at the time, Nicole couldn't afford the full $10,000 up front.

So she wired Paul $5,000 into installments. Everything was to be done in his name. I just did the wire transfers. So the money went from your account to his? Yes. I'll be able to flip it, flip it in a total of three years and make you a million dollars. It's called a three-year plan. After she wired her money, though, Paul strangely became harder to contact. But then she knew his life was so hectic. He'd vanished for months at a time. What with his overseas producing and all.

He said he traveled a lot, too. He was just in Scotland with Michael Jackson and he's going back. But when Paul completely dropped off the radar, Nicole's never quite resolved doubts about him resurfaced. Who was Paul really? How much of what he told her was true? As strong as their friendship seemed to be, she'd have to test Paul. So I called him. I said, I have more money to invest. Let me know. And I got a call within 24 hours. So you don't hear from him when the question is, how are we doing? When the question is, would you like some more money from me? He's Johnny on the spot. Exactly. But Nicole didn't want to believe any funny stuff was going on.

So many of her hopes and dreams rested on Paul, even though she'd never actually met him. I was like, there's no way Paul wouldn't do that to me. But while Nicole was feeling uneasy, a bizarre discovery was just being uncovered in a park in Pennsylvania. And out in California, there was someone named Noelle about to meet Paul and go from online to in-person. Poor Noelle. And my first impression was, wow, you've changed. While Florida-based model and aspiring indie label musician Nicole Tindall was having uh-ohs about handing over thousands of dollars to music producer Paul Kruger, a very peculiar discovery was being made. In October 2007, in a park in Southerton, PA, the town Paul called home, someone had stumbled upon an abandoned gym bag. Inside the bag was a jumble of stuff, a University of Miami sweatshirt and jogging pants, a wool hat and gloves, and a DVD copy of the comic movie Wedding Crashers, the one about two

ne'er-do-wells who use made-up identities to score with women. These seemed like the possessions of a homeless person. But after local police couldn't find their owner, whose name was on a bank wire transfer inside the bag, they shrugged and filed the things in Lost and Found. But the trove would later take on a special meaning to police and to Nicole, and to another woman looking for the wind in her hair and a new boyfriend in her life. I want to lay my cards on the table. I want to weed out the bad guys right away. When we met her in 2009, Noelle Stelling was a workaholic personal trainer and lifestyle coach in Newport Beach, California. In early 2008, in her late 30s, she was single and looking to settle down. She'd had it with the players on the California bar scene.

And with so little free time to go looking on her own, Noelle turned to Mr. Computer to help her find Mr. Right. Let's face it, you reflect light very well. I would think you'd be keeping guys away with a stick. Why do you need to go online to find companionship? Well, because I was looking for a professional, someone who is similar to me as far as working on a future. I wasn't looking for a party boy. I was looking for someone that was beyond that. She'd been watching TV and saw an ad for a dating website called MillionaireMatch.com.

MillionaireMatch.com. Were you looking for a millionaire? No, no, no, no. Millionaire Match is not about everybody that's on there as a millionaire. In fact, it's most cases it's not. They consider anyone that's makes a salary of maybe $150,000 and above a millionaire. Noel signed up and was soon bombarded with hits, including one from a guy claiming to be a great catch. His handle was greatcatch2008. That's pretty bold. Mm-hmm. Well, he wasn't short of confidence. Great Catch 2008 was Paul Kruger, the star-making music producer who, unbeknownst to Noel,

had received a $5,000 business investment from Nicole. He'd posted on his profile that same digital photo of him looking snazzy in a tux. He was a very strong looking man. His stats, 50 years old, living in Pennsylvania, a continent away, made him less than an ideal match. But his emails intrigued her. The 20-year music career, his story of burning out and a flop marriage, the separation from his teenage daughter, it all had a nice tug to it. This Paul made it through Noel's weed out the bad guys firewall. I just thought I would broaden my horizons and not be so selective in where they lived and how

old they were. Why is he a good catch? Why is he a great catch? Great catch. Not just good, but great. Not really good, but great catch. Great catch, 2008. You know, he came across very cool and confident and relaxed. He was just like, this is who I am. This is my life. Let's talk some more. And talk they did once Paul gave Noel his number.

