Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Yo, Elizabeth Dutton, Yo, Zaren Burnette.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've been looking for you all over. I'm glad
Speaker 3: you're here because I'm tired. My back hurts. So I
Speaker 3: had a question for you. Can you sit down for
Speaker 3: a second? All right?
Speaker 2: Fine?
Speaker 3: Alright, you see it? You comfortable? Okay? Do you know
Speaker 3: what's ridiculous? I do? Okay, Well then you go.
Speaker 2: Okay. So what's ridiculous is? I got a couple aspects
Speaker 2: of this. It's ridiculous. One, it's ridiculous how much I
Speaker 2: love to lurk on Reddit?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Two?
Speaker 2: This ai t a am I the a whole Oh okay,
Speaker 2: it's a subreddit. It's ridiculous. How much good content there
Speaker 2: is there? And this particular post is absolutely peak ridiculous. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to read it to you. Oh please,
Speaker 2: My twenty eight year old female So she's twenty eight
Speaker 2: year old female. Boyfriend who's twenty nine year old male?
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, So she's twenty eight, she's a woman, he's a.
Speaker 2: Boy correct okay of two years, will not stop speaking
Speaker 2: in a fake Italian American act and keeps making up
Speaker 2: foreign words. The ambientation, so you're gonna find Oh okay,
Speaker 2: to preface this, I love my boyfriend and he is
Speaker 2: super sweet, nice, smart guy that I feel lucky to have,
Speaker 2: but his behavior lately is freaking me out and makes
Speaker 2: me worried for the future. Oh yeah, I need to
Speaker 2: also say this is old. This is not a new
Speaker 2: post about something that It's ridiculous. It keeps coming into
Speaker 2: my head all the time, so.
Speaker 3: You just think about this. This is something that's like
Speaker 3: an earworm from read.
Speaker 2: It pops into my head. So to continue, My boyfriend
Speaker 2: loves movies, especially mob movies.
Speaker 3: I'm with them.
Speaker 2: He has all of the Sopranos DVDs at his place
Speaker 2: and I'm pretty sure he still watches them that way.
Speaker 2: That's fine, obviously, you can watch and enjoy whatever you want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's open like that.
Speaker 2: But last week he saw the Irishman with some friends
Speaker 2: and since then he will not stop talking in like
Speaker 2: a fake stereotypical mobster accent. We were in an uber
Speaker 2: the other night after going out to dinner, and admittedly
Speaker 2: the driver was going a little fast, but my boyfriend
Speaker 2: kept muttering things like who's this guy?
Speaker 3: Eh?
Speaker 2: They learn not don over here and shouting ho as
Speaker 2: we took corners. He would not shut up, and even
Speaker 2: gave the driver a one star review, saying it was
Speaker 2: about respect. Everyone has their quirks. I get it, and
Speaker 2: they can be what makes someone special. At first, it
Speaker 2: was even kind of cute, funny, but I just can't
Speaker 2: really understand this shift all of a sudden. It's been
Speaker 2: a week and he continues to make asides in this voice,
Speaker 2: and when he gets drunk he speaks and made up
Speaker 2: Italian like. We were having dessert at my sister's and
Speaker 2: he came up to me and said, hey, Ma, I
Speaker 2: got to get home and hit the draupini. I'm the
Speaker 2: designated driver. I don't drink. So I asked him why
Speaker 2: he wants to leave, and what a draupinie is. His
Speaker 2: response was, you know, like a shower. Draupini is not
Speaker 2: a word in any language. He also never called me
Speaker 2: Ma before ever, and now he does it almost all
Speaker 2: the time. I feel crazy, like is this going to
Speaker 2: be a permanent feature of his personality?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: I know this sounds incredibly stupid compared to some of
Speaker 2: the other serious issues on here, but I am really
Speaker 2: just nervous about what this means. About his personality slash
Speaker 2: mental health. He really is a sweet, loving guy with
Speaker 2: a wonderful family and we have a lot in common.
