Scamtown - Sparkies | 4

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

In the early ’80s, Boston is nicknamed the arson capital of the world. Hundreds of fires crop up across the city, terrifying citizens and firefighters alike. ATF Agent Wayne Miller must crack the code and figure out the motive so he can stop “Mr. Flare” before more of the city burns.Scamtown is an Apple Original podcast, produced by FunMeter. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.http://apple.co/Scamtown

It's summer. For a lot of people, this is the best time of year. Think camping, trips to the beach, burgers on the grill, beer in the cooler. A time of rest and relaxation. But imagine if this most sacred season was ruined by fear. You tuck into bed after a long summer day of bliss, not knowing whether you're going to wake up to your alarm clock or your smoke alarm. In the summer of 1982,

the city of Boston was in chaos. Buildings were burning down left and right. People were frightened. And the worst part? These fires were being set on purpose and no one knew who was responsible. This is the story of one of the largest arson cases in U.S. history. Welcome to Scam Town, an Apple original podcast produced by Fundmeter. I'm Brian Lizarte.

And I'm James Lee Hernandez. We're filmmakers who've been trading stories now for quite some time, obsessed and compelled to bring some of our favorites to life. We love a surprising heist, an intricate scam, or just pulling back the curtain on something you think you know. Entering a world that's stranger than fiction and writing that line between comedy and tragedy. This is Scam Town,

a place for our favorite stories that do just that. Today's episode, Sparkies. Boston was nicknamed the arson capital of the world. 1982, 1983, people around the city were afraid to go to sleep at night. It's like the tornadoes of nighttime. It's the most fearful thing. That's Wayne Miller, retired ATF agent and author of the book Burn Boston Burn. It's evening during the summer of 82 when Wayne receives a call. He's told to report to South Boston immediately. The Sparrow Toy Factory, a massive industrial warehouse, is engulfed in flames. He jumps in his car and starts driving.

In Wayne's life, this isn't unusual. He's investigated numerous fires in his career with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, or ATF for short. But Wayne's true talent lies in investigating arson. I can stand in a room and just cross my arms and look around and say, okay, what do we have here? What caused it? You follow smoke, heat, and burn patterns that lead you to the room where the fire started. But arson by itself is difficult to investigate. It's often the fire set under cover of darkness.

It could be a domestic dispute. It could be revenge. It could be crime concealment. You know, you murder somebody and somebody's in the house dead and you burn it or you steal something and you want to cover that up. Wayne arrives on scene, crosses his arms, and takes in the roaring fire, his eyes scanning the building for any indication of arson. Smoke started billowing out from within the building and it started coming out 300 feet on the front side and a couple hundred feet towards one side of the building. In an effort to fight the flames, firefighters begin climbing up on the top of the burning building. They want to open a flue and attempt to vent the fire, making it easier to fight. But as soon as they step on the roof, they immediately crash partway through the various holes sprinkled throughout, their legs trapped as the fire inside continues to grow and grow.

What could happen next? Could the roof just collapse and these guys fall through into the burning building? The orange flames soon begin to engulf the entire building, with more and more firemen being called onto the scene to battle the blaze. Apparatus was everywhere, hose lines. There's so many of them they become spaghetti on the road. Fire crews were being called for a second alarm, a third alarm. Eventually there were more and more alarms called. Basically the higher number alarmed, the more intense the fire. The crowds of interested onlookers, including legitimate sparks, fire buffs, started growing. They're yelling to the chief and commissioner who's on scene to go for a ninth alarm. And he finally did.

And the crowd actually erupted in cheers that a nine alarm fire happened and that he made the call for it. As you may have guessed, a nine-alarm fire is huge. So to call a nine-alarm fire is basically saying, holy shit, this is the biggest fire we've ever seen. Send every firefighter in the city, every fire truck in the city. We're going to need ambulances. Holy fuck. Usually I'm the one that swears.

Okay, Brian, so I want to go back to the interested onlookers that Wayne mentioned. The fire buffs, or as he put it, the sparks? Yeah, exactly. These guys were obsessed with fires. They kind of remind me of Bill Paxton and the crazy band of tornado chasers from the phenomenal Yon DeBont-directed action classic from 1996, Twister.

