Speaker 1: This email right here. Hello, my name is Nicholas. I
Speaker 1: was scammed out of nearly one thousand dollars in bitcoin.
Speaker 1: I Jonathan, and aunt of mine passed away. Going through
Speaker 1: her financial records, it's become clear that she was scammed
Speaker 1: out of nearly one million dollars. Jonathan, Hi then wanting
Speaker 1: an email, Just don't know where to begin. I'm out
Speaker 1: almost thirty thousand dollars after meeting a broke, narcissist con
Speaker 1: artist who has done this to many people. Since going
Speaker 1: public with my story of how I got con by
Speaker 1: Mayor Smith, Dear Jonathan, I got conned by a lifelong
Speaker 1: family friend and his mother out of three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars literally hundreds and hundreds of victims and almost victims. Jonathan,
Speaker 1: my name is Antoinette. I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: saving me from making a horrible mistake. Have been contacting
Speaker 1: me sharing their insane stories of how they got conned.
Speaker 1: So a widow she gets scammed out a two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars by a con artist who works in the
Speaker 1: mayor's office. There's this Los Angeles Botoks doctor. She could
Speaker 1: scammed out of a hundred and sixty dollars in gold
Speaker 1: and precious metals. The con artist was pretending that her
Speaker 1: money was growing every month, and he'd photoshops statements and
Speaker 1: mail them to her, so she think her gold is appreciating,
Speaker 1: but there was no gold, just photoshop and a devious
Speaker 1: con artists. And there's this French con artist. She moves
Speaker 1: to Beverly Hills and she scams two million dollars out
Speaker 1: of people under the guise of starting a dog rescue.
Speaker 1: Itunds like that French voice just kind of lures you
Speaker 1: in that accent. You know, yes, the French art cunning.
Speaker 1: My buddy Evan Goldstein is fascinated by it all, and
Speaker 1: truth be told, So am I. You know, after getting
Speaker 1: conned by maryor Smith, I thought I was unique. I
Speaker 1: thought Mayor Smith, like that's a one in a lifetime
Speaker 1: kind of situation. But that's not true at all. Con
Speaker 1: artists are everywhere because like you're the only one I
Speaker 1: personally know that has been con and most victims don't
Speaker 1: go public like I do, so most people don't know
Speaker 1: it's a thing. But Jesus, I've been getting hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of emails from spirit victims asking for help with
Speaker 1: their con artists, you know, like inspired by what I
Speaker 1: did with Mayor, Like they want that for their conn
Speaker 1: Maybe there's less shame going to you because you're just
Speaker 1: in the same boat. Yeah, I'm another victim. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: another victim. Yeah that's a good point. So what's one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting cases that you're looking into. Now,
Speaker 1: there's this this woman named Lizzie Mulder. She lives in
Speaker 1: Orange County. She scams her circle of friends out of
Speaker 1: one point five million dollars using every technique that Mayor
Speaker 1: used on me, and then other techniques that I've never
Speaker 1: even heard of. It is truly truly insane. So she's good. Oh,
Speaker 1: she gives Mayor a run for her money. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to do. I'm Jonathan Walton and this is
Speaker 1: Queen of the Con The o C Savior, Episode one
Speaker 1: of Faith Somebody. Orange County, California is a place you
Speaker 1: got to see to believe. You've probably heard of Orange County,
Speaker 1: or the o C as it's known by locals. It's
Speaker 1: a unique part of the Golden State that boasts the
Speaker 1: wealth and grandeur of Beverly Hills, only bigger, much, much bigger.
Speaker 1: It's about thirty miles south of Los Angeles, and the
Speaker 1: encompasses more than two dozen municipalities, cities like Newport Beach, Anaheim,
Speaker 1: where the original Disneyland is located, Happy Plo, and the
Speaker 1: ever posh Laguna Beach, where the average income is kids
Speaker 1: you not two hundred and seven thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: It's everything you think you want to be a part of.
