Dating Fraud Scheme Prompted FBI Arrest Warrant Before Man's Jump To Death

ALEXANDRIA, VA — An online dating fraud indictment was the reason for the FBI's attempted arrest before the suspect jumped to his death off an Alexandria apartment balcony, court documents say.

WTOP reported Shawn Steven Harris was the man who the FBI said jumped off a 15th story balcony in Alexandria and died on Friday, Aug. 8. Court documents filed in federal court indicate there was a grand jury indictment against Harris for schemes involving at least four female victims on online dating and social media websites.

The grand jury indictment indicates the scheme happened between at least October 2019 to at least November 2021. According to the court documents, Harris would take money from the victims by spending their credit cards and falsely promised to pay them back or have them reimbursed by the federal government.

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Harris claimed to the victims that he worked for the federal government, according to the indictment. However, Harris was never a federal employee and tried to conceal the fraud from the victims and the government by using false identities.

Harris would use different identities in the scheme, such as Shawn/Shaun Martinez, Eric Shun, Gordon Shumway, Shaun Harness, Shaun Moor and Shaun Womack.

The indictment said Harris convinced victims to make additional payments despite not repaying them. Among the items he promised for repayment were pet dogs, eliminating student loan debt, houses, cars and paid moving expenses.

In the first case, Harris asked his romantically-involved victim to pay for a government mission abroad and claimed he or the government would repay her. Expenses made on the victim's credit card continued from October 2019 through at least November 2021. Harris had obtained his own credit card from the victim's account in December 2019 under the false name Shawn Martinez.

The second victim, a single mom of two, became romantically involved with Harris and fell victim to a similar scheme with her credit card. At one point, both victims had told Harris they were considering taking out of their retirement accounts to pay down the credit cards after not getting reimbursement from him.

In the third case, Harris used the victim's credit cards with and without her consent, and she confronted him.

The fourth case involved the victim buying clothing for Harris. Harris also took the first victim's credit card information and gave it to the fourth victim to use, claiming it was his own. The victim used the credit card for several purchases.

The case against Harris was dismissed on Wednesday.

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