San Francisco police announced the arrest of a suspect who had been on the run for more than a year.
Police arrested Alan Young, 56, earlier this week in connection with the theft of a cellphone he asked to borrow to make a call to Motown singer Smokey Robinson.
Young is an alleged con artist known for impersonating someone connected to Motown.
He was arrested Tuesday at his San Francisco home minutes after the man reported his cellphone was stolen at a Union Square hotel bar.
The man said Young told him he knew Smokey Robinson and asked if could call Robinson using the victim's cell phone. Young then said that the bar was too noisy so he walked outside never to return.
Last year police said Young introduced himself as Motown's Lamont Dozier to an art gallery owner. He then pretended to be interested in buying $75,000 worth of art for a home he said he owned in Pasadena. Young, posing as Dozier then asked an employee to write up the sale and then bring the invoice to a bar across the street. During that break, the people in the gallery did an online search of Lamont Dozier and determined the man who was just in the store wasn't him. That case ended with no personal loss to the gallery, thanks to their online research. Dozier is a Grammy award winning artist.
At the time of his arrest Tuesday, Young was on felony probation for a previous arrest. He was also arrested in June on suspicion of leaving a San Francisco bar with another victim's cellphone, after telling the victim he was Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier.
Police are asking for other potential victims of similar scams to come forward.
