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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio zeren How you doing.

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Speaker 2: You're doing pretty good? Fun to see you, I know it.

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Speaker 3: It's so fun to see me too.

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Speaker 2: I know everybody says it. I love to see Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: Do you know what's articulous? I do my jazz album collection,

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Speaker 2: not that because I start that wrong, not the album

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Speaker 2: collection itself, but I was going through it, and I

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Speaker 2: don't mean like, well, I'll put it this way. The covers, yeah,

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Speaker 2: And I was like, these covers are amazing. Some of

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Speaker 2: these covers are. I mean I'm not just like the

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Speaker 2: cool ones. I mean some of have iconic photography, Blue

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Speaker 2: Note records. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking like

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Speaker 2: even Later. And also I don't mean like Herb Alpert's

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Speaker 2: Whoped Cream and other Delights, right, I don't mean like, oh,

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Speaker 2: vaguely sexualized imagery. I'm talking about like Count Basie just

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Speaker 2: dropping an album cover that is an atomic bomb going off.

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Speaker 2: I got that one right. But then there's other ones.

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Speaker 2: There's like Mingus dressed like a Chinese emperor. Right, He's

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Speaker 2: just got a flowing gold robes dress against the dragon

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Speaker 2: wall that's also gold. But you can take like old

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Speaker 2: Man Coleman Hawkins the Hawks still tough, right, and he's

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Speaker 2: I'm blowing so tough, I blow smoke and the photo

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Speaker 2: him just blowing plumes of smoke like an angry dragon

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Speaker 2: out of his nose or one of my favorites Eddie

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Speaker 2: Harris and producer to be on this one. The reason

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Speaker 2: why I'm talking and that's the name of the album.

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Speaker 3: Is in the street.

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Speaker 2: That's his broken saxophone case he smashed down. He just

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Speaker 2: got his saxophone left and he's like coming at the

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Speaker 2: camera like sures.

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Speaker 3: You've got to make sure we put all of this

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Speaker 3: on Instagram. They put the what's ridiculous stuff in the stories.

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Speaker 3: It's not on the regular posts. So that's why you

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Speaker 3: got to check the posts and the stories on inst.

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Speaker 2: There you go the hard way. Yeah, so boom, isn't

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Speaker 2: that ridiculous? I was like this album collect I should

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Speaker 2: put these on my wall facing each other.

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Speaker 3: The freak flex open it up exactly. Do you want

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Speaker 3: to know what else is ridiculous?

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Speaker 2: Please?

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Speaker 3: Going to jail and writing about other people's crimes.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's a spin.

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Speaker 3: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.

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Speaker 3: Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free

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Speaker 3: and one hundred percent ridiculous.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, oh that was good.

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Speaker 3: Did that hurt a little?

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Speaker 2: No? No, I felt good. I was releasing something nice.

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Speaker 3: I have two Volgo financial scammers for you today.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they have somewhat parallel storylines that then intersect. Wow,

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Speaker 3: look at you, I know, look at me, so creative

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Speaker 3: and along the ways erin Yes, ridiculousness.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, the adventure awaits.

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Speaker 3: So I'm going to start us off with Marcus Schrenker.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: And he was born in nineteen seventy in Warsaw, Indiana.

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Speaker 4: Yay, nice, a little fake out.

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Speaker 2: I amost threw me.

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Speaker 3: He's a good Midwestern boy, thank you so much. Good

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Speaker 3: one Midwestern by, very ambitious and driven. He went to

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Speaker 3: Purdue he got a uh business degree. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 3: while he was there he added another interest to his retinue,

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Speaker 3: aviation light.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So like he gets out of college, he marries a

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Speaker 3: former cheerleader. They get they live in this suburb of Indianapolis.

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Speaker 3: He's this successful business like investment consultant guy, all the

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Speaker 3: trappings of that lifestyle. So this is giant house, fancy cars,

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Speaker 3: expensive suits. He's got boats, planes, a plane he can

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Speaker 3: fly all by himself.

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Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? And this is all like Indiana

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Speaker 2: late nineties percent?

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So, according to CBS News quote, at thirty eight,

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Speaker 3: he controlled an impressive slate of business through his Heritage

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Speaker 3: Wealth Management Incorporated, Heritage Insurance Services Incorporated, and Icon Wealth Management.

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Speaker 3: He was responsible for providing financial advice and managing portfolios

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Speaker 3: worth millions. Look at him, Look at him. He told

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Speaker 3: his clients that he would take the standard one percent

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Speaker 3: management fee and he would only make money if they

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Speaker 3: made money.

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Speaker 2: Is that the standard? I don't have the money manager.

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Speaker 3: Who knows? Perhaps I don't know.

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Speaker 2: My money manager is gravity.

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Speaker 3: My money manage. My money manager is my wallet in

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Speaker 3: my pocket book. There you go, and the ATM card.

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Speaker 3: So here's here's what he really did.

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Speaker 2: Though.

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Speaker 3: He put their money into annuities and he took huge

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Speaker 3: commissions from that. So then if they wanted to cash

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Speaker 3: out and get their money back, they owed these massive

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Speaker 3: surrender fees on the annuities. Or if Schranker took the

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Speaker 3: money out as the broker, they'd still be on the

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Speaker 3: hook for the surrender fees and for cashing that policy out. Early,

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Speaker 3: because this is this is how annuities work, right.

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Speaker 2: I don't quite know.

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Speaker 3: It's a neither do I. It's a contract that's issued

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Speaker 3: and distributed by an insurance company, so the insurance company

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Speaker 3: pays out income to the purchaser of the contract. So

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Speaker 3: it's like life insurance, but the payout isn't after you die,

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Speaker 3: So annuities they're generally used for retirement income. Like you

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Speaker 3: pay in and then you get the payments regularly when

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Speaker 3: you retire, and that makes sure you don't run out

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Speaker 3: of money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I've heard of these.

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Speaker 3: I'm not entirely sure.

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Speaker 2: They advertise these on my old radio shows like for

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Speaker 2: Back in the Day like I've started in nineteen twenty eight.

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Speaker 3: There are two things I need to say about my

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Speaker 3: complete ignorance surance. One, I would like for my mother

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Speaker 3: not to call and berate me on the fact that

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Speaker 3: I have financial illiteracy and she teaches business law. She's

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Speaker 3: a formidable business lawyer. Yeah, sorry, mom, I don't know

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Speaker 3: what an annuity is. And also, anyone listening in on

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Speaker 3: this conversation, I honestly don't care, so don't try and

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Speaker 3: explain the.

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Speaker 2: Know lottery winners they try to like flip them to

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Speaker 2: get them to take the annuity, right. And then also

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Speaker 2: people who get big settlements, they try to take their

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Speaker 2: settlements and get them like we'll give you ye scheme.

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Speaker 3: It seems like you get this lump sum like that

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Speaker 3: you hand over and you're basically investing it. It's locked in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're taking that those payments at whatever rate they

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Speaker 2: get up.

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Speaker 3: When people explained financial stuff to me, it's like when

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Speaker 3: they explain board game directions or card game, I'm like, okay, whatever.

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Speaker 2: Well you ever heard like when things just like flat out,

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Speaker 2: like on the sound thing, it just turns into white noise, Like, yes,

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Speaker 2: that's what happens. People start talking about money.

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Speaker 3: I don't know. So most of his clients, though, right,

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Speaker 3: they're like us, They have no idea what they're buying.

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Speaker 2: Good suckers like us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they thought they were doing straight up market investments,

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Speaker 3: which I understand that foreign currency investments. Sometimes he called

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Speaker 3: them insurance products. It was vague enough so it to

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Speaker 3: sound good to like those like me.

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Speaker 2: You don't that term out there. I don't really know.

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Speaker 2: It's not that I know that derived from other.

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Speaker 3: I think you're like betting, got a bet basically.

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Speaker 2: Or we're gonna give you a PI that mom.

