Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Fraud Lawyer Takes Down Nigerian Prince Scammers

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Starting point is 00:00:53 These two guys that were the cons lived next door to my clients. like literally next door. My first jury trial was about $100,000 going to New York and this sort of Nigerian email scam case. So what happened? Somebody just somebody came to you and said, look, I didn't talk to you. I lost money in this in a scam or I think I was scammed or what?

Starting point is 00:01:19 Yeah. So my, another lawyer in the office had originated this case. In other words, the client had come to him and he had started working on it. And he goes, man, I think I need some help on this. Do you want to jump in? I was like, absolutely. I learned about 30 seconds about it. And I was like, I'm into this case.

Starting point is 00:01:34 And he's like, you won't believe it. But these guys took $90,000 in cash up to New York with the belief that they were going to exchange it for $3.7 million. And I was like, really? Wait, wait. First of all, what happened? What happened with the client? He got an email. Not everybody knows what a Nigerian prince.

Starting point is 00:01:53 Yes. Or what do you, what did you call it? I call it the Nigerian prince scam. Yes. Okay. And so actually there were five people involved in this. Okay. And we had two of the clients that got scammed. And the third they borrowed money from, but he was not our clients. So you sort of had three victims and you had two cons that were sort of going on in this scheme that we sued in this case. And one of the cons claimed that he got this email from someone overseas that he had worked with. who had left him a $57 million inheritance. The story sort of shifted over time. Maybe it was a bonus.

Starting point is 00:02:38 Maybe it was a gift. Maybe it was an inheritance that he had worked with from a Middle Eastern country. It's great. What luck? Yeah, I mean, what luck, right? Yeah, exactly. And so he had been working with all these overseas entities for a couple years. And we'll go into more detail.

Starting point is 00:02:57 but he comes to my clients eventually to sort of raise the money. Right. To pay for this exchange that needs to take place in Manhattan. Right. So the basic, a basic version of the scam, which changes all the time, is that your, a lot of times, you'll be contacted, like, they'll contact Matthew Cox and say, Mr. Cox, you know, they represent, it'll be like a barrister, you know, a lawyer in the UK that represents a Nigerian print. that has passed away.

Starting point is 00:03:29 Right. And that his $57 million or whatever, $50 million is in an account. And that the two people that were on the account were the prince and let's say his, his lawyer or whatever, but they both died in a car bombing, let's say. And sometimes they'll even accompany it with like an article that's been transcribed or a picture of the bombing, whatever. Sure. And they say, now here's the thing that I,

Starting point is 00:03:57 Matt Cox happen to have the same name as their attorney, as the attorney that had access to the account that is deceased. And so this new lawyer in the UK is saying, so you can actually claim the money. Right. And obviously, there's different versions of it. Yes. But but but so of course, and they're saying, I can represent you and I'll take 10% you know, for representing you and fill out the paperwork and everything. And so you get excited and they start, you, you start swat swapping emails and you get excited. Once they realize like, oh, I've got this guy, I got them. I got them on the hook.

Starting point is 00:04:35 And you're 100% believing it. They might ask you for, hey, send us a copy of your ID or send us a, just to kind of get you invested in it. And they'll drag it out. But eventually when they need to wire transfer, you fill out transfer paperwork to your bank, the whole thing. When they're about to wire the money, they'll suddenly stop and say, all you've got to do is pay the wire fee. Right. But the wire fee, unfortunately, or the taxes on the transfer,

Starting point is 00:05:02 there's different reasons why you have to come up with $8,500 or $12,000 or $7,000. And sometimes they'll even make it reasonable and you'll send $7 or $7,000 or $8,000. And then it got, the wire got frozen. Right. And now we just need this much. We forgot about this new tax that the Nigerian Congress just passed and blah, blah, blah. And then you got to pay another 20. And now they think, we got this guy. We got a $30,000. Right.

Starting point is 00:05:35 He's going to keep paying. Right. And because people are more prone to continue to pay if they've been scammed because they continue to tell themselves that they don't want to lose the money. If they stop paying, they lost the money, but they want to believe that they're, it's right around the corner. So they pay another $4,000 and another $12,000. Next thing, you know, it's $50,000.

Starting point is 00:05:54 They can't pull together any more money. or they make the mistake of talking to someone relative. And the relative says, you know, this is a Nigerian print scam, right? And then they're like, what? And then they go, this is what they do. And they explain it to them. And then they go, oh, my gosh. So that's the basics of the scam.

Starting point is 00:06:11 I'm sorry, I just want to lay it out. So people have you talk, they follow you. You're exactly right. And what's interesting about this case was the allegations that we made were that the defendants sort of leveraged the traditional Nigerian email scam sort of principles. Right. But never turned the money over to them. In other words, they hijacked the money from our clients and kept it sort of with these other people exactly like you just described. Right. Out here that are sort of in the distance. And they have these interactions and things that go on.

Starting point is 00:06:42 But they were the ones that sort of kept the money. So a sort of twist on the scam because was there really? They weren't the people sending the emails. Yeah, there's kind of an in between person. Exactly. But were they ever? Was there really? a Nigerian print scan that they'd been a part of? Was there ever any? Well, we don't think that they were part of this scam. We always believe that they were using the scam as sort of a reason to get the money. They just knew it worked and they liked the premise and they said, we're running with this.

Starting point is 00:07:11 Exactly. People are actually paying these fees. Let's say we're in between the scam. We need your help to pay the fees. So is that what they were saying? Was it was fees they needed? Yes, it was fees, ultimately the fees that they needed. And so they had like two rounds of New York.

Starting point is 00:07:27 I said, so let me just set the stage a little bit. Okay. So the three people that make this investment are kind of interesting characters. One is an accountant and he oversees tens of millions of dollars of like condominium association, money, you know, the reserves, you know, sophisticated guy, kind of middle aged at the time this is going on. The second guy is a journalist, financial journalist, not just like he wrote for, you know, a regular newspaper. He was a financial journalist in the UK for decades. So he had a lot of writing experience on various scams. And then the third guy worked for a prominent financial advisory company.

Starting point is 00:08:08 I mean, one like you would know if I said the name. And he oversaw, you know, $50 or $60 million at the time of other people's money. So the three of them wind up and put up this money for these two guys. to go up to New York eventually. And the two guys... And they're in it, it's cash. It has to be cash. It's got to be cash, of course.

Starting point is 00:08:31 There's so many red flags. I mean, every one of those guys should have at least at least at some point understood that this was a scam, right? Don't you think? Yeah, I think... I mean, they probably didn't, but it's shocking. They did not. They certainly did not know it was a scam, although they had some checks because they do have,

Starting point is 00:08:49 there is evidence during the case. and everybody sort of agrees, like there were warnings given like, don't turn over the money unless you get the other money and guarantees and promissory notes were signed. And so there were, there were cautions and red flags that at least the client sort of saw. Okay. You know, but what's interesting is the two defendants, so we've got an accountant, a financial journalist, and this financial advisor kind of on one side. The other two, one was like an IT guy. And the other one was was a consultant. That's the best word I got for him

Starting point is 00:09:23 because we didn't really ever figure out what he did. He seemed just like a grifter, you know, primarily. But the interesting thing was these two guys that were the cons lived next door to my clients. Like literally next door. So one of them lived, you know, you're looking at the house to the left of his house was where the con was.

Starting point is 00:09:47 And the other one lived right across the street. And they had lived in this neighborhood setting for like almost a decade, sort of casually, you know, but they'd get beers together on the back porch. They'd have conversations. And then my other client knew the main, the grifter, as I'll call them, the consultant from a Catholic fraternity called the Knights of Columbus for like nine years. You know, so they had these long-term relationships with these individuals, which made them, I think, put down their guard at some level when this con starts to develop. And so the story kind of goes kind of goes like this. The primary guy who's, if you can imagine, sort of a fedora wearing, you know, corduroy pants kind of guy. And he's about in his 58 years old, you know, could have been a professor standing up explaining calculus to you, you know, sort of had that look about him.

Starting point is 00:10:51 He gets a series of emails that he gets this inheritance. Right. So he starts, he's, his story goes, he goes overseas. So he gets his buddy, the IT guy who's this sort of long hair, coder looking, you know, IT professional, kind of classic. and they start this investigation because, you know, even according to his own story, he's a little suspicious that he had this $57 million inheritance, which the number always changed as the testimony went along, which he always explained as like, well, it was in euros. You know, so as the currency moved, then it moved.

Starting point is 00:11:27 And so they go over to Spain and they go to this private bank. Just the two of them? Just the two of them. The two cons. This is their story that they go over. over there. And they, they, it's a private bank. So there's, there's soldiers with, you know, guns at the front of the bank and there's iron bars, which, you know, I guess kind of makes sense. If you've been overseas and you see some of these financial institutions, they do have

Starting point is 00:11:54 armed security generally, especially in other countries. I don't know about Spain because I've ever been there, but, and they, they walk around and they meet with these people and they confirm that it's going on. There's real money in the bank. The stories are, always kind of interesting because, you know, when he would explain them, he'd say things like, well, you know, the, the IT guy, like, saved my life when I was over there because I had stepped off the curb and I didn't know that the cars were coming, you know, that direction because they're on the opposite side of the road and you go like, but in Spain, they drive on the right side like we do. Like, you're thinking of England, you know, right.

Starting point is 00:12:32 Like, there's these little like things that just don't really add up. He goes to Miami to the private bank down there and he has a phone call where he talks to people that confirm that he has the money. So the story, all this sort of background goes on and this other guy who's involved, the IT guy who's sort of unassuming, you know, is going along with the story and confirming what's happening. So you kind of have two people. And I've noticed through my career, because I've done a lot of work with frauds and cons that when you have two people working in concert, it is a really difficult. whole thing for a victim to sort of see through it.

Starting point is 00:13:11 Right. Psychologically. A lot of, and I've seen this in like husband and wife teams before. But when you get that Bonnie and Clyde going together in a con, it's hard to see through it. Yeah, because the one person is backing up the other person. So it just, it just seems like one guy might lie, but why would this, why is the other person going along with it? Exactly.

Starting point is 00:13:30 And, you know, their neighbors living next to each other. And, you know, they know their nephews and there's all this, you know, kids who run around their nephews are playing with my client's kids and, you know, there's all this sort of, you know, they weren't like best friends, but this sort of, you know, neighborly equitance that you tend to have with people. And so they do this research and they eventually raise about six or seven thousand dollars from my clients. This is sort of the initial trip that they're going to go up to, to New York to make this exchange because the money is coming over from, Spain and it's coming over in greenbacks. I mean, it's hard currency. It's not going to be wired

Starting point is 00:14:15 or given to them in a check. It's going to come over and sort of briefcases full of cash. That's how banks and that's how they do it. Right. This is exactly how they do it. So the accountant who was my client and the fedora wearing consultant, to New York on this trip, this first trip together. And at this trip, the consultant was the only one who was supposed to be there. Right. So there's all this sort of cloak and dagger that's going on in Manhattan. And, you know, they're in the same hotel room, but my client's got to be sort of in his room and separate and apart from what's happening. And so the consultant goes into this hotel room that the security company has booked and they show him, according to his testimony,

Starting point is 00:15:12 all the money. Now, at this point, it had gone from $57 million to $3.7 million. And when I always ask questions about this, it was just sort of like gobbly gook, sort of consultant speak. I mean, it was just, you couldn't really understand it except for it was some sort of down payment or it was the initial chapter or, they couldn't afford the taxes on all the 57 million. So they were going to just pay the taxes on the three point.

