The Broken Promises of a Table Tennis Olympian

When Kimberlie Reed met Michael Hyatt on Tinder in 2017, she was in awe.On their first date, after several months of exchanging messages, they sat at a high top table near the bar at a Sacramento BJ’s.Mr.

Hyatt, his head shaved and wearing a crisp button-down shirt, regaled her with stories of representing his native Jamaica in table tennis at the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.He was magnetic and accomplished and, to her mind, it made perfect sense that in the June 2014 issue of USA Table Tennis’s monthly magazine he had been called “the Usain Bolt of Table Tennis.”Over the ensuing months, the two began a romantic relationship.Mr.

Hyatt spoke to Ms.Reed at length about what he said was his passion project: PongNation, a table tennis club akin to SPIN, the Susan Sarandon-connected franchise started in New York in 2009.

He walked Ms.Reed through an empty storefront in an industrial pocket of nearby Roseville that he said would soon be PongNation’s home, describing franchise agreements he had reached with Puma and Starbucks.

By co-signing business loans, opening credit cards and adding some of her own cash, she, too, became part of it.“Next thing I know,” Ms.Reed said, “he fled the country.”Dozens of interviews, court records, text messages, financial statements and other documents reviewed by The New York Times show that Ms.

Reed was hardly the first person to believe in Mr.Hyatt and, soon after, regret it.Efforts to reach Mr.

Hyatt, 54, for comment were unsuccessful.Various cellphone and WhatsApp numbers associated with him in the United States and abroad have been disconnected.

He did not reply to messages sent to three different email addresses and various social media profiles he has used over the years.His brother, when reached via Facebook Messenger, replied: “Zelle me 2k and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” (The New York Times does not pay people it interviews for news articles.) Mr.Hyatt’s mother, when reached by phone ...