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Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. Sorry, You're not the failure. I'm the failure. Okay,

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Speaker 3: so Shrinker he picked up most of his clients via

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Speaker 3: word of mouth. Okay, this one guy, Joe Mazzone from Alabama.

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Speaker 3: He told CNN quote, when you're a pilot, you trust,

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Speaker 3: that's what you do and what you're used to doing.

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Speaker 3: His modus operendi is he flies into your city dressed

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Speaker 3: up in a thousand dollars suit and sits down with you,

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Speaker 3: buys you lunch, and the next thing you know, he

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Speaker 3: has you on his side and you move your money

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Speaker 3: to his Heritage Wealth Management. He's a schmoozer.

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Speaker 2: Another enclassic con artist.

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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Charles Kinney he befriended Shranker in nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 3: and then he bought in with him in like two

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Speaker 3: thousand and three, and then he got his parents to

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Speaker 3: buy in to the tune of two million dollars.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 3: He told CNN quote, this guy was family to me.

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Speaker 3: He's a fantastic nice guy. He's well spoken. His customer

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Speaker 3: service was impeccable. You call the guy on the phone,

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Speaker 3: you would get him. He told my parents that they

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Speaker 3: were investing in various insurance products, but they didn't really

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Speaker 3: know what that meant.

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Speaker 2: I didn't really know either.

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Speaker 3: We trusted him. He said, this is a safe place

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Speaker 3: to put money to avoid all the world's dangers like

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Speaker 3: terrorism and impending doom and gloom associated with it in

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Speaker 3: that climate. Back then, you bought it. You believed him

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Speaker 3: that he would protect your money.

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Speaker 2: You think it's also leaving out tax shelters.

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Speaker 3: Two thousand and three, He's like, look after the towers

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Speaker 3: phone to protect your money.

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Speaker 2: I thought they were going to hit banks with planes and.

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Speaker 3: To just quickly give me everything.

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Speaker 2: Planes get it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's this Delta pilot and investor Dave Smith. He

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Speaker 3: told CNBC quote, there's nothing more scary than having seven

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Speaker 3: figures of money and not knowing what to do with it. Like, okay,

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Speaker 3: I'll be scared. What kind There's so many, so many

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Speaker 3: more than that, Like I come here, I'll show you.

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Speaker 2: Like like it's literally that there are fewer things scarier than.

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Speaker 3: That seven figures. So much the other side, like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: he's new here.

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Speaker 2: I could take up a billionaires giving him. They're scarier

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Speaker 2: than that. It's like a bubba gump ship thing or

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Speaker 2: just naming things.

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Speaker 3: He goes on. So I started asking around, Hey, do

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Speaker 3: you guys have a guy that's doing your money? Like,

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Speaker 3: let's let's ask.

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Speaker 2: Our friends that's doing your money. They're like printing it.

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Speaker 3: And one of my favorite co pilots said, I would

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Speaker 3: trust him with my kids. That's how much I trust

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Speaker 3: this guy. And I said, who was that guy? It

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Speaker 3: was Marcus Shrinker?

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Speaker 2: What that mask?

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Speaker 3: Because the man that you trust with your kids, I

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Speaker 3: feel sorry for your kids. The kids are all as

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Speaker 3: a measure of your trust. So Smith he put all

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Speaker 3: of his savings into to investment with Shrinker, but then

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Speaker 3: he found out that he was locked into a twenty

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Speaker 3: five year annuity and that Schranker had withdrawn thirty percent

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Speaker 3: of his money twenty year. Yeah, so he gets charged.

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Speaker 3: Smith gets charged a sixty six thousand dollars surrender fee

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Speaker 3: for early withdrawal. And on top of that, it turns

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Speaker 3: out that Schranker was moving Smith's money from one annuity

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Speaker 3: to the next, and every time he did it, he

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Speaker 3: made a thirteen percent commission on it, and then it

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Speaker 3: incurred more surrender fees for the clients. It's like shedding

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Speaker 3: bits on that, but then what the hell? Yeah, so

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Speaker 3: complaints started coming into authorities where these investments were based,

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Speaker 3: like Indiana, Georgia. But then he'd switch his licensing to

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Speaker 3: new states, and that would create confusion about who was

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Speaker 3: supposed to monitor him. According to CNBC quote, Georgia's insurance

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Speaker 3: department worked with five people who filed complaints over Schrenker's

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Speaker 3: handling of annuities. The department eventually obtained two point five

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Speaker 3: million dollars in refunds for the investors working with insurance

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Speaker 3: companies that issued those annuities. By the time Georgia officials

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Speaker 3: notified Indiana about Shranker in April two thousand and seven,

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Speaker 3: he had already withdrawn his Georgia insurance license. A group

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Speaker 3: of relatives and friends led by Kenny Next, raised concerns

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Speaker 3: in Kentucky, where Shranker withdrew his license in December two

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Speaker 3: thousand and seven. Indiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Alderholtz said Schranker,

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Speaker 3: who had obtained an Indiana license in the interim, created

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Speaker 3: confusion by pulling the out of state licenses. Please note

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Speaker 3: it was a group of relatives and friends, so he

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Speaker 3: was bilking his own family.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he got nine clients, including a friend of ten

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Speaker 3: years and his own aunt, out of about one point

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Speaker 3: five million. And that's just a fraction of the scheme.

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Speaker 2: Everything.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, everything starts to fall apart when the economy tanks. Though.

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Speaker 3: Investors were like, look, I want to put my money

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Speaker 3: somewhere safer. Hey, pal, I trust you with my kids.

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Speaker 3: Watch my kids while I'll get my money back. So

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Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight, Shrinker he lost five hundred

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Speaker 3: thousand dollars in judgment against one of his companies. That

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Speaker 3: was against one of his companies when he missed a

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Speaker 3: court hearing. What Yeah, so this triggers and investigators. They

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Speaker 3: go to search his home and his office and look

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Speaker 3: into possible securities violations. He starts spinning out. This is

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Speaker 3: an email he sent to one of his clients quote,

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Speaker 3: I walked out on my job about thirty minutes ago.

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Speaker 3: My career is over over one letter in a trade error.

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Speaker 3: One letter. I've had so many people yelling at me

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Speaker 3: today that I couldn't figure out what was up or down.

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Speaker 3: I still can't figure it out. Okay. So his wife

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Speaker 3: files for divorce. She said that it was because he

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Speaker 3: was cheating on her, not the criming.

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Speaker 2: Oh ca see do we believe her?

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Speaker 3: Well? Yeah, because when their house was being searched, he

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Speaker 3: wasn't home, but she was. And then she found out

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Speaker 3: that where was he. Oh he's in Florida with his girlfriend.

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Speaker 3: Oh girl, She's like yeah, hold, what a devastation for her.

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Speaker 2: I know, this is everything all around.

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Speaker 3: So he had to get out of this, and as

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Speaker 3: a true coward, he couldn't own up to what he'd done.

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Speaker 3: He crafted a plan. Saren close as.

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Speaker 2: Picture.

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Speaker 3: It's January eleventh, two thousand and nine. You are an

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Speaker 3: Air Force pilot. You fly an F fifteen fighter jet

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Speaker 3: and your call sign is Dizzy. You and a fellow pilot, Viper,

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Speaker 3: have been scrambled into action. Seems there's a Piper PA

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Speaker 3: forty six near Birmingham, Alabama that's in distress, causing a danger.

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Speaker 3: You are scurrying across the runway to your jet, fastening

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Speaker 3: your helmet, saying a silent prayer to Saint Christopher for

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Speaker 3: protection like you always do. Viper is alongside you, shouting

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Speaker 3: out the lyrics to Party in the USA and skipping

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Speaker 3: high into the air. The Piper took off from Anderson, Indiana,

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Speaker 3: headed for destined, Florida. It had contacted air traffic Control,

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Speaker 3: saying that the windshield had imploded and the pilot was

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Speaker 3: injured and bleeding profusely. He said he wasn't going to

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Speaker 3: make it. Right After that transmission, the Piper leveled off

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Speaker 3: and remained at thirty five hundred feet. You and your

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Speaker 3: jet buddy are now screaming through the air, headed to

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Speaker 3: intercept the Piper. You see it up ahead, Fox Trot fifteen.

