While giving money to the poor is a noble endeavor, paying the delinquent bills of some woman you met at a strip club is a bad idea.
Unfortunately for one 50-year-old Park Forest man, he did just that.
Rachel Klootwyk, 38, of Peotone, was charged with felony financial identity theft July 1 after racking up $3,700 in unauthorized charges on the man's bank account between February and July 1, police said.
According to police, the man met Klootwyk met in January at a Chicago Heights strip club he regularly visited, Jimmy's Restaurant, 410 W 14th St.
Klootwyk told the man, who lives in the 400 block of Winnemac Street, that she had suffered an illness that left her with unpaid credit card and utility bills, police said. In turn, he offered to cut her debts and pay some of her bills.
Near the end of February, he began to write checks for her bills, police said. Through a subsequent e-mail confirmation, she obtained his bank account information and used it without his permission.
She arranged his account to pay her bills on a monthly basis, police said. On June 29, he received a statement from his bank listing numerous unauthorized withdrawals from his account. Fearing a con, he turned to the police.
"These are tough economic times for everyone, including bad guys," Park Forest Police Chief Tom Fleming said.
"Sometimes, you get what you expect. Generally, you meet better people at church than you do at a strip club."
He fell for the oldest scam in stripclub history.