Can Anyone Identify this Performer - Possible Fugitive

[CraigMitchell]

http://www.planetjh.com/brady/brady_200 ... magic.html

See the above link for a photo

Jackson Police say a man who worked briefly in "the valley as a professional magician took 237 people, including one local man, for more than $100,000 in cash and cashier's checks before vanishing earlier this month in an elaborate scheme involving bringing Irish ski tourists to Wyoming. While police are currently withholding the name of the 34-year-old suspect as the investigation develops, they have issued an all-points bulletin for the 5-foot, 8-inch, 130-pound man reportedly from Ireland, who last performed magic shows at Jackson Hole Playhouse."

[Richard Hatch]

Wow! Jackson Hole will now be a very tough gig for magicians, alas. I would think someone in the Irish (if he is, indeed, from Ireland) mentalism/magic community would recognize him. Quentin?

[Q. Kumber]

No idea who he is, if that's his photo. But it shows you can't be too careful with your credit card details.

[Guest]

He cancelled an August 26th show in Fort Worth at Bass Hall under the name Logan Divine. He was billed as a mentalist. I think the picture in the news story was used for promo for that show (at least). He was in Dallas/Fort Worth area off and on for 1 year prior, and hasn't been back since.

[Richard Kaufman]

Oh yeah, we know the guy! He looks a lot like a character named Patrick Adams who was around in DC for a while. Then he moved to Florida and opened a magic kiosk in Disney World with his wife, and then vanished when the feds came looking for him.

[Guest]

If anyone has more details about this guy please let us know. You can remain anonymous. We are the paper that published this story about Declan McManus.

Send me an email if you have any info regarding this story or if you have seen this guy.

Thanks. Planet Jackson Hole

[mike cookman]

Before he opened a kiosk in Florida he had one in Tysons Corner. I know because he hired me to demonstrate for him, which I did, working with 3 or four other guys. This was right around when he left for Florida and he never paid us. Then the Feds got him. A then 15 year old named Brian who worked with us had gone down there to work for him, just a couple weeks or so before he got busted. Apparently he was wanted in many states for various types of fraud.

[mike cookman]

By the way, his real named is alleged to be Richard Ottierre, not sure of the spelling. Pronounced OTEEAY.

[mike cookman]

OK, just finished the article.Thats definitly him. He always pretended to be of Irish heritage. I always wanted to stomp his guts out.

[Sal Perrotta]

:D :D :D Declan McManus......THAT IS RICH!!....DECLAN MCMANUS is the real name of ELVIS COSTELLO!!...A well known IRISH songster!!

[Michael Edwards]

Mike: Didn't you work with Patrick at Magic Masters as well?

[Guest]

The hunt is on!
Steve V

[mike cookman]

Michael, he woked there awhile after me. And his name isnt Patrick, it's Declan. :p

[pixsmith]

Just to keep the saga complete.

http://www.planetjh.com/brady/brady_200 ... magic.html

FWIW, this guy was greatin the whole "confidence" area of his life. Really what you need to be a con artist, or, as the article says, "heartless grifter."

Amazing.

[NCMarsh]

Kinda tough to promote yourself as a performer while also being wanted -- seems like you would chose one path or the other. The guy seems fairly slick, but missing out a touch on the big picture.

Using blogger to have a no-cost promo site is a fairly bright idea -- and it looks better than 80% of magic promo sites out there. But it raises a basic question -- you claim to have worked for the Rainbow Room and have quotes from Will Smith and Joan Collins, but you can't afford $5 a year to register your own domain?

Best,
N. <-- "blogger," apparently
IllusionArtistry.com

[mike cookman]

Yes, Declan McManus is Costello's real name. His real middle name is Patrick. Declan Patrick McManus.

[Guest]

Folks,
I believe that person's picture has been used as an avatar at The Magic Cafe'
BWind

[Guest]

I just got an email from a reporter for a Wisconsin magazine and he read about this guy here, and he's written an article about him in his paper. Seems this Declan or Patrick has been in Wisconsin and living on someone else---I believe it said a dead person's---identity and credit cards. Now the Secret Service has convinced him to turn himself in. The article states that he had been working in Evanston Hospital in Evanston, Illinois as, of all things, an EMT. Here's the kicker: I have been living and working in Evanston since 1999 and I had brain surgery there in 2002.
I would forward that article to here but I dont know how. Learning of his living around here scared the hell out of me. And I dont know if I want to be interviewed.

[Kevin Connolly]

Is this the link?

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/i ... 81&ntpid=3

Mike, I wouldn't think you'd be high in the food chain for an interview.

[Guest]

Yeah, that's it. I guess he wants an interview because I knew the guy back in the D.C days.

[Richard Kaufman]

I remember him. What a con man!

[Guest]

IMHO it's a good rule of thumb to avoid being "interviewd by" the media. Accuracy and integrity are not their high points.

[Guest]

The very first link to this thread has today's news, and so the link might be lost. Does anyone have a pix of this guy, it helps visualize the story. Where is the Avatar in the cafe?

[Guest]

This guy reminds me of the late "Dr." Louis L. McCoy, "Th.D.", who blasted through Houston in 1962 - 1964.

[lupalunaris]

If anyone is still looking for this con man, he was on America's Got Talent last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga00s9_ ... ture=share

The long arm of the law caught up with him in 2008 in Middleton, Wisconsin when he was volunteering as an EMT and half-way through paramedic school. I am a paramedic and worked along side of him for a few months. The Irish in me loved his fantastical stories though I knew something was amiss. He wove an amazing tale about how he was from New Jersey and his parents were killed in a car crash when he was very young. His grand parents came from Ireland to take him home and he lived with them in an apartment over their bar in Belfast until he joined the merchant marines when he was 16. He claimed he was running from the police with a buddy of his who had committed a crime. Eventually he met and fell in love with a woman who was a physician with Doctor's Without Borders but she died from an ectopic pregnancy when they were deep in the Congo on assignment. Soon after he came to the US where he was working as a bartender at a Claddaugh restaurant in Middleton. I met him when my work partner and I went there to pick up a take out dinner when we were on duty on the ambulance. He approached me and told me he was a medic from Ireland and wanted to do the same here in America. I gave him my boss's info and he was soon enrolled in EMT school then was volunteering for us when he was in paramedic school. One day he showed up for his shift looking stricken. He said the unit he worked with in the merchant marines had disappeared in Iraq and he was going to go over there to help search for them. The next day he turned himself in to the authorities. He was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison. Here's the story:
http://m.host.madison.com/news/great-im ... touch=true

I hope the people in Jackson Hole catch up with him soon...

[Richard Kaufman]

My god I can't believe this lying sack of sh*t is still around and scamming people! What a cockroach!