NAME: Eugene Dongwoo Pae
AGE: 25
HEIGHT: 5’11”
WEIGHT: 130

ALLEGED CRIME: Scammed more than 15 people and companies out of $170,000 in cash and electronics, such as laptops and digital cameras.

Scheme One: Began his operation in March out of his parents’ Los Angeles home. Posing as an electronics store owner, Pae “rented” about $77,000 worth of laptops from Boston-based Rentex Computer Rentals, and $44,000 worth of equipment from ICC Enterprises, Inc., in Arlington Heights, Ill. He later canceled the credit card he had given them, stopped responding to their e-mails and canceled his phone service, said Detective Mark Furniss of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Wilshire Division. Pae then sold the electronics online for $800 to $1,600 per item but failed to deliver.

Scheme Two: He responded in July to a woman’s online ad to sublet a Koreatown apartment, wrote a bad check for the first month’s rent and security deposit, but moved in anyway.

Barely settled into his new digs, Pae posted another ad online, re-subletting the $1,500 apartment for $800 to $900. He promised the unit to seven people and collected the first month’s rent and security deposit, up to $2,000 from some. “He drove them to the bank in some instances — ’cause he’s a nice guy,” Furniss said wryly.

The seven “barely missed each other” when they viewed the apartment. It became apparent they had been duped when “they all showed up to move in and Pae was gone,” Furniss said.

ALLEGED VICTIM(S): Fifteen and counting. More victims are coming forward, police say. “Tech-savvy” Pae met most online, via Internet chat rooms and CraigsList.org. All showed up at his family’s residence for answers — “to the point where the parents didn’t want to answer the door,” Furniss said.

DATE OF ARREST: Aug. 23 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was recovering from a near-fatal stab wound to his neck and right leg — the work of one of his alleged victims, an acquaintance who had loaned Pae $500.

The suspect, a man in his 20s whose name was not immediately available, attacked Pae with a kitchen steak knife when Pae refused to pay him back. The man fled, and Pae then drove to a nearby 7-Eleven store, where a police car was parked.

“He made such a commotion driving in, the cops saw him right away,” said LAPD Detective Josh Cho, who investigated the stabbing. “He came in pretty quickly and almost collided with a sergeant’s car. Of course, by the time we got to him, he was covered in blood. The doctor told him he was extremely fortunate to be alive. He had missed his carotid artery by a fraction of an inch.”

The stabbing suspect was arrested the next day and confessed to the crime, Cho said.