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Speaker 3: I have visual contact round piper, Viper, responds Roger. That

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Speaker 3: Eagle three approaching on the left. Be aware, he answers

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Speaker 3: you confirm, I'll take right. You surround the Piper. As

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Speaker 3: you look over, you see that the plane's windshield is intact,

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Speaker 3: Plus the door is open. Negative for pilot. Talk to me, Dizzy, Viper,

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Speaker 3: says Roger. Duck. You radio air traffic Control, Dizzy.

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Speaker 2: To Range Control.

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Speaker 3: Entering Point Alpha Range. You tell them about what you've seen,

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Speaker 3: and the craft appears to be on autopilot. They advise

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Speaker 3: you to continue following the Piper until the fuel runs

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Speaker 3: out and you side. Then near the Blackwater River in

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Speaker 3: East Milk, Florida, the plane crashes just shore to some

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00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:57,760
Speaker 3: houses by seventy five yards. You and Viper look down

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Speaker 3: at the wreckage, then turn back and head for bait.

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Speaker 3: Let's go play some dog site football. Vicker Roger bed, Yes,

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Speaker 3: thank you, You're so welcome. So the authorities showed up

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Speaker 3: on the ground, check out the record.

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Speaker 2: I've bend to Deston and Milton, Florida. I know these towns.

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Speaker 2: I know, I know Florabama.

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Speaker 3: You do well? Do you have you have you crashed

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Speaker 3: a plane there?

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00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:23,400
Speaker 2: Not yet, I'm waiting, give me time.

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Speaker 3: So the authorities they show up, They check out the wreckage.

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Speaker 3: Plane smashed up, but the windshield and the wind screens

300
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:35,040
Speaker 3: were not damaged and there was no blood inside. Inside

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Speaker 3: the wreckage of the plane, though, they found handwritten notes

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00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:40,880
Speaker 3: on the inside back cover of a campground book, and

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00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:45,240
Speaker 3: it said stuff like windshield is spider cracking, doors open,

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Speaker 3: bleeding very bad and graying out. They're like script notes.

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Speaker 2: So was he planning unlike that, not getting caught That

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Speaker 2: wasn't supposed to be like his notes of like, oh

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Speaker 2: I'm leaving what notes I can going down his notes

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Speaker 2: for the radio.

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00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, they start to piece everything together. See obviously he

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Speaker 3: jumped from the plane.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and he expected the plane to crash, no doubt, exactly,

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Speaker 2: and it's landed.

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Speaker 3: And he bag exactly so near Childersburg, Alabama Coast Guard

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Speaker 3: Investigative Service, they recovered cut parachute lines from tree branches

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Speaker 3: and then the actual parachute with a serial number they

316
00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:25,280
Speaker 3: get traced a shrinker. He later admits to dumping a

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Speaker 3: bag containing more than fourteen hundred ounces of gold worth

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Speaker 3: around two million dollars in the Kusa River when he

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Speaker 3: floated down to earth.

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Speaker 2: Wait by mistake, No, like on purpose.

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Speaker 3: Oh, and it looks like he was hoping he thought

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Speaker 3: the plane would make it to the Gulf of Mexico.

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Speaker 3: Oh man, and that they would be surprised that they

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Speaker 3: wouldn't find a body like Oh, he's claimed by Davy

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Speaker 3: Jones's locker.

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Speaker 2: But he should have had a plan to bail from

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Speaker 2: the plane over the Gulf of Mexico and someone pick

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Speaker 2: him up in a go fast boat.

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Speaker 3: Otherwise and want someone he's got to do it alone.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, well, so he lands in Alabama. Yeah, walks across

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Speaker 3: this river.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of bad places of land there so many.

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00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 3: Bad places, goes into a house and tells them that

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00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:12,239
Speaker 3: he's had a canoe accident, and so the cops. The

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00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:15,520
Speaker 3: cops come take them to a nearby hotel. And then

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00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:18,000
Speaker 3: the cops they hear about the crash investigation, and so

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00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:22,040
Speaker 3: they scooted back to the hotel. Sorry, dudes, he was

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00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 3: long gone. He paid for his room in cash and

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Speaker 3: then ran off into the woods. Next Yeah, so he

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Speaker 3: had parked a motorcycle with saddle bags that were like

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Speaker 3: fully packed in a storage unit seven miles away from

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Speaker 3: the hotel, and so so he wasn't bad in his

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00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:43,639
Speaker 3: landing bad authorities trace the storage unit to him. A

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Speaker 3: few days later. The motorcycle's gone, but his jeans that

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Speaker 3: were like still wet, and his socks are still wet,

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Speaker 3: hiking boots, t shirt, all in a nearby trash camp.

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Speaker 2: So he takes the motors, some details and others.

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Speaker 3: He rides to a campground in Florida, and he pays

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Speaker 3: for a night at the campground. Caudah gathers up some firewood,

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Speaker 3: buys a six pack of bud light.

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Speaker 2: Good place to hide up by the way.

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Speaker 3: I guess. According to the New York Times, not really

354
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Speaker 3: a quote. In the midst of the manhunt, mister Shrinker

355
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Speaker 3: had sent an email message to a friend Tom Britt

356
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Speaker 3: back in Indiana, asking him to straighten out the facts

357
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Speaker 3: being reported nationwide about the case. In the message, which

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Speaker 3: mister Britt turned over to the authorities, mister Shrinker insisted

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Speaker 3: that the windshield had really shattered, causing a loss of

360
00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:34,840
Speaker 3: cabin pressure and a condition known as hypoxia, which can

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Speaker 3: quote cause people to.

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Speaker 2: Make terrible decisions lack of oxygen.

363
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so federal marshalls, they took only one day to

364
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:46,120
Speaker 3: catch him thanks to a tip. Two dozen officers showed

365
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Speaker 3: up and found that he'd cut himself at the campground.

366
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,280
Speaker 3: So they patch him up. He's airlifted to the nearest hospital,

367
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Speaker 3: and so they search his computer. They take him the

368
00:18:55,119 --> 00:18:57,359
Speaker 3: hospital's fine, he's like I said, he's not good at it.

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00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:01,719
Speaker 3: When they search his computer, they found Google searches for

370
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Speaker 3: stuff like how to jump from airplanes and how to

371
00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:08,199
Speaker 3: open a pair of food. Can I just say, Can

372
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:10,879
Speaker 3: I say? I am so toast If authorities ever go

373
00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:14,080
Speaker 3: through my search history like ridiculous crime research will be

374
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Speaker 3: my downfall.

375
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Speaker 2: Oh not only that, they would just be they have

376
00:19:16,680 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 2: so many leads to be so confused. Impossible.

377
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. June two thousand and nine, Strand.

378
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:23,720
Speaker 2: Now your shopping history.

379
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:29,959
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a big problem to shrinker. He pleads guilty

380
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,000
Speaker 3: to charges of destruction of an aircraft and causing the

381
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:36,680
Speaker 3: coast Guard to respond when no help was needed. For that,

382
00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:38,680
Speaker 3: he gets sentenced.

383
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:39,840
Speaker 2: To the crime of hassling the coast Guard. Total.

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00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:41,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's the coast Guard in there, but it

385
00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:47,199
Speaker 3: was like a air force anyway. He gets sentenced to

386
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:49,920
Speaker 3: fifty one months in prison. Then he got another ten

387
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:51,840
Speaker 3: years for all the securities fraud.

388
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:53,760
Speaker 2: Don't forget about that. I forget that.