So he strolls up to the Twister and he says, have a drink, and he chucks the bottle into the Twister, and it never hits the ground. Much like the storm chasers in Twister, these guys are enraptured by these huge naturally occurring events. And they actually cheer on the fire department as they battle the blaze. Being a spark might not carry the badge of honor of being a firefighter, but according to Paul Bergerot, the former president of the Sparks, being a fire buff has its own badge of honor.

A fire buff is an individual that has a great interest in the fire service, and that interest involves fire departments, their tactics, how they perform at the job sites and fires, about the equipment, demand power, how fires are fought. People misunderstand what a fire buff is, a fire buff, a spark, and they think they're these crazies that chase fires and fire engines and get in the way. Our field of endeavor is promoting the fire service and supporting the fire service. Unlike Wayne, Paul has always had a fascination with fires. It definitely is a calling. I think it's something that you are born with. I don't think that you acquire that, my opinion James do you have a calling um yeah I definitely do it is uh talking into a microphone so people have something to do while they drive that is not your calling that is not

your but you know it could be your calling I should not don't squash my I won't talk down on your calling I I'm sorry. But crazy enough, Paul's not alone. Many of the Asparks felt they had this calling, including wannabe member Greg Bemis. Some people have it in their blood, and I felt that I had it in my blood as well as a lot of the kids in my neighborhood. And then when I entered into the Asparking community,

some of them seemed very interesting and some of them were characters and some of them were a little unsavory. So in the early 1980s, the Firebops would hang out in their own local clubhouse, which was kind of like a little museum. It had all this old fire memorabilia they'd collected over the years.

But they also met at the Howard Johnson's parking lot, which, if you didn't grow up in the 80s, was a popular hotel chain spread across the country. Some even had restaurants attached. There's still a few around today. For the Sparks, the Howard Johnson's was an easy location for them to jump in their cars and chase fires. You're in the lot, and at any given time, there'd be 15 or 20 cars and there'd be different factions of firebots that would be talking amongst each other about this fire from last week or what happened or who's getting new apparatus. In the lot you'd find

lawyers, policemen, doctors, a local news cameraman, Arthur Fiedler, the former conductor of the Boston Pops, and even some off-duty firefighters. But all these guys weren't hanging out like they were at a bar, shooting the shit, talking about the Red Sox, listening to Aerosmith. No, they were silent. These guys were anxiously crowded around their cars, actively tuning into their fire radios, waiting for the next call to come in. It sounds like a regular man cave book club to me. If there was a fire on the radio, everybody would stop. Their ears would perk up and you'd listen to where it was.

And say, okay, that could be something. You know, if there was, okay, it sounds like Chelsea got a fire, let's go. Boom, the parking lot would empty out and everybody would go running towards the fire. And we kind of called it the tuna fleet because everybody's car that came in, it had a fire radio and it had these big long antennas to support the radios. Like in a marina, when the boats are lined up with the big fishing rods. So imagine screeching tires peeling out of the lot. These guys are racing to be the first to the fire like they're the Dukes of Hazzard or something. I ended up getting involved with the group that was sort of the first out of the parking lot when there was a call that came in. They would usually always end up getting to the

fire first, which that kind of gave some of them a bad reputation because the old guys would say, oh, there they go again. Off, you know, squealing the tires, going off to the fire. When you're young, you don't want to be the last one there. You want to be the first one there. Just like Ricky Bobby. If you ain't first, you're last. You were guaranteed something to happen in Boston because the fire activity was extremely heavy back then.

And Paul's not kidding because he and the other Sparks are seeing that these arson fires are getting worse and worse. And it didn't help that Boston was kind of built to burn. The city of Boston, a lot of places were built so close together. You get a 15, 20 mile an hour wind and you only have a sidewalk between the buildings. You could take out a whole neighborhood in a very short period of time. And because of Proposition 2.5, a tax initiative that ended up cutting funding to emergency services like ambulances, police, and the fire department, the city couldn't keep up with the massive uptick of fire activity. I heard from parents who would sleep with one eye open or they'd sleep in cycles

because you get four, five, six fires in one night. To hear fire engines all through the night, every night, to look out your window, I would go up to the top floor window, up to the attic, where I could get a good view to see where the fire was. That's Dorothy Berry. In 1982, she's a young mother trying to raise her kids amongst the cacophony of sirens and billows of smoke. And unfortunately for Dorothy, one night, the ornate white church in her neighborhood was set ablaze. That was a terrible, terrible, terrible fire.

