Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi is Saron?
Speaker 3: Hey, what's up with Liz Bit?
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 3: Hey? I got a question for you.
Speaker 2: No, I have a question for you.
Speaker 3: Do you really? What is it?
Speaker 2: What's you know?
Speaker 3: I do ridiculous? Okay, you're from northern California. You're a
Speaker 3: California Native.
Speaker 2: Generation's deep, aggressively so and obnoxiously so.
Speaker 3: Okay, I got something to help you be extra obnoxious
Speaker 3: amongst your like California natives. And you guys have your
Speaker 3: excuter club meetings or whatever. So do you know how Calistoga.
Speaker 4: Got its name Calistoke Town of Calistogah. No, So, in
Speaker 4: eighteen sixty two, this cat Sam Brannon, right, he's he
Speaker 4: was a Mormon. He was a he was a Mormon
Speaker 4: to moved to California, and back when he was a Mormon,
Speaker 4: he didn't drink alcohol. But then he left the church,
Speaker 4: came to California, he got really into alcohol.
Speaker 3: Like, this is amazing. I got to tell more people
Speaker 3: about this. So he then eventually opens this place called
Speaker 3: Hot Springs Resort. Yeah, and he's like, oh man, I
Speaker 3: have people come here. They're gonna get drunk and they're
Speaker 3: gonna get the Hot Springs is amazing. This is the
Speaker 3: best thing ever. I know why people don't know about
Speaker 3: this right now at this point, what he's drinking is
Speaker 3: French champagne. That's his drink of choice. Really, he would
Speaker 3: sit in bubbles, he would drink bubbles. He's like cold bubbles,
Speaker 3: hot bubbles. All about the bubbles. Right, So that the
Speaker 3: grand opening banquet for his Hot Springs resort, he raises
Speaker 3: a glass of champagne and he goes to toast his
Speaker 3: new resort. Now he wanted to compare it to its inspiration,
Speaker 3: Sarah Tooga Springs in New York. So he gets up
Speaker 3: there and he's like, I will make this place the
Speaker 3: Saratoga of California. But he'd been drinking so much champagne. Instead,
Speaker 3: he said, I'll make this place the Calistoga, Caarafornia. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's been called Calistoga ever since.
Speaker 2: It's so perfect beautiful.
Speaker 3: But there you go, and that's that's your country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That is really so ridiculous. Do you want to know
Speaker 2: what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 5: Dude?
Speaker 3: Do I?
Speaker 2: It's actually ridiculously brilliant low value counterfeiting. This is Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 2: percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: You damn right?
Speaker 2: Did you just fall out of the ceiling tipe?
Speaker 3: I got dropped, But yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 2: Okay, a sad one. If you had a bundle of
Speaker 2: counterfeit cash, say like one hundred thousand dollars worth.
Speaker 3: Okay, I have a bundle. Oh, I don't have to
Speaker 3: actually say it.
Speaker 2: No, what would you do with it?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: How would you bend it?
Speaker 3: Okay? This is an interesting question because I've actually been
Speaker 3: confronted with this a much smaller number. But I went
Speaker 3: to a bank in Los Angeles and I cashed a
Speaker 3: check and they gave me half of the money in
Speaker 3: counterfeit bills. And then I went to go get gassed
Speaker 3: with one of the hundreds and the person's like, dude,
Speaker 3: this look at you see this at twenty This is
Speaker 3: a fake bill. Don't try to pass this, man, And
Speaker 3: I was like what No, And I went back to
Speaker 3: the bank. I'm like, you gave me these four, you know,
Speaker 3: fake hundreds, and they're like, no, man, you walk you
Speaker 3: can't try to do that pass this, and so I
Speaker 3: got loud right and I'm like, you're trying to pass
Speaker 3: fit counterfeit bills, trying to hope people will get mad
Speaker 3: in line. I don't know what I thought would happen
Speaker 3: Themander comes over and goes get the hell out of
Speaker 3: the bank, and I was like, oh darn it. They
Speaker 3: wouldn't get me my money back. So now I've got
Speaker 3: these four hundred fake hundreds. So I'm like, well, what
Speaker 3: can I do? So I'm like, I'll go on Craigslist
Speaker 3: and buy something. So I put in Craigslist and I
Speaker 3: tried to buy a computer, assuming it was a stolen computer.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'll give them counterfeit bills. It'll all be even.
Speaker 3: So I tried to go buy a laptop and I
Speaker 3: had to drive like way into East LA. And I
Speaker 3: show up to this guy and I'm like trying to like,
Speaker 3: you know, act like I'm a buyer, and I'm looking
Speaker 3: over the computer and he's like, okay, you gotta be
Speaker 3: like three hundred dollars, and I was like, cool, pervingt
Speaker 3: And I give him the three and he looks at
Speaker 3: me and he's like, give me my computer back, and
Speaker 3: I was like, d darn it. So before I got
Speaker 3: beat up by this great you know guy who you
Speaker 3: know sell stolen computers, I had to like talk my
Speaker 3: way out of there and anything. Luckily I gotten the
Speaker 3: money back from him, and he didn't want to have
Speaker 3: the counterfeit bills either. So then I tried to go
Speaker 3: and spend it at a gas station. Again, I'm like
Speaker 3: when we goes and go to spend us at another
Speaker 3: gas station, And eventually I was able to pass them.
Speaker 3: So wow, yeah, I shouldn't rebably admit that, but the
Speaker 3: statue of limitations is long gone for you. So yeah, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: that's how I do it. I just spend it on
Speaker 3: other criminals and.
Speaker 2: Small interesting place.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing is, it's like the that when
Speaker 2: people think about fake bills, I think twenties and hundreds.
Speaker 3: Total, yusually hundreds. That's what I had.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's the smart move to try and
Speaker 2: like uh break them up and do them at a
Speaker 2: like separate like don't do multiple bills at one place, yes,
Speaker 2: Like I tried, so yeah what at a time at
Speaker 2: different places?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: But you know, like so that's it's smart to do that.
