Criminal - I'm About To Save Your Life

Episode Date: October 30, 2014

In 1977, a mild-mannered aeronautical engineer sideswiped a parked car in Compton, CA. When he stopped his car to survey the damage, a man named Leon Moore opened the driver-side door, shoved him over, and started driving. He said, "I'm about to save your life." We talk to lawyer Stephanie Nally about a con that spanned decades. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.

Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things, and it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system,

you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. So we aren't going to be using the victim's real name in this story, and that's for a couple of different reasons. And we're respecting your wishes on that. Why do you feel so strongly about not using the victim's real name? for 20 years. He spent all of the 80s and all of the 90s not telling people what was happening to him. There was also a defense proffered in this case that is quite truthfully embarrassing to him. I don't want to talk about that and use his real name. He's got family out there. There were people that worked with him. There are his neighbors. That had no idea this was going on. They had no idea.

And this man, he deserved none of it. Stephanie Nally used to be a prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. She worked with special victims who were typically more vulnerable. The young, the elderly, the sexually abused. And back in 2002, just as she was about to leave that unit, she got one more case involving a victim we've agreed to call Robert, who was so polite and so discreet that he unwittingly became the perfect target. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. The story starts in the middle of a traffic jam around 1977. Robert was on his way home from work in Southern California.

He was in the aeronautics industry, some sort of engineer. Also, he was small. He was maybe five feet tall. Stephanie Nally describes him as slight, with an adolescent face, a white man in his late 40s. He was coming home from work on a highway. It's an east-west artery highway, the 91 freeway, and there was a traffic jam. And he decided to get off the highway and run along a parallel road to try to avert the congestion and then get back on. And when he did, he got off in the city of Compton, California. In the late 70s Compton was on its way to becoming the internationally

notorious high crime city overrun with gang violence. Robert would later say he was scared. He didn't know where he was. As he wound his way through the streets looking for a way to parallel the freeway and get back on, he accidentally sideswiped a Cadillac that was parked on the side of the street. He stopped, pulled over, and looked up in his rearview mirror. Robert says a group of boys were running towards him. He didn't know why, and he was terrified. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, his car door opens, the driver's side door, and a guy about

18 years old pushes him over into the passenger seat. Remember, this is the era of big bench seats and nobody wore seatbelts. Slid him over to the passenger seat, jumped in the car, and said, I'm about to save your life. It was only a matter of seconds. Robert was completely out of his element and not physically in a position to defend himself. So he let this man drive him away. Where did they go? They just went around the corner.

They went to a different part of the neighborhood where it was safe. And the defendant looked over to him and said, I just saved your life. And that was my mother's car that you hit. And you need to pay for the damages. And Robert said, okay. Robert gave the guy his name, his phone number, and address, and he told him to please be in touch with an estimate for the car repairs. His name was Leon Moore.

The next day he got a call. Moore said he had an estimate. Robert told him to come over. $4,500. In 1977, that's like $18,000 in today's money. And Robert knew that it was excessive. He knew that that was too much money. But he was grateful. He really thought that this boy had saved his life. He thought that he was going to get beat up by the man he saw in the mirror. I don't think the money meant much to him. He lived very simply, and I think he was a fairly well-paid engineer.

And he just gave him the money, willingly. And at that point, I think was happy to do so, that first day. What do you mean that first day? Did it keep going on? It did. It's not exactly clear what happened next. What we do know is that Leon Moore didn't just take the car repair money and go on with his life. He came back, asking for more money, not just once, but again and again. In a lot of ways, his request seemed pretty innocent.

Maybe it was something to do with school or work. One time he said his mom needed new dentures. And he wasn't asking for much, $100 here, $200 there. Not nothing. But like Nellie said, Robert was single, well-paid, and had no kids. And for a little while, Robert was still grateful, still grateful to this kid who he thought had saved his life, or at least gotten him out of a big pinch. And so he gave the money. For about two years, almost like a favor, thousands of dollars. Then around 1980, things changed. Robert came home from work one day and this apartment complex where he lived had the kind of carport where

all the cars park lined up, but there's one covering. So there's a partial view into where you are. And Robert came out to the carport, and Leon was waiting for him, sort of crouched down. And when he got there, he stood up, and he told Robert that his kids had been kidnapped. He was down at the front of the car, sitting down where I couldn't see him. This is Robert from an interview he recorded with the police many years later. So I went directly to my car and opened, unlocked the door and opened it. And I heard this rustling and he stood up and he was like looming over the front of my car. And he had a gun. He confronted me with a gun and told me that his kids are being held hostage because of a drug deal. He didn't get the money from me. He was going to kill me.

