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A hard-up Detroit man who was surprised with $100,000 for being nice to an influencer was later kidnapped, beaten and left tied up inside a burning car by some of his own relatives trying to steal his windfall, according to cops.
Curtis Dixon had been planning to pawn his wedding ring to pay bills last month when he unknowingly ran into Zach Dereniowski, a TikTokker with 24 million viewers who was pretending to be blind.
Dereniowski surprised him with $1,000 for helping him — then arranged a GoFundMe that raised $100,000 and helped buy Dixon a new car.
But the elderly man’s tears of joy turned into a nightmare when his nephew, Roland Terrell Chatmon, allegedly hatched a plan to steal his uncle’s windfall, according to a criminal complaint.
That plot also played on Dixon’s generosity, with a woman stopping him on Sept. 1 and pretending to have car trouble, the complaint said.
Dixon kindly offered to drive the woman, later identified as Lecia Lopez Martinez, to a home — when an armed man and woman came up to his truck and demanded money “or they would kill his wife,” the complaint said.
He was then tied up in the back of his own car and driven to multiple ATMs where the suspects got him to withdraw $4,400 from his accounts, according to the 27-page complaint, first obtained by Fox 2 Detroit.
Dixon was driven to his home, where the suspects tied up his wife and stole a safe. Once she managed to get free, she called the police — who found Dixon tied up near his burning GMC Yukon, with witnesses saying they had found him inside but pulled him out to safety.
The plot was partially revealed when Chatmon called his brother, an inmate at the county jail, and bragged about wanting to “turn a hustle” on his uncle, the affidavit said.
“I need some racks real quick,” Chatmon allegedly said about the money.
Using cell phone records and ATM surveillance footage, authorities tracked down the suspects after the kidnapping, they said in the complaint.
Chatmon, Martinez, Kenneth Paul Anderson as well as Ieasha Stroman and her wife Dnequia Stroman were each arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
Dixon had got his windfall when Dereniowski pretended to need help — then said he was doing so to find “the first kind person to be nice” to give $1,000 to.
After learning about Dixon’s financial troubles — and that he planned to pawn his wedding ring to cover a utility bill — Dereniowski organized a GoFundMe that raised over $1000,000 and bought him a new car.
In follow-up clip posted online, Dixon breaks down crying and hugs his family when the influencer hands him the life-changing amount of money. “Oh my God,” he kept repeating in the video.
“We need more people like Curtis in this world,” Dereniowski, who goes by mdmotivator online, told Fox 2 Detroit at the time.
“Everyone can do these small acts because the small acts are what matters. That’s where all this money came from. Everyone that had a small amount to give wanted to give to you because they felt your heart.”