Speaker 2: What's even smarter is to fly under the radar. Do
Speaker 2: smaller bills like you know, tens get less.
Speaker 3: Scrutiny, Oh of course smart. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was given a fake ten once. Yeah, when I
Speaker 2: was teaching. We had like a faculty event and we
Speaker 2: were like collecting money so they could have I don't know,
Speaker 2: they're going to like grill steaks or something. It was stupid,
Speaker 2: and so I was supposed to give me ten bucks.
Speaker 2: And when I went to count them out, one was
Speaker 2: slightly smaller than every other one, and I realized someone
Speaker 2: handed me a fake ten. So I'm me, what do
Speaker 2: you think I did?
Speaker 3: Took it to the police.
Speaker 2: I did because I'm like, I could like take this
Speaker 2: to Walmart. I was down the road and try and
Speaker 2: like do it. I was like, you know what, I
Speaker 2: wonder what happens? What do they do? It's ten bucks? Sure,
Speaker 2: So I called the non emergency line and I was like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, I have a fake ten dollars bill
Speaker 2: and someone gave.
Speaker 3: Me again, bring it on your normal weekly visit.
Speaker 2: So I'm in room with five whatever at the college
Speaker 2: and then like twenty minutes later, there's no crime in
Speaker 2: this place. I figure two detectives show up, like they
Speaker 2: didn't have suit jackets on, but they.
Speaker 3: Like short sleeve shirts and like.
Speaker 2: No pants, no underpants. So they come in and I
Speaker 2: give them the money and they made me fill out
Speaker 2: this form for the secret service and I it was
Speaker 2: out ten bucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just lose it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, off ex.
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I'll just pass that on to
Speaker 3: someone else, right.
Speaker 2: So some why would you pick on an English faculty member?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't have done that too.
Speaker 2: No, but I feel like it might have been like
Speaker 2: tool and die. Those guys are a little bit shady. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love them to death. But anyway, so you know,
Speaker 2: like you got the tools and to die there not
Speaker 2: to be played. So if you have like a ten
Speaker 2: to five of one, they don't use those these days.
Speaker 2: Don't use the highlighter pens on those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the problem. And if a store is
Speaker 2: like really busy, someone's not paying attention, Like if you're
Speaker 2: just an English instructor trying to get through the day,
Speaker 2: you know, hearing this boring, then you're you know, likely
Speaker 2: to get away with passing the of course thought that
Speaker 2: you should have thought of that. So the move is
Speaker 2: to make smaller bills. I want to tell you about
Speaker 2: someone who did just that. A clever fella, an Austrian
Speaker 2: immigrant named Emeric Jutner. Oh yeah, it looks like Jutner. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: So Emeric he was born in eighteen seventy five in Austria,
Speaker 2: came from this working class family. He had, you know,
Speaker 2: two brothers, sister, normal stuff. And when he was a
Speaker 2: kid he learned about photo engraving. Oh yes, and so
Speaker 2: I think that maybe that's what his father did, and
Speaker 2: like maybe he was going to apprentice somebody. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so he was like going to be you know, brought
Speaker 2: up to a prenticip But when he was fourteen years old,
Speaker 2: he got on a steamership and he set sail for
Speaker 2: the US of A fourteen fourteen New York City.
Speaker 3: The hot apple dude. Nineteenth century people would just break out.
Speaker 3: They're like, I'm thirteen and.
Speaker 2: I don't know if his family was with him, but
Speaker 2: I don't think they were, because a man I pulled
Speaker 2: up the man of us for the ship he came.
Speaker 2: He is the only Utner listed as arriving on the
Speaker 2: vessel trave and that was a ship built in Glasgow,
Speaker 2: by the way, So it looks like he's this fourteen
Speaker 2: year old boy, all on his own, headed to a
Speaker 2: no home. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3: It is? It's amazing.
Speaker 2: So his first job when he gets here is as
Speaker 2: a picture frame guilder.
Speaker 3: Okay, gold on pictures like the air on the robber bands.
Speaker 3: A lot of lout of frames to guild everything.
Speaker 2: When he's not slapping gold foil on frames, he was
Speaker 2: inventing things, so he was his hand. He drew up
Speaker 2: plans for a camera and he sent it off to
Speaker 2: Kodak interesting, and they passed on it. And then he
Speaker 2: invented a new kind of Venetian blind. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what that entailed, but the window shade company he sent
Speaker 2: it to made light Kodak and they just passed untology.
Speaker 2: We want, you know, sharp blades as the slats. So
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety five you put an ad in the paper,
Speaker 2: young man eighteen German and English, desire work or position
Speaker 2: with a chance for advancement by industriousness, Please address Emrick Utner,
Speaker 2: four oh two Fifth Street.
Speaker 3: Young man.
Speaker 2: So he's just like he's hustling for work, and he's
Speaker 2: just like upright citizen nineteen oh two. He's twenty seven
Speaker 2: years old. He met a woman named Florence Lemine.
Speaker 3: Florence Lemine, and they.
Speaker 2: Fall in love. It looks like yeah, and they get
Speaker 2: married and they have kids, and he gets this job
Speaker 2: as a maintenance man on the Upper East Side of
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 3: I'm rooting for these crazy kids, right.
Speaker 2: What's cool about his job is that he lived rent
Speaker 2: free in the basement of the building that he worked in.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought he'd lived rent free in someone's mind.
Speaker 2: Well that too in mine. He's you know, decades a
Speaker 2: century later. So the family moved a few times, but
Speaker 2: they had this like solid existence and their Upper East
Speaker 2: Side so they're living in these great posh neighborhoods. He
Speaker 2: lived in what Elaine Hatfield, she's the author of a book,
Speaker 2: flim Flam Artist.
