Fresh Meadows Man Defends Con Artist

Edgar Hultman doesnt recall precisely how grifter Nancy Jace approached him on the street last summer, but he remembers his exact location at the time. He was standing at the corner of Horace Harding Boulevard and 187th Street in Fresh Meadows when he bumped into her.
"I’ve done nothing since my wife died in 1999," said Hultman, seated in his sun- deprived, modest apartment in Fresh Meadows. "So when a 35-year-old beauty came walking towards me…well…I think she dropped something or said hello to me." Hultman asked her out for a hamburger, and for the next 14 months, he called her his girlfriend.
Last week, Jace (who Hultman knew as "Tina") was arrested and indicted for allegedly stealing over $259,000 from five elderly men ranging in age from 76 to 94 including Hultman, who was the youngest of the set.
But dont call him a victim, even though he admitted that he spent a few thousand dollars on Jace. "In all of the articles, it says that five men were swindled," said Hultman. "It should be four men!"
In early May, Jace, a tall blonde with a magnetic smile, was arrested down the hall from his one-bedroom apartment. "My Tina was quite amazed," said Hultman, shaking his head in dismay. He recalled how Jace said nothing as the police read her rights to her. Luckily, none of the neighbors was around to witness the scene, said Hultman. His last words to her were: "Tina, I love you, I love you."
Hultman has many questions that remain unanswered. "Right now, I can truthfully say, I don’t know if anything I read in the newspapers is true," said Hultman. "Nobody can prove it to me. I don’t believe all of the accusationsI don’t know how she did it, but I say she’s a genius if she did."
Hultman has lived in his apartment for almost 40 years. The mustard colored walls are water damaged and peeling, like pieces of skin sliced from a fruit. A devout Christian, Hultmans apartment is filled with books on religion. The name "Tina," cut out from a newspaper and two visitor’s passes from Kristen Vallone, an assistant district attorney for Queens, decorates one wall.
A 99-cent candle flickers brightly in the living room. Its a memorial for Louise, Hultman’s deceased wife, whom he was married to for 43 years. "It’s lit for Tina, too," he said.
A former meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Hultman lives on his pension and his savings, with enough money for rent and food. He admitted that he spent "some" of his savings on Jace, who had a penchant for trips to Florida, Atlantic City and Houston, designer handbags, and clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s.
"She didn’t want me to buy her millionaire stuff, but she didn’t go to the regular section in Macy’s where the peons go," said Hultman. "I’d buy things for her. She was beautiful."
" One wrinkled receipt for an Econo Car rental found in Hultman’s apartment totaled $1,600. Hultman shrugged it off and wouldn’t comment on where Jace had planned to go in the car. He never traveled with Jace, although he paid for a few of her airline tickets.
He doesnt understand why people are surprised that he spent time and money on Jace. "What else would I do? Play bridge?" asked Hultman. "Every woman around here has a cane and a walker! Why shouldn’t I go with a beautiful blonde instead of carrying around an 85-year-old woman?"
He didn’t wine and dine Jace, but he took her on a lot of shopping trips in Queens and Manhattan. "She knew every bus," he said, his blue eyes lighting up. "She knew everything about Bayside, Forest Hills and Jamaica. Boy did she know her buses!" When they visited Red Lobster for dinner, she would never wait on line for a table, instead, striding to the very front of the line and demanding a table, or finding one herself.
She would ask for money for her "sick grandmother," said Hultman. Once she asked if he would buy her a car and a pair of $500 shoes. She became angry after he said no.
During 2003, her visits to Hultman’s apartment, where she had crashed during the day, taking catnaps in his olive-colored reclining chair or cooking him fresh lobster and steak, grew less frequent.
"I had a feeling it was about her," said Hultman, after he received a visit from members of the Queens DAs office, who warned him about Jace last spring. He was growing suspicious because she would never allow him to visit her at home.
He was the one who alerted police that she would be coming to his apartment the day she was arrested. "What else could I do?" he said. But he didnt file the initial complaints against her with the Queens DA office. Hultman was in court for Jace’s arraignment and visited her at Riker’s Island a few times since.
He offered to marry Jace early on in their relationship, and still has high hopes for them. "We could write a book about this and it would make a million dollars," said Hultman. "It would beat Hillary and Harry Potter…I’ve written everything down. Everything that my Tina has said, every single day."