And the fire was so intense because it spread like crazy. And it was a very emotional thing because that's where we used to have all our community meetings and potluck dinners and festival stuff. It all seems like a dream now. But the parish fire wasn't caused by an electrical malfunction or anything like that. Someone was lighting these fires all throughout Boston. So remember that huge fire we talked about before, the toy factory that was engulfed in a nine alarm fire?

Well, that wasn't a one-off. It was one of several fires throughout Boston caused by arson. They all seemed to follow a pattern, and that's what caught ATF agent Wayne Miller's attention. Because of that Sparrow Toy Company fire, we really tried to focus on what was happening. But it wasn't coming easy. Now, June had about 40 fires set by this one crew.

June 11th, which is a week after Sparrow Toy, there were 11 multiple-alarm fires in the city of Boston alone. That is a ridiculous amount of fires. Boston was running ragged. And all you're doing at that point in time is running from fire to fire. So the fires, which felt random at first, now felt targeted and calculated, like they were on a schedule. It was this Friday night, they called it.

It was really Friday morning. But the newspapers picked up on it and called it the Friday night firebug. And they also came up with the name Mr. Flair. And we didn't, nobody knew who Mr. Flair would have been. And we didn't know how many people were involved. We would make lists of potential suspects of maybe 16 to 18, then rule two or three of them out and put two or three new names on the list. Could it be the board up companies? A board up company, by the way, secures a building after a fire or a natural disaster.

And they're doing it for profit purposes? The more fires they have, the more they get called, the more money they make. Could it be security people? Could it be the police and fire who got laid off? Now, you have 600 possible suspects just in the fire department alone. Could they be angry enough to do this?

So it was something that just seemed unfathomable. How could we reduce this down to a working number? They start to slowly whittle down the list, even looking at the Sparks Association. Of course, they knew that Boston was burning, so they would race to fire scenes all the time. And it's not uncommon to see them there. I mean, most of the time, if a fire is witnessed by a layperson, they're curious about it. Of course, they're going to go watch a major fire.

But these fire buffs, some of them seem to get there a little too early. Paul Boudreau, the man with a calling to chase fires, started to notice the attention he and his buffs were getting. We would be at a fire scene. Of course, the buffs, we all lined up at the fire, talking amongst each other. All of a sudden, the fire investigators taking photographs of the buffs at the fire. And that really never happened much prior to that. And then I thought it was very unusual

that they suspect, obviously, that something's going on. But Paul was adamant. It couldn't be one of their own. A true spark would never endanger the life of a firefighter. It just went against their code. And amongst our group, we were pretty confident that there wasn't anybody that was involved with us or that was close with our group of buffs.

And that's because Paul and the rest of the Sparks were targeted themselves. Paul gets a call in the middle of the night. Their clubhouse has burnt down. You know, you've got to get down to the club. There's a major fire there. There's a tremendous amount of fire in the building. And there were a lot of members of the Sparks Association that were firefighters that were working that night.

Paul and the rest of the Sparks watch helplessly as their beloved clubhouse burns. It pretty much destroyed most of the memorabilia in the club. It was just a tremendous loss to us. Their hobby turned against them. Who could be responsible for this and why? Questions like this were starting to weigh on the others, including weight. Everybody was getting tired because of the way the fires were kept coming in and how tired we were getting emotionally, physically. Working a lot of long days, a lot of physical days at fire scenes, a lot of interviewing.

It really seemed like there was no end in sight. And Wayne and the rest of the ATF weren't any closer to figuring out who was behind these fires. But after what seemed like an eternity of dead ends and sleepless nights, a letter is sent to a local Boston TV station. It's from Mr. Flair himself. Now this note that they receive, it's textbook ransom note, mismatched magazine letters and all. It reads, I'm Mr. Flair. You know me as the Friday Firebug. I will continue until all deactivated police and fire equipment is brought back. If abandoned buildings are torn down, occupied buildings will be targeted. And the one thing the letter revealed was that this string of arsons was politically motivated.

