Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, Elizabeth dutch Zaren, How you doing great? I like
Speaker 2: this sweater. It's nice stripes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: You look like a French sailor nineteenth century.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it is sort of right. Yeah. She blows
Speaker 3: a little little lawn and I like your pink sweatshirt.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. It's Muhammad Ali Special. I got
Speaker 2: a question for you. You know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Oh do I what I do? I do know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Do you remember walking into your favorite pizzeria quarters for
Speaker 3: the arcade, infamous red plastic cups, bells, ringing for your order,
Speaker 3: trading tickets for prizes.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, these moments weren't just about pizza. They were
Speaker 3: about family, friendship, and happiness.
Speaker 2: You're reading your press, I.
Speaker 3: Am so there's this company you're.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, we walk you down right into the blender.
Speaker 3: There's this company called Bundy called Commerce Perfey, Perfey, perfey.
Speaker 2: Get this perfect perfect.
Speaker 3: The perfect soda is what they make.
Speaker 2: You know, it's right there? Perfect?
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, so they are offering pepperoni pizza soda.
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, this is courtesy of Ron Dugod on Instagram.
Speaker 3: It's a great source for these things. Yeah, it's a here,
Speaker 3: let me read you their copy. Listen kid, listen kid,
Speaker 3: sure put my place. Each can of Pepperoni pizza comes
Speaker 3: loaded with just three grams of sugar, thirty calories, and
Speaker 3: a little something extra enough flavor to make Nona shed
Speaker 3: a tear, like a secret recipe from the Old Country.
Speaker 2: Oh you needed to read this with like, hey, listen.
Speaker 3: Can ships the week of two seventeen twenty five. But
Speaker 3: it's already sold out.
Speaker 2: It's already shipped.
Speaker 3: Caffeine, forget about it.
Speaker 2: The energy Gabba Ghoul approved. Oh my goodness, I.
Speaker 3: Know made by Uncle PAULI.
Speaker 2: Really do they really put an Uncle Pauli in the Yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Says shumpulp, I don't know a no sugar added and
Speaker 3: then vegan Vinnie approved. And they don't talk about what
Speaker 3: they don't.
Speaker 2: Have, like a no, we don't sell baked ZD.
Speaker 3: They don't. The don doesn't wear shorts. They don't have.
Speaker 3: They don't explain the flavor profile.
Speaker 2: I don't think they need to.
Speaker 3: So you know what I did. I went digging and
Speaker 3: I found some reviews and basically it apparently tastes like
Speaker 3: carbonated tomato juice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the head of like spice for the pepperoni.
Speaker 3: It's vegan, so there's no real pepperoni.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but pepperon pepperoni's got a little heat, not like
Speaker 2: a lotty heat.
Speaker 3: A little bit of the oil isn't an oily, So
Speaker 3: totally there you go. I don't know, but the consensus
Speaker 3: was disgusting.
Speaker 2: I bet you know. I was like an oil slick
Speaker 2: on top of my soda.
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 2: It's not a fish sauce. Can I get a pepperoni?
Speaker 3: And to sum that all up in conclusion, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Zaren, I'm so.
Speaker 3: You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yes they do, you know. Okay, listen, but you know
Speaker 2: how sometimes a person will start out with good into
Speaker 2: or at least like innocent intentions me but surprise, surprise,
Speaker 2: it all works out and suddenly you're successful. Then naturally
Speaker 2: you enjoy the success. It feels good, right, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? So naturally you start I want to
Speaker 2: enjoy greater success because I don't feel even better. Right,
Speaker 2: But since you got lucky in the first place, you
Speaker 2: don't exactly know how to reach greater success. So instead
Speaker 2: you cheat a little, just a little corruption as a treat.
Speaker 2: But then you need to cheat some more to keep
Speaker 2: up right, to keep that ball going. And then soon enough,
Speaker 2: you're cheating all the time. And that, Elizabeth, is when
Speaker 2: you've become your own monster. It's a surprisingly common story.
Speaker 2: It's a human fable we see over and over again.
Speaker 2: Today I have exactly such a fable for you about
Speaker 2: a solar powered wanna be genius who became a solar
Speaker 2: powered monster. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd
Speaker 2: and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's oh ways nine
Speaker 2: nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Yes
Speaker 2: it is, Elizabeth. What do you know about portable diesel generators?
Speaker 2: They're loud, yes, this is true.
Speaker 3: And you can't run them inside.
Speaker 2: No, that is bad for your health.
Speaker 3: It's bad business, the portable ones. I've known some people
Speaker 3: who live in areas where they lose power lots and
Speaker 3: they get like a permanent one outside totally. But you
Speaker 3: can use it for like powering things and a power outage.
Speaker 3: Construction folks using Yeah, all, you're good at this, pretty good. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you know how much they cost for like a
Speaker 2: get you one for personally.
Speaker 3: I'd say like one point six million dollars.
Speaker 2: You're not so good there. Four thousand dollars is get
Speaker 2: your small one personal.
Speaker 3: Exactly costco probably cheap.
Speaker 2: Probably cheap, are you with your membership?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Now, one of those big daddy's in the industrial strength
Speaker 2: kind like you'd mentioned about a construction site or say
Speaker 2: like to power a Hollywood set that's out in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere, right, that'll set you back about twenty
Speaker 2: grand yikes for entry level and it goes on up
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 3: And it's just diesel power.
Speaker 2: Diesel powered. Right now, if you're on a construction site
Speaker 2: or a Hollywood set and you get super used to
Speaker 2: that site of the industrial portable diesel generator, right, typically
Speaker 2: it's a company like Bob Cat or Caterpillar. They'll sell
Speaker 2: you one, the rench you one whatever. In the US,
Speaker 2: I look this up. Portable diesel generators is approaching four
Speaker 2: billion dollars a year as a business billion.
Speaker 3: With a b B. And we know how much a billion.
Speaker 2: Is exactly, it'd be a lot. So it was three
Speaker 2: point six and twenty twenty two, three point seven and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three three point eight and twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: market is what is growing. It's projected yes, for a
Speaker 2: passing four million in a couple of years. Now, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: what do you know about portable solar power generators?
Speaker 3: Huh? I actually have.
Speaker 2: Do you have one? It feels like something you would.
Speaker 4: Have to have.
Speaker 3: I have this power bank for emergencies when the power
Speaker 3: you keep it charged up. But it's not like the
Speaker 3: little ones the size of your phone. Do you put
Speaker 3: like this is a big mama, And it's like, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like the size of like two shoe boxes.
Speaker 2: Oh damn.
Speaker 3: You keep all charged up and then you know I've
Speaker 3: lived through hurricanes or earthquakes. You go without power.
Speaker 2: I don't like that, and you don't. You don't have
Speaker 2: to get ready if you stay ready, and I know
Speaker 2: that your mom.
Speaker 3: I would rather never have to use any of this stuff.
Speaker 3: So you can run a bunch of stuff on it
Speaker 3: so you don't have to go like charge phones in
Speaker 3: the car. But then if it was like, oh this
Speaker 3: is bad, this is gonna go on a while. It
Speaker 3: has a little solar sheet like a panel, sure that
Speaker 3: you set up over it to recharge it.
Speaker 2: That's really nice, very you. It is Yeah, so like
Speaker 2: as you basically pointed out of, a portable solar powdered
Speaker 2: generator is a panel of solar photo voltaic cells attached
Speaker 2: to like a battery and a transformer. They then converts
Speaker 2: the power into usablevoltage. Now there are the industrial portable
Speaker 2: solar powered generators. You get a trailer you can drag
Speaker 2: around a panel of solar fotable Ta excels and that
Speaker 2: will run you about say twenty six grand entry level. Now, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: you mentioned how loud diesel generators are. Can you imagine
Speaker 2: how silent a solar powered generator. No smell, no smoke, choking, Yeah,
Speaker 2: no pollution.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think it made it's more expensive. But
Speaker 3: you spend a lot of money on diesel totally.
Speaker 2: Yes, hidden costs, yeah, operating costs. Now, about fifteen years ago,
Speaker 2: this dream to create a cheap solar powered diesel generator
Speaker 2: was a dream for commercial interests, Like it became this thing.
Speaker 2: They're like, what if we could kind of do this?
Speaker 2: Everybody was going kind of green. Right, enter our man
Speaker 2: of the hour, Jeff Carpoff's come on.
Speaker 3: Down, Jeff Jeff Carpoffs.
Speaker 2: Carpoff with a singular car like car Poffpoffkarpoff. I could
Speaker 2: be putting emphasis in the wrong place. Maybe Carpoff. Now,
Speaker 2: he is not who you might imagine as a leader
Speaker 2: in the green revolution of the early aughts and the
Speaker 2: twenty teens. Right. He was that rare rebel working in
Speaker 2: the green space who watched Nascar every Saturday. He was
Speaker 2: He enjoyed a chew of tobacco and none of that.
Speaker 2: He didn't spit it. He swallowed it, which is horrendous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's like real commitment, doesn't It makes you sick and
Speaker 2: the unless you get used to it with little bits
Speaker 2: and then you can just kind of like stomach a lot.
