Let's Go To Court! - 35: White Collar Crime

Episode Date: September 26, 2018

Kelli Peters was the heart of Plaza Vista School in Irvine, California. She was the PTA president and the volunteer director of the after school program. But then, one day, as she was filling in for a teacher, a police officer said he needed to speak with her. He took her out to the parking lot and asked for her car keys. Kelli was puzzled, but she handed them over. The officer dug through her car, and eventually pulled out a bag of pot, a pipe, some Percocet and some Vicodin. Kelli dropped to her knees. She sobbed. She pleaded with the officer. The drugs weren’t hers, she said. But if they weren’t hers, then why the hell were they in Kelli’s car?   Then Kristin talks about two things she knows inside and out: fine wine, and the perils of having millions of dollars in spending money. In the early 2000’s, Rudy Kurniawan was just a young, geeky-looking guy bidding on California wines at high-end wine auctions. Hardly anyone paid attention to him. But then his bids got bigger. And bigger. He spent millions on wine, and then began selling it. But over time, the people who bought his wines got suspicious. The wines didn’t taste quite right. And some of the labels looked a little funny. Had they been duped? And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Chateau Sucker,” by Benjamin Wallace for New York Magazine The documentary “Sour Grapes” “Prosecutors reveal evidence against accused wine counterfeiter,” Wine Spectator “Counterfeit fine-wine dealer sentenced to 10 years,” Wall Street Journal “Kurniawan to tell all in $3M settlement with billionaire Koch, as sentencing is delayed,” Decanter “Rudy Kurniawan’s court date is set,” Wine Spectator “Alleged counterfeit wines go on trial,” Wine Spectator In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Framed: A Mystery in Six Parts” by Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times “Former Irvine attorney convicted of planting drugs in the car of PTA volunteer disbarred” by Sean Emery, The Orange County Register “Jury awards $5.7 million to Irvine PTA mom in drug-planting case” by Kelly Puente and Sean Emery, The Orange County Register “Irvine mom Kelli Peters writes book about drugs being planted in her car” by Kelly Puente, The Orange County Register  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a fine wine crime. And I'll be talking about the real-life dangers of serving on the PTA. I am pumped. I am so pumped for yours. I am pumped. I am so pumped for yours. Well, really settle in because, as I just told you before we started recording, I think this is going to be long. And I did not intend it to be that way. But it's the craziest case.

I know we say that all the time. Like, every week. We're like, this case is so crazy. but like well so far we've never covered a lame one so okay so when I decided that I wanted to do this case I had just read like a little blurb about something that happened at the very end of it and I was like oh boy I need to do this case and so I'm like I hope there's enough stuff for me to be able to do this. And then I stumbled upon in my research, the best article. This article is amazingly written.

It's, um, was written for the LA times by Christopher Goffard, G O F F A R D. Um, and it was like a series and it was told over six parts. The dude spent seven months researching for this article and it is amazing so almost all of the information that i'm going to give here today is pulled from this

article but i do not do it justice go and read this article and i'll tell you the title of it Okay. Picture it. Irvine, California, February 16th, 2011. Irvine, nestled safely in Orange County, is a master planned city covering 66 square miles made up of big man-made lakes, 54 parks, 62,912 trees, and 219,000 people. Every park, lake, and bike lane had been meticulously laid out on drawing boards as a crime deterrent. And by and large, it had worked. Year after year, Irvine has been consistently ranked as one of America's safest cities. I had heard of Irvine, but I did not know there was a planned city like this. It was this focus on safety and the community's emphasis on education that drew Kelly Peters to the area. A free spirit who teetered the line from hippie to bohemian, Kelly had been impulsive in her youth. the line from hippie to bohemian kelly had been impulsive in her youth she'd grown up in california and had stayed there most of her life floating around to different parts of the state though

there was that time she'd flown to hawaii on a whim and had stayed there for two years okay by her mid-30s though she was tired of her impulsive lifestyle that landed her a string of odd jobs that included wrenching at a skate shop, making pizzas, serving pasta at a rock and roll themed restaurant. Wrenching at a skate shop? Yeah, like putting the wheels and stuff on skateboards. Oh, okay. Serving pasta at a rock and roll themed restaurant and tending bar. and tending bar she was also tired of the vulnerability and the state of anxiety she found herself in when a bar patron would misread her kindness and good customer service for

something more and attempt sometimes successfully to follow her home oh she decided it was time to settle down and she married bill a tall and soft-spoken blues musician and restaurateur who made her feel safe. They tried for a few years to get pregnant, and when it finally happened, Kelly's desire for a safe and secure community heightened. It was then that they moved to Irvine. As if the low crime rates weren't enough to draw Kelly in, the reputation of the schools, with a 97% college admission rate, sealed the deal.

And so Kelly, Bill, and their daughter, Sydney, moved into an apartment in Irvine. So apartment living was something that was kind of frowned upon in Irvine. Renters, when asked where they lived, typically would quickly clarify that their rental status was only temporary, a stepping stone on the route

to the illustrious Irvine real estate market. And Kelly and her family intended for it to be the same way. But they were continually outbid on homes and they lacked the means to increase their bids. And Kelly didn't really mind being a permanent renter. It allowed her to quit her job and focus on being a mom. She ran a small company tie-dying jeans, but most of her time went into volunteering at her daughter's school plaza vista plaza vista is a prestigious year-round public school and this fucking place has everything the campus made up of clean beige buildings looks a lot like more like a medical park than a school campus okay it's peppered with palm trees and

the property boasts a climbing wall an organic garden and a perfectly manicured athletic field sounds just like where we went to high school this is an elementary school oh my god yeah grades kindergarten through eighth. Oh, my God. Yes. By 2011, Kelly had been volunteering at the school for six years and was that mom, the one everyone knew. She was PTA president and the volunteer director of the Afterschool Classroom Enrichment Program, also known as ACE. She was a constant presence in the school and even had her own desk in the front office what yeah wow okay yes she was like a big deal around the school everybody knew her it was due to her role as the ace director that she found herself in the gym on the afternoon of February 16th trying to corral a herd of tiny martial artists. The karate teacher had texted her that he was stuck in traffic.

So Kelly was standing in for him, trying to get the kids through their warm up stretches, stalling for time. When someone entered the room, she looked looked up hopefully expecting to see the karate teacher right instead she was met with the concerned face of one of the school's administrators a police officer was in the office asking for kelly by name the administrator told her panic welled up in kelly's throat as she rushed rushed through the halls to the office she knew what they were here for her husband bill was now working as a traveling wine salesman. He was on the road all the time. He had been in an accident. He was badly hurt or possibly had been killed. She steeled herself to take this blow from the officer, except he wasn't there about her husband at all. The officer attempted to calm Kelly, who was in an all-out panic by now.

Your husband is fine, Officer Charles Shaver assured her. He was in fact there to see her. Officer Shaver was at Plaza Vista that day, following up on a call from a concerned parent. At 1.15 that afternoon, a man had called police to report a dangerous driver in the Plaza Vista parking lot. Here's what the concerned parent told the 911 dispatcher. I was calling because my daughter's a student at Plaza Vista Elementary School and I'm concerned one of the parent volunteers there may be uh under the influence or uh using drugs i was i just uh had to go over to the school and uh i was i saw a car driving very erratically did the person sound like they were full of shit they stuttered a lot on the call okay the caller said he had seen drugs in the car well how close was right he knew the name of the

driver kelly he knew the type of car a pt cruiser he even knew the license plate as officer shaver led kelly from the office to her car in the parking lot a wave of embarrassment hit her parents teachers and students were all watching. Her own daughter would be out of class soon. She didn't want her to see this. When they reached the parking lot, Kelly saw the officer's police cruiser blocking in her car. He told her that the caller had said he'd seen her driving erratically through the parking lot at 115. Impossible, she said. She had been parked and inside the school well before then. The officer asked her if she had anything to hide,

anything in the car she shouldn't have. And of course not. Of course not, Kelly told him. He asked for her permission to search the vehicle and she gave it. Then she watched in horror as he emerged from her car holding a Ziploc bag containing 17 grams of marijuana, a ceramic pipe, a small baggie containing 11 Percocet pills, and another one with 29 Vicodin. The drugs had been easy to find. They were sticking out of the pocket on the back of the driver's seat. They were sticking out? They were sticking out of the pocket on the back of the driver's seat they were sticking they were sticking out so you know like that little pouch on the back of your seat so like the bag of weed was like sticking out of it no planted no officer shaver laid the drugs out on the hood of the car and kelly begged him put them somewhere else. The kids might see. Her daughter might see. Anyone might see. By now, Kelly was sobbing. Her legs buckled. She fell to

her knees. The drugs were not hers. She insisted. She promised. She swore. Officer Shaver was a 22-year veteran of the police force and a former NCIS investigator for the Marines. He'd found drugs on many people under lots of different circumstances, and one thing he knew to be a constant was that when caught, people lied. But something about Kelly Peters seemed earnest to him. Something about Kelly Peters seemed earnest to him. So he put the drugs in the trunk of his cruiser and took Kelly into a conference room inside the school where he could question her further. And you know what? Just I know it's going to take forever, so I shouldn't interrupt. No, you're fine.

But if she did have drugs in there. Yeah. I think you can totally be a drug user and still be a decent parent and part of being a decent parent would mean that you would not put the drugs yeah behind the driver's seat in that pouch where a kid can easily grab it yeah and maybe consume something without you even knowing it yeah so it's funny you say that because the like the very first thing that stuck out in this officer's mind is like this is not where people hide drugs no they hide drugs in their glove compartment. They hide drugs in their center console. They hide drugs under their seat. Yes. This is you never.

This is not somewhere where police officers find drugs in people's car because it's like just seems very easily accessible. Yes. So they go into this conference room and Officer Shaver takes her pulse. He checks her pupils. He made her touch touch her nose he made her walk and turn he told her to close her eyes tilt her head up and count silently to 30. she passed all the tests and she continued to deny that the drugs were hers someone could have planted them she offered sometimes she left her doors unlocked officer shaver could have arrested them, she offered. Sometimes she left her doors unlocked. Officer Shaver could have arrested Kelly right then and there. He had enough for felony charges. He could take her to the station, clock out at the end of his shift, and be home in time for dinner.

