Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Scam - The Charles Ingram story

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

This is the story of Charles Ingram and how he cheated on the popular game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire

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And one day he's with his wife, this woman, Diana, and he and Diana are looking at their finances and they're like, oh bugger, how are we going to pay all this debt? Here's the thing though, not too long before this, Diana and her brother had both competed on a game show who wants to be a millionaire. And by doing that, they won a little bit of money. So Diana and Charles think, what if Charles goes on the show? Maybe he could win a bunch of money, and that would more than get them out of debt. And that's a great plan. But there's a problem. Charles is kind of a dumbass.

I mean, he's not dumb. He's just not the kind of person who knows the answers to a bunch of random trivia questions. And who wants to be a millionaire is not something he would naturally be good at. So he and Diana come up with a plan, a plan to change. sheet and we'll get to that plan. But anyway, they sign Charles up to compete on the show and they wait and finally the big moment comes. Game day. And they go to the studio and he starts the first round of the show called Fastest Finger First. Who was fastest? Charles Ingram. He makes it through that round and now he's on to the quiz part. Now in the quiz part, he kind of struggles with the first

few questions. And by the time he gets to the 4,000 pound question, he's already used to the two of his lifelines. So he's not doing very well at this game. I think I'll phone a friend, please. Okay. But then, the first day of filming ends there. And obviously, producers are like, well, Charles, he doesn't stand a chance. I mean, he's a dumbass. He's struggling on easy questions. But anyway, Charles and Diana, they go home and this is where they enact their plan to cheat. The plan is Diana wants to feed Charles answers while she's sitting in the audience. And they know they can't use like an earpiece to communicate or anything like that, because the show would check for that and they'd get caught. So instead, they decide to go even

simpler. All the show questions are multiple choice. So they're just going to have Diana sit in the audience, and when Charles is about to answer a question, when he says the correct answer out loud, she'll cough. And in order to make the plan foolproof, they call this guy, Wittick. And Wittick, he's a smart enough guy, he's a college lecturer, and he's also been a contestant on the show like three times before, and he's scheduled to be trying out for the show the next day. So they ask Wittick if he can help them out with their scam. And Wittick's like, right, Jolly Good Show, or whatever. And so he'll be on the sidelines coughing too. Then the next night, they all go back to the studio to resume filming, and Charles is in the hot seat, and Diana's sitting in the audience, and Wittick is sitting

on the sidelines. And Charles, he gets asked, who is the second husband of Jackie Kennedy? And when he's reading out an answer, and whenever he reads out the right one, either Diana or Wittick or someone coughs. And you can hear the cough when you watch the footage. Pretty confident it's Aristotle Anassus. But whatever, he gets the question right, and his winnings are now up to 8,000 pounds. Then they move on to the next question, and the next. And at some point, the camera is on Diana in the audience, and you can see her coughing to signal him. Now at this point in the show, producers are starting to get a little suspicious.

Like something weird is going on here, because Charles is so unsure about all the answers he's giving, yet all the answers he's giving are turning out to be correct. But they don't have any real evidence that he's doing anything wrong, so they let the show continue. Regardless, his plan is working, and Charles gets question after question right, with Diana coughing or Wittick coughing. And his winnings keep climbing up. 32,000 pounds, 64,000 pounds, 125,000 pounds, 250,000 pounds, a half a million pounds. And soon enough, Charles is on the final question of the show, worth one million pounds,

or about 1.3 million U.S. dollars. And the producers of the show, they're like scrambling, because they know he's somehow cheating. So anyway, then the host reads the final one million pound question. And it's actually a fairly easy question. A number one, followed by 100 zeros, is known by what name? Google, Megatron, gigabit, nanomole. And of course, Charles doesn't know the answer. Like I said, he's not good at this.

That's why he's cheating. But lucky for him, his cough squad is there to save him. I don't think I've heard of a Google. Google. So Charles gives the answer, a Google. Google and of course you just want one million yes you are the most amazing so Charles and Diana have officially won their plan worked and they are now rich until so Charles and Diana go back to their dressing room but instead of celebrating

they start yelling at each other they're in a fight for some reason and security guards can hear them and producers can also hear them now Allegedly, Charles wasn't supposed to go all the way to one million pounds. He was supposed to stop before that. Because if he had only won like 100,000 pounds and stopped, no one would have suspected that he was cheating. But I guess at the last minute, he got greedy and he decided to go all the way to one million. And now Diana is mad at him because she thinks his greed is going to get them caught.

Now, this fight that producers here, it makes them even. more suspicious. And once Charles and Diana leave, the producers, they immediately start calming through the footage of the episode, looking for any evidence of them cheating. And of course, they notice the coughing. And they're like, I knew it! This motherfucker's cheating! So a producer literally has to call Charles and tell him that they won't be authorizing the $1 million check. I have to tell you that we have suspicion from viewing the recording of last Monday's program, that there were irregularities during the tipping of the show. Oh, good Lord.

Because of that, I have to tell you that these suspicions have been referred to the police. And so then producers get police involved, and bam, they arrest Charles and Diana and Whittick. And they all go to trial, and they're all found guilty, and Charles and Diana get sentenced to 18 months, and Wittick gets sentenced to 12 months. But their sentences are suspended, so none of them actually see any prison time. Anyway, here's how Charles and Diana look in real.