Speaker 2: I knew guys who did that, but it was not
Speaker 2: healthy anyway. He's from around these parts, like people guys
Speaker 2: I knew Elizabeth. Jeff Karpoff was from Martinez, California.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when I was a boy and we
Speaker 2: drive into the Bay area, we drive past Martinez and
Speaker 2: you can always tell you're in Martinez from the smell.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, nothing against Martinez. This is not the town's fault.
Speaker 2: There wasn't like a stinky town. There's a big oil
Speaker 2: and gas refineries that line the hills. Chevron and others.
Speaker 3: He's a green energy guy exactly. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: Sugar sugar totally California, Hawaiian. That's what the CNCH stamps for.
Speaker 2: Look at you your real bay a Martinez being real
Speaker 2: Bay area that you are. What do you mean just
Speaker 2: describe it as a town just so I can imagine.
Speaker 3: You know, I've been there, but I think it's it's
Speaker 3: like a working class town. It's right on the Carquinez
Speaker 3: straight yep. Or it's San Pablo Bay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you carcinas straight, your crust.
Speaker 3: And it's like you know, it's it's a cool older town.
Speaker 3: You have right across the street is Benetia.
Speaker 2: Yes, we'll also met.
Speaker 3: That used to be a capital of California early day.
Speaker 2: Yes for a little bit.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can just go on, you really can.
Speaker 2: Well, you'll be having to know. Our story starts in
Speaker 2: Martinez in two thousand and seven. At that point, Jeff
Speaker 2: Karpoff is a mechanic. He's a pretty good car mechanic, right,
Speaker 2: but he's not a good businessman. His repair shops multiple
Speaker 2: keep going out of business. He tries a few times,
Speaker 2: and it leads to a personal bankruptcy that results in
Speaker 2: a foreclosure on his home. So there he is in
Speaker 2: two thousand. He's a thirty six year old father of
Speaker 2: two small kids, married, unemployed, A man who's tried his
Speaker 2: hand at owning the American dream a few times and
Speaker 2: walked away bankrupted business failure. A man who's also, by
Speaker 2: the way, kicked a meth habit five years earlier, but
Speaker 2: now has lost the roof that sheltered his family, just
Speaker 2: like he never gave up the habit. So the ups
Speaker 2: and downs for this man are dizzying. So by age
Speaker 2: thirty six, Jeff is a human yo yo. Growing up
Speaker 2: in Martinez, Jeff was used to tough times. Like you said,
Speaker 2: it's a working class town. It's gone through its ups
Speaker 2: and downs as a boy, like his family home was
Speaker 2: right next door to a Hell's Angels.
Speaker 3: Bar that totally track.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I thought you'd like that. According to Jeff,
Speaker 2: as a boy, he watched quote fights, stabbings, shootings, prostitution,
Speaker 2: all kinds of just really crazy stuff. But he also
Speaker 2: watched his single mother, Rosalie, worked three jobs to take
Speaker 2: care of Jeff and his older sister, and when she
Speaker 2: was faced with hard times, unlike his you know, i'd say,
Speaker 2: after his latest repair shop closed up and he lost
Speaker 2: his family's home. Jeff didn't act like his mother because
Speaker 2: he'd seen her suffer, so instead he went back to drugs,
Speaker 2: but not to doing meth, don't worry. Instead he started
Speaker 2: to sell pot. So specifically, medical marijuana was coming a
Speaker 2: thing at the time. It was still the new market
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven, kind of wild West market
Speaker 2: where an independent person make their mark and go to
Speaker 2: big profit. So he goes down to another one of
Speaker 2: your old stopping grounds, Santa Cruz. Oh yeah, he tries
Speaker 2: to get into the medical marijuana game there by pot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly right. So but the pot he brought to Santa
Speaker 2: Cruz was rejected by the dispenser.
Speaker 3: Is it bringing coals to Newcastle?
Speaker 2: No not not that's a really good analogy for this one.
Speaker 2: But no, in this case, it was his pot may
Speaker 2: have looked good, but that was the dead giveaway that
Speaker 2: he'd been pumping his pot full of chemicals. And oh,
Speaker 2: that doesn't fly, according to that's according to the founder
Speaker 2: one dispensary. Right, yeah, that doesn't fly. Yeah, So Jeff
Speaker 2: was showing the door. Now this is when fate stepped
Speaker 2: in threw a little action into that. Yo, yo, that
Speaker 2: is Jeff's life. An old customer from one of his
Speaker 2: shuttered repair shops right asked Jeff if he thought he'd
Speaker 2: be any good at a selling solar panels, and this
Speaker 2: leads to a conversation with a neighbors. Jess mulling this
Speaker 2: over at this idea, He's like, well, let's do a
Speaker 2: solar Is that a good thing? Trying to lean into this.
Speaker 2: His neighbor tells him, you know, he would personally love
Speaker 2: to use roller up at his cabin, but you know,
Speaker 2: he always fears it some jerk would steal it while
Speaker 2: he's away, or some kids will break it, so he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to like invest in it. The neighbor says
Speaker 2: he wished what he had was like a portable solar
Speaker 2: power generator he could just take up to the cabin
Speaker 2: with him, use it while he's there, and then bring
Speaker 2: it back. Jeff's like, huh. Gives him an idea, a
Speaker 2: billion dollar idea, Elizabeth. So he draws up this idea,
Speaker 2: he develops it, and then he patents it. The title
Speaker 2: of his patent is simple, straight to the point quote
Speaker 2: trailer with solar panels.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Itays interesting around this time I had friends who were
Speaker 3: getting into selling and like installing solar oh yeah, because
Speaker 3: they were all like the rebate at tax credits oh yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah yeah. And you look at something like Martinez, it's
Speaker 3: like blue collar sat to the Earth. Yeah, like all
Speaker 3: that area Panol Crockett, Crockett, El seborani El Saw Yeah, amazing,
Speaker 3: amazing folks who just work really hard.
Speaker 2: Totally. I'm a big fan. So I'm pulling for this
Speaker 2: guy at this point in the story. So what does
Speaker 2: this look like this trailer with solar panels? Great question, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: what does it look like this? I love this energy
Speaker 2: you're bringing. I also, I know you love the text
Speaker 2: specs and the tech talk tech tech techy. So I'll
Speaker 2: put it to you this way. Imagine a flatbed trailer
Speaker 2: that you'd pull behind a car or a truck.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: Imagine that same flatbed trailer. It's like the kind you'd
Speaker 2: runt from like a U.
Speaker 3: Haul, but you'd put like a riding mower up.
Speaker 2: Sure, perfect right, chain it down that time right now.
Speaker 2: Imagine that's covered in solar panels, and at one end
Speaker 2: there's a battery and a transformer box that can turn
Speaker 2: all that sustainable sunlight into steady, reliable electric power. That's
Speaker 2: what he designed, right to have no tech talk.
Speaker 3: Huh like that that made sense to me?
Speaker 2: Now what it looked like a more specific visual terms,
Speaker 2: imagine a ray of two rows of solar panels. Right,
Speaker 2: they're five panels in each row. They're adjustable, which means
Speaker 2: you can anchor them on this rotating arm so you
Speaker 2: can stand them up in a vertical position. He drives
Speaker 2: them out to the location so they don't get damage,
Speaker 2: and then he can put them down and adjust them
Speaker 2: to this angle. Boom, good to go. All right, So
Speaker 2: Jeff calls his new invention the solar Eclipse, an ironic
Speaker 2: name for solar power if you ask me, Yeah, but whatever,
Speaker 2: Yeah it's Jeff. He's a rebel, definitely Elizabeth. So anyway,
Speaker 2: he starts to market and sell his new invention and
Speaker 2: attract investors for this cutting edge technology he got that's
Speaker 2: self sustained solar generators.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: People are like, oh, so what happens next for Jeff?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what happens next for Jeff?
Speaker 2: Do things turn around for this crazy kid? Well, his
Speaker 2: new invention. It attracts interest. People immediately see the practicality,
Speaker 2: the market friendly pitch. He's going it's clean green tech, right,
Speaker 2: which is buzzwords in two thousand and seven. This is
Speaker 2: at a time when people were earnestly interested in these things.
Speaker 2: Like it seems so long ago now, right, the energy
Speaker 2: coming into that Obama era of like green tech, which
Speaker 2: interestingly we'll get into later. George W. Bush spearheads this
Speaker 2: whole green energy movement. So anyway, it may not seem
Speaker 2: like this when you're you're there, but Martinez isn't that
Speaker 2: far from the Silicon Valley, so it's like an hour
Speaker 2: drive away, right, And like I said, at this time,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of hype and excitement about the future
Speaker 2: for new green tech, so that the investors come a calling.
Speaker 2: With the backing of initial investors, Jeff he forms his
Speaker 2: company and then the investors they aim their sites at
Speaker 2: Hollywood in a concentrated effort to leverage Hollywood's desire to
Speaker 2: go green. And they want to get you know, pats
Speaker 2: on the head from like that Al Gore inspired environmental
Speaker 2: activists of.