Like someone I've spoken to before. It wasn't weird or uncomfortable. He seemed very happy. Paul seemed to have the kind of seasoned maturity Noel was looking for, and more. He was a graduate of the University of Miami's Distinguished Music Department, studies he'd parlayed into a musical career and a Grammy on the shelf. It mattered to Noel that this was a man of accomplishment and he had his own money, not just some loser from creepyguy.com. He's dropping very big names, but I didn't feel like he was bragging. He did it in such a way that it was just, these are people he worked with for 20 years. Collaborators like Quincy Jones. Actually, he was a house guest of Quincy. He said he helped

with Usher when he was just starting out at 10 years old. He worked with Backstreet Boys. Janet, he actually was in the studio with Madonna. His Grammy was the duet with Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. They did a duet several years back. And pretty soon, Noelle was singing her own duet with Paul. He was so sensitive. That's what got her. He seemed to appreciate how hard I worked. In fact, sometimes he got frustrated. He wanted me not to work so hard. How thoughtful was that? Of course, she didn't want to be taken for a fool, so Noelle put Paul's name through the same online oracle Nicole had. Only this time, he popped right up. I found Paul Kruger. So he's checking out. He's checking

out. Paul really was a music producer. But Noelle's close friends wanted to spare her buyer's remorse, so they suggested that they vet this Paul by interviewing him on the phone to see if he was worthy. They thought he was pleasant, well-spoken, very much a gentleman, funny, and yeah. He seemed knowledgeable about the music business. Absolutely. The names he was naming. Absolutely. Knowledgeable and a major player. After eight weeks of lovey-dovey back-and-forth chit-chat between California and Pennsylvania,

Paul announced he had to make a business trip overseas. That's when he had to fly to Scotland to work on Michael's album. Oh, come on, now hang on. Back up. So I had not met him yet. Michael being Michael Jackson? Michael Jackson. And Quincy Jones convinced him to work three of Michael's songs because he was that good. Now, Michael Jackson at this point was a little removed from the American pop consciousness, but this comeback album could be worth zillions, Paul was suggesting, and he could get Noel in on it with a small investment. He never said he goes, I can't promise you anything. I don't know. You know, anybody ever promises you that they can make you millions, run away. But this is an opportunity.

But he goes, but this is an opportunity. I know it will make money. I can't guarantee how much, but regardless, I will take care of you. You know, if it should flop, which it won't, but if it should, I will cover you no matter what. But the Michael Jackson Comeback Express was leaving the station and she had to buy her ticket now or miss the moment. He said, I will take care of it now because Quincy and I are going to move forward. How much did you send him? I sent him 10 grand. Noelle's $10,000 investment could return up to 40% a year. That's 4,000 bucks. And while nothing is guaranteed, this was a gamble backed by some big names and the caring man that she was falling for. And sure enough, as Paul went off to a castle in Scotland as she envisioned it to mix Michael Jackson tracks, the money started trickling in. How cool was it to be banking

Quincy Jones and the King of Pop? After more days of giddy transatlantic phone calls, Paul shot an arrow right through Noelle's heart. He sent her his very own song. This is as good as roses and champagne, right? Well, no, it's better because it was better because, you know, anybody can buy flowers. Anyone can buy you champagne. This guy wrote me a song. It's like someone writing you a poem. It's very sweet. So it was only natural after three months of being virtual together that they'd actually meet in person. Paul's Scottish adventure had wrapped up and he was back home in Pennsylvania. They made a plan. Noelle would fly out east for a long weekend rendezvous in the almost neutral territory of Atlantic City.

It's close to his home. And because he gambles and he spends time there and that he's a, you know, a high player, whatever. This, she thought, was looking really good. A five-star prospect love interest, a grounded guy who partied with the stars. Still, she didn't want to jump in headfirst about it all. I needed this to be on my terms. I didn't want anything expected of him or of me. So I chose to buy my own ticket.

And so it was that Noelle boarded a red-eye for Atlantic City, not really concerned about what she was getting into or how deep out she would wade. Yes, I was meeting him for the first time in person, but I already knew him as far as I was concerned. Noelle took a cab straight to Bally's Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, the swelling strings of romantic movies in her ears. Then, of course, there's always that pesky reality. I was prepared for something a little different than with the photo that he provided to me. I wasn't prepared for that. In the spring of 2008, personal trainer Noelle Stelling was on an early morning date with her dream.