Speaker 1: It's u beautiful cars, beautiful homes, beautiful people. It started
Speaker 1: off as a suburban neighborhood of Los Angeles. Orange County
Speaker 1: started to grow and it became a tech hub, which
Speaker 1: brought a lot of money, and it just got wealthier
Speaker 1: and wealthier by the day. There's everything you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Every single stores here, every single restaurant is here. They
Speaker 1: really catered to people that are are well off. There's
Speaker 1: no theft, there's no what are they called the people
Speaker 1: that steal your packages from your porch pis pirates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's none of that. It really is otherworldly here because
Speaker 1: I went to get coffee at the Coffee Bean before
Speaker 1: I got here, and everyone, all the other customers said
Speaker 1: good morning to me. Not the people who work there,
Speaker 1: just other people waiting on good morning. Good morning, like
Speaker 1: like it took me on surprise, like why are you
Speaker 1: all being nice to me? In l A? Nobody talks
Speaker 1: to you lest they want something. I yeah, I'd never
Speaker 1: hear greats. Even though Orange County is only about an
Speaker 1: hour's drive south of l A without traffic. It's a
Speaker 1: whole other universe out here, a truly spectacular place. Laguna Beach,
Speaker 1: which was a show on MTV. I think that's when
Speaker 1: people really started to notice. Kate Casey is host to
Speaker 1: the hit podcast Reality Life with Kate Casey, and she's
Speaker 1: got a PhD in Everything o C. She's been living
Speaker 1: here for the past nineteen years. Then there was the
Speaker 1: show The o C, which was a scripted series, and
Speaker 1: then you had The Real Housewives of Orange County. I
Speaker 1: think that Sarah should take her bony little butt out
Speaker 1: of my fake and pretentious home. I'll buy you a
Speaker 1: new I'm bored with it. And that show really kind
Speaker 1: of showcase what it would be like to live in
Speaker 1: suburban Orange County. But what you see on TV isn't
Speaker 1: always what it's cracked up to be. I think normal
Speaker 1: people come here with good intentions, and it's very easy
Speaker 1: for people to get caught up living here is like
Speaker 1: being in the middle of smoking mirrors. Everyone presents themselves
Speaker 1: as one way, and invariably you find out it's not
Speaker 1: the truth. You will have somebody who will drive a
Speaker 1: Maserati but live in an apartment, and to normal people
Speaker 1: you think, why would you do that? But it's because
Speaker 1: I think that normal people come here and they see
Speaker 1: excessive wealth and they think that in order to make
Speaker 1: it here socially and financially, you have to present yourself
Speaker 1: as somebody who has an enormous amount of money. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like everyone's running their own kind of scam
Speaker 1: in a weird way. It is to a degree because
Speaker 1: you never really know what their intentions are and what
Speaker 1: their true authentic self is. The interesting thing about living here, too,
Speaker 1: is that people don't ask a lot of questions. So
Speaker 1: someone like myself from the East Coast, I ask a
Speaker 1: lot of questions where did you go to school, where
Speaker 1: are you from, what do you do for a living?
Speaker 1: The questions here are much more surface. Where do you
Speaker 1: like to vacation? Do you go to the yacht club?
Speaker 1: So it's very easy for a con to make their
Speaker 1: way here because no one's really asking questions that would
Speaker 1: reveal the truth behind someone's persona. Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 1: Orange County is an ideal breeding ground for con artists.
Speaker 1: Absolutely to those who know her in, Lizzie Mulder is
Speaker 1: a super successful certified public accountant c p A. She
Speaker 1: came in and she said all the right things. She
Speaker 1: had the right look, like wow, we could never afford
Speaker 1: a c p A like that. She was a big
Speaker 1: part of helping me get organized, and when I started
Speaker 1: the wine business, it seemed like she was doing a
Speaker 1: good job. She's a thirtysomething, articulate, blonde, confident, well connected,
Speaker 1: and extremely social, with a rugged firefighter husband, two adorable
Speaker 1: young daughters, and a gorgeous two and a half million
Speaker 1: dollar home overlooking the Pacific Ocean and exclusive no poor
Speaker 1: people allowed Laguna Beach. How does she present herself to people?
Speaker 1: What were your impressions? Lizzie definitely wanted to be somebody
Speaker 1: that was seen. She was very charismatic. She definitely wanted
Speaker 1: to be popular, to be liked. She wore really nice clothes,
Speaker 1: definitely had more of like a cowboy aesthetic to her
Speaker 1: is she liked riding horses and stuff. So she'd come
Speaker 1: in and you could tell that she lived in Laguna,
Speaker 1: so they have a different look to them. They're a
Speaker 1: little bit more laid back. Geneva Mendoza is what Disney's
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid would look like if she took human form,
Speaker 1: refined features, eyes that sparkle, and her red hair. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, and your hair is like out of a movie. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you? Did you do that special for me? Because
Speaker 1: I'm gay? But your hair it's like red and shiny,
Speaker 1: and it's wavy and flow. It's like it's like I'm
Speaker 1: on a movie set and you're ready for your close up.