Speaker 3: The early adds Leo DiCaprio.
Speaker 2: Oh you just hold that thought, Elizabeth. So the solar power, right,
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be, Oh, it's not loud, it's not gross,
Speaker 2: it doesn't pollute Hollywood. People love it. And then for
Speaker 2: far off locations it's perfect right, free energy from the sun.
Speaker 2: So I think it sells itself right. And for me
Speaker 2: it's quiet there when I know you love that. So
Speaker 2: one of the early Hollywood types to get involved is
Speaker 2: Heart Backner. Now this actor offers to throw his Hollywood
Speaker 2: muscle behind them to help promote Karpoff's new green tech.
Speaker 2: And you, Elizabeth, you may be thinking heart Backner. I
Speaker 2: don't know that name. What Hollywood muscle does a whole
Speaker 2: heart have?
Speaker 3: Is that like his birth name?
Speaker 2: And his real name is no? You know his work?
Speaker 2: Or rather, I'm confident you'd recognize him from one specific role.
Speaker 2: You remember Diehard? Yeah? Do you remember the slimy bearded
Speaker 2: cokehead Harry Ellis who tries to cut a deal with
Speaker 2: Hans Krueber. Ellis says, and I quote, this will probably
Speaker 2: throw you back. Hey, babe, I negotiate million dollar deals
Speaker 2: for breakfast. I think I can handle this euro trash.
Speaker 2: That's him?
Speaker 3: Or is he the guy standing behind that guy?
Speaker 2: No, Bauyo, that's Heart. So he's the one who tries
Speaker 2: to throw his Hollywood muscle behind a rt H A
Speaker 2: R T Yeah, bachner bo c HN.
Speaker 3: I don't know why I'm getting wanting. Yeah, spellings, I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to help him provide them. So anyway, Jeff
Speaker 2: and he they're like, yeah, let's do this, let's take
Speaker 2: over Hollywood. So I with that, Elizabeth, I'd like to
Speaker 2: take a little break these messages. I'll tell you about
Speaker 2: where Jeff takes his solar powered dreams of Hollywood. And yes,
Speaker 2: Leonardo DiCaprio gets involved.
Speaker 4: All right, Elizabeth, we're back.
Speaker 2: So where were we?
Speaker 3: You were telling me about how he was going to
Speaker 3: take Hollywood by storm.
Speaker 2: That's right, Jeff takes Hollywood. Yeah, okay, and I promise
Speaker 2: you Leonardo DiCaprio would.
Speaker 3: Enter the picture theo Lecaprio.
Speaker 2: Well, he does, he does right now. So in twenty ten,
Speaker 2: DiCaprio gives this interview about his latest film, a Little
Speaker 2: Diddy called Inception. You may have heard of it, the
Speaker 2: Christopher Nolan film that was proudly made with solar power.
Speaker 2: According to DiCaprio, well, it was like twenty percent of it.
Speaker 2: But anyway, He gave an interview to the Philippine Daily
Speaker 2: Inquirer in which I love the press junkets. What are
Speaker 2: you going to do right, so Leo said, and I quote,
Speaker 2: A lot of this movie was made with solar power.
Speaker 2: It's the first movie I got to do with solar power.
Speaker 2: I had a conversation about it with Alan Horn, who's
Speaker 2: the head of Warner Brothers. The generation that we had
Speaker 2: on the set were all powered by solar energy. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be a big conversion to do stuff like that
Speaker 2: every day, not just in making movies, but everything in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: So Leo DiCaprio is so spot on.
Speaker 2: He's like, really gangbusters about this right now. The reason
Speaker 2: why this well known environmentalist obviously so geeked unportable solar
Speaker 2: power is obvious, but he still expresses it to the
Speaker 2: Philippine Daily Inquirer for those catching up in twenty ten,
Speaker 2: we do a lot of things in the world that
Speaker 2: are wasteful. We keep talking about this all the time. Hopefully,
Speaker 2: fingers crossed, with these small steps, we'll make that transition
Speaker 2: on a much larger scale in the future. It got
Speaker 2: bad news from the future.
Speaker 4: Leo.
Speaker 3: Listen, no, I know you had good intentions, buddy, but.
Speaker 2: This fingers still crossed. Brother. So guy's on fire. I'm
Speaker 2: on your side this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm even pushing.
Speaker 2: But Elizabeth, this is obviously not what happens. We do
Speaker 2: have portable solar generators now, but that green energy has
Speaker 2: not become the industry standard because of scammer like Jeff Carpoff.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wouldn't put it squarely.
Speaker 2: Oh just hold that thought. Oh. The story of Jeff
Speaker 2: low Key pisses me off because I agree with Leo
Speaker 2: that we like what he's talking about. We need green tech,
Speaker 2: we need green sustainable tech, all right. This guy is
Speaker 2: a big part of the reason why we don't because
Speaker 2: him and a couple other cylinders. Another example, the green
Speaker 2: tech has had its moment, and then that moment is
Speaker 2: largely over in the public's imagination now because of there
Speaker 2: were so many green tech scams. Yeah, wasted the tax
Speaker 2: credits that they got, They wasted the chance to actually
Speaker 2: establish it. Instead, we got a solar power energy industry,
Speaker 2: and that's it pretty much. It should have been a
Speaker 2: lot bigger, It's my point. Anyway, How exactly did our
Speaker 2: zero of the day, Jeff go bad? Well? By twenty ten,
Speaker 2: his company was now called DC Solar, and he detracted
Speaker 2: the attention of industrial investors at this point, like US Bank, Right,
Speaker 2: companies like Sherwin Williams, the paint company. Yeah, both of them.
Speaker 2: They could see the potential for this commercial like application. Right.
Speaker 2: So soon now he's got big money interest. What does
Speaker 2: Carpoff do? Well, Jeff makes the curious choice to raise
Speaker 2: the price for his portable solar generators. New starting price
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per portable generator trade?
Speaker 3: How much was it before? Was twenty grand?
Speaker 2: One hundred thousand is what he was telling investors before.
Speaker 2: It's fifty thousand dollars. Now he's basically added fifty percent.
Speaker 2: So but with all this initial interest, why not make
Speaker 2: even more of each sale? Thought the man who couldn't
Speaker 2: make a mechanic shop work.
Speaker 3: How about volume?
Speaker 4: So anyway, yeah, right, Jeff, he has a Martinez Martinez.
Speaker 2: Yes, come on. So he's got a rental scheme in mind.
Speaker 2: That's where he thinks there's a real money. He's like
Speaker 2: these these trailers could be rented out at like eighteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars a month. And again, there's more to the scheme.
Speaker 2: He's got a scheme right, specifically, he told his investors
Speaker 2: will make big profits off government buy a tax credits.
Speaker 2: In other ways, he found a way to melk the
Speaker 2: US taxpayers. It's a surprisingly common business strategy really, just
Speaker 2: ask Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the story goes in two thousand and five, the
Speaker 2: George W. Bush ERAIC Congress approved tax credits for green
Speaker 2: energy investment. Right, it was a big deal. This business
Speaker 2: could now reduce their federal taxes by thirty percent for
Speaker 2: every dollar they spent on green energy. So this this
Speaker 2: moment in US history right when Solvent Energy was first
Speaker 2: blowing up as a big business. Interestingly, it was under
Speaker 2: a Republican president. I think that's notable, right, And that's
Speaker 2: also how it became a real deal industry, and that's
Speaker 2: why industry gets behind it. Now. It seems like it's
Speaker 2: not like a like.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're going to do a thing job creating, because
Speaker 3: that's what they put these finite resources that we're going
Speaker 3: to run out of we need anyway.
Speaker 2: It's an obvious thing. So they were trying to make
Speaker 2: the smart play and business are trying to get him
Speaker 2: on board, and then Jeff was their partner for it.
Speaker 2: Because they didn't understand this stuff. They didn't know how
Speaker 2: to pick we got.
Speaker 3: Jack and I'm Jeff exactly.
Speaker 2: So this federal cash it's splashing around in the green
Speaker 2: energy space and excites the interest of the corrupt and
Speaker 2: the criminal minded because they see a ton of free
Speaker 2: money for anyone with a halfway decent green energy proposal.
Speaker 2: Back to Jeff, who has, by the way, is the
Speaker 2: same thing, but he's got the perfect product ready to
Speaker 2: take advantage of all this free cast. So his solar
Speaker 2: generators are a picture perfect tax credit scheme aimed at
Speaker 2: big corporations, because they'll say, you know, essentially he worked basically,
Speaker 2: I'll put it to you this way. His big steel
Speaker 2: works out that the mega corporations looking to lessen their
Speaker 2: tax bill, they could determine how much they wanted to save,
Speaker 2: and then they could buy exactly that many solar generators
Speaker 2: from Jeff's company, DC's solar Then all they need to
Speaker 2: do is put down a deposit, because he's doing like
Speaker 2: a lease buy agreement thing that's equal to thirty percent
Speaker 2: of the generator's cost, and then the corporation could deduct
Speaker 2: from their tax bill the exact amount based on the
Speaker 2: green investment tax credits incentive. So what this means is
Speaker 2: the corporations wanted to play ball, but didn't want to
Speaker 2: buy the solar generators. They could lease them in a
Speaker 2: long term deal. That way, they never have to touch them,
Speaker 2: maintain them, move them around anything. They have him bring
Speaker 2: them out whenever they need them, which they never really do.
