Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Lady Mafia | 5. Losing at the Wynn

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Sara wins at the slots, usually a sucker’s game. In no time, she’s a high roller and to keep her gambling, the casino lets her stay for free at a villa that costs more than $6000 a night. Sara finds new investors at the Wynn and has an epiphany about why they treat her like a King.  Unwrap a huge holiday discount on NordVPN by heading to nordvpn.com/binge Plus, with our link, you’ll get an extra 4 months free on the 2-year plan and it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Check the link in the description. Listen to all episodes of LadyMafia ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge, feed your true crime obsession. The Binge. On the surface, Sarah seems very open. But I know from talking with her all these months that her stories have a tendency to

change. It's tough to figure out what her motive was. Did she intentionally con investors? Or did she think she was running a legit business? Or maybe she started out thinking she would run things the right way, but just kept fucking up. And instead of coming clean, Sarah got deeper into denial as she was getting deeper in the hole. So I'm sitting in her office one day.

This is George Polos, one of her company's investors. You remember him from the last episode. At this point, George had a feeling that her hard money lending company was bullshit, but he was still hoping to get his 125K back. So he stuck close to Sara. One day, he was visiting Sara's office in Fashion Island. I pull up in my truck, I see a tow truck out there.

And it's right next to her Rolls. As he parked, he saw Sara's Rolls-Royce, the one she had wrapped white on white with a navy blue soft top. I mean, I watched it get repossessed. The guy's loaded on a flatbed. He's got it out there, he's cranking that thing right up. And I run into the office. I go, Sarah, they're taking your car.

She goes, oh well. She didn't even like flinch. I go, how are you gonna get home? I'll walk. And you could see the scared look in her eye, like what the fuck? It's all coming down. Sarah was trying to play it cool,

but George could tell how freaked out she was. You could see it. I mean, her eyes were like, boop. Now, was that chemicals or her? That I don't know, but I saw that look. It was the ultimate irony. Sarah was supposed to be taking possession of luxury cars as collateral, and one of her

investors watched her lose her own vehicle. Sarah had leased this fancy ass Rolls, didn't make payments, and the lender repossessed the car. Navy blue, soft top and all. And according to George, this repo man wasn't the worst guy after her. When that Hells Angels guy, he told me, he goes, I'll go into her house and I'll chop her up in little pieces right in her bed. I was like, uh-oh. Sara needed to make herself scarce and find a whole new pool of investors. And where better

than Las Vegas. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is Lady Mafia. It's a story about going from lawyer to lawless, living high and blowing millions. I'm Michelle McPhee. This is episode five, Losing at the Win. So I first came to Edward Jones with a great deal of trepidation. When I first met with my advisor, I really was feeling vulnerable about what I would have to share. I was of course pleasantly surprised to find that there was absolutely no judgment and a lot of support.

And when it was time to get serious, he really took my hand and helped me to do that. Edward Jones. We do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different. Take back your free time with PC Express online grocery delivery and pickup. Score in-store promos, PC optimum points, and more free time. And still get groceries. Shop now at pcexpress.ca. When the shit started to hit the fam back in the OC, Sara went on the hunt for new money. She was flying to Vegas, making connections,

trying to get her Nevada lending license. And she started courting a new, fabulously rich investor, Laurent Reis, the childhood friend of her husband's. One night he says, talk to my friend Laurent, you know, he's loaded and he could probably partner with you. Laurent is a private investor who used to manage a Swiss bank in Monaco. Laurent is married to an heiress, part of a Monaco real estate dynasty. And if Getty Images is to be believed, she's also quite the socialite. He looked vaguely

famous, almost like Ben Affleck playing a Swiss banker. But do you want to know what was really special about Laurent? He had access to a whole new level of wealth. Cameron said, you have to fight in New York, you have to meet Laurent. Cameron would later tell us in an email, Looking back, introducing them is my biggest regret. That's not Cameron himself. We got a friend of the podcast to read it. But Cameron did tell us he had no idea. He was setting up one of his oldest friends to be swindled. Sarah met Laurent at the Soho Grand, a classic New York boutique hotel.

It's the kind of place that's old school stylish. A lot of squishy leather chairs, heavy curtains. He actually had this little private room at the top of the stairs from the lobby that he was sitting in. He had jeans on and a long-sleeved black shirt. He had a little jacket over it. Sarah was wearing black leather pants, a white collared shirt. He's actually really chill.

