True Crime Campfire - Episode 30: Trouble 0-7: A Wannabe Spy and the Con Man Who Loved Him, Pt. 2

Episode Date: January 17, 2020

In Part 1 we introduced you to chronic spendaholic and solider-boy wannabe Mark Avery, who should have been happy as an ocean full of clams with his INHERITED, 600k a year job as trustee of the Smith family trust, but who instead managed to hemorrhage money so badly that he sunk himself into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt in the first six months of the gig. And his buddy Rob Kane, or should I say “COMMANDER” Rob Kane, a wannabe Jason Bourne who liked to spin wild stories about his alleged “covert ops” work with the CIA and FBI. When these two put their knuckle-heads together and started fantasizing about creating their very own air force, they set about bilking the Smith trust for all they could bilk, and the employees at their newly acquired aviation company were starting to feel like they were living in a bad movie. Suddenly there were guns everywhere, state of the art security, and talk of safe houses and terrorists and interrogations. It was all a bit…much. And nobody could figure out how much of it was real and how much was just a very expensive game of “Soldier Boy.” Join us now for Part 2 of this wild story.Sources:CNBC's "American Greed," Episode "Top Gun of Fraud"https://smithct.org/about-the-trust/may-and-stanley-smithhttps://www.courthousenews.com/13-years-for-52m-milking-of-widows-trust/https://www.justice.gov/usao-ak/pr/former-anchorage-prosecutor-sentenced-over-13-years-prison-massive-wire-fraud-and-moneyhttps://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-Wealth-prestige-gone-a-lawyer-2588112.phpFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, in part one, we introduced you to chronic spendaholic and soldier boy wannabe Mark Avery, who should have been happy as an ocean. full of clams with his inherited 600k a year job as trustee of the Smith family trust, but who instead managed to hemorrhage money so badly that he sunk himself into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt in the first six months of the gig. And his buddy Rob Kane, or should I say Commander Rob Kane. No, I shouldn't because he was not commander of anything, no matter how often he insisted on being called one, a wannabe Jason Bourne, who liked to spin wild stories about his alleged

covert ops work with the CIA and FBI. When these two put their knuckleheads together and started fantasizing about creating their very own Air Force, they set about bilking the Smith Trust for all they could bilk, and the employees at their newly acquired aviation company were starting to feel like they were living in a bad movie. Suddenly there were guns everywhere, state-of-the-art security, and talk of safe houses and terrorists and interrogations. It was all a bit much, and nobody could figure out how much of it was real and how much was just a very expensive game of Soldier Boy. Join us now for part two of Trouple O7, a wannabe spy and the con man who loved him.

And meanwhile, during their off hours, Mark and Rob enjoyed their toys. expensive homes trips on the planes no charge of course fine dining their yachts and their RVs and their snowmobiles and all that and it wasn't until the end of july that mark informed the other trustees that he'd bought an aviation company instead of the two jets that they'd originally planned to buy and during that meeting they realized that mark had already blown through $43 million of his $50 million allotment Jesus Murphy $43 million in literally less than three months. Yeah, so I understand context is important.

So for context, that means they were spending $55,000 every single day. Now, that's if they didn't take the weekends off. If they did, it was more like $800,000 a day. Jeez. A day. Yeah. That is almost three Lamborghinisies. purchased on every weekday.

That's just been... Or like a fabulous home. Yeah. In like the really rich neighborhood. Every day. Every day. For a more sobering example, rent and anchorage is on average $1,000. These morons could be personally housing, feeding, and educating thousands of people

with the money they're blowing to pretend to be macho men. It's absolutely fucking pathetic. Yeah, it sure as hell is. And I imagine the other trustees were furious, but at this point, what could they do? I mean, the money was gone. It was sunk into this aviation company. And I'm sure that Avery didn't mention all the personal debt that he'd paid off and all the toys he'd bought for himself and Rob. So I think they just figured, like, we got to just hope that this works out, you know, what else can they do?

So he got away with it, at least at that point. So Mark and Rob hired a retired. Air Force pilot named Joe Griffith, and this poor guy would do his best to be the voice of reason for these two idiots. How do we think he's going to do? Great, right? Yeah, I'm not optimistic either. But Griffith was the real deal.

He was a Vietnam veteran. He'd flown almost 300 combat missions during his time in the Air Force. So he knew what he was doing. Yeah. And by the time he came on board in August 2005, Mark Avery and Rob Kane had bought eight L-39s, which are Czech fighter planes that the Soviets used to use for combat training. eight of them campers. Yeah, not one. They never bought one of anything. He was like, here's six helicopters, eight jets. Just in case. Just in case, I guess, seven of them break down. Right.

