48 Hours - Soccer Moms Confidential

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

This classic episode of “48 Hours" explores the investigation of ex-cop turned private eye Chris Butler who staffed his San Francisco Bay area firm with local soccer moms. Butler and his firm of private investigator moms became media sensations — Lifetime Television started a reality show based on the P.I. moms. Reporter Pete Crooks was invited to write about the real-life “Charlie’s Angels,” but the story took a strange turn when he learned from a confidential informant that most of the cases were staged, crooked cops were involved, and that Butler was dealing drugs with top California narcotics cop Norm Wielsch. Butler and Wielsch were also running a massage parlor which was allegedly a front for prostitution. The soccer moms were unaware of Butler and Wielsch’s alleged schemes. Butler was sentenced to eight years in prison and was released in 2019. In 2013, Norm Wielsch was sentenced to 14 years in prison. “48 Hours” correspondent Maureen Maher reports. This "48 Hours" episode last aired on 11/17/12. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Listen to 48 Hours ad-free with 48 Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today. Every reporter loves to get a great story.

This one was mine. It was Charlie's Angels meets Philip Marlowe meets Orange County Housewives all wrapped into one package. There were these hot soccer moms who were also private eyes. When the media got hold of it, they went wild. Why do you do this? I know it's crazy, right? On the outside, you look like any PTA mom driving carpool.

Okay, now I want you to read that whole sentence. But behind the mommy exterior, they are gun-packing, hard-hitting, undercover PIs. They were like Cub Scout den mothers in the morning, undercover operatives at night. I'm a very good mother, and I'm a great investigator. The boss was this ex-cop turned PI named Chris Butler. We gotta really move here. Butler was a badass, the coolest guy in the room.

He struck me as being a pretty aggressive promoter. We create these fantastic sting operations sometimes for corporate espionage and fidelity. Chris had a way of making his universe seem sexier and more exciting than real life. A lot of these guys believe it while they're saying it. his universe seem sexier and more exciting than real life. A lot of these guys believe it while they're saying it. They buy into their own line.

Chris was really good at making everyone else look bad. He knew how to pinpoint a weakness in a person in order to get that person to do what he wanted. They have no concept of remorse. Suddenly we were doing things that we said we would never do. Chris Butler wasn't exactly the person that I thought he was. I never saw it coming.

The entire business was a setup. It's all about the rush. Get bigger, get richer, get faster. It was immoral, it was seedy, it was illicit. Chris Butler abused the power that he had, the people he knew. He took it and ran with it to the extreme. There was no doubt in my mind that they would have killed me.

Here we go. I'm Maureen Maher. Tonight on 48 Hours, Soccer Moms Confidential. confidential. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime,

then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories

of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers

to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. When I got this story, I knew I had something, and I stayed up all night writing. Back in 2010, reporter Pete Crooks was invited to profile a group of San Francisco Bay Area soccer moms turned private eyes. I was invited to come out to Chris Butler's office. I walked in and the first thing I noticed was the walls of the office were covered with 8x10s of all the 1970s and 1980s detective shows that I watched growing up. Charlie's Angels and Magnum P.I. Those are the shows I loved when I was a kid, so I was kind of charmed by it. And I knew the guy wanted to be on TV. Crooks is a senior editor for a local pop culture magazine called Diablo and a CBS News consultant.

To him, the attractive, confident women were real-life Charlie's Angels. And their boss, Chris Butler, a charismatic entrepreneur who spent 10 years as a cop, was straight out of central casting. Seemed like a no-brainer that we would cover that story. Butler bought the agency back in 2000 and turned it into what he claimed was one of the most successful private eye firms in the Bay Area, investigating everything from insurance scams to cheating husbands.

There's those times where I get a phone call. Hi. Oh, hey, Chris, what's up? investigating everything from insurance scams to cheating husbands. There's those times where I get a phone call. Hi. Oh, hey, Chris, what's up? Okay, surveillance, that's fine. Let me go ahead and call my sitter. When he added soccer moms as investigators, he said his business boomed. Nobody is going to suspect the mom sitting having coffee with another friend who happens to be an investigator.

And Butler's team was getting noticed, from People magazine to morning TV shows. Why are moms good PIs? The PI moms also became a big story for the Dr. Phil show. Today on an all-new Dr. Phil. You would never expect a mom in a minivan to be somebody that's on your tail. We busted the guy, we caught him, and now I've got to go to my son's baseball game. I'm late. Ami Wiltz was one of the PI moms. We were beautiful women who went out and, you know, worked this male-dominated career, this job, and we were different. We were funny, exciting.

