Long sentence for Twin Cities man who 'left trail of tears' cheating women he met online

The Twin Cities man posed over the years as a U.S. Navy pilot, defense analyst, attorney, firefighter, medical doctor and professor.

Now Derek M. Alldred is a verifiable federal inmate, thanks to a 24-year sentence for stealing from more than two dozen women he met on dating websites.

Alldred, 47, was given the maximum sentence allowed Wednesday in a federal court in Sherman, Texas, after pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud and two counts of aggravated identity fraud. He also was ordered to pay about $255,000 in restitution.

At least four of his victims were living in Minnesota at the time he siphoned their bank accounts and other resources. Other women lived in California, Hawaii and Nevada.

"This defendant left a trail of tears, emotional devastation, and financial ruin behind him," U.S. Attorney Joseph Brown said in announcing the sentence. "It is clear that he will never change, and we expect his sentence to reflect that. We are glad we were able to get some level of justice for these women."

JoAnn Venhuizen was among nine women who spoke at Alldred's sentencing. The Twin Cities woman was taken for nearly $18,000 by "Derek Allarad" in the month they lived together in the fall of 2014, with most of it spent on a life of luxury befitting his claim of being an international business attorney.

Much of his thievery, she said, came after he stole her Social Security number and opened an American Express credit card account.

"He was taking me out to dinner, buying me flowers, and we had a trip to Hawaii that was probably close to $9,000 by itself," said Venhuizen, who met "Derek Allarad" on Match.com. "The room was $800 a night."

She said the trip supposedly was to introduce her to his daughter, who was attending private school in Hawaii. But that meetup never occurred.

That sent her searching the internet for the daughter. And that unveiled the many news articles about Alldred duping other women.

"I got very, very sick to my stomach, of course," she said.

She confronted him, and "he flipped out. He said his ex-wife was trying to make him look bad. … He said, 'I'm leaving,' and I kicked him out and never saw him again."

Venhuizen called Alldred "definitely the best liar I ever met. Hands down."

In 2016, Linda Dyas told Woodbury police that "Richard Peterson" claimed to be a Navy officer.

She said he carried off the deception with military uniforms, certificates, awards and identification — acts that have Alldred facing a pending misdemeanor charge of impersonating an officer.

She said her time with Alldred has left her "with a lot of stuff to take care of," personally and financially. He stole her credit cards, opened new accounts in her name and plundered her retirement savings.

Dyas was also among the women who spoke in court Wednesday. She said Judge Amos Mazzant told Alldred "he'd give him life if he could."

Alldred was sentenced in 2015 to felony theft by swindle in Ramsey County District Court, given a 15-month sentence and ordered to pay more than more than $4,500 in restitution after pleading guilty to cheating the St. Paul Hotel out of lodging, liquor, food and television services during a two-night stay for a woman he said was his wife and two supposed daughters.

Alldred had claimed that he was a doctor, lost his wallet on an airplane and gave a fake name with a San Francisco address. But authorities were alerted by the woman's father, who said she was dating a smooth-talking "scam artist" who gained access to her financial accounts, the criminal complaint read.

Alldred turned up at a Country Inn in White Bear Lake, trying to talk his way into a room without paying and identifying himself as "Dr. Derek Stevens," the complaint continued. White Bear Lake police arrested him.

The woman later won a restraining order against Alldred, telling the court that he "infiltrated my personal e-mail, phone [and] has sent messages to people [while] impersonating me. He forwarded all my phone calls to his own phone without my knowledge."

Public records show various addresses for Alldred in Minnesota, as well as up and down the California coast and in Hawaii. He maintained one Minneapolis address from 1989 until 2003, two others in Wayzata, three more in Minneapolis and one in Woodbury as recently as late 2016.

Cindi Pardini of San Francisco is described by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Texas as "the mother hen" who rallied many of the women to bring Alldred to justice.

Pardini and Alldred connected in late 2012 on Facebook talking football. He said he was a financier of hotels in Lake Tahoe, Maui and elsewhere, Pardini said.

About a year into their friendship, "he asked, 'You mind if I stay at your house? I want to move back to San Francisco,' " she recalled. "I said, 'Sure, no problem.' "

In the month he lived there, she said, Alldred shrank her retirement nest egg and other assets and opened an American Express account on her credit. Her losses topped $250,000, "and that all happened in one month," she said.

Alldred finally was stymied after a woman in the Dallas area went to police after she learned the real identity of the man she knew as Richard Tailor.

Investigators discovered that Alldred had charged more than $12,000 on her credit card and had purchases delivered to him at her residence — including Ray-Ban sunglasses, a Hugo Boss suit and an Invicta gold watch.

At the same time, he was in a relationship with another victim in Dallas. He juggled the two relationships by telling one woman that he had to travel as a pilot and having the other woman pick him up at the airport.

"For a year afterward," said Venhuizen, the Twin Cities woman who went to Hawaii with Alldred, "I was in a really dark place. ... But what makes me feel like it's not my fault is that he did this over and over and over. … That helped me get over that."

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482