Speaker 1: I feel like hair dressers need to always look. Our
Speaker 1: clients are coming to us to have of the best look,
Speaker 1: so we're looking shabby. That's not gonna work. Do women
Speaker 1: come to you and be like, I want your hair? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the time. I can see that. Yeah, it's very like.
Speaker 1: And then you have to break their hearts and let
Speaker 1: them know that you know, there's there's going to be
Speaker 1: several thousands of dollars to get you there, And Geneva
Speaker 1: should know. She's a co owner of the Salon powered
Speaker 1: by Tonian Guy, high end Newport Peach establishment, cutting and
Speaker 1: quaffing the hair of some of the most wealthy and
Speaker 1: glamorous people in the world fortune, five hundred CEOs, actors, models,
Speaker 1: and well healed c p A s like Lizzie. How
Speaker 1: did Lizzie Mulder first enter your life? So? Lizzie was
Speaker 1: a client of my business partner, Lauren. She and Lizzie
Speaker 1: went to school together, although Lauren didn't know her when
Speaker 1: they went to school. They reconnected in Poisano at Italy
Speaker 1: at a wedding posts Atano is a tiny little cliff
Speaker 1: side town on southern Italy, is a malfi cu most
Speaker 1: pebbled beach fronts frame steep, narrow cobblestone streets lined with
Speaker 1: old world boutiques and cafes. The houses whimsically stack atop
Speaker 1: each other, precariously going up and down the mountain side
Speaker 1: painted every single color of the rainbow. If you've seen
Speaker 1: that Matt Damon movie The Talented Mr Ripley, I always
Speaker 1: thought it would be better to be a fake somebody
Speaker 1: they don't nobody, then you know the scenery. It was
Speaker 1: filmed in Positano, Italy, because it's one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful places on earth and the perfect location for a
Speaker 1: wedding or an elaborate Cohn so Lauren went out there,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's a small wedding because it's international
Speaker 1: and not that many people are going to show up,
Speaker 1: and so there was a few people and one of
Speaker 1: those people was Lizzie and she was there with Jesse,
Speaker 1: her husband, and they had a great time. She approached
Speaker 1: Lauren and she was just over the top, you know,
Speaker 1: having a good time and bringing Lauren into and introducing
Speaker 1: her to the people. You know, she was really showy
Speaker 1: that way. So Lauren quickly became friends with her, and
Speaker 1: then she became Lauren's client at the salon and she
Speaker 1: started doing Lizzie's husband, Jesse's hair and the girl's hair.
Speaker 1: So when you first saw her, she was a client.
Speaker 1: And Lauren had introduced me several times, as she does,
Speaker 1: and you know, when we have longtime clients, we'd like
Speaker 1: to introduce ourselves. And this is my business partner and
Speaker 1: my best friend, Lauren and Geneva, you know, so I
Speaker 1: had seen her several times in there, and Lauren was
Speaker 1: just trimming her hair. At this point in Geneva and
Speaker 1: Lauren are working as hairdressers for Tony and Guy. But
Speaker 1: soon the entrepreneurial bug bites and they want to open
Speaker 1: their own franchise together. When we decided to be lawn owners,
Speaker 1: we needed to start doing the due diligence of getting
Speaker 1: all the paperwork, finding a bookkeeper, finding a c p A,
Speaker 1: finding people that are just going to get us where
Speaker 1: we need to go. The next step. We approached one
Speaker 1: firm that was sent to us by another client, and
Speaker 1: we showed up there and they were there one moment.
Speaker 1: The next time we showed up, they weren't there. They
Speaker 1: were wanted by the I R S. You know, they
Speaker 1: were doing some kind of weird fraud, and they were gone,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Yeah, And it was weird because they
Speaker 1: set up the appointment for us to show up and
Speaker 1: they weren't there. And I told my client that referred me,
Speaker 1: I said, did you know that so and so is
Speaker 1: wanted by the I R S. You need to check
Speaker 1: your your business stuff with them because they could have
Speaker 1: stole some money from you. So at this point it
Speaker 1: would seem the universe is protecting you from Thank goodness, right,
Speaker 1: little do you know who's waiting in the wings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at that point, you don't have a c p A.
