Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: Zaren Clyde, what'd you doing by my middle name? I
Speaker 1: didn't say your full government? Now did that really? Fun? Part?
Speaker 1: Fun part? Oh? Yeah, you know it's ridiculous. Oh girl, Okay,
Speaker 1: my head is still like trying to recover from this
Speaker 1: because it's just so silly. Is it a product mashup? No?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that to me. This one is a
Speaker 1: mashup of competitions. Okay, it's kind of a it's not
Speaker 1: really a mash up. Did you know between nineteen twelve
Speaker 1: and you could win a gold medal in competitive art
Speaker 1: at the Olympics? Why how do you know this? I
Speaker 1: know everything? How do you know that? Every? Well, then
Speaker 1: that just kills it because I had never known this.
Speaker 1: I never heard that. I never knew it. They don't
Speaker 1: even have to patronize me, Elizabeth, but just you know,
Speaker 1: for the sake of my own edification, I thought it
Speaker 1: was amazing that there was is it was the original desire,
Speaker 1: original goal of the Olympics. Like when they came up
Speaker 1: with the Olympics, the modern Olympics, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is really important. We have to have competitive art,
Speaker 1: like it was like a big part of it. And
Speaker 1: then they like started coming up with the competition nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: They're like, Okay, we're gonna do it because the first
Speaker 1: ones were like not competitive, and then so they let's
Speaker 1: make it competitive. Sweden's like, we're hosting. We don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. They're like we're doing it. They're like okay, fine,
Speaker 1: So Sweden kicks it off first time. Not many artists
Speaker 1: show up. It's mostly the French, you know, It's like
Speaker 1: some Italians. Yeah, exactly. The first medal count the Italians
Speaker 1: won two golds, the French won two golds, the Swiss
Speaker 1: won won gold, in the US won one gold. There
Speaker 1: were five gold medals given out, no silver, no bronze, apparently,
Speaker 1: just all gold medals. Yeah, and then later on they
Speaker 1: figured out how to like give out medals to everybody.
Speaker 1: And there were two people who won medals as athletes
Speaker 1: and artists that I thought was really kind of cool.
Speaker 1: There was Walter Winens. He was an American. He won
Speaker 1: as a marksman in the nineteen o eight Summer Olympics,
Speaker 1: and then he won another one in nineteen twelve, and
Speaker 1: then many years later he won for art for his
Speaker 1: sculpture in American trotter. And then there was also Alfred
Speaker 1: Hajos of Hungary. He won as a swimmer at the
Speaker 1: first Olympics in Athens, and then twenty eight years later
Speaker 1: he comes back and he wins a silver medal in
Speaker 1: architecture stadium design. So he won a medal. So it's
Speaker 1: not like speed painting right there, It's not that they
Speaker 1: enter it in Okay, So there you golous. That's excellent,
Speaker 1: thank you for playing. You know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 1: Yes I do, Elizabeth. You want me to tell you yours?
Speaker 1: Please go? Please tell me Dressing like old men to
Speaker 1: steal a very old book. Yeah, yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists
Speaker 1: and cons. It's always murder free and one percent ridiculous. Saren, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of Transylvania University? Uh? Is that
Speaker 1: Dr Frankenstein got his degree? Yes? What are you looking like?
Speaker 1: It's in Kentucky, Olexington. To be exactly, I've never heard
Speaker 1: of it. It's a small liberal arts I do know
Speaker 1: that the Transylvania, Kentucky, I'm aware of it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I had never heard of it either, Um, but I'm
Speaker 1: amazed by its impact on on things. Anyway, what do
Speaker 1: you mean? Well, like I said, it's a small liberal
Speaker 1: arts college. Everyone calls it Transy. In fact, that's their
Speaker 1: their college U R L Transy dot E d U. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's like ris dy Transy. There's only nine d seventy
Speaker 1: one UM students at the last count. It's a small school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's smaller than my high school tuitions almost forty dollars
Speaker 1: a year. WHOA, Yeah, I don't know the inflation. Who knows.
Speaker 1: It was started in seventeen eighty, and that makes it
Speaker 1: the oldest university west of the Allegheny Mountains. Oh so,
Speaker 1: like only like Harvard and Yale or older pretty much
Speaker 1: or William and Mary College. Yeah, it's also the largest
Speaker 1: producer of US statesman So to US vice presidents went there,
Speaker 1: Richard Mentor Johnson, who was the vice president to Martin
Speaker 1: Van Buren and John C. Breckenridge VPET James Buchanan, your favorite,
Speaker 1: the tiny terror to U S Supreme Court justices went there,
Speaker 1: Samuel Freeman, Miller, Wizzer White, and and John Marshall Harlan
Speaker 1: a k a. The Great dissenter. He was the one.
Speaker 1: He dissented on Plessy versus Ferguson. He's considered one of
Speaker 1: the greatest justices of his era. His grandson also became
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court justice. So he came right out of
Speaker 1: Transylvania University. Fifty U S senators, a hundred and one
Speaker 1: U S representatives, thirty six governors, thirty four US ambassadors,
Speaker 1: and the President of the Confederacy Jeff So, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this place, Transylvania University, Transy, give it up. What's their
Speaker 1: secret to statesmanship is? I don't know. Is that like
Speaker 1: their thing? They're just like, hey, come here, we'll get
Speaker 1: you enrolled. I think that, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: they have deep connections and you know, they don't know Kentucky.
Speaker 1: That's where I would expect this from Virginia. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: Kentucky coming coming through. So it sounds amazing. It has
Speaker 1: an endowment of two hundred and forty million dollars, so
Speaker 1: that's not on par with the billions in the ivy leagues,
Speaker 1: but that's a lot of money university to be able
Speaker 1: to be secure. And so that brings us to the
Speaker 1: crime that I want to where there's money there's crime.
Speaker 1: The library is sitting on a collection of rare books
Speaker 1: worth millions and millions of dollars. Oh yeah, old as
Speaker 1: they are. But they got some beauties. Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and they're they were able to kind of amass them
Speaker 1: and get donations, and it sounds like they've got yeah.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand four, there were some young men
Speaker 1: who were determined to liberate those dollars and take them
Speaker 1: for their own. Let me give me some background on
Speaker 1: these young man. Four dudes in total, Spencer Reinhardt, Warren Lipka,
Speaker 1: Eric Borsuk and Chas Allen. Will there be a quiz later, Yes.
Speaker 1: All four of them were raised in well off neighborhoods Lexington.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing this is a school where you you're probably welcomed.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so but they're like
Speaker 1: coming from the local area. All of these guys college students.