Starting point is 00:15:42 Then they could use that for the additional something like that. Okay. Yeah. And so they lay out these briefcases, which he always said were attaches. They were attaches full of cash. And this was what was always kind of fun and interesting about this story was he was surprisingly detailed about these most random things. And then you'd start asking him.

Starting point is 00:16:05 details like, well, like, why did you get the money and what kind of consultant are you? And it was just you couldn't get anywhere with any level of detail. But the attaches, full of cash, so he sees them. And they go through this identification process. He claims with passports being shown. And there's armed security guards there with bulletproof vests, two women that were doing this. And I think there were really people there.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Like, I don't think this part of it's manufactured. Really? I thought I was thinking that's all that manufactured. No, I think this really, really happened because my client sees these people in the second trip. So there are some other individuals involved. And this is where like what really happened will never really know. But there they are. And he says, well, you know, they tell me to pull out randomly six or seven hundred dollar bills. So he does.

Starting point is 00:17:00 He goes down to the hotel lobby because they have a marker down there to check the authenticity, which seems a little strange, but that's what he does. Can you imagine walking up to a lobby? And so do you have one of those like counterfeit pens I can borrow? And, but he does. This is what he claims. And so he verifies it. He comes back up. He turns over a few thousand dollars in this first sort of deal to them. And they say, okay, great. Now we can do the full thing, you know, come back in a month. So this is why it's, it's unusual, right? Because I mean, exactly the story you're, you're explaining where they get a little bit. money and then they need a little more.

Starting point is 00:17:37 And they see how long they can like rope you out on this, this project. So they come back to Atlanta. So does he actually get money? No, he doesn't get any money. He's just verifying this is the money and you'll get this money when you bring the fee. Correct. Okay. Correct.

Starting point is 00:17:54 And so the small fee that they collect at that point had something to do with sort of the security apparatus and sort of an initial payment, you know, for the security company. And then the second payment, which was $85,000, was for security clearances and taxes and exactly sort of how you described it, which is sort of a shifting. I mean, there was real paperwork. I mean, real is not the right word. There was paperwork for this. And the security company we later learned was called the Tanzania shipping line.

Starting point is 00:18:31 That was the name of the company. which probably says it all. So he comes back. So you've got the consultant and you've got the IT guy and they start to try to raise this money from, you know, my clients and their associate. And there's a lot of conversation going on and ultimately one of my clients puts up $37.5,000 and the other client, along with the financial advisor, who he borrows money from, puts up the $50,000 and they get it out of the bank and cash and everything. And so, you know, it's just, it's interesting because this financial advisor who's sort of off to the side of this case for the most part, he gives the majority of the $50,000 under the belief that when he gets the $57 million,

Starting point is 00:19:23 right, he can be the financial advisor for all the money. Right. Right. So that was sort of, that was sort of his belief. Yeah, yeah. He was going to get paid back and then he was going to become the financial advisor. It was an extra incentive. Right. And so they, they have all these conversations that go on, you know, in all the most places you would imagine. I mean, the bars are where they meet and the backyard was where they're meeting and they're going through. I feel like this is a coffee shop. When you're working all day, it's easy to reach for an energy drink just to get through the day. There are times I drink two or three of them during a podcast just to make it through. And then I'd crash. That's why I decided to try Ultra Pouches.

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Starting point is 00:21:04 Like, did you ever talk to them about actually going into the bank and asking for 50 some odd thousand dollars in cash? Like, because the bank should have asked a lot of questions. Like that's not something the bank should just hand over. Lots of little old ladies walking. I want 15,000 in cash. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Something's wrong. Like nobody's dealing him in cash.

Starting point is 00:21:29 So for 50,000, oh, it's my money. I don't care if it's your money. Give us something. Tell us something. Yeah, you know, banks have gotten a lot better at that recently. This was probably 2013. Right. And he did express some difficulty in getting the cash, but ultimately he did get it out. So, okay.

Starting point is 00:21:44 I mean, they have a lot of fraud alerts and, you know, what are you doing with this money? Like, are you? And, you know, there's alerts and all sorts of things they have to give to the feds and stuff when they. Right. Yeah. And people are always complaining that, you know, oh, yeah, you know, it's my money. It's none of their business. Oh, wait a minute.

Starting point is 00:21:59 They're concerned about fraud because here's what happens. as they say they give the they give the 75 year old grandmother yes okay here's your 30,000 in cash and she walks out and she hands it to a scammer and then the bank gets sued because they're like you didn't ask her what the money was for. Has she ever borrowed $37,000 or $30,000 in cash? No. Right. Was that almost everything she had in her account?

Starting point is 00:22:22 Yeah. Well, why didn't you ask? She's 75 years old. Like she's she's susceptible to being taken advantage of. Her thoughts are not clear any longer. And, you know, they're very elderly people are very trusting. I mean, you didn't ask anything. And so they end up, the bank gets sued and they end up paying the $30,000 because it looks bad.

Starting point is 00:22:43 And they are, unfortunately, they are kind of, you know, in a position where they, they should have asked some questions. You'd be shocked how many, well, I guess people in general, probably not you, but people in general would be shocked how many times a day somebody comes in and some old person comes in, tries to get $30,000, $40,000 out in cash. And as they're talking to them, they realize, like, they can't not give them the money, but they can at least be in a position to say, listen, you are being scammed. Right.

Starting point is 00:23:12 I think they'd still have to give them the money. But at least they have an opportunity so that they can say to cover themselves. We told her it was a scam. We told her not to take the money. That happens all the time. Yeah. And banks are getting better about that through the years. And they should be.

Starting point is 00:23:27 They should try to protect people because people walk in and get scammed. I mean, I had a guy walking to my office just a year ago, and he had wired half a million dollars to Hong Kong and seven or eight different wires. You know, he thought he was investing in a Forex sort of investment and he lost his whole retirement. And it was very sad. And he had a friend that recommended this thing, he thought, which I was questioning. But, you know, I looked at the bank and I thought, you're a little bit. It was a little bitty credit union in Georgia. It wasn't a big bank.

Starting point is 00:23:56 Yeah. And I thought like, you know, this guy walks in seven or eight times and initiates wires to different companies in Hong Kong. And that's that's so, you know, you don't throw up, you know, throw up something or call, you know, question and all the police or call, you know, the, you know, some elder care or something. I mean, the problem was he was not, you know, he was maybe in the 60s, but he was still working and good. And I mean, these guys were not, you know, the accountant was in his mid 40s. I mean, the financial journalist was, he was probably in his 60s, but, and retired. and the financial advisor was also middle-aged.

Starting point is 00:24:29 I mean, you know, they were not in a vulnerable, classically defined population. Well, you know what's so funny about it is that every time someone hears about these cases, if they don't know enough about the case and there's just the kind of the, the psychological dynamic behind the whole thing is that their first thought is, what an idiot. These guys are stupid. But the truth is, and you know who said that, you know, Red Bull, Andrew Levinson

Starting point is 00:24:56 said this, which was a guy who came on. And he used to always say, listen, it's easier to scam smart people than it is stupid people. He said, stupid people kind of know they're stupid. They ask a lot more question than that they think they might be being taken advantage of because they know they're not the sharpest tack. They go, but if the scam makes sense and it would work if it was really happening, then a smart guy will give you the money very quickly. Absolutely. That makes sense, thinking, yeah, you're right. If you're buying this and you're selling it this way and you're doing this and you sell it, I will definitely get my money back. Yeah, but he's not selling it at all. He's just taking your money and leaving. That's the part they're not that because they're looking

Starting point is 00:25:37 and they're like, the guy's got an office. He's got all these employees that this is a, it's called a big store scam. Right. It's he's got a, he's got a location. He's been in business for 15 years. Of course I'm going to give him the money. Right. No, bro. Yeah. He's doing this. This is just all part of the scam. That's exactly right. I mean, I've seen some statistics that show that the more educated you are, the more likely you are for a large scam, because you're right. They don't tend to ask. The more educated people don't tend to ask for advice, whereas people that are not as well educated do. And that's when you get this sort of, maybe a little bit of a street smarts issue, too. I mean, I think that people in my universe where my friends are and my family and extended family,

Starting point is 00:26:22 living in a world where people are trying to do this. Yeah. So it's it's like what do you mean somebody does? I have this I have a really good friend of mine. He's a school teacher sort of in North Atlanta and we get in the car about once a year and go down to Florida and he always wants to hear about my latest cases and it just blows his mind because he just does not live in a world where somebody would take advantage. Right. You know, somebody like that and it just he doesn't get it. Like why would somebody do that to somebody else? And it's like, well, I mean, they're criminals out. profit, yeah. Yeah, for, you know, for Kane.

Starting point is 00:26:53 So, yeah, but you're exactly right. And I do think that anybody, given the right circumstances, can fall for for a con or a fraud, because it's just a twisting of trust. Yeah. So in the right circumstance. So you guys, you guys get the cash out. They've got it in duffel bags or a shoe box or something. They, do they fly up to New York or they drive up? Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:16 So the second trip, they go up. The consultant, he takes the 37.5,000 from one of my clients in a manila envelope, you know, which at the time I was doing this case, I didn't realize, you know, you can put a lot of money in a pretty small envelope. I would see these guys in the, and then they'll have like, I had a million dollars. It was in a duffel bag this big. And I'm always like, I had half a million dollars in a shoe box. Exactly. Like, what are you talking about? It's, you know, they're like, that's the like, that's how big a million dollars is. If it's in 50s and hundreds, it'll fit in half of a shoebox. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And that was, I learned that, yeah, you know, years ago when I did this case.

Starting point is 00:27:56 So he had, so the, the consultant had the 37 and a half. And then the IT guy and my client, the accountant, drove up. So the consultant flew up and they drove up with the $50,000, you know, in their possession. So they get up to New York. And this is, this was an interesting part of the. story because I kept asking the main con like when did you get the 50,000? Nobody debated when he got it or that he got it. But it was like, where did my client turn over the $50,000 to you? And this came out at trial because his story like was all over the place about when he got it. He was not, his memory was not very good for a liar. You know. Right. And he claimed at one point he got it. It was on his pillow and his hotel room. And my client. I was like, no, like I gave it to them at the restaurant. Like we met at this restaurant.

Starting point is 00:28:52 And so anyway, they get, they get up to New York and they have this meeting at a restaurant. There's a lot of drama about the fact that my client is sitting in front of like a two-story window at this table where all these people could see him. And they, they meet and have a conversation about it. And ultimately, you know, my client turns over the $50,000 to the consultant. who now is going to go meet with a security company. And of course, again, the story is the same. He's got to be alone with them.

Starting point is 00:29:26 They're not expecting anybody else. If anybody else comes, he's been warned that they're going to revoke, you know, the deal or whatever, you know. That's how normal, normal banking transactions work. This is the way it works every day. Right. And so they turn over the money with strict instructions. you know, this was interesting, but there was very strict instructions from everybody not to give them the money until you get the briefcase, attaches, full of cash.

Starting point is 00:30:00 I mean, this was, everybody admitted that this was part of the deal. You know, I'm going to, my one client, lent him 37 and a half, made him sign the promissory note, but strict instructions. And so he goes back into a hotel room, the consultant does with all 80, $7,500. And there she is again. And let's see, her name was Suzanne Bates was this lady's name. Probably not a real name under any circumstances.

Starting point is 00:30:29 Just to be clear for your audience. So he meets Suzanne Bates in this hotel room. And they go through the same sort of procedure with the identification and the passport checking. And he takes some bills out and goes down and runs it through the counterfeit pen. They take his, actually, no, wait, they had their own counterfeit pen that time to check his money, you know.

Starting point is 00:30:57 Okay. So this was in the hotel room. We don't trust you. What are you up to? Exactly. And that's, that's, I've seen that theme as well, right? Yeah. Sort of the distrust.