Speaker 2: They're just getting the investment credit the entire time. They
Speaker 2: just stays on the books. And then so they have
Speaker 2: the tax credit in a long term deal. Now they
Speaker 2: can write off thirty percent of their budget every year. Boom,
Speaker 2: this huge deal. So twenty eleven, DC Solar starts signing
Speaker 2: deals with corporations like Sherwin Williams. Two months after the
Speaker 2: ink on that deal drives, Jeff buys himself a million
Speaker 2: dollar home. Boom. He's like ready to enjoy life. He
Speaker 2: buys a home on a hill in Martinez. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: mansion has in a gated community, has like a six
Speaker 2: car garage, all a guest cottage. Jeff's finally made good.
Speaker 2: Now he's looking down in his hometown. So there were
Speaker 2: signs though that not all was as it appeared, because
Speaker 2: when the fall came, but Sherwin Williams came to the
Speaker 2: DC Solar production facility to inspect their purchases that they're
Speaker 2: not going to really take possession of DC solar sales
Speaker 2: executives who are there to show him these things. They
Speaker 2: noticed that there's a little bit of a fiction, okay,
Speaker 2: a lot of fiction hiding behind the impressive face of
Speaker 2: the presentation. So basically, the generators put out in the
Speaker 2: front row look great, that first row, after that, every
Speaker 2: other row not fully assembled.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, it's like a British bakeoff. You if you
Speaker 3: mess up, you put the good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, except two thirds of the generators are just there
Speaker 2: like they they don't work, They're just there to look good.
Speaker 2: Like there it is. There's another one. You can count
Speaker 2: them basically though, it's the wheels and all the panels.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Jeff, he gets confronted by a sales exec
Speaker 2: about this, and Jeff tells them, you don't worry about that.
Speaker 3: Huh, I don't worry.
Speaker 2: Pretty sales exec quit right, So now good for them, Yeah,
Speaker 2: good guy, they had their integrity.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, there's something I haven't mentioned yet. Jeff was a
Speaker 2: car mechanic, but not a solar engineer. Like he literally
Speaker 2: had no idea what he was doing. Yeah, but he
Speaker 2: didn't let that stop I'm Elizabeth. He set his sights
Speaker 2: on bigger and bigger come ups, right, So I remember
Speaker 2: I told you he and his initial investors and that
Speaker 2: the guy from die Hard wanted to leverage the potential
Speaker 2: portable solar generators for on set shoots for Hollywood. While
Speaker 2: they start focusing on that totally right, if it really
Speaker 2: was a legit thing. So what was their next move?
Speaker 2: Like other than like whatever movie Leonardo DiCaprio was working on?
Speaker 2: Next like other than him? Where there they go? Well,
Speaker 2: they branch out, they start conn other productions. Okay, But
Speaker 2: rather than me tell you about that, Elizabeth, I'd like
Speaker 2: to take you there, which means I'd like you to
Speaker 2: close your eyes. I'd like you to picture it. Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: It's a warm and sunny day, the arisoft, the sunlight
Speaker 2: on your face warms your cheeks as you watch Steve
Speaker 2: Carrell shove a chocolate Eclaire into his gaping maw. The
Speaker 2: beloved comedic actor pushes pastry into his pie hole like
Speaker 2: he's getting paid to eat, but he's not. He's actually
Speaker 2: getting paid to wait. Welcome to the hurry up and
Speaker 2: wait world of life on a film set. You are
Speaker 2: currently sitting near craft services, nibbling on a protein bar
Speaker 2: that you pulled out of your pocket, which is why
Speaker 2: you're watching Steve Carell maw down on chocolate he Claire's.
Speaker 2: He's now working on his second apparently Steve Carell's stress eats.
Speaker 2: The stress is coming from the fact that the film
Speaker 2: set for the new movie Alexander in The Terrible, Horrible,
Speaker 2: No Good, very Bad Day is currently stalled, waiting for
Speaker 2: the power to come back on. You were supposed to
Speaker 2: be a set photographer working as a favor for a friend,
Speaker 2: but you thought there would be a camera on set
Speaker 2: for you to not that you had to bring your
Speaker 2: own gear, so you were fired within the first hour.
Speaker 2: But since it's an outdoor shoot far from anywhere that
Speaker 2: resembles civilization, you've had to stay on set the whole day,
Speaker 2: and then solar power generator blew out and the sets
Speaker 2: all shut down. So now you're waiting for the shooting
Speaker 2: day to be called and for the shuttles to arrive
Speaker 2: so you can catch a lift back to the parking lot,
Speaker 2: which is a couple miles away. But from what you
Speaker 2: just heard from a passing ad walking and talking into
Speaker 2: a walkie talkie, answering the questions of the gaffer aka
Speaker 2: the electrician for the film set. A generator must have blown.
Speaker 2: That's why the lights cut out and plunged the outdoor
Speaker 2: shoot into unscheduled darkness. So you follow another star as
Speaker 2: she makes her way to craft services. It's Jennifer Garner.
Speaker 2: She wears a sweet smile on her face despite the delay.
Speaker 2: Soon enough, Megan Malayally joins her at the craft services table.
Speaker 2: The two actresses pick over the options. Jennifer Garner goes
Speaker 2: for a yogurt. Megan Malayali ops for gummy bears and
Speaker 2: a banana. You wait to grab some more food. You
Speaker 2: don't want to crowd the stars. You know you're not
Speaker 2: supposed to, but you also want to get it's something deep.
Speaker 2: You've been on the set for about twelve hours. When
Speaker 2: you see Meghan Malayley walk away, you pop up. Before
Speaker 2: you've taken three steps towards craft services table, you see
Speaker 2: Donald Glover. He's headed there too. This movie has someone
Speaker 2: for everyone, you think before you take a wide turn
Speaker 2: and peel off. Now you wait some more. It takes
Speaker 2: Donald Glover forever to decide what he wants to eat.
Speaker 2: How hard could it be Donald, you think to yourself.
Speaker 2: You're getting angry. You can feel it. Donald Glover finally
Speaker 2: decides on a blow pop candy. He walks off. You
Speaker 2: don't delay. You head for craft services. But would you
Speaker 2: believe it? Jennifer Coolidge pops up out of nowhere. It's
Speaker 2: headed for it. You guessed it, the craft services table.
Speaker 2: You have got to be kidding me, you think to yourself.
Speaker 2: But again you peel off and give way to the
Speaker 2: latest hungry star. Jennifer Coolidge is quick to pick out
Speaker 2: some cookies and an energy drink. Smart choice, you think,
Speaker 2: But then she puts the cookies back and ops for
Speaker 2: a granola bar and some strawberries. But she changes her
Speaker 2: mind again. She puts the granola bar back. You're like
Speaker 2: a kid who desperately needs to pee. You're standing in place, squirming, waiting,
Speaker 2: humming to yourself. Meanwhile, Jennifer Coolidge finally decides to take
Speaker 2: a box of cereal into the strawberries and the energy drink.
Speaker 2: She walks away. You practically speed walk like one of
Speaker 2: those Olympic hip swingers, towards the craft services table, but
Speaker 2: a first ad catches you halfway there. She's got good news.
Speaker 2: The solar power generators are a bust. They're going to
Speaker 2: be called the day. Turns out it was a hair
Speaker 2: dryer that tripped the brake or shut down the solar
Speaker 2: power generators. Who knew the first ad says, thankfully, the
Speaker 2: shuttles will be here in ten minutes. You can go
Speaker 2: with her to the drop off site, so you never
Speaker 2: get to grab a snack. Instead, you curse whoever it
Speaker 2: was that made those stupid solar power generators. As you're
Speaker 2: led off to the shuttles, but wait on the way,
Speaker 2: you see another star from the set of this movie.
Speaker 2: It's mixed Dick van Dyke. And when the genial old
Speaker 2: actress sees you, he gives you this big smile. The
Speaker 2: old trooper is unbothered by shooting, delays, his smile stays
Speaker 2: with you. Oh, Dick van Dyke. So there you go, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: That's how it went day for me, right, finally a
Speaker 2: fun day. That's how it went when the solar power
Speaker 2: generators were actually put to use a Yeah that was
Speaker 2: actually a true story. Yeah, Pink had the same thing
Speaker 2: when she did use them for a concert on MTV.