Speaker 1: Some of them went to University of Kentucky, which is
Speaker 1: like a mile down the road. Others went to Transylvania
Speaker 1: University Transy. So Warren and Spencer they grew up together,
Speaker 1: best friends. They went to different high schools, but they
Speaker 1: had this really tight bond that was based on soccer
Speaker 1: pretty much um. In two thousand three, Warren, who was
Speaker 1: like tall, lanky and rascally, he went off to University
Speaker 1: of Kentucky on a scholar soccer scholarship. UH. Spencer, small
Speaker 1: and artsy. He got an art scholarship to Transylvania University Transy,
Speaker 1: just a mile up the road. He wanted to be
Speaker 1: a graphic designer and a passion for graphic design. Both
Speaker 1: of these guys had a tough time their first year
Speaker 1: in college. Spencer he wasn't into the pressure that came
Speaker 1: with collegiate soccer um, and he thought all the other
Speaker 1: art majors were talentless morons. He was like, I could
Speaker 1: draw better than that when I was an elementary school dude,
Speaker 1: And so he wasn't into it. Warren, He's not faring
Speaker 1: much better. His family was like slowly imploding due to
Speaker 1: his father's gambling debts. His dad was the coach of
Speaker 1: the UK women's soccer University Kentucky women's soccer team. So
Speaker 1: then he's like on a soccer scholarship, but the dad's
Speaker 1: like blowing all the money gambling. He looks around him
Speaker 1: at all the privilege and like inane worries of his
Speaker 1: peers and he's just disgusted. He's like, you guys, are
Speaker 1: you know you're concerned about this idiotic stuff? You have everything.
Speaker 1: I mean he came from that same privilege. But whatever,
Speaker 1: So he's just like moping and brewing. He's mad because
Speaker 1: he's losing it because his dad's gambling it away. He's
Speaker 1: going through that like freshman eye opening of like wait,
Speaker 1: I've read camel I See the World, but instead of
Speaker 1: getting more international or more cultured, he's getting more bitter. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So like he's just like I said, he's like moping
Speaker 1: around smoking weed. Um. He quits the soccer team and
Speaker 1: that meant no scholarship of course. So he's just like
Speaker 1: bumming around and feeling disenchanted. He's hanging out with what
Speaker 1: he probably felt was like a super edgy crowd. Um.
Speaker 1: And he meets this guy who's making a killing and
Speaker 1: fake ideas. And the guy tells Warren, look, you're in
Speaker 1: the perfect position to sell fake driver's licenses at the dorms.
Speaker 1: Like come on, you're you're like, you know, popular guy. Whatever.
Speaker 1: Warren loves this. For Warren, He's like, this is for me.
Speaker 1: Fake I d S is the way to go. So
Speaker 1: then he gets his friend and fellow soccer guy, Eric
Speaker 1: Borsok in on the venture and they start selling ideas
Speaker 1: at a hundred dollars apiece. Okay, so it's like a
Speaker 1: little bit more than market rate, making good money. They
Speaker 1: also are like fancying themselves little petty criminals, like these
Speaker 1: guys are, Hey, we're bad boys now the mean, mean
Speaker 1: streets of the University of Kentucky. So, um, do they
Speaker 1: have a name from them their gang? No? I wish
Speaker 1: maybe they didn't, the Bad Boys Club. And so they're
Speaker 1: doing other petty crimes. I don't know what those were,
Speaker 1: but you know, just bad stuff, littering. Um. So Warren
Speaker 1: and Eric they eventually get into this fight. It's not physical,
Speaker 1: but they were like squabbling over money. So Eric dips
Speaker 1: out on the little Yeah, they have a beef going on.
Speaker 1: There's beef involved. Uh. Eric leaves the criminal empire. The
Speaker 1: only problem was that he was the design and computer
Speaker 1: guy who put the ideas together. Oh, they're faking it
Speaker 1: that way, So war and he thinks about, like, who
Speaker 1: else do I know that has an artistic streak and
Speaker 1: a passion for graphic design. Oh, my high school bestie
Speaker 1: Spencer Spencer. Remember Spencer's already sort of over the whole
Speaker 1: art student thing. So he's in He's like, yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. So now he's running with a cutthroat
Speaker 1: gang and he decides to share with them one of
Speaker 1: his criminal fantasies. He's like, I feel like this is
Speaker 1: a safe space you guys. Um, here's what I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about. He had been on a tour of the
Speaker 1: library as part of his art school orientation. I like
Speaker 1: picturing this gang having like a Robert's Rules of Order
Speaker 1: lead meeting where he's like a new business point in
Speaker 1: to business. I've got an idea I'd like to bring up, guys,
Speaker 1: So can we put Can I get a second on?
Speaker 1: There are documenting this? That's pretty much yea. So he'd
Speaker 1: been on this tour of the library as part of
Speaker 1: his art school orientation, and um, they took him through
Speaker 1: all the special collections. They got to see the absolute
Speaker 1: treasures of archive and right, so they go to the
Speaker 1: Rare Books room and that's when they get to see
Speaker 1: the Crown Jewels, bring out the White Gloves Birds of America.
Speaker 1: It's a first edition of John James Audubon's Rare master
Speaker 1: work containing huge hand painted engravings of the aforementioned huge
Speaker 1: their breathtaking, they're so incredible, sot there maintains the color still.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're vibrant. And there are only like two
Speaker 1: of these things made, so they have one of them.
Speaker 1: The woman leading the library tour mentioned that their value
Speaker 1: of this four volume set twelve million dollars. So Spencer
Speaker 1: starts thinking that, like, maybe the group could graduate from
Speaker 1: selling fake ideas and bags of weed to lifting twelve
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of rare art and somehow selling it
Speaker 1: on the black you can baby steps, Well, he wanted
Speaker 1: together le did it take his freshman pipe dream and
Speaker 1: go full fledged criminal enterprise. The thing that they skip
Speaker 1: past is who are they going to sell this book? Too? Well,
Speaker 1: you'll see they think about these really okay good. So
Speaker 1: he starts watching like he's been thinking about this. He's
Speaker 1: watched the set up at the Special Collections room, and
Speaker 1: he sees that the security there consists of two things.
Speaker 1: One a sign in sheet and to a librarian named
Speaker 1: Betty gene Gooch, like a sign that says don't take
Speaker 1: things Betty. That's a great Her friends and colleagues call
Speaker 1: her b J. So it's not it's a sign in
Speaker 1: sheet and b J Gooch look out bros that security.