389
00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:56,440
Speaker 3: The originals he was ordered to pay the coast Guard

390
00:19:56,520 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 3: more than thirty four thousand dollars in restitution, and Harley

391
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,200
Speaker 3: Davenston Credit Corporation, who held the lean on the plane

392
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:07,360
Speaker 3: more than eight hundred and seventy one thousand dollars then.

393
00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:11,000
Speaker 2: Had he like leveraged the plane to get the motorcycle.

394
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 3: On the idea. He had to pay restitution to the

395
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:19,760
Speaker 3: victim and is sentencing. He told the judge quote, I.

396
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Speaker 2: Mean his family and friends, yeah.

397
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:24,920
Speaker 3: Quote. He wanted to repay investors and rebuild his relationship

398
00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:28,000
Speaker 3: with the three children he's seen only once since his arrest.

399
00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:30,760
Speaker 3: He said he has bipolar disorder and he got caught

400
00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 3: in a downward spiral of stress after becoming addicted to painkillers.

401
00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:36,120
Speaker 3: Like he's an excuse factory.

402
00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:37,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just everything.

403
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 3: Let's take a break. When we return, I have the

404
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:42,240
Speaker 3: other fraudster. I want to tell you about.

405
00:20:42,400 --> 00:21:04,120
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, zaren Yo.

406
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,480
Speaker 3: Okay, so I told you about Marcus Schrinker. Now meet

407
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 3: Matthew cox Hi.

408
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,440
Speaker 2: Matthew Hehi alias.

409
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:17,280
Speaker 3: Joseph Carter, alias Gary Sullivan, alias Michael Eckert, alias Charles R.

410
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:20,960
Speaker 3: Bauer h Yeah, a lot of other names. He was

411
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:25,720
Speaker 3: born in Florida in nineteen sixty nine, one year before Shrinker. Interesting,

412
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 3: he struggled.

413
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: Something about the lead back, then the food.

414
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,919
Speaker 3: Well, he struggled with dyslexia as my kid. Yeah, and

415
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,480
Speaker 3: as a result, school was tough for him and he

416
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 3: felt really alienated. So he got really bad grades, made

417
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,400
Speaker 3: him feel like a failure. But it's worth mentioning now

418
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 3: that you're not your grades. We forced kids to put

419
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 3: so much on grades and GPAs and it's all garbage.

420
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am my grades because i'm everybody else's good grades.

421
00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 3: But like, grades are a metric of your ability to

422
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:59,440
Speaker 3: take a test or like fit into an average yeah,

423
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 3: or follow.

424
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 2: Some weird protocols that are arbitrary.

425
00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 3: And it's not a measurement of intelligence or curiosity or

426
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:06,920
Speaker 3: like value as a human. I'm sorry for the rant.

427
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,720
Speaker 3: I've just seen a lot lately about kids suffering over

428
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:11,440
Speaker 3: grades and pressure. He's too short.

429
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I unlike to take a real measure of intelligence,

430
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:14,880
Speaker 2: like magic the gathering.

431
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:20,920
Speaker 3: Yep, exactly, thank you, the real genius measurements. So dyslexia, right,

432
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 3: that's in no way a roadblock. It's just something to

433
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 3: work around, you know. It's like so he demonstrates that

434
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 3: by getting a degree in art illustration from the University

435
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,399
Speaker 3: of South Florida. Guy's really smart. After he graduated, he

436
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:35,560
Speaker 3: worked for a little bit of time in the insurance

437
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 3: industry and then later as a mortgage broker.

438
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 2: Okay, so Cox.

439
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:42,920
Speaker 3: He saw this world, all the paperwork and the deals

440
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 3: and like the really shaky regulation as prime hunting ground

441
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 3: was ripe for fraud, and he figured he was just

442
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 3: the person to pull this.

443
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 2: Fraud, go to it.

444
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 3: Like, while he's working as a mortgage broker, he wrote

445
00:22:56,359 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 3: an unpublished three hundred and seventeen page book, The Associates

446
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 3: and the novel's main character, who seemed a lot like him,

447
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 3: goes all over the country committing mortgage fraud, and he

448
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:14,119
Speaker 3: would like regale his coworkers with details about the book,

449
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 3: and like sometimes he would send the whole manuscript to

450
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,119
Speaker 3: people to see if they could like verify the details

451
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 3: or whether or not the cons inside revival. This is

452
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 3: like a nightmare coworker totally. You've got someone who writes

453
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:29,160
Speaker 3: themselves as the protagonist in the novel, which is so obnoxious,

454
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 3: and then they won't shut up about it the pass

455
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 3: and then it turns out, oh no, he's just outlining.

456
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 2: The best part though, is that he is confessing on.

457
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 3: Himself and he's getting a lot of witnesses to read it.

458
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 3: And if you're just emailing it, okay, now you've got

459
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 3: this digit. Anyway, his early cons were relatively small scale,

460
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:51,880
Speaker 3: so he like would falsify loan applications or inflate property values,

461
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 3: forge documentation to get unqualified buyers into homes.

462
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:57,159
Speaker 2: He's on the scam and.

463
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 3: He was early too. Yeah, he was, you know, a

464
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 3: decade ahead of time, and all of this was to

465
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 3: make big commissions. But he got caught and he lost

466
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 3: his job. He got convicted of mortgage fraud in two

467
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 3: thousand and two on early. He was early to the game,

468
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 3: and had he waited that the banks would have taken

469
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: the phone, he only got not a one. He got probation. Undeterred,

470
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 3: he went harder. So after his conviction he got prohibited

471
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 3: from working in the mortgage industry.

472
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, not going to get stopped.

473
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 3: He just is expanding the craft. So first he faked

474
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 3: up a good credit score, and then he created fake

475
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:41,200
Speaker 3: identities using fake social Security numbers and drivers like Yeah,

476
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 3: and he'd like steal. He'd steal the identities of Toddler's

477
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 3: homeless people, vulnerable women, and he would cook up top notch,

478
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 3: cooked up phony W two's reference letters, bank statements like titles, heads.

479
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 2: Appear, created a job for himself.

480
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, employment records, he really did liberally. Then he bought

481
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 3: a bunch of rundown houses and condos with fake appraisal

482
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 3: values okay, sometimes like double or triple what they were

483
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 3: actually worth. And then he'd go like sometimes four to

484
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 3: five times the valume. He'd get loans, take the money,

485
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 3: and then let the properties go into foreclosure. Yeah, but

486
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 3: it did this thing called shotgunning, where he'd get a

487
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 3: bunch of different lenders to loan against the same property

488
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 3: within a short timeframe, and none of them are aware

489
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 3: of the others. And so he used forged satisfactions of

490
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 3: mortgage to make it look like the property didn't have

491
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 3: any leans when it did.

492
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 2: So he worked in this industry just long enough to

493
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:39,160
Speaker 2: learn how exactly.

494
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 3: He's like, I see the issues, I'm going to write

495
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 3: a novel about it, and now I'm going to carry it. Yeah.

496
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 3: So he pulled this fraud in a bunch of places

497
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 3: at Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas. Yeah, and then he like

498
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 3: it was through this he amassed millions in fraudulent loans

499
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:58,880
Speaker 3: from lenders who did not suspect a thing.

500
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: The South is really about on like the keeping track

501
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 2: of these million dollars scams like this, just ask Brett Farv.

502
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 2: I mean, like it's very clear that if you're in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,

503
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 2: they're just if you steal big, we applauded.

504
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but you know what, you got a great arm.

505
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 3: So Cox was something of a ladies man.

506
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 2: He's a coxman.

507
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 3: He's a Coxsman Coxswain. He'd been married to a woman

508
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:28,159
Speaker 3: named Kayla Burgos, Okay, and when they divorced. Then he

509
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 3: dated a bunch of other women that he would include

510
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 3: in his criming.

