Speaker 1: She created a website, she created a hundred numbers. She
Speaker 1: created a guy named Brent Harrison using Spoo software. And
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I'm talking to a guy overseas that wants
Speaker 1: to invest into my winery. And really, I'm talking to
Speaker 1: that woman in Orange County that is just scamming me
Speaker 1: the whole time. And it sounded like a man, it did.
Speaker 1: It sounded just like a man. Jay Avery's company, Jack Wines,
Speaker 1: is scammed out of nearly three hundred thousand dollars by
Speaker 1: c p A. Lizzie Mulder and Laguna Beach Police Detective
Speaker 1: Jordan Morakian is digging in the bottom line. Is there
Speaker 1: fake people who are accepting invoices on behalf of Lizzie
Speaker 1: Moulder and Jack Wines? And money is not going from
Speaker 1: Jack Wines to these people, It's going right back into
Speaker 1: Lizzie Moulder's account. And around the same time that Jay
Speaker 1: Avery is getting scammed, Mike Cochrane's print shop is con
Speaker 1: artists Lizzie Malder's latest mark. I was talking to a gal.
Speaker 1: She was a dog trainer we used to print business
Speaker 1: cards for. She knew a girl, young lady Elizabeth Mulder,
Speaker 1: and referred to us said she's a tax repairer, was
Speaker 1: like her second mom. She claimed, I leave a voicemail
Speaker 1: for this dog trainer. Hey, my name is Jonathan Walton,
Speaker 1: and she calls me back the next day telling me
Speaker 1: I actually have it all wrong. Lizzie Mulder is completely innocent.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Walton and this is Queen of the con
Speaker 1: The O C Savior episode four, better than everybody, you know.
Speaker 1: The embarrassing part about us is we're one of the
Speaker 1: lower rip offs. Okay, she took eighteen thousand dollars out
Speaker 1: of my business. She took a little over twenty dollars
Speaker 1: out of my parents. It's been more than ten years
Speaker 1: since c p A. Lizzie Mulder first darkens myke Cochran's
Speaker 1: door away. He hires her in to do taxes for
Speaker 1: his Orange County print shop. My dad died about three
Speaker 1: and a half four months after I met Lizzie. I
Speaker 1: took my eyes off my business. I didn't give a ship, dude.
Speaker 1: You know, I was wandering around. And just so you know,
Speaker 1: I have two older sisters. My mental sister has mental health.
Speaker 1: She lived with my parents her whole life. Things got
Speaker 1: worse with time. So after my dad expired, she blew
Speaker 1: a fuse, I'm sure, and went into a facility and
Speaker 1: all that. So I was family mode. You're just in
Speaker 1: family mode and you're like, well, there's enough money in
Speaker 1: the bank, pay roll is going to go through with
Speaker 1: my crew. And Lizzie made you believe she's on top
Speaker 1: of things. Oh yeah, yeah, no, I got it. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. Remote, this remote that she's on information
Speaker 1: from the I r S saying things are moving along,
Speaker 1: and then there'll be some emails and I mean, dude,
Speaker 1: the whips she played to create billing we're all fabrications,
Speaker 1: every one of them. So she would send you documents,
Speaker 1: semi documents from the I r S, but really she
Speaker 1: created those documents herself. Oh yeah, and they were payments
Speaker 1: to income tax payments. But the KUDA grab was the
Speaker 1: checking account with the name income tax payments. And I
Speaker 1: had invoices from the I r S saying make checks
Speaker 1: payable to income tax payments. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: you have an I r S document backing up the
Speaker 1: name of this account, you know, and when you say
Speaker 1: it out loud, you go, that doesn't sound right. But
Speaker 1: at the time it flew right through. Do you hold
Speaker 1: Bank of America responsible at all. Totally. That's bullshit, man,
Speaker 1: I mean that's lack of moral account ability. Because she
Speaker 1: can just go to Bank of America and open up
Speaker 1: an account called income tax payments and they don't. That
Speaker 1: doesn't raise a red flag for him. Yeah, no, that's
Speaker 1: just bullshit. But then we also paid Molder Financial Services,
Speaker 1: which was her tax preparing, so we actually paid her
Speaker 1: to prepare Wait a minute, she didn't prepare taxes paid
Speaker 1: her to scam you. We paid her to scam us.