Speaker 1: So that's a great nickname, the Gooch. You were asking
Speaker 1: if they okay? So they steal them, then what how
Speaker 1: are they going to move them? You don't count Warren out.
Speaker 1: Warren's a bad boy, Zarin, remember that he was part
Speaker 1: of the criminal underbelly of Lexington. Kentuck's right, okay, So
Speaker 1: he asks around, he runs in the shadowy streets. He said, look,
Speaker 1: I need a contact who can help me move some artwork.
Speaker 1: A friend of a friend of a friend of a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend connect him with a guy in
Speaker 1: New York named Barry. Oh this sounds promising. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So Warren and Barry they chat on the phone, one
Speaker 1: crook to another, crimer to crimer um and then they
Speaker 1: set up a meeting and Barry's like, look, I gotta
Speaker 1: know that you're for real. Man. He's like, I am
Speaker 1: for real, dude, I sell I D send you a
Speaker 1: picture of my I D. He's like, well, this is
Speaker 1: what Barry wants. Barry's like, how about you give me
Speaker 1: like a five deposits so I know you're for real?
Speaker 1: How does that make you know, so Warren and Spencer
Speaker 1: they hop in the car and they drive to Manhattan
Speaker 1: from Kentucky seven miles. They check into a hotel under
Speaker 1: the name Harry Balsani and they have a fake ID
Speaker 1: to back it up. They have a Harry Harry Balsani.
Speaker 1: I d I want a Harry bals Harry Balls's Harry Balls.
Speaker 1: Any yeah, uh so they pay cash for the room.
Speaker 1: They meet up with Barry the next day in Central Park.
Speaker 1: This is like something out of Law and Order Juicy
Speaker 1: Booty edition, Like they are just in Central Park. There's
Speaker 1: like pigeons, yes exactly, jogging berries. An old man with
Speaker 1: a long ponytail, and he's like irritated because he sees
Speaker 1: it's these two like frat bros rolling up on him
Speaker 1: played by Bruce Dern in the movie. Yes. And then
Speaker 1: Elliott Stabler a k A. Juicy Booty comes charging out,
Speaker 1: bald headed gleaming. I don't know, I've just heard that
Speaker 1: that's what happens on the ship. So anyway, he they
Speaker 1: Berry's irritated, but you know what, money's money, and so
Speaker 1: he takes five dollars off of him in exchange for
Speaker 1: an email address. He slides him a little slip of paper,
Speaker 1: and he said, when you email this this address, say
Speaker 1: your name is Terry. So Terry, Harry and Barry. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: just keep over here. So they're like sweet, yes, and
Speaker 1: they like high five, and then they skip off, going
Speaker 1: back to Spencer's Accura head back home. Now they create
Speaker 1: their own email address and they send a message to
Speaker 1: the one that they got Harry, what's up Terry. Here,
Speaker 1: I got rare books. I'm looking to move them. So
Speaker 1: then they get a reply, guess what, Terry, you got
Speaker 1: to go to Amsterdam if you want to sell these
Speaker 1: rare books. This is getting exciting, Serin, but it's also
Speaker 1: getting complicated. So Warren reaches out to one of his
Speaker 1: fellow crimers and he gets a line on a fake passport,
Speaker 1: and for he paid for it. So now he has
Speaker 1: fake papers, take them all the way to Amsterdam. He
Speaker 1: flew out there alone, March two thousand four. I was
Speaker 1: about to ask what years this and fake passport and
Speaker 1: easy no, because we're remembers after the Towers. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this means that you're getting the holograms, you got all
Speaker 1: this stuff, So he gets it. He meets up with
Speaker 1: these four shady guys in a coffee shop in Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: He didn't bring any stolen books with him because he
Speaker 1: hadn't stolen them yet, so he can't. He also didn't
Speaker 1: bring any photos of them, no documentation, no proof whatsoever.
Speaker 1: He couldn't even talk about because he didn't know like anything.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, they're just like old Hey, guys want
Speaker 1: to talk about crime, right, So he's just Terry now
Speaker 1: out in the world, like not knowing anything fresh, Terry.
Speaker 1: So the guys tell Warren Slash Terry something important. Listen,
Speaker 1: you have to have an accurate, honest appraisal of the
Speaker 1: books if you're going to sell them. And if you
Speaker 1: get that, then yeah, we're interested whatever books you feel
Speaker 1: you have. If you get them appraised and you have
Speaker 1: provenance for us with that appraisal, good. So he gets
Speaker 1: back to the States, he tells Spencer everything. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, amstery, I was amazing. Why aren't all
Speaker 1: cities bikeable? And so they figure out You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, Let's go big. Let's reach out to
Speaker 1: Christie's auction house in New York. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: that's the first name in auction to bring in experts
Speaker 1: Warren then also goes in men's fences with his old
Speaker 1: pal Eric, so they smooth things over. They had some
Speaker 1: pizza and bruise. I'm not kidding. That's how it all
Speaker 1: got fixed. It's all good. So then he brings me
Speaker 1: and he's like, Eric, since we're cool, now let me
Speaker 1: pour you another point. Uh, do you want to come
Speaker 1: in on our rare book heist? And Eric okay. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So now they've got three guys. Summer's coming. The bros
Speaker 1: had plans, though, you know, so non criminal plan. They're
Speaker 1: going to brow down, go down to the coast. Warren
Speaker 1: was a camp counselor, so he had he had. I
Speaker 1: guess Kucky would be different. Spencer got a gig painting
Speaker 1: murals at a school. Eric had a lawnmowing business with
Speaker 1: a buddy named Chaz. And so then so they're like,
Speaker 1: guess what, we're going to put the active plans on ice.
Speaker 1: But let's never stop dreaming about it, guys, keeping in
Speaker 1: your mind, like imagine all your wild expenditures while you're
Speaker 1: you know, mowing lawns, organizing capture the flag. It's all good.
Speaker 1: So when we come back, I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: what happened at the start of the new academic year. Zaren,
Speaker 1: we're back. Hey, you just got done planing beer pall
Speaker 1: I was telling you about Warren, Spencer and Eric and
Speaker 1: their plans to steal a first edition of Audubon's Birds
Speaker 1: of America. Yeah, the Bad Boys Bros, the Bad Boys Club.
Speaker 1: It's an audacious plan, is Yeah, daring and new. It's
Speaker 1: one that involves Christie's auction as a trip to Amsterdam
Speaker 1: and then also crossing paths with b J Gooch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of federal crimes about getting out of
Speaker 1: the country, huge, huge crimings. Um I mentioned that Eric
Speaker 1: was cutting grass over the summer with a pale named Chairs.
