For months, a Boston-area woman thought she was dating a Sonics front-office employee and former NBA player named Jeff Turner, a handsome, 6-foot-8 40-something who was polite, compassionate and respectful. She thought she had scored a figurative slam-dunk in the Internet dating game.

But when the man she was falling for suddenly left his Somerville, Mass., home and stayed away for three weeks, the woman became suspicious. A Google search helped her discover that this man was not Jeff Turner, but a habitual impostor who had been posing as a Sonics employee for the past several months.

Just when it appeared matters couldn't become any more bizarre for Seattle's downtrodden basketball franchise, the Sonics have emerged as victims in a case of identity fraud perpetrated by a smooth-talking con man.

"I am going to be honest with you. I don't work for them," the man who posed as Turner said from his home in Somerville, a Boston suburb, when reached by the Seattle P-I on Monday. "(The situation was) all brought on by an online dating thing. Craigslist. I lied to her. Does that mean I can go out there and represent the Sonics? No. Does that mean that I did it to get some (sex)? Absolutely."

The man's real name is Ronnie Craven, and he had been telling friends and even his hometown newspaper that he was the Sonics' player development director. In an April 9 story in the Somerville News, he told the paper he had known Sonics general manager Sam Presti since coaching Presti and Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck at a Boston-area basketball camp in the late 1980s.

Craven told the paper he spent time on the Sonics sideline during games and served as a part-time assistant coach, working with Jeff Green, Kevin Durant and other players. Craven even was quoted as saying, "No one was happier than me to see that" after Green scored a career-high 35 points in an April 6 victory over the Denver Nuggets.

And Craven's misrepresentation was not exclusive to the Boston area. The P-I learned that Craven was at the Seattle Athletic Club in February telling fellow pickup basketball players that he was former Stanford and NBA player Todd Lichti, 41, who retired from the NBA in 1994.

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Craven is 6-8 and Lichti is listed at 6 feet 4, according to basketball-reference.com.

Turner disbelieving

National Basketball Association security officials approached Presti at the league's predraft camp in Orlando last week and showed him the Somerville News story, which featured a picture of a smiling Craven wearing a Sonics coaching shirt. Presti denied knowing Craven and the club later released a statement regarding his supposed employment.

"He has never been an employee of the organization in any capacity," Sonics spokesman Tom Savage said. "And we will continue to work with NBA security on the matter."

NBA spokesman Tim Frank acknowledged a league investigation into the matter but declined to comment further. Savage said the Sonics contacted the Somerville News to inform the paper that Craven does not work for them, and the newspaper has pulled the story from its Web site.

Craven said he was contacted last week by a lawyer representing the Professional Basketball Club LLC, the Sonics' ownership group, and presented with a cease-and-desist order that threatened criminal action if he benefited financially from his purported link to the team.

During a revealing phone interview Monday, Craven admitted he was dishonest with the woman, the local newspaper and many longtime friends about his ties to Presti and the Sonics.

"This wasn't meant to be (anything negative) toward the Sonics," said Craven, who said he has three daughters, is separated from his wife and works in property management. "People get lied to all the time. Did I do anything illegal against the Sonics? No. Did I go out and represent the Sonics in any fashion? I'm not actually proposing that I did that. Did I do this for the broad? Yes."

The woman who dated Craven said she met who she thought was Turner on a dating Web site and the two went out about 12 times. She was convinced Craven was really Turner, a 10-year NBA veteran who played with Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team. Turner, 46, now a high school coach in Orlando, retired from the NBA in 1996.

"He was supposedly in Florida with his sick mother," the woman said, when asked what raised her suspicion about Craven. "He was very attentive, and all of a sudden he just stopped while he was in Florida. And it let my mind wander a little and in the information age, I Googled him."