Speaker 1: She even did a crazy thing. Probably about two years
Speaker 1: into working with her, she told us that there was
Speaker 1: an audit that she had to go to in l
Speaker 1: A to the main office for your company for my business.
Speaker 1: Ye needed some information, provide all these documents that edited.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna have to take a
Speaker 1: girl with me, just so you know it's going to
Speaker 1: be expensive and you know, oh, but this will take
Speaker 1: care of it. We're going to clear it all up.
Speaker 1: Fuck total bullshit, Okay. She she wanted to get money
Speaker 1: from you to go on this trip from to go
Speaker 1: up and do the I R S on it in
Speaker 1: l A with her and one of her assistants and
Speaker 1: there never wasn't on it. That was never wasn't on it,
Speaker 1: complete fabrication. She did a series of phone calls. Factis information.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm at the office right now. Hold Tom one sack.
Speaker 1: This agent's gonna call you. He's gonna talk to you.
Speaker 1: So you talked to who you thought was an I R. S. Agent,
Speaker 1: But it was Lizzie Malder. It was Lizzie Molder. And
Speaker 1: what does that voice sound like? It sounded like a dude.
Speaker 1: You know at the time, I didn't like imprinted in
Speaker 1: my brain. Okay, like I should remember the sound of
Speaker 1: this voice. It was not It was not a female voice.
Speaker 1: It had more baritone or what did guys have, Adam
Speaker 1: sample something, there's some different tweak and a guy's voice,
Speaker 1: and what do you guys have? Well, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. No, yeah, no, it's like a deeper ment
Speaker 1: like a man's like a man's voice. Absolutely, I just
Speaker 1: assumed it was a guy. And this sounded all legit
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, okay, and yes I agree with that.
Speaker 1: And you know he was asking me questions in particular
Speaker 1: to our taxes, and you know, I just soaked it
Speaker 1: all up. But looking back, you're like Jesus man, that's
Speaker 1: that's sophistication. That is a person that is a professional.
Speaker 1: And how does she steal the money from your parents.
Speaker 1: My dad was close to death. Okay. Uh, he's in
Speaker 1: a like a hospice hospice care. Yeah, where everybody's trying
Speaker 1: to have you take the magic pill and go to sleep. Okay.
Speaker 1: So he's winding down and he's trying to get his
Speaker 1: affairs in order. So he was selling stock. My dad
Speaker 1: had some inheritance, some houses. His brother and sister died,
Speaker 1: no kids, and he got the houses. So you know,
Speaker 1: the boy built up some funds and was trying to
Speaker 1: take care of my mom, so he was generating some
Speaker 1: cash and so on and so forth. Lizzie was helping us.
Speaker 1: So we thought I told my parents. I only knew
Speaker 1: Lizzie for about a month. Okay. She did the taxes
Speaker 1: from my mom and dad had them right five checksture,
Speaker 1: you know where they all went, income tax pay income
Speaker 1: tax payments, and so she uh filed the taxes, but
Speaker 1: she did not apply any of the payments. Of course,
Speaker 1: she took that money for herself. Then she was saying
Speaker 1: that she wanted to help them with their estates. So
Speaker 1: that was where Lizzie possibly could have stole millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: But my mom was like, nope, nope, nope. My mom
Speaker 1: was an executive secretary. She used to do stuff for
Speaker 1: one of the vps at Wells Fargo. So my mom
Speaker 1: had her ship together, thank god, thank god, you know,
Speaker 1: and basically said, no, baby, I'm in charge. I take
Speaker 1: care of this when you get stuck in one of
Speaker 1: these crappy situations with I hope most people don't, okay,
Speaker 1: but there's millions of common people out there. In my view,
Speaker 1: the real human nature is dirty, you know, human nature. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think human nature is dirty. I think most
Speaker 1: people are good, fine people. Yeah, but Lizzie, Uh, Lizzie
Speaker 1: really got us. She pooled us the whole way. Talking
Speaker 1: to Mike, it's clear that he's not over what happened
Speaker 1: to him. I mean, how could he be. This has
Speaker 1: been one of the biggest mistakes in my life. Well,
Speaker 1: you see, I don't think you should frame it that way.