Speaker 2: But just like, I don't even know how to begin
Speaker 2: to approach this. I want to tell him off and
Speaker 2: be like, why do you keep doing this voice? Can
Speaker 2: you please stop? We don't live together, so thankfully it's
Speaker 2: not a constant thing, but like what if it did?
Speaker 2: What if we did, and what if it was? You
Speaker 2: just deal with when it's someone you love.
Speaker 1: Edit.
Speaker 2: I just want to add that he's not Italian at
Speaker 2: all either, So I'm also worried people will get offended
Speaker 2: when we're out or something. So that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: That is very ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Am I the ahole.
Speaker 3: Post rent free in your head?
Speaker 2: As they say all the time, I always want to
Speaker 2: go to take a shower. I want to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: hitting the drapini, you know, so just say it into
Speaker 2: the empty hallway and go about my business.
Speaker 3: So could I get away with this? Because this sounds
Speaker 3: like just do it.
Speaker 2: Let's see what happens, to see where this goes, huh.
Speaker 3: I want the update from their girlfriend of like, okay,
Speaker 3: he stopped doing it after he got beaten up. By
Speaker 3: a bunch of Italians in Philadelphia. We were there for
Speaker 3: a gaming.
Speaker 2: P didn't happen.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that is great. I know. Well if you
Speaker 3: got a second, I got something for you.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. Imagine a frontman for a band. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: now the same person though, the same front man. They've
Speaker 3: never performed live before. Okay.
Speaker 2: Well you know everyone has to perform.
Speaker 3: Everyone the first time, right, Yeah. And they've never recorded
Speaker 3: even a single song before, okay. And all they really
Speaker 3: have is a dream. They're a front man with a dream,
Speaker 3: and so they reach for that dream and they decide
Speaker 3: to build themselves a crime Ledder to the Stars.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 3: heists and cons. It's Ahlways ninety, motor free and ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Ar. Okay, this dude's name was Rob and okay, wait, no,
Speaker 3: first we got to get through Rob. That is a
Speaker 3: capital R and a capital R followed by a lowercase
Speaker 3: O and then a B and another B. Rob middle
Speaker 3: name Tall, But wait, that's not just tall like you
Speaker 3: might imagine. That's a capital T and a lowercase A
Speaker 3: followed by five capital l'say. Yeah, it's like he knew
Speaker 3: he'd need to keep a couple l's handy for the
Speaker 3: rest of his life. Oh god, I hadn't last name university.
Speaker 2: Rob Tall University.
Speaker 3: I think it's university for like you feel like a
Speaker 3: mashup where it's like, Okay, your first name is the
Speaker 3: street you lived on, the last name is a place
Speaker 3: you're least likely to be found. The reason I bring
Speaker 3: him up this Rob Tall University. He once launched a
Speaker 3: multi million dollar scam to become a rock star and
Speaker 3: it worked. Okay, yeah, well until it did not work.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's why we're talking about him today. But God,
Speaker 3: bless God, bless job blessed is brought up now before
Speaker 3: we dive into today's dish of criminal deliciousness. Have you
Speaker 3: ever heard of Sarah Howe?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 3: I Okay, this is not somebody I knew. Sarah Howe.
Speaker 3: It was a dame, was ahead of her time. She
Speaker 3: once had her own bank. It was called the Ladies
Speaker 3: Deposit Company.
Speaker 2: Never heard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a big deal because it was a
Speaker 3: bank for unmarried women's huge and that was necessary.
Speaker 2: I'm imagining this is in the olden times.
Speaker 3: Eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is when women didn't have any guaranteed property
Speaker 3: rights right right, or secured financial rights. It's just basically
Speaker 3: the Jane Austen days but America. So Sarah how she
Speaker 3: has his bank for ladies, and she told everyone it
Speaker 3: was a Quaker charity. You know, it's like something for
Speaker 3: these those who are less fortunate, you know, in this time, women's.