Like Butler, Wiltz was also a former cop turned professional private investigator. But she was juggling a home life with three kids, which Butler believed made her and the other moms uniquely qualified for the job. Being a mom, I'm able to multitask. I'm also, you know, just naturally nosy and always trying to figure out what my kids are doing. On the Dr. Phil show, Butler talked about why he chose soccer moms. They come into this field prepped for the type of work that they're going to be encountering. They're very good listeners. I put them in a plastic bag and I'm going to set them back.

They're probably more sensitive to people lying to them. Potentially dangerous, it wasn't a job for the faint-hearted. But Butler said he had that covered. He said also that he trained all these PI moms extensively in self-defense and investigative techniques and firearms. Besides the moms, Butler also employed attractive women to be decoys — women like Ryan Romano. I'm easy on the eyes, basically. It was acting.

It was my normal life. How far does he need to let it go? She may start crawling all over you. At that point, we have all the evidence that we need. The decoys, also known as operatives, worked alongside the PI moms in standard field work. But sometimes the decoys went beyond that to do some not-so-standard operations. For example, this sting that Butler shared with Dr. Phil, where a decoy, Sharon, catches a cheating husband. We inserted Sharon into the hotel bar.

Well, sure enough, once our investigator was in the bar and he walked in, he made a beeline right for her. Sharon is a professional, and she does know what's expected of her on these cases, and that's going to include hugging, kissing. And she knows to stand at a 90-degree angle to the camera, so if there's any kissing that's going on, we'll be able to get that. On the show, Dr. Phil questioned whether Butler had gone too far with the decoys Sharon. One of the PI mom operatives was in a very romantic situation with the target here, and I kept saying, wow, I mean, are there boundaries to your scope of employment?

Because things are getting pretty rich up on the balcony here. I mean, that to me seemed like to go beyond the pale. It's like. They had overstepped their bounds. Is this okay with you? Is it okay with your husband? This wouldn't be okay with me. And it's, well, you know, you do what you got to do.

Criticisms like that didn't slow Butler down. In fact, his real-life private investigating team was about to become a reality TV show for the cable network Lifetime. He just was, like, on the rise of being this huge star in his mind and that this was going to be it. With the reality show cameras following the moms on their investigations, Butler would need help with the caseload. I've always been that type of person who's always wanted to, you know, to serve to help people. Carl Marino is

another ex-cop. How did you end up meeting Chris Butler? I'd actually seen his ad on Craigslist. How did you end up meeting Chris Butler? I'd actually seen his ad on Craigslist. Marino spent 17 years as a deputy in upstate New York. Butler's ad seemed like a terrific opportunity for Marino, who had recently moved to the Bay Area. They were looking to hire decoys for, I think he termed it as the most successful private investigative company in the Bay Area. But when Carl interviewed for the job, he learned it wasn't a typical PI agency. And it was kind of a strange interview. In what way?

They asked a lot of strange questions. Like what? You know, do you drink alcohol? How comfortable I was with nudity. And they would tell me the reason they were asking those questions is because in decoy situations, you might possibly have to drink shots and possibly get naked in a hot tub with whoever the person is. Marino didn't seem to mind, and with his law enforcement experience, it was a perfect fit. Butler hired him. It was kind of the type of work that I'd always imagined PIs doing. A little on the fringe? Always on the

fringe. Always on the fringe. Yes. For a place operating on the fringe, there were plenty of real cops coming and going, including this man, Norm Welsh, the commander of the Contra Costa County Narcotics Task Force. Welsh and Butler had worked together and were friends. He would show me how well he was doing. He would tell me how well he was doing. He had a beautiful car. He had a great lifestyle. At least it appeared so.

With those real cops hanging around, Butler's employees didn't challenge him on some of those questionable operations, like the ones that came to be called dirty DUIs, which set up husbands in the middle of bitter divorces. I was hired by Chris Butler to be a decoy, to attend a party, in hopes to get the target to do something illegal, to see if I could see if he was involved in any illegal stuff, including drugs,

and just to be a pretty face. I mean, who's going to say no to a pretty girl? The trap? Send in a pretty girl or decoy, as Butler called them, to come on to the husband, get him liquored up, and then suggest that they drive somewhere to have fun. Just as the husband would pull out onto the street, a cop who'd been called by Butler would pull him over for driving under the influence. Ryan says Butler paid her to drink and flirt with those targets. It was like dangling candy in front of a baby. It's hard to say no to a lot of things in life.