Speaker 1: What you didn't make a mistake. You were the victim
Speaker 1: of a con artist, yes that you were. Just the
Speaker 1: mistake you made was having a business and needing a
Speaker 1: c p A, that's not a mistake. And then this
Speaker 1: dog trainer recommends her. This woman gave her a glowing recommendation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you think she's in on it? I question it
Speaker 1: highly because she was a woman of very simple means.
Speaker 1: I think it's a nice way of saying it. And
Speaker 1: now she has quite a bit means, but a dog trainer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but she met a nice man. Okay. She never gave
Speaker 1: me any signals that she would lie or swindle me
Speaker 1: or anything. Well, after my meeting with Mike Cochrane, I
Speaker 1: get a return phone call from the dog trainer on
Speaker 1: February eight at ten past nine in the morning, and
Speaker 1: my mouth is a gape for our entire seven minute conversation.
Speaker 1: I wish I could play it for you, but she
Speaker 1: didn't agree to be recorded. The dog trainer doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be interviewed for the podcast, and she says neither
Speaker 1: does Lizzie or anyone in her family. She goes on
Speaker 1: to tell me that Lizzie Mulder is not a con
Speaker 1: artist at all, and all those entrepreneurs she did the
Speaker 1: books for the winery, the salon, Mike's print shop are
Speaker 1: just bad business people who lose money and they're now
Speaker 1: trying to blame poor Lizzie Mulder. Okay, I call up
Speaker 1: Mike Cochrane to see what he makes of this interesting revelation.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, or more, dude, that she was the one
Speaker 1: that referred us to her. I'm starting to think that
Speaker 1: this was a group, not an individual, like a family
Speaker 1: of scammers, a family of scammers. So it's a very
Speaker 1: suspect situation with her. You know, her occupation of training
Speaker 1: dogs as well. A lot of people have dogs. She
Speaker 1: could have come in and you know, we have her
Speaker 1: up here and she trained our dogs, so she got
Speaker 1: a full look at our house and our assets and stuff.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's what prompted Lizzy to come onto us.
Speaker 1: She was like doing reconnaissance possibly, so you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you get you know, all sorts of paranoia theories come
Speaker 1: into play. But when you start looking at lizzy body
Speaker 1: of work, nothing was out of bound, nothing was too
Speaker 1: far fetched because look at all the methods she used
Speaker 1: to extort people. My next call is to the owner
Speaker 1: and operator of Jack Wines, who Lizzie scams out of
Speaker 1: nearly three hundred thousand dollars. Hello, hey, ja Vree, can
Speaker 1: you talk now? I came in. I'm just driving. I'm
Speaker 1: in a fucking RV, so low and flow. Maybe, since
Speaker 1: Lizzie was almost like a sister to Jay, or at
Speaker 1: least she was pretending to be while she was scamming him,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if he actually knows the dog trainer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never met her, but I've heard that name before.
Speaker 1: So what's going on with that? I talked to her
Speaker 1: and she doesn't want to do an interview. Shocker, because
Speaker 1: the dog trainer tells me Lizzie Maulder is innocent. Lizzie
Speaker 1: Maulder is not a con artist. You and all the
Speaker 1: other victims are just making this up because you're bad
Speaker 1: business people. You lost money and you're trying to blame her. Wow,
Speaker 1: I mean that is that's interesting. Wow, that's my mind
Speaker 1: is well right now, I'm specious. Don't even thinks this
Speaker 1: is wild. I mean, that's that's cognitive dissidence like I've
Speaker 1: never seen before. Somebody madam impressed. I just don't understand
Speaker 1: how you can even come up with the concept that
Speaker 1: is insulting and delisional like that crazy. But the fact
Speaker 1: that you know we made it up, it's crazy. You're
Speaker 1: still rattling the I R S right now from you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not paying taxes for five years, and the I
Speaker 1: R S just was originally came after me. It was
Speaker 1: was all over a million and a half and you know,
Speaker 1: a million justin penalties because she didn't find my taxes.
Speaker 1: But the part about that that you know, frustrates me
Speaker 1: is that I thought I paid my taxes. I put
Speaker 1: money in the account for tactics. I had no clue
Speaker 1: that she wouldn't paying them. So I'm still dealing with
Speaker 1: a five year later. So it's just infult thing even
Speaker 1: think that someone getting even go down that room and
Speaker 1: making that Livie in benefit, you know, yeah, I know. Hey, Johnathan,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good man, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for My next phone call is to Sergeant Jordans Moracian,
Speaker 1: the Laguna Beach Police detective investigating Lizzie Milder back in.