Speaker 2: The lady Bank. It just makes me think of when
Speaker 2: they they gender products, like you know, there'll be like
Speaker 2: a toolkit that you can get. The pink one is
Speaker 2: like fourteen dollars in the blue one stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, little pink screwed, little pink camera, a little
Speaker 3: little pink.
Speaker 2: Ratchet, pink ladybank.
Speaker 3: So this this pink Lady Bank, right, she's running for
Speaker 3: the less fortunate women. There was something else about this bank.
Speaker 3: Her Bank for single ladies offered women something that you
Speaker 3: couldn't get at other banks. I returned she in the
Speaker 3: neighborhood eight percent. Oh that's eight percent per month. Well,
Speaker 3: a surprise, surprise, there was no Quaker charity. There were
Speaker 3: no eight percent returns on the investment. And the heck,
Speaker 3: there was no bank it was all a scam, and
Speaker 3: twelve hundred people fell victimed. Old Sarah howse yep, and
Speaker 3: she camed people out of about five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 3: now eighteen seventy eight that would be fifteen million dollars today.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Now it took two years for her scam
Speaker 3: to go pup, and eighteen eighty a local paper broke
Speaker 3: a story. Sarah how was promptly busted, tried, convicted. She
Speaker 3: did three years in the big house, and then she's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I got out, I'm free, I'm ready to start a
Speaker 3: new life. I think I'm gonna go immediately back to criming.
Speaker 3: So she went and became a fortune teller, and she
Speaker 3: managed to continue to fleece the sheep until she was
Speaker 3: put in the dirt. Now she was a mere amateur
Speaker 3: compared to the man who would come to be the
Speaker 3: name associated with these types of crimes. Oh, Charles Ponds, Yeah,
Speaker 3: do you know anything about his deal? Why we call
Speaker 3: the Ponzi with it?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, In the.
Speaker 3: Nineteen twenties, dude was running. He's a Boston based con man.
Speaker 3: He's he had he'd been telling his investors, right, Oh,
Speaker 3: double your money right, just give me ninety days, give
Speaker 3: me your money, and I'm gonna come back to you
Speaker 3: with a bunch more. And they're like, I don't know
Speaker 3: about that, and he's like, yeah, just trust me, Like well,
Speaker 3: what am I investing in? He's like, okay. Turns out
Speaker 3: if you take international postal stamps, you can buy these
Speaker 3: and then redeem thement. He came up with this abstract
Speaker 3: like financial come up based on international postage stamps. So
Speaker 3: people are like, oh, okay, He's like, just give me
Speaker 3: a little bit of time now. In seven months time,
Speaker 3: This dude, like, I'm just blown away how much he
Speaker 3: did in seven months time without the internet, without like
Speaker 3: the ability to get around quickly. He's on like horses
Speaker 3: and carriage and cars and stuff, right, like old old
Speaker 3: school cars. So this Ponzi scheme that he'd done, this
Speaker 3: is how it works. Basically, it's a simple one two three.
Speaker 3: So one Ponzi would promise that he could double his investors' money,
Speaker 3: so we covered that, and then his claim would in
Speaker 3: tract the first round of investors. Right now, he's got
Speaker 3: some investors, he takes their money. He then uses this
Speaker 3: money from the second round of investors to pay back
Speaker 3: the first round of investors, right, and then word spreads it.
Speaker 3: The first people got their money back. Then this more
Speaker 3: people come in with that third round and fourth round,
Speaker 3: he pays off the second round of investors. By this time,
Speaker 3: the fifth round is a huge group of people ready
Speaker 3: to give their money up, and there's more of them
Speaker 3: than there are original investors to pay off. So you
Speaker 3: have like a float time, right, so to quote my
Speaker 3: man Louis Anderson from coming to America, and that's when
Speaker 3: the big bucks start rolling in. So Charles Ponzi's pyramid
Speaker 3: scheme noted him eight million dollars in seven months, and
Speaker 3: then in those days, that's in those days that would
Speaker 3: be worth one hundred and twenty million dollars today. In
Speaker 3: seven months he did it like boom, boom boom. People
Speaker 3: are like, oh, they were throwing their money at him,
Speaker 3: just like yeah, so now to vacuum up that kind
Speaker 3: of cash. He took in thirty thousand investors. That's how
Speaker 3: many people came to him ready to be Connedah yeah.
