Recently Widowed Woman Fleeced For $500K, Loses Home After Falling For Lonely Hearts Ripoff; Scammer Said He Was Military Man

In Castle Rock, Colorado, the Daily Mail reports:

• A grieving widow has lost $500,000 of her life savings and her home after being taken in by an Internet dating scam. Esther Ortiz-Rodeghero, 55, decided to look for love online after she lost her husband and thought she had hit the jackpot with a suave military man on the website, seniorpeoplemeet.com.



• Instead it was a fraudster who convinced her to continually fork out money which Mrs Ortiz-Rodeghero wired all over the world from her home in Castle Rock, Colorado.



• She had started to look for love online last October after her husband David Rodeghero died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 52. She told ABCNews.com: 'After seeing a therapist I was advised maybe I should go on a dating website and meet new people ... because I was depressed.'

For more, see 'I was blinded by his romantic emails': Widow loses $500,000 after falling for fake 'military lover' in internet dating scam.