Starting point is 00:31:06 I'm the one conning you and yet I'm going to express distrust in all the activities that you're doing. So he goes into this room and he ultimately turns over the money after this check to them. against the instructions of my client. And then they say, okay, we're going to come back tomorrow and deliver the, you know, the, the attache is full of cash to you. No. Right.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And of course, they never do. And the next day, 12 o'clock, he's sitting there. Did you text them? Right. So they're, and my clients are furious because, of course, they have the strict instructions not to give over the money. And, but they're all sitting there in anticipation like, is the money going to come the next day because they're all under the belief that this is real, this $3.7 million of which the

Starting point is 00:31:52 accountant was going to get a million. And the other three were going to kind of split the money three ways. And so they were, you know, it's interesting because in this, in this case, I do think that greed was an overwhelming motivator for the victims of the con. I don't find that to be the case often, though, when I deal with con. in fraud cases. They're not any more greedy than normal people. Yeah. In this particular case, though, there was a lot of greed in the background. And that kind of develops as the story goes along. But so Ms. Bates calls the next day and she says, you know, the certificates aren't right. The security clearances aren't right. And just find some time. And now I'm going to let you guess what

Starting point is 00:32:40 she says after this. What do you think she says after this? The certificate isn't right. Unfortunately, we have to pay, we have to pay an. extra, an extra, let me go with, I'm going to go with $15,000. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, you said $50. No, it's an extra $30,000 or $40,000 for the, you know, whatever, stamps. We didn't get the proper stamps. And we didn't need the stamps and that's an extra $30,000 or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:07 She comes back and she says we, they need $160,000 in a total. So basically, basically doubling down on the security clearance certificates. that they needed from, um, okay, bring my, bring back my, my, uh, money then. Just bring my money back. Right. No. No, they disappear. And was, I thought, here's the thing. Doesn't one guy live next to the other guy? Can he just go next door, go back home, go next door and knock on the door and say, yes, yes. Odd. Yeah. I mean, exactly. I mean, so this was, this was, this was sort of, the case in many ways was sad. It does sort of work out well in the end for my clients, but it works out okay for them. But during the cases, the cases going on, there was this sort of side issues that we were dealing with.

Starting point is 00:33:53 Like, I'd get a call from the lawyer on the other side and he'd be like, listen, you'd be like, every day your client drives by my client's house. Like, he flicks him off, you know, like. Rightfully so. Yeah. I'm like, what do you want me to do about that, man? Like, I don't know. It seems like free expression of speech. Like, you know, and but there was this, you know, real animosity.

Starting point is 00:34:15 and they lived, I mean, it was like, they were like 30 feet from each other, their houses. I mean, it was, you know, they weren't like on big, you know, yards. I mean, it was just sort of your average middle class American neighborhood. And they were, they were very close to each other. Now, the consultant had moved. So he was not still across the street, but the IT guy and the accountant were right next to each other, a butted for this entire, entire process. So, you know, about 45, 60 days after this.

Starting point is 00:34:45 the party's how much how much money has been lost so they they lose about a hundred thousand dollars okay total so it was like six or seven thousand the first one then it was 87 and a half thousand the second round so they've got about a hundred thousand dollars plus expenses and some other sort of miscellaneous things that are going on and this uh the the the journalist actually it's interesting you'd say that asked that question the journalist had invested with the consultant before and lost about 15,000 box and this gold from Dubai scam. This guy, this guy is right for her.

Starting point is 00:35:21 So he had already been sort of scammed one time by this guy. And that became part of the case for us to try to get his money back during that. But he, the consultant had gone to Dubai and bought a Rolex watch and some other gold. And it all turned out to be, you know, fake. And he said, well, they just duped me like I didn't know. That was sort of his excuse. Right. Which made his.

Starting point is 00:35:40 Nobody's more upset about this than me. They fooled you. They fooled me. Exactly. We lost 15 grand. We? Not we. Me.

Starting point is 00:35:51 So, yeah. And it was interesting, though, listening to their testimony as the case sort of evolves, because they would waffle between still maintaining their belief that the money was out there. Not my clients. They were firmly convinced they were scammed. Right. But the other two guys. And we got duped from somebody else. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:14 They would sort of go back and forth. Well, I think we've got duped. And I don't know, maybe I still have this $57 million out there. The international man of mystery took the money. The international man of mystery, which is a really important part of this case and really became, I think, the seminal point for why the jury did not believe that the IT and consultant just got duped themselves. Right.

Starting point is 00:36:39 Right. So, I mean, that was the chief defense. And the case was, look, I guess. the money to these people. It's not my fault. And it's just not my fault. I just, we all believed that this inheritance was real.

Starting point is 00:36:52 And disproving that became sort of the, I mean, because that's a plausible theory. I mean, after all, my clients believed it was real. So now I've got to go prove you guys didn't believe it. Well,

Starting point is 00:37:04 and actually having seen the third, the third party too, like you said this woman, or these people came in and, you know, there were other people involved. Yes. You obviously weren't able to get a hold of them and sue them.

Starting point is 00:37:17 But so having seen that, well, I know there were other people involved, then it kind of seems almost plausible. I think they're just a part of the scam. There's five of them. You know, I'm saying? You know, the other ones are, listen, all, listen, Carol, all you got to do is show up. You're in a bull pretty fast. Yeah. Sit down and come, you know, just back up my story.

Starting point is 00:37:40 You'll be there for 10 minutes to leave. I'll give you a 500 bucks. Yeah. You know, so that's, that, that's more likely than, than these guys actually believe this was a scheme. And that same premise, there was a guy named Blaine Davis who ripped off a bunch of his friends and family for about a million dollars. And then when he went to trial, he blamed it on the international man of mystery that he'd been contacted and he had given this guy the money. the guy was going to Europe and he was investing in, I forget what it was. And he was going to come back and he was shocked.

Starting point is 00:38:19 But when it came time to, okay, we'll show us the wires. Well, then show us, you know, the receipts. Well, then show us the phone calls. Well, then show. He could provide, like, he literally went in front of the jury and thought, I will just spin this insane lie that I have not one shred of evidence to back up. and I think I'm going to win. Like, you're, fuck, are you, and you just wasted the court's time. They don't think that's cute.

Starting point is 00:38:47 Right. And that's exactly what happened. It was a million dollars. And it's so funny, too, because like you're saying, you gave this guy the money, but we can prove that I gave you a check for $13,000. And you immediately paid your mortgage, your car payment. Exactly. A year's worth of insurance.

Starting point is 00:39:02 And the money was gone. You see what I'm saying? And then this guy gave you $25,000. You immediately paid your car. You know what I'm saying? And it was just like this went on for six months to a year. You just stole a million dollars from these people. And you clearly pissed it away on your own bills.

Starting point is 00:39:18 Right. There's nobody. There's no guy. It's an interesting note about what you just said is what I find is that most of the cons think they can talk themselves out of it. Right. And I actually was sitting down with a with a prosecutor in New Orleans just a couple weeks ago.

Starting point is 00:39:34 And I said, just anecdotally, like, do your criminal defendants and your fraud cases? he was a white collar sort of prosecutor. Right. Do they often take the stand and testify? And he said, yeah. You know, in a civil case, which this was, right. The, if you take the fifth in a civil case, it's presumed against you in a civil case. But in a criminal case, of course, you can take the fifth. And almost every criminal defendant in a violent crime or drug case or something, they all take the fifth.

Starting point is 00:40:02 Right. I mean, you know, 90, 95% of the time. But he goes, no, he goes, the cons like to get up and try to spend. story. They think they can convince people. They like to perform. You know, exactly. And so it was, you know, that that's exactly what these guys were doing in this process. You know, he thought he could spend the story. So let me give you, let me give you a little bit of the, of the deposition that we had. So this was, this was fun. And I'll just give you a little, a little tidbit from it. And then we'll go to the trial, which is where, where most of the drama happened. But I was a young lawyer when I

Starting point is 00:40:35 deposed this guy. I mean, I was three or four years out. As opposed to now, you're an old man. I'm still, well, you know. You're like, you look like you're 30. Thank you. 45, but still. So I have a few years of practice. So, I mean, if you look me up online, you know, I have some successes because I'm always trying to get business, you know.

Starting point is 00:40:53 But back then I didn't have anything. So I was just like a young lawyer. So I knew he didn't know anything about me. And I had been reading about body mirroring, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I decide I'm going to show up and I'm going to act like just like a fool. So I dress up and I put my tie on kind of crooked. it and I fumble paper and push him to, like I make these mistakes to kind of make him like real

Starting point is 00:41:15 comfortable and the thing and mirror his language. And I sit down and I say, well, just tell me this story. Can you just start from the beginning? And for like an hour and a half, you know, he just goes on and on and on about this story because, and this is exactly what I wanted to get. Because I knew that the more information I could pull out of him than potentially the more inconsistencies I could show. And so, I mean, at one point he's like, hey, man, you know, I like your socks. I'm like, oh, thanks, you know. So he became very comfortable. We go through this process.

Starting point is 00:41:48 And, you know, I get some compliments from him. He's sort of chain smoking, you know, during the breaks going through this process. But he walks through the whole thing. And what was so interesting, and I sort of alluded to it earlier, was whenever we would talk about something, sort of interesting to him, he could be unbelievably detailed, right? So, okay, tell me about the guy that you got this inheritance from. And he goes, well, you know, I work for this guy in Oman, and I helped him buy a pharmaceutical company. You know, one thing I've been good at is putting off doctors appointments. You tell yourself you're going to do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow turns into

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Starting point is 00:43:17 slash ITC to get started and check that appointment off your list today. That's ZOCDOC.com slash ITC. I'd be like, okay, what did you do for him? And I was a consultant. Well, okay, what did you do? It's like consulting. I consulted. Okay. Well, I consulted on, you know, regulatory and manufacturing. I just like got corps speak, you know, like just there was no.

Starting point is 00:43:49 Okay, well, you did regulatory consulting? Yeah, okay. Well, tell me like, what's the regulatory body that you were consulting about? You don't know. Right. You know. And then he would spout off, and I made a note of it here, he spout off. You know, I did some consulting under, under,

Starting point is 00:44:05 under 21 CFR part 820, 803, 806, and 820. You know, it's like, of course, I don't know this. Right. And he'd spout off some things like, and then yet you turn around and you'd be like, well, tell me about the time you met this guy. He's like, oh, man, I was on this guy's yacht, and it was 180 feet long. He had all these women on there, and we were drinking cognac and smoking cigar. and he had bought a $30 million racehorse.

Starting point is 00:44:39 I mean, and he would just go on and on. And I'd be like, okay, so let me get this straight. You're on the boat. You're drinking whiskey and you're smoking cigars. He goes, no, no, cognac. There's a big difference between whiskey and cognac. And I was like, okay, well, thank you for educating me. So there was always these moments with this guy where he would just be very specific.

Starting point is 00:45:01 But when you pushed on, like, what was the name of the company? you helped him acquire. You know, it's been years. I don't really remember. Okay, well, like, what country was it in? I mean, he named some countries. And I go back and go like, okay, now, what country was the guy from? And he go, AEOE.

Starting point is 00:45:19 And I go, now, you know, like, I wasn't a geography major, but like, what's AEO? And he goes, oh, I met the UAE. And I'd be like, okay, the UAE. And then, but you just said, Oman. Those are different countries, right? like the two of them you know and so like there was and that became a really important point during the trial as we we did um the story started to unfold in front of the jury and i started asking him about this guy i said well what's his name and he was like i don't know i don't remember but he had

Starting point is 00:45:55 four names and i was like okay and i have four names you know i'm john david worth huffman so i got i got four names so i told the jury i was like okay so he has four names like me okay so the before named unnamed man. And this was the way I just, I gave him a name and I just went with it through the, through the trial. And again, I said, well, what country is he from? And he said, oh, Ma, and I crossed them. So you said, you A.E and your deposition.