Speaker 3: So eventually he gets cosbusted and then Ponzi gets sentenced
Speaker 3: to a decade behind bars. And then we gave his name
Speaker 3: to the scheme so everyone to remember it, right brob
Speaker 3: taw University. He's like, you know, I can make that
Speaker 3: old school scammer really have one of them ether sip
Speaker 3: and idiot grins, because I'm gonna do what your boy
Speaker 3: Willie Sutton does. He decides to go where the money is. Yes,
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm not gonna one and in a time
Speaker 3: in it with just all these individual people, he goes
Speaker 3: right to the banks because I'm going to go scam
Speaker 3: the banks. Oh okay, yeah, Well his dream was to
Speaker 3: be a rock star, so he thought to himself, why
Speaker 3: not get the banks to invest in my dream?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exactly.
Speaker 3: This is a new so he was dude was born
Speaker 3: Robert Malwinny. So you can see why he changed his name, right, MAWINNI.
Speaker 3: It's a little but tough to be a rock star,
Speaker 3: Rob Malwinnie.
Speaker 2: You know what, if he would have been dedicated to it,
Speaker 2: it's all about the attitude.
Speaker 3: I agree, but it's just saying. You can hear why
Speaker 3: he might have been teased as a kid, and he's like,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm going to do is change my
Speaker 3: name from Bob Malweeney. So Bob moy exactly. I'm just saying, so, dude,
Speaker 3: was this out of Anaheim, California? So cowboy, and we
Speaker 3: don't know much about his childhood, so I'm just going
Speaker 3: to skip ahead to his prefam days.
Speaker 2: Say he was born in Disneyland. What year was he
Speaker 2: born born?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Here was he born?
Speaker 3: Let's see nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: He was born in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: Yes, people were born in ninteen.
Speaker 2: It was in my mind I thought he was like
Speaker 2: born in the sixties. What's wrong? I thought this was
Speaker 2: an old story.
Speaker 3: No, no, this is a new one.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So by the time Homie is thirty years old,
Speaker 3: he was on top of the world. Right, he'd become
Speaker 3: a real life rock star. He was the front man
Speaker 3: for the hard rock band Lights Over Paris.
Speaker 2: If they heard of Lights Over Paris, yeah, I followed
Speaker 2: them on tour three years. Lights Over Paris.
Speaker 3: Slop Lopp, Right, it's like I Hop but lops.
Speaker 2: It's like a spin off of Bombs over Bag.
Speaker 3: Then they were at LA based bands their fans called them.
Speaker 3: If they had fans, they would have called them. But
Speaker 3: so our dude, Rob Tall University. He really wants to
Speaker 3: be a rockstar, right, so he's like, oh, I'm going,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna become the American Liam Gallagher, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to do that with just way less talent.
Speaker 2: I want to know what they sound like, Zarin.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, imagine like I had to listen to a
Speaker 3: bunch of the songs the research for this, and like,
Speaker 3: let's just say, imagine like the most vanilla, emptied out
Speaker 3: pop song you could imagine like if you took Justin
Speaker 3: Timberlake's producer and saying, Okay, take everything out of this,
Speaker 3: just leave the music, but take all the out of this.
Speaker 3: He's like, I got your son and then you hit that.
Speaker 3: That's what it is. It's like a track of like
Speaker 3: all the same beats, all the same sounds, but there's
Speaker 3: nothing there interesting. It's really weird.
Speaker 2: Light over Paris.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna play some later so you can just
Speaker 3: have your mind blown to I can't wait. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 3: get into the lyrics and the music, all of it,
Speaker 3: will you baby? Saying to yourself, Saren, how did this
Speaker 3: less talented Liam Gallagher want to be? Who? You know?
