Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - MURDER: Abraham Shakespeare

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

In 2006, Abraham Shakespeare was just another down-on-his-luck guy trying to get by. But then, he won $30 million in the Florida lottery and everything changed. Generous to a fault, Abe helped anyone who asked. That included a woman named Dee Dee Moore. She was willing to do whatever it took to get her hands on Abe's fortune... including murder. Money Crimes is a Crime House Original. For more content, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's an old adage, be careful what you wish for. This is true for a lot of things in life, but especially for money. I'm sure a lot of people would love to snap their fingers and have enough money to never have to work again. I mean, that's why the lottery is so popular. For just a couple of dollars, you could get the chance to win more money than most people earn in a lifetime. Of course, the odds of winning are tiny. But what if, one day, it actually happened? What would you do?

You might cash in, quit your job, and spend all day sipping Mai Tais on the beach. Maybe buy that luxury sports car that you've been dreaming about, or maybe you're thinking about all the people you could help. The possibilities are endless. But winning the lottery isn't all fun and games. If word gets out about how much you won, you'll suddenly find a lot of people looking to cash in. And if they don't get history are doomed to repeat it.

That's especially true when it comes to money. If you want to make the right decisions when it comes to managing your assets, you need to know what mistakes to avoid and how to spot a trap. This is Money Crimes, a Crime House original. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Every Thursday, I'll be telling you a story of a famous financial crime and giving you advice on how to avoid becoming a victim yourself.

At Crime House, we wanna express our gratitude to all of you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Money Crimes wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And for ad-free and early access to money crimes plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. This episode is all about Abraham Shakespeare, a down-on-his-luck guy who won $30 million in the Florida lottery back in 2006.

For the next three years, Abe lived large and handed out money like it was going out of style. By the time he realized his winnings were running out, a conniving woman named Jeannie Moore had already set her sights on what he had left. And she was willing to do anything to get her hands on Abe's money. Hey there, it's Nicole. If you're loving the stories on money crimes, the team here at Crime House has another show you definitely need to check out.

It's called Mind of a Serial Killer, and it's all about the deep dives into the psychology of the world's most terrifying murderers. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. a side of toast. Only $6 at A&W's in Ontario. Experience A&W's classic breakfast on Now. Dine in only until 11 a.m. At Mazda, we craft cars for those who choose to do more than simply move. So choose joy, choose the road, and choose to get out there. Choose your calling. Choose to make memories and choose more of what moves you. Mazda, move and be moved. ["Fat Swing"]

We all love a good rags to riches story, right? It is heartwarming to see the little guy finally strike it big. And to be honest, it's hard to imagine a more humble underdog than Abraham Shakespeare. Abe was born in 1966 in Sebring, a small town in central Florida. He grew up poor and dropped out of school after seventh grade to help his father pick fruit. Abe struggled to read and write and spent the rest of his teenage years doing menial labor. Along the way he had a few brushes with the law. When Abe was 13 he stole from a convenience store and got sent to a reform school. When he got out at age 18 in 1984,

he struggled to find his footing. He bounced around from one odd job to another and had anger issues. At one point, he was arrested for assaulting a girlfriend and ended up back in prison. By 1995, he was out and ready to try again. Despite his past issues, most people who knew Abe really liked him. They thought he had a good heart and was just dealt a bad hand.

One of the few things that kept him in line was his on-again, off-again relationship with a woman named Antoinette. In 1998, when Abe was 32, she gave birth to their first son, Moses. Abe loved Moses and made a point of seeing him as much as possible, even when he and Antoinette were in one of their off periods. That didn't make him the perfect father though.