Starting point is 00:46:18 So we went through this whole thing. And then he actually testified twice because I called him for cross. And then he took the stand in his own defense. And I got up and I said, now, this was like the next day. And I said, no, what country was the man from? And he said a third country. And I forget what it was, like Saudi Arabia or something. And the jury just went, oh, like you could hear the like gas.

Starting point is 00:46:43 Like he can't even keep the country right, you know. And the three different countries this guy was from during the cross examination. So but that was that was fun because he wanted to tell his story. So I gave him a whiteboard and a marker. And he stood up in front of the jury like a professor. and, you know, he'd wear his fedora when he wasn't on the stand. So that was kind of the image I have, like this fedora wearing professor and corduroy pants up here describing and drawing out the map of the Bank of Spain

Starting point is 00:47:17 and where he went and walked around it and how the IT guy was with him and how they went through all of this that went on in great detail. So what, I mean, they're found guilty, right? Yes. Or is it guilty or no? It's like. Well, they're found liable. Liable.

Starting point is 00:47:37 Okay. And are they, they're given, um, what is there like? There's like, like what was the, what was the, I don't even know. I'm so used to criminal. What how much money were they allotted? Was it just, it was it just like the $100,000 or was it that plus I want to say punitive? Yeah, yeah, yeah, punitive, you're right. Yeah, I was thinking of companies as being punitive.

Starting point is 00:48:00 Okay. Yeah, but you can get punitives against the company or an individual. So the jury, the jury ultimately hit him with $300,000. Okay. So I'll back up for just a second. So after. Did he cut a check? No, he didn't.

Starting point is 00:48:14 We actually never collected a dime from the case. Oh, yes. Stop it. That's not true. Yeah. But after we, after I cross-examined him, the IT guy, we went out in the hall with his lawyer and he's like, I got to sell this case. Right. So he never took the stand.

Starting point is 00:48:33 at the trial. Yeah. Because, I mean, I put up the other guy first. And I mean, he was up next. So it was like, he's like, he sees how bad it went. Right. And he's got a lawyer who's advising him. They had offered us like 10 grand or something before trial, maybe 20 or something. It was, it was nominal. And, but he had the assets, which was, I mean, he was kind of our primary target because he was the, I mean, he had a house. when you knew where it was. Right. You know, next door. Like, he had a job. Like, you know, so like, like, he was the one that we knew had money. when I had asked the consultant about, do you have any money like during his deposition? He was like, no.

Starting point is 00:49:09 I wouldn't be ripping your clients off. I only have the $80,000 you gave me, you know, stocked away somewhere, but probably not. So he comes out and he sells for $175,000. Oh, wow. Okay. Can he pay $175,000? He paid the whole thing. Oh, okay.

Starting point is 00:49:24 Yeah. So my clients were made. So that was, and that represented 100% of the loss of the money they lost and the attorney's fees that they had paid. So they were made 100% whole from him. Okay. That's nice. Yeah, over time. I mean, he paid it a little bit over time, but pretty quickly. And then we went to verdict with the other guy and the jury gave us everything in our attorney's fees. And then they gave us $100,000 impunitive damages. And so we asked the jury after, why didn't you give us more impunitives? Because I felt like, I mean, you could have just picked a number for the guy. Yeah, he's not paying.

Starting point is 00:50:00 Right. Put a million bucks. Yeah, a million bucks on. And they said, well, you know, we believed that he was a bad guy, but we didn't really want to reward your clients. So they sort of split the baby on it. Okay. Okay. One of the most truthful statements, I think, that came out in this trial was after my client testified, he was sort of first, the accountant. The other lawyer cross-examined him. And at the very end of his testimony, so like as he's basically the other lawyer sitting down, he says,

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Starting point is 00:52:06 See sight for details. And absolutely not. What do you mean? I'm lucky. Like, your clients stole all this money from us? Like, I mean, I am absolutely not lucky. And he goes, you know, you're lucky you didn't get killed and just set out. And I think there was a lot of truth to that because I don't know who these people were.

Starting point is 00:52:23 They were out there. They were armed, you know. And obviously they were there for the money. But there is real risk. And I mean, I just was at a fraud conference two weeks ago. And there's a story about, you know, a daughter, like a 30-year-old daughter stood up and said how her mom got murdered after being involved in a romance scheme. She was very convinced. Yeah, I heard about a Nigerian print scam where the guy was so upset, he flew to Nigeria.

Starting point is 00:52:52 Right. They thought they were going to continue to get money out of them. And so he kind of led on the, you know, the scammers. and flew to Nigeria and ended up getting himself killed. Right. Like he thought he was going to get there and he was going to, he was going to, where's my money and I'll come after you and your family? And instead, they just killed him.

Starting point is 00:53:11 You're in Nigeria. Right. So, so it can go wrong. It can go. It can go wrong, especially if you're going to fly to another country, which I don't recommend to anybody. But I think there was some real danger in the situation for my client in New York. I don't think he recognized it, but there were people walking around.

Starting point is 00:53:32 He saw them with weapons. You know, there seemingly was some real money at some point, you know, beyond the money that they had given them. Right. So I do have a quick question. Yeah. When the, when the tech guy, the IT guy, um, settles, do you get to notify the court or the jury? Hey, by the way, I know we're showing these two guys. One of them just settled.

Starting point is 00:53:56 Do they get to know that? They knew that he settled, but beyond that, they didn't want. I understand that. That's pretty, to me, if I was on the jury, I'd be like, you settled. Yeah. Like, if you were just, if you were already here, why would you settle? Right. You know, like I'd be thinking, okay, that's almost an admission of guilt here, you know,

Starting point is 00:54:15 which makes that this other crackpot that's, you know, con artist that's sitting here, makes him look even worse, let alone his testimony. So. And I, and I remember asking them after, after. afterwards, the jurors, you know, what did you think about the IT guy? Yeah. You know, and they were like, well, we thought he was in on it, but we were kind of waiting to hear him testify.

Starting point is 00:54:36 Yeah. You know, so they had, they had quite made up their mind, but they were sort of convinced he was guilty because of the settlement. Okay. That was sort of exactly what you're saying. So, yeah, it was an interesting story. So they did collect the money. And then one of the, one of the interesting things about the story is that the, my, my two

Starting point is 00:54:55 clients, the journalist and the accountant, after this is all over and they get their mind. I mean, they're made whole. Yeah. I mean, that's shocking. By the way, that is shocking. And it doesn't happen. I mean, I have to advise clients when they go into cases like these like, you know. The likelihood you're going to get their money back is very slim.

Starting point is 00:55:15 Yeah. And I mean, these types of cases, the cons don't stick around to get sued. You know what I'm saying? Typically, they're not living in a house in their name next door. Right. Bad idea. Bad idea. And so, but they, the, the, the, the journalist and the accountant, they actually, they actually sue each other for a couple thousand dollars because they had like a fee sharing

Starting point is 00:55:38 agreement, you know, like they were, I don't remember if it was 50, 50 or if it was some percentage based on the amount that they lost, but, you know, they had to pay our attorney's fees. And one of them felt like, you know, overpaid a couple thousand dollars. And so they, they, you know, right. And so they go, they go to, they go to, they go to, they go to, they go to, and small claims court over this. And it just, it sadden me because I thought, I don't, I guess you guys didn't learn. Yeah. Kind of what, you know, what was going on here.

Starting point is 00:56:06 And the greed, the greed in this case was really high. I mean, it was, it was unlike a lot of things. But hopefully they learned and, you know, I don't, I don't. You'd like to think that they're not making these kinds of investments anymore. Yeah, probably not. But hopefully not. But maybe they invested in Bitcoin or something. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:56:23 Yeah. which is where a lot of these cases go to nowadays. Not back then. What else we got? What else we got? How about we talk about an autistic daycare being defrauded? Oh, are there really autistic kids?

Starting point is 00:56:41 They are. Oh, then that is sad. Yeah, I mean, because in Minnesota, there might not be any kids. The kid, yeah, that's true. You just throw autistic. Like, hey, everybody else is going with the fake regular daycare. Let's go with autistic daycare.

Starting point is 00:56:53 If they're autistic, that'll separate us from the other scam. cameras, but you're saying there was a real autistic kids. Yeah. Yes, and all the kids were fine. Just the daycare itself got scammed. So my clients have a business where they specialize in autistic daycares. They come to Georgia and they enter into an agreement to open a daycare. It's a lease to purchase agreement.

Starting point is 00:57:15 And you're going to enjoy some of this because it has to do with a little bit of title fraud. So the seller of the property and the landlord, right? they enter into an agreement where my client's going to put down $285,000 and enter into a five or six year lease, and then they can buy it for some, you know, at any point during this time period. Okay. Now, my clients are not fools. They are sophisticated and experienced real estate investors. So they do everything that you would expect them to do.

Starting point is 00:57:48 They hire a lawyer to check the title. they request a letter from the bank saying that the loan is in good standing. They take their lease and they record it in the real estate records so nothing can happen. They pay the money. They go to a real closing with the real estate attorney. And Georgia, you have to have a real estate attorney to do sort of closings. And they go in, they start renovating the building, put a new roof on, start to get their kids in the door and then two months later they find out that the property has been foreclosed on by the bank

Starting point is 00:58:25 and they think how is this possible we have a letter from the bank saying that the loan was in good standing well it was a forgery oh no and nobody would do that yeah and this this guy you would think you know if you get $285,000 in cash you might take part of it and go to the bank and try to reinstate your loan or get a current or figure out a deal with the bank. No, he doesn't do any of that. He pockets all the money. We find that about 100 grand of it winds up in some sort of Bitcoin scheme. He's going to make it all back in Bitcoin. I don't know what he was doing with it. And so we start to sort of unravel this situation for the client. And he files for bankruptcy. which is sort of a common tactic in this line of work.

Starting point is 00:59:24 But we go into bankruptcy court and we have a hearing on what's going on. And about the time we get ready for the hearing, we discover or we learn that his son has this accident. And so he can't come to the hearing. So it turns out that this guy's son is the local star quarterback of this sort of barely rural area in Georgia. So you can imagine, you know, what the local population thinks and everything. And it's a legit injury.

Starting point is 00:59:56 He gets paralyzed at least for a time period from the waist down. And we're out here pursuing him, thinking about criminal charges and all the rest. And this sort of happens and delays the case for a little while, not for too long, but for a little while because he's got to tend to a son, which is legitimate injury. We wind up in court to try to prove some aspects in the bankruptcy court. And he comes in and, like a good con, takes the stand to explain his side of the story. And this was what was I found really sort of appalling about the situation. So we get into this and we have, I mean, we have the bank president whose signatures on this document come testify that it's not his signature. Right.

Starting point is 01:00:43 We have another bank representative come and testify that the form that it's on, like we never do this. We don't really give letters of good standing anyway and sort of to show that it's a forgery. We get the real estate agent to come testify who was the recipient of the document, right? From the... To say she didn't forge it or he didn't forge it. Yeah, yeah, it was a man actually, right? And so he comes in and he says, like, here's the text messages. I mean, we have the phone, like, live.

Starting point is 01:01:14 Yeah, like we're like... It's clear. This is the guy that forged the documents. Exactly. We're scrolling through it, showing the judge, you know, everything that's going on. And then, you know, this, this, this context, the stand. And I said, well, you know, these text messages, they, they're from you. No, no, they're not for me.