Instead, he kept asking questions. He interviewed school administrators who confirmed what Peters had said. She had arrived at the school office around 1240. That meant the caller who claimed to have seen her at 115 p.m. had waited 35 minutes to report her. Nope. It was a gap that Shaver didn't believe could be true. So he tried to reach the number the caller had given. It was fake what he asked kelly if he could search her apartment and kelly agreed but she was concerned if someone could plant drugs in her car couldn't

they do the same at her home so she escorted officers to her home and watched as they searched cabinets drawers closets and bedrooms they were looking not just for drugs and paraphernalia but for the distinct bags the pills had been in so like the the prescription pills the percocet and the vicodin were in these little baggies and they were easy dose yeah they were like easy dose no they're specifically like for medication they're easy dose bags you can put like you know, a dose of your medication in there. And they are branded. Like they say a brand name on them.

Okay. And so they're looking for these. Okay, now. Yeah. I don't think I'd let them search my apartment. I don't know that I would either. She was like, what does it look like if I tell them no? Maybe I'm just too paranoid yeah like nope

you know those weren't my drugs in the car yeah i need the best defense attorney yeah the search of her home loan turned up nothing to link kelly or her home to the drugs officer shaver now believed what his gut had been telling him all along. This wasn't some run-of-the-mill suburban mom with a pill problem. There was more to this. He asked Kelly, okay, if the drugs truly aren't yours, who would have planted them? I have an enemy, Kelly replied. Kelly Peters' voice shook and cracked as she told them the story of something that had that had unfolded a year earlier at the school it was clear she was scared but the story was odd

so let's travel back in time to february 17th 2010 so this is almost a year to the day prior to this. Like it's one day off from being exactly a year. So the scene, Plaza Vista Elementary School. On this Wednesday afternoon, a tennis class had just ended and Kelly, as the director of the ACE program, was in charge of rounding up the kids, walking them through the school, and handing them off to their waiting parents. On this particular day, Kelly accidentally left one six-year-old little boy behind. He was left alone, locked out of the back door of the school for six to eight minutes. The tennis instructor had found him and walked him around the front of the school to the office and his waiting mother, Jill Easter. Jill was livid.

Why had he been left alone at all, let alone with this tennis instructor? What if the man had touched her son? In six to eight minutes? That's correct. Kelly had tried to diffuse the situation she apologized over and over again and then explained that the boy was slow and that she had just missed him when bringing in the other children nothing had been done maliciously kelly apologized to the little boy hugged him and then mother and son went on their way and kelly thought everyone let it go

And Kelly thought everyone let it go. But she was wrong. Jill Easter didn't just let things go, Kristen. Jill and Kent Easter were both in their 30s with fancy law degrees from elite universities. Jill had gone to Berkeley Law while Kent had gone to Stanford and UCLA. Experts in corporate and securities law they had met at Apollo Alto Law Firm. The Easter's had three children, a cat named Emerald, and lived in a large home with a three-car garage. That they weren't renting.

That's correct. They were not renters. Jill had left behind her law career to become a stay-at-home mom, and Kent was a partner at one of Orange County's biggest law firms. He had a large office on the 14th floor overlooking Newport Beach and was making around $400,000 a year. Damn. Okay. The day after the incident at the school, Jill Easter wrote a scathing message to the Plaza Vista administration. Her son had spent all night crying hysterically after being locked out of the building for nearly 20 minutes. And the volunteer who had let this happen was blaming him.

She recounted how Kelly Peters had called her son slow and said that he often lagged behind the others. For the record, Jill Easter wrote, my son is very intelligent, mature and has successfully participated in many A.C.E. classes. He is receiving good grades and has received many awards. He is not physically or mentally slow by any standard. Jill wrote. She wasn't calling him mentally slow. Right, right. Jill wrote that she didn't want any other children to get hurt.

Peter's had to go. Oh my. Now, I will say that is bad that she left. It is bad. And I agree that it's bad to blame the kid. Because that is blaming the kid saying this one's slow. Yeah. You know, she definitely should have just apologized and left it at that.

I 100% agree. Do I believe for one second that this kid was crying about it all night? No. No. I don't either. And do I believe for one second that she meant he was mentally slow? No. Not at all.

The week after the confrontation at school, Plaza Vista principal Heather Phillips called Jill Easter in an attempt to clear the air. She clarified that Kelly Peters had never meant to insinuate in any way that her son was mentally slow. way that her son was mentally slow and jill kept casually dropping the fact that she and her husband were both lawyers into the conversation principal phillips had learned by this point that jill was actively campaigning to other parents on school grounds for the dismissal of kelly peters and the principal told jill that this could be considered harassment which the school had a zero tolerance policy toward but Jill was like I what I am doing is not harassment I am well within my rights to do as she's a lawyer she can decide if it's harassment in this situation and I will not stop until Kelly Peters is gone in fact I think I'm going to make a sign or a decal for my car that lays out exactly what she did to me for all to see.

What? How big of a decal are you going to make, lady? And by the way, I'm sure you have a very nice car. That's going to look hideous. Kelly Peters was shaken by all of this. Yeah, of course. She offered to resign. Absolutely not, the administration told her.

They wouldn't hear of it. But Kelly Peters just wanted it all to go away. And if that meant that she wasn't there anymore, then that was what was best for the kids. Oh my gosh. When Jill Easter didn't get the response she wanted from the school, she turned to the Irvine Police Department.

She asked them to look into it. They did and determined that there had been no crime. didn't get the response she wanted from the school, she turned to the Irvine Police Department. She asked them to look into it. They did, and determined that there had been no crime. Oh my gosh. Then she asked her for a restraining order. Why? Why? Her request was denied. Oh, my gosh.

So what I just said was what the judge said? Yeah, on what grounds, miss? Well, she did this horrible thing to my son. Well, I'm just really angry. So naturally, what do two lawyers do? Oh, my God. They filed a civil suit against Kelly, claiming that their son had been the victim of false imprisonment. Oh!

And intentional infliction of emotional distress. This is why people hate lawyers. They said he had suffered extreme and severe mental anguish. Oh. And that the acts of defendant Peters alleged above were willful, wanton, malicious, and oppressive, and justified the awarding of exemplary and punitive damages. That is insane. Insane.

That is absolutely insane. She willfully and maliciously did this to a child? Yeah. Yeah. And, whew, were the Easter's pissed when this suit was dismissed. You know, I would think with such fancy law degrees, they would have seen that one coming. I guess not. With the exception of getting a refund on their AC tuition, the power couple had lost. Hmm. Police couldn't believe what they were hearing. the power couple had lost.

Police couldn't believe what they were hearing. Could this be true? Could all of this, the campaigning, the restraining order, the civil suit, and now the planted drugs, all be because of some presumed or misunderstood dig at their son's intelligence? Oh my gosh. Was the timing a message the drugs had appeared in kelly peter's car almost a year to the day after the initial confrontation at the school's office yes could that be just a coincidence no i don't think so either

it's okay i'll answer all these questions detectives decided to go back to the 911 call from that concerned parent the one that had started it all the caller gave the name vj chandra shakar i don't think that's pronounced right i don't think it's a real name and uh claim the caller claimed to have a daughter at the school. A quick check of school records determined that that was not true. They listened to the call again and again and again. They noticed that though the call started in a standard American accent, the caller seemed to acquire a faint, half-hearted Indian accent

halfway through the call, as if he suddenly remembered the name he'd given the dispatcher. Incredible. Detectives traced the call. It was placed from the lobby of an upscale hotel resort in Newport Beach. They went to the hotel. They watched the surveillance tapes and wouldn't you know it that right around the time the call was placed a man looking an awful lot like kent

easter walked through the lobby his office was only a couple hundred feet from the hotel okay again these are fucking lawyers they are intelligent lawyers get a burner phone dumb dumb i mean i hate to tell you how to commit a crime but you need some help so detectives put the easters under surveillance they learned all they could about them they learned that the easter's home was only about a mile from Kelly Peters' apartment. They learned that Kent carried a Blackberry and Jill had an iPhone. And in the early morning hours of February 16th, the day the drugs were discovered in Kelly Peters' car, the phones had exchanged 15 text messages. During that time, the iPhone had been pinging off a tower near the Easter's home, and the Blackberry had been pinging off a tower near

Kelly's apartment. For the next two and a half weeks, investigators worked quietly behind the scenes to secure search warrants for the Easter home and Kent Easter's office. On March 4th, a team of nearly two dozen officers moved in and simultaneously served the warrants on both locations. Oh my god, I love this story. I love everything about this. Okay, this next part is my favorite part of the story. Not only because it feels like something straight from a movie or like a desperate housewives episode, but also because it seems like such an over the top move by the police for the level of crime that's been committed in this case. Okay.

So when police show up to serve the search warrant on the Easter home, they're sitting outside the house waiting for the perfect moment because they're both like at both locations. They're going to go in at the exact same moment yeah and here comes this guy trotting up to the house but at the last minute he spots the officers and keeps moving he walks past the house and pulls out his cell phone moments later jill easter opens the door wearing some sexy lingerie and then slams the door closed when she notices the police officers. What? So police stop this mystery man down the street as he's getting ready to drive away.

Turns out he's a married Los Angeles firefighter named Glenn who'd been having an affair with Jill for the last two and a half years. Whoa. She called him her sex ninja. Ew. Poppy and Mr. Delicious. He called her his sex goddess, baby girl, and Mrs. Delicious. That is so gross. Sex ninja is the best.

They looked into his background background checked his phone records and when they were sure he was clean and had no involvement in the case they asked for his help they told him they were investigating his lover but they wouldn't give him any details they told him it was something big something he didn't want to get mixed up in. It could put his career and his family at risk. They told him she could ruin him. He told them he loved her. Then they asked him if he'd wear a wire. Oh, my God.

He had his career to think about, and he wanted to show police that he had nothing to hide. So he agreed. So he basically got the pants scared off. Yes. Yes. Okay. And he was curious what his lover might have gotten herself into. So fast forward about three weeks later, Glenn met Jill in a park down the street from our house.