Speaker 3: Oh great book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she called it genteel Poverty. Oh yeah. So he's
Speaker 2: like a nice guy. He's super kind, always smiling. Everyone
Speaker 2: loved him. Everyone's friend, everyone's friend. He was only five
Speaker 2: foot three, but he's like kind of ripped from all
Speaker 2: the physical work that he did, like even into his
Speaker 2: later years. And so basically he's the kind of person
Speaker 2: who's always been the engine of this country, the United States.
Speaker 2: Like he's this hard working immigrant, he's community minded, clever,
Speaker 2: he's a dreamer, he's scrappy. That's what builds us and
Speaker 2: keeps us going. So I love him. I'm into it exactly.
Speaker 2: And so all everything's going chugging along until nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: and that's when his wife, the love of his life,
Speaker 2: died and he's sixty two years old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bad time.
Speaker 2: His kids they're grown and they're out of the house.
Speaker 2: Now he's all alone. He has nothing to keep him motivated,
Speaker 2: and like everything just starts to fall apart for him.
Speaker 2: It was just him and his dog, and the dog
Speaker 2: was the only thing that kept the light in his eyes,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's just like he lost he lost
Speaker 2: his world.
Speaker 3: He now gets in and gives is the dog.
Speaker 2: And so he quit his maintenance job and he moved
Speaker 2: out of the basement place in the Posh neighborhood and
Speaker 2: then into a tenement in the Upper West Side, and
Speaker 2: he got a gig as a junk collector.
Speaker 3: Okay, like Sanford and Son.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: He's got a wagon. He goes around and collects very exactly.
Speaker 2: And I don't understand why. I think he was also
Speaker 2: just tired with the maintenance stuff. Because it was like
Speaker 2: a lot of work.
Speaker 3: Maybe you wanted to get out in the fresh air,
Speaker 3: and maybe he's a lot of interesting people.
Speaker 2: The world is junk for him.
Speaker 3: He wants to salvage what he can. He's very metaphorical
Speaker 3: and he's a poem walking.
Speaker 2: And his kids. His kids are trying to help him out,
Speaker 2: but he wouldn't take their money or their offers.
Speaker 3: Proud, he's way too proud Austrian from the old country.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and like hard work. The problem was that pulling
Speaker 2: scrap from like abandoned buildings and selling it to junk
Speaker 2: dealers is not a viable way to make a living.
Speaker 3: Very little, living very small.
Speaker 2: And he had savings that he and his wife had accumulated,
Speaker 2: but he just like winds up burning through that just
Speaker 2: to live. He's not living fancy, but it's just like
Speaker 2: he needs, you know, he eats through the savings exactly.
Speaker 2: So he gone from genteel poverty to the brink of
Speaker 2: like full destitution. And he didn't really care if he
Speaker 2: lived on the street, to be honest, but he did
Speaker 2: want to have that life for his dog. And he
Speaker 2: didn't name his dog, by the way, fox, this fox terrier.
Speaker 2: He once commented, quote, what good would a name do?
Speaker 3: The dog?
Speaker 2: When I talked to him. He knows I'm talking to him,
Speaker 2: don't he? And I know who he is without calling
Speaker 2: him some made up name, don't I. He's very Taoist
Speaker 2: of like, don't name it.
Speaker 3: The dog has no name, and he has no named
Speaker 3: before the dog for the dog. So it's just these
Speaker 3: two er souls moving through the world.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: I think dogs deserve names. Human names will deserve human names.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so.
Speaker 3: You have a lot of fun with your dog.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 2: So he needed cash, and he didn't really care about
Speaker 2: the world or its laws.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's well passed.
Speaker 2: So he got crafty in a shady way. Okay, and
Speaker 2: that's another American treat. Sure, what keeps us running?
Speaker 3: Crafty?
Speaker 2: Shady, shady, crafty exactly. So in November of nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 2: he got to work. Okay, So he went out and
Speaker 2: he bought a little portable printing press. He named it
Speaker 2: Uncle Henry. So he will name a printing press, but
Speaker 2: not at the dog. That's like you you name everything, yeah, everything.
Speaker 2: So the printing press was Uncle Henry. And he took
Speaker 2: a picture of a clean crisp dollar bill from back,
Speaker 2: and then he transferred it over to a zinc plate,
Speaker 2: and from there he put it into an acid bath
Speaker 2: to etch it into the plate, pulls it out, and
Speaker 2: then he like finishes by carving all the small details
Speaker 2: by hand. Yeah, this guy's ridiculous totally. And he carefully
Speaker 2: pressed a dollar bill.
Speaker 3: You imagine how slow his hand moved to etch metal
Speaker 3: on the fine details right, well, the of a dollar exactly.
Speaker 2: And so he presses a bill and it looks good
Speaker 2: to him, Okay, And there he is in his kitchen,
Speaker 2: he's printing out buck after buck, ensuring his livelihood and
Speaker 2: that of his unnamed pupp is just doing a dollar
Speaker 2: at a time. And he knew that he couldn't go
Speaker 2: pass them all at once, or like in one in
Speaker 2: one place more than once. So every week he'd spend
Speaker 2: about like ten bucks or so here and there.
Speaker 3: So he figured out the market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he figured out a string of shops to hit.
Speaker 2: He never passed more than one fake dollar at any
Speaker 2: given store. Good so newspaper stands and grocers, and like
Speaker 2: he'd get what he and the dog needed to live.
Speaker 3: Give a couple of bucks a church, Yeah, he'd.
Speaker 2: Throw he'd throw one into his twenty five dollars rent,
Speaker 2: and he'd buy subway tickets.
Speaker 3: He just lowered the price of everything.
Speaker 2: Everything just shaved a little bit, like maybe a bartender
Speaker 2: here there.
Speaker 3: For tips, probably good for tips. They're going to spend
Speaker 3: it themselves, right.
