'He can tell you he's anybody, and you'll believe him'

When we caught up the charming con artist, he was moving in on his most vulnerable victim yet, and refused to answer any allegations.

"I've already heard about those. I don't have any interest in speaking with you," said Hnedak, who had just moved into an elderly widow's Bellevue home.

Hnedak is a convicted con man who served nearly four years in prison. And even his own mother, Susan, says one shouldn't trust a word he says. Susan only wished to be identified by her first name. Her last name differs from that of her son.

"He's left a trail all the way across the country," said Susan.

Hnedak has left a trail of victims like Jamie Dewees. Dewees was born with nerve damage affecting his hearing, eyesight and comprehension. But he lived quite well on his own for 13 years, until he met Hnedak.

Last October, Dewees let Hnedak temporarily move into his condo. He was grateful when Hnedak offered to get Dewees a break on his phone bill.

"He said, 'Oh Jamie let me do that. Just give me your information.' And I gave him (my) social security card, my ID," he said. "He made it look so good."

Then Hnedak started hitting Dewees up for loans.

"He was basically using me as his personal ATM," said Dewees. The victim says Hnedak paid him back with rubber checks, and Dewees' debts mounted.

"It was close to $20,000," he said.

In just two months, Dewees went broke. His bank accounts were frozen, and his credit was trashed.

"He's evil. He's just pure evil," said the victim's mother, Karen Dewees, about Hnedak.

Karen Dewees says she's never met anyone as smooth as Hnedak.

"He's a master manipulator. He's very, very good," she said.

How good is Graham Hnedak? We asked his mother.

"He can tell you he's anybody, and you'll believe him," she said.

Susan says her son has used his charm, bolstered by websites, to pass himself off as a pilot, a doctor, a businessman. She says he's feigned numerous illnesses, from a brain tumor to multiple sclerosis.

Susan herself suffers from muscular dystrophy, but she doesn't believe her son suffers from any of those ailments.

"Ninety-nine percent of what he says is not the truth," she said.

Susan should know. She says her son's first victims were his own grandmothers.

"What he's done to people, he's done it to us. I mean, I watched my mother go through it and lose what she had," she said.

That was in Tennessee. Now Hnedak has a string of victims here in the Northwest. Rich Bailey and James Kimball say they also fell victim to Hnedak.

The couple let him stay for two weeks in exchange for room and board. Hnedak even signed a contract.

"So there was no question in our minds initially of (whether) this person is believable," said Bailey.

But two weeks turned into four months. The couple now figures they spent thousands supporting Hnedak. When asked if they ever got any payment from Hnedak, Kimball said, "No, haven't got a penny from him."

But the most heartbreaking case KOMO News uncovered was at the Bellevue home of an elderly widow living on a fixed income. KOMO has chosen to protect the woman's identity.

A local Mormon bishop had introduced Hnedak to the woman as a renter who could help supplement her income.

"I'm in a terrible position financially," she said. "I'm trying to hang on to my house."

As in the other cases, after Hnedak moved in, he offered to help the widow manage her finances. She gave him her personal information, including account numbers and social security number.

After KOMO News warned her, the woman says she found Hnedak had added several phone lines, putting them all in her name.

"I'm so naïve. I can't believe how naïve I am," she said.

Spurred by the thought of another elderly woman fleeced by her son, Hnedak's mom, Susan, has formed an unlikely bond with Jamie Dewees' mom, Karen Dewees; borne of shared pain and with a common goal: to keep others from becoming victims.

"I just think it's my moral obligation to look out for other victims before something happens to them," said Susan.

Bellevue police are investigating Hnedak for both the Dewees case and the elderly widow's case. But no charges have been filed.