American body builder and male stripper, a career criminal with a rap sheet that included rape, assault and battery and fraud. He had traveled the width of the country playing scams, usually on women. Described as a smooth talker and an extremely powerful and emotional con man, he was a serious sexual predator. He took on a number of alias identities, including a world champion kick-boxer, a police officer and a CIA agent.
Arrested, he managed to evade conviction. In 1991, he was picked up by the FBI in Arizona on charges of forgery and larceny but he jumped bail, leaving the state. While in Arizona, he had courted a woman and bilked her family out of $30,000. In Massachusetts, he had bilked investors into giving him money to start his own construction firm and then ran off with the cash.
In June 1994 he was released on bail in spite the outstanding federal fugitive warrant issues from 1991. In June and December 1994, he was mistakenly released from jail due to legal mix-ups in court.
Cummings stole money and credit cards from a 22-year-old Raynham woman and ran up about $6,000 in debts in 1994. He then held her hostage in her condo for two days, telling her that he was a Mafia hit man. A massive manhunt with police dogs led to his capture on September 28. He told authorities that he had delayed his capture by using techniques from Rambo movies, such as hiding underwater while breathing through a reed. He was convicted on an old charge that was still pending, that of assaulting police officers in 1992. After 90 days in jail, in December he was moved to Taunton where he was arraigned on the Raynham kidnapping charges. He was then moved to Stoughton to face larceny charges. Amazingly, he was then released on his own recognizance and no bail in spite of a long criminal record that named him a wanted man in Arizona, Georgia and New York, along with the still-outstanding fed warrant.
Cross-country scams now included jobs as a physical trainer, a model and actor, trading on his dark good looks. After 17 months of freedom, Cummings turned himself in, as he told a friend, to “prove my innocence.”