Speaker 2: They were so Luckily for Carpoff, his usagees are actually
Speaker 2: kind of rare. So most of the time the companies
Speaker 2: were fine but just holding the leases on their books
Speaker 2: and taking the tax credit. That kept things simple. And
Speaker 2: then came the first whiffs of real trouble. The IRS
Speaker 2: started making noise that tax credits could be denied if
Speaker 2: the generators weren't actually being used. That was bad days, right,
Speaker 2: totally total, because the tax credit was really what Karpoff
Speaker 2: was selling, and his buyers didn't really want his solar generators.
Speaker 2: So what does Carpoff do next? Elizabeth, Well, is it
Speaker 2: time to fold up shop again, declare bankruptcy, and walk
Speaker 2: away from yet another failed business? Way to go, Jeff,
Speaker 2: not this time, Sister. Twenty twelve, Jeff met with his accountant,
Speaker 2: Ronald Roach and the company's general counsel are A Lauer,
Speaker 2: and the question he ran by them was quite simple,
Speaker 2: right to the point, what if they mixed their funds
Speaker 2: and they used money from the purchases of new gen
Speaker 2: narrators to pay for the missing lease money for their
Speaker 2: earlier deals they just kept this thing going. In other words,
Speaker 2: what if we did a Ponzi game? So, but in
Speaker 2: this case, the one who would be left holding the
Speaker 2: bag would be us. Taxpayers, no loss. That was the argument. Yeah, Tota,
Speaker 2: perfect magic trick for tax cheats. Now they could keep
Speaker 2: the money rolling in with new clients like T Mobile
Speaker 2: and Disney, and they did. So this this Ponzi scheme
Speaker 2: calmed the financial waters. But there was one other huge
Speaker 2: problem for DC Solar. Jeff was never the perfect person
Speaker 2: to be a leader in this new green energy space,
Speaker 2: you know. I kind of pointed that out earlier, like, well, okay.
Speaker 2: For instance, they shot a promotional video with him, and
Speaker 2: the crew from marketing was like, yeah, let's have you
Speaker 2: would be the face of talk right. So he's there
Speaker 2: on camera and Jeff He's got pre written lines like
Speaker 2: gass holding up the Q cards and Jeff is trying
Speaker 2: and this is how it goes. He's like, uh, we
Speaker 2: strive for a healthier planet by offering unique solar products
Speaker 2: that I can't remember what the son of a Wow.
Speaker 2: He go hit it like a shot at tequila to
Speaker 2: call down because that's probably the answer, and then he
Speaker 2: try again. So this debacle leads to the hiring of
Speaker 2: John Miranda. There's a guy from Hollywood. He's hired to
Speaker 2: help out as a communications director. We'll just smooth things
Speaker 2: out with the communications director. His first day on the job.
Speaker 2: He pulls up to DC Solar. He sees a muscle
Speaker 2: car parked in the handicapped spot out front getting its
Speaker 2: oil changed by some employee. You know who car it was. No,
Speaker 2: he's not handicapped. So then comes the news that Jeff
Speaker 2: wants to launch a brand partnership to bring more attention
Speaker 2: to DC Solar. Right, get them out ahead, So he
Speaker 2: tells the new comms director he wants to become a
Speaker 2: big time sponsor for you guessed it, NASCAR because nothing
Speaker 2: says screen energy like NASCAR.
Speaker 3: Beginning, I was pulling for this.
Speaker 2: Right, didn't it flip real quick? So he wanted to
Speaker 2: see his company's name painted on the skin of a
Speaker 2: stock car. He loves this man, Come on, he loves Nascar,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth loves gas guzzlin muscle cars. Now he's a rich guy.
Speaker 2: He collects cars. He by the way, he had a
Speaker 2: seventy eight trans Am Firebird, just like the one from
Speaker 2: Smokey and the Band. In fact, even better than that,
Speaker 2: it was personally owned by good old boy Burt Reynolds himself. Jeff.
Speaker 2: He also had another iconic Southern good old boy dream car,
Speaker 2: he bought himself a general Lee a Dodge Chargers of course, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: anyway back to.
Speaker 3: Generally a big old house and Martinez.
Speaker 2: Yes, so anyway back to NASCAR sponsor deal. Jeff wants
Speaker 2: to spend millions of the company's money to associate his
Speaker 2: clean green energy company with the most easily identifiable, anti green,
Speaker 2: most polluting sport there is, you know, like completely anyway,
Speaker 2: so that's what happens. DC Solar ends up on stock
Speaker 2: cars for NASCAR. This no way, Oh yeah, So somehow though,
Speaker 2: this works for from twenty eleven on for about eight years,
Speaker 2: he's able to keep this long con going along the
Speaker 2: way he sings the national anthem in a baseball game, Yes,
Speaker 2: like other Texo who knows. I did not watch his performance. No,
Speaker 2: Jeff watches the value of his company just balloon into
Speaker 2: a billion dollar business. It's this ridiculous moment in American history, Elizabeth. Yes,
Speaker 2: they couldn't tell it at the time because everyone was
Speaker 2: making too much money and getting accolades for how green
Speaker 2: they were. And so by the time d C Solar
Speaker 2: is worth two point five billion dollars, Jeff is now
Speaker 2: a fully formed, fully corrupt monster of his own making yeah, sure, right,
Speaker 2: and he leans into it at this point. So now
Speaker 2: he's got a red pickup truck lifted and he drives
Speaker 2: around as a newly minted billionaire and his red truck
Speaker 2: blast the star spangled banner from speakers aimed out at
Speaker 2: the world. What yeah, but no, but even better in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, he has had this custom chopper built for
Speaker 2: him on a TV show, and he had the motorcycle
Speaker 2: painted with an American theme, like on the gas tanks
Speaker 2: of flags and eagles. And Jeff told the bike builder
Speaker 2: the tanks, I want, look the statue of liberty holding
Speaker 2: the flag and the flag blowing in the wind. I
Speaker 2: want the Constitution on the backfender.
Speaker 3: We the people the Constitution.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, anyway, and does.
Speaker 3: Everyone just talks about how Idiocracy was a documentary.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this exhibit A. So meanwhile, there was this
Speaker 2: actual nation and its taxpayers who were bank rolling all
Speaker 2: of this exactly fraud, wasting abuse.
Speaker 3: And there are kids who like have no school lunch.
Speaker 3: But no, Jeff's got a lift.
Speaker 2: We're paying for this. So the irs is about to
Speaker 2: expose all the rot at the core of this new
Speaker 2: multi billion dollar business. I don't want you wearing Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: But in twenty fifteen, Jeff spoke with the VP of
Speaker 2: Operations for DC Solar. He had a strange request. He's like,
Speaker 2: you want to know if the VP could generate, you know,
Speaker 2: some fake paperwork. You know, I just wanted to get
Speaker 2: us patched up a little hole. It's for tax purposes.
Speaker 2: He said, he needed fake paperwork. They made it look
Speaker 2: like on paper T Mobile was leasing a thousand solar
Speaker 2: generators for a term of a decade at about a
Speaker 2: rate of you know, thirteen million dollars. So you know,
Speaker 2: so all told that's an annual rate. It's all told
Speaker 2: it will be one hundred and thirty million dollar deal.
Speaker 2: And so the VP of Operations was like, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can do that. Jeff's like,
Speaker 2: what if I gave you a million dollars? The guy
Speaker 2: was like, well, He's like, what if I gave you
Speaker 2: and the guy you find to sign the paperwork from
Speaker 2: T Mobile of him million dollars too? Now? How you doing?
Speaker 2: Guy's like, I could probably find a guy. I got
Speaker 2: a friend a tea mobile. Turns out that at that price,
Speaker 2: this VP was able to look past in the ethical lapses.
Speaker 2: He did find someone from T Mobile, a fellow executive,
Speaker 2: a foreign navy veteran, a man who once had integrity.
Speaker 2: I think now you know his price. He's willing to
Speaker 2: set it aside for one million dollars. Ethics over to
Speaker 2: the left exactly. So this keeps the I R s
Speaker 2: away for a little while longer. So how long can
Speaker 2: Jeff find wielding stooges willing to race jail time in
Speaker 2: service of his long con? Great question, Elizabeth. Well, just
Speaker 2: like his fake investments and deals, he would need a
Speaker 2: steady stream of suckers to sell their ethics out at
Speaker 2: market rate. Yeah, okay, let's take a little break and
Speaker 2: after these smooth, cool, watery ads, we'll be back and
Speaker 2: see how this whole scam goes. Put Boy, Elizabeth, it's
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen now, Oh yeah, the long con scam that
Speaker 2: is known as d C Stolar is still a rollin.
Speaker 2: Jeff Carpoff is still at it, and this is when
Speaker 2: things start to really go off the rails. At first,
Speaker 2: they enter into a deal with the car insurance giant Geico.
Speaker 2: One interesting wrinkle about that Elizabeth. Geico is owned by
Speaker 2: Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway. Is it known for it's
Speaker 2: really you know, sober and smart minded investment strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's also he is no stranger to a tax credit. Also,
Speaker 2: in the twenty.
Speaker 3: Teams, you don't become a billionaire.