So Griffith told American Greed that he didn't think Mark and Rob had any plans for these planes whatsoever. He says he thinks they bought them because, quote, they had a lot of money and they thought they were cute airplanes, which I, this guy, I am his number one fan. I love this Air Force guy called them cute airplanes because I could not imagine a thing that is more patronizing to these two idiots than this actual badass being like, yeah, they thought they were adorable. And I also love that he's like, you know, confident enough in himself to be like, yeah, they're cute airplanes. You know, whereas Mark Avery and Rob Kane would be like, yeah, they're badass, man, they could bomb the shit out of, you know, our enemies. and this guy's like, good, cute airplanes, and he's the actual badass, which I find to be true in real life as well.

Like, people who have actually had experience in badassery, you know, of all genders, they don't usually tend to be the ones who are bragging about it, like Rob Kane. That's a red flag. If somebody's bragging that they're a badass, they're probably not a badass, just FYI. So, because bad asses will say, those are cute airplanes because they're confident. They don't need that. Right, right, exactly. And one of these planes had Commander R.F. Kane painted on the side.

Again, we cannot repeat this enough. This man child was not a pilot. Nope. He was also not a commander, for that matter. Just a giant dipshit who wanted to play black ops and managed to luck into a friendship with a guy damn enough to play with him with 50 million stolen dollars. And one of the grossest things about this case for me is that Mark Avery knew about May Wong-Smith's Alzheimer's. And he later flat out admitted that in court, that that was a big reason why he thought he could get away with this. Because she wasn't compisementous.

I mean, she wasn't together enough mentally to keep track of what was happening with her money. So that's just disgusting. And before you start thinking, well, I don't have any sympathy for her. She's still super wealthy with the $50 million she has left or whatever. Let us make just a few points for you about that. Yeah, so first, May Wong Smith and her husband were a rare species of millionaire. They really do seem to have worked to make the world better. Stanley left most of his estate to charity.

And believe me, when I tell you, if Mark Avery had been allowed to keep this shit up, he 100% would have gone through every red cent of May's money. Absolutely. He would have left her penniless if he could have. I have no doubt about that. Yeah, me either. So if these dipshits hadn't been caught when they were, an 80-something-year-old lady with Alzheimer's, one who had devoted much of her life to charity work could have been left out on the streets.

Yep. Not okay. Not to mention the fact that upon her death, May's trust was supposed to be absorbed into the charitable trust so that whatever was left would go to help the homeless and veterans and people with disabilities. So Mark Avery wasn't just stealing from May Smith. He was stealing from countless numbers of people who could have benefited from that $50 million. Absolutely. So anyway, retired Air Force fighter Joe Griffith came on board and saw that these two idiots had essentially purchased a fleet of fighter jets with no plan in mind.

So he came up with some ideas for how to use them and to make money off of them. They could let the military use them for combat training, for example. Mark and Rob seemed to like us. idea. And they put the word out for experienced pilots. And they managed to attract more talented former Air Force pilots like Griffith. You know, people who had actually done the kind of stuff that Mark and Rob had wet dreams about doing. I'm positive that they had constant hard-ons the entire time. This was going on. You know they did. You know they did. And it all chugged along swimmingly for a while. But soon it became apparent to retired fighter.

pilot, Joe Griffith, that nothing was actually happening to put his plan into action. They'd attracted all these top-notch pilots. They had all these expensive jets, but they didn't have a plan to move things forward. Griffith said it was like pulling teeth to get

these two guys to move on anything he suggested. Because they didn't want to, they didn't want to move forward. I think literally what they both wanted was just to have the atmosphere of like the Air Force and spies and Black Ops like everywhere around them and to like direct these military guys, and pretend that they were generals or something.

I don't know. That seems to be what they wanted. Yeah, I think that's probably the case. Oh, God. Lord have mercy. These guys. Yeah. The people at security aviation started to get the sinking feeling that what was really

going on here was an elaborate fantasy, with Rob Kane calling the shots and Mark Avery lapping it up. And before long, whispers started spreading that Rob Kane was planning to, to involve the company in covert missions with the government, spy stuff, black op stuff. Ooh, baby. Their plan, such as it was, was to pass the planes off as Medivac so they could fly into hot zones and grab up terrorists and other high-value targets, like dignitaries, etc. Then they deliver the targets to the government for protection or interrogation or waterboarding

or whatever the hell it is they do. Right. Just standard procedure type stuff. No big deal. And also, I am also sure that any and every time they used a phrase like hot zone, they also got a hard on. Definitely. Definitely. It was all supposed to be in conjunction with the FBI and the CIA, like you do.