At that point, everything changed. Robert gives the $10,000, the gun gets pulled, and still does he go to any authority? No. He was embarrassed. He was a little ashamed. And at this point, he was the only one being affected. And he quite truthfully just kept hoping it would go away, that it would be the last time. So as a lawyer, what are you thinking Robert should have been doing here?

If I could go back in time and tell him what to do, he should have gone to the police. He should have filed an insurance claim. He should have demanded proof that the car belonged to him. There's a lot of should-haves, could-haves along the way. But he didn't. He's not me. He wasn't a lawyer. He was a simple man leading a simple life. And he just wanted it to stop. He wanted it to go away. It kept going. For the next six or seven years, the demands continued. Roberts says the only periods when he wasn't giving Moore any money were when Moore was in

prison for other unrelated crimes. And it's around this time that it starts to become clear how sophisticated a con this really is. Things progress from opportunism to outright threats to creating a whole cast of characters for total manipulation. In 1986, a female contacted the victim Robert and said, this female said that she was the wife of Leon Moore. And Leon, according to them, had been killed. And so now Robert had to pay her. The woman said she was moving to Jackson, Mississippi, and she wanted Robert to send her money while she was there. And Robert said, no, I'm not going to do that. And then a man got on the phone and said that they had people and were going to kill you unless you give this woman money.

Nobody knows exactly who this man was, but Robert was pretty sure it was not Leon Moore. And Robert was scared enough that he went once a month for six years and got a $400 cashier's check and sent it to a P.O. box in Mississippi. And it turns out during that time that Leon Moore was incarcerated in Mississippi. So he was paying for God knows what, but something. Something. And then Leon reappeared. And that stopped. By 2002, Robert had been paying off Leon Moore for 25 years. He says he didn't want to get anyone else involved.

It's tempting to speculate on Robert's thinking, to say he should have just gone to the cops, moved away, he should have done something. Whatever his reasons, he just didn't. And Leon Moore kept coming. Did Leon Moore ever say to Robert, give me $10,000 and I'll never contact you again? Many times, many, many times. So he was saying this is the last time. This is the last

time. And of course it wasn't the last time. You and I can see that. And Robert probably knew it on some level, but he just kept hoping. His mother lived right there. You know, there were various threats made. His imagination was going wild. He was scared and embarrassed. And at some point, it had been going on so long that he knew that if he went to the police, he'd look like a fool. And so he just endured it. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these Series Essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman

as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things,

and it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks.

Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Robert kept meticulous records of all these transactions. One time, Leon Moore asked for $2,800 so he could move into a house. When Robert told him no, Moore and his sister showed up at the apartment, yelling and beating on the windows. Robert was worried about causing a scene, so he wrote the check. There are copies of nine checks and 67 cashier's checks he wrote over the years.

Coupled with all the cash he says he withdrew and handed over, it's estimated Robert gave Leon Moore more than $100,000 over the course of 25 years. When Robert finally went to the cops, it's because he thought Moore had killed or was about to kill somebody. In his final letter, Moore asked Robert for $8,000. He said he was going to, quote, do away with his girlfriend and move to Belize. The letter also threatened Robert's family. And for some reason, perhaps because other people were being endangered, Robert finally went to the police.

It was November of 2002, and he was 72 years old. May I ask you some questions about your memory? Sure. I'm going to say three words, and you say them back after I stop. Pony, quarter, and orange. And what are those words? Pony, quarter, and orange. The state was building a case against Leon Moore.