Starting point is 01:01:34 No, wait a second. You got your phone on you? Yes. Genius, right? I mean, like, and, uh, So we pull them up, right there live, and we start walking through the text messages. And I go, well, so here they are. I mean, they're from you.

Starting point is 01:01:50 They come from your phone. No, I didn't send them from my phone. So you're saying someone else hijacked your phone and sent the text messages. And he said, well, all I know is I didn't send them. And I go, well, who else had access to your phone? And he said, my wife and my son. And I was like, okay. So you're and that's it.

Starting point is 01:02:12 Right. Now this is a different son than the one got injured. But and he, he begins to like throw his wife and son under the bus. Right. And it's just, it's unbelievable to me. I'm sitting here going like,

Starting point is 01:02:24 this is so wild. Like this guy's got like one kid who's in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down. His wife is like not at the court because she's at the hospital. Right. With their son. And here he is basically saying like my wife. did this and maybe my son helped her generate the document and throwing them on it.

Starting point is 01:02:46 You know, his son's like 19 or 20 years old. And it's just, it's unbelievable the blame that he shifted to her in this circumstance. He, um, nobody buys it. Yeah. And the judge, we win this thing. And ultimately, it turns out pretty well for the client because the bank and my client sort of negotiate and they decided to go ahead and buy the building at this point from the bank directly.

Starting point is 01:03:17 Right. They just sort of cut him out of the deal altogether. We, we get a judgment against him for the amount of money that he stole. We did, we did collect a portion of it so far. And then we did, we instituted a criminal proceeding in Georgia. So I don't know that you can do this in a lot of states, but if the police were, you know, won't take your crime. Like you go to the police and they're like, we're not interested.

Starting point is 01:03:45 Yeah. Which is what happens a lot in white collar cases. I don't want to give anybody any ideas. It might be watching a show, but it is hard to get the police interested in white collar cases. Right. And so in Georgia, we have a process where you can go swear out a civilian warrant. And the process is you go to the court, you fill out the paperwork, you say so-and-so

Starting point is 01:04:09 committed this crime. reviewed by a judge. If they think that it could have been a crime, they issue basically a notice of a hearing. There's a hearing in front of a judge, and then probable cause is determined at that hearing as to whether a crime has occurred. And if probable cause is determined, an arrest takes place. So we do this. We go out to West Georgia. We have a hearing in front of the magistrate judge. Clearly, you know, here's the crime, a forgery that we claim has been committed. And, And while the judge listens to us for a few minutes, the defense lawyer basically just concedes and says, we're not going to admit that a crime has occurred, but we will acknowledge that probable cause has been established. Okay.

Starting point is 01:04:55 So he gets arrested. And this is a couple years ago now. And the case gets turned over to a prosecutor. And to date, nothing's happened on it. The prosecutor called us and said, you know, we don't know how to prosecute something this large. I'm like, what do you mean? It's $285,000. They just don't have any experience in real estate fraud or bank fraud of some kind, right? Is that what the real issue is?

Starting point is 01:05:21 Well, the information we received was it was just too large. And I was like, but it's no different than a $5,000 forgery. I mean, it's a couple zeros. Exactly. I mean, it's the same set of facts. And we'd gathered all the evidence for them. I had all the text messages and all the witnesses. You've got a little transcripts. He just already been found guilty. Like, but anything he says that contradicts that, you now. have a record of it. It seems like a, it seems like a slam dunk. Like he would just take, he'd take like, okay, I'll go to prison for, like, what's he going to do? A year? Well, two years. I mean, maybe not if he paid it back. Right. I mean, that and that's, you know, we do this in cases and we find that if, if the criminal will step up and make restitution. And we had a case where a lady embezzled a couple hundred thousand dollars from her employer. And she came up with about 70 at the plea. Right.

Starting point is 01:06:07 And then she went to jail like on a work release, like she got out for work, had to report back to jail after work. Right. And within a few months, she was from Russia. I don't know where she got the money, but she came up with the other money like three or four months later. I wonder whether she got it from overseas or something like that. And she paid the rest of it and she got out of jail and was just on probation after them. I'm shocked that the first case you went over that that's just such a, you know, you would think there would have been criminal charges in that case. Well, that case, I think it would have been hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they took the money as opposed to just being everybody getting duped.

Starting point is 01:06:49 Right. Although, if he had testified, the jury would have believed it, right? But his lawyer would have been like, you've got to take the fifth in the criminal case. Right. And he was the only person that could really hang himself, I think. Yeah, but at this point, they have his testimony on the sand. They can use that in the criminal case. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's hard to get people interested. And that crime would have happened in New York. You know, so it wouldn't have been a local crime to even prosecute probably. Right. So you get into those issues when you cross borders and even counties, you know, in states.

Starting point is 01:07:24 So there's a retired FBI agent named Tom Simon. And a lot of people in Florida, well, actually, I think he's, there's got like, there's like a reciprocal. agreement with a bunch of other states, like 20 or 30 states that will accept him because he's licensed in Florida. So a lot of these states do the same thing. So, but a lot of times somebody will come and say, hey, this is what happened to me. Right. You know, and I went to, you know, like, I don't know what to do, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so he'll say, well, here's what I can do. You know, I can do the investigation. I can try and get your money back. And then if that, but I doubt that's going to happen. What I can also do is I can write up the entire complaint and bring it to the FBI. And because he worked for them, he's not walking in saying, hey, here's what's going on. You need to go do all

Starting point is 01:08:23 this work now. He's going in saying, I've done all the work. Here's what happened. And I did all the work. Here's an entire case. Now, he can't take, he can't promise that they're going to take the case. But let's face it, there's a hell of a lot. more likelihood if they've laid it out exactly the way he's laid out exactly the way they want it laid out and they're used to where they can sit down and go flip through the 302s and the basic the what are the memorandum and a couple three oh twos and go oh wow this is a slam dunk yeah let's let's let's let's look this guy up thanks like there's a better chance and he says he said listen he said I have great results like I bring them in and we're talking about within weeks you're getting a phone call saying from the client saying the FBI just called me they want to interview me yeah you know

Starting point is 01:09:04 So that happens a lot, but, but it's the same thing. It's like, okay, but this person called the police. This person called the FBI. Nobody's calling them back. Well, yeah, because it's a lot of work for them to go through and they don't really know. And you didn't explain it very well and you're not really, I don't know what laws they broke and where he's able to lay it out. So it was just funny. The same thing with the title, title theft stuff with a home title lock is that one of the things they always talk about is how some of these people get taken and they'll go to the local.

Starting point is 01:09:34 police and they'll explain. They'll go, that sounds like a civil case. Someone stole my identity. Right. And then borrowed money against my house. Took that money and left. And now the bank's trying to foreclose on me. And you're saying it's not a crime?

Starting point is 01:09:52 That sounds like you're going to dispute with the bank. Yeah, but they stole my identity. Like, there's lots of that. Or sometimes it's, no, they transferred the title to my house into somebody else's name. and they sold the house. Like I have a rental property. I went by the other day. Somebody's moving in, a family's moving in my house.

Starting point is 01:10:10 And they're like, you know, that sounds like you probably, it's a civil thing. You might have to sue the title company or something. Like, what are you talking about? If they had stolen my car. Exactly. Out of the driveway, you'd think that was, but the difference is, but we have experience with that. Right. We don't really have anybody on staff that understands exactly what the fraud was.

Starting point is 01:10:32 we're used to, you know, they stole your purse. We got you. They broke in your house. We understand. They, you know, they spray painted something nasty on your wall. We're, I'm your man. Right. But this is something about public records.

Starting point is 01:10:47 And you said there's a title or what happened? Yeah, exactly. It's confusing. And we don't really want to send somebody to a class, you know. Like, we don't have anybody on staff that deals with this. And the problem is because they don't. they so many times that they they don't um make it into a criminal case because they don't have the understanding then it continues to happen and keeps going and going and going and of course these

Starting point is 01:11:14 people are like I don't even know who stole the house exactly like I don't even know who the guy is like yeah we we've handled dozens of dozens of cases like that through the years and you're right the police don't know what to do with it and it often does take some sort of court order which is normally initiated through a civil process to get the title back into the right name right but even the even like you said even the district attorney might not necessarily you know they may even they may be so so now you're basically saying it's out of kind of like the the local cops hands in a way now you're saying you're telling them to file charges and maybe then the police have to investigate it at least force their hand but even then like the one case you just said these guys haven't haven't done anything yet

Starting point is 01:11:57 it's too big we're not used to that big and they're not used to that big and they're contacted the FBI. The FBI reached out to us in this particular case and they have not started doing anything. It's really below their normal threshold for matters, but this particular, I'm sorry, it wasn't the FBI. It was the department of justice. But they expressed some interest in maybe looking into the case because it was sort of like a rural area. And they said, we like to do things smaller sometimes. So it's not past the statute of limitations. We're still hopeful that, you know, he will be prosecuted for what was obviously just a theft of the money. But going back to the title issues, you know, you know where a house is.

Starting point is 01:12:41 It seems like a lot easier a crime to prosecute in some ways. Right. I mean, to get it back versus a car, which might get chopped up and shipped across the ocean. Well, and it's documents. Right. To me, a case that has tons of documents is vastly different than I get a phone call and somebody says, yeah, my vehicle's missing. Right.

Starting point is 01:13:00 Like, that's like, okay, well, do you know who stole it? No, it was just gone. Like, that's difficult. Right. But they have, I guess they have a system put in place where they'll, okay, we will put out a bowl. We'll do this. Call your, I guess.

Starting point is 01:13:13 Or, you know, we have people we've arrested in the past. We have surveillance cameras. But to, you know, so maybe they understand that more. It's just a matter of, of them having experience in it. But to me, if the documents, it'd be. way easier if somebody came to me in my opinion you said hey someone there's a bunch of loans on my house i'd be like really i'd go pull the title and i'd look i'd say okay well they didn't take it out of your name right but you had a mortgage okay well so you didn't have really any equity oh wait

Starting point is 01:13:44 the mortgage was satisfied did you pay off your mortgage no i didn't pay off my mortgage oh so they they satisfied the mortgage that's one fraudulent document they went and barred additional mortgages in your name so we know they stole your identity we already know they on this document where it closed. We know where the title company is. Let's go to the title company. Like, did they provide an ID? Yes, they did.

Starting point is 01:14:07 Can I have a copy of it? Oh, now I have a picture of their face. Like, it seems so easy to kind of just lay it all out where I know exactly what happened because none of this happened without a huge paper trail because you're not going to believe this, but banks aren't just lending money for, you know, on a on a handshake. They require a lot of documents with a lot of phone numbers, a lot of. A lot of addresses and a lot of verification. So once you get to the bank and all those documents, it's like, boy, you got a problem.

Starting point is 01:14:35 You'd better be pretty good to get over. You've got to be really good to get over on the bank. Yeah, the banks have gotten pretty good at it. Where I see it these days, more and more is in vacant houses. Yeah. That's where I see a lot of the titles being stolen. You know, somebody will die or somebody will have a rental property. And then they come in and they forge the documents and transfer it.

Starting point is 01:14:56 And it's not too much work for the real owner to sort of unwind it, you know, from a civil standpoint, in Georgia at least, because all those deeds are just void. I mean, there's not, there's no arguments that like, oh, we paid money for it or something and we have some sort of argument. But it is, it is very difficult. Well, speaking about deed fraud, I got another one. I got another one if you want to hear about it. Yeah. So this one is in the context of a power of attorney sort of situation. So I had a client and she meets a guy and they start dating, they move in together.