Speaker 2: Without sucking off the government. Teat oh welfare them.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, you gotta get your welfare totally.
Speaker 2: Now. In the twenty Teams, Warren Buffett was all in
Speaker 2: on the green energy green tech, in particular solar energy.
Speaker 2: He was cuckoo for coconuts at it. Okay, we're this
Speaker 2: is not just conjecture. At twenty seventeen shareholders meeting, Warren
Speaker 2: Buffett told investors, quote, somebody walks it in with a
Speaker 2: solar project tomorrow and it takes a billion dollars or
Speaker 2: it takes three billion, We're ready to do it, and
Speaker 2: the more the better. So all in right there somebody
Speaker 2: who walked in with a deal. It was Jeff Karpoff
Speaker 2: with DC Solar. So he walked in with a solar project,
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, true to form, Geico was down
Speaker 2: to do business just like the big Boss had ordered.
Speaker 2: So right up until Jeff tried to rush the deal though,
Speaker 2: so In response, the chief financial officer for Geico said
Speaker 2: at the time, quote, if there's a way out of
Speaker 2: this deal, take it.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: But big Boss Warren Buffett was all in on solar,
Speaker 2: so everyone was like, oh, we got to ink the deal.
Speaker 2: So Geico inks the deal. Price tag one point two
Speaker 2: billion dollars for portable solar power generators, and no one
Speaker 2: thinks that it will become suspicious about this.
Speaker 3: How many could there possibly back to where.
Speaker 2: Are you cornering the market? Like, are you buying all
Speaker 2: of the solar.
Speaker 3: Power seperators the taco trucks?
Speaker 2: Is Geythard now distributing them to their customers?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So the real deal was tax credits. They would save
Speaker 2: Geico three hundred and seventy seven million dollars on their
Speaker 2: tax bill, all thanks to Jeff's Carpoff's scamming American taxpayers
Speaker 2: with this federal tax credit. So, with this influx at
Speaker 2: one point two billion on the books, DC Solder now
Speaker 2: moves to headquarters in Benetia, that's right, former capital of
Speaker 2: California for a full thirteen months. If you were from
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty three to eighteen fifty four, had to look
Speaker 2: that up. I'm as good as you on the California history.
Speaker 2: So this then it basically as you described. It's a
Speaker 2: small industrial town on the other side of the carkeenas
Speaker 2: straight from Martinez.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: DC Solar love it. Yeah, by one of my best
Speaker 2: friends grew up there, spent a bunch of time there,
Speaker 2: so like he would take me around and show me
Speaker 2: like the good sides of it. Yeah, it's helpfool to
Speaker 2: have a local Anyways. DC Solar had a huge pile
Speaker 2: of orders for new generators now because it got the
Speaker 2: one point two billion dollar deal plus all their previous
Speaker 2: deals that they've you know, but if you visited the
Speaker 2: production facility, you'd have no idea that was the case.
Speaker 2: There was no sense of urgency, No business is getting done,
Speaker 2: No like we're rolling them out, cranking them out. It's
Speaker 2: just like three guys walking around probably on break. They
Speaker 2: look like they're on break. So the generator factory, there's
Speaker 2: no rush at all. Right, Jeff has a different plan.
Speaker 2: He has his company focusing on the least business, where
Speaker 2: that's much easier to fake with paperwork and they don't
Speaker 2: have to actually build all those solar generators that are
Speaker 2: such a problem. So he and his team come up
Speaker 2: with his fresh con. They send the buyers a report
Speaker 2: from an independent engineer that details the portable solar generators
Speaker 2: that they least, identifying them by their DMV vehicle identification numbers.
Speaker 2: They're vin except the independent engineer was Jeff's high school buddy,
Speaker 2: Joseph Bayliss. So the real deal is between twenty eleven
Speaker 2: and twenty eighteen, DC Solar sold seventeen thousand generators at
Speaker 2: that inflated price, and that same time they built six thousand.
Speaker 2: So you can kind of see a little problem they're building, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: not quite one to three exactly. So for those folks
Speaker 2: who bought solar generators, Jeff obviously I said he had
Speaker 2: got his different strategy than actually delivering what they purchase. Instead,
Speaker 2: he offers to ware house their generators and deliver them
Speaker 2: whenever and wherever they're needed, and to make that all
Speaker 2: work out with his limited number of solar generators. What
Speaker 2: this means is all these companies owned these same generators
Speaker 2: and he just peels off the ven numbers and puts
Speaker 2: them ven numbers according to what is on the paperwork,
Speaker 2: like let's make sure we've got it this, And so
Speaker 2: they put the bag of VN numbers. They pop them
Speaker 2: all off, they label them, and they put them in
Speaker 2: another bag, and they take the other bag and they
Speaker 2: put them all back on and they drive out to
Speaker 2: the spot.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So if there's some pain in the neck buyer
Speaker 2: who wanted evidence that their solar generators were actually in
Speaker 2: the field where they said they would be, Jeff had
Speaker 2: an answer for that. He would send his team out
Speaker 2: with a GPS transponder and then he'd have them bury
Speaker 2: that there and then when they would look on the
Speaker 2: app and they oh, look, see there it is. There's
Speaker 2: your there's problem solved.
Speaker 3: There are no generators.
Speaker 2: There, just no just a GPS transponder buried in the
Speaker 2: tag in the dirt, and so it's out there, don't
Speaker 2: you worry. So sometimes he actually would have to deliver
Speaker 2: solar generators for the prickly customers who would drive out
Speaker 2: to the far out location and check for themselves or
Speaker 2: actually show up and need and need it. They're oh,
Speaker 2: I've got actual plans to use this I.
Speaker 3: Thing that they have to be generating power for something.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So actually, so in that case, then he would
Speaker 2: have his team bust their butts. They'd have to actually work,
Speaker 2: and then they would get the generators and then get
Speaker 2: the trailers to the location. Whoo, problem solved now. Jeff, though,
Speaker 2: even though he's taking these problems all one at the time,
Speaker 2: he's got a much bigger problem he doesn't know about,
Speaker 2: and it came in the form of three letters the
Speaker 2: IRS twenty sixteen. The RS is now investigating DC Solar
Speaker 2: for its Hainky accounting practices, its abuses of the tax
Speaker 2: credit program. Then the IRS is they're good at what
Speaker 2: they do, so they go and it doesn't take it
Speaker 2: long to figure out the DC Solar is selling its
Speaker 2: portable solar generators for about one hundred and fifty grand.
Speaker 2: That's not hard. They put that out there right. Then
Speaker 2: the IRS determines that if you were actually to go
Speaker 2: by say market rate based on materials, manufacturing costs, a
Speaker 2: reasonable up charge, the portable solar generator was more like
Speaker 2: a thirteen brand. He's selling it for one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand and taking a tax credit one hundred fifty
Speaker 2: thousand as opposed to thirteen thousand, So that's one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty seven thousand dollars markup, right, But the IRS
Speaker 2: is focused on the tax credit which is they're getting
Speaker 2: forty five thousand dollars as a tax credit for each
Speaker 2: generator that's purchased in or least in a long term
Speaker 2: deal instead of the three thousand, nine hundred dollars tax
Speaker 2: credit they should be getting. So for those not good
Speaker 2: at math like me, that's eleven point five times more
Speaker 2: valuable as a tax credit. Yeah, free money, free money.
Speaker 2: So while the IRS does its due diligence and looks
Speaker 2: after the American taxpayers money, the Obama administration wants to
Speaker 2: announce they've got a new green energy revolution money the
Speaker 2: an initiative, just like a Bush did. We're doing it bigger.
Speaker 2: So they have what they call smart cities and they're
Speaker 2: gonna make all these cities green. So in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: the Obama administration has Jeff Karpoff's DC Solar be a
Speaker 2: key partner in the smart city initiative. Oh no, yeah,
Speaker 2: he is, the Obama administration partner with DC Solar to
Speaker 2: take on the green energy revolution, elevating his company to
Speaker 2: the level of Amazon Google parent company Alphabet. That's the
Speaker 2: These are the foot soldiers, these corporations and Jeff, that's
Speaker 2: the green tech revolution. So transportation Secretary Anthony Fox put
Speaker 2: out a press lease at this time quote DC Solar
Speaker 2: will assist all seven finalist cities and building strategies for
Speaker 2: electric vehicle charging infrastructure to encourage and facilitate the adoption
Speaker 2: of electric vehicles by individuals, businesses, and municipalities. Lawdie Dunk
Speaker 2: so proud of this stamp of imprimature and approval. DC
Speaker 2: Solar puts out their own press release because you know
Speaker 2: they love a good This is great for the long
Speaker 2: con We are now partners of the United States. We
Speaker 2: are recognized by the top people in government as being
Speaker 2: a go to operator to help them get things done.
Speaker 2: A bunch of empty statements, So as long as you
Speaker 2: don't ask the irs what they think about DC Solar,
Speaker 2: the Feds love this company. Yeah. Meanwhile, Jeff celebrates his
Speaker 2: new level of success as a gift to his hometown.