511
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:32,640
Speaker 2: What did they know that?

512
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, one was Alison Arnold. She had she was married

513
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 3: and had a kid. She didn't want to leave her

514
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 3: life behind and join him on the criming, which he

515
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 3: had discussed with her in detail and.

516
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 2: In which she yea, so she's like his part time binding.

517
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, but she like he took her to like Ocean's

518
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 3: Eleven and like other crime movies.

519
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 2: It was like them, Yeah, we can do this, this

520
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 2: is we're studying.

521
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 3: So they split up. He started seeing Rebecca Hawk, a

522
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 3: sing mom with one kid. A U C K.

523
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're right, sorry becks.

524
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 3: So she she had moved from Las Vegas to Tampajo

525
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,919
Speaker 3: after getting a bunch of debt and like going bankrupt

526
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 3: in Vegas. She lost her job in Vegas because she

527
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 3: forged her employer's name on checks. So they're like a

528
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 3: you know, peace and a pods the checks.

529
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 2: For like plastic surgery, really easy to try.

530
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 3: But she's like, hey, look gruesome twosome. She hooked up

531
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 3: with them on a dating app. They they're doing their

532
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 3: fraud thing together, raking in the cash. But then they

533
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 3: found out that Jeff Testament, a reporter for the Saint

534
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 3: Petersburg Times.

535
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 2: Was investigating both of them.

536
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 3: Cox So how ditched her kid and went on the

537
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:48,199
Speaker 3: run with Cox.

538
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: What Yeah, that was the move.

539
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 3: That was the move. So the story that Testament's writing

540
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 3: comes out in the paper. It explains how Cox started

541
00:27:55,520 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 3: a company called Urban Equities Incorporated. Kayla Burgos, the ex wife,

542
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 3: and this other business partner were the shareholders and over

543
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 3: six years the company bought and sold nearly sixty homes.

544
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 3: Kayla and the business partner, though, they couldn't keep the

545
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 3: company going and it gets put into receivership. Cox pulled

546
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 3: all the money out from underneath them and they lost everything.

547
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 3: So around the same time, Tampa Pedee they're opening an

548
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 3: investigation into Cocks and then the FBI gets involved. So

549
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 3: basically we say zoins. And when they looked into the details,

550
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 3: they saw that his houses seem to always be valued

551
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 3: way above the comps in the neighborhood, Like his would

552
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 3: be almost two hundred thousand dollars, but similar homes on

553
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 3: the block were like fifty thousands.

554
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 2: So do you have an appraiser on his side? Like,

555
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 2: how is he about faking appraise.

556
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 3: No one's even going out and doing.

557
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 2: No one ever goes to check. He just has it

558
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 2: on paper for me, where's the seals?

559
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 3: And what's hilarious is that when the Feds looked into

560
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 3: the paperwork on the homes, they saw a lot of

561
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 3: the fake names and were like, aren't those the characters

562
00:28:58,600 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 3: from Reservoir Dogs?

563
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?

564
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 3: It was like Pink Brown, Yeah, so Cox and how

565
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 3: they skipped town. Don't forget he's still on probation and

566
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 3: now he's missing his meetings with his probation officer. They

567
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 3: first they went to Atlanta and they hit out, but

568
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 3: like not really. He made a run to Mobile, Alabama

569
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 3: and used the identity of a former coworker to get

570
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 3: credit cards and establish a good credit history. Then back

571
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, he cooked up some phony documents like he'd

572
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 3: done before, rented a house. Then he cooked up more

573
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 3: phony documents and went to banks asking for loans on

574
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 3: the house he was renting. He was saying he owned it.

575
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 3: Hundreds and thousands of dollars in loans. The man loved

576
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 3: pop cultures like Reservoir Dog stuff. One of the loans

577
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 3: that he took out was in the name of Sea

578
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 3: Montgomery Burns, the old guy from the Central God bless.

579
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 3: So he did this a bunch of times, and then

580
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 3: they picked up and they moved to Tallahassee, Florida.

581
00:29:58,280 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 2: They're hitting spots, they really are.

582
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 3: But the authorities in Atlanta they were onto him. So

583
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 3: they tracked mister Burns and whatever other film and TV

584
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 3: character names he'd used back to his real identity busted.

585
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 3: So August sixth, two thousand and four, the Secret Service

586
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 3: issued arrest warrants for Cox for conspiracy, identity, theft, mail

587
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 3: and wire fraud, money laundering, and Social Security number fraud.

588
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 3: But he's still a fugitive. They're like, I don't know

589
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 3: where he is. I know he did it, but who

590
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 3: knows where he is? Eighteen months after skipping town in

591
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 3: Tampa and more than six months after the Secret Service

592
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 3: warrant Alison Arnold were surfaced. She's married, right, Yeah, she'd

593
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 3: been a part of these early fraud schemes. She always

594
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 3: felt bad about it. And then she saw Cocks on

595
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 3: TV in a plea for information about a fugitive with

596
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 3: the reward, So she called the FBI and told them

597
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 3: everything for a reward. Well, what did it? Get her right,

598
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 3: I would hope a clean conscience. But it also got

599
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 3: her two years in prison for identity theft and conspiracy

600
00:30:58,000 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 3: to commit bank.

601
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 2: Fraud because she called the FBI told on herself.

602
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she had to pay three hundred thousand dollars

603
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 3: in restitution to her victims.

604
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 2: Thank you for helping us find a criminal. The criminal

605
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 2: is you?

606
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 3: Thank you for the hot tip.

607
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to come over and bust you right now.

608
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: Cox still on the road. So she did that. She

609
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 3: couldn't tell where he was. Yeah, she couldn't be like, oh,

610
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 3: I know where he is. She's like, I know him.

611
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 3: I crimed with him. Here's what we did. They're like,

612
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 3: that's fantastic. Where is he now? I have no idea.

613
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 3: I haven't seen him.

614
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 2: He's not a new gut. We'll stick with you for

615
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 2: a while.

616
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 3: Okay, let's let's let's circle back then.

617
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 2: So then the we of doing the crimes, you do

618
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: you hear that you did the.

619
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 3: Crimes, but you know what it was like confession? So, uh,

620
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 3: he's still out there. He goes to Columbia, South Carolina. Wait, yeah,

621
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 3: shotgun in two houses there racks up almost nine hundred

622
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in phony mortgages in just a few days.

623
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 3: A data analyst at one of the lenders, though, thought

624
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 3: that was fishy.

625
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 2: I saw that someone's analyzing this data seriously saw.

626
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 3: The duplicate loans and that they happened in such short succession,

627
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 3: So they flagged the accounts for fraud shut down the

628
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 3: bank accounts Cox, once again undeterred, he goes to the

629
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 3: bank to straighten things out. As soon as he got there,

630
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 3: so did the cops. So they arrested him and they

631
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 3: took him to the station and he identified himself as

632
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 3: Gary Lee Sullivan. Gary Lee Sullivan didn't have any warrants,

633
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 3: and he convinced the cops that this was all a

634
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 3: clerical mix up the fraud flag. They let him go.

635
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?

636
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 3: No? So then Cox and Hawk they take off and

637
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 3: go to Houston, and she.

638
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 2: She's like a tour of like bands like Rat and Warrant,

639
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 2: Like they were gonna go from town. Then he went

640
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 2: to Houston, They're were gonna be in Mobile.