Yeah. Now, of course, all the beefed up security measures made sense. And that room full of weapons and ammo and hand grenades at the downtown office, that made sense too. along with the guys walking around with guns. So security aviation had, in the span of a couple of months, gone from a boring but bustling charter plane company to the flippin' born supremacy. This must have just been surreal for the employees. I mean, I bet people were just dropping like flies.

Because I wouldn't want to go to work if there were freaks walking around with guns and, like, keeping hand grenades in the supply closet, you know. But I bet there was like one guy who worked in the mail room who thought it was just awesome. Awesome. Yeah, and his name was probably Chad. Or Brad. Brad or Thad. Yeah, Brad Chad Thad was into it. Brad Chad Thad was all over it. They'd even set up bedrooms and showers in the downtown office building. They said that they were safe houses for their agents. Oh, for God's sake. I can't even get through that sentence without laughing. God. So the townspeople of Anchorage were getting a little squirrely about all. all this. I'm freaking bet. I mean, they're seeing these fighter jet zipping around and these dudes in black SUVs with tinted windows and guys in military garb with guns on their backs. I mean,

talk about bringing terrorists into town. Yeah, that's scary. It was worrying. Police got a lot of calls about it. And anybody who tried to talk sense into boss man, Mark Avery, about all this, came against a brick wall. Rob Kane had said this. This would work. And as far as Mark was concerned, Rob was a god. What he said was gospel. Great, googly-moogly. Again, it would be sad if it wasn't so funny. So all of this, as you can imagine, was expensive as all hell. And what most people consider to be the apex of this extravaganza of ridiculous spending came in 2005. Rob Kane had been talking about wanting a rare World War II

era fighter plane called the Corsair. So a Corsair is one of the most dangerous planes to fly, so much so that the Navy calls it the Ensign Killer, which is lovely and must do wonders for morale. I mean, apparently even experienced pilots wipe out on this thing on the regular.

And remember, neither Rob Kane nor Mark Avery had a pilot's license. But Rob wanted this plane, because you know, reasons. I guess he felt it would magically grow the size of his penis or something. So for his birthday, Mark Avery bought his bro a flippin Corsair for $2.4 million. Wow. A plane the man cannot fly, and even if he had a pilot's license, would not be well advised to fly because it's the Ensign killer for $2.4 million.

2.4 million of May Smith's money. Hold on a second. I'm going to send Mark Avery a quick friend request on Facebook because generally it pays to be his friend. But in all serious, Stanley Smith must have been rolling in his grave. He set up his wife, the love of his life, to live comfortably, live out her years. And these morons were spending it on fucking murderous planes. Yeah. And Mark and Rob were acting like everything they were doing was part of some shadowy covert operation between them and the CIA, very cloak and dagger. But in reality, what little progress they had made toward working with the government to fulfill Griffith's

plan to let the military use their jets to train combat pilots, what they had done was totally above board. There was nothing covert about it. And for some reason, these two dipshits couldn't seem to compute that it was a really stupid idea to pretend that you were involved in secret operations with the government if you weren't. That just staggers me that they couldn't compute that that's a bad idea. Yeah. They were just so caught up in their little sad James Bond fantasy that they couldn't see straight. And Griffith, the retired Air Force fighter pilot, tried to tell Mark Avery that, but as usual,

he couldn't get past Mark's hero worship of his bro Rob Kane. So Mark just didn't want to hear it. And there was another problem. Some of the jets they'd bought weren't safe to fly. Their instrumentation was wonky or didn't work at all. They hadn't been flown in months or years. And Griffith refused to fly him. He's like, they're not safe.

And then in the winter of 06, Mark and Rob got into a dispute overpayment with one of the companies that they bought planes from. And the company sent a pilot named Stephen Freeman to come and repo one of the jets. His plan was to fly the jet back to the cellar in Illinois. And Griffith tried to tell him not to do it. He said, this plane isn't safe. you're taking your life into your hands, but Freeman didn't take his advice, sadly, and he crashed into a mobile home park and died, bless his heart.