Speaker 1: I want to know if he knows about the dog trainer. Yep,
Speaker 1: it sounds like what she said to me. So you
Speaker 1: talked to the dog trainer. Yeah, I talked to her.
Speaker 1: I tried to go out there and actually visit her
Speaker 1: in person. She wanted nothing to do with me, she said,
Speaker 1: that everyone was framing Lizzy and that Lizzy was innocent
Speaker 1: and we got it all wrong, and she's a sweetheart,
Speaker 1: she would trust her dogs, and her life was Lizzy.
Speaker 1: And I said, I understand where you're coming from, but
Speaker 1: I have pages and pages of bank records that tell
Speaker 1: me different. And I left it at that. She wanted
Speaker 1: nothing to do with me. This just reeks of a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: To me, the dog trainer taking Lizzie Mulder's side means
Speaker 1: she's got to be in on the scam, right. But
Speaker 1: I realized, as the victim of a con artist myself,
Speaker 1: my lingering, anger and emotion can sometimes get the best
Speaker 1: of me and blind me from seeing things clearly. So
Speaker 1: I reach out to a neutral third party who doesn't
Speaker 1: have a dog in this race, but does have decades
Speaker 1: of experience investigating complex criminality. Jonathan I was a psychiatric
Speaker 1: nurse for ten years when the FBI recruited me to
Speaker 1: be a special agent, and that looked like fun to me.
Speaker 1: So I turned in my stethoscope for a Smith and Wesson,
Speaker 1: and there I was. Candice DeLong was a criminal profiler
Speaker 1: for the FBI from two thousand. She worked on some
Speaker 1: pretty groundbreaking cases from the Thailand All murders. Johnson and
Speaker 1: Johnson is now offering a one hundred thousand dollar award
Speaker 1: for those responsible for spiking Tail and all capsules with
Speaker 1: deadly cyanide poisoning to taking down the unibomber, FBI agents
Speaker 1: are searching the Montana cabin of former mathematics professor Ted Kazinski.
Speaker 1: These days, though, Candice hosts a podcast called Killer Psyche
Speaker 1: where she shares her expertise on the criminal mind. One
Speaker 1: of the most difficult situations is if you're in love
Speaker 1: with someone, then you've got blinders on love is truly
Speaker 1: truly blind. The emotion of it prevents you from seeing
Speaker 1: clearly or analyzing clearly what's right in front of you.
Speaker 1: Because con artists, in a way get their victims to
Speaker 1: fall in love with them, even if it's not a
Speaker 1: romantic love. Yes, it's it's friendship. They groomed them. And
Speaker 1: when you really love someone or like someone or consider
Speaker 1: someone a quote best friend, yeah, you overlook a lot.
Speaker 1: You'll believe a lot that you wouldn't believe if you
Speaker 1: had your your full brain operating exactly exactly. So what's
Speaker 1: your take on the dog trainer that Lizzie did a
Speaker 1: hell of a job on her. She did a job
Speaker 1: on her, and it's the halo effect. It's with Lizzie Molder.
Speaker 1: People saw a successful woman, successful with money. They believe
Speaker 1: she was a c p A. No one questioned her,
Speaker 1: she lived in a beautiful home, had nice cars, and
Speaker 1: they had the halo effect about her. In fact, she
Speaker 1: was a psychopath con woman. It's it all boils down
Speaker 1: to trust. I dog trainer judged Lizzie to be a
Speaker 1: good and wonderful and successful and nice person, and she's
Speaker 1: hanging onto that despite overwhelming evidence and proof. It all
Speaker 1: boils down to I see what I want to see,
Speaker 1: and I know what I want to know, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to know bad things about Lizzie. And that's
Speaker 1: that go away to me. She's like Lizzie. Well, it
Speaker 1: might be, or it simply could be. She's married to
Speaker 1: her ideas, she's married to her beliefs. Jonathan, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about could boil down to we like to believe
Speaker 1: we are good judges of character, and this happens. Let's
Speaker 1: say someone is arrested for molesting a child. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a coach. Turns out he's been arrested for molesting a
Speaker 1: twelve year old boy, and maybe other parents come forward
Speaker 1: to go, I think there's happened to my child. My
Speaker 1: child said had happened to him. There is initially, especially
Speaker 1: in cases. I'm not talking about a stranger coming into
Speaker 1: a nice neighborhood and grabbing a kid. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: somebody who lives in the neighborhood, is part of the community,
Speaker 1: and is trusted by parents to be with their children,
Speaker 1: and then something like this happens. People circle the wagons
Speaker 1: to protect the accused. Nope, I couldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: Couldn't have done it because to accept that they were
Speaker 1: so wrong to trust that person with their child is painful.