They sat on a bench and talked while her two youngest children played nearby. When they got there and they started talking to this guy before the kids ran off, she told them he was a park. She told the kids he was a park ranger. God, that is horrible. Yes. Glenn had been given a basic script by investigators, and as they listened in, he went through it.

He told Jill the police had been asking him questions, and he wanted to know what was going on. She told him she was in trouble, but she didn't give him details. But she did tell him she was afraid her husband could lose his job. Glenn continued on, saying that maybe they should take some time apart. True, it wasn't illegal to have a beautiful girlfriend, as he put it. But he didn't need to get mixed up in whatever this was. This set Jill off. She accused him of abandoning her.

I thought if I ever had some trouble in my life or sadness that I would have someone to stand beside me. And I don't. It's like you have to rely on your husband for that. He tried to calm her saying, if you haven't done anything, you'll be fine. But this only angered her more. I wonder why. I'm not going to be fine. Do you understand me?

Don't just put your head in the sand. This is the moment. This is when I need someone and you turned your back on me and i will not survive this wow so glenn wasn't able to get anything super incriminating out of her that day and that's not great though it's not i think it's not great either when he's like you know if you haven't done anything you'll be fine and she's like i'm not going to be fine i agree i think that's pretty incriminating yeah so they broke up shortly after and jill like went crazy she'd come to his house and told his wife all about the affair, showing her pictures and emails that the two had exchanged. It hadn't been great.

It wasn't a great time for Glenn. She'd also shown up at the dance studio where Glenn's wife worked. She ran a dance studio. That's terrible. Oh, man. Real bad. Okay. So let's go back to the day the search warrants are being executed.

They're at the Easter home, and they're at Kent's office. Right. So here's the thing about lawyers. They know how the law works and neither of them were talking to investigators. Of course not. Both had immediately said they wouldn't answer any questions without a lawyer present. Yeah. And investigators didn't get much at the

easter home they seized jill's iphone and a copy of her self-published book holding house that she'd written under a pen name ava bjork the plot intrigued them the online marketing for this book said ever dream about the perfect crime? It's in this book. As you read, you'll be wondering why no one has ever thought of it before. It's shockingly simple, twisted, and 100% possible. Once you read about it, you'll be tempted to pull it off. The female protagonist was a Berkeley educated lawyer who had found work at a Bay Area firm. She was a patient woman with formidable intelligence.

The novel explained alluring to men but unlucky in love. To cope with life stresses, she mixed wine with Xanax. When wronged, the heroine burned for revenge and applied her patient, formidable intelligence to the task of exacting it in the book the heroine is a jilted lover who sets up her ex for a crime and then calls in an anonymous tip to the police which leads to his eventual demise a bit familiar eh slightly yeah yeah it sure is i'm so tempted by this, amazing plan that I want to pull it off myself. It's 100% possible, Kristen. I love 100% possible for a crime that for sure happens all the time.

Yes. So here's the other thing about investigating a lawyer. When serving a search warrant on their office, you can't just go in and start looking around. There's lots of confidential and privileged files contained in an attorney's office. So it requires a third party, a lawyer with no stake in the case, to sift through the files and determine what is relevant evidence and what is confidential this is really interesting to me yeah yeah so um this position is usually an unpaid volunteer someone who just volunteer it's a lawyer who usually just volunteers their time with the police department and so they call in this guy his guy comes out and he goes through kent's office while investigators stand outside and block the office

from anybody working there coming in so he's just like in there going through files because he can see you know the attorney client privilege pertains to him too so he can look through all that really even if he's not the it does because then he doesn't he doesn't have to tell police what he sees okay that's considered confidential yeah that's it has to be an attorney who does it the police cannot just go in there and look at no i think that's a great rule i do too otherwise they could abuse that like 100 yeah um but it it does surprise me that just like some random attorney can be like yep i'm part of the team don't worry yes so there's a guy in the office going through the stuff meanwhile investigators are outside going through kent's guy in the office going through the stuff. Meanwhile, investigators are outside going through Kent's car.

In the center console of Kent Easter's car, there were some diet pills. And they were stored in the same distinct baggie Officer Shaver had found in Kelly Peter's car on that Friday afternoon. Okay. Or on that February afternoon, sorry. How long didn't he have to get rid of this right it's been yeah yeah it's dumb yeah it's been i don't know a month by now i mean i know it's the perfect crime right um so they found the baggie and they have the phones. They've seized his phone as well. They just need to look at the messages, right?

No problem. Not so easy. The phones were quickly taken from police custody and spent the next several months locked in an Orange County judge's chamber. While the Easter's defense attorney argued that not only were the messages on kent's phone protected by attorney-client privilege but the messages from one easter to another were protected by spousal privilege wait now why were kent's messages protected again kent's are protected because he has a he has messages with clients on there so those are protected by attorney-client privilege so the police cannot just go looking through there. Okay.

And then the messages from one spouse to the other are protected by spousal privilege. I hate to say that makes sense to me. Yep. So it is complicated to bring a case against two attorneys. That complication grows exponentially when they are married to each other. And so the case sat for months and months and months.

A year went by. In that time, the volunteer lawyer sifting through files had switched to sifting through messages on the phones he'd filtered out everything that was protected by attorney client privilege but told the judge that he was not qualified to determine what was protected by spousal privilege he was done he'd spent eight months volunteering for this investigation yes that's too much he'd had enough he's like i need some money now. Right.

He's like, I've got a practice I need to be at. Like, I did not know that this was what I was getting into. Investigators had gotten one win in the year that had passed, though. Both Jill and Kent Easter's DNA had been found on the bags of drugs that were found in Kelly Peter's car. Oh. But the prosecutor just wasn't sure they had enough they needed those 15 text messages finally the district attorney's office was given the stash of messages from the phones that had been deemed non-protected

turns out those 15 pre-dawn messages they'd been erased long before the phones were even seized as evidence yeah so what now how could they move forward without that evidence high profile cases involving doctors cops lawyers and politicians are handled by the orange county da's special prosecution unit and in the spring of 2012, a seasoned prosecutor, Christopher Duff, joined the unit. Duff was struck by one of the files that came across his desk. It was a bizarre case involving a pair of married Irvine attorneys accused of planting drugs in their neighbor's car. The handling of the case seemed odd to him. Over 20 detectives had been on the case at one time or another, and the lead detective had spent six months exclusively on the case. If this had happened

somewhere other than Irvine, he wondered, would this have been handled the same way? He didn't think so. He needed to meet Kelly Peters. He wanted to know more about this bizarre case. And when he did, he knew there was something there. Kelly Peters had spent the last year in a constant state of anxiety. They hadn't kept her in the loop on the investigation at all because they couldn't. She was concerned that she could be arrested at any moment. She started seeing a therapist. At first, her therapist didn't believe her that the drugs weren't hers.

And we're like, whoa, how'd you get away with that? She started having flashbacks to the day when the drugs were found, and she would find herself replaying it over and over, whispering under her breath, please put the drugs away, someone might see. Like her family said that it just ruined her. That's so sad.

It's terrible. Christopher Duff saw a scared woman, somewhat broken, someone that the jury would sympathize with. He also saw that this case was about more than some elementary school drama this was a case about privilege and power and the easter sense of superiority yep he looked over the evidence and he decided he had enough he had their dna on the pipe and the pot and the painkillers planted in their victim's car.

He had motive and opportunity. He had the incriminating smartphone pings. He had convicted killers on less. When they were arrested in June of 2012, the Easter's were pissed. They had expected a warning if charges were filed against them so that they could turn themselves in and avoid the embarrassment of an arrest. But Duff wasn't playing by their rules anymore.

Oh, I love it. He had the arrest warrants filed in secret so that the Easter's wouldn't see them coming. In the months that followed their arrests, Kent lost his $400,000 a year job at the law firm and duff secured felony indictments against both jill and kent they sought out a deal could they plead down to a misdemeanor so that they could keep their law licenses but duff wasn't offering

up any deals wow so they tried a new strategy they entered a motion for separate trials duff knew his chances of getting a conviction on either of the easters if tried separately would be slim they could each just point the finger at the other yeah of course and of course they would the judge listened to both the defense's argument for separate trials and duff's impassioned opposition and he denied the motion they would be tried together oh okay sorry i misunderstood that whole thing this was a crushing blow to the defense's strategy their plan had been for jill to take the fall kent was the breadwinner so they needed to salvage his career. They would pin everything on Jill. Yeah.

And then she would testify in his defense at his trial. Mm-hmm. In the fall of 2013, just as the Easter's trial was about to begin, Duff got a call from the Easter's attorney. Jill was going to plead guilty. Wow. She would plead guilty to one count of false imprisonment by fraud or deceit and this would spare her the humiliation of sitting through a trial and it would also allow her to testify for the in the defense of the husband who she still relied on completely

financially she was sentenced to 120 days in county jail plus 100 hours of community service she would only serve half that time that was like part of the by pleading guilty she would be sentenced to the 120 days but only had to serve 60 of them her sentence was to be served immediately after the trial of her husband and she was immediately disbarred k Kent Easter's trial began in November of 2013. He had the white-collar lawyer of the year, as declared by Best Lawyers magazine by his side. He was confident it was just a matter of time before this whole thing was behind him.