He's a very, very nice, cool guy. He was sitting there with Cameron, and I was a little bit late because Cameron and I had a fight, of course. She sat down with the two men and started chatting. And that's when she said she got a message from John McCabe, a photo of collateral for a potential loan. Remember, John McCabe's lawyer declined to comment on his behalf on this or anything else. And as we were talking, John sent me a text saying, oh, this guy has this Patek Philippe worth a million dollars. Can you get a loan on it? And right in front of Laurent, I mean, the texts were

coming in and I showed it to him. She showed Laurent photos of the watch. And he's all excited like just crazy excited. And Laurent is not a regular guy like George Polos. Laurent is a financial professional who has a prestigious banking career. So why might Laurent be persuaded by a photo of a watch? Well for one, Sarah was offering an unusually large return. She says that she offered Laurent an average of 9% a month. And I think Sarah helped him make the final leap of faith because she was saying that she'd cornered a ripe market. Rich people in the OC who lived paycheck to paycheck. Sarah changes her story a lot here. She'll often say that the first several loans were real.

He grilled me like nobody's business. Just grilled me to the death to figure out if this was safe or not. And at the time, it was absolutely safe. Safe? As we talked about in the last episode, I just don't buy it that Sara was really loaning money to anyone at this point. She was just taking investments.

I think Sara's neck deep in a lie here, talking to her husband's close friend. And when Lauren started asking hard questions, Sara gritted her teeth and kept lying. I said, start with one loan, get comfortable, get your feet wet, get paid back, and then let's move forward, right? It's hard for me to figure out who's a bigger bullshitter, a rich Swiss banker who should know a lot about banking rules. But for some reason is willing to risk millions and some shady storefront operation run out of a mall in the OC?

It's possible there was a bias thinking, oh, well, she's a lawyer, she does have the finance company. How would she just ruin all this for just this one fraud? This is Ronald Richards, Laurent's lawyer. Why would a rational person say that his longtime friend's wife is going to now commit massive financial fraud?

He's a total character, Beverly Hills lawyer straight out of central casting. Ronald Richards has strong, unmitigated opinions about Sarah. She's the queen of unverifiable stories, of positions that are meritless, that make no sense. Sarah had detailed stories, photos of the collateral. To a potential investor like Laurent, it looked like Sarah had lots of people taking out loans with her. The beginning of an outrageously profitable business. By January 2022, Laurent funded his first loan with Sara for around $200,000.

Laurent and Sara were talking about scaling the business. Sara wrote to him in an email, We'll take some planning, but I do think we can take this nationwide. We may be able to really take over the industry. Exciting stuff!" And Laurent had plenty of funding for that pipe dream. I can see a world in which this could have been a good thing. Startup capital, you know? But for Sarah, it was the beginning of the end. She was already disorganized, popping Adderall, drinking like a booze bag. Things were spiraling out of control for her. She'd like you to think that the ten plates she

had spinning at all times was a product of her ambition, her business sense, and that these bad deals, they were just bad accidents that befell her. But I am beginning to think, maybe Sarah was just bad at managing money. Trust me, I know the feeling. I never drove a Rolls. And maybe hooking a big investor was the event that turned Sarah's downfall into a freefall. So Sarah had investors looking for her.

She had Laurent hooked. Guess what Sarah was thinking? Sounds like a great time to get married to Cameron, right? Take me through the engagement. How did he propose to you? He didn't. By now, Sarah was divorced from her first husband. She was free to get married to Cameron, something they had been talking about for years.

This was Cameron's fourth marriage, so maybe by now he was over big to-do's. We went to the Orange County, just the little courthouse, and we got married right then and there. It was like a Thursday morning. I'm in my sweats, he's in sweats, and we just go get married, do the paperwork so we can get it back to his attorney. But that was it. It was no wedding, no nothing. Nobody was there at the courthouse or even waiting to have a celebratory lunch afterwards. They had gold bands that started wearing years earlier, but there would be no diamond engagement

ring for Princess Sarah. Okay, maybe they just didn't want to make a big deal out of it, vans that started wearing years earlier, but there would be no diamond engagement ring for Princess Sara. Okay, maybe they just didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but here's what's weird. Sara is tight with her parents, and she didn't even tell them that she was getting married. Oh, my mom would have fucking killed me. So she said, he's a loser, you don't marry him, what are you doing? And so I was like, okay, I won't, you know, but I was head over heels in love with the guy.