Starting point is 01:15:36 And he is sort of your consummate drifter. He's not really employed very long. He's also a consultant, which might be a theme that we should publish. It's like a red flag. I don't know. There's some legit consultants too. But he consults, but I never really found him to be employed. and he lives off of her for a number of years, but she's in love with him.

Starting point is 01:15:59 And they don't ever get legally married, but they live together sort of in a husband and wife sort of to the outside world for about a decade. And about seven or eight years into this, he says, you know, we should, we should swap power of attorneys in case, you know, one of us needs to make a decision for the other. Well, that's a long con. Yes. Up to 10 years to get you to sign the power of attorney. Yes.

Starting point is 01:16:23 So, well, you know, he's living off of her the rest of the time. So I don't know, I don't know when the con evolved in his mind. But he gets, you know, so she says, okay, we'll swap power of attorneys. I mean, they were the closest people and practically, you know, in their mind sort of, sort of married, but not. She wanted to get married. But, but he never would ask, which was strange in my mind, considering what was going on. But so they, they, they own, she owns a home that they're living in and they buy another home. to move into.

Starting point is 01:16:55 So we kind of have now a rental property and we have their main residence. And as the years go along, she kind of gets tired of him living off of her. She finds somebody else and eventually tells her like, all right, man, this is over. She tells him. Yes. The relationship's over. Like, let's figure out a way to part ways. And he goes down to the real estate record, unbeknownst to her.

Starting point is 01:17:23 at all and signs over the deed to the rental house to him and his mother. Okay. So Con's mother who's like 90 something years old and he has power of attorney over and him. And she doesn't even know that it's occurred because, you know, as you know, they're not notifying you. There's no record. There's no like ding on your phone when your, you know, your deed gets transferred. Right. Unless you have a home title lock, you have home title lock, they'll notify you immediately of any changes to your title. Okay. Bang.

Starting point is 01:17:55 All right. So, so, yeah, so like a couple days after they sort of have a breakup conversation, he does this. And they go through a process like you would imagine any couple sort of going through. And through this process,

Starting point is 01:18:07 she says, she calls him names. He calls her names. Yeah, probably. I'm sure there was some of that. Although she, she didn't seem like that kind of person to me.

Starting point is 01:18:14 She was, she was very sweet, calm. They're always sweet. You know, they're always sweet at the beginning. Yeah. But,

Starting point is 01:18:20 Okay, I hear you. She's a good person. So she decides, you know, this new house that we bought together and I paid the down payment for, like, I'll deed it to you. Like, you can have the whole thing and the equity in it. And I'll move back, you know, to the other house. And then we'll just, we'll just divide. Even though, I mean, she paid all the mortgage payments. She paid all the utilities. She pays for groceries.

Starting point is 01:18:45 She paid the utility. You know, like everything. She paid everything while they were together, pretty much. I mean, he came up with like maybe a couple thousand dollars worth of expenses he had paid over their decade, you know, together or something. And so eventually she finds out, you know, you transferred the house like into your mother's name and then your name. And then he eventually just transfers it to his name. But will you give it back to me? So for like a year and a half, you know, she's sort of in this like middle ground.

Starting point is 01:19:16 Like I need you to give me the house back. like I know you're mad, but like, give it back to me. And so this conversation sort of happens. Oh, sweetie. You know, and I kind of, I kind of understand, you know, I would have been able to understand this story more if he, if he had done it sort of in the heat of passion, right? Right. And then like a few months later, been like, all right, okay, I'll give it back. Like, I was just ticked at you like, because I loved you or whatever and you got this other guy now, you know, if he had a story like that. But as this case unfolded over five years, it took five years to resolve this case because it happened right before COVID.

Starting point is 01:19:53 Like that's when we got involved. And so we had like years of COVID delay in the middle of it. I had three or four different occasions to interview him and talk to him. And every time I would be like, well, will you give it back? We give the house back. Because I mean, early on, if you'd just give him the house back, like case would have been over. That was all she really wanted. And he kept saying, no, no, no, like she,

Starting point is 01:20:17 she said that if we broke up, I got half of everything. You know, so he came up with all these excuses. And he had no legal argument to stand on because in Georgia, there's no, there's no like what's called palimony. Right. You know, there are, there may be a state or two that have some semblance of it. But in Georgia, if you're not married and you break up, like, you're on your own. Like, it doesn't matter.

Starting point is 01:20:42 There's no common law marriage anymore. And so he sort of had this argument that, well, you know, she owes me. some alimony or some contribution because we lived together for so long and that's what we agreed to. And I was like, yeah, no. So will you just give it back to her like, no, you give her possession of it while the case is going on so she can rent it out. Right. Because at one point it becomes vacant. No.

Starting point is 01:21:05 The only good part about this was he kept paying the mortgage on him. Okay. So he was paying, I don't know, about $1,000 a month, mortgage and escrow. And so, you know. Is he living there? No, he was living at the house, you know, the marital house. Where's she living? She had to get another apartment.

Starting point is 01:21:20 Oh, wow. You know, so she had to find a third place to live at because she was going to move back to her house, but he wouldn't give her control of it. Listen, I'll be honest. I'm not feeling too bad for her because she had to know this guy was a douchebag when she met him. Like, like, he must have been pretty handsome, pretty slick to be like, to be like, I'm going to pay all the bill. I'm so enamored with this guy. I'm going to pay all the bills and pray that he straightens his life up and gets a job because that's how good.

Starting point is 01:21:54 No, he had stories about jobs. He just didn't contribute. He, you know, I worked at this company for a while doing consulting. And I mean, he had jobs. And he traveled. And, you know, so it wasn't like he was sitting on the couch all the time. Was it was it more of like, what was the name of that company? You know, forget about that.

Starting point is 01:22:15 a lot of those. Yeah. When I deposed him, I was like, so when was the last time you worked? And he was like 18 months ago. And I was like, all right, well, so you haven't made any money in the last 18 months? He's like, no. And I'm like, okay. So what did you do before?

Starting point is 01:22:28 I was a consultant. And again, just when you start asking just a few, I mean, the questions, I'm, you know, I'm a lawyer, so I guess I can ask pretty good questions. But I mean, these are just like casual questions. Very basic. You ask you like a dinner party, you know, somebody like, what did you do? like tell me about that a little bit like nothing you know you've got nothing just just corporate speak and mumbo jumbo so so we we go through this process and we can't get the judge to rule on this

Starting point is 01:22:59 case which ought to be just like a slam dunk I mean you just you can't take a power of attorney and steal somebody's house right like I don't care if you have authority to act on their behalf you just can't steal stuff from them I mean it just to me was like black and white from day one but we can't get the judge to rule. COVID's going on. The judge has not had any civil cases, any civil trials for years. And so, old or something? No, he's not old. He just, you know, I guess he would say he was doing the criminal cases. In Georgia, they're together in front of the same judge. I know we're in Florida here and they're separate. You've got a civil court and a criminal court, but they're combined. So the focus was on the criminal cases, which it should have been,

Starting point is 01:23:40 but I felt like he should have found some room, you know, in his calendar. So we wind up and we go before what's called a special master in Georgia, which is sort of like an arbitrator, just to try to get the title back to the house. Right. So we wind up in this municipal court because we could. And we have a hearing. And during this hearing, you know, I have him up on the stand.

Starting point is 01:24:08 What the best part about this hearing was before the hearing, the other lawyer on the other side said, can we have a pretrial conference? which is like not something you normally do with a special master because they're not like a judge. But we go back, we go back into like chambers for this guy. He's just like a lawyer. I mean,

Starting point is 01:24:24 it could have been me. He had no other credentials besides being a real estate attorney. And the lawyer says to them basically like, you know, my case sucks. Like it's just really bad. And I just want you to know before we go out here and do this. I'm better than this. They're like, I got the. problems with my case and like, you know, I'm, I'm here. I'm here, you know. And I, and I remember

Starting point is 01:24:50 asking him like, Zach, like, why, like, why are you doing this? Like, I don't understand. He's like, man, I mean, I represent like murderers all the time. Like, this, this is that bad, you know, that was like. And I was like, okay, I was like, okay, I guess in some ways, everybody deserves a defense, you know? And the reality was this guy, he would not give up on this. Like, I mean, I'm sure that his lawyer told him, you're in a bad spot. You can't. You can't. do this, like give the house back. I'm sure he was advised multiple times to do that. So we wind up in this thing and in one of the great parts was this, this grifter had brought his new girlfriend. I don't know why he would have done this, but like, so new girlfriend is out

Starting point is 01:25:31 in the gallery, you know, watching everything go on. And I'm cross-examining him. And I am confident I have not only succeeded in winning a case, but also succeeding in breaking them up. You know, through this process. I'm like, I'm very confident because no way she keeps dating after her hair. That's bullshit. Right. Because he basically admits during this that he just stole it.

Starting point is 01:25:54 And the justification changes at this hearing. He says now instead of the 50-50 argument, he comes up with a new theory. And his new theory is, well, my mom said she was going to buy the house for $186,000. And I said, oh. So you had an agreement with my client to basically buy it for $186,000. and you were going to use your mom's money.

Starting point is 01:26:15 Yes. Okay. Well, did you ever give my client the money? No. Did you ever try to give her the money? No. I mean, have you ever written a letter and said, hey, I really would like to formalize our agreement,

Starting point is 01:26:30 you know, for the $186,000. I'll meet you at the local CVS and hand you the money and you give me the title, like, you know, or whatever. No. And so I go, okay, so you just, you just steal the title to the house. Yeah, I mean, that's what he does. And he basically, I mean, he denies that, obviously, but he, but he admits to everything else. He didn't do any action.

Starting point is 01:26:52 Okay, well, then give it back. If mom was going to buy it, she didn't pay for it, then give it back. So will you give it back? Will you give it back? No, I won't give it back. Will you, and I ask him at this, in this hearing, too, I go, I go, will you, will you give her possession so she can rent it out while we're working through this process? No. I'm not going to do that either.

Starting point is 01:27:07 Okay. So I just have this like obstinate, you know, con artist. So of course, he loses. And we get the title. My client sells it. She makes some money because it's during COVID, right? So, you know, the prices are going up in the real estate. So she turns out okay on this.

Starting point is 01:27:24 So then we eventually get to trial. It's now five years after filing the case. And we had had the house now maybe for a couple years. And we go to trial. We pick a jury. and he gets a new lawyer at this point. And the new lawyer stands up during the opening statement. And he says, look, my client knows he didn't do everything right.

Starting point is 01:27:51 And he's going to get up here and apologize for what he did. And I'm like, I'm like, I've known this guy for five years. And I'm thinking to myself, there is no way that is what's going to happen. But maybe it does. and that'll be good. So I call them on cross-examination. You know, so we go first, we're the plaintiff, so we get to call our own witnesses.

Starting point is 01:28:16 And you can call the defendant, if you want, on cross-examination. So I did that. And I said, okay, you heard your lawyer say you were going to get up here and apologize, right? And he goes, yeah, he goes, I did. And I said, well, let's hear it. Right.

Starting point is 01:28:33 And he goes, I'm just really, really, sorry that we're all here. That's not an apology. I'm sorry I made you feel that way, or that you felt that way about what I said. Exactly. It's not an apology. And I cross-examine this guy for about an hour and a half.

Starting point is 01:28:54 I go through all his different excuses, you know, that he was going to get 50-50, then he was going to buy the house. And then at trial, he came up with a whole new theory, which was it was his old lawyer. fault. And during this, this cross-examination, I ask him six or seven times to apologize, to own it, you know, to just take responsibility for what you did. And I remember I closed the cross

Starting point is 01:29:23 by saying, hey, look, you know, I've given you a number of opportunities to sort of own this thing and say, like, what you did was wrong and apologize for. I was going to give you one more shot. And I got another non sequitur. And I just said, all right. And I just sat down. His lawyer did not ask him one question at all. He just said, we have no. We have, we're good.

