Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Fake Oil Tycoon - The Alan Todd May story

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This is the story of Alan Todd May

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Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Kulu and Kulu on Disney Plus. So this guy, his name's Alan, and Alan wants nothing more than for people to think he's all high class and fancy. So then Alan, he becomes a career con man to try and get rich, and he commits a bunch of fraud. And he keeps getting caught so he's constantly in and out of prison. But then one day, unfortunately, his father passes away, and Alan, he inherits a fourth of an oil interest. Now this oil interest will pay him about $25 a month, so it's not much. But he is now technically officially an oil man.

So with that, he starts his own oil company in Texas called Prosper Oil and Gas. And Alan, he's a charismatic guy and he has good marketing skills. And he starts attracting people to invest in his company. And soon the money starts rolling in. And pretty quickly, he's got more than a hundred people invest. in his oil and gas company, and he's controlling around $7 million of their money. So then he hires a bunch of employees, and he starts spending all that money. And he buys himself a mansion, and he buys his employees expensive gifts, nice cars, and

Rolexes. Here's the thing, though. Alan just recently got out of prison, so he's technically still on parole, and he's not supposed to open any new checking accounts or credit cards. So then of course someone tips off the feds and they start investigating and they discovered that his oil company Prosper Oil and Gas is nothing but a big Ponzi scheme. And poor Alan, he knows the feds are onto him. And he can't be rich and fancy if he goes back to prison. So he meets up with his assistant, who is also his boyfriend.

This guy, Cody. And Alan and Cody, they decide to flee and they take a train from San Antonio all the way to San Francisco. And once he's there in San Fran, Alan, he can't just lay low. He's gotta be fancy. So he immediately starts making money by setting up a new oil company, and he starts collecting new investors. Meanwhile, he and Cody's relationship, it starts breaking down, and they start fighting.

And Cody, he's like, fuck this, and he decides to leave. So he flies back to Texas, and there, the feds meet him at the airport, and he tells them everything about Allen. He snitches. So then, bam, they go in arrest Alan in San Francisco, and he's sentenced to 20 years in prison. But prison isn't gonna stop Alan. He can't be high class and fancy in there, so he starts making plans to escape. And even while he's locked up, bro is still scamming.

He sets up a bunch of fake companies and collects more investors, and he cons around $700,000 from people. Now eventually, they relocate him from the Texas prison to another facility in Colorado and at this point he's been locked up for six years. Here's a selfie he posted while in prison. So anyway, Allen's ready to get out and he starts working on his escape. And one day he jumps into an unattended prison van and he quietly just drives away. And that's it. That's how he escaped. So later he abandons the van, he rents a U-Haul and he stops at Walmart and Target to buy a non-prison outfit and then he heads to

Texas. And once he's in Texas, he just disappears. Like, he just falls off the map. And there's no record of him after that until about a year or so later, when he turns up in Palm Beach, Florida. And when he first arrives in Palm Beach, he sees all the rich men and women there, and they're dining and they're socializing at their croquet clubs, and they're all just so fancy. And Alan is like, ooh, these are my people. I want to be one of them. So what does he? do. He invents a new identity for himself. He changes his name and he finds himself a younger boyfriend, a shoe salesman, this guy, Kevin. And Kevin, of course, has no idea Alan is an escaped conflict. He thinks he's a wealthy oil man. Regardless, they're together one day and they go have

lunch at the local croquet club. And that is when they meet this rich older woman. She's a widow. So we'll call her widow. And widow is exactly the kind of person Alan needs to win over. And lucky for him, she thinks he's hilarious and charming. And so Widow, she starts inviting Alan and Kevin out to events, and she starts introducing them to her wealthy friends. And soon enough, they all go to a big fundraiser, where Alan, he gets photographed by a local magazine called the Palm Beach Daily. And this magazine features that photo in one of their issues where they're showcasing some of the wealthy people of Palm Beach. And this is a huge, deal to Alan because it means that he's finally made it. He's finally an accepted and respected

and respected member of this exclusive Palm Beach Club. He's finally, officially, all high class and fancy. Until. One day, someone, we don't know who, someone who knows Alan and knows he's an escaped convict, they read that magazine that he's featured in and they see his photo and they recognize him instantly. And of course, they go and they snitch and they tip off the feds. Like, hey, that guy's not fancy at all. He's a convict. So then the feds, they go to Palm Beach and bam, they arrest Allen. Here's his mugshot. And he gets charged with mail fraud and wire fraud and escaping custody. And he actually hasn't been to trial yet. So as far as I know, he's still waiting in jail for his trial to start. And he's probably feeling not so fancy anymore.