At one point, Abe ended up in jail for failing to pay child support. To find some stability in his life, Abe moved in with his mom in 2005, when he was almost 40. He still didn't have a consistent job, but he picked up work as a dishwasher and did construction. In his free time, Abe went to local bars and hung around the Superchoice Foods Market in Lakeland, Florida,

shooting the breeze with friends. In other words, Abe was a troubled guy struggling to make ends meet. But all of that changed on November 15, 2006. That Wednesday evening, Abe was working as a delivery man for a food distribution company alongside another guy named Michael Ford. Abe didn't have a driver's license, so Michael was usually the one behind the wheel. That night, Michael stopped at a convenience store to grab a soda and cigarettes. Before he hopped out of the car, Abe asked Michael to buy him two quick pick tickets for the Florida lottery.

If you've never played the lottery before, you can either pick six numbers to play or have the computer generate those numbers for you. Abe chose the latter. A few minutes later, Michael returned with the tickets, and Abe gave him $2, which was a lot of money for Abe to part ways with. According to journalist Deborah Mathis, author of the book, Unlucky Number, Abe only had about five bucks total to his name. Either Abe didn't care or he sensed something in the air that night. His run of bad luck was about to change. After Abe and Michael finished their deliveries for the night, Abe went back to his mom's

house and sank into the couch. He pulled out his two quick pick tickets and turned on the TV, where the local newscaster was about to read the winning numbers. Six, twelve, thirteen. Abe could feel his heart racing. It couldn't be, could it? He looked down at his ticket as she kept calling them out. 34, 42, 52.

Abe's heart skipped a beat. Those were his numbers. A few days later, their Abe was on TV, holding a giant check for 30 million dollars. Just like that, he was rich, and it seemed like all his problems were solved. Now when you hit the jackpot, you have two options. The first is to take a lump sum, meaning you get all the money at once. This way, you get a big upfront payment.

But there are some downsides. The actual lump sum payment is usually about half of the full winning amount. And then you still have to pay taxes on that money since it counts as earned income. The second option is to take annual payments or annuities. This gives you a steady income spread over 20 to 30 years, and you get the full amount of your winnings.

That means a lot less money upfront though. So like most lottery winners, Abe took the first option, the lump sum. So even though Abe was there on TV holding this giant check for $30 million, he only took home about $12 million after the reduced lump sum payment and subsequent taxes. But still, $12 million isn't exactly bad, considering he'd been living paycheck to paycheck just a few days earlier. After the government took $9,000 out of it for his unpaid child support, the first thing Abe did was set up a million-dollar trust fund for his son, Moses. After being unable to even

pay child support at all, it must have felt incredible to be able to set his son up for life. Abe was thrilled to finally be the person giving charity instead of asking for it. He doled out money like it was candy. A million dollars to his stepdad, a quarter million to each of his three stepsisters. His generosity became legendary. But Abe's reputation as a personal philanthropist also came with a downside. Suddenly everyone was coming to him for a handout.

They needed cash for a funeral, help with rent, or to pay off their medical bills. People he didn't even know, friends of friends, invaded his free time to pitch their business ideas. And Abe, generous to a fault and maybe a bit gullible, gave them whatever they asked for. And for a while, it didn't really matter. Abe had plenty of money to go around, plenty for himself too. He purchased a million dollar home in an upscale gated Florida community called Red Hawk Bend. He bought a pickup truck and a sporty BMW 750i,

even though he didn't have a driver's license. But Abe didn't just have his choice of sports cars, now he had his choice of women. In 2007, Abe's new girlfriend, Tori, moved in with him and got pregnant. But before the baby came, she ended things with Abe because he wasn't faithful to her. At first, Abe loved all the attention,

but after a while, he probably felt like the town ATM. He knew that if he kept giving, eventually there'd be nothing left. Unfortunately, Abe wasn't at all interested in getting a professional to help him with his money. The closest thing he had to a money guy was his uncle's neighbor who kept track of Abe's finances and did his best to collect on the many debts people owed to Abe. But mostly he just got excuses. Then in April of 2007, Abe got hit with some bad news.