And when you have alcohol in the picture and you impair their judgment, it makes it even harder. The arrests of the men caught in Butler's stings would then be used in court proceedings, which would clearly put the soon-to-be ex-wives in a much better bargaining position. There was something not right in the fact that he probably got high off of doing all this. Like, he found a thrill. With the reality show now in production and the national media exposure, Chris Butler's dreams of stardom appeared to be just a red carpet stroll away. But what no one knew was that dream was about to turn into a nightmare.

I was floored. The amount of stuff that he was doing was just unbelievable. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story

that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into

legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld

and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defence attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Oh, I get a kiss. How was school? Good. Good. Did that cough medicine help? Yeah. We're so excited about the show.

I'm telling them all about it. There you go. This is a great opportunity. For PI mom Ami Wiltz, the new reality show Shut up, big boy. was going to be a huge break for her and the others. It was a great idea. You had these women who had various backgrounds, but would all come together and work these cases and follow people, go into stores and get covert video. Fun?

Very much. A lot of fun. Sexy. Yes, very. And to help get publicity for the new show, reporter Pete Crooks was invited along on a PI mom's stakeout in one of the mom's minivans. I started to go out to the van and Charmaine said, now I've got to be a mommy here.

Everybody has used the bathroom, and we're all ready to get in the car now. Welcome Chris Butler and three of his PI moms. The moms who were taking part in the ride-along were some of the same ones who appeared on the Dr. Phil show, Denise and Charmaine. So you guys get in the car, everybody gets their juice box and their backpack, and they've all done a potty run before they take off. And what happens next? So we get into position, and we were looking for a white Mercedes. With Crooks in tow, the PI moms were hot on the trail of this man, whose older, wealthier wife-to-be suspected him of cheating.

We start following that car, and we stayed right behind him. Crooks even got into the action when he spotted the wayward fiancé picking up a sexier, younger woman. Voluptuous, mid-twenties siren with long brunette hair and her right arm is tattooed from shoulder to wrist. As the PI mom spied... Subject and the mystery date walk into a jewelry shop. The cheating couple got cozy. They come out with a couple of gift bags, arm in arm. I believe there's a kiss.

Crook says he couldn't believe how much luck the PI moms were having. They got out of their car. They stopped right in front of our van to kiss. And Denise captured that all on video. There was a new twist every half hour or so. And did you think, man, I am just a lucky, lucky reporter today? A little bit, yeah. As the minivan followed the couple to the Napa Valley,

Chris Butler sent in a backup team. It's Carl Marino and his wife, who was also working for Butler that day. It was going to be the first introduction of us to the media, is what Chris' big story was. Why did you need to be introduced to the media? Chris wanted us to be, in his own words, the real-life Mr. and Mrs. Smith. As in Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. As crooks watched, Carl and his wife Yolona worked their way into the sting by striking up a flirtatious conversation with the cheating fiancé and his mistress at a winery,

all the while texting the salacious details to the PI moms back in the minivan. They just invited us back to their hotel, was the third text. Like, so this went from nice to meet you to let's swing in five minutes, you know. Did you say this is unbelievable? It was, it was unbelievable. And I was just sort of saying, like, what's gonna happen next?

As outrageous as that stakeout was, nothing could have possibly prepared Crooks for what would happen next. Just before he was about to go to print, Crooks received an email that would blow up his entire story. Or at least what he thought was the story. The first Monday back in the office after the New Year's weekend, this email comes in that's from a character named Ronald Rutherford that says, don't run that story. Rutherford's email said, quote, it would be a mistake to publish the article, unquote, because the ride-along with the PI moms was fake. So I called Butler at his office, and he said in that kind of cool voice,

Hey, Pete, what's going on? I said, Hey, you know, I got this email that said that that ride-along was scripted. And his voice just, like, peaked out. He said, What? That is bull crap! It's the only time I ever saw him spike like that. But the emails from Rutherford kept coming. Got an email at 3 a.m. that was the entire itinerary of the ride along. This is an inter-office email setting up the entire shoot, itinerary, location, etc.