Speaker 1: Chaz came from a pretty well off family. His dad
Speaker 1: was in real estate, like big money guy. Um. One
Speaker 1: of the properties is dad owned was right by the
Speaker 1: UK campus and his son was also on the deed
Speaker 1: to that home. Chas who was living in the house.
Speaker 1: Well Chas of course house the Chairs house. Eric lives
Speaker 1: there and then Warren. Warren was living in the unfinished
Speaker 1: basement for next to nothing in rent, so it's like
Speaker 1: an amateur frat house completely uh. He Warren like he'd
Speaker 1: had enough for a nicer place before. But back when
Speaker 1: he was slinging, I d s um that was like
Speaker 1: four months ago. But that business was over now and
Speaker 1: he's moved on. Is it totally different? Oh? Yeah? He
Speaker 1: Now he spends every waking moment either planning the heist,
Speaker 1: playing video games or smoking weed. Those are his things.
Speaker 1: Was he wheezing on chicks too? Who's who knows? Maybe
Speaker 1: he's a young man. He was a UK student. That's
Speaker 1: one of his agreements to his fellow brothers. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: I will smoke weed, I will wheeze on girls, and
Speaker 1: I'll plan a heist. Guys. One day, Warren calls a
Speaker 1: heist meeting in the in his basement abode. He's like, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: come on down. So they they dropped down, he Spencer
Speaker 1: and Eric. They get down to business. They're getting closer
Speaker 1: to making this heist reality. But they need one more person.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. Yeah, they need a thief. I
Speaker 1: think they needed someone, I don't know what. So Eric
Speaker 1: was like, hey, how about my friends slash Landlord Chas
Speaker 1: Allen And he comes so chas they tell him about it.
Speaker 1: He's not into it. He laughs, he laughs hard. He's like,
Speaker 1: you guys are more on, but like the boys wear
Speaker 1: him down right to like, come on, bros, be super
Speaker 1: sweet Chaz. He later talked about how money was really
Speaker 1: important to him then and then it was an indicator
Speaker 1: of his value as a person. I feel like his
Speaker 1: household may have not been like the most well rounded
Speaker 1: or healthiest emotional talking about. So he's just like, all right,
Speaker 1: if there's money, fine, I'm in. So they get this line.
Speaker 1: Let me break this down for a second. Selling something
Speaker 1: like the books, they're worth like twelve million, right, if
Speaker 1: they sell them on the black market, they're only going
Speaker 1: to get market value best, right, So let's say that
Speaker 1: gets it down to six million. So then you have
Speaker 1: that money, but you gotta wash it. So take away
Speaker 1: for that. That's about ten if you've got somebody you know,
Speaker 1: twenty if you don't. They don't know anybody. So now
Speaker 1: they have four point eight million dollars. You divide that
Speaker 1: by four, you get one point too. That's not bad,
Speaker 1: but that's a long way from twelve million. Well one
Speaker 1: point two million, I mean that would change your life,
Speaker 1: but I'm not guessing that that Like that means everything
Speaker 1: went right. They got all their maximum payouts, they got
Speaker 1: all their They're talking about these dreams of like going
Speaker 1: to the Mediterranean and getting yachts and like reason on
Speaker 1: Mediterranean babes, and it's like you can't really do that
Speaker 1: with you, Like you can't afford Lebron James's life. You
Speaker 1: don't get that. So like whatever one point to that'll
Speaker 1: do you. So they start really leaning hard into the
Speaker 1: logistics of everything. They watched heist movies like Ocean's Eleven
Speaker 1: and Snatch. It's really where you get your what we've
Speaker 1: been learning, that's where people do it. Yes, so Spencer
Speaker 1: he scoped out the library and the special collections, especially
Speaker 1: the Rare books room, Michael Mann movies. He carefully monitored
Speaker 1: the sentry to that sanctum old Betty Jean Gooch. He
Speaker 1: even made some appointments with her to see her in action,
Speaker 1: like I like the way you move. He wanted to
Speaker 1: see what it would be like to get access to
Speaker 1: the books and you know, get a little get a
Speaker 1: little look at the bj um the others. They mapped
Speaker 1: out transit and escape plans. They tailed campus police to
Speaker 1: try and get a sense of their schedules. They monitored
Speaker 1: the library inside and out. They took note of like
Speaker 1: who was where and when? Then they made the following
Speaker 1: internet searches, auction house appraisals, stun guns, Swiss bank accounts.
Speaker 1: They're like, how to heist to fake passport? Spencer goes
Speaker 1: out and he spends three on materials for their disguises.
Speaker 1: So then Warren reaches out to Christie's and he makes
Speaker 1: an appointment to have some rare books appraised. He emails
Speaker 1: them from the email Walter dot Beckman at yahoo dot com.
Speaker 1: Walter beck Is that anybody, No, they came up with
Speaker 1: this alias as homage to their soccer hero David Beckham.
Speaker 1: I was wondering, okay, But when they're asked about it,
Speaker 1: they're like, I don't know where the Walter came from
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of like adjacent whatever. Warren used
Speaker 1: that same email address to get in touch with b J. Gooch.
Speaker 1: He's like, what's my Name's Walter Beckman. I love books.
Speaker 1: He makes an appointment to see the Audubon collection in
Speaker 1: the Rare Book room on December sixteenth, two thousand four. Hey,
Speaker 1: b J love the books. Let's do this some time
Speaker 1: to show and then he's like, I want to see
Speaker 1: the Audubons but also like, hey, b J, anything else
Speaker 1: you think might be like cool for us to look at,
Speaker 1: Let's do it. I just love books, lady, And she's
Speaker 1: like BJ's accommentating. She's like, I want people to share
Speaker 1: my love for these books. Let me show you all
Speaker 1: the cool stuff I have. Let me show you the
Speaker 1: b J way. So December sixteenth, chat As borrows a
Speaker 1: relative's minivan and the boys headed to the library. Warren
Speaker 1: bleached his hair blonde for the occasion. That doesn't stand out.
Speaker 1: They had on them a black Cobra stun pen like
Speaker 1: a junior stun gun. Don't worry. They tested it out
Speaker 1: on each other ahead on their forehead, like, y'all, zapp
Speaker 1: you is that? Did you die? He tries back in
Speaker 1: my neck, trying my chest. Put it right on. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know this, I've tried this. So it's the last
Speaker 1: day of finals and Spencer's running a little late coming
Speaker 1: from one of his so he didn't have all the
Speaker 1: time that he needed to do use his artistic talents
Speaker 1: to apply the disguises, but you know, they went with it.