Kelly Peters was among the first to testify. Through tears, she described for jurors how she was detained by police after they found the drugs in her car that day but when kent's defense attorney questioned officer shaver about the event he painted a different picture an attempt to minimize her ordeal no doubt so he says to officer shaver she wasn't handcuffed was she he says no did you put her in your squad car he says no well did you book her and officer shaver's like no but duff was ready with his counterattack to demonstrate how peters had pleaded with shaver not to arrest her the

prosecutor threw himself to his knees in front of the jury box, thrust his hands in the air and said, she fell to her knees crying, begging you, please, please, please. Didn't she? And Shaver said, yes. Wow. What do you think about that? I don't know. I mean, that's very theatrical. I think that's smart on his part. I'm surprised the defense didn't object to those kind of theatrics yeah maybe they did

they probably did now it was kent easter's turn to take the stand it was a hail mary it was their last ditch effort to save his career he was going to explain what happened oh Oh my God, I'm so pumped. Go ahead, Kent. It was my wife, Kent told jurors. She was obsessed with destroying the PTA mom, and she wore the pants in the family. Kent was a busy man. He constantly logged 200 billable hours a month at the law firm,

so he felt he needed to do anything and everything to appease his wife. Divorce was never an option. No one in their family had ever gotten divorced. And so she dragged him into her scheme to get back at the woman who did this horrible thing to their son. Oh my gosh. The defense presented an email as evidence that showed Jill's obsessiveness on the matter. The subject line was, need to get serious. The email was a litany of demands. She wanted Kelly Peters' background check. She wanted her arrested.

She wanted her slapped with a restraining order. She wanted to sue Peters. The school district. The Peters. The school district. The school. The school board. The public schools foundation. Oh my gosh. She wanted action by tomorrow.

The email ended in bold capital letters. Why are we letting this no one abuse our son and then trash our family? Followed by 68 exclamation points oh my gosh she thought i'd let her down that i had failed easter testified i hadn't pushed hard enough on this in his testimony kent Kent Easter had to explain away a big problem. It was his Blackberry

that had been pinging near Peter's PT Cruiser in the pre-dawn hours when the drugs were planted. His wife's iPhone had been pinging at their Irvine home a mile away.

No problem. Kent Easter was ready with an explanation. They'd swapped phones. Oh oh he'd been at home sleeping fitfully sore from his recent surgery she'd left her iphone in their bedroom to charge and taken his blackberry he thought she was downstairs tending to their sick daughter how often do you and zach switch phones uh never and also if she's fucking having an affair sending illicit text messages back and forth there's no way that phone is leaving her side yeah not a fucking chance she's not gonna risk mr delicious sending a message

not at all no i i it's just ridiculous to me yeah he didn't know that she'd slipped out the plant the drugs at all kristin oh sure sure kent's on the stand and he tells the jury he had no idea he didn't know that she'd even slipped out to plant the drugs he was at work later that day so like you know that happens in the early morning hour so later that day um he's at work and jill calls him and said that she'd seen kelly driving like a mad woman through the plaza vista elementary school parking lot and saw her popping pills and she insisted that he call police so he reluctantly agreed afraid that she would belittle him if he didn't. So naturally, he left his office building and walked 100 feet to a hotel lobby. Adopted a strange accent and changed his name.

And gave a fake name. So they play this 911 call in court. Oh my God, had to be so good. And he said, so after they play it 911 call oh my god in court had to be so good and he said so after they play it he says it's incredibly uncomfortable to sit here and listen to something so ridiculous i feel stupid for having believed her and put my entire career and children in jeopardy yeah the defense rested without calling Jill Easter to the stand. The prosecution was shocked by that. They were like, oh, shit, they think they've won.

They think they didn't need her. I also wonder if the defense knew Jill well enough to know that she could not play that role on the stand. Probably. Because you have to play the role of, yeah, I'm mean and nuts, and I forced my husband into this. You're right. I don't think she could play that role.

Absolutely. I think if somebody questioned her intelligence, she'd go bonkers. Oh, yeah. So the defense thought they'd done it without needing her and the prosecution was concerned about that but the jury couldn't reach a verdict the vote was 11 to 1 in favor of conviction oh my god one juror felt sorry for kent easter what kent easter would get a second trial.

Oh, my God. Ten months had passed since the first trial, and the second trial was a carbon copy. Again, Kelly Peters cried. Again, Kent told his sob story about how he'd do anything to appease his overbearing wife. And again, people waited with bated breath to see if Jill Easter would testify. And this time, the defense called her. But there was a complication.

When she came into the courtroom, she pointed to her ears, claiming she had hearing loss. She wanted more than a sign language interpreter. She wanted a screen on which to read the lawyer's questions in real time. The prosecutors believed this was an act. This would give her extra time to react to their questions. It would be harder to trap her. The judge ruled that she would have to use an interpreter

just like anyone else. She would get no special favors. And the defense sent her home without testifying. Whoa. Yes. They couldn't risk it. Okay. I mean, that definitely shows that it was for sure a ploy, right?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. In his closing arguments, Duff offered new evidence that had not been mentioned to this point. Really? He told jurors that the location of the phones is knowable by three different factors. They ping against the nearest tower during phone calls, when texts are exchanged, and when automatic data checks happen in the background.

These data check pings had not been mentioned to this point at trial. Irvine detectives had missed their significance during their investigation, as had Duff during the first trial. Preparing for this trial, however, Duff had poured over them carefully and discovered what he thought might destroy Kent Easter's alibi for good. It was known from the text pings that Jill Easter's iPhone had been at the Easter home on the night in question. For at least part of that night, however, the data checks indicated that her phone had also been near Peter's apartment and had been pinging off a local tower intermittently from midnight to 8 a.m. Oh my god. The Easter's had executed the plot together, Duff theorized.

One planted the drugs while the other kept lookout. It was a strategic move to bring up this new evidence so late in the game. The defense had already given their closing arguments. They could not try to argue that this was junk science or try to explain the evidence away. They were pissed. You know, I'm with them on that. As the jury left to deliberate, Kent's defense attorney railed against the prosecutor. He said he'd been sandbagged. Duff was ready for this argument, though. The data check pings had been in evidence for years.

It wasn't his fault the defense had failed to look at them. The judge agreed, saying, it seems to me that Mr. Duff made a strategic decision. Wow. The jury took only two hours to deliberate. This time they found him guilty. Guilty. Yes! And another surprise to the Easter's,

the judge ordered Kent into custody immediately following the verdict. He thought he'd have time to get his affairs in order. Instead, he spent the next five weeks behind bars awaiting sentencing. And they were pissed. They were like, this is not how it works. This is white collar crime. Don't you know we're rich? Call her crime.

Don't you know we're rich? At sentencing, the judge told him that in a perfect world, he'd send him to prison out of pure disgust for what he and his wife had done. Yeah. But due to overcrowding, it just wasn't possible. Instead, he sentenced Kent to 180 days in county jail, of which he would only serve half, 100 hours of community service, and three years probation. He was released in December of 2014. Kelly Peters filed a civil suit against the Easter's. Good for her.

And in February of 2016, a jury awarded her $5.7 million in damages. Oh my God, does she own a house now the easters by this point had gone through a nasty divorce and the jury deliberated less than an hour before awarding kelly 2.1 2.1 million dollars in compensatory damages additionally kent easter was required to pay 1.5 million dollars in punitive damages and j Jill Easter, who now goes by the name Ava Everhart, must pay $2.1 million in punitive damages. And these people have money, so she will likely see it. That's awesome. Yeah.

That is awesome. Yes. Kent Easter was finally disbarred over this whole ordeal in September of 2017. He fought it for a long time. It took a long time to get him disbarred, but whole ordeal in September of 2017. He fought it for a long time. It took a long time to get him disbarred, but he cannot appeal this decision. It was upheld by the California Supreme Court, and he must wait five years before applying for another license to practice law. Wow.

And those, my friends, are the dangers of volunteering for your school's PTA. So my sister Kim is the president of her school, of my niece's school's PTA. They call it PTO, but same thing. Kim. I mean, be on the lookout. Resign today. Yeah. Shit.

Or at least check your back seat every time you get in your car. Check for drugs. Leave those drugs hanging out of there. That story was amazing. So Kelly Peters has written a book about her ordeal called Framed, which is in the works to become a movie. And Julia Roberts is slated to play Kelly Peters in the movie. Amazing. Yes. I cannot Peters in the movie. Amazing. Yes.

I cannot wait to see it. Yeah. Oh, this makes me so happy. Okay, so that article, let me give you the name of it now that I've, it is called Framed, A Mystery in Six Parts. Okay. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't tell the title. I thought that whole story was so crazy,

way crazier than I could have imagined when I first like. So the first little blurb I said that I heard about it was Irvine lawyer disbarred after being convicted of planting drugs in PTA mom's car. And I was like, all right. All right. What do we got? That's amazing. So good. uh that's amazing it's so good man today we are doing like the ultimate white collar crimes i love it yeah uh okay i'm i'm

two episodes in a row death free uh this is death free as well we've had two full episodes in a row now where we have not had a death i hope everyone's feeling really happy yeah i'm gonna bring it next week i'm gonna do like five all the deaths so this mostly comes from two sources the article chateau sucker by benjamin wallace for new york magazine great article excellent and the documentary Sour Grapes. Excellent. Here we go. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Let's talk about two things you and I

know a lot about. Excellent. Fine wine. Oh, we are connoisseurs. And having millions of dollars in spending money. Yes! I mean, was this written about us? It's really more of a cautionary tale for us this is our life right here um this is how little experts we are in wine it's like our favorite wine from that charity event we went to i looked it up to see you know if it was a wine i could afford

yeah that riesling you remember yeah it amazing. It's $11 a bottle. That cracks me up. Because we took a sip. We were like, oh, my. Oh, this is amazing. This is divine. Oh. That's, oh, that's humbling. Because I because i really thought well i could never afford this

on my own but i'm glad to have sampled it once in my lifetime okay wow um and so i'm gonna go ahead and say so as you were walking up to my house today i pulled in and yeah and she like pretended she didn't see me she ran into the house real fast and then opened the door was like oh where have you been no so for this episode I so obviously my episode is about wine it's about you know can you can you spot the real thing so I went to the grocery store I bought a box of wine i bought the little sutter home individual bottles of wine and then i bought like a bottle that i don't know got like 90 92 points from wine enthusiasts something so um once i'm done with this story

norman's gonna come down he's gonna be our sommelier he's going to pour us three glasses each we're gonna see if we're classy or not. I have to say, just interject here, it's a good thing you live in Missouri. You could not have done that in Kansas. It's not Sunday. They don't sell wine at grocery stores in Kansas. They only sell 3-2 beer. Kansas is insane. Do they still do the thing they did when we were growing up where you couldn't buy it on Sunday? No, they sell it on Sundays now. Okay. Well, I just remember growing up, no one ever drank on Sundays.