Like, what am I going to do? I know enough to know. This just seems fishy. There's something Sarah isn't telling me. We hopped on a call. So where were you emotionally at this time? Like your business is falling apart. You have, you're hiding this marriage from a guy that

Your mother thinks is a loser like what's your where's your head and you know? That you are taking money from a big shot guy for Monaco with no collateral. That's all bullshit So where is your head? Thank God for Adderall and alcohol. I had no head at the time I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I just kept taking pills, taking drinks. So I never really had like a sober moment to think about it. Never. I just kept going, going, going. All this time, Sara's been talking to me about day drinking and bar hopping. But by this point, not even Adderall is helping her focus. It sounds to me like she couldn't stop herself anymore. From taking pills or from drinking.

She was already in the throes of addiction. Through this haze of adderall and alcohol and crushing debt, Vegas shimmered on the horizon like a mirage, like a beacon of hope. When Sarah landed in the headlines as a con woman back in 2023, the focus had been on her gambling away other people's money in Vegas. Newport Beach attorney Sarah King is now accused of living the high life and spending and gambling away more than $10 million of other people's money. But all this time, I've been trying to figure out what made her high-tail it to Vegas in the first place.

Before George Polos told me she was threatened, it was a mystery. And I kept asking Sara that question multiple, multiple times. So that takes us to Vegas. Was there anything that precipitated it? Were there people threatening you or people getting upset that they weren't being paid? Like what was happening right around that time? Nope. People getting paid? No. I was always the one who had the money. So I mean, like I didn't

really borrow any money. So some people think I owe the money. I don't. I would give, I always pay people I owe. That's just like who I am. Even if it hurts me, like I will pay it. Here's how I see it. Sarah couldn't pay back investors. People wanted to chop her up into little pieces and she was on the hook. I think she genuinely believed her lucky number eight

was gonna put her back in the black. And it was a good time to hide out in Vegas. I have a lot of empathy for Sarah. We both have bad taste in men and make banged up decisions. But I'm also a human lie detector. And my internal ding, ding, ding goes off like a jackpot on the slots whenever she gives me the run around.

So George told one of our producers a story about people showing up at your house and trying to threaten you over money. Did that ever happen? No. It didn't get that bad ever. What? So you didn't- No.

Who would know? Of course, from the legal documents, we know that Sarah owed people money she couldn't pay back. Manna Kadar was one of them. They eventually settled out of court. George was another. When Sarah skipped town, her business was in the toilet. There were people looking for her, maybe.

We can't say for sure that some people wanted to chop her up, but that's what George said. Not me, no, no, no. I'm not that guy. I went the legal route. In March of 2022, George decided to file his own lawsuit against Sara to get his money back. But now there was an issue with that plan. Nobody could find her. With the attorney, I couldn't even get her served. She was doing everything she could because she knew at that point that everything was done. And she had everybody on her.

She was doing everything she can just to lay low. She was hiding up in LA somewhere for a long time, then Vegas, then LA, then back down here to Newport, Irvine. And I'm just going, how does this woman live? She must be looking up her back all the time. George had to find her in order to serve her with a lawsuit. In Vegas, Sara was using aliases, names like Snow White or Mary Poppins. At this point, Sara was going back and forth between Nevada and California.

So George hired process servers to stake out her building in LA. And one day we caught her coming back with drinks from Starbucks. Baseball cap, sweats, the whole nine yards. Hair was up in her baseball cap because she had long hair and so forth. So she did what she could do, hide her identity. Eventually they deliver the lawsuit to her building manager. When they served it, the guy that served my lawsuit also saw Sarah's mailbox. There was 20 other lawsuits in there, sitting there. He goes, you're one of like 20.

I go, what? He goes, you should see what I saw. And I was like, holy shit. I don't know about 20 lawsuits, but I went to her apartment around this time and I saw the notices on the door. It looked like an art installation of legal documents. Anyhow, George was also in contact with Sarah's assistant.

And he got a sense of how the boss lady was spending the money. She goes, George, she's at the Wynn. And I go, what? He's talking about the Wynn Las Vegas, a five-star luxury casino and hotel. At first, it seemed like Sarah was just lying low there, visiting with friends, making connections, gambling a little, you know, for her. Sarah Holt And one day I was playing and they're telling me we need to talk to a host for you because I was playing like, you know, good 20 grand a day, whatever.