Speaker 2: He buys Martinez its own minor league baseball team, and
Speaker 2: not only that, he names it after Joe DiMaggio, who,
Speaker 2: fun fact, was born on November twenty fifth, nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: in Martinez, California. I know I didn't know that either,
Speaker 2: learned that in this research. So in honor of the
Speaker 2: Yankee Clipper. He names the new team the Martinez Clippers.
Speaker 2: Don't go looking for the team. They are now defunct
Speaker 2: because of Jeff. Anyway, he spent some of his ill
Speaker 2: gotten gains on himself and his family. He bought himself houses,
Speaker 2: one in Vegas, another one in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Speaker 2: He bought some new muscle cars because he gotta get
Speaker 2: new muscle cars, some new trucks, new clothes for himself
Speaker 2: and his wife. He bought a luxury box, some seats
Speaker 2: at Allegiance Stadium. He's a Raiders fan. Of course, he's
Speaker 2: a Raiders fan.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: To make a little extra side money, he also starts
Speaker 2: leasing out some of his warehouse space to pot growers
Speaker 2: in return for a cut. Oh boy, so now he's
Speaker 2: come full circle. He's back to medical marijuana. Twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: things start to get tight. The mood around the office shifts.
Speaker 2: Jeff is known to swan through the office with literal
Speaker 2: shopping bags of cash. That wasn't the weird part, per se,
Speaker 2: but he and his wife Paulette installed surveillance cameras everywhere,
Speaker 2: and his wife Paulette had a big ass TV installed
Speaker 2: in her office, so she could watch the feed in
Speaker 2: real time all the time. That was weird. But when
Speaker 2: she started to pull employees aside for independent grilling about
Speaker 2: why were you going to the bathroom so much? What
Speaker 2: were you doing in there for so long? That made
Speaker 2: things super weird. And then when Paulette started to march
Speaker 2: around the office with these two huge dogs on leashes
Speaker 2: Belgian malinoa was she named one Fu and the other Diesel. Diesel,
Speaker 2: by the way, was a trained attack dog Diesel. And
Speaker 2: so that's when things became cartoonishly evil and weird.
Speaker 3: So she comes grills you and why did you go
Speaker 3: to the bathroom? Why are you conning the government game system?
Speaker 2: At this point, they also need more muscle than Diesel,
Speaker 2: So they go and they hire a huge pole loan shark,
Speaker 2: A huge a loan shark. He's Polish. Yeah, it's important
Speaker 2: to him. So at different times he tells employees at
Speaker 2: DC Solar that he was a prison camp survivor. He
Speaker 2: tells other employees he is a well practiced professional killer.
Speaker 2: He tells other ones, I'm a real life gangster. All right.
Speaker 2: So one early investor who unfortunately had just experience what
Speaker 2: his presence was like. Yeah, because he made some trouble
Speaker 2: for Jeff and DC Solar because you know, he's like,
Speaker 2: I want my money back. I'm gonna talk to the
Speaker 2: sec or whatever. And this guy's like hey, So he
Speaker 2: sends over this no neck persuader and professional attitude adjuster,
Speaker 2: and the investor said, and I quote when I saw
Speaker 2: his Polish mafia come in, that was it. After that, yeah,
Speaker 2: the investor cuts his losses walks away, cutting off all contact.
Speaker 2: He's like, keep my money. So twenty eighteen, the inevitable
Speaker 2: finally occurs. An employee for DC Solders asked to do
Speaker 2: something unethical instead, He's like no and quits. Yeah, then
Speaker 2: he contacts the FETs because his name is Sebastian Johano
Speaker 2: and he's an up and comer in the green energy space.
Speaker 2: Kid is a solar energy specialist they've hired like this,
Speaker 2: like whiz Kid. He's also somebody who has a law
Speaker 2: degree and a business degree from Villanova, so he ain't
Speaker 2: about to waste his life on some unethical business point
Speaker 2: for Jeff. So he goes and he's like, no prison
Speaker 2: time for me, bro, and he goes right to the fence.
Speaker 2: And now the car poffs at this point they may
Speaker 2: have some suspicious Remember they got the surveillance cameras. They're
Speaker 2: getting suspicious. So they're now securing a future for themselves
Speaker 2: outside of America in case, you know, they need to run.
Speaker 2: They need to like you know, cut tie, So they
Speaker 2: shift some of their millions to offs your accounts.
Speaker 3: This is a guy with the Constitution on this motor.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, lady, liberty holding love America.
Speaker 2: Rips off the taxpayers and to go run away to
Speaker 2: Saint Kitts and Nevis because that's where he's bought a home.
Speaker 2: With the extra proviso that he buys a certain level
Speaker 2: of luxury home, he'll get citizenship and passports as a
Speaker 2: purpose of the purchase. So in the meantime, he's asking
Speaker 2: his business managers like take photos of Jeff and his
Speaker 2: wife Paulette for their new passports. And the business manager remembers,
Speaker 2: like they seem to to rush. The way they said
Speaker 2: it was like, we have this guy who's going to
Speaker 2: do it for us super quick. So the couple had
Speaker 2: I think a definite sense that the Feds were closing
Speaker 2: in because or maybe they'd heard about federal agents asking
Speaker 2: investors questions. Whatever it was, they knew it was time
Speaker 2: to flee, and yet they did not flee, Elizabeth, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought he'd appreciate this instead of fleeing. At the
Speaker 2: end of twenty eighteen, they decided to hold a Christmas
Speaker 2: party for DC Solar at the Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Jeffica threw this huge Christmas party for everybody. Right, he
Speaker 2: hires some music acts to play for everybody. You want
Speaker 2: to guess who he hired because you know you know
Speaker 2: these names, Power Power, No, the band, Sugar Ray. Oh no, wait,
Speaker 2: there's more.
Speaker 3: It's so perfect, there's more.
Speaker 2: Second, please wallho In eighteen Sugar Ray and the other
Speaker 2: big act was friend of the show mister Worldwide himself,
Speaker 2: pit Bull. They hired pit Bull and Sugar Ray. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then three days later, on December eighteenth, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five federal agents from the IRS,
Speaker 2: US Marshalls and the FBI, traveling in unmarked cars from
Speaker 2: the Sacramento Field Office. The FBI Field Office, took the
Speaker 2: trip down to Benetia and Martinez about nine thirty in
Speaker 2: the morning. Elizabeth, the one hundred and seventy five federal
Speaker 2: agents descended like locusts on DC Solar headquarters. At that
Speaker 2: same moment, a swat team kicked in the door of
Speaker 2: the carpaff family home searching for the couple. Then they
Speaker 2: were not there. With the one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 2: agents swarming around, Jeff phones into his office. He had
Speaker 2: just one question, Uh, do you see my passport in
Speaker 2: my wife's passport on my desk. No, they were not there, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: The Feds had already sees the fence had seized them
Speaker 2: along with the million and a half dollars. He had
Speaker 2: his office safe. After hearing that his passports were nabbed
Speaker 2: by the Feds, Jeff just said, oh, then he hung up.
Speaker 6: That was it.
Speaker 2: I remember the DC Solar holiday party with the Sugar
Speaker 2: Ray and Pitbull at the Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco
Speaker 2: was just three days before he had a chance to run. Instead,
Speaker 2: he wanted to party with Sugar Aye and Pitbull.
Speaker 3: The hangover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so what an emotional swing this was. You know,
Speaker 2: you're king of the world partying with pitfull three days
Speaker 2: later you're a man on the run, wanted by the
Speaker 2: Feds to make their escape from America. The Carpoffs they
Speaker 2: call a friend in Las Vegas, this guy who uh
Speaker 2: who actually incidentally trained their attack dog Diesel. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's probably criminally connected. So they offer their dog trainer
Speaker 2: six hundred and forty thousand dollars in cash and a
Speaker 2: Cartier men's watch if he'd arrange for them to get
Speaker 2: out of the country. Now, if this didn't work out,
Speaker 2: he had a backup plan, because Jeff got a backup plan, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Jeff told a friend, quote, I still have five hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth of meth buried in a cemetery in Martinez.
Speaker 2: What that's my emergency pership?
Speaker 3: Wait what.
Speaker 2: Doth buried in Martina? This is just like this is.
Speaker 4: So good.
Speaker 5: It's like, I know it's very this is hyperlocal were
Speaker 5: at this point, but like it's also superos a backup plan,
Speaker 5: a Las Vegas dog train.
Speaker 2: Yes, change your killer attack dog.
Speaker 3: It's like, I'm familiar. And then you have five hundred
Speaker 3: k meth in a graveyard in your.
Speaker 2: Hometown, and this is your quote emergency parachute. That's my
Speaker 2: old golden parachute.
Speaker 3: Just grab the math to get on the plane.
Speaker 2: Now, I's a keep in mind, you have to sell
Speaker 2: a half million dollars worth of myth without getting ripped
Speaker 2: off or busted. That's also part of your Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if he's street level, is gonna take him.
