Lawyer for retired Religious Studies Professor says he’s a victim, not the culprit in an elaborate scam

By Maddi Achtyl

Retired religious studies professor Gregory Shaw was charged with larceny in what prosecutors allege was a case where a woman he met on a Christian dating website was scammed out of almost $80,000, but his lawyer said his client is also a scam victim, eventually losing more than $1.5 million.

Shaw, who retired in 2024 after 37 years at the College, was arraigned and pleaded innocent to two charges of larceny over $1,200 by false pretense on November 20 in Quincy District Court, according to the memorandum his attorney submitted to the court. Shaw is set to appear for a pretrial hearing on January 14, 2026. WCVB-TV originally reported the case.

In the case he is charged with, the 73-year-old Shaw has already paid the woman back in full because he felt a moral obligation since both he and she had been scammed by the same people, Shaw’s attorney, Norman Zalkind, wrote the court.

Zalkind, in a memorandum filed in court seeking “pre-trial diversion,” said Shaw is a victim, not the culprit.

“It is entirely out of character for Professor Shaw to have had a knowing part in scamming someone else, and the fact that he himself has lost much more to the people behind this loss underscores how uncritical and, indeed, gullible he has been. It makes no sense that a person who has lived the life he has would suddenly become a scammer,” Zalkind wrote in the memorandum sent to The Summit.

The attorney said Shaw was repeatedly scammed by a different woman who called herself “Marya,” who he met on Match.com online in the fall of 2022.

That woman claimed she was in Denmark and was going to inherit her grandfather’s estate of more than 31 million Euros, but couldn’t access it unless she married. He was asked to send money in cryptocurrency to help her expedite a marriage certificate, a passport, and fight a charge of cocaine possession. He sent her large amounts of money, including $125,000 he obtained from a home equity loan, the attorney noted in paperwork sent to The Summit.

The paperwork noted that the woman also claimed she worked for a charity to help Ukrainian refugees and asked for money. He went to the charity's alleged location on the North Shore, couldn’t find it, and then went to the police, who knew nothing about the charity, according to the paperwork. When she said she was flying into Logan Airport, he waited at the terminal for her with flowers, but she never arrived, the paperwork noted.

A friend, who was also a therapist, told him this appeared to be a “romance scam,” but “Marya” talked him out of that belief, the lawyer noted. Other people also eventually communicated with him, asking for money, claiming they were also trying to free up the inheritance, the lawyer noted.

The court paperwork filed by Zalkin stressed that Shaw was also the victim of an elaborate scheme where a bank account for a fictitious business was set up by “Marya.” At this point, “Marya” asked him to be involved in a project to move money for the “Rockwool Corporation,” where she allegedly worked, so the company could avoid taxes. He would be given a commission for the transfers and agreed that his name could be used on employment and dating sites, as noted in the paperwork. This was a way he could recoup earlier losses, he was told, according to the court filing and supporting documents.

“Marya sent him money to purchase a computer; he placed it in his house and allowed Marya remote access to it, but never looked at it himself. People would wire money into his bank account, and he would give Marya remote access to the account,” a supplemental report filed by the lawyer noted. “Marya” later turned it into cryptocurrency, the lawyer noted.

Shaw’s son analyzed his bank account records and created a chart detailing his financial condition between January 2022 and August 2025, including the more than $1 million losses.

Shaw also filed a complaint with the FBI in 2023 about the scam, paperwork filed by the attorney noted. He said he was communicating with two people, Marya Johnsen and Joseph Bent, and sent more than $600,000 to help get the “inheritance” money released, the paperwork noted.

In the case Shaw is charged with, WCVB-TV reported that another woman said she met a man on the Christian dating app Christian Mingle in June 2024, and they spoke by phone and video calls and exchanged photos. The victim told authorities the man said his name was Donald “Greg” Perez and went by Greg, according to the station. Speaking with an accent, the man told her he was from Denmark and was a contractor working in Poland, WCVB reported. In total, that victim, Joceleyn LeDoux, sent him $78,500, Zalkind stated in the memorandum.

WCVB-TV reported that a friend of LeDoux grew suspicious and, after an internet search, believed she was communicating with a man from the United States. WCVB reported that the victim said the defendant was the same person she had spoken to on numerous video and phone calls.

When Quincy Police interviewed Shaw, he told them he had not been the one communicating with the victim, and any information or pictures she received were not from him; they were from another person he had been scammed by, according to the defense paperwork.

Zalkind is now asking the court for “pre-trial diversion,” a type of probation that would leave Shaw without a criminal record.

“Pretrial diversion is appropriate for a 73-year-old man who has worked lawfully and productively for his whole life. The fact that Professor Shaw, without prompting, reimbursed the victim in this case for her losses before there were even charges brought, also supports this disposition,” Zalkin wrote.

Several of Shaw’s colleagues wrote letters of support to the court, attesting to his character.

One called him “a man of exceptional personal and moral depth. His life has been shaped by a steadfast devotion to historical truth, an unrelenting pursuit of wisdom in its fullest philosophical sense, and an abiding commitment to living compassionately.” Another colleague, in a letter to the court, said Shaw “was the most honest, forthright, and principled person among all the many faculty and administrators at the college whom I knew or with whom I worked.”