The woman, who asked that her name not be used in this story, saw a 2005 OrlandoMagic.com story reporting that Turner, then a team broadcaster, was leaving to become head basketball coach at Lake Highland Prep School. She then called Turner, one inch taller and three years older than Craven, who reacted in disbelief. Turner called NBA security, which has been investigating the matter for the past several weeks.

"That's who originally contacted me," Turner said of the woman. "She was dating this guy under the idea that he was me. He had all my stats. I don't have any recourse or anything. No harm has been done; it's not against the law. It's not identity theft; he hasn't applied for any credit cards. I guess he was trying to live two lives. I wonder, 'Why me?' I guess for whatever reason, he looked enough like me that she thought it was me. But my wife doesn't think so."

When the woman confronted Craven about his dishonesty, he immediately apologized, she said.

"He said doesn't know why he did it, yada, yada, yada," she said. "This guy really went above and beyond. I knew nothing about basketball and he said, 'Great, because I hate talking about basketball and girls wanting to be with me just because I was a player.' "

Craven admitted that he wasn't Jeff Turner, but continued to insist that he had played 12 years in the NBA.

'Now that was bull'

Craven admitted to taking his lies even further. After approaching his hometown newspaper about a story, he told several lies to Jack Nicas, a Somerville News reporter and Boston University student.

"Now that was bull (expletive)," Craven said of the resulting article. "Some of it got discombobulated. But did I represent myself as a Sonics official? It never happened once."

According to Nicas, Craven walked into the newspaper's office wearing a Sonics coaching shirt and told Nicas he was a coach and scout. He claimed he met Presti when the Sonics GM was a youth basketball player and tried recruiting Presti to Framingham State, a Division III school 25 miles west of Boston where Craven said he was the head coach.

Craven said the recruiting process occurred during Presti's senior year of high school in 1993-94. According to Framingham State's Web site, the coach then was former Boston Celtics player Togo Palazzi. When confronted with those facts, Craven admitted he was actually Palazzi's assistant for six years. Craven told the paper Presti passed on Framingham to attend Emerson College. Presti, however, began his career at Virginia Wesleyan before transferring to Emerson as a sophomore.

"I definitely recruited Sam out of high school," Craven said. "I am a former college and high school coach. I know him from recruiting him out of high school, was the first one to recruit him. I watched his game, straight up and down, and actually, he wasn't even that good of a player. But I recruited him."

Craven also told the Somerville News that he played at Saint Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y. -- another lie.

'I'll admit, it was a hoax'

The Somerville News story was precipitated by a series of e-mails to the newspaper asking it to feature Craven, a former player at Somerville High School. Craven's former girlfriend believes those e-mails were sent by Craven himself. One of them, dated March 26, read: "I also saw Ronnie Craven at the Celtics vs. Seattle Sonics (on March 12) as he was out with the team before the game when they were warming up. I went down and said hello, he shook my son's hand and had Chris Wilcox come over and say hello to my son. ... My son has not stopped talking about it, Ronnie is a class act."

When reached by the P-I, Wilcox said he had no recollection of meeting or knowing of a Ronnie Craven.

"I'll admit, it was a hoax," Craven said Monday. "It was all a put-on. But somebody who I met on a dating site is trying to sabotage me. This is some broad that I lied to who said I did identity theft, (and) I am not going to know what hit me. There was no intimacy in the relationship. I never tapped her."

Somerville High School basketball coach Paul Garrity said he has known Craven for 30 years. Garrity said he was stunned to hear his friend did not work with the Sonics.

"The guy's a good guy and I have known him for a long time," Garrity said. "It doesn't sound like the guy I know, that's what I can tell you. He's not in a desperate situation. Everything you're telling me is complete news."

Craven insisted he would stop lying about his identity. He said this situation would damage his reputation in Somerville. He said he was merely lying to impress a woman, nothing more. But this time his game went too far.

"To be honest with you, this whole thing has already taken its toll," he said.

"I know my credibility doesn't look so great right now. This is embarrassing for me. At this point, I don't know what to do. I will say this is very, very disturbing."