No, they just load it up on Saturday. It's the perfect law. It ensures no one drinks beer while they're watching football. That's right. Ridiculous. Okay, so let's set the scene. Yes. That's right.

Ridiculous. Okay, so let's set the scene. Yes. In the 90s, when the stock market was booming, it became popular for fine wine collectors to buy their wine at auction. These auctions were exactly where you want to be. You were there to see and be seen and get some tasty wine. People would spend thousands and thousands of dollars at these auctions. And everyone there basically looked the same.

They were old white dudes. But then, in the early 2000s, this skinny, geeky, very young- asian guy pops up and at first he's buying nice wine but it's nothing flashy it's just kind of california stuff that's good but not anything that anyone in these circles is impressed by yeah but then over the course of like a year and a half, he becomes this prominent figure at these auctions. And he's spending as much as a million dollars a month at wine auctions. Holy fucking shit.

Yes. Suddenly. My budget, my wine budget is like half a million a month. Yeah. You just get a ton of those $11. Just go nuts. This may surprise you,

but suddenly people knew him. Yeah. And they really liked him. Of course they did. His name was Rudy Kurniawan. Oh, yeah? I'm not sure. Rudy for sure.

So he was super generous, very friendly, quick to joke around, and the dude had a palate like you would not believe. You set 10 different glasses of wine in front of him, he's going to correctly name eight of them. He'll tell you the year, who made them, blah blah blah. The fuck? And the other two, he'd get pretty damn close. Oh gosh he could also correctly name wines double blind so he'd try a wine and even if it wasn't on the list of wines being served he could still name it he was that good that is nuts yeah yeah he he had a real gift because i'm like yes uh this is Yes, grapes were involved in this.

Yes, there's alcohol in here. I can feel that. So soon enough, he becomes part of this rich dude scene. Yeah. He joins this group called the Angry Men. Excellent. Why were they called the Angry Men? Okay, well, you know how when you go to a wine dinner, and you bring a really nice bottle of wine, but everyone else brings total shit?

You know how angry that makes you? Uh-huh. Gotcha. Well, this was a group of angry men who'd all been in that position, and they just didn't want to be angry anymore excellent so the people in this group drank good wine and good wine only uh-huh they'd get together about eight times a year for these dinners and they'd have great a great time they'd enjoy these nice wines they'd have a nice meal and by the end of the night they would have consumed anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 worth of wine. Holy shit. I know. Yeesh.

These are things I didn't know was possible. Yeah. They all became pretty tight. They gave each other nicknames like Big Boy, Mr. Angry, and Hollywood Jeff. I can't get past Big Boy. I don't like it. I don't like it. I feel like that guy probably tried to get himself a different nickname.

Yeah, he's like, wait, what? What about T-Bone? What about T-Bone? So John Capone was one of the people in this group. John Capon, Capone, I think it's Capon. He was the president of the auction house Acker, Merrill, and Condit. Yes. Which is also a brick-and-mortar wine store in New York.

And as far as auction houses go, at this point, it wasn't a very big deal auction house. But he starts writing about these fabulous dinners and emailing a wine columnist about the different wines they tasted. One email said that the wine was like pure sex in the nose. A look on your face. I don't even know what that is.

Sounds horrible. That does sound horrible. What? Keep me away from that. Yeah, not interested. Thanks for the warning. Stay away from my nose. Pure sex in the nose.

What? Not interested? No. No. In another another email he wrote the layers of spice vanilla forest and mint were mind-boggling and the concentration and texture seemed infinitely long with rich acids lingering like call girls at casinos Guy has a way with words, Kristen. Describing another wine, he wrote, It got a Korean barbecue edge and sweatier in the glass. A good sweaty, like hot sex. This guy is weird.

Worth noting. So in the documentary, they like show some of these these emails and then they showed footage of this guy he has a neck beard he's like 32 has a neck beard and you're just like oh gross he was like so excited to be part of this group you the other funny thing i think about these emails is so the recipient was this guy jay mckinner anyway mckinner mckinner mckinner he's a novelist and a wine columnist and he literally had no idea who these emails was coming from oh my god what sex in my nose so then he at some point he figures out who it's coming from. And at any rate, John and Rudy become friends.

At that time, as I said, John was not that big of a deal in the wine world. His auction house was definitely one of the smaller ones. But Rudy and John sort of rose through the ranks together. Because even though Rudy started buying unimpressive wines, that changed pretty quickly. And people noticed. In fact, so many people noticed Rudy that this journalist decided to do an interview with him. She'd heard a few rumors about him. She'd heard that his family owned the Heineken distributorship for all of China.

Wow. And that his family gave him a million dollars a month just to buy wine so so his wine allowance really is one million yeah yeah that's what she'd heard so she asks him about the rumors yeah and he's like hey i i don't talk about my family i don't want to talk about money and she's like all right okay clearly this is just a bored, rich kid who loves wine. That's fine. So that's just how people saw him. As people got to know him better, they learned that Rudy was from Indonesia.

He was of Chinese descent. And they kind of surmised that his brother was running the family business and that Rudy had some sort of trust fund that obviously paid out maybe a million a month, maybe two million. You know, everybody had a different idea. And they knew that Rudy cared for his mom who was in poor health.

And, you know, that was all they needed to know. People weren't too concerned about the details of Rudy's background. Clearly, he was very rich. He wore custom Herm very rich. He wore custom Hermes suits. He had crocodile boots. His suit jackets were lined with silk and on the silk his name was printed in cursive over and over again. Excellent. You know he was an hour late everywhere he went and he didn't really invite people to his house but that's just who he went. And he didn't really invite people to his house, but that's just who he was.

The important thing was that he was very generous. He'd share these incredible wines with everyone. And when they'd go out to eat, he'd order the best wines in the menu. He didn't seem to mind the money. Why are you making a face? Because this is so weird. It's weird that nobody's seen his house.

Okay. Red flag. Red flag. Raising it right now. Yeah, 100% red flag right there. Okay. Afterward, he'd usually contact the restaurant and ask if he could keep the empty bottles. Which wasn't super unusual.

Sometimes people like to keep the expensive bottles like a sentimental thing oh my gosh i know what he's doing what do you know he's a sentimental putting shitty wine and expensive bottles and he's big people out selling it for a shit ton of money. No. He was making new friends. No. He was having a lovely time. He wanted to remember. He's a wine fraud. Oh my. And it's a small investment. You know by one. You know. Not really that small. When he's turning around and being able to sell

it again. I bet he's selling it for more. Brandy how dare you. Rudy's presence in the fine wine scene. Stop blowing into my room. Changed everything. Because he was spending a ton of money in a short period of time. So what he was doing was he was kind of cornering the market. He bought up a ton of wine

and then drove up the price and then began selling some of it at the new higher price. Mm hmm. For example. In 2002, a bottle of 1945 DRC. Romany Conti. Romani Conti? Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly how that's pronounced. I wish I took French in high school. Anyway, that bottle sold for $2,600 in 2002. In 2011, it sold for $124,000.

Holy shit. That's what happened to the wine market. But there's nothing wrong, technically, with what he was doing. He bought a bunch of wine, then he was selling it for a profit, you know? Mm-hmm. An investment. Mm-hmm. But things were getting a little weird. For example, in 2005, John hosted a top 100 wines of the century weekend.

It cost $17,500 per person to attend. Holy shit. Just a typical weekend. These are crazy hobbies these people have. That sounds like my nightmare. Your nightmare? Like a bunch of gross men who are obsessed with wine? Yeah, for sure.

And I have to pay $17,500 to go there? No, thanks. I'll take my $11 Reese-ling and we'll go out to dinner kristin that sounds great yeah actually are you gonna charge me to attend this dinner yeah seventeen thousand dollars oh thanks five hundred dollars cheaper it's quite the savings and i don't have to worry about oh i was about to say i don't have to worry about being raped we'll cut that no privacy so at that event john offered tastings of the drc romani conti 1937 and 1945 wines both of those had been provided to him by rudy wines. Both of those had been provided to him by Rudy. So they all start tasting this amazing rare wine. And two of the guys in the room who were sitting next to each other and they were friends, they kind of look at each other and they're like, this doesn't taste quite right. It was

it was kind of interesting because it's like you had to have had enough experience to know whether this stuff tasted right. And most people didn't have these experiences. So it's like, oh, okay, that's how it tastes. Great. Now I can say I tried it. Yeah. So one of them said to the crowd, only 608 bottles of this wine were ever made. But over 10,000 of them have probably been drunk.

Uh-huh. And everybody laughed. Yep. No one was mad at Rudy, or John for that matter. Fake wines were just part of life. Sometimes you'd get duped. And, you know, it sucked, but what could you do? It happened.

Someone obviously had duped Rudy. A few months later, in January of 2006, John hosted an auction called The Cellar. He didn't say who the consigner was. C-E-L-L-A-R. Yeah. He didn't say who the consigner was, but it was Rudy. This sale was a huge deal for John.

Because as I said, his auction house at this time was considered second tier. Yeah. Akramaril and Condit was not the top dog by any means. And then he sold Rudy's rare, very desirable wines. And over the course of two days, that sale brought in

$10.6 million. Holy shit. And of course, Akramaril and Condit got a cut of that sale. I $10.6 million. Holy shit. And of course, Acromerol and Condit got a cut of that sale. I know, what percentage do they keep? Okay, I had heard somewhere that you get 20%. I don't know. That's just what I'd heard from a random source, so who knows. But obviously, I mean, hell, even half of 1% would be lovely.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, hell, even half of 1% would be lovely. You know? Yeah. So a little less than a year later, they did another auction called The Seller 2. Mm-hmm.

Electric Boogaloo. This time. Can I interrupt with a quick story about the Electric Boogaloo? If you've got one, yeah. Thank you. Okay, so I was cutting this lady's hair one day. This has been years ago and she was telling me that she i you know i think the weekend was coming up and i was like got any big plans she's like oh i'm not sure i think i'll watch a movie or something i was like oh what kind of movies do you like and she's like well i really love musicals love musicals and i

was like oh yeah that's neat what's your favorite musical? And she no shit goes. Break into electric buckles. What? It was her honest to God answer. That was her favorite musical. Was she messing with you? No. She was 100% serious and I

was like hmm haven't had the pleasure doesn't that make you wonder what other musical has she seen dear god amazing okay sorry I know. Has she seen? Yeah. Dear God. No. Amazing.