Sent the day before the ride along. That's pretty damning. Yeah. And the attachment is a Google Earth map of the Holiday Inn Express with little notes on it. Mercedes parks here, couple walks through the hotel, gets into Silver Honda Civic parked here, can drive away without being seen.

Later, Rutherford would send crooks this photo to prove the ride alongalong had been an enormous fake. Remember Ryan, the decoy? She played the sexy girlfriend. My role in the ride-along was to be the mistress or to be the girlfriend that the fiance was cheating on his fiance with. fiance was cheating on his fiance with. And that fiance, according to Ryan, was also an actor hired by Chris Butler. An elaborate, over-the-top setup designed to get Chris Butler and his new reality show a huge splash of publicity. I never thought anyone would find out the truth that this whole thing was fake. It was fun. It was easy money. And I got to go to lunch and go wine tasting and have a great day. Did you not say to yourself at any point, I'm not really comfortable with this. This guy thinks

he's doing a real story. I wasn't really comfortable the entire time. Investigations. But again, this is Chris Butler's show. He's done it a hundred times already. No one's ever figured it out. And ultimately it's to get more business for the business that he's hired me to run. For Chris Butler, it may have been business as usual, but Pete Crooks was about to learn that his fake ride-along was just the tip of the iceberg. That's because his mysterious source, Rutherford, was about to reveal a set of darker

and far more dangerous secrets. Is this exciting? It's not dull. Definitely. Now that his P.I. Mom reality show for Lifetime Television was in full production... Proof lies on here. Chris Butler appeared to be on the fast track to reality TV stardom. That's all he talked about was the show, the show, the show, and the moms, and he was ready to be a star. But while Chris Butler was basking in the reality TV spotlight,

the bizarre string of emails from the mysterious Rutherford continued. I became beyond fascinated, obsessed with trying to figure out the equation of who knew what and who was continuing to lie and what was the motivation of Rutherford to tell me this. But Rutherford still had one more secret to reveal about Butler. And it was a bombshell. Rutherford says that Chris Butler is attempting to sell narcotics that have been seized by the Contra Costa County Narcotics Enforcement Team, been seized by the Contra Costa County narcotics enforcement team, CNET. That's right. Rutherford was now alleging a far more serious situation.

That Chris Butler was a drug dealer, and his old friend, Norm Welsh, one of the county's top drug cops, was the supplier. Butler is conspiring with Norm Welsh, the highest ranking narcotics enforcement officer in the area, to take those drugs and put them back on the streets and sell them. He's the cop who has seen what it does out on the street. He's the guy that sent somebody to jail for selling the drugs in the first place. Crook says Rutherford sent him this photo to prove Butler had asked him to sell marijuana. Now Rutherford was looking for a way out.

He's not a drug dealer. He doesn't want to go any further with this, but he doesn't know who to go to because you can't go to the top drug cop in the county. Did you feel like Rutherford was afraid for his life? I got the feeling that Rutherford was backed into a pretty dangerous corner with some pretty bad guys. Crooks was able to connect Rutherford with a contact at the California Department of Justice. It's a pretty unbelievable position to be in. Yeah, it was really, really weird and really stressful.

Rutherford's safety could be in jeopardy in that it would be because of the ball that I got rolling. After some tense moments, Rutherford was finally meeting the right people. I got an email from Rutherford that said, finally made contact from the DA. Rutherford not only told them about the alleged drug sales, but other potential illegal activities Butler was running,

like those dirty DUIs. Within a day or two after that, Rutherford had met with the Department of Justice and kind of gave them the full download and the investigation began. The California DOJ asked Rutherford to start secretly taping Chris Butler and Norm Welsh. Butler was oblivious. He was feeling the pressure from the reality show. There was friction and cases were falling through.

First of all, there weren't a whole lot of real cases coming in. Second of all, the real cases that did come in, the people didn't want their dirty laundry aired on a reality TV show. So when Butler's PI agency got a missing teen case to solve, Carl thought it was good news. A father came in to hire us to find his missing daughter. She was a 15-year-old girl who'd been missing for just over two months. Did the parents think she was kidnapped? No, it was very obviously she'd run away. Carl tracked the teen to the home of her boyfriend. He confirmed with the boyfriend's mother that the girl was safe and texted the good news to Butler. He writes back, wow, that's amazing. Don't actually go find her though, Because he wants to wait until there's lifetime cameras to film that. That's disgusting.

