KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A local cab driver struck up a friendship with a millionaire and ended up going to prison for it, prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors said cab driver Ringling Dan Cohn, 57, befriended Griffith Coombs, an antique dealer worth more than $3 million, to get his money.

Coombs lived alone. He never married and had no close family in town.

Cohn gave Coombs a taxi ride in 2003 and they became friends.

When Coombs got sick a short time later, Cohn moved him into the basement of his home near East 76th Street and Paseo Boulevard to help care for him.

Coombs later gave Cohn his power of attorney and made him his heir.

Prosecutors said it was a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they charged Cohn with bank fraud.

The indictment accused Cohn of tapping various accounts of Coombs' to make expensive purchases and gamble. Prosecutors said Cohn and his girlfriend ran up $150,000 in gambling losses.

Prosecutors said Coombs was found bedridden and dehydrated, and living in filth in Cohn's basement.

Cohn's common law wife, Patricia Foreman, said that's not true. She claimed Coombs was of sound mind before he passed away and really wanted to leave everything to Cohn.

Foreman said, "When Griff first came to Dan with the will, he turned it down three times. He said no. He wasn't doing it for money. We didn't know what Griff was worth, we're just good-hearted people."

Foreman was found guilty last week of lying to get food stamps and Social Security money. She denies the allegations, saying she was set up so they could get Cohn to agree to a plea deal. Foreman said Cohn was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison as part of the plea deal.