Warning: Jerry Motta in Bushnell FL SCAMMER!

Back in 2003 I purchased a baby Galapagos tortoise from Jerry. He told me he bred it. He said He had 1 adult male and 2 females(1 which laid every year and one that usually laid every other year). I had no reason to doubt him at this time. The baby I received from him still had the egg tooth. The following season I asked him if he would be willing to incubate an egg to produce a male. He said sure. When the time came I paid him $2000.00 to incubate the egg that he said was laid the day before. I trusted him at this point because we had the deal from the year before that went so well. When hatching time came he said the egg went bad and he would try again next season. At this point I was concerned, but since he said he would try again I figured it the egg could have actually went bad. Now he will no longer return my emails. When I tried emailing from another address he did respond, but when he discovered it was me he claimed to be his wife. "She" said Jerry was out of town with a band and their breeder male died in the hurricanes. I asked if I could get my money back and "she" said she would talk with Jerry. I even offered to take 50% back because at this point I knew I was being scammed, but that was still too much to ask and she blocked my emails after that. Unfortunately at the time this happened I did not know about this site so I did not keep all of the emails he sent me. The part of the story that gets funny is that I recently discovered Jerry Motta has never produced a Galapagos tortoise in his life. He has no mature animals. This was told to me be a very was respected Herper in central Florida(I would rather not get his name into this), but everyone involved in herps would recognize his name). Since hearing this I have asked others about him and they all agreed that he had not produced any Galapagos. I do not expect to get any money back from him at this point but I wanted to warn anyone thinking of doing business with him. I am hoping he will respond to this post just so I can hear a few more excuses but I doubt it. I have been told he has a table at the Daytona show next month so I am interested to hear what excuses he will come up with when I see him face to face.