Speaker 3: We decided to cut a bunch of banks in, divesting
Speaker 3: in his dream of being America's next top superstar, become
Speaker 3: the guy that we're talking about today. If the music
Speaker 3: is this.
Speaker 2: Bad, yeah, I am asking myself far.
Speaker 3: Great question, Elizabeth, really is and thank you for asking
Speaker 3: the answer. A highly focused Ponzi scheme, Elizabeth. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: that's why we're talking about my man, Rob Tall University.
Speaker 3: Five l's. He decided he'd do business with JP Morgan, Chase,
Speaker 3: Bank of America Zions it's a small socale bank, and
Speaker 3: Comerica all for La branches right now. He didn't just
Speaker 3: walk in, slap down his bands demo and say I'd
Speaker 3: like eight million dollars please. No, that's but that's actually
Speaker 3: not far off from what he did do so, according
Speaker 3: to the US Attorney's Office, in August two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: Rob Tall University strolled into a branch of Comerica in La.
Speaker 3: He slapped down paperwork from the investment firm Charles Schwab,
Speaker 3: and he asked for three million dollars. The bank, however,
Speaker 3: didn't laugh in his face like they would have laughed
Speaker 3: in my face. But they did not laugh and robbed
Speaker 3: all they were laughed in most people's face. They didn't
Speaker 3: laugh in his face. Do you know why?
Speaker 2: Because he was wearing eyeliner.
Speaker 3: Well, the paperwork he slapped down stated that the frontman
Speaker 3: had seven million dollars in an investment account. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And the account statement also reported that the frontman had
Speaker 3: five million in net annual income, and it claimed that
Speaker 3: his personal assets totaled seven and a half million dollars.
Speaker 3: And those numbers made some sense because in his personal
Speaker 3: asset was listed a recording studio. He said that he was,
Speaker 3: you know, worth twelve million dollars in annual income. So
Speaker 3: the bank was like, oh, of course, now, of course
Speaker 3: all this paperwork was faked. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, why didn't they want a digital.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well what happens? Yeah exactly, like like we're gonna
Speaker 3: do some more corroborating evidence. Yeah, well, the bank decided,
Speaker 3: you know, let's do our due diligence. They weren't just
Speaker 3: willing to take the Charles schwab faked piece of paper
Speaker 3: with like the white out.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you told me they were, I was
Speaker 2: about to get heading over to my printer, like I
Speaker 2: got the ink a little bit of dabblin.
Speaker 3: Well, as you know, banks prefer the people's start businesses.
Speaker 3: That make sense. If they were they're gonna dabble in
Speaker 3: the Business World. They're like, do restaurants do like a
Speaker 3: leather goods store? Just something that we know how this works.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be Jimmy Dablin's about it exactly.
Speaker 3: But like rock Star, how do we dabble in that?
Speaker 3: We don't even know that one? Where do we put
Speaker 3: the double in the dabble? Right? So Rob Tall University's like,
Speaker 3: I got you covered. Don't worry. My studio will be
Speaker 3: collateral for this money. Remember twelve million dollars that can
Speaker 3: be yours. You could own this studio. They're like, okay,
Speaker 3: suddenly he's e F. Hutton. They're like, we're listening. You
Speaker 3: got my ear. But it wasn't enough because, as you
Speaker 3: pointed out, their bankers, they wanted corroboration. They needed more
Speaker 3: paperwork proof of his income. Mob Tall University is like,
Speaker 3: no problemo, I got this brother. So he goes back
Speaker 3: and he fakes up some more paperwork, comes back in.
Speaker 3: He's like, there you go with that due. They're like
Speaker 3: that's good. I mean this is good. More paperwork, but
Speaker 3: we're gonna need like tax returns. He's like, ah, no problem,
Speaker 3: goes back, fakes those up, shows up with tax returns
Speaker 3: to bankers are like, okay, this is all looking good.
