Like Campbell, Aldridge “followed instructions from someone he had known for many years and whom he trusted,” his papers say. They say that if the judge finds he’s liable for $1 million and Kahlbetzer’s legal costs “then he will be even more of a victim” than Kahlbetzer.
Kahlbetzer’s papers say Aldridge “has experience of romance scams” having previously paid money to a fraudster posing as a Dutch woman called Iris who he had a drink with after meeting on a dating site.
Fake Email
The message asking Campbell to transfer the funds came from an email address that was one character different from Kahlbetzer’s personal email address but that had been manipulated so that it appeared on screen as his exact address. The email was written by “an unknown third party,” Kahlbetzer’s papers say.
On the witness stand Thursday, Campbell said it was “reasonably normal” to get a request to transfer $1 million from Kahlbetzer’s account. She said that with hindsight it was clear that the email asking for the funds to be transferred wasn’t in “perfect English” but she hadn’t picked this up as a problem at the time because it looked like Kahlbetzer was emailing in a rush.
Aldridge says he paid the 61,538 pounds into his personal bank account in April. That’s the “maximum extent” of his benefit, and the most he should pay to Kahlbetzer, he said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.