Speaker 1: It shakes their world, and it's really easier to go no, no,
Speaker 1: I think the kid's lying. It's a witch on it's
Speaker 1: this at that. And to deal with these kinds of criminals,
Speaker 1: whether it be a child molester or a con artist,
Speaker 1: we have to accept, Hey, we're human, and if you're
Speaker 1: a trusting person, that's not a criminal, which for aginately
Speaker 1: most of us are not criminals. These things happen. Misjudging
Speaker 1: someone's intent, it happens. You know, what's brilliant about you.
Speaker 1: You completely changed my mind, just really you did, because
Speaker 1: I was convinced this dog trainer is in on it,
Speaker 1: when really that example illustrates perfectly how strong people don't
Speaker 1: want to believe that they were wrong because they played
Speaker 1: a role in hurting someone. Plus and I think the
Speaker 1: stronger thing is they have to accept that they made
Speaker 1: a mistake, their judgment was inaccurate. I think that's the
Speaker 1: dog trainer. She doesn't want to believe it. I hope
Speaker 1: she never gets victimized. It's human nature. Really, you just
Speaker 1: don't want to believe bad things about the people you love,
Speaker 1: the people you trust, the people you stick up for, and,
Speaker 1: as Detective Morackian points out, the people you have stuff
Speaker 1: in common with. Lizzie likes to rehabilitate horses and the
Speaker 1: dog trainer likes to train and to some extent, rehabilitate dogs,
Speaker 1: so they have a commonality which is not unlike any
Speaker 1: of the cons that Lizzie accomplished. Like every single person
Speaker 1: that Lizzie scammed out of money, she found a commonality
Speaker 1: with them to make them feel like Lizzie was a
Speaker 1: part of their family or at least a very close
Speaker 1: personal friend and not a business associate. I have a
Speaker 1: little bit of background with people who love animals. They're
Speaker 1: very tight knit community. And my personal opinion on it
Speaker 1: is that Lizzie charmed her way in the Dog Trainer's
Speaker 1: life with her love for animals. It's kind of one
Speaker 1: of those things where they all stick together, kind of
Speaker 1: like cops stick together. You know. Yeah, that makes sense, thankfully, though,
Speaker 1: once the elaborate cons of Lizzie Maulder start going public,
Speaker 1: ardent supporters of Lizzie, like the Dog Trainer are in
Speaker 1: the minority. She came to my wedding and my baby shower. Yea.
Speaker 1: Jen Rodriguez is a forensic accountant that a company called
Speaker 1: with him. She's whipped smart, with long brown hair and
Speaker 1: a hopeful glint in her eye. She exudes kindness and
Speaker 1: a perpetual curiosity about everything. She's actually good friends with
Speaker 1: Lizzie Malder before she finds out Lizzie's a con artist.
Speaker 1: But looking back, Jan realizes it was far from a
Speaker 1: healthy friendship. She was the personality that was the one upper.
Speaker 1: Everybody has that friend, right you say, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I got this new car. It's really great. Oh that car, Well,
Speaker 1: I just bought this car. She always was a one upper.
Speaker 1: Oh John, I'm so sorry you rent. Oh yeah, she
Speaker 1: would say that. Often. Jen's friendship with Lizzie starts, like
Speaker 1: a lot of friendships do, on the job. I worked
Speaker 1: at a place that she was doing a counting, and
Speaker 1: that's how I first met her. They're both working for
Speaker 1: a website selling luxury experiences. Ironically, we actually had many
Speaker 1: other crossings before even that that we put together after
Speaker 1: the fact. For example, her uncle actually sang at my
Speaker 1: grandparents's wedding, believe it or not, yet her uncle sang
Speaker 1: at your grandparents wedding wedding, so like a long time ago,
Speaker 1: like a long time ago. And I even danced with
Speaker 1: her uncle because her uncle was a Armenian musician and
Speaker 1: I did belly dancing and belly dancing back in the day,
Speaker 1: belly dancing Forensic account. There's a show here that a second.