LESLIE KENDRICK Which is a lot. You weren't worried about playing that kind of money. Sarah Holt I had, but I've always had that kind of money. So 20 grand a day, whatever. Which is a lot. You weren't worried about playing that kind of money. I had, but I've always had that kind of money. So 20 grand a day is no big deal. Like, I, honest to God, always made that kind of money for myself. It got scarier when I was dropping 50 to 100 thousand a day. That got, like, you know, that hurt. After she was assigned a host, Sara had arrived.

A host is the guy assigned to cater to the whims of high rollers. Sara's win host was cute, clean cut, a guy in his 30s named Kevin. He said, come back to Vegas and put you in a different villa, golf course villa, the first floor, which has a pool. And I said, okay. So I go back and that's when I realized like, okay, if this guy's inviting me, I have to spend money. It's hard for me not to roll my eyes a bit here.

I mean, come on, no one is this naive. But you know, Sara was in a rough spot and casinos know what they're doing. Giving the right people perks to keep them happy, well-fed, comfortable, that's what they do. And that way, these high rollers are too distracted to realize they're being bled dry. Now, when I arrive, my host has already prepared the room.

So he texts me a few days in advance before I arrive, and he will ask, what do I want in the room? And I always had two main requests, which was the San Juan Belkart Rose Champagne and a charcuterie board. That's what I live off of. And so every time I would get there, he would surprise me with extra flowers. I probably had six dozen roses in my room from him. He gave me all these fancy chocolates, handmade chocolates. Kula would have a complete bed set with every toy that you could ever imagine for a dog and chew bone, all ready for her to go. We asked Kevin to be interviewed for this podcast, but he respectfully declined. For their part, the

wind told us they don't comment on individual employees. My dog loved it. She had time of her life in our villa. And so I said, you know what? What can we do to stay here? Sarah would call a few different villas home, and Kevin kept her entertained. My host knew a lot about me. They asked you a lot of questions about what you like. And I love magic because it's one of my favorite things. So we would be eating dinner and all of a sudden some guy randomly sits down at our table with us and I'm like, who the fuck? What is this guy? And he just starts doing magic. And I loved it. When he was finished, he would walk away

and then the manager would come over and said, we brought him in specifically for you. This is where things started to get muddy. Because Sarah said that something else happened during this time of around the clock gambling. She couldn't pay Lara back. Her story is she loaned money to somebody who didn't pay her back. But that shouldn't have been a big deal, right?

That's the whole point of collateral. She could sell it to get her money back. But Sara also claims the collateral was stolen. She says there are police records, but if there are any, I haven't been able to find them. I started to panic. And actually when I finally told Cameron, I'm like, this is what's going on. Like, I don't know how to handle it. And that's when he said, okay, you're good at these thoughts, win back. Because he's seen me win tons of money on them. So I said, okay, but you kind of go down this rabbit hole.

When we asked Cameron about pushing Sarah to gamble, he said he despises gambling and wanted her to stop. You know, I told you my dad's quote to me is, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. And so you get competitive against a stupid machine and you should know better than to gamble against the house. Like it doesn't ever pay off, ever. By the spring of 2022, Sara was gambling like it was her job. When I first arrived to The Wind, that's all I would do. I actually didn't even unpack my suitcase. I would literally pop open the champagne, open the back door for Kula to go potty, and then I would take my champagne and go, go to the slot machines.

Sara was spiraling. I actually don't really sleep much. I never did anyways, because I took Adderall. So I was always awake. The Adderall and the alcohol was a cocktail of focused tase. Every time I would drink, I would take a pill. Drink, take a pill, because it would keep me alert, but also calm. When you take Adderall, you have a very bad short-term memory. So you don't think about certain things. Plus with the alcoholic, it just kind of makes your reality just kind of euphoric in a way. Also invincible, you feel invincible a little bit.

