MONROE — An Illinois man who bragged about scamming dozens of businesses across the region was sentenced last month to time served in Green County and sent back to his home state to “pay the piper” for open cases and parole violations there.

John Henry Loresch, 51, has been in the Green County Jail since his arrest at a Monroe residence Feb. 14, when he told police he had a bus ticket for Florida and was minutes away from skipping town.

On Aug. 21, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft charges in combined cases from Green and Lafayette counties and was sentenced by Judge James Beer to 188 days in jail, his time served since February.

“We’re sending him back to Illinois, where he has a plethora of charges. Rather than the Wisconsin taxpayers paying for Mr. Loresch, we’re letting Illinois foot the bill,” said Green County District Attorney Craig Nolen.

At the time of his arrest, Loresch had several years left on parole for burglary and theft convictions in DuPage, Cook and Kane counties, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He faces prison time for violating his parole, in addition to a fresh batch of theft charges in the state.

“If he didn’t have this other Illinois stuff, I would have been interested in prison. But Illinois was already going to be placing him in prison, so from my perspective, why have Wisconsin taxpayers pay (for it)?” Nolen said.

Nolen said he wrote a letter to each of Loresch’s victims explaining why he chose to recommend this route for prosecution.

“He still has to pay the piper down in Illinois,” Nolen said.

Loresch was released from prison onto parole in July 2018. Within months, he was eluding police in the stateline area while committing brazen scams on employees at gas stations, bars and other small businesses, typically walking away from each with $150 to $180 in cash, according to court records.

His targets in Monroe included Swirl Station, the ice cream shop just north of the city, and downtown restaurant The Garden Deli. He also targeted the Conoco gas station in Gratiot, a coffee shop in Brodhead, Subway restaurants in Cuba City and Darlington and the Wheel Inn in Shullsburg.

He’s suspected of thefts or attempted thefts in Evansville, Madison, Baraboo, Beloit, Janesville, Darlington, Cuba City, South Wayne and Gratiot, and across northern Illinois, including in Freeport, Stockton, Galena and Elizabeth.

After his arrest in Monroe in February, he told police in a lengthy interview that he is “the best” at what he does and they were lucky to catch him when they did. During the interview, he offered his expertise as a service to businesses and law enforcement.

Loresch’s scam involves posing as a relative or friend of the manager or owner, inventing a crisis such as needing money for a tow after a car accident or taxi ride for a wife in labor, then telling the employee he’s pre-approved to get cash. To further create the appearance of legitimacy, he often pretends to call the owner in front of the employee.

At Swirl Station, Loresch gave a fake name and said he was the business owner’s cousin, according to court records. He pretended to call the owner on a cellphone in front of a cashier, even reciting the correct number. He left the owner a signed, dated slip of paper as an “IOU” before leaving with $150 cash.

When Loresch leaves a business, “it is with a handshake and a thank you,” he told Green County Detective Chris Fiez and Monroe Detective Sergeant Dan Skatrud.

“(Loresch) advised that they will sometimes hug you,” Fiez wrote in a report filed with court documents.

Employees have even given him money out of their own pockets because there wasn’t enough in the register, Loresch told the detectives. He said he’s heard later from police that employees have lost their jobs because of his scams and “it does not feel good to know that.”

The victims “are good people,” he said.

At Marty’s Village Inn in South Wayne, after Loresch scammed a bartender out of cash from the register, the bartender felt so bad that he paid the owner back with his personal money, according to police reports. He told police the owner had been good to him and shouldn’t have to suffer for his mistake.

One business where Loresch’s spiel of pretending to know the owner didn’t work was at Zephyr Depot in Benton on Feb. 2. The cashier told Loresch her parents own the business and she had never before seen him. He hastily left, without cash.

But Loresch succeeds more often than not with his scam. He’s been perfecting it for decades. He has over three dozen forgery, theft and drug convictions in Illinois dating back to the late 1980s.

In 2010, he was sentenced to nine years in prison in Illinois for “stealing from an Elmhurst gas station by posing as a friend of the owner and persuading a clerk to give him $150,” according to a news report at the time.

Five years later, he was back on the street and doing the same type of thefts, targeting a gas station, fast food restaurant and a hotel, according to the Aurora Police Department in Illinois.

At the time of his arrest in Monroe, police were aware of at least 16 recent thefts in which Loresch was the suspect, but Loresch told them he’d committed “probably another 40.”