Speaker 2: So the plan took him all over the city, all
Speaker 2: the burrows, walking to every corner the place to make
Speaker 2: sure he didn't repeat.
Speaker 3: A store brilliant.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just to avoid detection. He didn't want
Speaker 2: to stiff any businesses more than a dollar. It's not fair.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to stiff on more than a buck.
Speaker 2: And then one day, not too long after he started
Speaker 2: printing money, he went into this cigar shop on Broadway
Speaker 2: near one hundred and second, and he passed a faker
Speaker 2: and the owner was none the wiser. Emmerick stoles off
Speaker 2: with his stogy. But when the owner went to deposit
Speaker 2: his take for the day, the bank teller noticed something
Speaker 2: the paper. This is why, like my vision is getting
Speaker 2: so bad, and I don't like the progressive lenses. So
Speaker 2: I have my reading glasses on my distance classes. There's
Speaker 2: always one hanging off the front of my I always
Speaker 2: have and then sunglasses distant. But even so I feel
Speaker 2: like Emeric needed glasses. Okay, So it's like if I
Speaker 2: were doing at this point, I'm like, look at this
Speaker 2: cake I decorated with. Oh yeah, so the paper is
Speaker 2: super low quality, super cheap. It's like cheap bond paper
Speaker 2: from the corner store. The green ink wasn't the right shade.
Speaker 2: The silver certificate seal was supposed to be blue and
Speaker 2: it wasn't. The lettering was crooked, and there was like
Speaker 2: there's a portrait of our country's first president, George Washington.
Speaker 2: Apparently it was laughable mustache. A Secret Service member said
Speaker 2: it was quote poorly executed. Washington's right shoulder blends in
Speaker 2: with the oval background. The left eye is represented by
Speaker 2: a black spot. The right eye is almond shaped. And
Speaker 2: so it's like that Spanish retouched Jesus Fresco. Absolutely a
Speaker 2: door or if I tried carving plate like I would
Speaker 2: get frustrated and just stop caring. That's what happens with me.
Speaker 2: And you know, so the serial numbers on the fakes
Speaker 2: were blurry and there were typos. Washington was spelled w
Speaker 2: A H S I N G T O N. How
Speaker 2: had anyone accepted all these questions of America exactly. So
Speaker 2: the bank sees the dollar. But this he's been passing
Speaker 2: these all over look, and the cigar shop had to
Speaker 2: eat the cost. So then that the bank sends the
Speaker 2: bill to the Secret Service. And here's the thing. The
Speaker 2: Secret Service had already been getting these imagine yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And as time went on, they got thousands, thousands of
Speaker 2: people accepted this totally garbage bill, and thousands of people
Speaker 2: because Emeric continued his fraud for ten years, for a decade,
Speaker 2: sprink everywhere. Yeah, Secret Service for a decade is trying
Speaker 2: to track down this crappy counterfeitter New Year. They were
Speaker 2: finding him New York, to Baltimore, to Atlanta, to Denver,
Speaker 2: to Seattle. It's like this dollars move message in a
Speaker 2: bottle because we were there to go and then most
Speaker 2: though were all like circulating around the Upper West Side.
Speaker 3: In his neighborhood was a concentration point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By nineteen forty seven he had passed more than
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars. That's like ninety one thousand dollars today.
Speaker 2: Small potatoes to the government, but a lot to Emeric.
Speaker 2: So let's pause here. When we come back from these ads.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you about the efforts to catch
Speaker 2: my man, Emeric Emeric Hutener.
Speaker 3: I'm loving this guy.
Speaker 2: Counterfeitter of the small and lousiest.
Speaker 3: Orders, totally Johnny counterfeit seed.
Speaker 2: I love him. I don't get I don't love that
Speaker 2: people got stiffed by him, but it's.
Speaker 3: Not a dollar.
Speaker 2: I love his MUCKs.
Speaker 3: And they got a story to tell people, like they
Speaker 3: got Thanksgiving what happened Bob? I got one? I got
Speaker 3: this dollar bill that was blue, So I like him.
Speaker 2: The Secret Service did not like him. Yeah, not by
Speaker 2: a long shot. So it was humiliating for them to
Speaker 2: chase this guy for ten years as he passed the
Speaker 2: most ridiculously bad dollar bills, Like they couldn't believe that
Speaker 2: people kept accepting the bills, and then they couldn't develop
Speaker 2: any leads on him.
Speaker 3: Got another one for you stay.
Speaker 2: A Secret Service spokesperson said, quote, what makes it unique
Speaker 2: isn't the threshold, but the denomination of one dollar. If
Speaker 2: you're going to go to the lengths of a dollar,
Speaker 2: why not go for a larger denomination. Why not go
Speaker 2: for a bigger bang for your buck. It was not
Speaker 2: as if he was passing hundreds of of thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars of currency, and agents you know, come to describe
Speaker 2: them as, quote, the most exasperating counterfeitter of all time
Speaker 2: and the least greedy.
Speaker 3: It loved so great.
Speaker 2: I love him so the Secret Service they opened case
Speaker 2: file eight eighty. Emeric, like his dog, didn't have a
Speaker 2: name with them, so they called him mister eight eighty.
Speaker 2: And the Treasury Department they started issuing these circulars to
Speaker 2: all the merchants, warning them about the bills. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he just keeps cranking them out all throughout the war years,
Speaker 2: cranking them. People kept accepting them. Secret Service gets more
Speaker 2: and more annoyed as each new bad bill is sent
Speaker 2: to them. But like some people didn't send them in there.
Speaker 2: They thought they were hilarious, and they'd post them by
Speaker 2: the on the wall, by the red doors, imagine, oh yeah, completely.
Speaker 2: And so then what was terrible for Emeric was great
Speaker 2: for the government, which was on December fourth, nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: his apartment building caught on fire.
Speaker 3: Okay he had to December fourth, nineteen forty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was at work and firefighters are battling the blaze.
