Troopers: Pair tricked elderly man out of $7,000 by pretending to be police

HOMER CITY, Pa. --

An Indiana County couple is jailed on charges they pretended to be undercover police officers to fool a 92-year-old man into paying them $7,000 in what he believed were fines.

State troopers from the Indiana barracks said the victim lived in Homer City.

Investigators said 31-year-old Jacquelynn Forsythe and 27-year-old Christopher Dobies stayed with the elderly man. Forsythe allegedly met the man at church when he offered to help her out of a financial mess five years ago.

Police said the couple ran up a drug debt and conspired to pay it by tricking the man into believing he committed, or was suspected of, crimes. They claimed to be undercover police who could pay the fines with money he gave them, police said.

The Associated Press reported that Dobies' attorney didn't return a call Friday and Forsythe doesn't have one yet.