APB: Ft. Greene con man alert

Perhaps it's the warm weather. Perhaps it's a winter-long hibernation spent thinking of new ways to part a fool and his money. For those unaware, fellow bloggers at Daily Heights had a lively thread about the 'Panhandler with the Mother who has wrecked her car.'

To make a long story short, there was a man roaming the streets of Prospect Heights, Ft. Greene and Clinton Hill preying on unsuspecting (hopefully not anymore) citizens, asking for monetary aid to get a car that had been towed or asking for train money home after his car had been stolen or needed money to fix his car.

I had a run-in tonight with a similar man. I can't recall if it was the same person (I don't think so), but this guy was African American, male, late 30s to 40's, about 5' 10" and perhaps 190-220 pounds.

As I was warming up my car, he walked up on my side of the car, peered in, held out his hands completely unmenacingly, as if to say, 'relax, relax, I'm not here to do harm.' I opened my door and he asks if I can push his car because it ran out of gas. I think, then say, I'm kind of in a hurry. But in my best friendly manner, backtrack and say, well, where's your car. He says that it's on Washington. Here's where my spidey sense goes off- I'm parked on South Portland off of Lafayette, across from the restaurant Pequena. This guy had walked almost a mile trying to get someone to give him a push?? Almost immediately, (as if to ward off my possible offer to go push his car) he says, if I give you my driver's license to hold, can you just give me $4 to get some gas? I immediately kept repeating, sorry, i'm in a hurry a few times. He keeps trying to convince me and then he just walks away shaking his head. I look back and he's wearing a black leather jacket with the HBO Sopranos logo on it.