A Florida woman featured on a truTV reality show was arrested Thursday in Lady Lake, accused of bilking millions from unsuspecting people around Florida.
Nicole Clawson, 39, is best known to viewers of the reality show "Full Throttle Saloon," and was put on a list of wanted individuals by the Lake County Sheriff's office earlier this week.
Clawson made her first court appearance with a Judge in a Lake County court on Friday. She remained silent as the charges were read to her. She is accused of ripping off unsuspecting victims in Lake, Sumter and Marion counties.
"Full Throttle Saloon" was taped in August but is just now appearing on television.
Detectives say Clawson initially contacted the show's producers by email before the show started taping and managed to lie her way onto the set of the show, which is about a biker bar in Sturgis, South Dakota. She told producers she inherited $40 million from her father after he died and wanted to give the bar $1 million. Clawson was invited to the set of the show and appeared in several episodes.
In October Clawson returned to Central Florida, shaved her head, and started hanging out near The Villages Regional Hospital, Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala and Leesburg Regional Medical Center, posing as a nurse as well as a terminally ill cancer patient. She allegedly started taking money from patients and employees at the hospitals with her terminal cancer patient story.
Clawson was arrested in The Villages Thursday night without incident after a cancer patient told police where to find her.
Police also say Clawson went as far as chatting with unsuspecting men online she was getting money from, including a man in a wheelchair whom she convinced to marry her. That man told police Clawson tried to make him put money down on a million dollar home.
Clawson, a mother of three, was accused of pulling another scam in Indiana years ago when she published fake obituaries for her children in a local newspaper and accepted donations after for funeral costs.
Police in Sumter County are convinced there are other victims out there, and are encouraging anyone who may have been a victim of Clawson to contact them at 352-569-1680.
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