And that's probably why I just kept taking it, thinking taking it would just solve my problems and I could figure things out if I just keep taking Adderall. She would take a little break around dinn time with Cameron. So we'd go back to the villa, I would tuck him in bed, I would change into my comfy clothes

and put on my yoga pants and my Chanel sweater and my Chanel sneakers, and then at three in the morning go back out into the slots. There was a whole method Sarah used for playing the slots. She called it her algorithm. To me, it sounded like fucked up math. It didn't make any sense. So I learned on the penny slots. So I was like, there's got to be a rhyme or rhythm

and I have to feel the rhythm of the machine. The machine for her was the Dragon Link in the high roller room. Okay, let me tell you about Dragon Link. It's basically a game. It has like five different characters. It has, you know, an old Japanese man, a young Japanese woman, a big Buddha, a panda. The machine itself has a massive Buddha greeting you on the screen. Now I was the only one who could hit as many bonuses, you know, in a day. People would just watch me like I was in a zoo. But it was a really incredible game when she felt the rhythm of it

and then I knew how to bet properly and I would hit these big bonuses. Sarah says that sometimes she could put in 250 bucks and get 80, 90 grand out of the machine. Depending on how the night went, I would either stay awake till 6 to 7 a.m. the next day and continued gambling the whole entire day. If it wasn't doing well, I'd go back to the room about 5 a.m. I would check on Kula. I would take her out to play in the yard. Cameron was still sleeping. So I would go back out at 6 a.m. to the slot machines. So I haven't slept.

She'd order a coffee and head to the high limit room where she'd meet a janitor that she'd pay for intel. So the janitor that would be on last would wait for me to come in and he'd give me a hug hello and let me know which machines were hitting. And from there, Sarah would start her day all over again. I hated it. I was so stressed.

I would never really enjoy it. I would drank myself into disarray every day. I took Adderall left and right to stay awake. I was a hot mess. But I played and a lot of times I'd win really big. I really would. In her second month of her stay at the win, something big really did happen. My host came up to me and said, we're presenting you with the Chairman's Club card. And they only present it once a year, and this is mid-year. The first thought that entered my mind was,

holy fuck, how much have I lost? I was not excited, I was not happy, I was like, just, holy shit. What, how much? Did you know you were losing by then? I had to, I mean, but the card, yeah, because you don't just give a parade to somebody who's winning all your money. So I knew right then and I had to, I mean, but the card, yeah, because you don't just give a parade to somebody who winning all your money.

So I knew right then and there, like, something's bad. Like, this is not right. So Sarah knew that she was starting to lose and lose big, but she had dug herself in. It seemed like the only way to get out was to keep going. Oh, I fell out of control when I was ordering, you know, a thousand Adderall pills to my hotel room

from Newport Beach to Mary Poppins at the win. Cameron says he had no idea that she was losing, but he did see her addiction in full swing. Again, a friend of the podcast reading for Cameron. I hate casinos.

I begged her more than once to stop playing. It was actually the reason for most of our fights. She would constantly send me her winnings to reassure me as she knew I was against it. Even the employees at the High Limit Room at the Wynn Casino reassured me that she was winning during the rare times I went in to try to get her to stop. It never crossed my mind that she could be losing the amounts I later discovered. It was beyond anything I could have imagined.

According to Cameron, the casino employees convinced him that Sarah was up. But Sarah knew better. One day when she was gambling, someone who worked for the casino let it slip that she was far down the rabbit hole. The guy said, Oh, it's no big deal. You're like you're down 1.8 million. And I had to like laugh shrug it off like it's nothing but it was definitely not nothing. And I had to like laugh, shrug it off, like it's nothing, but it was definitely not nothing. And I about lost my, I mean, I had to go to the bathroom. I couldn't even imagine. And maybe somebody else would have been keeping track of how much they were putting into the machines.

But not Zara. So what happens is, I never look at how much I put in, I look at what the outcome of the day is, which was great. But you know, the booze and the Adderall really helped me forget about the amount you put in to win the 200,000 you walk out with. I think she was so focused on the feeling when she won. She didn't remember how much she spent to get there. Some things require a lot of work to grow, like plants, hair, babies, or your savings. But when you run a business, you already have enough on your plate.

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You all right? Here we go. From Taylor Sheridan, executive producer of Yellowstone. Get everybody back. You just put a giant bullseye on this place. We rolled the dice one last time. Landman, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. When I heard the number out loud, like I understand you're losing, you get perks.

But this number, I mean, I was thinking to myself, how am I going to get back? And that's why I wanted to win my birthday amount. This is all based on something Sarah had heard about Vegas. thinking to myself, how am I going to get back? And that's why I wanted to win my birthday amount. This is all based on something Sarah had heard about Vegas. So they always say when you're a big player, they always make you win really big on your birthday. So Sarah had a big 39th birthday bash. I hate birthdays, but Cameron loves birthdays.

