Broken Hearts Club: Ringo sighting was just a hoax

Broken Hearts Club: Ringo sighting was just a hoax

By KATI BEXLEY
Staff Writer
Publication Date: 08/10/04

It turns out the Ringo Starr sighting in St. Augustine last Thursday was really a man starring in a hoax, according to Sgt. Steve Fricke of the St. Augustine Police Department.

A man with a beard, round sunglasses, a gold cross dangling from his ear and a British accent stayed at the Casa Monica Hotel last Thursday.

He even gave out autographs and appeared to shun media attention.

At the time, Joni Barkley, the hotel's director of sales and marketing, said the man was Ringo Starr, the legendary drummer of The Beatles.

Other celebrities, including John Travolta and the Spanish royal family, have stayed at the downtown hotel, which added an air of authenticity to the man's appearance.

Two stories with a photograph ran in The St. Augustine Record on Friday and Saturday. Other media also covered the news.

Fricke said Monday that he responded to media inquiries from England and found Starr had not been in St. Augustine at all.

"I talked to several sources to confirm it," Fricke said. "We are normally contacted when someone with a prominent background is in town. We were not contacted and that was the first indication something was amiss."

Elizabeth Freund, of Elizabeth Freund Public Relations in New York, told The Record that she is in charge of Starr's public relations and he was not in St. Augustine.

"He was not in Florida at all. I have no idea who that was, but he wasn't Ringo Starr," Freund said.

She said she heard there was a man pretending to be Starr in St. Augustine through e-mails and phone calls. She said she does not know of a Starr impostor in Florida.

Barkley would not comment Monday on the possibility that the man was not Starr. She said she could not give out any information about hotel guests.

A freelance reporter and photographer for The Sun, a newspaper in England, said they traveled to St. Augustine to do a story on Starr impostors they have found in Florida.

Fricke said St. Augustine Police are not investigating the Starr impersonator any further because he did not appear to break any laws.

"At this point we're making sure that no one in the community was scammed or harmed, other than a couple of people getting their hearts broken, which is kind of cruel," Fricke said.

During his stay in St. Augustine, the man was seen at the Lightner Museum, the Tradewinds Tropical Lounge and Grill and in the Casa Monica ballroom, where he played the opening of "Lean on Me" on a hotel piano.

He signed a few autographs and posed for photos with local people.

Angie Labutti, a waitress and bartender at Tradewinds, took a picture with Starr and watched him perform the Beatles' song "Boys" Thursday night with the Tradewinds house band.

"I thought he sounded exactly like Ringo Starr," Labutti said. "I was a huge fan of The Beatles in high school. I had their posters, I read their books."

She said the man never called himself Starr.

"He never said he was Ringo Starr. He never said he wasn't when people called him that," Labutti said.

She said she doesn't care either way if the man she met wasn't Starr.

"I think it's cool I met a guy that looks just like him."



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