Man tried to scam family who lost 7 in NLV crash, according to officials

North Las Vegas police are investigating allegations that a man tried to scam a couple that lost seven relatives in a crash last month, city officials announced Monday.

Days after the Jan. 29 crash, a stranger arrived at the grieving couple’s house and offered to help, Erlinda Zacarias, who lost four children, a brother and two adult stepsons, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday.

Initially, the man who spoke with broken Spanish and identified himself as Steve Prz appeared to help. The couple later learned that was not his real name.

The next day, the couple were leaving home when the stranger arrived and told them, “don’t leave because the mayor is coming,” Zacarias said in Spanish.

And he was.

North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee and his wife appeared on their doorstep, bearing flowers, condolences and an offer to let the family use their church to host the funerals, Zacarias said.

Later, the alleged scammer gained the couple’s trust when he produced copies of birth certificates of the victims after Zacarias could not find the originals.

“He’s helping us,” Zacarias said she and her husband, Jesus Mejia-Barrera, thought. He helped them with paperwork and accompanied them to the funeral home. “It’s someone who really wants to help us,” she added.

‘Not the person he said he was’

Zacarias said the man then went on to claim that he had secured anonymous donations to cover the full cost of the funerals, which prompted her to stop a GoFundMe campaign that had raised $300,000 in just a few days, as to not take advantage of the public.

They thought they would instead use that money to help raise their two young grandchildren left orphaned in Mexico.

The stranger told the couple to move because people would want to rob them. He said he would protect them, presenting himself as a private investigator, Zacarias said.

That made the couple jumpy, but the man openly carried two handguns, and drove a car with police sirens, Zacarias said. He also wore clothing with military insignia, which made him appear legitimate, she added.

When the funeral home started collecting payment from the couple for Saturday’s services, which were supposedly being covered by anonymous donations, Zacarias said she and her husband became suspicious.

After the man asked them to give him power of attorney — asking for bank information, pictures of identification cards and other personal documents — they reported him to police last week, Zacarias said.

Zacarias has since learned that the man had been lying the entire time. The funds, the new house and vacation he promised them, which they did not ask for nor particularly wanted, did not exist, Zacarias said.

The man had not even given them his real name, Zacarias said.

“He’s not the person who he said he was,” Zacarias said.

A search of his name and alleged alias on the Nevada Private Investigators Licensing Board came back empty.

North Las Vegas spokesman Patrick Walker, who confirmed the police investigation, wrote in a statement: “It’s disgusting anybody would try to prey on anyone who has suffered such a tragedy.”

“The mayor and his wife met with the Zacarias family to give them their condolences and offered to connect them with church leadership to provide a location for memorial services if needed,” Walker wrote. “He was not personally affiliated with the other individual who was there, and along with the family, believed the man was also there in support of the family.”

Later, in a short phone interview, Lee told the Review-Journal that he “didn’t have anything to do with this.”

Lee said he had previously known the alleged scammer, but only briefly.

“I only knew him for a short minute because he did some construction work for us, but I didn’t know him really at all,” Lee said. “I was just told he could figure out how I can go shake their hand and give them a hug, that’s all I knew. I just wanted to be kind to them.”

North Las Vegas police could not be reached for comment Monday.

“One never thinks that someone is going to do that to you,” Zacarias said.

‘Moving forward’

Among other lies Zacarias and Mejia-Santana were told: the stranger said President Joe Biden’s administration was sending the family an American Flag that had flown at the White House, and that he was arranging a military plane flyover for the funeral Saturday, Zacarias said.

On Saturday, the family held funerals for the seven victims, and buried Fernando Yeshua Mejia, 5; Adrian Zacarias, 10; Lluvia Daylenn Zacarias, 13; Bryan Axel Zacarias, 15; and Jose Zacarias-Caldera, 35. There was no flag nor military airplanes.

Brothers Gabriel Mejia-Barrera, 23, and David Mejia-Barrera, 25, are being repatriated to Mexico.

But the family ran out of money to bury the Mejia-Barrera brothers, and provide for their children, Zacarias said.

She said the services at Palm Mortuary-Jones in northwest Las Vegas came out to about $270,000, about $10,000 less than what GoFundMe sent them.

And while they had originally planned to pay about $150,000 for simple funerals, the alleged scammer convinced them to change the date, and upgrade the services, telling them that their children were “angels” who deserved the best, Zacarias said.

No one at the funeral home could not be reached for comment Monday.

The bodies of the Mejia-Barrera brothers will be flown to Michoacan, Mexico, in the next couple of weeks for a burial, said Zacarias. Although funeral costs are cheaper south of the border, the family must still pay for transporting the bodies, along with services and plots.

She said that the family was hesitant to ask the community that has already given so much for additional help, and she was torn by comments on social media saying the couple is looking to benefit financially.

“At this stage, having lost our kids, do you think we need to hide from anything or anyone?” Zacarias said.

Eventually, Zacarias said, someone talked her into opening up another GoFundMe campaign to bury the brothers, and help provide for their grandchildren.

More than 24 hours after it went live, that campaign only had raised $20.

“What’s done is done, and we can’t do anything else but keep moving forward,” she said.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow @rickytwrites on Twitter.