And it really is. Butler didn't let on to the PI moms that Marino had already solved the case. Instead, he had his PI moms work their own investigation. He would rather have success with the show than success with the case? Well, he wants both. He wants success with the case, but the show involved. And I'm not a PI mom. I'm not part of the show.

And when the PI moms did get involved, they tracked the woman who was hiding the missing girl to this Safeway parking lot. With the lifetime cameras rolling for the reality show, they ambushed her. They were literally over the top of her, accusing her of everything. Marino says Butler got physical and grabbed the woman. You know, there was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of arguing.

It was just wild. I'm looking at Chris Butler, and I go up to him, and I'm like, what are you doing? What's going on? And I can see he's lost control of the situation. The police were called to break up the melee. For Lifetime, it was the last straw, according to Marino,

who says Chris Butler had failed to deliver everything he promised. Soon after, the reality show shut down production. At that moment, I knew that I was done because I just couldn't work for someone who would sabotage their own cases. But the news was about to get far worse for Chris Butler. What's up? While the reality cameras had been turned off,

the mysterious Rutherford had turned on a tiny undercover camera hidden in his keychain. Okay, come on back here. Let's see that sound. It captures an astonishing scene. Holy s***, this is a lot. Butler and his cop buddy, Norm Welsh, in the orange t-shirt, making a drug deal. They count out nearly $10,000 and carefully divide it in two before Butler

goes for the drugs. The burrito is a tightly wrapped package of crystal meth, which Butler weighs. Then hands over to Rutherford, who continues to play along. But as soon as the deal is done, Rutherford brings the incriminating video to the California Department of Justice, which finally has enough evidence to make arrests. The very next day, Butler and Welsh are arrested. You know, it's the lead story on the news that night. Tonight, the head of Contra Costa County's narcotics task force is behind bars accused of dealing drugs. I actually got a phone call from one of the moms and she said, are you sitting

down? I have something to tell you, Chris was arrested today. Both men are in the Contra Costa County jail accused of selling narcotics. That's really out there. You know, that's bad. Chris, were you the puppet master behind these criminal schemes? Chris Butler, along with Norm Walsh,

was arrested and later charged with multiple federal drug charges. Plus, Butler was also charged for his alleged role in those dirty DUI scams. Chris, is this all your fault? Now the man who once loved busting bad guys in front of the cameras was out on bail, hiding in shame. But one question remained unanswered.

Who was the mysterious Rutherford, the man who brought Chris Butler down? For weeks, writer Pete Crooks received dozens of emails from the mysterious Rutherford, alleging Chris Butler was a fraud and a drug dealer. And who is Ronald Rutherford? I'm Ronald Rutherford. That's right. Carl Marino was Rutherford. Chris Butler's number two man, the director of operations for the agency, had exposed the dark side of Butler's operation.

Did you suspect it was Carl? When I got the initial email from Ronald Rutherford, no, I didn't. Are you curious about what is the motivation of Rutherford? Absolutely. I'd like to say it was the good person in me. In his old life as a cop, Marino says he spent his entire career fighting drugs, and turning in Butler & Welsh was simply the right thing to do.

It definitely had a lot to do with the cop in me also. I mean, literally, it was that day when I first saw those drugs that I knew I was going to do something about it. I had no idea what it was, how I was going to do it, when I was going to do it. But knowing where those drugs came from, I knew something had to be done. I mean, I want to know, were you terrified wearing a wire? Oh, yeah. You're not just dealing with a guy who's an incredible scam artist who's scheming constantly.

Now you're dealing with allegedly a drug dealer who's allegedly got the head of narcotics on his side. There's not a lot of safe places to run outside of that. I think that the scariest part about it is I'm filming the master of stings kind of the same way that he would do it. Is it too dramatic to ask if you were afraid for your life? If those guys had found out what I was doing, there was no doubt in my mind that they would have killed me. That's why, as Rutherford, he confided in Pete Crooks, who put him in touch with the California Department of Justice.

