Waitress Finds Thorn in Rosy Dreams When She Runs Ad

Sherry Bell’s advertisement in a tabloid had a simple message: “Wanted. One good-hearted man to hold me, to put his arms around us and make us a family again. We’re 26 and 6.”

The divorcee wanted a better life for herself and her boy, Tommy, in this rural community 45 miles southeast of Toledo.

“All I ever wanted was a Norman Rockwell picture, you know, a home with a white picket fence, two or three kids and a dog,” Bell said.

She wound up with an apparent con man and a broken heart.

Bell’s ad in The Sun yielded dozens of letters. She answered only one, from a man called Paul Jeffrey Glogere. He seemed sensitive and caring, she said.

They met, she fell in love, and they planned their marriage. Two weeks later, the romance abruptly ended with his arrest.

Authorities say Glogere is really Steven Gloger, 45, of New York and wanted in Quincy, Ill., for violating probation on a 1989 conviction for writing bad checks to hotels there. He’s now in jail in Tiffin on $100,000 bond, awaiting an extradition hearing Thursday.

Quincy Police Lt. Michael DeVoss said Gloger targeted women through personal ads. Gloger married or promised to marry several, took their money and split, leaving them with bills, though Bell’s romance with him didn’t get that far, DeVoss said.

Bell said Gloger told her at first that he was a corporate lawyer and an accountant making $150,000 a year. He proposed marriage before they met, she said. Wishing to meet him first, she said, they agreed he would visit in October.

Bell said the night before his arrival, he told her he was a millionaire with a chateau in France, a hacienda in Phoenix and a house in Hawaii. He said he kept his background a secret because he didn’t want to be loved for his money.

A few days after meeting him, Bell accepted the marriage proposal and, at his urging, quit her job as a waitress and bartender and her studies toward becoming a medical assistant.

“He treated me like nobody had ever treated me before. He treated me with respect. He was wonderful,” Bell said.

But friends and family were skeptical of the man’s claims. A cousin asked police to run a background check and Gloger’s probation violation was uncovered. He was arrested Nov. 12.

Bell is now trying to start over. She’s back in school but has failed to get her job back. She depends on food stamps and $279 a month in welfare.

She still gets replies to her ad. One came from a North Dakota man who said he was a multimillionaire.

“I threw the letter away,” Bell said. “You just can’t trust anybody these days.”