It wasn't long after that Wayne and the rest of the investigators get their second lucky break. November 21, 1982. Garrity Lumberyard on the southwest corner of Boston. Garrity Lumberyard is exactly what it sounds like. A massive stretch of land with piles of timber. A perfect place to set a fire. The flames are 100 feet above the top of the building. Fire blowing out. You can see it through the upper windows in this warehouse.

It had been all stored lumber. And the flames were just engulfing all the combustible material within the building. What's crazy is that Mr. Flair, whoever or whatever it is, had already tried to burn down Garrity Lover Yard. This was round two. But lucky for Wayne and the rest of the ATF, had already tried to burn down Garrity Lover Yard. This was round two. But lucky for Wayne and the rest of the ATF, Nat Whitmore, a WBZ TV cameraman and spark, was at the scene.

He was a fire buff ever since he was a kid. So he was getting paid as a cameraman every night to be out and chase these fires. I mean, what better job could you ever have? Nat, like the ever-brave John McClain, creeps around the burning lumber yard, looking for the fire starters. Nat came around the corner of one pile of lumber, and he heard this god-awful noise. They were rooting for the fire.

And they were loud, boisterous. A crew of about five. So there's an important difference here. Remember that Nat is a member of the Sparks Association. And when they're cheering on a fire, they're cheering on the fire department, not the fire itself. These guys were weirdly rooting for the fire.

And to Nat, that was shocking. Nat keeps watching this group of guys, all seated on a lumber pile, until one of them, dressed in an Army fatigue jacket, reaches into his coat and draws out a gun. Like in a cross draw and took his handgun out of his shoulder holster. And he waved it in the air for only a couple seconds, as if he was on a bucking bronco. So Nat quickly scrambles for his camera and he begins filming. And the rest of the guys said, oh, you're being filmed, you're being filmed.

So he shoved his gun back in his holster. And one guy covered his head up with his jacket, just jokingly. That one incident was the first big break in this entire case. Nat felt that he had something on video here that might be helpful. But just because you see these guys acting like idiots at a fire scene doesn't mean they're arsonists. But the next day, we went to WBZ Studios and watched the raw footage. They watched the tape, and Nat points out someone familiar. We identified Boston Police Officer Bobby Gabluski, and it caused us at ATF to go interview Gabluski. Now as law enforcement to law enforcement, police to police type of thing.

It's nighttime, and Wayne, along with his partner Bill Murphy, knock on Bobby's door. He welcomed us in to talk. We sit in his living room. He wasn't nervous. He said, you know, I always wanted to be a firefighter. He said, I got the police job because it came up, but I'd still go over to the fire department if I could. And yes, I hang out with these fire guys, these fire buffs, and I go eat at the firehouse. And I have lots of friends who are in the fire department. He said, but I don't know anything about setting fires. After they felt like they got everything they could from Grabulski, they get up to leave. And as they're walking towards the door, something catches Bill's eye.

And on the living room floor was a firebox. Now, fireboxes, you know, full pull boxes. This was peculiar for both Wayne and Bill. What was a firebox doing on the floor of a policeman's apartment instead of on the street where it was meant to be? Now, we've all seen these. They're the red boxes and schools are attached to a pole. You pull the lever, and that alerts the fire department

of where to go for the emergency. And believe it or not, you have Boston to thank for those, along with Dunkin' Donuts, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. How do you like them apples? How do you like them apples? Because of the firebox that's found in Bobby's living room, Wayne and Billy decide to charge Bobby with receiving stolen property. Kind of minor.

It wasn't meant to put pressure on him. You're a police officer who's now charged with a crime. And the city of Boston took his gun away and put him up in what's called a turret. The turret is the dispatch area. So he wasn't on the street anymore. And they were conducting their own investigation. Ultimately, Bobby wasn't convicted on the charge of receiving stolen property. And Wayne and Bill Murphy hit a roadblock.

The head of internal affairs for Boston and Bill's own father-in-law tells them, stay out of it. And he told Billy, you're not welcome here anymore because you're after one of our guys. And we did not talk to Bobby Gabluski again until January 1984, 13 months later. But Wayne isn't deterred. He keeps pounding the pavement, interviewing sources for anything connecting Bobby to the arson ring. And sure enough, 13 months later, Wayne gets a tip connecting Bobby to a stolen cop car. And that's just enough to bring him back in for questioning. They bring Bobby in to the most depressingly beige and fluorescent lit room filled with old equipment

and a hard metal desk. Anyone would cave in that environment. We sat him at the far end of the room, away from the door. He was free to go. We let him know that right away. But Jimmy Carolides took over the interviewing, and Jimmy's walking in his three-piece suit. It was dark gray pinstripes.