Speaker 3: You know you have all the right numbers here. He's
Speaker 3: got spreadsheets, he's got bank statements, whatever else. He overdid
Speaker 3: it exactly. So they're into the like the paper. They
Speaker 3: love it. They're like getting the giddy off it, right,
Speaker 3: but they're still undecided because they're bankers. Right. So he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: come buy the studio. They're like, okay, we'll do that.
Speaker 3: It's like you need to see with your own I
Speaker 3: see what you would get in collateral. They're like, cool,
Speaker 3: due diligence, right right. One problem, Rob Tall University has
Speaker 3: no studio. So no, he doesn't even own one. He doesn't.
Speaker 3: He doesn't work at one. He's not making do like
Speaker 3: a sit compl Oh yeah this is my studio. No, no,
Speaker 3: no no. But his no problema was his attitude, because
Speaker 3: what did he have. He had friends, Elizabeth, he had
Speaker 3: friends and a dream exactly, a two fisted fighter. This
Speaker 3: guy friends in one hand, dream in the other knocking
Speaker 3: out fate. So he goes and he borrows his friend's
Speaker 3: studio for this bank tour. He's like, hey, guys, you
Speaker 3: want to get in on my criminal conspiracy. They're like
Speaker 3: bet So. The studio was in Burbank, California. It was
Speaker 3: owned by a pair of brothers, now not brothers, like
Speaker 3: actual brothers. Yeah, the Salazar brothers actually okay, yeah, Jason
Speaker 3: and Matthew. Jason was the younger one to twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Matthew was the older one twenty nine. Thus it was
Speaker 3: called matt Salazar Recording Productions. Yeah. They're also part owners
Speaker 3: in the La Sound Collective if you were an underground
Speaker 3: sound collector. Yeah. Well, anyway, the day for the studio
Speaker 3: tour comes Rob Tall University. He's like, come on down.
Speaker 3: He meets the bankers at his studio. He was not
Speaker 3: just a want to be rock star. He was also
Speaker 3: a generous host. Yeah. So he was like, oh exactly,
Speaker 3: it's like, let me show you around. So he goes
Speaker 3: gives them the deluxe tour of the studio. He showed
Speaker 3: them the framed records, the soundboard, the mixing and mastering areas,
Speaker 3: the mic stands, whatever there was to show them. Look,
Speaker 3: here's our favorite couch. You know, you can give them
Speaker 3: the whole tour, right So Rob Tall University also casually
Speaker 3: bragging that he quoted a successful ghostwriter for various artists
Speaker 3: just you know, various artists, just name some probably them.
Speaker 3: So he also confided that running this recording studio and
Speaker 3: ghost writing for rock stars, these are just my sidelines.
Speaker 3: My real passion, My true passion is writing my own songs.
Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, you're one of those gray so
Speaker 3: and I imagine the bankers are like, please don't play
Speaker 3: your demo, Please don't write you a demo. But he's like, okay.
Speaker 3: But their business types, so they're also equally business gracious.
Speaker 3: They're like, yes, what else do you have? Do you
Speaker 3: have more paperwork to show us? Because studio looks great,
Speaker 3: this is really a studio. We see that. They're like okay,
Speaker 3: They go back to their office. He fills out the
Speaker 3: rest of the application. They give him three million dollars.
Speaker 2: Weren't they concerned as it was called Mike Selazar Studios.
Speaker 3: I guess they just overlooked that. They thought maybe that's
Speaker 3: a stage name. I don't know what they thought, but
Speaker 3: there they were cool with it, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is his studio. He says, he walked us around,
Speaker 3: he showed me the board, the key, Yeah exactly. He
Speaker 3: knew where to park. So then he gets his three
Speaker 3: million dollars from the bank, and he's like, okay, that
Speaker 3: that went really well. So what is he going to do? Right,
Speaker 3: I like to think after a moment rob Tall University,
Speaker 3: he gazed across the Burbank parking lot outside of his
Speaker 3: Strip Mall Music studio and he said in that like
Speaker 3: bygone tone of the old pioneers, like you know, staring
Speaker 3: at the middle distance of the horizon. Ye know, I
Speaker 3: was just like, I see a future here, because his
Speaker 3: dream had become true, Like he realized he'd found a
Speaker 3: place where one day I can raise up my own
Speaker 3: crop of rock stars and roadies. And so he decided
Speaker 3: exactly but you know, obviously it's gonna be less you know,
Speaker 3: dramatic as I rendered it. But from court documents we
Speaker 3: do know that he said that he wanted the bank's
Speaker 3: money to expand his business, to make new purchases, and
Speaker 3: to finish construction on a new recording room in the studio.