It was. Okay, sorry. Okay, so the second auction, the seller, two. This time, the sale brought in $24.7 million. That one broke records. Yeah. And it made Acker, Merrill, and Condit the biggest name in wine auctions. Everyone was talking about this huge win.

This was crazy. John was on the news talking about how buying wine is really an investment. And it's kind of better than buying silver or gold. Because, you know, people drink wine, which means that the supply for the vintage stuff is always getting smaller by the minute. So get some of that Riesling and wait until it's $14. Buy low, sell high, Kristen. This is part three of our investment series.

That's right. Thanks to this sale, Rudy had more money than ever before. So he buys a Bentley and a Ferrari and a ton of art, some Andy Warhols. He buys a mansion in Bel Air. The LA Times came out and did an article on him. And for the article... The fuck's he doing in Bel Air? I thought he was living in New York.

I think this is a crowd that travels frequently. All right, fair enough. He got on Southwest. For the article, he wore a white leather coat and held a poodle named Chloe. Like Mugatu? Sounded like Dr. Evil to me. No, it sounds like Mugatu. Who's Mugatu?

From Zoolander? Oh, yeah. Sounds like Magatu. Who's Magatu? From Zoolander? Oh, yeah. What kills me is, I want to know, like, did he wear that for a photo to go with the article? The whole time. Or was he, like, sitting there with a reporter stroking a poodle?

Yeah. Both? Both, yes. God. That reporter. That must have been so freaking weird. Yeah. Almost as weird as, like, when you're recording a podcast

and a guy picks up a cat and shoves his face into her belly. If you're trying to say my husband is strange. I really don't understandan's relationship with the cats because he does things that i feel like if i even attempt attempted they'd claw my face off but yeah he will literally come up to them and blow on their bellies and you can tell they're pissed but yeah like well like all right he gives me the treats. That's right. The other thing, like, one time. This is the cost of living here. One time he was away at a convention, and I sent him a picture of Kiki. And he goes, will you poke her belly for me?

And I was like, she hates that. He's like, I know, but I think it's funny. No, I'm not going to poke a cat's belly. Kidding me? Anyway. funny no i'm not gonna poke a cat's belly kidding me anyway so he the la times comes out and they do this piece on him he's living large he's got leather coats and poodles but around that time people started to get skeptical some of these bottles were super rare like you could go a whole lifetime and never see one and how did he keep getting all of these rare bottles what are the odds that someone would come in contact with this many rare wines yeah i mean it makes sense and all of a sudden they're popping

up by the caseload these wines that no one's ever seen before. Maybe because he's making them in his basement. Brandy. How dare you? In 2007, a Wall Street executive hosted a wine tasting at his house. I don't know that it was a wine tasting, but, you know, fancy dinner. Yeah. A bunch of friends flew in for the occasion.

Everyone in the room really knew their wines. And they start tasting them. And they're like, okay, these wines are good, but they're not correct. One guy pulls a magnifying glass

out of his pocket and starts- What? I'm sorry, what? Okay, the article- He pulls a magnifying glass out of his pocket. start what i'm sorry what okay the article pulls a magnifying glass out of his pocket was it sherlock holmes okay this kills me because the article sherlock holmes came to the

wine tasting is what you're telling me right now what what so the article i pulled this from was like you know this, I can't remember. It had some explanation for why he had the magnifying glass. And I was like, I don't need to include that. And now, of course, I needed to. It said something like he bought and sold vintage LPs or something. So he had like a little looper or whatever you call it. I don't know.

Excellent. Listen, the important part is he had it in his pocket. He pulls it out. He starts looking at the wine bottles. Like, elementary, my dear Watson! He looks at one label. He reads everything. And he's like, okay,

yeah, it says everything that it's supposed to say, and it's all accurate. Uh-huh. There's just one problem. Everything is reversed. This is clearly a very high-quality photocopy of the original label. You've been duped.

In total, that night, they had 11 wines that were purchased from Rudy. Six of them were definitely fake. All of a sudden, people in the wine world are getting quietly suspicious. They're starting to examine their bottles, looking for signs that they could be fakes. Does the cork have the right stamp? Is the bottle the right weight? Is this even the correct bottle that this wine should be in? Is everything on the label accurate?

Do the cork and paper look properly aged? In the documentary, a wine expert explained it like this. She said, everything needs to look like it goes together. The label, the bottle, the cork. Everything should be the same age and in the same condition. Yeah. She had this quote that I think is amazing. She goes, If the capsule looks like hell and the label looks pristine, that doesn't work. You know, that's got a 95-year-old's face on a teenager's body.

But it's true. I mean, you think about that. If it's a 1947, everything should look like it's from 1947. Yeah, it makes sense. So Rudy's Wines are now in the houses of all these very wealthy people. Bill Koch was one of the people who bought a bunch of Rudy's Wine at auction. Bill is the brother of Charles and David Koch, who are commonly known as the Coke Brothers. They're the dudes who helped fund the Tea Party.

Thanks a lot for that, guys. You're shaking your head. We don't have to talk about the Coke Brothers, do we? This isn't a political podcast. We're not shaming. podcast we're not sharing so bill has a wine cellar that houses 43 000 bottles of wine okay so in the documentary they they're in his home and it's just unbelievable so he has like this stone wall and it's like you press this hidden compartment, it opens, you enter the code, and all of a sudden, this wall opens up, and you go into his wine cellar. Yes!

Is he Batman? Batman? I'm trying to be neutral about him because I don't know about his politics. I just know about his brothers. But sure, we'll call him Batman. So anyway, this dude loves wines uh but around this time he started worrying that some of his bottles were fakes uh yeah so he has investigators of course do these auction houses not have authenticators so that's a very interesting question. And I'm wondering what to say.

I'm sure they do. But at the same time, some of the things that were brought up in some of the articles I read was there's an incentive to maybe not do your due diligence if you're going to get a cut. Profit a shit ton off of it. That's true.

Sure, sure. It makes sense. But that's not to say that necessarily they knew that necessarily they knew that what they were selling was fake. Okay. So he has these investigators

and he says, I need you guys to look into this life or death issue. His lead investigator is Brad Goldstein. And one of the first things Brad notices

is that Bill paid $25,000 for a bottle of 1921 Magnum Petros. But Brad looked at it. Really nailed that pronunciation. I knew Magnum. Brad looked into it and was like, bad news. In 1921, Petros didn't make any Magnums. That's back when they were making the regular Trojans.

I was waiting for it. So Bill is pissed. Bill's like, have I been duped this one time? Or a number of times. They get a team together. They hire a cork guy, a label guy, a capsule guy, and they found a ton of shit. On an 1858 bottle, they discovered Elmer's glue.

Oh! Yep. In total, they discovered 400 fake bottles, for which Bill had paid $4 million. Shit. Shit. Yes. Ooh. Isn't that just like, I can't even.

Ooh. Yeah, I can't even make sense of that. Fuck. So it seems like Bill tried to complain to the auction houses where he bought the fake bottles, and he was kind of told, tough luck. But Bill was like, nah.

No. No, that's not how I roll. Do you have any idea how rich I am? Yeah. He told his investigative team, I want you to keep on this. And it didn't take long for them to zero in on Rudy. Mm-hmm. Meanwhile, things weren't going so great for Rudy.

Yeah, because people were suspicious as hell about him. Mm-hmm. He'd borrowed a lot of money as an advance from Akramaril Condit. Eventually, Rudy had borrowed almost $10 million for them. What's he borrowing money for? I forget what... Well, I don't know what he he borrowing money for? I forget what, well, I don't know what he was borrowing it for, but like, it was something like,

you know, we're doing so much business, we can, there's some work. No, he should have so much money though. Uh-huh. Because he has sold at two auctions $30 million worth of wine. Well, you know how quickly that money can go. That's not much.

No. Money was all of a sudden very tight. He was borrowing from one thing to pay for another. By 2007 he was $11.5 million in debt. Fuck! Yeah.

So what did he do? Filed bankruptcy? No! Forged some wine? Yeah, he had to sell some more wine. This time, he took his wine to Christie's. Sorry, I was thinking, like, what would a normal person do? Yeah, like, hell no!

So Christie's was like, score. Excellent. So they put out their little wine catalog, and they featured some of rudy's wines on the cover because they were so rare but pretty soon they got angry phone calls people were like uh the wine you have on your cover fake you can't sell those christie's was like, okay, okay, we won't sell them. You're right. Meanwhile, Acker, Merrill, and Condon is pretty invested in the idea that Rudy's wines are real.

And so are his friends. Because they've bought a bunch of wine from him. Yeah. Nobody wants to believe that they've been duped. No. But still, there was weird stuff going on. Like at auction, Rudy would buy really good stuff. But he'd also buy really crappy old stuff that nobody really wanted.

Why would he do such a thing? What kind of old stuff? Like old burgundies, just old stuff that wasn't really in demand. Vintage stuff that wasn't in demand. Okay. Then? So he could match, like,

what an aged bottle and stuff is supposed to look like? Yeah, and... Maybe take them apart and use the... what an aged bottle and stuff is supposed to look like. Yeah, and... Maybe take them apart and use the... Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Then, in April of 2008, Acker, Merrill, and Condit hosted another auction.

The atmosphere was wild. The angry men were there, of course. Of course. And they were taking notes on the wine, such as, tighter than a 14-year-old virgin. Oh my god. And stinky like the crack of a 90-year-old nun. I hate these guys.

I think they're the worst. How stinky do you think that would be? I don't think it'd be like... I feel like nuns are pretty clean, right? I mean, cleanliness is next to godliness. And like, they don't have anything going on down there soiling things up. Like a dick? Yes, like a dick.