Flying in from California to Atlantic City, she was about to meet self-made music mogul Paul Kruger. She'd encountered him on the dating website MillionaireMatch.com, tumbled hard, but now awkwardly stood in a state of bewilderment as she faced him. He told me he had gained some weight. So I was prepared for something a little different than with the photo that he provided to me. I wasn't prepared for that. I had that moment of like, oh, great. This is going to be a very long weekend. Mr. Great Catch 2008, maybe not so much. Not so great, yes. But rather than beating

a hasty retreat over a shared breakfast, Noelle took stock and decided that maybe Paul wasn't so bad after all. She'd give him a chance. We're not all perfect and we're not all, you know, pretty or, you know, with a lot of muscle or, you know, I was just like, well, wait a minute, if he's still that person that I knew on the phone and he's got a good heart, that's good enough for me. After all, Noelle was a personal trainer. Paul could be her new project. She looked past the gray hair or lack of it, and she could maybe do something about the paunch. She jumped right into her salvage work. It was beautiful out, and I like being outside, and so we did a lot of walking on the boardwalk. Plus, I wanted to get him started

on the exercise routine right away. When they got back to the hotel, No Noel was wowed by the VIP treatment lavished on Paul. He was a rock star, hovered over by bowing and scraping casino staff. The restaurant chef personally came to greet Paul in the high rollers lounge, and designer boutique store managers seemed to know this big spender. The red carpet rolled out before the two cooing birds as they headed to the gaming tables. Where Noel's winning streak might have turned to a sickening loss were it not for Paul's wise tutelage. I won a couple hands. He's like, OK, let's walk away. And I thought, wow, this guy, you know, he knows how to control his ability to not want to just keep playing all night long. I thought that was that was good. In fact, when it came to money,

MillionaireMatch.com Paul didn't have a care in the world. Everything was calmed everywhere we went. Do you ever say to you, hey, I left my money in the room. No. Can you cover this? No. So he knew how to handle himself. Very much so. Noelle was having so much fun with Paul, she didn't want to buzzkill their good time with boring talk of business and that $10,000 she'd given him to invest with superstars Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. But curiosity did finally get the better of her. And he said it's going really well, Noelle. He goes, just wait until we sell and then I'll let you know. Music to her ears. She'd already received a $900 return and understood she might have to wait a year before the big investment paid off.

Meanwhile, down in Florida, someone else was still being patient. Nicole, the musician and model, had every reason to believe that Paul was doing good things with the $5,000 she'd sent him. That was just cab fare if it could make her career turn platinum. While Nicole never actually met Paul, Noelle was basking in the glow of a nice long weekend with him. Paul and she had gambled, wined and dined, and ended up in bed. It did get romantic, so to speak. Yes, it did. I didn't know where it was going to go from there, but I was hopeful. Hopes quickly realized, as Paul suggested, something more permanent than, that was great, see ya. He did not want to continue a long-distance relationship

for a long period of time. He intended to move to Miami, and he wanted me to go with him. Noel would definitely have to think about a huge step like that after she returned to California. Little did she know, but any hope of a long-term relationship with Paul was becoming less likely. And she had no idea how much trouble she might be in as information about Paul trickled in. Preparing to head back home,

she packed her bags unaware that her world was about to turn upside down. I was freaked out. I was so scared. I introduced him into my life, you know, invited him in. Noelle Stelling was heading back to California after a dreamy weekend of romance in Atlantic City with self-made music mogul Paul Kruger. She was weighing his proposal that they move together to Florida. As she left the casino hotel for the airport, she checked her cell phone messages. Strange. One was from a police detective in Pennsylvania. Noelle called back right away, and suddenly the detective was peppering her with information about Paul.

I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. Noelle was being told Paul was an imposter. I've got this police detective telling me that this guy that I just spent three days with is not who he says he is. The cop revealed to Noelle that Paul Kruger was at the center of a police fraud investigation. Dizzy with information overload, she hung up. I immediately called the Sauterdon Police Department back just to make sure that that was really detective. That was real, huh? Yeah, because now I'm like, I'm questioning everything.