And so he was actually my host who put together my whole room. So I was in room 8808 at the win. It was the end of August, 2022. Friends of hers were invited out for a big party that she didn't even want. Sarah was fixated on this idea that she was going to win big on her birthday weekend. So before the guests got there, she was glued to that favorite machine, Dragon Link. I was playing and playing. I was kept losing, losing. I'm just getting frustrated and angry.

Cameron and a friend left to go to a concert. They go to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. And I'm just like, fine, I guess I'll stay here. And I got up because I was so pissed off. I wasn't waiting on my birthday weekend, whatever. And I got up for what? 10 minutes. I moved to the poker machines and this girl is playing my machine and she wins the $1.6 million. And I'm just like, like literally 10 minutes.

That's all it took was 10 minutes. And I was just like, I like you could shoot me in the leg and I wouldn't cry. Just so you know. And I cried. Like I was just beside myself. So angry. Sarah's good luck wasn't paying out. She had a shitty birthday and she was still in the hole. And it wasn't the only place where things were going badly. Laurent Reiss was about to start asking some tough questions. If you think that's all downward spiral calamity level bullshit, well wait, there's more.

Do you think Cameron knew that things were a little messy for King Family and the lending up the time that he introduced you to Lorraine? Yeah, Cameron, I, Cameron a hundred percent knew because Cameron said that he saw all the collateral to Laurent. So Cameron told Laurent that he saw all the collateral and the collateral basically didn't exist. Correct. By the way, Cameron disputes

knowing about the phony collateral. More importantly, in throwing Cameron under the bus, Sarah is kind of making her own confession. How did you get the pictures of collateral that you sent to Laurent? There were a couple of them, absolutely. I just googled pictures online. Yeah, absolutely. The loans Sarah had been selling to Laurent were made up, and this is something that Sarah has finally admitted to me. So yeah, they were false loans. Absolutely, that's that Sara has finally admitted to me. So yeah, they were false loans. Absolutely. That's true. I did false loans. I used the money to try and win back other money. Absolutely.

We have the lawsuit that LaRonde eventually filed against Sara. It cited 97 loans. There were also emails Sara wrote with an impressive level of detail. Vehicle appraisals, titles, notes of attached videos of Tiffany-stamped watches, coin collections, sports contracts with big shots, and hockey, football, baseball. Well, in the paperwork which we have, you sent an email to Lorenz saying, hey, Kim Kardashian's hair extension girls looking to start her own business. Let's fund this loan. So she exists, but I don't want to talk about her because she's I love her to death and

I don't want her to be a part of this like that. Okay, so NFL players, MLB players, they're all bullshit, right? Yes. All bullshit. But Lauren kept sending money. And he wasn't the only one. Sarah wasn't just blowing through Laurent's money at the casino. She was also actively recruiting new investors on the casino floor.

There was a surgeon and her husband. Maybe a cocktail waitress, who knows. But Cameron says that Sarah seemed to be having a hard time keeping track of some of the details on the loans. So at Laurent's request, Cameron stepped in to help get everything organized in a spreadsheet. Here's what Cameron said to us in an email. What you need to understand is that there are never any suspicious withdrawals in the bank account.

Every single withdrawals or transfer was linked to a loan. It was accurate to the dollar. If the money was wired, the name of the party was showing. Otherwise, it was a cashier's check with the name of the person on it. She was sending us pictures of the collateral as well as the appraisals. She was also doing a lot of sport player contract loans with a good friend of hers. All of this came crashing down in November of 2022.

Everything crumbled when my friend and I realized that the bank logo of one of the statements she sent us was missing. So we started to look deeper into it and realized there was a few typos in the statements. And that's when everything started to come out. It was a huge shock. Ronald Richards, Laurent's lawyer.

There was a tremendous amount of emails and WhatsApps and, you know, I think Cameron scrambling to try to fix this. While Sara was chasing Dragon Link winnings, Laurent hired experts to take a look at the bank statements she'd been sending. They ran a special software to see that the accounts were altered in some way, the statements. And he didn't want to believe it,

but some sharper people in New York that understand like how a fraud works were able to show scientifically that the statements that the company was getting were doctored. Basically through metadata they could see that the statements had been tinkered with or photoshopped. Is it sophisticated fraud to just take a PDF and manipulate the numbers on it? No that's like shooting someone and leaving your gun and bullets at the crime scene after you touched it without a glove.

So no, that wasn't sophisticated fraud. That was unsophisticated fraud. It had been about 10 months. Laurent was 10 million deep. So of course he freaked out. He jumped on a plane to Orange County. Zara immediately started doing damage control. I called John McCabe. I'm like, look, you got to show me your fucking collateral.