Speaker 1: He did it. They had to drive around a while
Speaker 1: because they couldn't find a parking space, but then Eventually
Speaker 1: they make their way to the library. Zaren closure. I
Speaker 1: want you to picture it. You're a senior. You're a
Speaker 1: senior at Transylvania University. You're majoring in theater with a
Speaker 1: minor in computer science. You're hedging your beds, you're cramming
Speaker 1: for your last final of the semester this afternoon. And
Speaker 1: throw four, which is magic, Witchcraft and Religion. It's the
Speaker 1: last elective. Unique. The class has been fascinating and it
Speaker 1: really lines up with your love of sorcery. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the library is quiet. All you hear is the occasional
Speaker 1: shuffle of papers and a muffled cough here and there.
Speaker 1: You need to get some air and stretch your legs,
Speaker 1: so you push your chair back and you head out
Speaker 1: the front doors. Take this warlock on a walk. It's
Speaker 1: mid morning and there's a scattering of people sitting on
Speaker 1: the benches walking by. You hear snippets of conversations, and
Speaker 1: you just think how fortunate you are to go to
Speaker 1: this storied university, to be surrounded by other curious minds
Speaker 1: looking to expand their capabilities for critical thinking and assessment.
Speaker 1: Just being in college makes you part of an elite
Speaker 1: few in the world, the globe being at this tony
Speaker 1: small liberal arts college even more so, and people all
Speaker 1: over the world dream of this opportunity. You are blessed, Zaren.
Speaker 1: You've got your Phillis sunshine in front of the library,
Speaker 1: see head back in. You open the door and when
Speaker 1: you look behind you, you see three guys headed your way.
Speaker 1: They're limping and hunched over. They sport newsboy caps and windbreakers, scarves, gloves.
Speaker 1: They all have gray hair and weird mustaches. You're a
Speaker 1: polite citizen of the world, so you hold the door
Speaker 1: open for these older gentlemen. You can't quite tell. As
Speaker 1: you hold the door and they shuffle past, you see
Speaker 1: that they aren't old men at all. There are a
Speaker 1: bunch of young bros dressed up as old men. It's
Speaker 1: very sabotage era, you know how, Like in the Spike
Speaker 1: Jones BC Boys book there's all the pictures of them,
Speaker 1: and old man drag m c A has like a
Speaker 1: bushy Van Dyke beard that morphs later into the Nathaniel hornblower. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like that. It's bizarre. Everyone's staring at these
Speaker 1: guys as they do their old man routines like grab it, oh,
Speaker 1: my back, and they shuffled through the entryway of the library.
Speaker 1: Like you think, it's like maybe a fraternity prank, something
Speaker 1: to do with the end of the semester. People are giggling,
Speaker 1: pointing one guy's mustaches like loose and flopping around. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, Like they decided to dress as old men
Speaker 1: because they thought that old people were invisible, That's what
Speaker 1: they said, and then come to find out they were.
Speaker 1: No one notices them. Yeah, so these three be costumed men.
Speaker 1: They look at each other and then they turn and
Speaker 1: hustle right out the door. So like everyone's pointing and laughing, Oh,
Speaker 1: college hijinks. They just drop the whole charade. Us there,
Speaker 1: and you walk back to your spot at the table
Speaker 1: and start going back to highlighting sections of a spell
Speaker 1: bookwork exactly so the plan is foiled by the ridiculous disguises.
Speaker 1: They head back to their house, to the Chaz house,
Speaker 1: Warren calls b J. Gooch. He tells her, look, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but I have to move my appointment with you,
Speaker 1: like I got stuck do in business stuff with eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock tomorrow morning. Work Look, b J Gooch, she's there
Speaker 1: to serve the public She's like, okay, she agrees. They
Speaker 1: decide that the old man costumes are in no go
Speaker 1: and then this time Eric and Warren they'd be the
Speaker 1: ones to go inside. Eric would keep watch on the
Speaker 1: first floor, Warren would go up and zap the gooch
Speaker 1: tire up, and then Warren would give the signal and
Speaker 1: Eric would come help and move the books outside to
Speaker 1: the waiting minivan. Would it work this time? That's a
Speaker 1: good question. When we come back from this break, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let you know how heist two point Oh went nice.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be sitting here thinking about the goach Zaren.
Speaker 1: What's up Quade? Nothing much. When we left off the
Speaker 1: four college criminals, they're gearing up for a second shot
Speaker 1: at stealing rare books from the transy library. Yes, I
Speaker 1: can't wait here with their next costumes, so the more.
Speaker 1: After the first venture, everything starts running smoothly. They parked
Speaker 1: the minivan, Eric and Warren. They head in again. Oh,
Speaker 1: I think they parked it like we're not No, no, no,
Speaker 1: They got back in the mini van. They did it
Speaker 1: all over this time. There's a barking spot. They got
Speaker 1: good parking karma. Uh. Eric and Warren. They go in
Speaker 1: this time, they're disguising themselves with winter cold weather gear,
Speaker 1: so like hats, gloves, a heavy coat. That's what people
Speaker 1: aren't going to pay attention. It is December. People always
Speaker 1: leave those on into places like library because it's never
Speaker 1: warm in the library. Um so Warren he heads up
Speaker 1: to the Rare Books room for his appointment with the Gooch.
Speaker 1: But they should have warned it is just like transity
Speaker 1: sweatshirts and blue jeans and just been likeall cat and
Speaker 1: look every other yep, yep whatever. So Warren goes up
Speaker 1: to meet with the Gooch, Eric he goes back. He's
Speaker 1: in his lookout spot in the lobby, and so there's
Speaker 1: Betty Jean Gooch. She's prepping with her appointment for Walter Beckman.
Speaker 1: She pulls out Birds of America and then she also
Speaker 1: pulls out a first edition of Charles Darwin's On the
Speaker 1: Origin of Species some other like really cool old illuminated texts.
Speaker 1: Um Beckman. A. K. Warren arrives and by the way,
Speaker 1: would she to do this for anybody who's at an appointment?
Speaker 1: Isn't that incredible? So he gets there and he asked
Speaker 1: her if it's okay to have a friend of his
Speaker 1: come up and see the books too. So Gooch is
Speaker 1: like a little skeptical. She's like, I don't I thought
Speaker 1: this guy was going to be a lot older and
Speaker 1: he's a young guy. Um, but you know what, Fine,
Speaker 1: have your friend come up. Eric gets the call on
Speaker 1: his cell phone from Warren. He's down in the lobby.
