DALLAS, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- An alleged con man is back in Dallas after serving a year in prison in New York for violating parole on a 1988 kidnapping case, officials said.
Michael Manos, an alleged scam artist who preyed on Dallas' upscale party circuit, is being held on $150,000 bail, the Dallas Morning News reported Saturday.
Authorities in New York, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas say Manos launched celebrity-stoked enterprises that played on the get-rich hopes of victims.
In Dallas, Manos, calling himself Mladen "Mordan" Stefanov, the son of a Greek mogul, partied with actors and Dallas Cowboys, formed a fashion magazine and pitched a reality TV show.
Manos allegedly used a fake passport to sign two apartment leases for total losses of nearly $57,000 and also used it to rent furniture valued at $9,000, police say
In his youth in New York, authorities say, Manos allegedly was a troubled runaway, teenage dropout, petty criminal and male prostitute who ended up in prison for a bungled kidnapping scheme, the newspaper said.
After his release, Manos skipped out on his parole and resurfaced in Dallas as "Stefanov," head of Society Fashion Report, an online magazine and TV program, police allege.
Manos fled Dallas in late 2009 but was arrested in San Francisco in 2010 with $10,000 in cash, 30 credit cards in a fake name and a bogus Bulgarian driver's license, authorities said said.
After being returned to New York to serve time on his parole violation, he was returned to Dallas to face the charges against him there.