I remember it. He had black, heavy glasses on. And his dark gray hair was slicked back. It was starting to bald a lot on the top. Jimmy was a former street cop who also teamed up with Wayne to investigate these fires. And on his off time, Jimmy was an actor. He had his acting card. He did plays, so he could really act. And Jimmy's walking back and forth. Everybody else is seated. And Jimmy's telling Grabluski all sorts of things,

that we have you, Bobby. We have you good this time. It's a felony. You're going to lose your job. You're going to go to jail. You can only save yourself. But then Carolides came up with one line, a line I'll never forget. He said, there's six people in this room with badges,

and only five people deserve to have them. Wayne holds his breath. Bobby's head dropped to his chest. And you're taught in interviewing school, when something like that happens, don't say anything. Don't break that chain. He's ready. He lifted his head up 15, 20, 30 seconds later

and said, what do you want to know? The arson ring was beginning to crack, and Wayne could hardly handle his excitement. My head was spinning. My stomach was churning. I was getting like almost nauseous. I could not believe what was coming out of his mouth. He told us about 29 fires that he was present at and participated in with a crew of four, five, six people. And I was flabbergasted. It was just one of the most amazing feelings you could ever have.

With Bobby's cooperation, the entire conspiracy starts to fall apart. They begin identifying more members of the arson ring, including Joe Gorman. Wanted to be a state trooper, but he was a fire buff. Donald Stackpole. He owned a security company in Boston. And Greg Bemis. The youngest member of this group, he's on the Boston Housing Authority Police. So he's a police officer who wanted to become a full-time Boston firefighter. Hi, my name is Greg Bemis. I was one of the key defendants in the Proposition 2.5 Arson case in Boston in 1982 through 1984. If you remember, we actually met Greg earlier at the Howard Johnson's parking lot.

Back then, Greg was a young guy with the same floppy head of hair and easy smile he sports today, just with a lot less gray. Howard Johnson's, in many ways, was a crossroads moment for Greg. That's where he meets Donald Stackpole, the ringleader.

Here's Greg. He was definitely a horse of a ringleader. Here's Greg. He was definitely a horse of a different color. He was short, he was very stocky, and he had kind of curly hair that was kind of unkempt. Grabluski, he used to call Donnie Skinny. Hey, Skinny! Hairdo was another nickname he had. Because, like I say, his hair was kind of curly and it was, it was always pointing in a different direction. You know, there was no, he didn't use the comb too often. Donald was the

guy in the lot you love to hate. And for better or for worse, Greg was enamored. I will say to some people's credit that, you know, some people have told me, you probably could find a better group of people to hang around with than those guys. That's where I went. And that's how that all went. On November 4th, 1980, which also happens to be Greg's 20th birthday, everything changed. Not only was Reagan elected president, but Proposition 2 1⁄2 passed. The tax-cutting measure we talked about before, which had a massive impact on emergency services, causing several cops and firefighters to lose their jobs. So Greg and his crew wanted to fight fire with fires. The budget cuts were used as the motivation for them to light fires across the city and bring attention to just how valuable first responders are. They wanted to try and get these laid-off cops and firefighters their jobs back.

So we started saying, well, maybe if they had some more fires, they'd get a little more media attention, something that was different. We thought about, well, dumpster fires would be a good way maybe to, if we had a whole bunch of dumpster fires at one time, then maybe the media would pay attention to that. Figuring a dumpster fire is pretty much considered a harmless fire by most firefighters' standards. It's usually outside of a building. But it wasn't enough. The fires had to escalate from there. But where do you go from dumpster fires?

Nobody wanted to really say what the next step would be. The next thing you know, we said, well, how about abandoned buildings? You know, no one's going to get hurt. But, you know, a building fire is a little more spectacular for the news than a dumpster fire is. And they hoped the news would show these fires. But they didn't. The media wasn't paying any attention at all. Eventually they progressed and became bigger and bigger and bigger.