Speaker 1: He thought he had to go upstairs and help carry
Speaker 1: the books. He was not expecting like he he thought
Speaker 1: that Warren would already have gotten in there and subdued.
Speaker 1: Warren's calling an audible because he doesn't have the backbone
Speaker 1: to take the Gooch out right. Yeah, So Eric rolls up.
Speaker 1: He's shocked, but then he kind of plays it off.
Speaker 1: He introduces himself as John, and then they go with
Speaker 1: this new plan on the fly. So the two of
Speaker 1: them follow BJ into the viewing room and Warren used
Speaker 1: the taser pen on BJ's arm. On her arms, sir,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a big shock, but it was enough voltage
Speaker 1: to send her like slumping to the ground because is
Speaker 1: this older woman, and she gets I think that she
Speaker 1: felt like a tingling in her heart. So then the
Speaker 1: pair of zip tie her and put a ski cap
Speaker 1: over her face. So Warren says, we're quit struggling, BJ,
Speaker 1: or do you want to feel more pain? And up
Speaker 1: until this point they hadn't anticipated doing physical harm to anyone.
Speaker 1: They said that they intended to just scare BJ Gooch
Speaker 1: with the taser, but not actually use it. So then
Speaker 1: they crossed that line. But then they just kept going.
Speaker 1: So Gooch is out of commission. The fellas they start
Speaker 1: piling the giant folio manuscripts. I was really hoping the
Speaker 1: good would mess them up. You did what, just like
Speaker 1: punch hit him with a book. So they they they
Speaker 1: put a bedsheet on the floor and then they start
Speaker 1: piling these folios on the on it. So there were
Speaker 1: seven of them Birds of America plus three other They're
Speaker 1: putting them in a bed sheet. They're laying them on
Speaker 1: a bed sheet and then we're gonna bundle them up.
Speaker 1: They're just gonna throw them over their bag like a
Speaker 1: sack and just try to get out of there like
Speaker 1: they're going to ride the rails um. So they brought
Speaker 1: the bed sheet as part of their heisht kit. They
Speaker 1: grabbed smaller books from the table and just shoved them
Speaker 1: in their backpacks. They're just like grabbing everything they can
Speaker 1: it's like when you're by like the cash register, the
Speaker 1: impulse purchases. The problem was that the Audubon books were heavy,
Speaker 1: like really really heavy. So Eric and Warren they struggled
Speaker 1: with them as they were trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to get out of the back of the library. They've
Speaker 1: done all this recon but they got all confused. They
Speaker 1: couldn't find the fire exit. They tried to get in
Speaker 1: the elevator. They went up and down. They opened up
Speaker 1: like closing door, close the door, people out there. They
Speaker 1: went back up, so they finally find a backstairwell. They
Speaker 1: slowly made their way downstairs. They were fumbling with this
Speaker 1: crazy heavy cargo slung in a bed sheet between the
Speaker 1: two of them. Meanwhile, another librarian went to check on
Speaker 1: b J in the bookroom and found her hog tied muzzle.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she flips out. She raised b J calls
Speaker 1: the cops, and then she gave chase like, you do
Speaker 1: not mess with librarians. People, Damn a librarian will message yes.
Speaker 1: So she knew the building inside it out, so she
Speaker 1: knew exactly what exit they'd have to totally. She's just
Speaker 1: like parkour her way down the stairwell. So Eric and Warren.
Speaker 1: They get to the bottom of the stairwell, the door
Speaker 1: at the top swings open. It's the other librarian. She
Speaker 1: is piste. She's just like yelling and like, oh man,
Speaker 1: she's coming down that steam coming out of her nose.
Speaker 1: Her biceps have grown and like ripped open her her
Speaker 1: cute twin set. She's just like so. Eric and Warren
Speaker 1: they just basically like kick open the back door to
Speaker 1: the building, dropped the books, oh my god, and like
Speaker 1: start they start running right. Chaz is all startled at
Speaker 1: the wheel of the minivan. He's all of a sudden
Speaker 1: he sees them just bursting out of the out of
Speaker 1: the building. At this point, they just don't want to
Speaker 1: get caught, know so they didn't have the folios. They're
Speaker 1: running as fast as they can. They jump in the minivan. Librarian. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The chads like backs up to pick them up, almost
Speaker 1: hits the librarian and they're like drive, drive, drive and drive.
Speaker 1: He did. She was doing like a terminator to so
Speaker 1: he's driving like a maniac. Chas he's running red lights,
Speaker 1: he's nearly hitting pedestrians in like an astro van or
Speaker 1: in the rear view for a librarian. Yeah, yeah, They're
Speaker 1: all in an absolute panic. So they wind up. They
Speaker 1: switched cars. They pulled the They had fake plates on
Speaker 1: the minivan, they pull those off and set fire to them.
Speaker 1: Getting the other car, they dropped Eric off at his
Speaker 1: tennis final. It's like, apparently it wasn't just like rallies
Speaker 1: in a surf clinic like they had. There was a
Speaker 1: written test about tennis trivia and you couldn't miss that.
Speaker 1: So your final, I thought, like tennis, like he was
Speaker 1: in the finals, I took tennis in high school as
Speaker 1: like a point five credit thing, just as a way
Speaker 1: to play tennis during the whatever. It was like, it
Speaker 1: was like it was like a pe class, and that's
Speaker 1: what I thought. But no, it turns out he said
Speaker 1: like he had tough questions about tennis trivia instead of
Speaker 1: just going and playing your last liberal schools that are
Speaker 1: training our states. So he goes off to take his final.
Speaker 1: The rest of them go to shay Chaz and they
Speaker 1: watched coverage of their pseudo heist on TV. So don't
Speaker 1: forget though, that while they didn't get the million dollar manuscripts,
Speaker 1: they did have backpacks full of other rare books. They
Speaker 1: filled those backpacks. They heard on the news that there
Speaker 1: were no leads and a witness had taken down the
Speaker 1: license plate, but it was the fake one, so what
Speaker 1: does it matter. And they burned that so no one's
Speaker 1: going to find it. It looks like the cops had
Speaker 1: nothing and all their cinematic practice had paid off. They
Speaker 1: broke out some special occasions celebratory joints, and they felt
Speaker 1: a sense of relief. They may have just gotten away
Speaker 1: with it, Saron. The next day, the four of them
Speaker 1: piled into Eric's car and they drove to New York
Speaker 1: for their appointment at Christie's to sell the books that
Speaker 1: they didn't steal. Yes, so just like what about these
Speaker 1: what about these smaller ones? So they arrive on Sunday
Speaker 1: morning and they check into the same hotel they'd used
Speaker 1: on that last trip to meet the black market art contact.