641
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a pretty amazing, pretty amazing. So how she's like,

642
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 3: you know what, I can't do this anymore. She gets

643
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 3: herself a fake name and is like I'm going to

644
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 3: live under the radar. You go on without me. He's like, great,

645
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 3: happy to do. So goes to Nashville. And she was

646
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 3: not successful at staying under the radar and hiding out,

647
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 3: because within a year the Secret Service found her and

648
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 3: arrested her. So she got convicted of all manner of

649
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 3: fraud theft. She gets sentenced to six years in prison

650
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 3: with five years of supervisor release. Mane Cox, Well, he

651
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 3: made it to the big time. He was now on

652
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 3: the Secret Service Most Wanted Fugitives list. So Nashville living

653
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 3: his best life as a guy named Joseph Carter. Has

654
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 3: a new girlfriend, Amanda Gardner, another single mom. Yeah, a

655
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 3: names single moms. She didn't know he was a fugitive

656
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 3: or that his name wasn't really Joseph Carter. She thought

657
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 3: that he was just a contractor who specialized in upscale

658
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 3: renovations and he lived in a nice little house. He

659
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 3: like drove an ice car. Said he came from money.

660
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 3: They went on a cruise in Greece together then passport

661
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 3: of course was fake, but the fun they had was

662
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 3: reels there.

663
00:33:58,080 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 2: I would never question that.

664
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 3: Never back home. The babysitter Patsy Taylor thought something seemed

665
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 3: off about Joseph Carter was a woman after my own heart.

666
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:11,359
Speaker 3: She was suspicious, she got bad vibes, so she did

667
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 3: some research, got blessed. Blessed, so he mentioned that he

668
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 3: was originally from Florida, So she's like, okay, that's my

669
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 3: jumping off point. And eventually he was able to connect

670
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 3: him to his true identity, Matthew Cox, major fugitive. Wow,

671
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 3: could you imagine that moment. He's sharp though, like because

672
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 3: she's she's worried about her safety and that of Amanda

673
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 3: Gardner's son. Yeah, so she wasn't She wasn't sure the

674
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 3: cops would take a sixty year old nosey babysitter seriously,

675
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 3: so she went to the real source of power and justice,

676
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 3: local press. So she got in touch with Jeff Testerman

677
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 3: Petersburg Times.

678
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 2: Got a fresh scoop, wrote the initials. Yeah, I'm going

679
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 2: to forget that name.

680
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 3: It needs stayed on the case for three years, this

681
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 3: on him. Determined to help catch the guy.

682
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 2: We need local Germali.

683
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 3: I love that. So Testament gave Patsy the babysitter the

684
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 3: contact information for Rebecca Hawk's lawyer. Hawke's family paid Patsy

685
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 3: for Cox's address. They wanted to use this as leverage

686
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 3: to chip some time off her sentence, and it worked.

687
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 3: The Feds reduced her sentence from seventy to forty two months.

688
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: Wow, bad year.

689
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, now the Feds have that address. November sixteenth, two

690
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 3: thousand and six, Cox gets arrested. Finally. Prosecutors described him

691
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,720
Speaker 3: as a master manipulator who exploited loopholes in the mortgage

692
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 3: industry and caused financial devastation for lenders innocent victims. He

693
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 3: gets convicted and sentenced to twenty six years in federal

694
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 3: prison for charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated

695
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 3: identity theft, bank fraud, money.

696
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 2: Laundering, wirefrog going to get you every time, every time.

697
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 3: So off to prison, he went, let's pause here. When

698
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 3: we return, I'm going to tell you about how Marcus

699
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 3: Schrenker and Matthew Cox crosspaths.

700
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 2: Zarin, I'm loving this, Elizabeth, and now I can't wait

701
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 2: till they crossed.

702
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 3: We got two guys with federal crimes on their on

703
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 3: their backs.

704
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 2: Were roughly the same agearage, rough crimes.

705
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. So after his two thousand and seven conviction, Cox

706
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,240
Speaker 3: he got sent to a couple different medium security federal

707
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 3: prisons over the years Florida, Georgia. I can tell you

708
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 3: that entertainment and educational materials are in short supply in

709
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 3: the federal pen. Yes, inmates are super hungry for any distraction,

710
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:59,280
Speaker 3: and they read every single line in newspapers or magazines

711
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 3: that they get. They analyze everything because there's so much

712
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 3: time to think. I think I've mentioned to you that

713
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 3: when we'd drop off their textbooks at the start of

714
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 3: the semester, they'd have read them all at least once

715
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,800
Speaker 3: in their entirety before the first class met. Its awesome.

716
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 3: I loved it. Oh yeah, they're like totally prepared. They

717
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 3: have a question about chapter eleven when you're first like

718
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 3: writing your name on the board. Oh okay, hold on.

719
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 3: We'd have classroom discussions and if something came up that

720
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 3: I didn't know an answer to in a regular classroom,

721
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 3: I'd look it up on the computer there and we'd

722
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 3: talk about it. There's no internet in a federal facility,

723
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 3: and so one time this student asked me how exactly

724
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 3: they were able to draw maps hundreds and hundreds of

725
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 3: years ago, Like how did they get the coastlines so exact?

726
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 3: And it was a it was a non sequitor. It

727
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 3: was just like a random question after seeing a map

728
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 3: in the textbook. And I wasn't really sure, Like I mean,

729
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 3: I had like an idea, but I was curious too.

730
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 3: So when I got back to my office, I found

731
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 3: a bunch of articles about the process, and I made

732
00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 3: little readers for the class, like twenty five pages or

733
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 3: so of information, one for everybody. Yeah, well they lost.

734
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 2: Their mind, if anyone ever.

735
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 3: Did, because didn't have anything to do with with like

736
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 3: what we were talking about in class. And I was like,

737
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 3: just read these and now you know, we'll talk about

738
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 3: it later after everyone's read it.

739
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 2: It's rare someone takes your curiosity that serious. That's remarkable.

740
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:18,800
Speaker 3: But I mean, like I as a curious person, My god,

741
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 3: I'm like stoked when anyone else.

742
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 2: I mustay my curiosity recognizes your curiosity.

743
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 3: Buy one. Get ones there. I could get this stuff

744
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 3: into them as class materialsted you know where. Yeah, so

745
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 3: we had this thing where at the end of the week,

746
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 3: they'd agree on one interesting like niche non controversial topic

747
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 3: or like something I sometimes I'd get to pick, and

748
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 3: then I'd make the little information packs for them for

749
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 3: the next week. And so one of the times I

750
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 3: got to pick, I brought them a pack that included

751
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 3: your article about black cowboys and that love. It was

752
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:52,320
Speaker 3: a huge hit. FYI.

753
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's flattering.

754
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 3: You're very well. Thank you anyway, Cox smart guy, and

755
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:00,800
Speaker 3: he had a lot of time I'm on his hands.

756
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 3: So he had a college education, he had a background

757
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 3: in art and communications, a flair for storytelling that he'd

758
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 3: honed while creating fake identities and fabricating entire life stories.

759
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 3: So once he's behind bars, he starts to channel that

760
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 3: creative energy into something else, the written word.

761
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:20,919
Speaker 2: Oh I thought he started like, you know, a theater group.

762
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 3: No, he starts writing, baby. So he said that there

763
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:27,280
Speaker 3: are a lot of reasons why he began writing in prison.

764
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 3: For one, he said it's a matter of redemption in Catharsis.

765
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 3: In interviews, he described writing as a way to process

766
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 3: everything and then he'd done and like reflect on the consequences.

767
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 3: It allowed him to explore themes of deceit, manipulation, moral collapse.

768
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: See things from multiple perspectives.

769
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, it gave him narrative control because like someone who

770
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 3: lived by lies and false personas, writing is this way

771
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 3: to regain control of the narrative, the authority. Yeah, it's

772
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,959
Speaker 3: a business opportunity. He knows how to make a buck,

773
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 3: and he knows what people want. He saw that there's

774
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 3: a market for true crime stories, especially insider perspectives, and

775
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 3: he's sitting on a gold mine of material from his

776
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 3: own life and from the inmates.

777
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 2: Every run around him, everybody allers.

778
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 3: So yeah, so he gets to writing. His first major

779
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 3: manuscript wasn't about his own life. It was the biography

780
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 3: of a fellow inmate, John Thomas Ambrose, a former gun trafficker.