Did you feel like Rutherford was disseminating the information because it was the right thing to do, or because he was afraid he was going to get sucked into it or he was trapped? Both. He said straight up in that first email, I'm not a drug dealer and I'm not going to sell the drugs for Chris, but I can't tell him, no, I'm not interested in doing that

because he trusted him enough to let him in on the big secret. And Norm and Chris were scary guys to you know, to be in that position. So my feeling was that Rutherford was doing something very brave and doing the right thing. But why would Chris Butler get involved in selling drugs? In this lengthy statement obtained by 48 Hours, Butler puts the blame squarely on his old pal, the boss of the county narcotics task force,

Norm Welsh. Butler itemizes more than 20 crimes that he says Welsh forced him to commit. For example, Welsh instructed me to sell this marijuana and Welsh instructed me to sell the OxyContin for $25 to $40 per pill. Norm Welsh is accepting some responsibility. I feel horrible that I did this.

Anybody that knows me would know that it's not me, and I want to admit to what I've done, and I just want people to know that I'm very truly sorry. Forget the PI moms, forget Dr. Phil, people, all that other stuff. Putting drugs back on the street, that's really, really hard to swallow. It really is. For me, too, it's very difficult for me to live with that shame every day. I mean, I did it. Welsh, who was out on bail, says he'd been ill for several years and became easy prey for Butler when a debilitating nerve disorder,

disfiguring his feet, threatened to end his career. I made these decisions on my own, and I don't want to make that I'm blaming anybody, but inside my heart, I do feel that I've been manipulated and that I've been used. Something Walsh's attorney, Michael Cardoza, says Butler is very capable of. Is he guilty of manipulating every single one of these people? The PI moms, Carl Marino, Norm, is he guilty of puppeteering this entire situation? I think he really is guilty of that, if there were such a crime. He did manipulate everyone from the get-go.

Chris Butler is a very intelligent man. He understands people. He understands how to use people. He understands how to groom people and to bring them along slowly. What will you do here for me? Will you do this? All right, you'll do that. Will you do this now? Well, if you'll do that, then let's take the big step into crime. Will you get some marijuana for me?" And that's what Norm stepped into. Do you think Chris Butler is a dangerous man? No, I don't think a dangerous man. But a man who can talk a cop, a good cop, into committing crimes, and he can

puppeteer all these other people into lying and manipulating? Is that a dangerous man? I think that makes him a sociopath. You have Butler out there dealing with the television show, fooling the producers of that, fooling the people who he spoke to, People Magazine, fooling Peter Crooks at Diablo Magazine. Well, welcome Chris Butler and three of his PI moms. Fooling Dr. Phil, going on the Today Show and fooling them. A lot of people were manipulated by him. For PI mom Ami Wiltz, she feels nothing but betrayal and says she knew nothing about the alleged drug deals.

It was humiliating to find out that he was doing these things right under our noses. I guess I just wish that he would have just either fired me and told me, you know, go, instead of dragging me into this. Fortunately, I didn't know he was a criminal, so I wasn't involved in anything illegal. Believe it or not, there's still one more outrageous chapter to Chris Butler's dark

story. Here we go. It's like I'm going for the brass ring. I'm going to get it out there. I push the envelope. Get bigger, get better. Chris. Get richer, get faster.

From an ex-cop with a successful PI business to allegations of dirty DUIs and drug deals, it appeared it couldn't get much worse for Chris Butler. But there was one more dark chapter in this twisted tale, and it would be written by this woman. My name's Megan Bernabe. I was hired to work as a private investigator for Chris Butler and to write a book about my experiences. When aspiring author Megan Bernabe took the job at Butler & Associates, she said she had no clue what she was signing up for. When she was assigned to work as a decoy, she had to kiss targets to help in Butler's stings. By manipulating us and by breaking us down emotionally and psychologically,

Chris was able to push us to do things little by little that crossed that moral boundary until suddenly we were doing things that we said we would never do. And she was totally unprepared for what Butler told her about next, an unusual case he was working on with his old cop buddy, Norm Welsh. Chris Butler told me that he was running a massage parlor for Norm Welsh.