Speaker 2: They moved their way into Emricks unit, and it's full
Speaker 2: of scrap metal that he collected for sales.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's not like a closed line of dollar bills drying.
Speaker 2: Clos all this junk. And the firefighters they busted out
Speaker 2: a window and started tossing everything out into the vacant
Speaker 2: lot next door in order to clear the way so
Speaker 2: they could gain access to the burning walls. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: And so it's snowing outside as the fire rages. It's
Speaker 2: blanketing all of Emrick's earthly possessions that now lay in
Speaker 2: this like jumbled, charred pile in the dirt. The freezing
Speaker 2: temperatures did nothing to help the firefighters, and the building's
Speaker 2: pretty much destroyed and c loses everything.
Speaker 5: Ah.
Speaker 2: So he goes to stay with his daughter and queens
Speaker 2: as he like regroups, he tries to find a place
Speaker 2: to live, you know, put his meager life back together. Zaren, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I want you to picture it. You're
Speaker 2: a twelve year old boy named Johnny Hawthorne who lives
Speaker 2: in New York's Upper West Side. You live at two
Speaker 2: hundred West ninety sixth Street with your family. You have
Speaker 2: a group of boys with whom you run around a
Speaker 2: ragtag bunch, but you're a good kid. It's January thirteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight. You and your pals playing down the
Speaker 2: street from your building in an empty lot, next to
Speaker 2: the burned out shelf of two oh four West ninety
Speaker 2: six steet. You're kicking cans and throwing rocks into the
Speaker 2: burned out husk of a building. The snow that last
Speaker 2: month had coated the ground has mostly melted away. Your
Speaker 2: mom made you bundle up before you went out, but
Speaker 2: you've stuck your mittens in your back pocket, and you're
Speaker 2: getting a little sweaty under your coat and wool sweater.
Speaker 2: You and the boys are whipping it up and running
Speaker 2: around the lot when you spot a pile of junk.
Speaker 2: This is a gold mine for you. A pile of treasure,
Speaker 2: burned up, discarded stuff. This is amazing for a twelve
Speaker 2: year old boy. In this you and your buddies you
Speaker 2: pick through the rubble. You toss most of it aside,
Speaker 2: flinging the metal away with glee. It feels so good
Speaker 2: to throw stuff o old twisted pieces of metal and
Speaker 2: like dented empty cans, a smashed up bird cage sheet,
Speaker 2: or two of old corrugated iron car tire. But then
Speaker 2: you spot something. Two metal plates with images on the
Speaker 2: front and back of a dollar bill on them, and
Speaker 2: a pile of about thirty dollars. Immediately you know the
Speaker 2: bills are bogus, so do your friends look stage money.
Speaker 2: One of the meals you and your friend Dicky Beeeler
Speaker 2: called DIBs on the plates. They look super cool. The
Speaker 2: other three boys divide the cash evenly among themselves. They
Speaker 2: put the bills into wads of play gangster, pulling the
Speaker 2: cash in their pockets and pretending to smoke cigarettes. You
Speaker 2: poke around in the pile for a while, but you
Speaker 2: don't find anything more of interest. The zinc plate is
Speaker 2: heavy in your coat pocket. It's getting late, and you
Speaker 2: need to go home, as to your friends. Just then
Speaker 2: your dad gives a loud wh to you from down
Speaker 2: the block. Gotta run. You and the boys all scattered
Speaker 2: to your respective apartments. Well, what remains of Emeric Utner's
Speaker 2: life sits strewn around the lot, languishing in the slush
Speaker 2: and the mud. So Zarah. A couple days later, one
Speaker 2: of the other boys was hosting a poker game in
Speaker 2: this basement. Love I love that he and the other kids,
Speaker 2: they're playing with the fake cat I know. So the
Speaker 2: boys dad happens upon them. He's first wondering like, how
Speaker 2: did you get all that money? And he looks at
Speaker 2: the bills and he sees that they're all bad fakes.
Speaker 2: So the dad takes the money and he goes down
Speaker 2: to the police station. Right the cops knew right away
Speaker 2: that these were some mister eight eighty bills, so they
Speaker 2: call the Secret Service. They're glad to swoop in, and
Speaker 2: they interrogate the boys like where did you find these?
Speaker 2: In the abandoned lot on West ninety six? Like what
Speaker 2: else was there? A bunch of junk? Did you see
Speaker 2: any metal plates? Like ones for printing paper? They're like yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: Johnny Hawthorne and Dicky Beler took him. So the Secret
Speaker 2: Service is like, dickiye okay, Dicky Beeler, let's find this kid.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a rascal, so he's got he's got a
Speaker 2: name like that, he's gotta be cool. They find Dicky Beler,
Speaker 2: they ask him where the plates were. He's like, I
Speaker 2: don't have him. He's like, I traded him to Johnny
Speaker 2: Hawthorne for a baseball So apparently Johnny wanted the full
Speaker 2: set and he didn't want to play Catcher anymore. So
Speaker 2: the agents they go looking for Johnny Hawthorne. They find
Speaker 2: him on the school playground. They collared. They asked him
Speaker 2: about the plates, shooting craps, like I don't have them.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the Secret Service walks onto a playground
Speaker 2: where shooting crab exactly, He's like, what do you want
Speaker 2: during the quarters? So he's like, I don't have the plates.
Speaker 2: I gave him to Bobby Boyle in exchange for a
Speaker 2: Japanese bayonet. They're like, where does Bobby Boyle live. He's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know the address, but I'll walk you over there.
Speaker 2: So he walks the agents to Bobby Boyle's place. Bobby
Speaker 2: is like, I had the plates, but I traded them.
Speaker 2: He's like, Johnny Canning gave me a bag of marbles
Speaker 2: for him, and so it takes someone they had. They're like,
Speaker 2: out there, does anyone know where Johnny Canning is? They
Speaker 2: find him out playing, and so like the Secret Services
Speaker 2: looking for these preteens, these.