Speaker 1: So you're looking, we're looking, and so Lauren calls her
Speaker 1: friend Lizzie and says, you will never guess what happened.
Speaker 1: We set up this pointment with the c P A
Speaker 1: firm and we showed up and they're not there. And
Speaker 1: Lizzie's like, oh my gosh, that does happen all the
Speaker 1: time I hear about that. You know, they just don't
Speaker 1: know why they get this in their head that they
Speaker 1: need to steal people's money. She said that. So Laurence
Speaker 1: set up an appointment with her at her home office
Speaker 1: in Laguna and she had this really great front office
Speaker 1: with ocean views, was beautiful, and she had this placard
Speaker 1: on the wall that said she went to Pepperdine. Oh
Speaker 1: so she had like a degree on the wall, a
Speaker 1: degree from Pepperdine her name on it. Pepperdine University is
Speaker 1: a prestigious school that sits on eight hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: acres in ultra exclusive Malibu, California. Pepperdines neighbors include people
Speaker 1: like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbara's Trisand and Leonardo DiCaprio. A four
Speaker 1: year degree from Pepperdine costs nearly a quarter of a
Speaker 1: million dollars. Their alumni include some of them heavy hitting
Speaker 1: movers and shakers in the business world. The head of
Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange went to Pepperdine, as did
Speaker 1: the CEO of United Airlines. So a frame degree from
Speaker 1: Pepperdine University says a lot about Lizzie Mulder. We looked
Speaker 1: at it. We're like, wow, that's that's really awesome. You
Speaker 1: know that you went to Pepperdine. We know how prestigious
Speaker 1: that school is expensive. I would be remiss if I
Speaker 1: didn't point out here the striking parallels between accounting whiz
Speaker 1: Lizzie Mulder with her frame degree from Pepperdine University and
Speaker 1: my con artist Mayor Smith, who, if you recall from
Speaker 1: season one, frequently showed off her frame copy of the
Speaker 1: Irish Constitution signed by her great uncle, firmly establishing her
Speaker 1: as Irish Royalty. Professionally framed documents really do lend an
Speaker 1: air of legitimacy to whatever stories being told. Mayor Smith
Speaker 1: easily convinced people she was a wealthy Irish heiress. Lizzie Maulder,
Speaker 1: a successful Pepperdine graduate with the world on a string
Speaker 1: Laguna Beach c p A. Lizzie Malder loves to tell
Speaker 1: her prospective clients just how lucky they are to have her.
Speaker 1: She always let you know how great she was, how
Speaker 1: much money she made, how she just was so busy.
Speaker 1: But what she kept on selling to us was what,
Speaker 1: you guys are a small business, I can handle. You'll
Speaker 1: just do that on the side, you know, as a
Speaker 1: favorite to you as a favorite, you know, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. All you have to do is just let's
Speaker 1: trade in hair. She gets lots of hair treatments and
Speaker 1: things that are very expensive at our salon, so she said,
Speaker 1: let's just do like a barter system. So in exchange
Speaker 1: for you guys doing her hair, she was going to
Speaker 1: be your c p A and do the books for
Speaker 1: your new salon. And that arrangement works out great at first,
Speaker 1: but as the weeks turned into months, Lizzie's involvement in
Speaker 1: the salon's finances becomes ubiquitous. What she would do would
Speaker 1: create this thing where we actually really needed her. Every
Speaker 1: little business decision she took control of. Any time we
Speaker 1: would listen we would talk to any of the vendors,
Speaker 1: any anything, even the I R S or anything, she
Speaker 1: would be like, put me on the call. I want
Speaker 1: to talk to them. So she got so invested in
Speaker 1: every little part of our business that at one point
Speaker 1: I was even asking, or can I pay down the
Speaker 1: credit card because it's getting a little high, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like that, you know, I hate debt. So
Speaker 1: she'd be like, I already sent them a check, just
Speaker 1: leave it alone, and I'll I want to run it
Speaker 1: through quick books. I don't want to have all these
Speaker 1: little little things that you're doing. I want to do
Speaker 1: all of it. She always had a plausible reason that
Speaker 1: made sense. Yes, of course, and not long after Lizzie
Speaker 1: takes over the salon's books, a never ending string of
Speaker 1: unfortunate events begins to punctuate the lives of Geneva and
Speaker 1: her business partner Warman. Or what was the payroll problem?