781
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 3: He called it Once a Gun Runner. And the book

782
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 3: was ghost written by Cox and served as a pilot

783
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 3: for a series of inmate biographies that he envisioned producing

784
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 3: from prison. So the.

785
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 2: Inmates exactly.

786
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 3: And this is like how it showed how talented he

787
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 3: was with the long form narrative that he had, like

788
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:47,800
Speaker 3: this really dramatic, engaging style. It was journalistic but literary.

789
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 2: At some time, creative nonfiction.

790
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:52,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so he gets that project going and then

791
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 3: he turns the pen toward his own life. So he

792
00:40:55,719 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 3: starts working on this like memoir like manuscript tentatively titled Bent,

793
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 3: and he did a deep dive into his early forays

794
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 3: into mortgage fraud, like he investigated the psychological dynamics of

795
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:13,840
Speaker 3: white collar crime, the mechanics of identity theft and forged documents.

796
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 3: He talked about his years on.

797
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 2: The run, so it's a kind of a guide book.

798
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 3: And diary, and also like all the manipulative relationships that

799
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 3: he fostered. I'm very honest about it. He wrote it

800
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 3: like a novel, and he layered all this detail and

801
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 3: dialogue and narrative arc. He said that he wanted a

802
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 3: story to quote read like fiction, but be all true.

803
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 3: But he didn't stop an autobiography. He started writing crime

804
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 3: thrillers based on real life cases of other white collar

805
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 3: criminals and scam artists that he met in prison. Some

806
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 3: of those were later adapted or used for his post

807
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 3: prison podcast Inside True Crime. So he wrote these works

808
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 3: longhand on legal pads and then later type them on

809
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 3: prison typewriters common obviously because like they don't have the Internet,

810
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 3: so they had the computer uses what are you going

811
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 3: to use it for? They had like word process. I

812
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 3: had students who were writing books. They'd asked me to

813
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 3: read their stuff and like workshop it. And there was

814
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 3: one guy who was writing a real corker of a

815
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 3: book is really really good about a Crooked Cop, which

816
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 3: I later found out.

817
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 4: He was there.

818
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 3: You got what you good stuff. I had another student,

819
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 3: Carlos Walker. He's an artist and a writer. He's out

820
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 3: and he's doing great work. So Carlos Walker. There's incredible

821
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 3: talent definitely, you know, out in the world, and that

822
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 3: includes in the prison system. So Cox he's writing all

823
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 3: these big books. Sometimes he'd have friends or supporters outside

824
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 3: the prison transcribe his work for him, so he's just

825
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 3: sending them a hand you know, they're they're typing it up.

826
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 3: There are hurdles other than like no internet and technology

827
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 3: in lock up, they can't really it's hard to get

828
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 3: it's hard to get a true workshop. Yeah, it's really

829
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 3: aggressive in the workshop is inmates can't really profit from

830
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 3: work produced in prison.

831
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 2: Of course, not because it's considered part of their crimes,

832
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 2: because if they're writing about.

833
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 3: What they know, right, And then also I think you

834
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 3: just can't have like a venture that makes money. I

835
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 3: don't know, you.

836
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 2: Could have a cookbook. Somebody's clearly untied to the he can't.

837
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:22,919
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm wrong, who knows.

838
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 3: There are restrictions on contact though with like publishers or agents.

839
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, I figured this, just sending.

840
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 3: An email will cost them money. And a lot of

841
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 3: times the emails don't make it through, but they still

842
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:37,280
Speaker 3: get charged. Yeah, I had. I had students. I'd come

843
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 3: to come to class and they'd be like, I tried

844
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 3: to send you an email, and like, don't ever ever

845
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:42,959
Speaker 3: do that because number one, I didn't get it. Number

846
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 3: two it costs you like three bucks.

847
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to put money in their accounts sometimes

848
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 2: if they want to email you.

849
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 3: Ridiculous.

850
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 2: It's the whole thing.

851
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 3: So to get around these challenges, Cox relied on third

852
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 3: parties to help them submit the manuscripts or to post

853
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 3: content to a website, and then at least one case,

854
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 3: he had an outside contact start a blog or like

855
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 3: would arrange media interviews. So in the summer of twenty thirteen,

856
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 3: Marcus Schrenker came into the picture. So he was going

857
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 3: to get out in about a year. When he sat

858
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 3: down with Cox at a prison dining table at FCI Coleman, Florida,

859
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 3: he tells Cox, boy, do I have a story for you?

860
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,399
Speaker 3: And so like, the thing is, it's like we've talked

861
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 3: about this before. As a writer, people come up to

862
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 3: you and like, I have a great story book. My

863
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,359
Speaker 3: life would make a great book. And I always want

864
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 3: to say, no, it wouldn't. I love you to death,

865
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 3: but no, it wouldn't anyway. So that's like this poor

866
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,760
Speaker 3: like Cox is like he's got to take people's offers

867
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 3: because he's sitting there in like just incredible material.

868
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 2: Oh and you never know what gold is underneath the rock.

869
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 2: You may have read, I could.

870
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 3: Just feel it, like have I got a story for

871
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 3: you to know?

872
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 2: You don't most of the time.

873
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 3: So Shranker he didn't like how his story was being

874
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:56,359
Speaker 3: told out in the world. He wanted someone to set

875
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 3: the record Street.

876
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:58,280
Speaker 2: He wanted narrative control.

877
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Cox, he's the writer, storyteller, the one to

878
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 3: set the record. Cox said, quote, the guy told me

879
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,719
Speaker 3: that he shouldn't even be in prison. And Cox, you know,

880
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 3: wonders if that's true, Honey, you're going to hear that.

881
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 2: Yeah.

882
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 3: So Schrenker tells Cox that he hadn't built anyone, that

883
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:19,240
Speaker 3: the investments just didn't land. And he told Cox, quote,

884
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 3: I'd sold a bunch of index annuities that ended up

885
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,720
Speaker 3: underperforming and that wasn't my fault. I can't be blamed

886
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 3: for the market. So Shanker said that while he was

887
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 3: trying to get the insurance companies to refund his clients,

888
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 3: his wife found out about his affair, and that she

889
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 3: got her revenge by opening up an offshore currency account,

890
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 3: committing all sorts of fraud and pinning it on him.

891
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 3: So she's a woman scoring he's a patsy, my baby.

892
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 3: So in order to avoid prison, Shranker said, I'm going

893
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 3: to fake my own death with the plane thing. Cox

894
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 3: told Forbes magazine quote, it was obviously a very sensational story,

895
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,399
Speaker 3: but still I want to believe it. I wondered if

896
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,280
Speaker 3: there was an angle to the story that the media

897
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 3: had missed. So remember, no Internet in the clink, so

898
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 3: Cox he couldn't do it deep bead. He could, though,

899
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 3: ask his literary agent, who was not in prison, to

900
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 3: do the digging for him. I don't like, Hey, give

901
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 3: me some dossier's basically, so the agent mailed him newspaper articles,

902
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:23,359
Speaker 3: court transcripts, and those sources did not match up at

903
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 3: all with what Schranker was trying to tell him. So,

904
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 3: determined to get to the truth, Cox filed a Freedom

905
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 3: of Information Act request. H huh, and that confirmed that

906
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,720
Speaker 3: Schenker's ex wife wasn't in on any of it. Fraud,

907
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 3: not the plane crash. That's all him. Cox told Forbes

908
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 3: quote What was clear was that everyone from the prosecutors

909
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 3: to his victims were calling Shrinker an habitual liar. He

910
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 3: alone had built multiple clients and companies out of millions.

911
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 3: So it turns out that Schranker had approached a bunch

912
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:59,839
Speaker 3: of writers outside of prison, like shopping his story about

913
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 3: being framed by his ex, and each one had looked

914
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 3: into this history and found him to be totally lying

915
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 3: in his version of things, like, no one's going to

916
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 3: sink time into something that will be blown up before

917
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 3: it's even published.

