Troy Clinton Van Sickle, 55, of Temecula, California, pleaded guilty on October 6 to a romance fraud scheme that took more than $1.8 million from two elderly women. Prosecutors say he spent part of it on a $734,000 Ferrari while he was on federal supervision for an earlier fraud conviction.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California describes Van Sickle in its plea announcement as a ten-time convicted scammer. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering and making a false statement. Sentencing is set for January 15, 2027.
The plea covers more than 30 money transfers from the two women, totaling more than $1.8 million. Prosecutors say that of that money, $150,000 was wired for a fake Lotus Cars contract, and that a payment on a 2022 Ferrari SF90 Stradale, bought the month before for $734,000, came out of the victims’ funds.
Cases like this one start with a stranger who has learned enough about a person to sound like someone who knows them. The real question for older adults and their families is how much of their own information is easy to find. Incogni sends removal requests to data brokers and people-search sites for you, and less personal data on broker lists can mean fewer scam calls, texts and emails.
A supervised defendant and a luxury car
The detail that stands out in the Justice Department’s account is the supervision. Van Sickle was on federal supervision for a prior fraud conviction when the offense took place, and he owed $250,000 in restitution to nine earlier victims. The new scheme, prosecutors say, ran alongside that obligation.
The Ferrari is the item the government points to. The announcement says the car was bought for $734,000 and that victim funds went toward it. The charging announcement from May 22, 2026, laid out the same pattern in its first form: a complaint over $1.5 million taken from one victim, about 20 transfers between 2022 and 2023, and a history that prosecutors said Van Sickle concealed, including convictions for fraud, theft, extortion and perjury. The plea documents widen that to two women and more than $1.8 million.
The scheme, as prosecutors describe it, is a classic romance fraud. The Federal Trade Commission explains the pattern on its romance scam page: scammers strike up a relationship to build up trust, then make up a story and ask for money. In this case, the stories involved a business contract and large transfers that kept coming over a period that ran from 2022 into 2024.
The size of the total matters for another reason. More than 30 transfers is a long series of decisions, each one a chance for a bank, a relative or the victim herself to stop and ask a question.
Where older victims can turn
The Justice Department runs an Elder Justice Initiative whose stated mission is to support and coordinate enforcement and programmatic efforts to combat elder abuse, neglect and financial fraud and scams that target the nation’s older adults. Its Elder Justice page gathers those programs.
Victims have a direct line as well. The Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime lists a national hotline, 833-FRAUD-11 (833-372-8311), for fraud targeting anyone age 60 or older, on its elder fraud help page.
Limiting what a stranger can learn about an older relative
The free starting point after any scam is the federal recovery site, IdentityTheft.gov, which gives step-by-step advice for reporting identity theft and fixing credit. A credit freeze at the three national bureaus is a second free step that blocks new accounts from being opened in a person’s name.
Romance scammers do not need much. A name, an address, a list of relatives and a rough sense of a person’s finances are enough to sound credible on a first call or message. Those details often sit on people-search sites, where a quick search of one’s own name shows what is exposed, and most sites have an opt-out form that has to be repeated because listings come back.
Families can also agree on one rule that no tool replaces: any request for money from someone met online gets a conversation with a relative or a bank before anything is sent. The Van Sickle case ran to more than 30 transfers because no one interrupted the sequence.
A family that suspects a loved one is sending money to someone met online should gather the transfer records, the messages and the name of the bank or wire service used, then report them through the hotline above. Prosecutors in San Diego built this case on more than 30 documented transfers, and the paper trail is what let them put a total of more than $1.8 million in front of a court.
Incogni asks data brokers and people-search sites to remove personal information, and it keeps re-sending those requests, which handles the repeating part of the opt-out job.
Click here to get Incogni for removal requests to people-search sites →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