Speaker 1: But when Jen first meets Lizzie in they're working for
Speaker 1: the same company, f y I. It's a different company
Speaker 1: than where Jen's working now. She would come to the
Speaker 1: office just like very sporadically, you know, for year in
Speaker 1: taxes or things that were going on at the time.
Speaker 1: My boss was married, so she also handled their personal taxes,
Speaker 1: so she would interact with my boss's husband, and I
Speaker 1: really thought she was just over the top, like oh,
Speaker 1: like literally I had a sentence for her, oh Lizzie,
Speaker 1: because she would say things and do things that you
Speaker 1: would think, wait what and oh Lizzie. You know that
Speaker 1: that was kind of my thought for her, and because
Speaker 1: she would say things so out of the blue, almost
Speaker 1: as if she didn't have filters. And then I struggle
Speaker 1: with that too, so I get it. So I just
Speaker 1: kind of had compassion and just would be like, oh, Lizzy.
Speaker 1: But she was good, garious. She was very um, outspoken
Speaker 1: and direct, and to be honest, I quite appreciated that.
Speaker 1: That's something I quite liked about her, was that she
Speaker 1: seemed to be very direct and upfront and to the point.
Speaker 1: It's amazing you say that. I had the exact same
Speaker 1: feeling when I met Mayor. She seemed like a woman
Speaker 1: who told it like it is. We didn't have a filter,
Speaker 1: and living in l a where everyone's fake, it was
Speaker 1: so refreshing to see someone so quote honest. Yes, but
Speaker 1: now in retrospect, we both have learned the hard way
Speaker 1: that wasn't honesty that was a con well, and probably
Speaker 1: the real truth of it was some of it was honest,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes it so believable. Yes, that's our
Speaker 1: biggest fall was because you would hear things and as
Speaker 1: the story unfolded, you would get one nugget of truth,
Speaker 1: but then you would rationalize the things that didn't add up.
Speaker 1: I mean I trusted things that she said, like damning
Speaker 1: things about colleagues and people I work with, people that
Speaker 1: are now my closest friends. So she was telling you
Speaker 1: crap about other people what to keep you away from
Speaker 1: them or keep you disliking them, I think, to keep
Speaker 1: us autonomous. Yeah, so that way, there weren't checks and balances,
Speaker 1: you know, as in a forensic accountant. Now, I know
Speaker 1: the number one thing is you always have checks and balances, right,
Speaker 1: like internal controls. But she drove in between those internal controls.
Speaker 1: She interrupted them because she acted as a control. And
Speaker 1: that's a classic contact name. That's what Merri Smith did
Speaker 1: to me. She kept me separate from people by telling
Speaker 1: me my neighbors or murderers wanted in Canada, so I
Speaker 1: avoided them. Meanwhile, she's scamming them, She's scamming me and
Speaker 1: we're avoiding God like so awful to write like they're murderers.
Speaker 1: But but Lizzie did the same thing to you, told
Speaker 1: you lies about friends and colleagues to keep you separated, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a technique to these people. There was one
Speaker 1: party that we went to, my husband and I. We
Speaker 1: went with her, and she was so socially awkward. It
Speaker 1: was very interesting, and I was actually right before things
Speaker 1: really started unfolding. It was kind of like you know
Speaker 1: when you're picking up the crumb pieces and you look
Speaker 1: back and you're like, wow, how did I not see
Speaker 1: that before? And there was a party at dinner party
Speaker 1: that she had before we knew anything that happened, And
Speaker 1: she was so over the top, trying to be cool
Speaker 1: and trying to be fun, and she was taking shots
Speaker 1: and making a big deal that she couldn't swallow jello shots.
Speaker 1: It was just very high school, like somebody that hadn't
Speaker 1: really evolved and matured and grew up and went through
Speaker 1: that in high school. Were you ever suspicious of Lizzie Mulder,
Speaker 1: Like before everyone figured out she's a con artist and
Speaker 1: she stole all this money from all these people, there
Speaker 1: were things that didn't add up but I fell into
Speaker 1: that trap that it was you can justify it, you know, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe she's just really stressed out, or maybe she has
Speaker 1: a lot of going on, or maybe I just misread that.