Speaker 1: Payroll problem? We were going through a DP and there
Speaker 1: was a problem with our tax i d. A d
Speaker 1: P is the company Lizzie hires to run the salon's payroll.
Speaker 1: So they had a wrong name and they couldn't create
Speaker 1: a actual direct deposit because the wrong name and the
Speaker 1: tax i D We're not sinking up and the direct
Speaker 1: deposit was going to be done, but every two weeks
Speaker 1: it never happened. She would even set us emails saying
Speaker 1: see they said that it was set up, and we
Speaker 1: get all these emails from a DP. So every two weeks,
Speaker 1: the salon's employees are supposed to get their paychecks direct
Speaker 1: deposited into their bank accounts, but it never actually happens,
Speaker 1: never ever, And the employees are piste. You know, she'd
Speaker 1: come in at two o'clock, they're off at two o'clock.
Speaker 1: They're all waiting in the break room for their check,
Speaker 1: and here we are just all frantic, creating a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of distrust. It was o chaotic. Every two weeks.
Speaker 1: It gave me so much anxiety even go into work
Speaker 1: because here are wonderful staff started getting upset because why
Speaker 1: was it so chaotic? Why couldn't direct deposit go in?
Speaker 1: And all we were able to rely was what Lizzie
Speaker 1: was telling us. For the ones that were really mad,
Speaker 1: she would have one on one conversations with them about
Speaker 1: what was going on, like take them into her confidence. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was some heated conversations, but she always acted like
Speaker 1: she knew more. She would be schooling them on on
Speaker 1: business and and still trying to, you know, put the
Speaker 1: flames out a little bit, right because she went to Pepperdine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she knows more about this stuff than they do. They're
Speaker 1: just hair dressers. And Lizzie ironically becomes sort of a
Speaker 1: hero to all these hair dressers because every time the
Speaker 1: direct deposits don't show up, Lizzie does and sits down
Speaker 1: and manually cuts checks to every single employee and gets
Speaker 1: them paid. In their eyes, she's a problem solver, a savior.
Speaker 1: But soon other strange problems start popping up in the
Speaker 1: salon that leave everyone in the dark. Literally. So you're
Speaker 1: in the salon, the electricity goes out. What happened? Did
Speaker 1: you not pay your electric bill? That's what all your
Speaker 1: clients were saying. Did you not pay the electric pay
Speaker 1: the electric bill. Meanwhile, you're probably dying inside because like,
Speaker 1: how embarrassing your You own the salon and there's no power.
Speaker 1: Well that's the thing is that there is actually this weird,
Speaker 1: fraudulent scam from people pretending to be Edison or any
Speaker 1: kind of electric company, but specifically Edison. And even if
Speaker 1: you go on their website, they say, beware people walking
Speaker 1: in pretending to be Edison. We're not going to shut
Speaker 1: off your power. This you know this and that, so
Speaker 1: there's a scam where people dressed up like the power
Speaker 1: company people. They show apout your place of business and
Speaker 1: what they demanded money, Yes, they say, give us some money,
Speaker 1: we're gonna shut your power. Yeah. And it's so silly
Speaker 1: that sometimes they say, well we'll take gift cards. You, oh,
Speaker 1: seven fifty dollars and we'll take it in gift cards.
Speaker 1: Where to cheesecake factory? Where would you like at Amazon?
Speaker 1: So that had happened a few times anyway, I mean,
Speaker 1: it happens, It happened, happened. Oh I didn't know that
Speaker 1: twice before within even like a couple of years. Ms
Speaker 1: And they hand over this brochure that they got from
Speaker 1: somebody's front porch. Is an official Edison brochure and it
Speaker 1: has a description of not paying payments and things. So
Speaker 1: this is a normal scam. I'm on my way into work.
Speaker 1: The electricity goes off. My staff calls me saying the
Speaker 1: electricity is off, and I'm like what. So I start
Speaker 1: looking on my phone for Edison's number and I get
Speaker 1: a number started calling in so I answered it and
Speaker 1: it was very muffled. It sounded really strange, and they said,
Speaker 1: is this Mrs Mendoza and yeah, yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: Edison Long. We heard that you've got your electricity shut off.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't do that. We wouldn't come and just shut
Speaker 1: your electricity off. We would send a notice that you
Speaker 1: were your bill was due. But you're actually on auto pay,
Speaker 1: so there's no reason why that would happen. This is
Speaker 1: this is a fraudulent action. So we're gonna send somebody
Speaker 1: down there within an hour to turn you back on.
