By Bret Liebendorfer

It had the making of a bad joke. A police captain, a rabbi and a flight attendant, three different occupations (and each potentially hilarious) were all victims of a scam earlier this year. The con artist, 29-year-old New Jersey resident Michael Cosmi (aka Dr. Michael Harris), would tell a sob story on his cell phone about being a recently robbed doctor that desperately needed money to get back to his out-of-state hospital. Of course, he would repay anyone who could help. In a world where networks compete with rival shows about the world’s dumbest criminals, there needs to be one about the world’s dumbest victims. Can you really believe that Police Captain Bill Tobin fell for this new take on an old scam? As it turns out, however, Tobin saved the day and returned the lowly criminal to the status of idiot. While riding on the LIRR weeks after being scammed, Tobin overheard the same story. This time he contacted the train’s operator and had Cosmi arrested, where, in true world’s-dumbest-criminal form, Cosmi was found with a notebook full of addresses of people he had conned.