The detective then told Noel a Maryland woman and her friends had invested $60,000 with a man called Paul Kruger. But after this Paul person disappeared, the woman filed a complaint, and the information filtered down to police in Southerton, PA. While Noel had been getting to know Kruger in person as an easygoing companion, and Nicole in Florida was regarding him as a friend and collaborator, this Pennsylvania detective for weeks had been compositing a completely different picture of Great Catch 2008. The detective had been the one to check out that gym bag found in a local park. And inside, along with what looked like a homeless person's junk,

was a document with a name on it. Paul Kruger. We found a wire transfer that went to Costa Rica. So if this is a homeless person's bag, that's unusual, right? Yeah, it didn't make sense. What's a homeless person doing wiring it to Costa Rica? Joe Kelly, then a detective with Southerton PD, tucked away that name in his memory and checked the abandoned gym bag into the police property room. Then, a few weeks later, he came upon a department-to-department request for help in another case. The one involving a Baltimore woman and her friends stung for $60,000 by a scammer. There was that same name, Paul Kruger. Detective Kelly told the assistant DA at the time, Bob Sander,

that the name Kruger was worth checking out. Did gym bag Paul have something to do with $60,000 fraud, Paul? And we start to put two and two together. And at this time, we realized we're onto something pretty big here. So there's a light bulb moment here. Wait a second. That name is the same name that was on the receipts in that bag. That's exactly it. And then another case popped up. Yet another woman claiming she too had been victimized by one Paul Kruger. Her name is Jennifer Carey. At the time, a Texas-based QVC presenter, her story was that she, like Noelle, also met Paul on MillionaireMatch.com. She too had flown to Atlantic City to meet Paul and tumbled into a relationship with him. But then she got in a tussle with Paul over money and she hired a private

investigator after Kruger threatened her. The PI made Kruger's threats a police matter. This is the third time in weeks you're hearing about a Paul Kruger. Everything's coming together for us at this point. We just knew that this was getting bigger and bigger by the day. The assistant DA wanted to contact Kruger, but came up blank. Kruger seemed to have an address, only he didn't live there. We found out his account numbers. We found out routing information, things of that nature. As police dug into Kruger's bank history, the prosecutor was finding that Kruger had already been arrested twice for theft.

And then it became clear to the investigators they were only finding the latest headlines in a long career of deception. We know this was the tip of the iceberg. Bank records suggested that there were even more women who'd been dragged into Kruger's deceit. There appeared to be a fourth victim, a woman who'd withdrawn money from her daughter's savings account and had turned it over to Paul Kruger to invest. And still more names would be added to the list of victims. He normally didn't go for the type A women. He normally went for people who were more trusting and more caring. What were they about? Good people. Mostly women who wanted to meet somebody. They wanted to meet the man of their dreams. Some were high society.

Some were just, one was even just a single mother who was looking for companionship. Sander discovered Kruger met most of the women online through the dating site MillionaireMatch.com using handles like Great Catch and I'm Ready Are You. Using that old tuxedo photo, he then slathered on his Grammy story and dropped a galaxy of bold-faced names who were also business partners. Like an actor has lines. He read a script and he knew what he was doing. He didn't divert from that. And they thought they were what, buying into a guy who was going to come up with the next Michael Jackson record? Amongst other things, yes. Investment pitches

supported by pie charts and the like, all fake, of course. Spreadsheets, a prospectus, various financial documents showing what this company would do and what it had done in the past. And as the women's cash rolled in, the prosecutor discovered Kruger wasn't shy about playing to his victim's heartstrings. Everyone we had spoken to thought that he was very smooth. And he talked him into the bit in some cases, didn't he? In some cases, he did. He had romantic relationships with these women and also physical relationships. An extraordinary chain of crimes was unfolding in Kruger's file. How many victims, how much money?

