Criminology - Introducing: Infamous

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Behind every infamous news story is a journalist trying to hold power to account. Join reporters Vanessa Grigoriadis and Gabriel Sherman as they take an in-depth look at the most explosive scandals of this century. From high-profile divorces to sex cults to the lies that started a war, they'll guide you through the juiciest, most outrageous, celeb-filled stories of the last two decades, and give you a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to shine an unflattering light on the world's most powerful people. A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey criminology fans, infamous is a new podcast series you won't want to miss, covering sex, scandal and spin. It's a series of scandalous stories told by the journalists who broke them, writers of Vandy Fair, Vanessa Gregoriatis, and Gabriel Sherman share the background into popular stories you know, but didn't fully know. They're going to tell you about what was really happening with Girls Gone Wild, the intrigue. at the White House, bold face divorces. You'll learn about Elon Musk having an affair with the now ex-wife of his longtime friend to Russian spies.

You'll hear from the leader of a sex cult and exclusive never before heard interview from Nexam member Alison Mac. It's everything you didn't know about the stories behind the stories. Check out this clip to hear a sample into the famous robbery of 2004. a founder of Girls Gone Wild, Joe Francis's home and the scandal and backstory you never have heard before. This is a story about thieving, about things being taken from you, things you don't deserve to have taken. So to tell it, we're going to start with an actual robbery, a famous one. It's a robbery that took place in 2004 at a house in Bel Air.

concrete, glass, pool out back. This house is owned by a guy who founded a company you may have heard of, but you probably haven't thought about it in a million years. Now you can party with the wildest girls ever caught on tape. Girls Gone Wild! Yup, this is the home of the founder of Girls Gone Wild, Joe Francis. He's about 30 years old. Sort of good-looking, square jaw.

but also often seems on edge like he's going to yell at a waiter. Tonight, he's not home, but somebody else is. If you entered properly, you would enter through the gate in your car. You'd pull up a driveway that's a pretty steep incline. That's Riley Perez, and he isn't entering properly. I walk through the bottom portion, making sure no one's there. Go up the steps, master bedroom,

Huge walking closet, second bedroom, which was a little gym that he had set up. I'm looking for the safe, yeah, but maybe it's not in a safe. Maybe it's in a drawer. Looking for a little lockbox, anything that could lead me to possible mini-db tapes that would fit in the camcorder. Riley's looking for tape recordings of Girls Gone Wild that Joe might have in his safe. Crazy enough, the smaller of the safes was open, so I don't have to fidget with it. and try to come up with a combination. I open it. There's a couple of tapes in there, many DVD tapes.

I'll take those with me, put those in the back. But Riley has more on his mind than some cassette tapes. He has in his hand a sex aide, a dildo. A specific type of dildo. It had gained the attention when it was profiled and sex in the city. It was called the rabbit or something, what is it, a pink rabbit? I grab one. I'll put this to use.

What Riley would do next with that pink rabbit would be so unbelievable, so ironic, that it would become the stuff of Hollywood lore. Because Joe Francis had been accused of exploiting women on camera, of making them do something they didn't want to do. And now Riley is going to make the same type of tape of Joe. He's come prepared with a gun. He's got a video camera.

He's going to make Joe Francis lay face down in bed, and he's going to make him say these words. My name is Joe Francis. I'm a boy going wow, and I like it up the ass. They want to be exploited. Joe Francis is a lot of cheese. Lady, when you flush the Joe Francis toilet, they're just all kinds of stains.

I'd like to first start out by saying, that I'm 100% innocent of anything that I just pled to. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriatis, and this is Infamous. From Sony Music and Campside Media, listen and follow Infamous wherever you get your podcasts.