Speaker 1: The appointment isn't until Tuesday, so they hung out and
Speaker 1: they went to dinner, and then they tied one on
Speaker 1: at the hotel part Badway show. According to an article
Speaker 1: in Vanity Fair Quote, Warren chummed up to an Iraq
Speaker 1: veteran spencer almost started a brawl after knocking a table
Speaker 1: full of drinks over, and Eric picked up a middle
Speaker 1: aged Brazilian tourists Warren, Warren and Chaz left the other
Speaker 1: two and staggered to the nearby China Club Attackie Westside Nightclub,
Speaker 1: which they knew about from the famous Rick James episode
Speaker 1: of Chappelle's show God Is Amazing. So on Monday they
Speaker 1: did some tourists. They're taking the Chris Murphy or Charlie
Speaker 1: Murphy rather Murphy tour of New York. Murphy mentioned, I
Speaker 1: will go there, So that was There's Sunday Monday they
Speaker 1: did some touristy things. They made a swing by Christie's
Speaker 1: to check it out, just look at it. Then they
Speaker 1: went to bed. Early Tuesday morning, Warren and Spencer they
Speaker 1: go to Christie's Chas and Eric. They wait in the
Speaker 1: car down the street with the books in the back.
Speaker 1: Warren he wore his special occasion big boy suit and
Speaker 1: Spencer put together a look that sounds very Richie Tannenbaum
Speaker 1: meets once again Spike Jones era Beastie Boys. A vintage
Speaker 1: yellow Pierre Carden blazer, large collar dress shirt and a
Speaker 1: gold silk scarf. Well, I like the Pierre card Empire.
Speaker 1: Well it was also like two sizes too big, huge,
Speaker 1: so an employee named Melanie Hallerin agreed to meet with
Speaker 1: Mr Beckman, but was informed by Warren and Spencer that
Speaker 1: they were actually Mr Williams and Mr Stevens, representatives of
Speaker 1: Walter Beckman, of course from and so he told them
Speaker 1: that Beckman was a very private man, a very careful man,
Speaker 1: and he just inherited some rare books and he wanted
Speaker 1: to get them appraised. How Lareen said, can I see him?
Speaker 1: Spencer has to run out to the car to get them.
Speaker 1: He comes back with like a wheelie bag. No, he
Speaker 1: comes back with a wheelie bag. He opens it up.
Speaker 1: Hallerin looks them all over. She asked some questions and
Speaker 1: like write stuff down and then she's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll be in touch. Spencer's like, great, here's my number.
Speaker 1: They leave. Meanwhile, the cops in the FBI and Lexington
Speaker 1: they're pouring over CCTV footage from the library. Lexington p
Speaker 1: D assigns this detective to the case. Detective Shannon Garner.
Speaker 1: She had just been transferred over from the mounted unit,
Speaker 1: like she was a horse cop and this was her
Speaker 1: first detective case. She's like a little overwhelmed to be
Speaker 1: leading such a high profile case, but she never let
Speaker 1: that show. She was just cool the whole time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The police trace the Yahoo email addressed to the UK
Speaker 1: Computer Lab and then they pulled the tapes from there too,
Speaker 1: so they can see who was using the computer at
Speaker 1: that time. They have a face. Then they get a
Speaker 1: federal subpoena ordering Yahoo to turn over all the records
Speaker 1: about the Welter Beckman email address. They found the correspondence
Speaker 1: with Melanie hallerin at Christie's and then they contact her.
Speaker 1: She tells the police, Yeah, these two guys who came in,
Speaker 1: super weird, super suspicious. They were young, they're wearing she
Speaker 1: described them thrift store clothes. She knew something was off,
Speaker 1: so she decided not to do business with them. Hey,
Speaker 1: did you have the CCTV tapes from when she they
Speaker 1: came in? Sure? She's like, you know what, I also
Speaker 1: have one guy's phone number. So she gives them the number. Right,
Speaker 1: this is the police. They're expecting this to be a
Speaker 1: burner phone, but when they look up the registration, it's
Speaker 1: a legit cell phone owned by Gary Reinhardt. Gary lives
Speaker 1: in Lexington, Kentucky. They call the number, they give voicemail.
Speaker 1: This is Spence leave a message? So like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: okay Spencer right, Okay, so this had given Christie's his
Speaker 1: real phone number, one paid for by his dad Gary.
Speaker 1: So they pulled a picture of Spencer from the newspaper. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have this name. It's a soccer thing, and like,
Speaker 1: Warren's also in a picture but not named. They compared
Speaker 1: the image to the footage from Christie's. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: those two guys. So they have the one name they
Speaker 1: needed to get the name for Warren. So the sergeant
Speaker 1: Pat Murray of Lexington p D. He shows his kid,
Speaker 1: who's about the same age, right, He's like, do you
Speaker 1: know these guys? Like He's like, oh yeah, that's Warren
Speaker 1: Lipka like new right away. So they start right exactly,
Speaker 1: So they start following Warren and Spencer, and soon enough
Speaker 1: they can figure out okay, yeah, Eric and Chas are
Speaker 1: they're part of it too, right, So the guys, they
Speaker 1: all tried to just go about their daily routines as
Speaker 1: if nothing had happened. There's this excellent passage from the
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair article by John Falk, like this quote. With
Speaker 1: the pressure mounting. However, Warren was caught shoplifting a TV
Speaker 1: dinner from a local supermarket. Eric was arrested and charged
Speaker 1: with a d u I. Police pulled him over not
Speaker 1: only for running red lights, but also because Warren was
Speaker 1: on top of the car, hanging onto the roof wreck
Speaker 1: and Spencer crashed his accurate legend. Just days before they
Speaker 1: are us, the three even took in a movie Oceans twelve.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, So like they're they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: lying low. They got Warren hanging on to the top
Speaker 1: of the car. Well wait a minute, I got to
Speaker 1: defend that. That's a really fun way to ride in
Speaker 1: a car or on a car. I have done that.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. So he gets a d life of that.
Speaker 1: On the morning of February eleven, two thousand five, Lexington
Speaker 1: p D Sent swat to raid Chaz's house Sha Chaz.
Speaker 1: Under the gun, cops searched the basement a k a.