Speaker 1: I said, no, we need it to be turned on now,
Speaker 1: like now. And they said, okay, well we do see
Speaker 1: that there is some past bill and we just need
Speaker 1: that to be paid. And I said, just turn the electricity.
Speaker 1: I have a whole salon full of clients in there.
Speaker 1: So they said, we understand that, we'll get somebody within
Speaker 1: the hour. So we hang up. I called Lauren immediately.
Speaker 1: I said, Lauren, this is weird. This person called me
Speaker 1: out of the blue telling me that this is a
Speaker 1: fraudulent activity. They didn't shut it off. So then Lizzie
Speaker 1: calls me. She said, I just talked to Edison. Did
Speaker 1: they call you too, And I said yeah. She said yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I'm just gonna pay the bill. Let's do But
Speaker 1: you are on auto pay, so I don't know why
Speaker 1: that didn't go through. Just we're just gonna do that
Speaker 1: in the power will come back on. So that all
Speaker 1: got handled. The power came back on. I walked in.
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed, my head kind of low, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't want to look at anybody, especially not the clients.
Speaker 1: You know. I go in my office and some of
Speaker 1: my managers come and talk to me, and they said,
Speaker 1: was it the same kind of thing? How those people
Speaker 1: come in and they just scam us? And I said,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think that's what it was. Because
Speaker 1: I got a call from medicine saying they didn't do it,
Speaker 1: so you know, they're a little sketched out, and I thought,
Speaker 1: what the heck. So of course nobody came from medicine,
Speaker 1: not all day, not all night. So I was just
Speaker 1: so irked and so weird it out that I told Lauren, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that was real. For some reason, it
Speaker 1: sounded like muffling. It sounded from a different country, and
Speaker 1: it just didn't seem legit. What accent did the voice
Speaker 1: you talk to you have in America? What's really an accent?
Speaker 1: I couldn't really hear it. It was so faint that
Speaker 1: I could not actually a woman. It was a woman,
Speaker 1: but not a voice you've heard no telling you that
Speaker 1: it's not the power company that shut your power off.
Speaker 1: It's a scam of some sort. And did the power
Speaker 1: come back on? The power came back on, and Lizzie
Speaker 1: said she paid it and that we would just owe her.
Speaker 1: So that's what that happened. And she's and so she said,
Speaker 1: you are on auto pay. Well, we were so delinquent
Speaker 1: with that bill that they cut us off of even
Speaker 1: doing auto pay. So I had to go to the
Speaker 1: store down the road from my house to pay our
Speaker 1: bill every month. And even that felt sketchy to me.
Speaker 1: I was already so frazzled with all of this, the
Speaker 1: fact that I would go and pay the electric bill
Speaker 1: at at a liquor store. Why is this even a thing?
Speaker 1: I know? Yeah, you're a new Port Pach salon owner
Speaker 1: and I have to go to a liquor store to
Speaker 1: pair of electric bill because we're a delinquent. As the
Speaker 1: months passed, Geneva and Lauren are chasing their tails running
Speaker 1: a salon, dealing with forty employees and working in the
Speaker 1: salon as hair dressers themselves. It's not long before the
Speaker 1: salon's finances begin to eclipse every other issue they're having.
Speaker 1: Then pretty soon c p A Lizzie Malder finds herself
Speaker 1: in Geneva's crosshairs. There was a lot of questions I
Speaker 1: would always have that were never being answered, and she
Speaker 1: would disappear for two or three days. Come Monday, she
Speaker 1: wouldn't answer. We were all in a group text and
Speaker 1: I would say, Lizzie, what about this, this and this?
Speaker 1: Did you pay this bill? Did you did you talk
Speaker 1: to the I R S? Did you talk to Cox Cable?
