It’s a term of art from the domains of crime and law. It means to deceive by means of flattery or promises or some other device meant to tempt a prospective victim or mark. It is what con men do. This isn’t a term that would often appear in the medical lexicon, but there are con men in every field of human endeavor including Medicine.
I heard the term last week, I think. I was watching a news item on Ron De Santis’ political stunt – transporting Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard by way of Florida with false promises of jobs and social services. De Santis is being sued by the victims of his cruel lies, and now Perla Huerta, a military veteran who was hired to lie to these folks has been named in that suit as well.
I have an intuition about how these things most often work out; I suspect that you do too. In my framework, the unwitting victims win the case (a civil tort). The court awards the victims a sum that seems, at least to some, fair. The attorneys take half, plus or minus. De Santis gets his political donors to cover his portion of the jury award, and Perla is left twisting in the wind.
You can probably tell that I am a disillusioned optimist – one that expects that the wealthy and powerful have access to a form of justice not available to the rest of us. Sign.