What do you mean? Why is that like a question? Why would a dick soil a crack i'm not here to explain these things um yeah all that's disgusting yeah i think they should all be locked up just for writing that there was a lot of energy in the room at one one point, John said, shut the fuck up and let's finish this. But as much as, and not in an angry way, more like everyone's drinking, everyone's boisterous. He's like, we'll spend money.

I should have given more context. Okay, got it. Yeah. They're feeling it. Everybody's happy. Yeah. Everyone's got like, shut the fuck up. I got it.

I got it. You know how I shout at you when we're having a great time. Shut up, never talk again. So as much fun as all this was, something weird was going on. Because a few minutes into the auction, a man came in and took a seat in the back. His name was... A man came in and took a seat in the back. His name was... Laurent Ponsot?

The way I would like to pronounce it is Laurent Ponsot. But I know that's not right. That's not correct. He was a winemaker, and he made the burgundy that was being auctioned off. He had come because he was concerned. He knew that they were planning to auction vintage... Barefoot... Pink Moscato.

Sold exclusively at the Olive Garden. Moscato. Sold exclusively at the Olive Garden. Moscato. Vintage Clos St. Denis. Denise. Can't be Dennis. Bottles from 1959 and 1945. There was just one problem. His winery didn't start making that particular bottle

until the 80s. What? Okay, that's really bad. Yes, it is. But it would also make the bottles from, you know, 1959 and 1945 super rare. You're not gonna find these anywhere. You can't make counterfeit bottles of stuff that never existed. That's a surefire

way to get caught. It's also a surefire way to make a ton of money in the short term. No! Because people are like, we've never seen one of those. Oh my god! And then I'm sure you'd have some jerk there in the short term. No! Because people are like, we've never seen a Lusso. We've never seen a Lusso. Who are they? And then I'm sure

you'd have some jerk there who's like, oh, well, I actually tried a 47 several years ago. It was quite good. You know, like, I feel like that.

Oh, you're totally right. That would be how it gets away with. Like, oh, well, this isn't any big deal. I had a, yes, I had a 1947. What did you call it?

St. Dennis. St. Dennis! It's very true, not what it's called. I had a St. Dennis in the parking lot the other day. It was delightful. Life-changing. St. Dennis. But yeah, I think part of why this was able to go on for so long was kind of the ego

yeah yeah um let's see so this guy had called john to say you can't sell you can't sell that stuff it's fake yeah it's impossible yeah and john was like, man. But he sold it anyway. No. That's why Lawrence showed up at the auction to make sure John didn't sell it. So he shows up. And sure enough, in the middle of this event, John had to announce to this rowdy crowd, hey, we're withdrawing the ponzo lots from this auction. You can't buy them. And the crowd booed.

It was pretty bad yeah it looked super unprofessional and that kind of thing just did not happen in the fancy pants wine auction world this event soured the relationship between acra maryland condit and rudy what that's so proud of yourself, aren't you? That was good. Yeah. Yeah. Around this time, people started asking Rudy, hey, hey, where'd you get those fake wines?

Let's track this problem down. Let's get to the source. And he's kind of evasive. Yeah, I'm sure he is, because he made them in his basement. They don't have basements in California. All right. He made them in his... they don't have basements in california all right he made them in his what do they have kitchens he made it he made it in his pool house i had to think back to fresh prince of bel-air

he said oh i got them from the seller of Pak Hendra in Asia. Later, he gave two phone numbers for the guy he supposedly bought them from. But when you dialed those phone numbers, they took you to an Indonesian airline and a mall. And it didn't take too long to figure out that Pak Hendra basically translates to Mr. Smith. So what he'd said was, I bought them from Mr. Smith in Asia. Good luck. Goodbye. So people are suspicious and Rudy's

giving them the runaround. But in 2009, Christie's Auction House gets some more of Rudy's wine. And they auctioned it off. What? Despite warnings from people in the wine community who were totally on to this guy. Then another auction was scheduled, again with Rudy's wines.

This one wasn't done by Christy's. It was some other auction house. But people in the fine wine community were angry. They were like, stop selling this shit. This time, a guy took to an online forum called Wine Berserkers and wrote an article. The title was in all caps, and it said, urgent warning. Rudy Kurniawan is trying to auction more wines. The post went viral.

Wow. And the auction house was forced to withdraw Rudy's wines from their auction. Yeah. Meanwhile, over the past few years, I'm going to not say that so weird. Meanwhile, over the past few years, Bill Koch's investigative team has dug up a ton of info on Rudy. Enough that in 2009, Bill was like, let's go to court.

Oh, I didn't see it coming. I could tell you were just like sitting back. I was just in. You had me sucked in, Kristen. Sorry. Are you going to make a gross joke? No, I'm not. I'm not. Thought about it?

Thought about it. Decided not to. Decided to keep it classy. It's the white collar crime week and I'm going to keep it classy. He sued Rudy in civil court. But Bill's legal team wasn't the only group going after Rudy. By this point, the FBI was up his butt too. Jim Wynn was the FBI agent interviewed for the documentary. I love this guy.

To prepare for this investigation, he read The Idiot's Book on French Wine. Nice. Which perhaps I should have read to prepare for this episode.

Or at least watch some YouTube videos on how to pronounce stuff. Oh, that's a level of dedication that I just can't bring here. Woo! So,

through the investigation, they discovered some not-so-great things about Rudy. Not shocking. First of all, he was in the United States illegally. He'd been here illegally since 2003 when his student visa had run out. And they were pretty sure that he wasn't just

some innocent guy who'd been duped into buying some fake wine. They thought he was much more involved than that. So they got a warrant for his arrest. And on March 8th, 2012, they start banging on the door of his mansion. Finally, Rudy opens up and he's in his PJs. They enter the house and it's a mess. Wine is everywhere.

Bottles in the living room, bottles in a wine cooler, bottles in the kitchen, bottles on the treadmill, bottles sitting in a water-filled sink. So their labels have slipped off. Soak the labels off, yeah. Next to the kitchen,

there were bottles of wine waiting to be labeled. They found cork extraction devices and a recorking device. There were a ton of open California wines with notes attached to them. It was sort of like his mixing station. And on one of the bottles, you could see his recipes, where he'd like, you know, a fourth of this, you know, a half of this, and he'd scratch that out like that was no good. He's trying all these different things so he had this mixing station where he would try to create the

effect of yeah these vintage wines they found thousands of labels there was a stencil there were stamps and corks the thermostat in the house was set at 63 degrees well no wonder he had to wear his fucking coat so they talked in the documentary about how like they're in this mansion this amazing mansion uh and there were space heaters in the bedrooms uh-huh a little weird this was like christmas for the fbi it was way more than they ever thought they could even hope to find. Rudy was charged with four counts of mail and wire fraud. He faced up to 100 years in prison. Wow. He was denied bail because the judge was like, you are a flight risk.

Yeah. They updated his indictment in 2013. They added a few new ones, consolidated some others. This whole time, Rudy's like, I'm not making a deal. Yeah. Rudy's trial began on December 9th, 2013. Assistant Prosecutor Jason Hernandez said, this case is about greed. Rudy wanted to make money, and if he had to trick people, so be it.

Yeah. But the defense was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't about greed. This is about the fact that Rudy was an outsider. He just wanted to belong. He wanted to fit in with all these other guys. Everyone else was buying and selling counterfeit wine. But because Rudy wasn't one of the insiders, he's here on trial this isn't fair on the second day of the trial they basically played show and tell the prosecutor called jim win the fbi agent to the stand and jim was like hey jury here's all the stuff we found in rudy's house yeah um they the corks, the labels, the foils, the cork insertion devices.

They're like passing them around to the jury. The prosecution also called three winemakers who were like, yeah, we didn't make these. These aren't ours. Here's why they're fake. They called an expert witness to talk about how you could spot the fakes. I believe Bill Koch also testified.

Uh-huh. But the defense was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Rudy just digs wine. He was just doing a little reconditioning. All the evidence the government has was this little home operation. Just a couple of bottles being doctored in his sink. What? And if you're wondering why Rudy had all those bottles, well, he was sentimental.

He just loved to remember, you know, who he drank that bottle with. And, you know, sometimes he liked to do photo shoots with the wine. So there you go. Mm-hmm. So there you go. And the reason he had all those labels was because he wanted to use them as wallpaper in his new home that he was building. Oh, okay. What? Sure thing. On December 18th, the jury deliberated for almost two hours.

They handed down an unprecedented verdict. They found Rudy guilty of fraud and defrauding a finance company. He is the first person to be tried and convicted for selling fake wine in the United States. He faced up to 40 years in prison. Wow. When it came time for sentencing, Jerry Moody, one of the defense attorneys, spoke to the judge. it came time for sentencing, Jerry Moody, one of the defense attorneys, spoke to the judge. He said, look, one victim spent $231,000 on a bottle of wine. He said, I don't want to think what that translates to per sip. There shouldn't be a bottle of wine that is three times what

people make in a year. It completely misrepresents the harm of what was done. Nobody died. Nobody lost their savings. I kind of agree. Say more. I mean, yeah, he took money

from these people, but I think a little bit of the blame's on them. They should have their shit authenticated when you're spending that kind of money on it. I kind of agree, and I also agree. I kept thinking while I was doing this one about the one I did last week, about the guy who was basically stealing. He took a lot less money, but it was everything that people had. Life savings, yeah.

And I think that's way worse. It is way worse. But that's not the way we see it in the law. I just think that if somebody's spending $200,000 on a bottle of wine, if that money means that much to them, they will have that bottle of wine authenticated before they buy it. I do think, though, that you should be able to trust, on some level, the auction house. But, yeah, I don't but yeah i don't know i don't know i i agree that some of the blame falls on the auction house i don't and i mean i don't think

what he was what he was doing was right but that seems extreme 40 years and oh yeah that's 40 years that sounds crazy so one of the prosecutors responded and was like, look, the law doesn't change just because the victim is wealthy. He said, your honor, fraud is fraud. Which I agree with that, too. Yeah. I think I agree with both of them. I just I just feel like we should factor almost more into what harm is done yeah and i don't know that a ton of harm was done yeah the prosecution people didn't lose their summer homes over these wine purchases

no no they didn't i mean this was really just their fun money yeah which there should be a punishment for that but anyway the prosecution argued argued that Rudy should get 14 years. The defense said, hey, he's already been in prison for two years. Give him time served. What do you think he got? First of all, what do you think he should get? Five years. Okay.