So warehouses sometimes would be that type of a situation. And it just, it ballooned and it became more fires per night and more nights. Greg was usually the one who would actually set the fires. He'd crawl into these abandoned buildings in complete darkness. So you kind of had to work from moonlight or whatever you could see with. A lot of times you didn't want to get too far inside of a building. You know, who knows? I mean, a couple of times there was a couple of wild dogs. All of a sudden you hear paws coming, racing towards you in the middle of the night.

You're thinking, oh boy, I'm going to get attacked by a pit bull, you know? Now to set these various fires, they'd use a deceptively primitive device. Wait, James, should we put a little disclaimer section here? Yeah, it's probably smart. Kids, do not try this at home. So they took a cigarette and stuck it in a box of matches and then attached that to a brown paper sack. Inside this paper sack was a bunch of tissue and a Ziploc bag filled with Coleman fuel. They'd light the cigarette and walk away. That's about all it really needed.

Pour it in the bag and then close the zip tie, the zip on the top of it. They called it La Bomba. L-A-B-O-M-B-A. Not to be confused with the Richie Valens classic, La Bomba, L-A-B-A-M-B-A. Subtle difference. In the first couple of fires, everybody's really on edge and very nervous about the whole thing because it's like,

who's going to see us, who's going to catch us, what's going to go wrong, and all this stuff. And as time goes on and there's not even the remote chance that anything is going to go wrong, we became a little more emboldened. And then we almost got to the point where we're saying to myself, I don't think anybody's even looking to find out what's going on. Finally, they started to get some media attention.

And then the media finally picked up the fact that there was a pattern there, and they said, this is happening the same night of the week, every week, when it happens. So then in the newspapers, they started saying, the Friday firebug strikes again was the headline in the paper. That showed up a couple of times. Which delighted Greg Bemis and the rest of the arsonists. Like any good villain, they finally had a nickname. Okay, I know what you're thinking.

Friday firebug, Mr. Flair. We've heard these names before. But it sounds different coming directly from the source. It makes you wonder, when Greg Bemis and his crew were planting La Bambas all over town, just how close were Wayne and the investigators getting? And then, of course, the investigators started zeroing in on that particular night because they knew the odds were pretty good that that was the night they were going to catch somebody if they were going to catch anybody at all.

So then that's when we started changing the nights. And it changed from a Thursday night maybe to a Saturday or a Sunday night. And then it was a Wednesday night. These maniacs became so brazen. They actually started driving around in a decommissioned police car that had a vanity plate reading arson, which is really aggressive. They were hiding in plain sight and not very well. It became basically a game of cat and mouse.

From 1982 till about 1984, this arson group was likely responsible for more than 200 fires, injuring many firefighters. These guys wanted to save firefighters' jobs, but instead, they ended up hurting them. On July 26, 1984, the arsonists were officially charged and finally arrested for one of the largest arson cases, not only in Boston, but in the entire United States. It's the early morning. Wayne and a couple other ATF agents are casing Greg's apartment. Wayne begins creeping along the side of the building, gun in hand, while his backup agents flank the other sides of the building. He takes a breath and peeks in through the window of Greg's first-floor apartment.

Here's Wayne. I was looking in windows, and I came to the bedroom, and I could see Greg laying, sleeping in bed, because it was just about 6.30, 7 a.m. in the morning. I tapped on the window frame, and Greg got up, and I said, Greg, don't move. That's Wayne Miller and I have my gun pointed right at you. And here's Wayne Miller outside the window peeking in at me.

And that's when I got arrested was that morning. Boy, what a way to wake up. A total of seven guys were rounded up and arrested, including Greg Bemis, Bobby Grabluski, and Donald Stackpole. With all of these arrests, the city of Boston could finally sleep in peace. Oh, my God. Of course, we were thrilled that they were captured, but disgusted. We couldn't believe, you know, it was hard to believe that so many of them, I still can't believe it after all these years that they did it just for that. But yeah, it was great. The more the merrier. The more they arrest, the better. Two involved in the arson ring were

tried and convicted, with others pleading guilty. Now, as far as we know, only one has ever publicly expressed remorse, our own Mr. Flair, Craig Bemis. I have to regret the fact that the whole thing ever even happened. It seems like a nightmare, even today, that, you know, what happened from, like I say, it all started that November 4th, 1980. And I made a lot of bad mistakes. Other people made bad mistakes. And, you know, ultimately, I think everybody pretty much paid the price.