And the official report cited pilot error. Griffith thinks he most likely had inadequate instrumentation. This guy had a wife and kids. So it's really sad. And the FBI had been watching Mark and Rob and security aviation for a while now, which, you know, tends to happen when you spread it around that you're involved in covert government ops when you're not. And when this young pilot died, that told them, okay, it's time to make a move.

These guys were terrifyingly irresponsible and they needed to be shut down. In February, federal agents descended on security aviation and on Rob Cain's house to execute one of the most extensive search warrants in Alaskan history. In Rob Cain's house, they found a wannabe James Bond starter kit, fake badges and Navy SEAL ID. And one of those fake badges, by the way, was an FBI badge. which don't do that That is not smart The yeah

The government tends to not take kindly to that And back at the airport They found something that scared the ever-loving shit out of them Which was a pair of rocket pod launchers For the L39 fighter jets Yeeks right These could fire missiles These could hurt people

These were in the hands of man children So the feds seized them and some of the fighter jets that hadn't been demilitarized, as they call it, and could potentially do some damage. And they charged Rob Kane with unlawful possession of destructive devices. Unfortunately, though, he was acquitted. When Griffith took the stand and argued that the pods weren't dangerous, they were just for show, there were no missiles in them or anything.

So I guess because they, you know, they didn't have any missiles at the moment. That was all fine, right? To stall for funsies. No problem. Really? Really, jury? So the government was pretty pissed about the acquittal, but by then they'd started digging into something even more tantalizing than the rocket pods. Namely, where the hell were these guys getting the money for all this?

They caught the stinky scent of fraud in the air, campers, and they were on it like bloodhounds on the trail. And in the midst of all that, less than a year from the day Mark Avery took over security aviation, I think it was like eight or nine months. The parties seemed to be pretty much over. Mark and Rob at this point were desperate for money. the company was in heavy debt again how the hell is that possible you had access to 50 million flippity flapping dollars you hose bags i don't understand but they were in huge debt they were hemorrhaging money they couldn't pay the company's bills they couldn't buy parts or fuel for the planes they were having trouble making payroll then they stopped making payroll at all people were getting laid off so again this is the human cost here it's not just about may smith and it's not just about

the people that might have benefited from that money charitably, it's also about the people at security aviation who got laid off and lost their livelihoods, right? Because, you know, here's the thing. These jackholes were not running an actual business at all. They were literally

two adult men who were just playing soldier spies with Mace Smith's trust money. In six months, Mark Avery had burned through $53 million in six months campers. So, they started frantically trying to liquidate everything that they could. And they sold a bunch of the jets that they'd only just bought months before, and they sold them for a fraction of what they paid for them. Rob Kane's birthday present Corsair went for a million dollars. He'd paid 2.4 only months before. And of course, this was not enough to dig them out of the hole. And on top of that, the FBI found out that Mark had never kept his fellow trustees a prize of anything he was up to. And I'm sure when they found out they were furious, they fired. They fired.

him as a trustee. So now Mark has lost his $600,000 a year salary, which again should have been more than enough by itself to give him a lifestyle that most people on Earth would never get to experience and would kill for. And of course, Avery's response

to all this was to declare bankruptcy. I hate this guy. Oh my God, I hate this guy. So, Mark Avery made a deal. He pled guilty to being a bad trustee which is essentially something called honest services fraud, which falls under the category of wire fraud. I'd say that's an understatement, but yeah.

Yeah. A judge gave him eight years in prison in Texas. Two years later, though, in 2010, the Supreme Court made a ruling that basically undid convictions for honest services fraud. Mark Avery appealed, won and was released from prison. He moved to California. How nice for him. Oh, shit. Yeah.

Yeah. But there's a silver lining campers. The feds decided to go after him for theft instead of honest services fraud. They went after him for money laundering and straight up wired fraud. He wasn't just a bad trustee, they argued. He was a thief. He went to trial in 2016 and as so often happens in these situations, despite his former hero worship of his bro,

Mark took the stand and blamed the whole thing on Rob Kane. No, I thought this was a love story for the ages. I thought this was the bromance to end all bromances. You're telling me he turned on Rob? Yeah. I have given up on love, Katie. I know. I know.

It's heartbreaking. I'm sad now. Yeah. So sadly, yes, that's what happened. He said, I was a bit of a sucker. Oh. You think? You think?