Michael Ford, the truck driver he was working with the night he won the jackpot, was suing him. Ford alleged that he had bought the winning tickets and Abe stole them from his wallet in the glove compartment. Ford's attorney dragged Abe's name through the mud, calling him a chronic thief and accusing Abe of bribing witnesses to keep silent. Abe saw his future on the line

and hired a famous lawyer named Willie Gary to represent him. The case went to trial in October of 2007. Gary argued that Abe couldn't have known the tickets would be worth anything, so there was no reason to steal them. The highlight of the trial was when Abe showed up to court with a garbage bag filled with thousands of lottery tickets that he'd bought over the years. Part of the trial was when Abe showed up to court with a garbage bag filled with thousands of lottery tickets that he'd bought over the years.

The jury ruled in Abe's favor. He beat Ford, but Gary's fees cost him $800,000. It was money he couldn't afford to spend. Because by the end of 2008, the $12 million Abe won just two years earlier was almost gone. All those handouts drained his account, leaving him with a million and a half in cash and three million more in assets like his house and cars. By this point, Abe was angry and exhausted.

His mother Elizabeth said, quote, his life was miserable. He couldn't say no. What Abe really needed was someone who could say no. Someone who could have his back and protect what was left so that he could finally have what he really wanted. Peace. peace, but I don't think eternal peace was what he had in mind. At Mazda, we craft cars for those who choose to do more than simply move. So choose joy, choose the road, and choose to get out there.

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It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. By the fall of 2008, only two years after winning the Florida jackpot, Abraham Shakespeare's pile of cash had dwindled down to one and a half million dollars. He knew that if he didn't get his finances under control, he would lose everything. That's when he met Doris Deedy Moore. Deedy was a tall, 36-year-old woman with a shy smile and a weak handshake.

You'd probably describe her as meek. But Deedy had a cunning mind and an insatiable appetite for luxury. From what I could tell, it started when she was a teenager. Deedy had a pretty normal childhood growing up in the humid suburbs outside of Tampa. But when she got to high school, she found herself surrounded by rich kids. She was so ashamed that her family didn't have that kind of money. She had her parents drop her off down the street so her friends wouldn't see their old beat up car.

When Deedee graduated high school, she worked as a nursing assistant. Less than two years later, she married a construction worker named James. They had a son together, and for a few years, life was good. But their meager salaries weren't enough for Dee Dee to buy all of the things she wanted.

She hustled, selling prepaid phones on the side. But she still wasn't making enough for her taste. So she broke the rules. In 1999, she was arrested for shoplifting. In 2001, she was arrested again for writing bad checks to the county tax collector. Later that year, when her credit union threatened to repossess her SUV, Dee Dee went to the extreme. She paid someone to drive her out onto the highway while she tied her own wrists. Then she threw herself into a ditch and waited to be rescued. When the cops arrived, she burst into tears and told them that she had been

sexually assaulted by three men who had stolen her car. The idea was, if her car was stolen, it couldn't be repossessed. When her story made the local news, one of her accomplices called the cops and told them the SUV wasn't stolen, it was being stored in his garage. Dee Dee's scam got her a year of probation, but no prison time. These sorts of shenanigans became a common pattern for Dee Dee over the next few years. She'd cook up a scheme, almost get away with it, then get caught at the last minute.

Throughout it all, it didn't seem like she ever received any jail time. But Deedee's actions may have had an impact on her marriage. Around 2006, she and her husband separated. She didn't wait long to move on though. In 2007, Deedee started dating a guy named Shar. He was much younger than her and pretty easily impressed. Dee Dee showered him with gifts like a Rolex and a flashy Corvette. But when he asked her where the money came from, she claimed the IRS gave it to her for

turning people in who didn't pay their taxes. Now, the IRS whistleblower program is a real thing, by the way. It pays whistleblowers between 15 and 30 percent of the amount recovered. As far as I know, Shar never doubted her story. But to keep the lie going, Didi needed more money. And in October of 2008, she found her next big payday. In October of 2008, she found her next big payday. That month, Dee Dee attended a small business conference. One of the speakers was a realtor named Barbara. She had sold Abe his house in a Red Hawk Bend. Barbara was so blown away by Abe's kindness and generosity

that she felt compelled to share his story with everyone she could. And Dee Dee listened with rapt attention. As soon as Barbara's talk was over, Dee Dee approached her and asked for an introduction to Abe. Dee Dee said she was a writer and thought Abe's rags to riches story would make for a great magazine article or even a book.