13 victims total. And with that mysterious wire transfer to Costa Rica and perhaps other victims, the prosecutors speculated the scam might run to a quarter million dollars. That's why we knew when this originally came in that we were onto something bigger. But an even bigger problem. Just how would the assistant DA find and arrest such an apparently sophisticated con man with no fixed address, no vehicle whose registration he could trace, a man who seemed to live like his digital alter ego inside the computer. We originally knew that he was from Satterton, Pennsylvania. We also knew that that's where

these investors were mailing their checks. It was to the home of his ex-wife. The problem was we also knew that it was his ex-wife and he was no longer living there. Investigators learned Kruger visited his ex-wife from time to time, picked up the checks, cashed them, and then vamoosed. But to where? A local park bench was one good guess because it appeared Kruger was a homeless man. We also knew from his ex-wife that he had a gambling addiction. Also, when we looked at his bank records, we also saw various withdrawals in the Atlantic City area. So Atlantic City seemed as good a place as any for the assistant DA to start his manhunt. Remember, the casinos are open 24-7, so he always has a place to go at night. He can sit at a blackjack

table, a craps table, a slot machine. He can do whatever he wants. And that's just where Noelle Stelling was, in Atlantic City, winding down her getting-to-know-you weekend with Paul at the casinos. And hearing this all from the detective on the phone for the first time. The cops called her because they'd come across her $10,000 check to Kruger in his bank account. So headed for the airport, Noelle would have a lot to think about on her long flight home to California. That detective's unbelievable news. And he's like, he's not the man you think he is. He's a scam artist. She had one last thing to do before getting on the plane. She was going to call Paul directly and find out just what the heck was going on. I couldn't believe it.

I'm like, are you kidding me? Noelle Stelling had just been told by a Pennsylvania detective she'd been used by an ice-cold con man. She got on the line to Paul Kruger. Right away, I said, why would a detective be calling me in regards to you? What did you get me into? And I was really scared that maybe he got me involved in something illegal. So you're saying, what's the deal, dude? What's he saying back to you? He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. No, slow down, calm down. Who is this who called you? He was very surprised, shocked. Paul assured her it was all just a big misunderstanding. Noelle, getting wise to him,

played along. I pretended that I was still on his side, that I believed in him and hopes I'd get my money back. Every time you think that you've seen it all, one more comes by and surprises you. Five weeks after Noel left Kruger in Atlantic City, Bob Sander in the Montgomery County DA's office in Pennsylvania was still shaking his head at the scale of Paul Kruger's scams. He and officers across the state line in New Jersey had come up with a plan to close the net around their missing conman suspect. His bank withdrawals indicated that he spent a lot of time in Atlantic City, but that was a big boardwalk. Kruger could be anywhere. Two detectives were assigned to find him.

So you're just making cold calls at casinos. The two of them are going casino to casino and calling me over the phone at the same time, let me know what's going on. And we're still looking for him. Then Sander, the prosecutor, was dealt a lucky card, literally a plastic one issued by the casinos. It contained account information the cops needed. When you go to gamble nowadays in order to get your comps, you have a card with an account number. And we knew that that was one way we were going to track them. Making their rounds of Atlantic City's casinos, the detectives arrived at Harris and hit the law enforcement jackpot. That's where security staff noticed that Kruger had recently swiped his member's card

in the High Rollers lounge. He was in the casino. He was in the casino. The detectives swooped down as Kruger, sitting with his laptop computer, nursed a soda. He actually said I shouldn't have ordered that second Coke. After years of scamming, Kruger had finally been wrapped up and was soon transferred back to Pennsylvania, where he was charged and thrown in jail. But as clear-cut as the case against Kruger seemed to Assistant D.A. Sander,

would he be able to make charges of fraud and theft stick to a man who received checks in the mail from willing admirers? And Sander wasn't sure he could bring in any witnesses to testify against Kruger. Remember, these are women, most of whom were pretty sophisticated, a lot of whom had relationships in high society. A lot felt embarrassed once their name became public. And imagine people are saying, how could they have been so stupid as to write a total stranger, in many cases, a check for five grand? And this individual knew how to pray on their weaknesses. Do you think there are more?