Starting point is 01:29:48 We're good. We have no questions at all. He told me privately. You never seen anything like it in his entire career. And I said, well, I've probably seen something like it before. But, you know, specializing in cons. And I mean, is this. I paying these lawyers?

Starting point is 01:30:03 He's paying them to it. So they're just, they're like, okay, I'm going to take the fee. You're fucked. But I'll take the fee just to watch how this, see how this plays out.

Starting point is 01:30:12 I guess. Yeah. I mean, we knew that he paid. I forget it was, I don't know, 18 or 25,000 or something, you know,

Starting point is 01:30:19 to the lawyer, just to try the case. That was just, just for the trial. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, it was,

Starting point is 01:30:25 it was a spectacular. It was, it was a good moment. So the jury comes back. and awards a 600,000. And we got in the house back. Right. You know, so.

Starting point is 01:30:37 But we, and they gave us to the penny exactly what I asked for, which was about 250 in compensatory damages. We had about 100 in the attorney's fees. And they gave us 250 impunitive damages. The four person came out, this lady who was the four person, and she was on fire about this guy. I mean, she was living. But she wanted to send the, oh, I was not effectual in breaking up, you know.

Starting point is 01:31:08 Oh, they see stuck with them. Yeah, she stuck with them. But that came out during the trial. And the four person came out. And she said, I want to send a message to this other lady. You know, and to anybody else, right, that he shouldn't do these things. And she was, she was a very hard charging person. And, you know, we didn't collect, we haven't collected a dollar of it so far.

Starting point is 01:31:33 This was only. Did the mom pass away? The mom passed away. Because the mom passed away, he's going to get the inheritance. Can't you attach the inheritance? Maybe, maybe. We should be able to get something eventually, but we're still working on sort of the collection process.

Starting point is 01:31:47 So he offered us 20 or 25,000, something like that, before the trial. And I went to my client, you know, and I mean, I don't want to get into the exact conversation. But I mean, obviously the, we, we knew that he might not have a lot of assets to collect for him. Right. I mean, he didn't have a job like she had lived with him for a while. And she made the decision to really push forward anyway. She wanted the, the sort of confirmation. What I find in a lot of sort of fraud victims, and this one's a little different because she wasn't sort of conned in a traditional way. It's just there's a lot of shame that goes along with it. And I don't know if she had a lot of shame, but a lot of people feel like I need somebody to say,

Starting point is 01:32:35 sort of restore my dignity and say like you were in fact wronged. Right. And the court made a decision that I was, it was a complete, I was scammed. This person is scam artists. And I got six. I was awarded 600,000. Didn't collect it. But it was, it's a clear, it's a clear indication that I, that I'm the victim of

Starting point is 01:32:56 as opposed to you're just stupid or something like that. Exactly. They probably feel stupid. But at least it's a vindication, like you said. Yeah. I mean, a lot of my clients in the years have expressed a lot of shame and guilt and like, I'm an idiot. And I mean, some of them even have had suicidal thoughts and other things that come out of the fraud.

Starting point is 01:33:16 But when they have, when they get a verdict or they get the court to agree with them, there is a certain dignity restoration that occurs. And I watched her really flourish through this process. I mean, she got healthy. She really was sort of just her countenance was better and shiny and happy. And, you know, just through the whole process. I think it was a real victory for her. Well, I think it's also the problem is that like we already talked about the misconception

Starting point is 01:33:45 that you have to be stupid to fall for something like that. You don't have to be stupid. Like there's lots of smart people. Like you said, there's, you know, tons of smart people. fall for for scams especially listen this guy he put in all that time yeah come on and and you're with who would think and you're right because the much the vast majority of people think if you fall for a con then you're an idiot or you're gullible or you're not smart or intelligent right when somebody is conned then they believe that about themselves yeah it just goes together

Starting point is 01:34:19 so I'm saying because for the whole time they've been thinking that and they get con they think I must be an idiot right uh although i am going to go back to you started dating a guy that didn't really have a job then he moved in then you were paying the bills and after so many months of him talking about getting a job or talking about this job at some point you should have been like this guy's a doofus he's not going to get a job he's using me get the fuck out of my house we're done but a lot of women don't they just they they either they get so far in that they don't want to walk away. Or maybe they think, you know what, he makes me happy.

Starting point is 01:34:57 And, and, you know, I don't mind paying the bills. And that probably is what. And there's something to be said for that, right? Like how many guys have ended up, you know, marrying somebody because they were beautiful. And she didn't really contribute financially, but she does take care of the house and she cooks dinner. And she's very much. Yeah. I mean, she loved him.

Starting point is 01:35:14 And for a little while, he seemed like he was, I mean, he treated her well. You know, he just didn't, he didn't financially contribute a lot. I mean, you know, he seemed otherwise. like a decent boyfriend and for a while through the years yeah till the till the end yeah i mean i just i tend to see a lot of these people i think i could be in the same situation i could easily get in the same situation of that one for sure i mean you know somebody for a long time and you trust them and they manipulate the trust and try to steal from you but in the end it was i think it really my observation of her was she was really victorious through it yeah and she sort of the resilient

Starting point is 01:35:53 that people get when they go through things in life, you certainly have had in your life. I mean, you build some resilience and some real character that people, other people don't have because maybe they don't walk through something like that. So, I like the way you turn that into a compliment for me. I'm always up for a compliment.

Starting point is 01:36:09 Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So I do a lot of work with fraud and the sale of businesses almost always. The seller is defrauding the buyer by mostly cooking the books or not disclosing something in some form or fashion.

Starting point is 01:36:23 this is an interesting scenario because it's a situation where the buyer actually defrauds the seller of the businesses, which you would think, well, how do you do that? Because normally the buyer's paying, the money's passing. But in this scenario, they sort of roped out the money transfer so that they could take control of his businesses prior to paying him the consideration. Right. So the buyer, let me start with my client. My client had started two sort of sister companies dealing with classroom audio solutions. So he was an engineer. And when you think about every public school in the nation's got speakers in it.

Starting point is 01:37:08 And there was some information out there that one of the best ways to help education was to make it where the audio was better. You know about audio here. So he developed these companies and they were out in Utah and he was selling sort of in that area. and he had been doing it for a number of years and wanted to grow and was looking for a change. So here he was in sort of a situation in his life where he had been given it as all, built these businesses up to be, you know, worth maybe $4,000, $6 million, something like that. And had, you know, 15, 20 employees between the two of them. And he bumps into a couple cons. Now, these cons were running a business out of nowhere, Georgia, that was a publicly traded company.

Starting point is 01:38:00 So it was on, you know, like a penny stock. And but it had all the trappings that go along with a publicly traded company. I mean, you know, it had a public auditor, SEC filings, SEC lawyers, the whole shebang. and the CEO and CFO, they later get married, but they come in sort of Bonnie and Clyde into this relationship with him. And over a period of a few months, they negotiate a deal price, they negotiate terms, and they keep kind of moving the goalposts as the thing comes along, but they're going to buy his companies and make it part of theirs. And their company did touch screens in classrooms, right? So similar. Yeah, so it's sort of a similar market.

Starting point is 01:38:54 Same kind of industry, yeah. Exactly. And it made sense. Now, interesting thing about this story is I come to meet my client right after I had finished another case against the same defendants, against the same publicly traded company. Okay. I had had a previous client that I had represented in suing them for non-payment and shuffling things around.

Starting point is 01:39:22 We sued them for racketeering. And ultimately, they settled for a couple million dollars in that situation. And then right after that, a few months later, I get a phone call from this guy. And he says, hey, I have this case going on out here in Utah where I'm suing this publicly traded company. And I've found your case. You know, I saw what you sued them for. And it looks like there's some similarities to what's going on. Would you talk to me about it?

Starting point is 01:39:47 I'm like, oh, yeah. And he started going into the story in about five minutes in, I go, listen, I want to let you know, you do not need to convince me that these people are cons. Right. I 100% believe it because I've been through several years of litigation against them already. And so we, we start a relationship. We actually, through a series of sort of events, moved the case to Atlanta. and we begin on a multi-year-long journey against them.

Starting point is 01:40:17 And what they're doing is what's called a pump-and-dump scheme. Maybe you're familiar with. Yeah, yeah. So they pump the market with good information, and they have some outside lenders that come in and sort of lend money against the company, and it can convert to stock. And then when the market takes the price up of the stock,

Starting point is 01:40:41 then the lenders can convert and sell. And I think there was some holes in the law that allowed people to do this that have now been solved. But a lot of it didn't have to be disclosed. So you'd have an outside lender lend half a million bucks to the company. And they can convert at a stock price of, you know, whatever, $3, which is the current stock price. And then at any point.

Starting point is 01:41:05 And so they pump the market and then, whoop, stock goes up to six bucks. They convert, sell out, make a bunch of money. and this was the cycle that they kept going through. We proved at trial they were doing nothing other but just a Ponzi scheme within the business. And the two individuals that were running the company, the CEO and CFO, I mean, they were very unassuming people. And this is one of the interesting things that I found in my case is a lot of people think about, you know, confidence men, con artists and scammers as being very charismatic. or sort of having a politician sort of personality. Right.

Starting point is 01:41:45 And I don't find that to be the case. There are some that are very outgoing and salesy, but a lot of them are just normal. Right. And the CEO of this company was just like a country bumpkin. I mean, he just like, I mean, my paralegal at trial described him as just a dirt eating redneck. I mean, that was her phrase that she used after listening to this guy. on the stand.

Starting point is 01:42:13 And he, but he, he just was like an unassuming guy. Yeah. And he would sort of lay the traps. Like, this is what's going on.

Starting point is 01:42:22 And if you want to invest. So he, he was not very pushy. His, his now wife, who was just the CFO at the time, and they were not at the beginning of this, not, well,

Starting point is 01:42:33 we don't know exactly when that relationship started, but they had an affair and ultimately get married. She is the more sophisticated one. Pretty smart. But they would do things and lie when the truth would do just as well. Right.

Starting point is 01:42:49 About things that didn't matter. And I remember one of the big facts that we found in this case that was really irrelevant to the case was that in every filing, every SEC filing, he went to this college and got this degree. And she went to this college and got this degree. And none of it was true. I was like, why would you say you graduated from Georgia Tech with a master's degree on an SEC filing if you didn't get a degree? You don't need a degree to do what we're doing. And the other one was even more ridiculous because it was just like an associate's degree that they got. So we get her in a deposition and we say, well, you didn't ever get a degree from Georgia Tech.

Starting point is 01:43:34 And she said, well, I attended. And the lawyers just made a mistake, you know. So again, we have some lawyer blame going on. They must have just made a mistake because I never told them that. I never told them that I went to, but you, but you signed all that, you know, the CFO's got to certify all these documents. Right. Every quarter every year, you know, they're filing all these documents. And she certifies them all.

Starting point is 01:43:57 And then we look it up and contact Georgia Tech. Did she ever even attend here? No, no record of ever attending there. And so the lies went, went on and on. But the sad thing about this. was when my client turned over control of the businesses. So he got about 400K, as sort of an initial payment.

Starting point is 01:44:19 And then they were supposed to get another million. And then he was supposed to get, he got ownership of the company going forward. He was the chief technology officer. So this was sort of the whole package. So he gets the 400,000. He turns over control. They're supposed to make like another million dollar payment.

