The infamous ‘Dine-and-Dash Dater’
Paul Gonzales found women through dating sites, then made them pay for his lobster and steak, said journalist Jeff Maysh in To catch and convict him, a police detective had to get inside his head.
ONE EVENING IN the spring of 2016, Marjorie Moon slipped off her scrubs and washed the emergency room out of her long, blond hair. She stepped into a dress and high heels, transforming herself from a tired trauma nurse into a hot date. The 47-year-old divorcée from Los Angeles was inundated with offers from men on matchmaking websites, who often compared her to the Friends actress Lisa Kudrow. For Moon, dating involved racing home from 12-hour shifts while wrangling babysitters. “I’d been under a lot of stress,” she explained. “Just single-mom stuff and whatnot. I have five kids.” Scheduling often killed off any romance. Then she matched with a man named Paul on the dating website PlentyOfFish.
Smooth-talking Paul shared her love for fine dining and invited her to the Tam O’Shanter, one of L.A.’s oldest eateries.
“I’m going to go with or without you,” he told her, removing any indecision. Soon she was driving across the city, full of hope that Paul, 43, could be ‘the one.’ He had sent her videos of his two adorable young sons and said he was the CEO of the LA Fitness gym franchise. But as Moon handed her car keys to the valet, she saw her date arrive on foot. She wondered, “Does he not have a car?” Paul’s dyed-black hair was thick with gel, and he exuded short-guy energy. As he held open the restaurant door, his light green eyes sparkled.
“Look how beautiful she is!” said Paul, as the waitress seated the couple. Then, loud enough for everyone to hear, he boomed: “I don’t deserve to be with her! She’s so gorgeous!” Paul edged his seat closer to hers, then got to work on the menu. Moon said he ordered: “A salad, chicken, fish, and two lobster tails on the side.” When Paul finished, he summoned two more lobster tails. After rounding off the meal with a devilish chocolate soufflé, Paul declared that he wanted to date Moon “exclusively,” then stepped outside to make a phone call. “A few minutes in, I had a funny feeling,” she said. He never came back.
Hot with embarrassment, Moon told the
maître d’ she’d been ditched. Soon the waitress was sitting in her date’s empty chair, crying. “I wish I could take care of your bill,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.” But Moon had no tears to cry. She paid the $250 bill and marched out, imagining the cost of the meal in emergency room hours.
By the time she reached home, Moon was fuming. When Paul sent her a text message asking “Hi. How are you?” she exploded. She called a girlfriend who persuaded her to put the word out. It was late at night when Moon angrily typed a Facebook status update: “Here are the pics of the man who ditched me at dinner.... Please share on your FB and tell the story so this loser doesn’t do this to others!” But it was too late. Her post went viral, and her inbox filled with other victims of the same man. His name was not Paul Azini, as he had told Moon, but Gonzales. He’d told women he was an NBC sports editor, a sports agent, and that he worked for the Lakers. Gonzales was seemingly everywhere.
Television stations, a producer from Steve Harvey’s radio show, and a Canadian podcast all contacted Moon for interviews. Victims shared other media requests on Facebook messenger. News anchors soberly issued bulletins warning viewers of the “handsome” bandit’s modus operandi: Gonzales quickly enticed women into a dinner date, ate like a king, then bolted, deleting his dating profile on the way out. US Weekly and CNN called him the “Dineand-Dash Dater.” Just days after his date with Moon, Gonzales finished a crème brûlée at the Yard House in Long Beach. He held up two fingers, and told Irene Rodriguez that he “had to go number two,” before escaping into the night. “I just sat there dumbfounded,” she recalled, “I was mortified, embarrassed.” Two years later, in the spring of 2018, he was still at it, leaving Tina Martinez to pay for his filet mignon at Smitty’s Grill in Pasadena. Even when Gonzales was arrested, for a “snip-andditch”—he fled a barber’s shop with the smock still tied around his neck—police found no outstanding warrants. His dates were too ashamed to report his dining misdeeds. Had he created the perfect crime?
N APRIL 13, 2018, Detective Victor Cass was summoned to his sergeant’s office at the Pasadena Police Department. The 49-year-old investigator was handed an anonymous Crime Stoppers report concerning an incident at Buca di Beppo, an Italian chain restaurant in nearby Glendale. An onlooker had noticed a male diner abandon his date and filled out an online report. Cass is slim, with tidy black hair, and holsters his Glock 9mm beneath sharply cut designer suits. Divorced in 2003, Cass is also a veteran of online dating.
When the detective typed “dine and dash” into Google, to brush up on the law, he was surprised to find hundreds of news reports about one local man named Paul Gonzales. “He had, like, fans, and they were like,
‘Hey, he’s not doing anything wrong,’” said Cass. Some websites called Gonzales “scummy” and “Douchebag of the Week.” “This guy was not on any police department’s radar,” said Cass, “yet he was one of the most wanted men in America.”
Two weeks after Cass was handed the Crime Stoppers report, Carol Meredith, a model from Santa Clarita looking to break into acting, was arriving for a first date with a match from Bumble. “Mike” told her he was a sports agent, but later said he worked in advertising. He ordered a carne asada and a glass of iced tea, while Meredith ate her chile relleno. Then, when Mike slipped away to use the restroom, he
O