Barbara happily connected them, and Dee Dee's plan was in motion. In the beginning, she charmed Abe by playing into his ego. She teased him with promises of a dazzling expose. But it wasn't long before she stopped talking about the biography and started talking about his finances. Mainly the problems with his finances. People owed Abe a lot of money. His ex-girlfriend Tori was suing him for child support, his bank account had shrunk, and his uncle's neighbor, the one who was trying to manage his money, wasn't doing enough

to stop the bleeding. Didi was a skilled manipulator. She convinced Abe that Tory wanted to take him for everything he had. But Didi promised she wouldn't let that happen. She was a small business owner, comfortable with finances and totally trustworthy. Why not let her handle his accounts? After thinking it over, Abe agreed. One of the first things Dee Dee did was buy up all of his debts for a lot less than they

were worth, a little under $200,000. It gave Abe a short-term injection of cash, but it also meant that anything Deedee managed to squeeze from Abe's friends and family now belonged to her, and she wasn't afraid to collect. Deedee went door to door, threatening to foreclose on people's houses unless they paid her. It looks like she even tried to scam some of them by collecting the money and not giving them a receipt. That way she could claim they hadn't paid at all and come knocking again later.

In January of 2009, about three months after Deedee met Abe, she got him to sign over the title to his own home in Red Hawk. By the end of the month, she had taken control of all of his assets, except for a massive life insurance policy he had with Prudential. Presumably, that money would someday go to Abe's son. But Deedee wanted it for herself. To get it, Deedee set up a company called Abraham Shakespeare LLC. Deedee listed herself, Abe, and one of Abe's friends, Judy Hagans, as company officers. On February 10, 2009,

Deedee brought Abe to the bank and had him transfer his entire Prudential account into a new account run by the LLC. One week later, Deedee returned to the bank with a document claiming that the LLC's officers had met and decided to remove Abe from the account entirely. This made Deedee the only one who could access the account. But in her so-called meeting minutes, Deedee listed herself as the only company officer present for that decision. For some reason, the bank didn't find that suspicious. Abe was removed from the account and the moment the money was available to her, Deedee wrote

herself a cashier's check for $250,000. Then she proceeded to make more withdrawals until the entire account was empty, transferring it to her own company. To make sure Abe couldn't get that money back, Deedee convinced Abe to give power of attorney to his friend, Judy Hagans, on April 3rd, 2009. She told Abe that this would save him the trouble of

signing a bunch of boring documents. Now, we've talked about power of attorney on this show before, but if you're not familiar with how it works, it's basically an agreement that lets someone act on your behalf in legal matters. They can sign checks in your name, make decisions about your investments, and even decide whether or not to pull the plug if you end up in a coma. In other words, it's a huge responsibility. Judy may have cared about Abe, but she was known as a party girl, not a financial expert. She didn't understand the responsibility of her new power

and signed whatever Deedee put in front of her. But maybe she realized it wasn't totally above board. Two days after being given power of attorney, on April 5, 2009, Judy went to see Abe. We don't know much about that meeting, but they made plans to get together the following day at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. After that, he disappeared. Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data,

big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. Doris Deedee Moore met Abraham Shakespeare in October of 2008.