Speaker 1: My husband, on the other hand, knew from the get go.
Speaker 1: The minute he met her, he knew something. Was that
Speaker 1: what gave her away in his eyes, what was she saying?
Speaker 1: Her arrogance was here that again and again she was
Speaker 1: very arrogant. She was always telling you how great she was. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: she was better than everybody. And something about that rubbed
Speaker 1: him the wrong way. And in the end crack started
Speaker 1: really showing up. But she always had an answer for them.
Speaker 1: She could explain it. So if something didn't add up
Speaker 1: at the time, my counterpart that's based out of state,
Speaker 1: she blamed a lot of the things that were coming
Speaker 1: up on her and so I would have never thought
Speaker 1: to put it that she was lying to me or
Speaker 1: putting it on this person. And I just thought, man,
Speaker 1: this person sucks at their job, which ironically she's the
Speaker 1: polar opposite of that. She's amazing at her job. But
Speaker 1: Lizzie had built up this persona that I believed was
Speaker 1: this person, and then probably about three weeks before everything
Speaker 1: really started coming out. I caught her in some big lies,
Speaker 1: and that one I couldn't justify. And one of them
Speaker 1: was a really big lie. And I couldn't even talk
Speaker 1: for a whole night because there was no justification. The
Speaker 1: only justification was that she was doing something really wrong.
Speaker 1: And what was that lie? So we use a program,
Speaker 1: like a lot of companies, a CRM program, and it
Speaker 1: was Salesforce at the time, and it was like a
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar subscription that you pay annually. But if
Speaker 1: you don't pay on time, you know, they shut down
Speaker 1: your database, so you lose everything. So my reps are down,
Speaker 1: everybody's down. And I had told her, Lizzy, you need
Speaker 1: to pay this bill. There I'm shut down. And she
Speaker 1: had told me, I'm on the phone right now with
Speaker 1: a guy. Well, I was on the phone with the
Speaker 1: guy and and she had said that she was paying
Speaker 1: with I can't remember now if it was that she
Speaker 1: was paying with a credit card or with the check,
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Whatever it was that she said she
Speaker 1: was paying with, they don't take that. And the guy's like, Nope,
Speaker 1: that could have never happened. Nope, she's not on the
Speaker 1: phone with anyone. So she was texting me blow by blow,
Speaker 1: but I was on the phone with Salesforce and there
Speaker 1: was just no So you knew every single text at
Speaker 1: that point was a lot lie m h. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: at this stage in the game, Lizzie Mulder scams dollars
Speaker 1: from print shop owner Mike Cochrane and his parents, while
Speaker 1: she's scamming two five thou dollars from Jay Avery and
Speaker 1: Jack Wines, while she's also scamming two from Geneva Mendoza's
Speaker 1: Newport Beach salon. But Lizzie's biggest swindle by far actually
Speaker 1: comes out of Jen's bosses pocketbook. How much money did
Speaker 1: your boss end up losing? Millions? Next time on Queen
Speaker 1: of the Con The o C Savior, It's sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like a bad mom because I opened my family up,
Speaker 1: and you know, I kind of invited the devil into
Speaker 1: the den, and dealing with the devil causes Jen Rodriguez
Speaker 1: to take matters into her own hands. I happen to
Speaker 1: have a stack of her meal and I ripped open
Speaker 1: a big statement right then and there, and I literally
Speaker 1: almost vomited, like vomited. But Lizzie has a plausible explanation
Speaker 1: for everything. My boss would never listen if I would say, hey,
Speaker 1: this doesn't quite make sense. One of the things Lizzie
Speaker 1: was famous for is in a roundabout way, making people
Speaker 1: feel stupid, and Lizzie kind of browbeats people into Hey,
Speaker 1: you you stay in your lane. And that's how Lizzie operates.
Speaker 1: Queen of the con The O C Savior is a
Speaker 1: production of a y R Media and I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: hosted by Me Jonathan Walton, executive producers Jonathan Walton for
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton Productions and Eliza Rosen for a y R Media.
Speaker 1: Written by Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate
Speaker 1: producer Eric Newman. Sound design by baked ZD Media, mixed
Speaker 1: and mastered by Cameron Taggy, Sound editing, audio and studio
Speaker 1: engineering by Matt Jacobson. Legal counsel for A y R Media,
Speaker 1: uh Jihanni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya Howard