Speaker 1: They said they haven't been paid for three months? Oh,
Speaker 1: I already talked to them. I'll get back. I'll get
Speaker 1: back to you. It was always like I was chasing
Speaker 1: after her, and it was just so disheveled that it
Speaker 1: really made me frustrated because I try to be very
Speaker 1: organized when it comes to especially bill pay. Lizzie is
Speaker 1: the salon c p A for two years from and
Speaker 1: in that time, the salon inexplicably hemorrhage's money. I mean,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of clients, and they have a
Speaker 1: lot of repeat clients, and the salon is bringing in
Speaker 1: a lot of cash but somehow they're spending more than
Speaker 1: they're taking in and it just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But it's about to what was the straw that broke
Speaker 1: the camel's back. Well, there was a point of true
Speaker 1: breaking point where there was this ten thousand dollar check
Speaker 1: that she said she had this blank check that Lauren
Speaker 1: had already signed in her bag and it was for
Speaker 1: some bill. And at the time she because we had
Speaker 1: run out of money, she was in negotiations with different banks,
Speaker 1: and at the time it was Farmers. She said to
Speaker 1: get a line of credit. That was the only way
Speaker 1: we were going to be able to stay afloat because
Speaker 1: we had run out of all the money. And of
Speaker 1: course she said it was our franchise fees, it was
Speaker 1: the payroll taxes were too high. All these things were
Speaker 1: the reason why we had no more money in our account.
Speaker 1: So she was negotiating a line of credit for us,
Speaker 1: and she hit me up one night and she said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I have this check. I've been talking to this guy
Speaker 1: from from Farmers and he said, you need to pay
Speaker 1: down this credit card and so I'm gonna pay it
Speaker 1: down with the ten thousand dollars and I'm gonna cash
Speaker 1: that you know, for that, And she's like, I just
Speaker 1: talked to you about this stuff because I know that
Speaker 1: that Lauren doesn't get it all the time, and I
Speaker 1: know that you're always, you know, looking at that, and
Speaker 1: I was. Again, she was playing, She started playing us
Speaker 1: against each other. She could see that, you know, I
Speaker 1: was irritated with her and that she wouldn't even answer me.
Speaker 1: The way that Lauren would get her to have a
Speaker 1: conversation with us is she would open it up with
Speaker 1: how are the kids doing? How is Jesse doing? So
Speaker 1: eventually Lizzie would answer and then we could circle back
Speaker 1: to business. So anyway, so she wrote this ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollar check. I saw it come out of the account.
Speaker 1: And the thing is she knew I was always looking.
Speaker 1: That's why she did that. So this ten thousand dollar
Speaker 1: check em out the count the credit card didn't go down,
Speaker 1: so she was supposed to use that to get us
Speaker 1: this letter of credit and it never happened. So three
Speaker 1: or four days later, she's disappeared. You know, we didn't
Speaker 1: talk to her. She's on some trip. So we hit
Speaker 1: her up where I said, Lizzie, where's this ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for the check? She says, I paid it down.
Speaker 1: It should hit on Friday. So Friday comes, it doesn't hit.
Speaker 1: She disappears Friday through Monday. Monday, I said, Lizzie, it
Speaker 1: still hasn't cleared. So I go into the bank and
Speaker 1: I asked them, I saw this ten thousand dollars come out.
Speaker 1: Where was it taken out? And they said, oh, it
Speaker 1: was handled in Laguna Beach, And I said, does it
Speaker 1: show that it's going to our credit account. We're sitting
Speaker 1: in the bank and we get a call at the
Speaker 1: same time, and we are talking to Lizzie telling her
Speaker 1: we're trying to find this ten thousand dollars, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's missing. At this point, Laurens still like, I
Speaker 1: wonder where they lost it. That's so weird. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: that's freaking weird. Yeah, it's strange. So we get a call,
Speaker 1: goes to one of the tellers that we're talking to,
Speaker 1: one of the bank tellers, and they say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in here right now. They said, we're creditors, we
Speaker 1: work for US Bank and we're handling the credit card thing,
Speaker 1: and yes, we did see it hit the account. It's
Speaker 1: going to clear in a couple of days. So the
Speaker 1: lady we were talking to. She said, send that call
Speaker 1: over to me. I want to talk to them. The
Speaker 1: phone line drops, So I was like looking at Lauren, like,
Speaker 1: are you serious? Really? So let me understand. Another bank
Speaker 1: supposedly called the bank you were at, the credit card company.
Speaker 1: The credit card company somehow new were you were there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were calling because they saw that we were
Speaker 1: looking into it. Yeah, So it was just super fishy,
Speaker 1: but still Geneva and Lauren accept that explanation and move on.
