Feds charge Carrick man with using Craigslist to defraud ticket buyers

A Carrick man used the free Internet site Craigslist to scam thousands of dollars from more than 40 people who were trying to buy event tickets online, court records show. Jesse James Gasior, 25, used craigslist.org to find people who were trying to buy tickets to concerts and sporting events and contacted them using various names, phone numbers and email addresses, prosecutors say. In some cases, he conned the victims into sending money through Western Union using a security question so he wouldn't have to present an ID to obtain it, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Elliot Petersen. When Pittsburgh police and federal agents interviewed him in April, Gasior claimed he was refunding the money but then scammed a victim in California who paid $680 for two tickets to Burning Man, the affidavit said. Overall, Gasior defrauded at least 41 people out of $15,581, the affidavit says. A federal grand jury indicted Gasior on four counts of wire fraud. The most recent phone number listed for Gasior is no longer in service. His attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Thomas Livingston, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.