Oklahoma Inmate Sentenced For Extorting Money From Connecticut Man

A federal judge has sentenced an Oklahoma prison inmate who was serving time for robbery while he masterminded a scheme to extort about $674,000 from a retired Connecticut school teacher.

Prosecutors said at sentencing in federal court in Hartford on Monday that 37-year-old Darrik Forsythe and other inmates, using cellphones smuggled into the Oklahoma penitentiary to befriended the victim through an online dating site and extorted money from him by threatening to reveal that he was gay or threatening to harm relatives.

The Journal Inquirer reports the judge said the scheme "appears to have caused severe psychological harm," to the victim, who was found dead in April 2015. He had reportedly been suicidal.

A spokesman for the Connecticut U.S. attorney's office says Forsythe's four-year federal sentence will be served when his 20-year state sentence ends in 2020.

Forsythe was convicted in Stephens County in 2002.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.