He said Rob basically led him down a primrose path. Rob had filled his head with these ideas if Robb, Robert connections. Rob had assured him that as long as they bought these planes and hired these pilots, the government contracts would start rolling in. And he argued that his intentions were nothing but pure from the very beginning. All he wanted to do was invest May Smith's money wisely. Grow the trust, be a good trustee. Yeah. That all sounded nice and all, but then the prosecutor showed the jury a home movie from the day Mark gave him. Rob that $2.4 million

Corseer with Commander Rob Candy Cain painted on the door. Candy cane. And that was pretty much the nail in the coffin. Because there's no way in all seven hells that you buy your buddy a $2.4

million jet for his birthday if your goal is to simply buy planes for government work. It's a blatant example of the ridiculous overspending that went on in the eight months they had run security aviation.

Mark's ex-wife took the stand at 1.2, and she just seemed sad and bewildered and disappointed. She didn't get it. They'd had a happy life together before Mark got all this money. They had a family. Her main question seemed to be why. Why did you do all this? I can help you with that, Mrs. X. Mark Avery, because he and his bro are massive twats who wanted to pretend they were Jason Bore. that's why and what would your movie be called do we think because always the born something the born absurdity I kind of like the born absurdity yeah I think the born absurdity has to be it I can't even I can't even fathom I just I would just want to call him fucking morons over and over again I think that would make me feel better it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that

Mark Avery was convicted on 11 counts of wire fraud and money laundering The judge sentenced him to 13 years, four months in prison. Which I love that he got more time the second time around. That's delightful. Oh, so good. Rob Cain. Rob Candy Cain, excuse me. Candy Cain.

By the way, was never charged, which is infuriating, really. Oh, God, yes. I mean, he wasn't holding the credit card, so I get it. But fuck. Yeah, it's super annoying. During Mark Avery's trial, by the way, Rob admitted in court that he lied about his past. and Assistant U.S. Attorney Scrocky read the jury a statement that both the prosecution and the defense had agreed upon about Rob's actual work with the government back in the 90s. It contained the following information.

Rob, who, by the way, was the son of a police officer, provided some information about the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, a few drug dealers and fraudsters to the Anchorage FBI field office in the early 90s. He received two grand for this. From 1999 to 2005, he did some similar stuff for the Tampa FBI office, this time having to do with fraud. He'd also worked as a source for the Bureau in other countries. For example, his wife is from the Philippines, and he gave the FBI some information about a terrorist group there at one point. The problem was, the FBI could only confirm some of what he said. and they came to view him as a high-maintenance source and a name-dropper with no real connection with those so-named.

Kane has overstated facts, fabricated stories, and fabricated operations. This last bit was a direct quote from the statement read in court. On the stand, Kane admitted to fabricating stories and abelishing his past. He tried to play some of it off as necessity for gathering intelligence. yeah but it was pretty clear to everyone that this guy was by and large a fraud and if you google his name and i was just delighted to the tips of my toes by this you'll find a blog called i shit you not rob cane a scout of true freedom i am not making this up it purports to be written by someone who is not rob cane

a guy named Rob Stapleton, who lists himself as affiliated with an outfit called Freedom of Thought News. Oh, boy. I think we're all getting a good mental picture of that, right? But we have some doubts, for what I suspect are obvious reasons. And one of the blog entries from 2008 reads as follows in full, enjoy. Rob Kane disappeared, mispelled. Anchorage, Alaska, Jan 29, 2008. 8. Early this month, I received a message that former Alaskan Rob Kane had been found dead

in the Philippines by his wife, Karen. The message came from a contact of Keynes that I was familiar with, only by name. I'm sorry, I just can't even read it without laughing. Other than that, one message, no other contact has been possible. According to the brief dispatch, he had been pushed or jumped from a building near or in the place they were living on the island of Mendanao. Neither email, telephone, or Skype contact was ever returned by Kane or his wife Karen. My efforts to contact Kane have failed, but according to bloggers and newspaper reporters, there was no story or information about his death or the death of a U.S. citizen during that

same time period. The mystery of Rob Kane continues, this time with his disappearance, or death. Stay tuned. How could you not? And a 2010 entry claims that unknown persons had contacted Stapleton to tell him that Rob Cain was alive and well in living in Oklahoma. But as recently as 2012, this mysterious blogger says he hasn't heard from Trouble 07 recently, so who knows? I'm getting whiplash over here. Can you just tell me if he's alive or not?

