Curley on fake 49ers athlete fraud case: ‘I don’t think there are any victims in any of this’

More details continue to rise to the surface regarding Daejon Love and accomplice Taylor Chan’s elaborate, multi-year scheme defrauding more than a million dollars from dozens of women by pretending to be a San Francisco 49ers athlete.

KIRO host John Curley discussed the case on “The John Curley Show,” playing a video showing Love appearing to sign a fake 49ers contract while a friend filmed.

“Did he have a helmet on while he’s sitting there?” Curley asked after fill-in producer Paul Holden noted it was the first time he’d seen Love without a 49ers helmet somewhere in frame.

Love, 35, and Chan, 18, defrauded 26 women across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and California out of roughly $1.3 million from February 2022 until their arrest in Boise, Idaho, on Aug. 24. Love would pose as a San Francisco 49ers player, and Chan would pose as his financial advisor, according to the authorities.

“Love met most of the women on the Internet through dating apps,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Oregon, stated. “Chan falsely posed as Love’s financial adviser to further gain their victims’ trust and demonstrate the validity of the investments. Love and Chan solicited money from the women through lies and misrepresentations.”

As for the women who were defrauded, Curley argued those who sent Love money don’t deserve to be called victims.

“I don’t think there’s any victims in any of this,” Curley said. “You’re a gold digger. You’re looking to be able to hook up with some football player who you think has got a whole bunch of money, and then he ends up lying to you.”

Curley compared the case to “The Tinder Swindler,” a 2022 Netflix documentary about a man who posed as a diamond-industry heir to defraud women he met on dating apps, some of whom took on six-figure debt as a result.

“I am sympathetic, because I think some women are raised on this sort of Disneyland fantasy that some prince is going to fly in out of somewhere, and then all of a sudden all their problems are going to go away,” Curley said. “This guy took advantage of the women that were living through this fantasy, and then he ended up just wrecking a whole bunch of their lives. Part of it is you want so badly to just hook your wagon to some super rich dude that you’re willing to suspend disbelief.”

As part of the fraud scheme, Love allegedly had romantic relationships with many of the victims, convincing them to invest in nonexistent investment vehicles so they both could generate “massive returns.”

According to multiple users on X, the fake profile even fooled Google’s AI Overview result, claiming he was a “wide receiver” for the franchise when searched online.

The scheme went so far as to have the pair host three-way FaceTime calls in which they showed victims falsified investment gains virtually. But once victims ran out of money to give away, Love would block communication with them. The same happened if victims began asking too many questions.

Curley’s sympathy runs out when it comes to the Love case specifically.

“When I hear about these other women being taken advantage of by this moron, the 49er who’s apparently not No. 4 because Jay Moody has it — I got a little cold-hearted on it,” Curley said.

In total, Love and Chan received approximately $1.3 million from at least 26 victims, but the FBI believes there are “many more” victims.

Love and Chan were both charged by criminal complaint in Portland. They are both in federal custody in Boise. Their first court appearance was on Aug. 27.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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