Speaker 2: A long long time. And if he does it in
Speaker 2: one day purchase, he's a right person to flip on
Speaker 2: or to just rip off. Why participate? He ain't got
Speaker 2: a future, He's a liability to even meet with.
Speaker 3: So he's he's coming in fresh like I'd roll him
Speaker 3: and take everything.
Speaker 2: So before he had a chance to bust out the
Speaker 2: myth from the cemetery.
Speaker 3: Carpoff worked on plan is it still in the seme?
Speaker 2: I doubt? He met his old high school buddy Bayliss
Speaker 2: at a Burger King parking lot, just like old times
Speaker 2: in high school. Yeah, right, So he asked his old
Speaker 2: buddy to get a burner phone for himself and take
Speaker 2: a trip down to Vegas. He needed his old high
Speaker 2: school buddy to do one more favorite man, so he
Speaker 2: needed him to go and destroy all the evidence. No,
Speaker 2: he wanted him to go down because he left a
Speaker 2: ton of damning evidence in a warehouse in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: It's only a matter of time before the Feds figured
Speaker 2: it out. There's the address is written all over the office.
Speaker 2: So there were hundreds of faked vin plates for all
Speaker 2: the generator trailers, and that would connect the whole thing.
Speaker 2: So he's like, hey, man, the buddy, the high school buddy,
Speaker 2: did he do it or not? Elizabeth, I don't think
Speaker 2: he did it.
Speaker 6: He did it.
Speaker 2: He did the one last favorite man and then he
Speaker 2: flipped immediately.
Speaker 3: For I would I would have been like, hey, irs, FBI,
Speaker 3: you want to come with me running there and to
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 2: Just bring some bags on, some gloves. So he becomes
Speaker 2: a cooperating wedness for the FEDS against his high school buddy. Now,
Speaker 2: in July twenty nineteen, he met with the US attorneys
Speaker 2: and he agrees to a plea deal and that was it.
Speaker 2: That was pretty much all the FEDS needed because Jeff's
Speaker 2: old high school buddy knew everything and everyone involved because
Speaker 2: he was so close to Jeff, and Jeff needed his
Speaker 2: him to help with all the illegal stuff. So anyone
Speaker 2: he dealt with was also doing the illegal stuff. So
Speaker 2: all he was was just a list of illegal people
Speaker 2: in himself. He told them everything, and then they just
Speaker 2: built a case against everybody, the General Counsel, the VP
Speaker 2: of Operations, everybody, the Fed's accused DC Sular defrauding their
Speaker 2: customers out of a sum of nearly a billion dollars.
Speaker 2: The Fed's had plenty of charges to go around. Sure,
Speaker 2: so it was like a guilty party at the federal courthouse, right,
Speaker 2: the General Council was there, the accountant, the VIP of operations.
Speaker 2: They all plead guilty. Then it's Jeff and Paulette's turn.
Speaker 2: They plead guilty. In January twenty twenty, Jeff gets charged
Speaker 2: with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. His
Speaker 2: wife Paulette also caught a charge of money laundering.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the companies, though, who had effectively conspired with DC
Speaker 2: solig to take advantage of this lucrative tax credit, were
Speaker 2: ordered to return the tax break money to the US Treasury,
Speaker 2: otherwise it could essensibly be seen as robbing the US taxpayer.
Speaker 2: We're particularly sensitive about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So for his high crimes against the American people, Jeff
Speaker 2: was convicted and sentenced two thirty years in federal Oh wow,
Speaker 2: sent to a medium security facility at Victorville. That's fun,
Speaker 2: oh the desert, yeah, victor So meanwhile, his wife, Paulette,
Speaker 2: she caught eleven year sentence, So see you again. Laid
Speaker 2: up Paulette, and so ends the sordid saga of DC Solar,
Speaker 2: the once proud green energy billion dollar business out of Martinez, California.
Speaker 2: What's a ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Oh, the takeaway there's so many. There's so many. I
Speaker 3: think that it's so frustrating when you have these great ideas,
Speaker 3: great intentions, totally and the crime just seeps in like
Speaker 3: water through a crack.
Speaker 2: And the lack of due diligence. And then you have
Speaker 2: the people who are everyone's taking advantage because I didn't
Speaker 2: bring in. There was tax lawyers, there was a bunch
Speaker 2: of other people who are also involved in the machinery
Speaker 2: of this crime.
Speaker 3: Well you saw it with the PPP loans exactly, just
Speaker 3: like everybody looking money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The lack of ethics, I mean it galls me.
Speaker 2: I don't take part in this kind of crime. I
Speaker 2: find this like I don't like to steal from the
Speaker 2: American taxpayers. I think that's just the laziest way to
Speaker 2: do it. I don't mind some co corporation though. So
Speaker 2: I'm not the most ethicult person.
Speaker 3: I pay way more taxes than all the billionaires.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah you do.
Speaker 3: I'll pay my taxes and be grudgingly and get mad
Speaker 3: about it. But at the same time, it's like, that's
Speaker 3: what keeps this exactly.
Speaker 2: I want us to spend our money wisely, and I
Speaker 2: want us to do stuff intentionally and with the intention
Speaker 2: of looking up for the people.
Speaker 3: Well, and everyone likes to act like it's little things
Speaker 3: here and there where people are getting over on the government.
Speaker 2: Things like this.
Speaker 3: It's Huge's so many of these right under everyone's nose.
Speaker 3: It's not like, oh, I'm getting extra food stamps and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just noticing one that there's criminal. There's some
Speaker 2: that are like gray area where it's not really criminal,
Speaker 2: but it's like the product of inside relationships and so forth. Anyway,
Speaker 2: my ridiculous takeaway, Lizbeth. Folks who wrap themselves up in
Speaker 2: the flag you mentioned this earlier. The folks who have
Speaker 2: a truck that plays a star spangled banner and a
Speaker 2: motorcycle with the what do you call it the Constitution.
Speaker 3: On it, right, the Constitution.
Speaker 2: You can't trust that person, that's my read, because they
Speaker 2: don't They clearly don't mean it, like they are using
Speaker 2: MRICA as a signal to others. It's a code, it's
Speaker 2: a symbol, but it is not to them. A nation
Speaker 2: of three hundred million people striving together to make sense
Speaker 2: of this, all right, and.
Speaker 3: What have they done for the country's.
Speaker 2: He's disregarding the abundance and the beauty of this land
Speaker 2: and the people is everything I love about America. He's
Speaker 2: he's abusing that stuff, right, And I don't mean anyone
Speaker 2: who like loves flags is bs. That's not what I'm saying. No, No,
Speaker 2: I mean those folks who you see out there who
Speaker 2: wrap themselves up in symbols are often the same ones
Speaker 2: who will rob everyday American people because that's their extent,
Speaker 2: is a symbol. They're not they are not committed anyway.
Speaker 2: I agree. There you go. That's it. I don't know
Speaker 2: how ridiculous that is.
Speaker 3: That's it's ridiculous to talk Breakfast World.
Speaker 2: Yes, please, could you favor us with one? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 6: What's up you guys, longtime listener, You've had me at
Speaker 6: the very first episode with Guy Fieri's stolen car and
Speaker 6: Regina Cornflower I believe her name was. I just wanted
Speaker 6: to give you a proposal, Zaren. My husband is an
Speaker 6: engineer for the VNSF. How about you get in that
Speaker 6: way and you can steal all of the nikes you want.
Speaker 6: Love you guys, and love the show.
Speaker 2: Is amazing.
Speaker 3: This never happened, just hypothetically. It's just kidding.
Speaker 2: Thanks for that. And always you guys can find and
Speaker 2: it's online Ridiculous Crime on the social medias mostly it's
Speaker 2: I think, blue Sky and Instagram at this point, no
Speaker 2: new ones. We're not on like frack hole or anything.
Speaker 2: So we have a website, Ridiculous Crime dot com. It
Speaker 2: is once again From's actually website of the year in
Speaker 2: a map related category. So we're very excited about that.
Speaker 3: We have amazing maps.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we also love your talkbacks obviously, so please
Speaker 2: download the iHeart app. Get in there, download it, record
Speaker 2: yourself a talkback and maybe hear your voice here we'd
Speaker 2: like to hear it. And also you can email us
Speaker 2: if you like a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: As always, please start the email Dear producer d thanks
Speaker 2: for listening. We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced and
Speaker 2: edited by Obama's favorite green energy powered producer Dave Kutstin,
Speaker 2: and starring and at least ructor as Judith. Research is
Speaker 2: by George W. Bush's Environmental Think Hank, Marissa Brown, and
Speaker 2: Alex French. Our theme song is by twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: pol Earth Festival headliners Green Tech and The Scammers aka
Speaker 2: Thomas Lee and Travis Duttony. The host wardrobe provided by
Speaker 2: Botany five hundred guest hair and makeup by Spartakle Shot
Speaker 2: and mister Andre. Executive producers are Joe Demaggio's Ghost Hunters,
Speaker 2: Ben Bolin and Noel Brown. Red Crime Say It One
Speaker 2: More Time, Geeks Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
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