918
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, especially with just a little bit of research,

919
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 2: you can confirm that.

920
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 3: Here's the thing thoughs Aaron Cox is a storyteller, and

921
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 3: he knew there was actually a story in all this

922
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 3: after all, He told Forbes again, quote, I saw Shrinker

923
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 3: as a puzzle. Unlike an author on the street. Outside

924
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 3: of prison, I had plenty of time, unfettered access to Shrinker, and,

925
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 3: according to my prosecutor, an uncannyability to discover a Marx

926
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 3: of vulnerability. Oh, it's like spy versus biogra Yeah, it's

927
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 3: tables are being turned Zaren. So Cox is like, you

928
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 3: know what, Shrinker, Yeah, let's do this. I'm going to

929
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,359
Speaker 3: interview you for your book. And he's like getting him

930
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 3: to go deep dive on the details of his story

931
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 3: and then like on his life outside of the fraud,

932
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 3: like he's inner working. He wasn't writing an expos about

933
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 3: a man done wrong by society and serving time for

934
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 3: a crime he didn't commit. He was writing a profile

935
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,240
Speaker 3: of a pathological liar. Yes, And so at last, finally

936
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 3: the book Bailout the Life and Lies of Marcus Schrenker.

937
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:23,399
Speaker 3: So Schranker reads it loses it. He's so mad. Is

938
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 3: not how he saw this going. And that's a brave

939
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 3: thing for Cox to have done show it to them

940
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,280
Speaker 3: while they're still in lock up together, because like Schranker

941
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 3: had what a year left hold off, but not long

942
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 3: after Schranker got out. And the thing is, though, when

943
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 3: you think about it, it's like, based on what I've

944
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 3: read about their personalities, I feel like Shrinker probably irritated

945
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 3: the ever loving issues out of everybody and if he

946
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 3: threw pitches a fit, and Cox probably arrowed himself with

947
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 3: everyone because he's entertained, so I'm sure that he was.

948
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 3: You know, Schranker's just and everyone's ignoring him. So he

949
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 3: gets out. He goes to a halfway house. The manuscript

950
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 3: stayed with Cox in prison, but when Cox got out

951
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen, he had like this tight, thrilling manuscript

952
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 3: that was just ready for him to publish. So he

953
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 3: had all of his true crime writing. He wanted to

954
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 3: get it out there, so he started an online magazine

955
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 3: inside truecrime dot com, and there's also the podcast inside

956
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 3: true Crime. There's YouTube stuff. He self published his books

957
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,959
Speaker 3: and he posted what I think is an abridged version

958
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 3: of Bailout on the website. Schranker found it, lost it again.

959
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 3: He filed a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,

960
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 3: and then he reached out to the DJ the Department. Yeah,

961
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 3: tells the Department of Justice that he had not participated

962
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 3: in the story and the story is a complete fabrication,

963
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 3: that Cox is harassing him. My dude, this is all

964
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:58,720
Speaker 3: carefully researched like story. Your story makes you look like crap,

965
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:00,399
Speaker 3: But that was your life choice.

966
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 2: Maybe you shouldn't have lived it.

967
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 3: Maybe don't do that. Let this be a lesson to

968
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 3: all of those who meet a writer and say I

969
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:09,359
Speaker 3: have a great story for you, or like my life

970
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:11,400
Speaker 3: would make a great book. Be careful what you wish for.

971
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it will be a great book, but you

972
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:14,919
Speaker 2: hate so.

973
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 3: Cox he was able to back everything up that he had.

974
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 3: Everything that was thrown in him was just dropped, and

975
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,320
Speaker 3: then Cox he's now a fixture in the true crime

976
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 3: storytelling space for him as Zaren, what's your takeaway.

977
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 2: Oh man, but you kind of already said it, which

978
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 2: is the be careful what you wish for with a writer? Yeah,

979
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 2: Like people always think like, oh, could you tell my story?

980
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I can.

981
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 3: I don't know if you want.

982
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 2: Their audience and may like it, you may hate it or.

983
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 3: People who I don't know. I used to think like

984
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:45,360
Speaker 3: people who cross you and you're.

985
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 2: Like, oh, you're a screwed the writer.

986
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:49,799
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna light you and.

987
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 2: If I got strong enough, lawyer, I'll put your own

988
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:52,720
Speaker 2: name on it, right.

989
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 3: But like you can light someone up so bad and

990
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 3: like it's you know, name is not the same, but

991
00:50:58,440 --> 00:50:59,720
Speaker 3: like little things, Yeah.

992
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 2: So there I think that would be mine? Is that

993
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,400
Speaker 2: like never go to a writer with the idea that

994
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 2: you can control that process.

995
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,320
Speaker 3: Very true, Very true, my ridiculous takeaway. Thank you for asking.

996
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 2: I guess I want to hear it. I guess.

997
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 3: I was thinking about how we've had the authorities tell

998
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:20,319
Speaker 3: these criminals a bunch of times it's like, you're so

999
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 3: talented if you just put your efforts toward. But then

1000
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 3: and I was thinking, oh, yeah, like Matthew Cox is

1001
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 3: so talented, but like it's so hard to make a

1002
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 3: living as a writer. Yeah, exactly, And so it's kind

1003
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 3: of like, you know, I don't blame.

1004
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 2: Him, no crime is always tempting.

1005
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 3: Do the crimes. And then like that was that. Now

1006
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:41,399
Speaker 3: it's the springboard. Now he can run with it.

1007
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 2: He's an expert in a field.

1008
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 3: There. It is so good. I Dave, I think I

1009
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 3: need a talk back.

1010
00:51:48,000 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 2: I think we both do. Oh my god, I.

1011
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,279
Speaker 5: Hey, ridiculous crime. This is art in San Antonio, and

1012
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,399
Speaker 5: I wanted to share my ridiculous sea monkey story. When

1013
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 5: I was younger, I went to a summer day camp

1014
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 5: and one time they had a bring your pet day.

1015
00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:16,280
Speaker 5: Unfortunately I didn't have a pet, so my quit thinking

1016
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 5: mom got me some sea monkeys and the good news

1017
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 5: is they won the camp Award for most Unique Pet.

1018
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,399
Speaker 5: The bad news is that on the way home they

1019
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 5: spilled in the back of my mom's wood paneled station wagon.

1020
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 5: And yes, Elizabeth, sea monkeys do smell awful, especially when

1021
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 5: they're in a car's interior.

1022
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 2: That was awesome.

1023
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 3: It is so good. The wood paneled station wagon is

1024
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 3: how many dead sea monkeys do you think you're in

1025
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 3: the interior of wood But that's rad you got their ward. Awesome.

1026
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 3: I love that. That's it for today. You can find

1027
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 3: us online at ridiculous Crime dot com, which is on

1028
00:52:56,560 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 3: the most wanted list as a fugitive. Did you know that? Yeah,

1029
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 3: don't tell you, buddy. We're at Ridiculous Crime on blue

1030
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 3: Sky and Instagram. You can email ridiculous Crime at gmail

1031
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 3: dot com. You can go to YouTube We're Ridiculous Crime

1032
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 3: pod and you can check us out there, leave a

1033
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 3: talkback on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is

1034
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:27,400
Speaker 3: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarren Burnett, produced and edited

1035
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 3: by Jailhouse Publishing Magnet Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutger as Judith.

1036
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:36,799
Speaker 3: Research is by Aircraft windshield salesperson Maurice Brown. The theme

1037
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 3: song is by war Fighters Thomas Lee and Travis Dutt.

1038
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 3: Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair

1039
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 3: and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are

1040
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 3: literary agents to the stars and those behind bars, Ben

1041
00:53:51,160 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 3: Boleen and Noel Brown. Well say It one more Time.

1042
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 2: Riudiquious Crime.

1043
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,800
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts

1044
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1045
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.