Speaker 1: Days later, though, a bomb drops and nothing will ever
Speaker 1: be the same ever again. We went on a business trip.
Speaker 1: We were going to Scottsdale and you're about to leave
Speaker 1: to come back home after the business trip, and we
Speaker 1: get a call from Jesse Mulder and which is Lizzie's husband,
Speaker 1: and he said, Lauren, are you sitting down? And Lauren,
Speaker 1: because she's like the kindest person in the world, she
Speaker 1: starts kind of hyperventilating. She's like, oh my god, is
Speaker 1: Lizzie okay? What was Why would you be calling me?
Speaker 1: And Jesse said, just just sit down and listen to me.
Speaker 1: And I'm just sitting there on the bed like what
Speaker 1: you know. At this point, anything goes She this woman
Speaker 1: has come up with so many reasons of something, and
Speaker 1: so Jesse tells Lauren that he was getting suspicious of
Speaker 1: some of activities that she was doing. So he started
Speaker 1: rummaging through her stuff and he found all of these
Speaker 1: accounts that said income tax payments. He said, I want
Speaker 1: you guys to go through your accounts. It looks like
Speaker 1: she's been stealing money from you, and she's been doing
Speaker 1: it for about a year and a half, so please
Speaker 1: look through all this stuff. I'm going to take everything
Speaker 1: I found to the Laguna Beach Police Department. Apparently there's
Speaker 1: a detective there that's been looking into her, and I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that he gets all this information.
Speaker 1: And Jesse was crying himself on the phone. He was
Speaker 1: crying and he said, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: We have these two little girls, and I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: afraid and I'm sad for them because their mother has
Speaker 1: done this and she's done it to several businesses that
Speaker 1: I'm finding. Coming up this season on Queen of the
Speaker 1: Con the O C Savior, they say, in my line
Speaker 1: of work, you shouldn't take things personal, but I made
Speaker 1: it personal. Just the arrogance of Lizzie Molder. It made
Speaker 1: it easier for me to go after her because I
Speaker 1: just didn't like her. She created a website numbers. She
Speaker 1: created two personalities as young something and a guy named
Speaker 1: Brent Harrison. And I'm thinking, I'm talking to a guy
Speaker 1: overseas that wants to invest into my winery. And really,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to that woman in Orange County that is
Speaker 1: just scamming me the whole time. And it sounded like
Speaker 1: a man, it did, it sounded it sounded just like
Speaker 1: a man. Lizzie actually used a service that was a
Speaker 1: phone service where you could change your voice. Well, there's
Speaker 1: so much more about Lizzie that goes into the level
Speaker 1: of diabolical sociopathic behavior. Oh, it's to go up and
Speaker 1: do the I r s audit in l A with
Speaker 1: her and one of her assistants. And there never wasn't
Speaker 1: audit that, there wasn't audit, complete fabrication. Wow. I'm walking
Speaker 1: out of the station and in walks Jesse Moulder. I
Speaker 1: need to talk to a detective and he says, I'm
Speaker 1: a firefighter and I think my wife is scamming her
Speaker 1: clients out of money. She got me for to eight
Speaker 1: five altogether, she took eighteen thousand dollars out of my business.
Speaker 1: She took a little over twenty out of my parents.
Speaker 1: How much money did your boss end up? Losing? Millions
Speaker 1: every single day as a struggle to keep our business open,
Speaker 1: we almost lost our own homes. We are facing bankruptcy
Speaker 1: because of her. She crippled us. She crippled us badly.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Mulder is a predator. I lost my twenty year marriage.
Speaker 1: The number of people she has hurt, the amount of
Speaker 1: time she has done it, and the callus and cruel
Speaker 1: manner in which she abused the trust of at least
Speaker 1: sixteen victims and probably more. I think, if she's not
Speaker 1: already scamming people, I think she's concocting her next scamp.
Speaker 1: I agree, Queen of the con The O C Savior
Speaker 1: is a production of a y R Media and I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, hosted by me Jonathan Walton, executive producers Jonathan
Speaker 1: Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions and Eliza Rosen for a
Speaker 1: y R Media. Written by Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein,
Speaker 1: Senior Associate producer Eric Newman, Sound design by baked ZD Media,
Speaker 1: Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggy, sound editing, audio and
Speaker 1: studio engineering by Matt Jacobson. Legal counsel for A y
Speaker 1: R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeart Media. Maya
Speaker 1: Howard