Absolutely. We haven't been able to find him, but he was good. He knew how to manipulate people. Kruger, who'd scammed more than $100,000 out of at least 13 people from all over the country, was facing at least seven years in prison if Risa Furman, the district attorney at the time, could persuade a judge. It wasn't petty cash, but we're talking about $5,000, $10,000 here and there, scattered in different states. It didn't have to become a whole bring-down-the-guy investigation, and it did. I think it did have to be a bring-down-the-guy investigation, because he had done something

like this before. He was on probation for an earlier case. He was systematically targeting women so that he could steal their money, and then brought other people into it. So he stole a lot of money from people. And you can't, as the DA, ignore that. And in some cases, join him in bed. That's true, too. Even after he doesn't look like the web page photo from 20 years before. He's a homeless scam artist who's operating with a laptop on a park bench. Go figure. In a plea deal, Kruger pleaded guilty to theft and was handed a sentence of three to seven years and ordered to pay back the money to his victims.

It was about the money, but more so, it was his friendship. And he just trashed it. Absolutely. But when all was said and done, there was still a big gap in this case. Kruger hadn't been to court, hadn't been on the witness stand, and so he hadn't told authorities his side of the story. So apart from the fact that he was a convicted conman, nobody seemed to know for sure how much of his story was true. Dateline visited Kruger in prison in Somerset, PA and heard his version.

This is a case about greed. It's a case about trust. And it's a case about vulnerability. It's a case about believing in the fantasy and waking up to find the nightmare. Paul Kruger, a self-styled music mogul, turned out to be a homeless man with a laptop and some glib salesman skills. But he was now in prison in Somerset, Pennsylvania, where he'd served up to seven years. Kruger chose to plead guilty rather than have his day in court. So to this day, none of his victims, like Nicole and Noel,

know what's true and can only compare stories. And he never mentioned anything about being in Scotland? Yeah. Oh, he did? Totally. He was there for like two, three months. He was only there for four weeks with me. Clearly, he told you things that he didn't tell me and vice versa.

And I'm like, how do you keep them straight? He must have seriously had index cards. I told him I had nothing. I didn't have nothing. See, that's what's even worse. Yeah. He didn't care. Oh, sweetie.

Are you, like, really super upset about it? I'm pissed. You know what? I'm mad at Moore because I was the last one. Right. And I'm like, how come you didn't nail this guy before I even met him? While Noelle and Nicole were putting together the fragments of their stories, Dateline visited Kruger in prison,

where cameras and other recording devices aren't permitted, and heard his side of the story. Here's the scorecard near as we can figure out. First, that musical career. Kruger did take some music courses at the University of Miami, but he never produced for Madonna, Beyonce, Usher, or Michael Jackson, as he claimed. Nor did he write and produce that personalized song for Noel. As for the Castle in Scotland, it never happened, though he did record some Christian rock bands. He says

that he once had an audio duplicating company with some pharmaceutical companies as clients, but a house fire and lack of insurance put an end to that venture. He says his marriage failed, and after another man moved in with his wife, he ended up on the street and divorced. The money he scammed allowed him to spend long hours at the gaming tables, and in short, he was comped with free rooms and food. Other times, though, he'd stayed at cheap hotels or slept rough outside. He admits he did leave that gym bag in the park. And to fill in his days not gambling, he spent hours online making cyber dates, logged in at libraries, and sometimes the local Apple store before MrMillionaire.com finally bought his own laptop. Kruger told us in prison

he never meant to steal the money outright. He saw it simply as a loan until he could win enough money gambling to pay it back. The cautionary tale is really that you can't believe everything that you see online. So you develop perceptions and feelings about what you're looking at and make judgments about it based on sometimes complete fantasy. Noelle, find some words. I'll offer you anger, humiliation. He was becoming part of my existence, my family, my friends. And now I have to explain myself to all those people, the people that I do love and trust, and tell them what this guy did. Great Catch 2008 friend of Quincy Jones and producer of Michael Jackson

turned out to be a paunchy, virtually homeless guy with a laptop. Yes. What did that tell you about your sensory apparatus for detecting creeps? I'm a magnet for them. It's an awful thing to happen. It is. It's an awful thing to happen. It is. It's a terrible thing to happen. Paul Kruger was released from prison in 2013 after serving just over five years. He has yet to pay much of the money back to his victims.

But in the end, it was a crime of the heart as much as a crime of the checkbook.