Speaker 1: Warren's disgusting layer and they found the books. They found
Speaker 1: other heist accessories like everything everything. So during the interrogation
Speaker 1: all of them confessed, of course, and they all pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty the theft of cultural artifacts from a public museum
Speaker 1: and interstate transportation of stolen property and there were other
Speaker 1: charges on top of that as well. They got a
Speaker 1: weapon's enhancement for using the stunt pen and they all
Speaker 1: got sentenced to seven years in a federal facility with
Speaker 1: no chance of parole. Right years, seven years not what
Speaker 1: I thought they would get. Well, there was some like
Speaker 1: wrangling about because they were going to charge Warren with more.
Speaker 1: They were gonna put more time on his because he
Speaker 1: was yeah, and they thought he was like the ringleader
Speaker 1: she directed the others. But then um, all these librarians
Speaker 1: did a right in of like throw the book at him.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. These are people who are like so
Speaker 1: sincere and dedicated to knowledge and admitted so Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they wound up just making it across the board. Seven years. Wow,
Speaker 1: do you know how they get those buns so tight practice.
Speaker 1: In subsequent interviews, they all said that they're sorry, but
Speaker 1: they say they pulled the heist because they wanted to
Speaker 1: escape the oppression of their comfortable suburban lifestyle. One characterized
Speaker 1: his quote a way out, honey, the mean streets of
Speaker 1: wealthfare all over the world are looking for a way
Speaker 1: in and to being able to send their kids to
Speaker 1: a private university, have a lovely family home, take vacations,
Speaker 1: never have to worry about the price of groceries, like
Speaker 1: having regular food and having to run from your neighbors.
Speaker 1: Not bagging on middle or upper middle class folks, because
Speaker 1: that's how I grew up, right, But I am ever
Speaker 1: thankful now and back then growing up how lucky I was,
Speaker 1: Like how hard my mom my grandma had to work
Speaker 1: so that I could have such a comfortable life. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a word to gets thrown around now a lot,
Speaker 1: but you really were very lucky and privileged. Yeah, completely completely,
Speaker 1: But you have to recognize that these guys seem mad
Speaker 1: that they came from that, from such comfort that the
Speaker 1: same people people turned to crime because they want that comfort.
Speaker 1: So anyway that it was, there's a documentary about them.
Speaker 1: It's really irritating anyway, I can see it. It's so
Speaker 1: they all serve their time. They got out of prison.
Speaker 1: Warren says he's a prison reform advocate, and they think
Speaker 1: he works as an electrician. That's what it says in
Speaker 1: his Twitter bio bio. But I don't know if he's
Speaker 1: being cheeky whatever. Anyway, Eric, he wrote a book about
Speaker 1: their caper. Of course, it's called American Animal. The book
Speaker 1: was made into a movie, and then he's also yeah,
Speaker 1: so the casting. Yeah, he's also a prison reform advocate
Speaker 1: and he writes about his time inside, so he's you know,
Speaker 1: good for him by the way that movie came out.
Speaker 1: But Warren and Eric are like currently actively promoting it
Speaker 1: on social media, which I think a little bit weird.
Speaker 1: Is anybody in it? Oh? I don't like there are
Speaker 1: people in it? Get that, But I mean, like, does
Speaker 1: it have anybody whose name I may recognize? I don't
Speaker 1: think so it's like young stars that I don't know who. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you'd have to watch TV to know that I would.
Speaker 1: I probably would, you know what, I live in a cave.
Speaker 1: Um So Spencer Reinhard. He keeps continuing with his art,
Speaker 1: which was his passion. He paints while he's in prison,
Speaker 1: and he's now a working artist. He has a website
Speaker 1: where you can buy his paintings of surfing flamingos. Did
Speaker 1: you say surfing just like hanging ten being wicked? Do
Speaker 1: you know that they don't You can't bend at the knee.
Speaker 1: They only bend at the ankle. Very difficult to surf that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying. Chaz Chas is now a life coach,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book called Evolution Becoming a Criminal. Well,
Speaker 1: he did a Reddit a m a asked me anything
Speaker 1: when the movie came out, and he got roasted in
Speaker 1: the comments because he would only answer questions about like
Speaker 1: the logistical details of the heist. He ignored all the
Speaker 1: interesting questions, and then they went hard at him about
Speaker 1: being a life coach. They're like, why in the world
Speaker 1: would I take just like, don't do this, do this,
Speaker 1: don't do this. It's so entertaining, this whole threat in
Speaker 1: the way that only read it can be. That's very
Speaker 1: The people are absolutely hilarious and clever. Okay, so b J. Gooch.
Speaker 1: She retired from the library in after twenty six years
Speaker 1: of service. She didn't like talking about the robbery at all,
Speaker 1: but eventually she caved when the publicity around the movie
Speaker 1: put her back in the spotlight, and she said that
Speaker 1: talking about the effect the effected hat on her was
Speaker 1: cathartic um. She got all bruised up at the time,
Speaker 1: and then she was anxious for a long time in
Speaker 1: the library after the attack, but she was able to
Speaker 1: recover and thrive. She's my hero in this story. I'd
Speaker 1: like I really was hoping for her to do violence
Speaker 1: to them. She has her own larger tastes. Give him
Speaker 1: the goo, Szaren. What's her ridiculous takeaway? Oh man, that
Speaker 1: the UK students in Transylvania University students are pretty much
Speaker 1: exactly what I expected of the future statesmen of America
Speaker 1: and the privileged few who go to University of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, there are no surprises in this,
Speaker 1: but I do love the Gooch. So my ridiculous take
Speaker 1: away is b J Gooch, Celebrate the Gooch. That's my
Speaker 1: take By the way, is that the name of a
Speaker 1: character from Popeye? And do I have that right? There's
Speaker 1: like a hazy memory of the Gooch being a cartoon character.
Speaker 1: Like maybe I'm wrong about that. I don't know. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter either way. Uh. That's all that's all I
Speaker 1: have today. Um. You can find us online at Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime on both Twitter for the talking and Instagram for
Speaker 1: the cokin. Email us if you want it Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com, download the I Heart app and
Speaker 1: leave us a talk back thirty second voicemail. Other than that,
Speaker 1: tune in next time. Also, we take telegrams, so if
Speaker 1: you can get down to Western Union. Yes up, and
Speaker 1: I'm Szaron Burnett and that's Elizabeth Dutton. Damn right. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced
Speaker 1: and edited by Professor Dave Kusten, author of the Origin
Speaker 1: of These Nuts. Researches by Special Teams Librarian Unit members
Speaker 1: Marissa Brown and Andrea Song Sharpenedier. The theme song is
Speaker 1: by Amsterdam's Finest Fences. Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Ben don't use the taser ball in and No, no,
Speaker 1: really do don't use the taser Brown, dis say it
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