Starting point is 01:44:37 And they don't ever make the million dollar payment. This guy is not, he's not poor, but he's not wealthy by any means. I mean, this was his primary asset. Right. Were the businesses. And they had debt. And so what happened was once they got control of the businesses, they didn't pay. Stop paying the debt.

Starting point is 01:44:59 They didn't pay the debt. Because that's really probably in the original owner's name. Exactly. He had like personal guarantees on the debt. Right. So he had. They didn't pay the taxes to the IRS. So the IRS starts coming after him.

Starting point is 01:45:14 They didn't pay, you know, several different lenders. They didn't pay his American Express bill. And so he starts just going underwater financially to the verge of bankruptcy because they end up with the business. They end up with the business. He ends up with a bunch of debt. Of course, he starts to press them about the money like I need the money like I need you to pay me. And so they fire him. eventually. So he doesn't have a job, right? No income. He's, he's been an entrepreneur for years,

Starting point is 01:45:45 so he's not highly employable, like immediately. Right. To go, just go out and get an easy job to make a living. And of course, he's got, he's got kids, you know, school age kids, he's got a mortgage to pay for. He's got all the things. And he just, he just starts to slowly, you know, go down. He can't get any relief, quick relief from a court. And he's just really frustrated. And he's despondent. I mean, he got really, really low, really low. And he had one sort of salvation, though. And that was he had a very wealthy brother, very wealthy brother. Okay. At least that's his description. I don't know what he's worth, but his brother steps in.

Starting point is 01:46:27 And his brother like takes over financing this thing. And so over a couple years, this case, gets litigated, they, uh, they sue him for fraud, you know, so they were, they were the plaintiff in the case. Right. We were the defendant in the case. So you counter sue? Of course. Yeah, we countered sued. And we, uh, they sue them for, I mean, maybe 12 or 15 different areas of fraud. So the first, we try, we try this case for nine days. So the first like four or five days is all their claims, us knocking down their claims one, one after another, after another after another, he didn't fraud you, blah, blah, blah. And, and then the rest of it was us putting on the case and his, you know, for his claims. Ultimately, the jury, we got a RICO verdict, which is the tripling,

Starting point is 01:47:18 troubling, but tripling the damages. And it was a $9 million award against, against this company and the CEO and the CFO of the case. Do they have $9 million? No, no. No. We have collected some of it, but we haven't collected all of it. They pretty quickly filed for bankruptcy, the company, and then the individuals. And one of the more interesting moments of this entire saga were in bankruptcy court. And this is a couple summers ago. I have a couple interns that have started from law school watching me. And the CFO takes the stand, he just openly admits to crimes.

Starting point is 01:48:03 Right. And where we are, we're in federal court. I mean, the Department of Justice is a few floors below us. I've got a lawyer from the IRS that's in the courtroom. You know, I've got a federal judge, you know, the trustees. There's all sorts of people there. And she, we get into these questions about taxes. And I say, well, did you, you know, you deducted your employees' taxes from their

Starting point is 01:48:32 paychecks, you know, through the years, right? Yes. And that was about three or four million dollars. Yes. And how much of that did you pay to the IRS? Zero. Right. Absolutely zero. And at the same time, you're paying yourself and you're paying your husband salaries through this whole time period. Correct. And nothing happens to them. Right. Absolutely nothing. In fact, they reorganized the company eventually and they're still operating the company is still operating even though they claim bankruptcy they claim bankruptcy but they did like a chapter 11 like reorganization right and the only reason we agreed to let it go forward was they they paid us some money through the process right they actually had an outside person step in which also sounds

Starting point is 01:49:25 questionable and pay and pay my clients some money and so now the company's still operating and I bet Still defrauding people. Oh, yeah. That's my belief. When you were talking about the purchaser of the frauding, I actually know a guy that would come in as a consultant. Yeah. And he would come in and he would come into a company and he would agree.

Starting point is 01:49:56 He'd tell him what his fee was. And of course, they don't have it. And he'd say, okay, well, I'll take it in stock. Right. And then he would consult with them. And one of the first things he did was he owned a payroll company. He'd say, well, first of all, we've got to move all your payroll. We close your HR down, close this, close that, all the payroll, everything, and move it to this company over here.

Starting point is 01:50:17 So they move that. They move their, you know, 900 employees over there. And then as he's consulting with them and explaining how you need to consolidate this, sell this off, do this, do that. You don't need two guys doing this. as that's happening, they're sending all the money for their, for the, uh, taxes. Well, they're sending all the money, all the wages for the employees. He's cutting, they're cutting the checks, but he's collecting the money for the taxes. Right.

Starting point is 01:50:45 For the employment taxes, doesn't send it. Just keeps piling it up. So then finally when he's helped them kind of reorganized. And what he's also does is he would go in and he would negotiate with all of their, you know, all their vendors and their, their, um, all the people that they owed money to, and he would negotiate deals. And by doing that, what he was saying is, I'm going to negotiate these deals. You're going to take a portion of it of what you were being owed. Or we're just going to claim bankruptcy. Right. You're going to get nothing. It'll be two years and you'll get nothing. Right. Because we're, we're just going to go under. And we've got,

Starting point is 01:51:18 you know, we're so they would say, okay, well, they owe me $100,000. I'll take $40,000. And you'll take payments. Right. 40,000 in the next two years. You know, here's what the payment will be. Okay. And you'll keep the credit line open. Like they're like, yes. Okay, so this goes on. So he restructures the whole thing. And then when it comes down to it, he's like, okay, well, you know, I've got my, my stock, but, and they would be impressed with what he did.

Starting point is 01:51:42 And then he'd say, listen, I want to buy additional stock. And he'd take the money he had withheld. And he'd use that money to pay for additional stock and he'd take over the company. No. And so now he owns the company using the money. using the money that he'd stolen from the IRS. And so once he got that company, he would then negotiate with the IRS to take less money for what he owed them.

Starting point is 01:52:11 So I owe you $6 million. The company may be going into bankruptcy. I'm trying desperately to save it. Right. Can we pay you $2 million over the next two years? Right. And we'll start paying you immediately if you'll agree to that. And that's what they would negotiate that.

Starting point is 01:52:28 And so now he's not even having to repay the money that he didn't pay the IRS. It was brilliant. I mean, he ultimately, I think, got 22 years. But that part of his scam was kind of, you know, kind of brilliant. Yeah, I mean, we do look at things and say, you know, that's, that's pretty ingenious that people come up with. I mean, this particular case that we were just talking about and you're in the one you just described. I mean, it's a complicated, well-thought-out scam. And nobody sees that coming, right?

Starting point is 01:52:58 Like, you're not taking advantage of me. Like, I was talking about you're, you know, like you said, the person selling the company is the one who's going to, the other one, the one, the one I've mentioned this a few times, was that I had a buddy whose father when, I don't know, Bank of America got taken over was buying, this is back in like the 90s. His father took like early retirement and pulled out a bunch of his retirement money. and bought, he was looking for businesses to buy. He had worked for Bank of America.

Starting point is 01:53:27 He was a AT&T. He was like a manager of whatever, I think ATMs in the area. But he retires. He takes his retirement, takes a bunch of cash, looks for a company, looks for something to buy, and he ends up finding a laundromat. And the books were amazing. They were amazing. Right.

Starting point is 01:53:48 And so he buys the laundering mat. I can't believe it. He spends, I don't know. know what it was, but it was like, let's say, $250,000 and it was easily worth $400,000. He's just shocking, shocked that he's going to make this kind of money. He buys it and almost immediately he's just losing money. You know, he just, and then three months, six months go by and he just starts letting off, letting everybody go.

Starting point is 01:54:09 He lets everybody go. He's starting. Now he's running. He's working 80 hours a week. He's working all the hours. And after a year, he has to close the doors. It's just not working. He doesn't know what happened.

Starting point is 01:54:18 And he looked at the books like the books are solid. The books are phenomenal. I mean, he's making the deposits. He's checking with the banks. Hey, I have the accounts. Is this true? Is this? Like, he knows something's wrong.

Starting point is 01:54:30 Right. How they were depositing this much. This is what's going on. And like four or five years later, one day, he gets the newspaper and opens it up. And the guy he had bought the laundromat had been indicted for money laundering. He was laundering drug dealer money through various laundering. And he'd, every two or three years, just long enough. start a laundromat, launder the money for three years, just enough to get the books, put it up for sale.

Starting point is 01:54:57 Right. Sell it. Already have another one ready to go. He had been doing it for like 15 years. He'd done something like five or six of them. Right. And just finally one of the drug dealers or somebody got caught and said, yeah, this is what he does. And they, you know, wore a couple wires and the whole thing went under.

Starting point is 01:55:12 But he was one of his victims. Wow. So it's a pretty good catch because that would be hard to catch potentially. It was. He's depositing the money. Yeah. You know, so the banks were like, yeah, he's different. And it wasn't, it wasn't outrageous. It was, it was right in line with what, you know, maybe do it a little bit better. Maybe he's got a little bit better advertisement. Maybe he's in a better area. He's not. He's actually in a worse area and he's doing no advertising. But the money's still going into the to the bank and it looks legit. You know, now if the IRS had come in, they probably could have said, okay, you're not spending enough money on water. Your electric is not. You know, but this guy didn't. know those things.

Starting point is 01:55:51 Right. Yeah, I had a similar case where it was a medical spa and they used, the seller used a combination of another location's income plus prepaid

Starting point is 01:56:04 like memberships to cook the books. Right. And they decreased the expenses actually by sort of not paying the bills, which was also not something. So like the books were sort of numerically correct, like sort of what you're describing.

Starting point is 01:56:23 But so if you looked at the bank statements and you looked at the books like they line up, but it's like, but wait a second, but you didn't tell me you prepaid, you know, you sold $100,000 worth of memberships that I got to, you know, commit to. I'd have to honor. Or, you know, you didn't tell me you were taking money from this location and putting it into your bank for this location or you didn't pay your vendors, like, no wonder. You know, no wonder you're making money like because, you know, pay your expenses. So, yeah, that is a classic scenario.

Starting point is 01:56:51 The one I was talking about involved in medical spa. And, man, that case was wild because the seller, the seller was a couple and they were going through a divorce and they were swingers. And it became, it became very dramatic. It was like an arbitration of all things. I mean, it wasn't even like in court. She shows up one day and accuses it. Like, we're there for the trial. So we're there for like three days in this trial.

Starting point is 01:57:15 And she shows up. And like in her opening, she's like, he's. And that's what. And that's why all this happened. And I'm going like, and I could see I had this arbitrator that was like from this white shoe huge law firm, you know, doing like business stuff. And I could just see like the color go out of his face. Like why am I here?

Starting point is 01:57:40 What am I going to now have to listen to? You know, and I mean, I had to probe. You know, I had to ask the questions, you know. But there was a lot of upside down pineapple stuff going on in that case. And we had all our emails, you know, because we had bought the business and we bought, the client had bought her email account with the business. So we had all this information between the two of them, you know, about his AA meetings and her, you know, her. But I mean, it was like relevant because she'd send them these emails trying to bring the marriage back together and be like,

Starting point is 01:58:16 I'm going to dump the spa. I'm getting rid of it. So there was all this sort of relevant evidence in the midst of their marital dispute. And it was a real mess. Do you have any place you want us to send people? Yeah, if you want to find out more about me, I have a website at john davidhuffman.com or our law firm is at pool with an e huffman.com. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching.

Starting point is 01:58:36 Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also, we are going to leave all of John David Huffman's links and everything to to the website and all the social media is. We're gonna leave that in the description box. You can just go in the description box, click on there. You can go follow his stuff or you can go if you need to get in contact with him. You can go to his website and get into contact with him.

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Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Fraud Lawyer Takes Down Nigerian Prince Scammers

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