A massage parlor that was allegedly a front for prostitution. Megan says Chris Butler showed her the operation and claimed he was gathering evidence for Welsh in an undercover police sting. The story was that the women who worked there were communicating with Norm and telling him who these men were who were frequenting the massage parlor. And that way, Norm supposedly would have evidence on them and be able to go out and find the other massage parlors through them. It was all very convoluted and not believable. Prosecutors weren't buying it either. They added charges related to running an illicit massage parlor and extortion to the long list both Butler and Welsh faced. So how did it come to this spectacular fall from grace? How does somebody go beyond that conman status and move

into more dangerous territory and convince people to do really dangerous illegal behavior? You know, a lot of times you'll see these people with a narcissistic or psychopathic personality. They are often very good and very persuasive at what they do. And they basically have no fear. And their use and abuse of other people is based on a complete lack of empathy. Welcome the owner, Christopher Butler. The desire for stardom with his PI mom's reality TV show and his insatiable appetite for publicity may have contributed to Butler's demise. Chris, is this all your fault? If they feel an adrenaline rush...

Maybe that'll bait him into talking about our client. From being on the Today Show or being in some big article in a newspaper or a magazine, that ego rush drowns everything else out. And their ability to predict the consequences of their actions, their ability to see, wow, there could be a real downside here, never makes the radar screen for them. When I switched to women, specifically PI moms. Dr. Phil says he had no idea when Butler appeared on his show that Butler was anything but a private eye with the unique idea of employing soccer moms to do some snooping. I didn't know him that well. Our focus was on the women because they were what we were interested in. Just what was fake and what was real about Butler's PI mom's operation depends on who you talk to.

Carl Marino says it was a little bit of both. We were working on real cases that had fake elements to it. We were working on fake cases that had real elements to it, where some people knew they were fake, but other people thought they were real. But according to PI mom Ami Wiltz, who now runs her own PI agency in the Bay Area, Hey Chuck, it's Chris. if Butler was manipulating cases to beef up the reality TV show,

she was not in on it. And did you work any cases that were specifically for the show? Yes, I did. And were those legitimate cases? No one ever told me that they were fake. To my knowledge, even today, those were real cases that we were working. And if you believe or you're discovering now that these cases were all setups, how do you feel about Chris putting you in that position? Well, I mean, it's over and done with. It is shocking to me that you're telling me this.

and done with. It is shocking to me that you're telling me this. Megan Bernabe thinks it's not unreasonable to believe that the PI moms really were in the dark about what Butler was up to. It is very possible that people who worked at the office didn't know anything about what Chris was up to. And you can just say, you know, I'm just not comfortable. He let people in on things as he chose. And if he didn't choose to let you in on what he was doing, then you would have no way of knowing. A private investigator connected to a police corruption scandal cut a deal. Do you think he did anything wrong, Chris? Facing seven felony charges, a lot of damning evidence, and a possible life sentence, Chris Butler decided to take a plea deal.

And on May 4th, 2012, he appeared in court to plead guilty to crimes ranging from extortion to robbery to conspiracy to deal drugs. Butler has turned himself into a government witness. Butler agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors, which could include testifying against Norm Welsh when he goes on trial. Welsh, who also faces a possible life sentence, tried but failed to make his own deal with prosecutors.

He denies any involvement with the massage parlor scheme, but continues to apologize for stealing drugs. the massage parlor scheme, but continues to apologize for stealing drugs. I feel so bad and horrible about the citizens of California paying me to do a job, and I violated their trust. I mean, I've always told my guys that I was training that integrity is the only thing you got in life when it comes down to it, and my integrity's gone. Not everyone is buying Welsh's story, especially the man that helped bring him to justice. This is the guy that would go into schools... Methamphetamine addicts often carry...

...and tell children, you have to stay off marijuana because it leads to crystal meth. And this is the guy that's taken those same drugs and put them back on the street. He's the ultimate hypocrite. He's the dirtiest of dirty cops there are. Carl Moreno will likely play a large role in the legal proceedings against Welsh and is still having a tough time dealing with everything that has happened.

I'd be lying if I said I don't have nightmares about it sometimes and dream about it quite frequently. I still sleep with the loaded Glock that I got from the TV show underneath my bed. Chris, got any reality TV ideas? The story that reporter Pete Crooks finally wrote for Diablo magazine was a very different one from the one he set out to do. Chris Butler's universe is like a snow globe that you can peek into and it's fascinating inside. Investigations.

What was very strange and a bit scary was to realize that I wasn't looking at the snow globe, I was inside the snow globe. I was in his universe at his invitation. We gotta really move here. And everybody that gets sucked into his universe, I think, has a bit of their soul taken with it. OK, bye-bye. In 2019, Chris Butler was released seven years into an eight-year prison sentence. In 2013, Norm Welsh was sentenced to 14 years in prison. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.