Speaker 3: Little boys, this black market of green boys, and.
Speaker 2: So for the marbles. So they find Johnny Canning. He's
Speaker 2: out playing. He's all stoked to show the agents's plates. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh my god, the plates, yeah, let
Speaker 2: me show you. And so they go into his room
Speaker 2: and they're covered in green paint and he tried to
Speaker 2: print his own money, but he tried. He tried to
Speaker 2: print it on Kleenex, Like God bless. He's like, this
Speaker 2: isn't normal paper for a bill. What do I have
Speaker 2: that's not normal?
Speaker 3: I'm not going to one of my comic books. What
Speaker 3: else I got?
Speaker 2: So the agents they take the plates and they recognized
Speaker 2: the shoddy image immediately.
Speaker 3: These are the.
Speaker 2: Mister eight eighties. And so they descend on the burned
Speaker 2: out building.
Speaker 3: Put them together. I bring money.
Speaker 2: So they all the secret servers they go to the building.
Speaker 2: That's all, and they can tell by the placement of
Speaker 2: the pile which window had produced all the junk. So
Speaker 2: they go in. They find twenty five more dollars in
Speaker 2: fake bills. They found tubes of printing ink and the
Speaker 2: photographic negatives of Federal Reserve notes, and they're all tucked
Speaker 2: away and like spared from the flames. And in the
Speaker 2: basement of the building they find an old trunk that
Speaker 2: contained an additional plate for dollar bills. Those photographic negatives
Speaker 2: they found they were for ten and twenty dollar bills
Speaker 2: that had never been used. Wow, he just wanted to
Speaker 2: see if he could do it. So he's just sticking
Speaker 2: the singles.
Speaker 3: Maybe from my retirement. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then obviously, okay, they know the apartment that they're in.
Speaker 2: Landlord who lives here, He gives the name and right,
Speaker 2: and he's like, oh yeah, Emeric and he's staying this
Speaker 2: daughter over in Queen's All right, let's go. We've been
Speaker 2: running all over this place.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Maybe Johnny Hawthorne could say.
Speaker 2: Exactly to give you. So they go out, they pick
Speaker 2: him up, and he immediately.
Speaker 3: Confessed seventy two.
Speaker 2: I bet yeah, and so. Saint Clair Mcolway, a New
Speaker 2: Yorker columnist who interviewed the agents, wrote, quote, when the
Speaker 2: secret servicemen at last laid eyes on mister eight eighty,
Speaker 2: they found it hard to believe what their eyes told them.
Speaker 3: What did their eyes tell me?
Speaker 2: The happy looking, little old septagenarian admitted everything and showed
Speaker 2: no signs of remorse. He had a provoking habit of
Speaker 2: answering serious questions with absent minded and irrelevant loquaciousness. In
Speaker 2: the course of his rambling, replies. He would pause, look
Speaker 2: at his inquisitors brightly and gaily, then grin at them toothlessly.
Speaker 3: Hi, William Mac could kill this.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love him so much.
Speaker 3: Grinning toothlessly agents, It's like, all right, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I don't I never get to talk to anybody. Oh,
Speaker 2: let's chat, let's talk about business. Yeah, so they ask him,
Speaker 2: how long have you been making these guys been catching me?
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, nine or ten years, A long time.
Speaker 2: Of course, I admit it. They were only one dollar bills.
Speaker 2: I never gave more than one of them to one person.
Speaker 2: And they're like, you know, so while he was one
Speaker 2: of the most successful counterfeiters in American history, Like, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't know it because, like I said, is rents twenty
Speaker 2: five dollars a month. Okay, he only wore used clothes
Speaker 2: and he never spent more than fifteen dollars a week.
Speaker 3: I kind of guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not living large, he's just living so break times. Eron,
Speaker 2: let's go print some bills.
Speaker 3: You know I'm on it.
Speaker 2: Well, The joyous sounds of advertising fill the air, the sweet,
Speaker 2: sweet sounds. You'll be able to taste it flowing through
Speaker 2: the air.
Speaker 3: That's what the counterfeit money's for, for.
Speaker 2: Some meal kits. Upon our return, we're going to check
Speaker 2: in with Emeric and see what the law has in
Speaker 2: store for him. Emeric scrappy fella.
Speaker 3: I'm into him.
Speaker 2: Oh he's a proud man, a shoddy counterfeitterde.
Speaker 3: Toothless grin and like holy fruit.
Speaker 2: They love him. He's like a little sprite. So after
Speaker 2: ten years of passing really bad fake bills, gets busted
Speaker 2: by the Secret Service. They don't play. Was he upset
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 3: I'm guessing no, No, not really.
Speaker 2: So at this point he had no wife, no dog,
Speaker 2: his kids are grown and happy. Wasn't motivated by his job.
Speaker 2: He's in his seventies, Like, what did he care if
Speaker 2: he got arrested?
Speaker 3: So what?
Speaker 2: That's what he says. So he's he's pretty unbothered by
Speaker 2: the whole thing. In fact, he asked the arresting agents
Speaker 2: on the Sunday that he got arrested if he go
Speaker 2: to work the next day. He's like, that is junk.
Speaker 2: Ain't gonna pick itself. Then let me back out on
Speaker 2: the story.
Speaker 3: Which work are you talking about? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, So he didn't come completely clean, though, he told
Speaker 2: assistant US Attorney Thomas Murphy, who was in charge of
Speaker 2: the criminal division, that the engraving plates were left in
Speaker 2: the apartment by a previous tenant. Like sure, buddy, Okay.
Speaker 3: I found them there. They're so heavy to move.
Speaker 2: It was there. I was like that when I got there.
