Redmond scam victim: 'He's messed with the wrong person'

She had money; he had a key. But what Michelle Adame didn't know was that the man who posed as the owner of a home she wanted to rent is an alleged scam artist.

Paul Bakovich, playing the role of landlord and telling Adame about his day fixing leaking water pipes and evicting nonpaying tenants, also had taken cash from five other potential renters — for a home he didn't own, according to King County prosecutors.

The scam went on for more than two weeks, until Adame, desperate to reclaim her $900 deposit and on her way to meet with Bakovich, stumbled upon sheriff's deputies willing to help.

Adame, 33, met Bakovich, 36, after seeing a Craigslist ad for a three-bedroom rental house on one acre in Redmond for $885 per month. At the time, she thought her dream had come true. It was a house she and her boyfriend, Thomas Masson, could afford — made possible, Bakovich said, because he had been unable to sell it and was taking it off the market.

The couple could move in just in time for Adame's daughters to return from their grandmother's home, where they spent the summer because Adame couldn't afford housing for them. Adame, an administrative assistant who works temporary jobs since being laid off in November, had moved into Masson's small studio apartment for the summer, she said, to save money.

At this new house, she said, the girls would have bedrooms and would be able to get a dog. And they'd be in the new place before the start of the school year.

Instead, the couple became the sixth victims of Bakovich's scam, according to charging documents. In previous weeks, Bakovich also had taken nearly $3,000 in deposits for a room he had been evicted from days earlier, prosecutors say. He was charged this week in King County Superior Court with three counts of second-degree theft. He's being held on $5,000 bail.

Adame and Masson arranged to meet Bakovich — who they say identified himself as James Pelt — at a home in the 25600 block of Northeast Redmond-Fall City Road on Aug. 20. Before they were to meet, Bakovich called and said he had an emergency, but that he'd leave the door open and they could walk through themselves, according to Adame and court documents.

Adame and Masson fell in love with the house. When Bakovich called to say he needed an immediate deposit because other people were interested, the couple scraped up $900 toward the total $2,170 that Bakovich wanted for first and last month's rent and a $400 deposit, charging papers say.

The deal was to be finalized three days later when Adame received her paycheck. But Bakovich called the next day and insisted he needed the money immediately.

Adame said friends asked if the deal was legitimate. She began to wonder herself, and typed Bakovich's e-mail address into Google. She found a number of sites with the words "Beware of Paul Bakovich."

The postings were written by a Seattle man who said he paid Bakovich in advance to repair the roof and work on the gutters of a rental house. Bakovich, he said, took the money and did no work. The man, who asked not to be named, said he was so incensed by Bakovich that, whenever he saw that he had placed a new ad with a new business name on Craigslist, he would flag it for removal and increase his campaign to alert the public.

Finding those warnings "just made me sick," Adame said. She called the real-estate agent listed on the for-sale sign still in front of the house, and discovered it was a foreclosure and never was owned by Bakovich.

"He's messed with the wrong person this time," Adame said. "He's messed with a mother and her kids."

She called 911 and asked a dispatcher for help. She explained that she was about to meet the perpetrator of the scam that afternoon and asked to have a police officer sent. She said the dispatcher told her she could call 911 once she arrived, but that they wouldn't schedule an officer to appear with her.

Angry and frustrated, she and Masson headed to the meeting place at a Woodinville bookstore where she had arranged to meet Bakovich to pay the rest of the money and sign the lease agreement, she said. A few blocks away, the couple spotted King County sheriff patrol cars at a Starbucks. They pulled into the parking lot; four deputies were at a table. Adame said she asked if she could interrupt them, then burst into tears and told her story.

Within minutes, the deputies were en route to the bookstore. One was on a cellphone with Adame as she walked inside and sat at a table, she said. She described Bakovich to the deputies as he walked in.

Bakovich put a rental contract and a key on the table, she said, and mentioned that he'd had a bad day.

About then, one of the deputies tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to step outside, where they arrested him.

Bakovich told deputies he had spotted the vacant house a few days earlier when his truck broke down nearby, and that "he did a stupid thing and that he knows better," according to court documents. He told deputies he used the couple's $900 to repair his truck and buy food, according to the documents.

Investigators quickly linked Bakovich to several other similar cases.

Within the previous two weeks, they allege, Bakovich had collected nearly $3,000 in bogus deposits for a room in a house in the 13500 block of 129th Place Northeast in Kirkland — a house he was evicted from Aug. 7 after three months of missing rent payments, court records say.

In some cases, Bakovich even provided keys, although they didn't fit the house's lock.

Bakovich told investigators that he's innocent in those cases.

Adame said she realizes it might be a long time, if ever, before she can reclaim her lost money. She said she wants Bakovich "locked up for a long time."

"My kids were anxious to come home, and now they can't because there isn't any place for them," she said. "We just wanted to be together."

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com