In less than five months, she had taken control of all of his assets. She owned his house, his money, and his debts. Then on April 3, 2009, Dee Dee convinced Abe to hand over his power of attorney to a friend named Judy Hagens. A few days later, Abe disappeared. At the time, Abe had a live-in girlfriend named Courtney. Before he disappeared, Courtney was across the

state visiting a friend. Abe had promised that when she was ready to come home, his friend Judy Hagans would come and pick her up. But when the time came, Courtney couldn't reach him. Courtney tried calling Abe again, but he never answered. Finally, she tried Deedee. She had bad news for Courtney. She said that Abe told her he'd met someone new and the two of them were on vacation together. Courtney raced home, and when she arrived, Deedee, her boyfriend Shar, and Deedee's teenage son had already moved in. Deedee said the house was hers now. That meant Courtney had to go. Over the next few weeks, Abe's family and friends received a bunch of weird text messages from Abe's phone. Most of them were excuses for why he couldn't call or visit. When people pushed for

more information, the messages got nasty. As time passed, rumors swirled about where he'd run off to. He was in Puerto Rico doing business, he was in the hospital sick with AIDS, he was hiding to avoid paying child support. The only person who claimed to have actually seen him was Deedee. As his self-appointed protector, she said he didn't want to be found. And she was protecting his wishes until he told her otherwise. But it was unusual for him to not call his family. During the summer of 2009, a few months after he disappeared, they started getting worried.

So Deedee concocted more schemes to keep them at bay. In August, she paid Abe's cousin Cedric $5,000 to tell his family that Abe had fled the country. She also had Cedric deliver cash and a birthday card to Abe's mother Elizabeth. The card had a scribbled note telling her, quote, I'll be home soon. The note eased Elizabeth's fears and stopped her from filing a missing person's report. Cedric later said that although he knew the birthday card was fake,

he thought it was a harmless gesture, just a nice thing to do for his aunt until his cousin resurfaced. But as the summer rolled by, Cedric started feeling uneasy about Deedee. She was threatening to repossess his house and his car. He wondered if Abe had really run away. Finally, on November 9, 2009, more than seven months after Abe disappeared, one of Abe's relatives convinced Cedric to file a missing person's report himself.

He told the police about the $5,000 bribe and the lies that Deedee told him to spread. On December 3, detectives from the Polk County Sheriff's Office called Deedee and asked her to come in to answer a few questions. Deedee told them a confusing story about how she'd befriended Abe and helped him in his time of need. She claimed that Abe had skipped town after being pestered by greedy friends and money-grubbing exes. She said he even used a fake passport so no one could follow him out of the country.

As for how she'd come to live in his giant house, Dee Dee claimed that she'd bought it fair and square. But when the detectives asked her for a bill of sale, she said that, well, she hadn't paid for it per se. She was gradually paying him back by buying his plane tickets and stuff like that. If that sounds sketchy to you, you're not alone. Dee Dee quickly got the sense that the cops didn't buy her story. She needed something to throw them off her trail, so she reached out to Abe's ex-girlfriend Tori. Dee Dee sat with Tori and complained about how Abe had abandoned both of them.

She knew Tori was struggling to care for her infant son, so Deedee made her an offer. If Tori told the police she'd seen Abe recently, Deedee would pay off her house and her car. Tori said yes. But as soon as Deedee left, Tori called the police and told them what had just happened. The incident made the authorities even more certain that Abe wasn't on vacation. He was dead. And Dee Dee, or someone close to her, had killed him. But Tori's testimony wasn't enough to get Dee Dee arrested.

They needed physical evidence or a confession from one of her accomplices. So they watched her like hawks. And that's when they found Greg Smith. Greg owned a barber shop where Abe liked to hang out. Like Abe, he had a checkered past but was trying to pull his life together. When Abe won the lottery, he loaned Greg $63,000 to keep the bank from repossessing his house. Unlike many of Abe's so-called friends, Greg made a point to pay Abe what he owed every month and then some. After Abe disappeared, Greg repeatedly tried to contact him without success.

He never liked Deedee, but since she was in control of his debt now, Greg knew he had to play nice. In November of 2009, Deedee asked him for a favor. In exchange for $300, Greg made a phone call to someone named Dave Wallace and left an anonymous message claiming that he had seen Abe at a strip club in Miami. Two weeks later, Dee Dee asked him for another favor. In exchange for more money, she wanted him to call Abe's mother Elizabeth and pretend to be Abe. A few minutes after Greg placed the call, three cops stopped him at a traffic light. One of them introduced himself as Detective David Wallace, the same person Dee Dee had him call and lie to just a few weeks before. Turns out, he was a homicide detective.

