The caller weaved a wild tale, plausible up to a point. RELATED Phone scammers now demanding Apple iTunes gift cards And once Szilagyi did that, he received another call demanding that he pay $2,000 more using the same method in order to hire a sheriff’s deputy to walk Christa through security at the Florida and Indiana airports. But first, Szilagyi was told, he had to pay $3,000 to get her before a judge by purchasing Apple iTunes gift cards and reading the serial numbers to the caller. The original caller who claimed to be a public defender said he wanted to put Christa on a plane back home. “(She said) ‘Please help me, Grandpa, I want to go home so bad.’ Please don’t tell my parents.” His wife, Gloria, 77, had just heard the same wailing and handed him the phone. “She was just sobbing,” recalled Szilagyi, 79, a resident of Murrieta. John Szilagyi was still in his pajamas the morning of April 25 when he took a phone call from someone who sounded like his granddaughter, Christa, a college student in Indiana, who said she was in legal trouble in Florida.