Robert was going to be a key witness. In the interview, Robert's funny. He makes jokes about being bad at math. He's remarkably upbeat for someone who's been extorted for the last quarter century. But there are moments when he's trying to make sense of it all himself, recognizing that he probably

should have done something about it earlier. He calls himself a coward twice. I guess maybe I'm a coward. I don't know. At the end of the interview, he explains to the detective what he wants to have happen. I just wish it'd go away. I'm not seeking money. If this thing would go away, I'd be happy.

I guess if I had to put it simply, I'd like him to be in jail for the day I die of natural causes. And unsuspicious causes. Four months later, Robert died. It was about two weeks before trial and I was engaging in trial prep, getting my witnesses together, you know, re-interviewing the officers who responded, lining up the checks, things like that, just getting my witnesses in order. And I got a phone call from the court clerk and she said, you need to come up here. You need to come up right now.

So I did. I walked up. And I walked in the courtroom. And it was the court reporter and the court clerk and a man that looked almost exactly like Robert but taller. And the man had a piece of paper in his hand that was a subpoena. And he turned to me and he said, this subpoena has my brother's name on it. Was he the victim of a crime?

What did you find out? Robert had never told anyone about what was happening to him. He'd never told his mother. He'd never told his brother. He'd never told anybody what had happened to him, and he had subsequently died. In between the preliminary hearing and the trial, he had died in his bedroom. And his brother was cleaning his apartment. They were going through his effects. And they had found the subpoena.

And that was the only reason they even knew about it. So I sat down with his brother and I explained to him, not in every detail, but basically what had happened and explained that his brother had endured it and had finally come forward when he thought somebody else had been hurt and explained to him that I was going to keep going. And what was his brother's response when he heard what Robert had been through for so long? He was devastated. He was devastated. This man, his brother, was just as sweet as Robert was. They were just two very nice, well-meaning, wonderful citizens. He was devastated and heartbroken.

Does anyone actually know how Robert died? After I found out that he was dead, I talked to the writer. My first phone call was to the detective, and I went with the crime scene unit, and we immediately went to the apartment. But if it was a crime scene, it was cleaned up. The effects were half-packed up. The bedding that he was sleeping in was gone. There were no blood or urine samples to be had. The crime scene unit did go over the entire apartment, but there was no evidence. Do we know what it says on the death certificate?

I never saw the death certificate. I'm sure an educated guess would say that he died of natural causes. What did the defense argue? They put forth the argument that the money had exchanged hands because of sexual favors. That Robert was paying Leon Moore for sex. Yes. And it turns out that the victim suffered from a medical condition that made any engagement in those sort of acts impossible. The jury didn't buy it. Moore was initially convicted on two counts of fraud against an elder and one count of sending a threatening letter for the purpose of extortion. For various technical reasons, only the letter conviction ended up sticking, and Leon Moore was sentenced to eight

years in prison. The last time he appeared in the California prison system was in 2013, a three-hour misdemeanor stint. The interview Robert recorded, the one you've been hearing throughout this story, turned out to be a key factor in the trial. California law allows such interviews to be shown in court. So the jury actually heard from Robert on a six-foot screen and they got to see him and feel his affect. But the strange thing is they weren't allowed to know Robert was dead. They weren't allowed to know why he was missing at all because technically it wasn't pertinent to the case. Whether or not he was alive didn't change the fact of what Leon Moore had or had not done to him, which seems strangely fitting,

that the last people to get to know Robert, the jury, still didn't know quite everything. Up to the very end, there was always some big secret. Criminal is produced by Eric Menel, Lauren Sporer, and me. Our artwork is by Julian Alexander. Special thanks to Carol Jackson and Katie Herzog. Our website is thisiscriminal.com and that's where you can sign up for our newsletter

or get in contact with us. We're on Facebook and Twitter, at Criminal Show, and we have links to the Kickstarter and all of those places. Consider pitching in. It means a lot to us. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is Criminal. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. We'll see you next time. that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance,

all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Your own weight loss journey is personal. Everyone's diet is different. Everyone's bodies are different. And according to Noom, there is no one size fits all approach. Noom wants to help you stay focused on what's important to you with their psychology and biology based approach. This program helps you understand the science behind your eating choices, wants to help you stay focused on what's important to you with their psychology and biology-based

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