I think he's probably doing just fine, yeah. Who knows? Who knows? He's probably, you know, deep undercover right now. So to wrap up a few details and loosens, the original owner of security aviation bought the company back and got it back on its feet. So at least there's that. Hopefully those people who got laid off got their jobs back. May Wong Smith died shortly thereafter, leaving very little to add to the charitable trusts, which sucks. Mark Avery is appealing his conviction, still claiming to be innocent, which just, wow, just blows my mind. So I can't imagine what the hell they were thinking. Campers, Katie, everybody. can you like how did they think this was going to end like are people like this just incapable of thinking like that like caring about any moment that's not just right now yeah what the hell i think in general these types of people meaning con men man children con man children con man children i like it um they actually don't even have the concept of consequences for their

They just live in the now. They're just constantly, what can I get out of the situation now that will benefit me? Yeah. And I think we do have two different types here, two different personality types. They're both man-babies. And if they're con artists, they're fingerprint artists. But anyway, you know, like when you fingerprint and kindergarten. But I think that Kane is in some ways more of what you're describing.

Like, I don't give a crap about tomorrow. I'm just living in the now. This is the guy that Scrocky described as running around the world and trying to gather information and sell it to the government. Like, that's just not a typical thing for people to do. So that takes a certain type of personality. And I'm sure there's like some degree of risk involved. I mean, he was informing on drug dealers. That's not super safe, right?

Sure. Very impulsive, not a lot of ability to put off short-term gratification for long-term gain, you know. And on Mark Avery's side, I think Avery is probably just very deeply insecure. and he just hero worshiped this guy because he bought his bullshit, which that alone is astonishing, because I think most people saw him for exactly what he was. And I think Mark Avery was going along for the ride to some extent. I think he probably believed Rob Kane when he said,

hey, I've got all these government contacts, we'll make it work, we'll get this money back. And also, I think he genuinely had an addiction to spending. Yeah, and I mean, at a certain point, there's the sunk cost fallacy where I'm already, you know, I've already spent $47 million. Oh, right, right, yeah. So I need to keep believing this lie that it will work out. Yeah, that's what keeps a lot of people ensnared in a scam because, you know, if you've already, like, you met this guy online and he claims he's an American soldier living in Nigeria

and doing business out there or whatever and that he's got a $5 million inheritance coming to him and he just needs some help in the meantime until it's ready and then he'll come over and marry you. And, you know, we've all seen Dr. Phil, right? So if you're deep enough into that and you've already sold your car and emptied your retirement plan to send this guy money, your choice at that point is to either admit to yourself, I've lost all this money because I got scammed and I was dumb. You know, it's how you're probably feeling. I'm not saying those people are dumb because often they're not dumb. They're just wrapped up in a fantasy, which can happen to anybody.

But they're feeling like, oh, I'm stupid. I fell for the, you know, do you want to admit that? that to yourself and kiss that money goodbye? Or do you want to keep holding on to a threat of hope that if I just keep going, it'll pay off? Right. So you just get sucked deeper and deeper into the scam. And it's when people finally get ready to admit that they got got that they can get out. Yeah. And the thing about Mark Avery that I find fascinating too is that he's not this like guileless victim in this. Oh, hell no. Uh-uh. He was. fully ready to scam an old woman out of this money because, one, she was worthless to him

aside from what she could provide in her money. And two, she was going to die. So what does it matter? Right. Exactly. I think if he thought of her at all, he definitely didn't see her as a real person who mattered. Correct. And I don't think he saw his wife and kids as real people who mattered. Look at what happened with them. His marriage broke up as a result of all this. He certainly couldn't have been thinking about his kids while he's spending these obscene amounts of money on himself on his little sad soldier boy fantasy instead of putting the money away for them. Right. And instead of ensuring that their dad stays out of prison, you know?

So, yeah, they're both gross assholes in different ways, I guess is what I'm saying. Oh, and by the way, I love this. Mark Avery's sister told a reporter that she pitied her brother and wasn't surprised by what happened. She said, I shit you not. I feel sorry for him because he said, so simple. I've always thought he was a bit of a simpleton. Dang! Dang, sis. Ouch. If my brother ever gets in any trouble for anything, please remind me of that quote. So I can burn his dumb ass. I'm kidding. I love you, bro. So this was a wild one, right, campers? You know we'll have another one for you next week.

But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire and we want to send a shout out to our newest patrons thank you so much to valerie and joni we appreciate you to the moon and back and if you haven't signed up to be a patron yet you're missing out we offer our patrons an extra episode every month and you get every episode a day early plus you get a free sticker when you sign up and soon we'll have more merch some free some discounted yeah can't lose right you can follow us on twitter at tc campfire instagram at true crime Campfire and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras, please consider becoming a patron

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