And it's over. It's done. Sometimes even with good intentions, bad things can happen. Eventually, the city had enough funds to hire back some of the let-go first responders, including firefighters. But Prop 2 1⁄2 was never rescinded and is still in effect today. Greg served around 10 years in prison, and it wasn't until later that he and retired ATF agent Wayne Miller reconnected.

I was out at a restaurant that I kind of frequented quite a bit. You know, go there and have a drink or two and have dinner. And I knew a lot of people that were patrons there. And I knew all the people that worked there. It was an Applebee's restaurant. From Howard Johnson's to Applebee's, I love it. What's next? Bloomin' Onion at Outback? Outbake. So I'm sitting and I'm talking to some people I know and I'm hearing this voice and I wasn't looking over to see where it was coming from. I heard this voice and I said, that voice sounds awful familiar. So I get up to go to the restroom and I walk past and I look and I go, oh, I know who that is. So I went to the restroom, and I come back, and I tapped him on the shoulder.

He was surprised, you know. It was Wayne. We talked for a little while and this and that. And then, again, we didn't see each other for quite a while. And then something funny, too, is when I wrote the book, and my website has a phone number or something, right? Yeah. But Greg called me up in the evening hours or something or something. Yes. Yeah. But Greg called me up in the evening hours or something for the first time.

Yeah. Yeah. My wife goes, it's Greg. And I go, Greg? It's Greg Bemis. And when she realized who it was, it was like, what's he doing calling here? Yeah. Get the phone number off the website. And funny enough, their friendship actually continues today. They still go out for coffee and the occasional birthday dinner with or without candles. Who's to say? Man,

it's a little strange. An ATF agent and a former arsonist that he put away becoming friends? Yeah. That's stranger than fiction, man. We love this stuff. That's true. Yeah. Even Wayne feels that way. There are a lot of mixed feelings.

Greg was the youngest member of the group. Greg's mom died when he was like 16 years old from cancer. He was very close to his mom. She was a fire buff and took him to firehouses and fire scenes when he was a young guy. For Greg, the loss of his mother was devastating. He would often go to her grave, and instead of leaving flowers, he would set these small fires at her gravestone. It was a fitting tribute for a person who ignited his love of fire.

On the other hand, Greg is the one who came up with the device. Greg's car was used the most. It was Greg's idea to do the letter with the okay of the group. It was Greg who put the letter together, but he testified for us. He finally rolled over and he testified brilliantly. He knew his information. He didn't get shaken. And for that, Wayne is grateful. But I don't think Greg got any points for taking on the persona of Mr. Flair. Which, James, in my opinion, feels like it's straight out of a DC comic book. Well, to me, Mr. Flair sounds like a professional wrestler.

I mean, just imagine it. Macho man Randy Savage, SummerSlam versus Mr. Flair. That's right, brother. I'm Mr. Flair. You just can't make this stuff up. I would pay good money to watch Mr. Flair take on Macho Man Randy Savage

at SummerSlam. I'd pay good money to have you talk like that for an entire day. On the next episode, two hackers, the state of Iowa, and a break-in gone horribly wrong. I remember asking Justin, I said, what do you want to do? And he said, we set the alarm off, let's see if anybody comes.

And we couldn't have been in there more than like a minute, and we saw lights. That's next week on Scam Town. Scam Town is an Apple original podcast produced by Fun Meter. New episodes come out each Monday. If you want to check out a few extras from our show, you can find us at Fun Meter Official on Instagram. The show is hosted and executive produced by us. I'm Brian Lozarte. And I'm James Lee Hernandez. Maggie Robinson Katz produced this episode.

Clarissa Sosen was our researcher. Our senior producer is Christopher Olin. Our co-executive producers are Shannon Pence, Nicole Laufer, and Matt Kay. Our consulting producer for this episode is Wayne Miller. The show was edited and sound designed by Jude Brewer. Final mixing by Ben Freer from Fiddle Leaf Sound. Music for the podcast was composed by James Newberry. Additional music by Five Alarm.

The production would like to thank the Boston Globe and Appian Way. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.