I don't know, that just comes into my head. I feel like that's enough time to make an impact but these people didn't suffer any real loss yeah so yeah um i think it what he did was wrong and illegal absolutely but i think that five years fits the crime okay what do you think he got 10 yeah he Yeah, he got ten. Really? Yeah, he did. Good job. So Rudy was sentenced to ten years in prison. The judge ordered him

to pay $28.4 million in restitution to his victims and hand over another $20 million as punishment. Did he have $48 million? Good question.

We'll get to that a little later. The judge called his crimes a bold,ose unscrupulous but designed but destined to fail con yeah i think if he'd been a little less ambitious with it he would have gotten away with it for sure yeah i mean don't make wines that don't exist and an idiot don't invite sherlock don't exist. And. Fucking idiot. Don't invite Sherlock Holmes to your wine party. And just do a few at a time. Yeah.

Don't try to do like the bulk Costco, you know, thing. Rudy's defense attorneys were shocked. They were like, we've represented people who've been convicted of violent offenses. And they didn't get that kind of time. What harm has really been done here? These victims weren't really affected by what Rudy did. After several years. Yeah, but it makes them look dumb.

I mean, really, isn't that what it boils down to? You're making these wealthy men look dumb? I think it's an ego thing. More than anything, I think it's an ego thing. I'm not saying that what he did was right. No, me it's absolutely a crime yeah but i agree i think 10 years is a lot kind of insane after several years bill coke's civil suit came to an end in 2014 he settled with akramaril and Condit and they gave him a significant payment. Couldn't figure out how much and let him return any iffy wines. And he settled with Rudy too.

So Rudy agreed to pay Bill $3 million and tell him everything he knows about the fake wine business. In 2015, experts rated Woody's... Woody's. In 2015, experts rated Rudy's wine collection to determine if any of them were real, and the real ones were sold, and the profits were used

to compensate their victims. Sorry. Would you enjoy more? sorry would you enjoy more so we're done with the court stuff yeah but did rudy act alone would that even be possible here's a theory from the documentary the john knew about it um they didn't go into that at all. Oh, all right. Okay, sorry. But I kind of, I was kind of curious.

The theory was that maybe this was sort of a family business. Oh, yeah. Because someone had to have backed him, because he obviously had a ton of money initially to buy up all this wine. Yeah. So Bill Koch's lead investigator talked about this. He said that Rudy's uncles were linked to the largest bank heist in the history of Jakarta. One is still Jakarta, Indonesia.

Excellent. One is still a fugitive living in China. Wow. He broke out of prison and escaped after stealing $565 million. What? Oh, wait. How do you steal that much? The other fled to Australia.

He owned a bank and was accused of stealing $670 million. Oh, my gosh. Okay, now here's where this gets weird. In the documentary, it said, of the 780 million dollars they stole which is like okay well i thought you guys said 565 but anyway what they said was of the amount they stole less than a tenth of that money has been recovered wow so you know they're kind of presenting this idea that maybe maybe this was funded by this. Yeah. But then why did he run out of money?

I don't know. I'm kind of. Okay. Anyway, I would like to close with a quote. Yes. It comes from one of the obnoxious men in this documentary. Excellent. I believe this was filmed in a limo.

Okay. That's what it looked like. And this is just good advice for all of us out here. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. He says, for for anyone out there he's like looking right at the so let's look into the 96 champagne yeah let's see if i can scoop some of that up i'm afraid we're gonna end up drinking fucking beer i'm gonna have to drink fucking beer or our 11 dollar wreath I'm going to stick with that $11 Riesling. It's delicious. Okay, should we call our sommelier down? Let's get our sommelier down here. Norman!

Very excited for this wine. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Let me cleanse my palate. Can we bring them out one at a time? Yeah, that'd be great. I don't pee in here. Can we bring them out one at a time? Yeah. That'd be great. No, we're not peeking. This is fun.

I cheated at many games growing up. I'm past it now. I'm past it now. I used to cheat at Candyland with Kyla all the time. How'd you do that? I would shuffle the cards and I'd give myself, you know, that like princess gumdrop. Yeah. She's all the way at the top.

Yeah. I'd be like, Kylie, you can go first. She was always so excited to draw first. And I would draw second. You fucking cheater. I was like six. What an asshole. Wow.

Did you never cheat? I don't have any recollection of cheating. See, I don't think this is fair because you weren't the oldest. Yeah, exactly. I probably got, you know, duped. He just pees in one of the cups. I think this one's warm. All right, they have all been poured.

Excellent. Thank you. So I'm going to bring out the first. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I am your waiter this evening. We have a fine selection of wines here for you. Hope you enjoy. It's one of our cabs.

Thank you. You're a very handsome waiter. Oh, you're too kind. Yes, I smell grapes. Grapes were definitely involved in this one. You should swish it around in your mouth. It really does smell very grapey. Like a communion wine. Like Welch's.

Made my mouth water. Are you tasting it? You going in? Are you going to spit it back in or are you going to drink it? I'm going to drink it. Hmm. Thoughts? I like this one. But I

wonder, okay, here's my thoughts. And I know nothing about wine. The alcohol content tastes lower, so that makes me think it's like a cheaper wine. Interesting observation. I think this one's just okay. Yeah? Yeah, I'm not blown away. You're not finishing your sample?

I'm going to keep mine so that I can go back and try. Oh, you want to compare and contrast. All right, all right. All the same. So that was number one number one got it all right my initial thoughts alcohol content seems low must be cheaper yep i'm not nearly drunk enough here's our second Second selection, another wonderful cab. This one looks really dark. Is it tight like a 14-year-old virgin? Whoa, whoa. No, that was said by one of the gross men. Smells dirtier than a 95-year-old nun's ass crack or whatever. God, those guys were the worst.

All right. I like this one a lot. Yeah. This one's smooth, but I think the alcohol content is higher. I think this is the expensive one. I think it is too.

Okay. It's because it's like smooth. It's really good. Yeah. It's going to be so funny if we're wrong okay number two we're we're thinking is the expensive one yep you ready for number three i think so definitely higher alcohol content that one yep i'm ready to dance kristen keep your clothes on Here we have our final selection.

Once again, another cab. Thank you. Ew, I don't like this one. I don't like this one either. Interesting. Okay. I think this is the boxed wine. Okay.

I think the first one was Sutter Home. I think the second was the expensive one. I'm with you. Okay. I think this is the boxed wine. Okay. I think the first one was set her home. I think the second was the expensive one. I'm with you. Okay. Norm, come sit and tell us. Reveal us all your secrets. Start with your childhood. I was born with very small nipples. And my, how they've grown.

and my how they've grown okay so the first wine was the boxed wine oh okay the second wine you were correct was the expensive bottled wine okay and the third wine was the sutter hol baby bottle wine. Yeah. All right. So we were. Not bad. Not bad. We did not do bad. I think the important thing was we knew the expensive one. We knew the expensive one.

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to set the shitty wines aside and I'm going to keep sipping on this as we do our outro. Drink the good one while we. Norman, thank you for your sommelier expertise. You're welcome. Feel free to pour yourself some.

I'll do it. Okay. He's like, I don't want that shit. He'd rather drink fucking beer. He can't afford the, what is he? He can't afford the 96 by the O2. I can do a dramatic reading. Yeah.

For anyone out there, buy 96 champagne all day. If you can't afford that, buy O2. If you can't afford that, buy O2. If you can't afford that, drink fucking beef. That's quite the quote. So that's it. That's our white collar episode. I loved it.

So it seems like every few weeks we have a segment where we discuss advice my dad is giving us. Yes. Here's the advice. Oh, I can't wait my dad wants us to video these things he's not the first one to say that you know the thing i told him because i remember at first before we even started he was like you two should video yeah and we were like ew no pass the thing i told him this time was like, I actually don't think it's a bad idea, but it would be such a pain in the ass.

Yeah, that'd be a huge pain in the ass. And he was like, oh, you could just get one camera. Like, no. All right. I can look at you the whole time, Kristen. His idea was we'd sit next to each other. No, that would not work. No.

Way too loud for that. Do you remember for our first episode, that's how we were set up? And it was freaking awkward. It was awkward. Yeah. I had to sit in your lap. I had to stroke your hair like a little poodle. Named Chloe.

So that's the advice, in case you're wondering. All right. Well, thank you for that advice carol we'll take it under consideration it means no it's a hard no it's a hard pass it's a hard pass from me do you have any important notes we did happy dances this week when we reached 75 ratings on yeah itunes okay guys we we are really weird about the little milestones. Getting 50 ratings was super cool. Getting 75, we were so excited. And we were kind of trying to hide from each other.

Yeah, we were both like, I don't know if you saw, but we reached 75 today. Oh, I just casually clicked refresh on our iTunes page for the 75th time today. And oh, look. Look what happened. No, we're super excited. Thank you. If you've taken the time to rate us or review us on iTunes, it means the world to us. If you haven't done it, then what the fuck are you waiting for?

Get over there. Do it. Wow. Was that the wrong tactic? I think it was a little harsh. I mean, I know you get more, catch more flies with honey, but you catch more honeys being flies. I've never heard that. No.

So that was you being fly? That was me being fly. I'm trying to catch the honeys. Yelling at the 10 people who are listening. Good tactic. Yeah. Good tactic. Yeah. Good tactic. So please, head on over to iTunes.

Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. Only if you liked it. If you didn't like us, like... Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We're not talking to you. We're talking to that guy behind you.

That's right. Find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We do all of those things. And we do them okay. You know, all right. Yeah. We do our best.

Yeah, we do. And that's what matters. And then join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited

vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the documentary Sour Grapes, the article Chateau Sucker by Benjamin

Wallace for New York Magazine, and articles in Wine Spectator, Decanter, and the Wall Street Journal. And I got my info from the LA Times and the Orange County Register. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.