Like we got cars, we got watches to show him. And he tried to pull it together and together we couldn't do it at the time to get it to show him. Needless to say, John McCabe's lawyer advised him against commenting on this allegation or answering any of the more than 20 questions we sent. Ronald Richards described what Laurent was going through. He was embarrassed, ashamed. How could he be so gullible?

And he wanted to retain hope that he would get his money back. I can't really describe what my client told me because that's going to get into confidential communications. I can't really describe what my client told because that's gonna get into confidence communications i can just tell you that sarah and cameron did their best to try to mitigate. The level of fraud. How's that because they they you know they do what fraudsters do they. Delay lol and give fake promises the fraudsters always prey on, you think your debt is more important than the other people they've defrauded, and that's a miscalculation. Ronald is lumping Cameron and Sara together here. Even Cameron said

Laurent suspected him of being in cahoots with Sara. My friend Laurent had doubts about my involvement, which I understand, given that she was my wife. But in an email, Cameron told me that he ended up trying to figure out exactly what had happened. Laurent is my childhood friend, someone very dear to me, and I introduced him to someone who was lying to both of us. It was my duty, both as a friend and to myself, to get to the bottom of it. Sarah offered a laundry list of excuses for not having any collateral to show off. But behind his wife's back, Cameron met with his old friend.

That's what Laurent's lawyer told me. Cameron met him and tried to basically did him a culpa that it's all her fault. And yeah, I think Cameron pulled the plug pretty quickly once he was confronted. Cameron rolled over quick and said, I can't, you know, basically I'm so sorry. I can't believe it. Cameron was frantic that he had a realization

that this, that he could go to prison for what happened. Cameron wrote to us about this experience. Again, someone reading for Cameron. for what happened. Cameron wrote to us about this experience, again, someone reading for Cameron. I was shocked by the situation and deeply embarrassed that I hadn't seen it sooner. I confronted her about it, making it clear how selfish she had been for not even considering

the impact this has had on my position and relationships. Saro said it a little differently She said she could have handled it if Cameron hadn't turned on her and sided with Laurent He's like it's okay. I just want to get my money back and like I said, I'm like, okay Well, if you trust me with that, like I'll handle that and then Cameron Cameron's caught cause like a shitstorm He calls Laurent and just starts wailing on me. I'm thinking wow You what an asshole, because he just doesn't want to get caught in the middle,

so now he's the good guy. In this moment, Cameron chose to prove himself to his childhood friend and chose to not stand by his wife. I have lengthy emails and lengthy calls with Cameron where I think he told me what happened. In my opinion, he did the smartest thing he could do and was keep talking to me. Because of that, I had enough information that made me have some doubt as to his culpability and I didn't need to make the decision to sue him the same day I was going to sue Sarah.

Ronald Richards tracked Sarah down and they had a call over Zoom. The first interview though wasn't, hey, I'm still trying to fix these loans. There was a complete capitulation that, hey, I ripped off your client and I got to try to fix it. And so my goal and the call was, you know, we have a short window here. If you could start fixing it, it'll save you a tsunami of problems. Next time on the finale of Lady Mafia. Within seconds of me telling the Wins General Counsel she's a fraudster, they cut her off, 86-ter.

I probably could have fixed everything if Ron Richards didn't fucking put the articles out there, but whatever, he did. We're not going to watch you gamble while you owe our client all this money and all these other people. So I told her, like, you don't understand. Like, once I'm on somebody, I become obsessed with them. I only have the most love for you, Sarah, and that is to prevent you from stealing from anybody else.

So if you can't gamble, there'll be no more victims. But you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts, all ad free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes all at once. Search for the Binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. Lady Mafia is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment. It was hosted and reported by me, Michelle McPhee. Odelia Rubin is our lead producer and wrote this episode with a little help from me.

Catherine St. Louis is our story editor. Shara Morris and Jonathan Hirsch are our executive producers. Sound Design and Mixing by Scott Somerville. Theme and original music composed by Hansdale Shi. We also use music from Epidemic Sound, Blue Dot Sessions, and APM. Our associate producer is Zoe Kolkin.

Our fact checker is Fendel Fulton. Our production manager is Tamika Balanz-Kolasny. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rosick, Jamie Myers, Ali Kilt, and Corey Sesnaknek who plays Cameron in this episode.