Speaker 2: He didn't have a record. All I could find of
Speaker 2: him in the paper was before all this arrest was
Speaker 2: from the twenties. He was in a little bit of
Speaker 2: a car accident because he went too fast for conditions
Speaker 2: and tried to pass another car before sliding out and
Speaker 2: hitting someone else. So it's like the twenties, so they're
Speaker 2: probably going like fifteen miles an hour. Yeah, basically, So
Speaker 2: he gets this time though he has no record. He
Speaker 2: gets charged with possession of nine plates for use in
Speaker 2: making counterfeit bills. Good for him secret service. In their
Speaker 2: interviews with his neighbors and like nearby shop, every single
Speaker 2: one of them only had good things to say about him, really,
Speaker 2: every single one. They all called him pop. Yeah, either
Speaker 2: like he would help anyone in need, he fixed things,
Speaker 2: he would lend a hand, smiled joe. He was generally
Speaker 2: just like a good guy to be around.
Speaker 3: A good community member.
Speaker 2: And so Because of this, the agents asked for leniency
Speaker 2: in his sentencing. Good, so the judge John Clancy, he
Speaker 2: really liked Emeric. He thought he was sweet, and Clancy
Speaker 2: had a sense of humor. So he sentenced Emeric to
Speaker 2: one year and one day in prison and like he
Speaker 2: was facing fifteen to thirty oh his charge. He also
Speaker 2: imposed a fine of one dollar whatever. He doesn't real Yeah,
Speaker 2: he says it, and the whole courtroom cracks horse. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just great. So Emeric, he's eligible for parole
Speaker 2: after four months and he gets it. Oh. No, he's
Speaker 2: super cooperative, he's not greedy, aggressive, and he was up
Speaker 2: in years. That all played a factor while he inside.
Speaker 2: He was so charming and sweet that the warden and
Speaker 2: some of the other inmates all chipped in and put
Speaker 2: together money for him when he left. Oh, like his
Speaker 2: birthday birthday. Yes, So Emeric takes his kids up on
Speaker 2: their offer to help at last, and he goes to
Speaker 2: live with his daughter and her family. Secret Service happy
Speaker 2: to put the whole mess behind them. This is what
Speaker 2: Secret Service Chief James Maloney said, quote the capture of
Speaker 2: this man relieves the Secret Service of a terrific headache.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they were calling me Jim Phony, maloney, maloney,
Speaker 3: and I got tired of it.
Speaker 2: I've had enough. Nineteen forty nine, The New Yorker columnist
Speaker 2: wrote a profile of Emeric, and it was first published
Speaker 2: in The New Yorker later appeared in the book True
Speaker 2: Tales from the Annals of Crime and Rascality. Rascality so
Speaker 2: good and so the writer captivated by Emeric. Everyone everyone gets.
Speaker 2: The next year, that article the interview was made into
Speaker 2: a movie called Mister eight eighty Have you anything? Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm about to tell you? So. It was billed as
Speaker 2: a quote gentle romantic comedy about a secret Service agent
Speaker 2: trying to catch a cold case counterfeiter and the United
Speaker 2: Nations translator, What yeah, Emeric? Is it is? It doesn't
Speaker 2: have enough star power like secret Service, Like we could
Speaker 2: dress him up an dreaper. So where's the thing? That's okay?
Speaker 2: So it's directed by Edmund Golding and it starred Bert Lancaster,
Speaker 2: what yeah, Dorothy maguire wow, and Edmund Gwen as Emeric
Speaker 2: And they call him Skipper Miller in the movie. Okay,
Speaker 2: So Gwen, he played Santa in Miracle on thirty fourth Street.
Speaker 2: You know him? And so for Mister eight eighty. He
Speaker 2: won a Golden Globe for that role. He was nominated
Speaker 2: for an Academy Award really for his role in Mister
Speaker 2: e eighty.
Speaker 3: Woh, I got a classic to check.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. And what's crazy and ridiculous? Thank you for asking.
Speaker 3: I didn't know where, Okay, go on, Oh we're getting there.
Speaker 2: Is that he made ten times more on the rights
Speaker 2: to his life story than he did cranking out fake bills.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, isn't that incredible?
Speaker 2: And someone asked him if he would ever return to
Speaker 2: his counterfeiting ways, and he told them no because quote,
Speaker 2: there wasn't enough money in.
Speaker 3: It, so he was literally printing money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He was the first and to date only person
Speaker 2: convicted of counterfeiting one dollar bills. He passed away in
Speaker 2: January of nineteen fifty five at the age of seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Ashes are interred in Queens. So Zarin, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: You know what I've learned my time with counterfeiting, not
Speaker 3: that I never have gotten into counterfeiting. I've tried, as
Speaker 3: I told you, passing some counterfeit bills I was given
Speaker 3: by Bank of America. But I would say.
Speaker 2: From Bank of America. That reminded me, but yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: The whole art of being a counterfeiter, I actually did
Speaker 3: think about it, not that as a career, but just
Speaker 3: like i'd amuse myself because it's a non violent crime.
Speaker 3: You can pick that you're passing them too. It seems fun.
Speaker 3: There's like an element of art to it. But like,
Speaker 3: and so I keep up now whenever I see stories.
Speaker 3: And the big thing now is you take the old
Speaker 3: like twenties and the and the fives, and you bleach
Speaker 3: them out and then you print on like one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars bill onto an actual bill right the paper. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then now because of the bar that they have,
Speaker 3: you know, they like hologram strips. Yeah, so now you
Speaker 3: can't do with any of these new bills. It's got
Speaker 3: to be old bills. It's got to be places that
Speaker 3: you're going to be passing. So you got to be like,
Speaker 3: you know, driving out to Utah to a small gas
Speaker 3: station and hoping to pass old bills. But they're not
Speaker 3: going to care. So you really couldn't do it in
Speaker 3: most cities. So it's become something that is almost more
Speaker 3: of an international crime. So people do this and then
Speaker 3: go and like give those money to people in China,
Speaker 3: like we're coming to America, go here's the bills for
Speaker 3: you to go, and they don't know. So that's how
Speaker 3: So it's interesting to see watch your counterfeiting is moving
Speaker 3: because the bills are still valuable to somebody, but just
Speaker 3: now you can't pass them here. But where can you pass?