Greg didn't bother asking for a lawyer. He told them everything. The detectives had Greg wear a wire and pretend to keep helping Dee Dee. The first thing she asked Greg to do was buy a couple of burner phones for her so she could talk to Abe's friend Judy without the cops listening. Greg obliged. And now that she knew she could trust him, she roped him into a bigger scheme. She invited him to a motel room where she told him to put on gloves, a mask, and shoe covers. Then she had him forge a letter from Abe to his mom telling her that he was safe and sound. Two minutes after Dee Dee dropped it in Elizabeth's mailbox, the cops grabbed it. By now, they were pretty sure Abe was dead.

But they still didn't have enough evidence to arrest Dee Dee for his murder. They needed a body and ideally a murder weapon. So they took a page out of Dee Dee's book and came up with a phony story. Greg told Dee Dee that he had a cousin who was about to go to prison. For a cool 50 grand, he'd be willing to take the rap for Abe's murder. Dee Dee didn't know that Greg's cousin was actually an undercover cop named Mike Smith. In her meeting with Mike, she told him that Abe was killed by a drug dealer named Ronald.

Ronald had threatened to kill Dee Dee and her son if she told anyone. Mike told her that he needed proof that Abe was dead before going any further. Dee Dee said she could find out where the body was. Then she offered to get Mike the murder weapon so he could put his prints on it. As it turned out, the gun was registered in Dee Dee's name. She gave it to Greg, who immediately handed it over to his police handlers. Then she took Greg to a house she'd bought earlier that year and pointed to a concrete slab. Abe was buried six feet below. All they needed to do was dig him up. On January 25th 2010, Greg and Mike were supposed to be exhuming the body for Dee Dee while

she was out to dinner with a friend. But Greg called her in a panic and said the cops had found Abe first. She rushed outside the restaurant to meet him and was surrounded by police. On February 19, 2010, the Sheriff's office officially charged Deedee with first-degree murder. They found Abe's body right where she said it was. He was shot twice in the chest and covered in lime powder to cover up the smell. The police learned she had tricked her ex-husband into digging the hole with construction equipment and hired a cement contractor to pour the slab. Dee Dee sat in jail for more than two years

before her trial officially began. Abe's friends and family went on the stand one after the other and testified about how Dee Dee manipulated everyone around her. On December 10th, 2012, the jury found her guilty. Unless she wins on appeal, Dee Dee will be in prison for the rest of her life. The big house, the fancy cars,

they're all a distant memory for her now. Abraham Shakespeare's story is straight out of a dramatic tragedy. From his generosity, it is clear that Abe had a good heart, but when money is on the line, that is not enough. If you suddenly come into a lot of money, there's nothing wrong with being charitable. But while it's admirable to help others,

make sure you're also looking out for yourself. If you hit the jackpot, turn off your phone, pay a visit to your lawyer, gather a team of financial wizards and let them help you make the most of your winnings and do your research. If someone comes to you and claims to be a financial advisor, make sure they have the bona fides to prove it.

Because if you win, and I mean win big, make no mistake about it, you've become a target. And the vultures are already circling around you. Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host Nicole Lapin. Come back next time as I take you through another wild story and offer you some advice along the way. Money Crimes is a Crime House original.

Join me every Thursday for a new episode. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, at Crime House on TikTok and on Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Money Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes all the difference. And for ad-free early access to Money Crimes plus exciting bonus content,

subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. Money Crimes is hosted by me, Nicole Lapin, and is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios. It is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Money Crimes was produced and directed by Ron Shapiro, written by Xander Bernstein, edited by Laurie Marnelli, fact-checked by Beth Johnson, sound designed by Kerry Murphy, and included production assistance from Sarah Carroll. Of the many sources we used when researching this episode,

the one we found most credible and helpful was Unlucky Number by Deborah Mathis.