One undercover officer reached back and put her hair into a ponytail. That was the signal for the others to put down their newspapers and get up from their chairs to move in behind 30-year-old Randy Hatter.

Meanwhile, all Rachel Kiningham could do Wednesday morning was look into Hatter’s eyes, shake his hand and smile.

“I couldn’t help it,” said the 22-year-old nursing student, who played a vital role in a sting operation at the downtown Starbucks that ended in the arrest of a suspected multistate thief.

Hatter, of Flint, Mich., is accused of using Craigslist, the online classifieds Web site, to lure people seeking work as either a baby sitter or janitor into a meeting where he’d ask for their personal information, including their Social Security number.

He’d also ask them for between $20 and $25 so he could perform a criminal background check on them, a fee he sometimes would promise to reimburse after they were hired, according to court documents and published reports. But those who forked over their money and information – usually when they met him at a coffeehouse or restaurant – would never hear from Hatter again, according to court documents.

It’s a scam police believe Hatter was running in Grand Rapids, Mich., and one he might have been pulling in Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Kiningham might have been another victim if she hadn’t stumbled upon some red flags with Hatter’s ad. She did some research, came across news of a scam that sounded eerily similar and was soon calling both local and Michigan police to find out whether they were interested.

As it turns out, yes, they were.

The scam

Kiningham, in her first year at Ivy Tech, never trusted or had used Craigslist before, she said.

One day after helping her mother find a kitchen table on the site, though, she began surfing the ads of people looking for a baby sitter, hoping to add some income to what she takes in as a waitress at Steak ‘n Shake. She found Hatter’s ad, fired off an e-mail and nearly immediately had a reply from someone claiming to be a woman.

“It said, ‘I’m very interested in you watching my daughter, but my husband is very protective and we’ve had some bad experiences with babysitters,’ ” Kiningham recalled.

Soon, she received a phone call from a man claiming his name was Terry Jones. He told Kiningham he wanted to meet with her at the downtown Starbucks and that she should bring three references, two forms of photo ID and some money for a background check.

He had had so many bad experiences, he said. He required these items for insurance purposes. The money would be reimbursed in her first paycheck, he told her.

A few days before she was to meet him, though, she found out a family friend had applied for the same job. They were to meet the same man the same day, just two hours apart.

“We thought it was kind of fishy,” Kiningham said.

She decided not to go to the meeting but began thinking about how widespread the scam might be. She Googled “Craigslist babysitting scam” and immediately found articles from media in Grand Rapids about a similar scam in which police were still looking for a suspect.

She also found it more than coincidental that the cell phone call she received from “Terry Jones” came from a number with a Grand Rapids area code. She called detectives there, and within the hour she was on the phone with detectives in Fort Wayne.

They wanted to meet her Wednesday morning, right before her scheduled meeting.

The sting

Kiningham, a self-professed lover of police television shows like “Law & Order,” was never supposed to meet Hatter.

An undercover officer was going to pose as Kiningham instead. During a meeting with police, though, potential problems with the plan kept arising. What if the man had searched for Kiningham on Facebook and seen her picture? What if he tried to call her phone while she was there to see whether it rang?

Ultimately, police asked Kiningham whether she’d go to the meeting.

The undercover officer originally pegged to play Kiningham went along as a “cousin” who had given her a ride. Two other officers took up seats in Starbucks, two more stationed themselves at the McDonald’s across the street and another kept driving around the area, Kiningham said.

Kiningham’s nerves quickly vanished when she saw the 5-foot-5 man, who she said looked exactly like someone caught on surveillance tape in Michigan and published online by the Grand Rapids media.

“As soon as I saw him, I knew it was him, and my confidence came back,” she said. “He looked like a bum in a suit.”

Kiningham’s interview lasted more than 20 minutes. He looked at her driver’s license but had told her before the meeting he would not need her Social Security number until another time.

She gave fake references and handed him $25 but had to ad-lib when he started asking detailed questions, making it hard for her to keep things straight.

He must have had trouble himself, she said, since at one point he asked whether his wife used Kelly or Kim as her name when she e-mailed.

“I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to keep a straight face,” Kiningham said.

Hatter seemed suspicious and kept glancing at the undercover officer seated with her who added nothing to the conversation, according to Kiningham. He even questioned whether they were cousins, noting the officer could pass as Kiningham’s aunt.

At one point, Kiningham said an officer stationed in the coffee shop started giving her hand signals to “wrap it up.”

Finally, the meeting ended with Hatter giving Kiningham a fake address for another interview, where she would supposedly meet his wife, another wrinkle to the similar scams in the other states. Officers swooped in and cuffed Hatter right there in the coffee shop.

He led police to his van parked downtown, where they found documents similar to the one he had Kiningham fill out, only with various other names.

“He really didn’t act surprised,” Kiningham said. “He seemed upset, but he didn’t act surprised.”

Aftermath

An employee at Craigslist said the company does not take phone calls from media. An e-mail to the company had not been returned as of Thursday evening.

This year, the company came under fire for its ads pertaining to erotic services and prostitution after a man in Boston was accused of killing a woman he targeted through the site. The site does offer warnings about possible scams and posts examples of real-life scams for users to review.

Hatter was booked into Allen County Lockup on three felony counts of theft and one misdemeanor count of deception after his arrest. He’s being held in lieu of $8,250 bail. Two of those theft charges stem from dealings with two other victims he met in the city before Kiningham, according to court documents.

Fort Wayne police believe there might be more, and police spokesman officer Michael Joyner said detectives received at least three calls Thursday from people suspecting they might have met Hatter and given him money. Those who think they might have been one of his victims are encouraged to call detectives at 427-1201.

Kiningham said that back at the police station she saw a briefcase from Hatter’s van with papers that listed more than a dozen names, supposedly more people he was to meet with that day. She said officers asked her afterward whether she had any interest in law enforcement, but she told them her foray into the world of undercover police work began and ended Wednesday.

“I think ‘Law & Order’ is as far as I’m going to go with that,” she said.

jeffwiehe@jg.net