Speaker 2: We get less and less cash based we're mostly cash.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing is that so much and so
Speaker 3: few people use cash.
Speaker 2: You gotta find, like you're saying, you go out in
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere where they don't have, but they
Speaker 2: don't you know, they get more cash.
Speaker 3: Than it's not weird to pass cash. And then also
Speaker 3: anybody who's coming to America, it's easier to give them
Speaker 3: cash because they don't know necessarily what you know, they're
Speaker 3: not thinking about it the same all of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because some currencies in other countries you pick
Speaker 2: it up and it feels fake exactly. Yeah. My brother
Speaker 2: I just totally remember that my brother had a fake
Speaker 2: ten and we were in the Burger King drive through
Speaker 2: and they wouldn't take it.
Speaker 3: Oh they caught it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've ever worked. I worked a lot of jobs
Speaker 3: where I had to like take money like that as
Speaker 3: a cash register, and I used to be able to
Speaker 3: you can spot them, I used to. I caught a
Speaker 3: number of thigs those Oh yeah, a ton. When I
Speaker 3: was in a Chinese restaurant in La I worked there
Speaker 3: was right on the like Santa Monica. It is near
Speaker 3: basically near an intersections. I made an intersection. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of crime that happened, like small type crime perse
Speaker 3: grabbing and like three people and then getting in a
Speaker 3: car and driving away. But back in the day before
Speaker 3: people were doing that. So you also have people passing bills.
Speaker 3: So I would be sitting there. And the thing is
Speaker 3: that you actually have to hire We've actually talked about
Speaker 3: this people to pass your bills, because otherwise you will
Speaker 3: you can't. You can't be the person who's making You're
Speaker 3: gonna have green ink on your fingers. But other people,
Speaker 3: you know they're going to act suspicious. You needed people
Speaker 3: who don't know they're passing bills. That's the only way
Speaker 3: to do it. Otherwise, you generally look at the bill
Speaker 3: more than anybody else who's giving you money, and so
Speaker 3: it makes it obvious. They're like, oh, I hope it's right. Honestly,
Speaker 3: and so I learned the verses. If you want to
Speaker 3: pass money, you got a whole eye contact real hard.
Speaker 3: The person won't look at the money.
Speaker 2: But I remember you and I were in a shop
Speaker 2: once and you went to pay and you handed the
Speaker 2: bill to the cashier and said, it's don't worry, it's good.
Speaker 2: I made it this morning.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I tease people at that.
Speaker 2: And she just stared at some people don't think it's funny.
Speaker 3: I think it's And I was like, also, I like
Speaker 3: doing it because you know, I serve, so sometimes I'd
Speaker 3: have wet money in my pockets and so I pull
Speaker 3: it out and it's wet, and I'm like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: worry about that. I made them. I didn't dry it.
Speaker 3: I made that this morning. Like they almost like look
Speaker 3: at it, like is it really? Like they ball it
Speaker 3: up trying to squeeze the mank out. People are dumb, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I'm telling that's my ridiculous takeaway. But thank you for asking,
Speaker 2: Oh what does.
Speaker 3: Youre ridiculous take away? How about you?
Speaker 2: One? I love Emeric and I love criminals that like his.
Speaker 2: The way he heard people was so minor total a
Speaker 2: dollar bill, but like his whole story and his like.
Speaker 3: And how much he was giving in exchange. I mean
Speaker 3: who he was. He was a good community. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: somebody passing counterfeit.
Speaker 2: Bill love him, love love.
Speaker 3: Would you ever pass the counterfeit ability? Think you can?
Speaker 2: I could get away with it. Yeah?
Speaker 3: Do you think care?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I can get you one.
Speaker 2: Everyone everyone thinks I'm trustworthy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I mean. You're an ideal past.
Speaker 2: People tell me things? Yeah, yeah, you know what else
Speaker 2: I love?
Speaker 3: What else? Do you love? Talk?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, O god, I.
Speaker 5: Went Hey, Elizabeth and Zarin, this is Lucy. Thank you
Speaker 5: so much for bringing doctor John Brinkley to the Ridiculous
Speaker 5: Crime universe. If you want to learn more about him,
Speaker 5: there is a book called Charlotttan by Pope Rock. And
Speaker 5: one other ridiculous fact that you could include or that
Speaker 5: you could learn is I Brinkley had a little league
Speaker 5: team called Brinkley's Goats. So I find that very ridiculous.
Speaker 5: And uh yeah, wait.
Speaker 2: This amazing Brinkley is the gift that keeps on giving,
Speaker 2: Like every detail Brinkley's Goats. Oh that's amazing. And that's
Speaker 2: all that's all for today. You can find us online
Speaker 2: at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous I'm
Speaker 2: on both Twitter and Instagram. You can email Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. But, as I always say, most importantly,
Speaker 2: please leave a talkback on the iHeart app. You can
Speaker 2: if the app is free. You get to say cool
Speaker 2: stuff and you know everyone gets to hear it. How
Speaker 2: great is that reach out? Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave
Speaker 2: Dalla Bill y'all Kusten, starring Atalis Rutger as Judith. Research
Speaker 2: is by Marble Trader Marisa Brown and child poker prodigy
Speaker 2: Andrea Song Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by Junkman
Speaker 2: Thomas Lee, an amused barkeep with a bad dollar bill
Speaker 2: taped to his register. Travis Dutton post wardrobe is provided
Speaker 2: by Botany five hundred guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and
Speaker 2: mister Andre. Executive producers are Secret Service Plate Cataloger Ben
Speaker 2: Bollen and Secret Service Interrogator Juvenile Division Noel Brown.
Speaker 3: Ridicous Crime Say It One More Time Giquious Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.