Sean Grady swooned when he laid eyes on the Craigslist ad for a black 1991 Nissan 300ZX. His parents, Michael and Elsa, didn't want their then-seventeen-year-old son to get ripped off, so they went with him in September of 2010 to meet Jamie Campbell, who had posted the ad. "He seemed like a really nice guy. He seemed trustworthy," Michael Grady said recently. "He didn't seem like a shady character to me."
After a test drive, Campbell, a Radnor Township police sergeant, agreed to sell the car to Sean Grady for $7,500, according to a copy of the sales agreement obtained by the Daily News.
Neither the Warminster teen nor his parents knew that they were about to be scammed by a burly cop, who did not even own the car and who had ties to a reputed leader of a Delaware County mob gambling ring, or that the ordeal would end in a tragedy.
Grady plunked down $3,200 up front for the Nissan and another $2,800 he earned through landscaping work over the next few months, copies of Grady's checks show. But Grady never got the car.
Campbell, 39, led on the teen and his parents for two years by hiding behind layers of lies about a phantom divorce and phony military leave, according to copies of text messages and law-enforcement records obtained by the Daily News.
Sean Grady ultimately told Campbell's bosses in Radnor Township about the scam, and got his money back, his father said. He used the cash to buy a motorcycle.
On 12 August, Grady, nineteen, was killed when, authorities said, his motorcycle collided in Warminster with a car driven by an eighteen-year-old allegedly under the influence.
Campbell was fired for conduct unbecoming an officer in June, but had an arbitration hearing last week in a bid to get his job back. A spokeswoman for the Delaware County District Attorney's Office said an investigation into the case was ongoing.
"There are two sides to every story," said Robert DeLuca, Campbell's attorney. DeLuca said the case was actually a "contractual dispute" that stemmed from the fact that Grady had failed to live up to an agreement to pay off the Nissan in ninety days. The dispute, DeLuca said, was ultimately settled. DeLuca declined to address any of the apparent lies that Campbell fed to Grady and his parents, but said he believed Campbell would get his job back.
Michael and Elsa Grady, meanwhile, are left with a gaping hole in their lives, their hearts, their home. They would have celebrated their son's twentieth birthday three days after Christmas.
Rico says it's a sad story, but it's riding a motorcycle and another stupid drunk kid that killed the poor kid...
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