Speaker 3: And that was what sounded perfectly reasonable to the bank examiners,
Speaker 3: and thus they gave him the three million dollars. So
Speaker 3: they're like, boom, here these are three million dollars loan, sir.
Speaker 3: And now now he is about to start becoming a
Speaker 3: real rockstar because he got rockstock. Cat's right, Let's take
Speaker 3: a little break and then I'll tell you how he's
Speaker 3: going to blow through this money and get himself like
Speaker 3: a rock star into billboards, you know, top charts. What. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, So now my man, Rob Tall University is
Speaker 3: a real funded, almost want to be rockstar guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a three millionaire exactly the big time.
Speaker 3: I told you the real big money's gonna come rolling in.
Speaker 3: Now he's got the big bucks. So that first loan
Speaker 3: application that went well, right, Sure he walked him through
Speaker 3: the fake studio or actually the real studio. But I'm
Speaker 3: pretending to be his So Rob Tall University, what's he
Speaker 3: gonna do now, He's like, I should do that again.
Speaker 3: So he goes and does it again, and then again
Speaker 3: and then again. He went to work scamming banks like
Speaker 3: he ironically was far better at scamming banks than being
Speaker 3: a rockstard. He should have been a bank scammer. That's
Speaker 3: what he should have turned pro at.
Speaker 2: It sounds like he was.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you can if you get like
Speaker 3: groupies for being a bank scammer, but anyway, if he could,
Speaker 3: you know, I think what it does to jail.
Speaker 2: He'll have all those gals who like write in the
Speaker 2: oh good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we tend to get some journalists to interview him.
Speaker 3: He's good.
Speaker 2: He's got the rock Star cell Block Rockstar.
Speaker 3: So Raptail University. He gets the initial three million from Comerica,
Speaker 3: right then he went and scams in additional seven hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand from Bank of America, then a cool
Speaker 3: half million from Zion's Bank, and lastly there was a
Speaker 3: sizeable sum he peeled two point four million from JP
Speaker 3: Morgan Chase. Wow. Yeah, so that's about seven million in total. Okay,
Speaker 3: so then he apparently re upped on a couple of
Speaker 3: those loans. He pulled in a couple more and brings
Speaker 3: it up to eleven million in total.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: His eventual lawyer Al Jaron would later argue, quote, all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, he was trapped in a situation that
Speaker 3: got out of his control. Yeah, oh yeah, I bet
Speaker 3: it did.
Speaker 2: I just like, eleven million dollars with nothing behind it
Speaker 2: is just nuts.
Speaker 3: Oh dude, I like the It's like this just got
Speaker 3: out of control. What's the internet name? Well, well, well
Speaker 3: it's isn't my old friend the consequences of my actions.
Speaker 3: It's like it's him and out.
Speaker 2: Of control, like at any point he could have Yeah.
Speaker 3: Whatever, he's a victim of himself, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Look what I did hard for him. It's hard to
Speaker 2: be Rob Tall.
Speaker 3: Why are these banks doing this to me? So before
Speaker 3: the legal reality set ind of what he had done,
Speaker 3: robbed all University went to work being a rock star.
Speaker 3: And that's what we want to talk about, right, So
Speaker 3: how did he start blowing this money? Well, you know, well,
Speaker 3: first I need to just show you what he looks like.
Speaker 3: I haven't really done a good job. This is him
Speaker 3: with the world's most interesting man. Now that's not the
Speaker 3: actual world's most interesting man. That's a cardboard cutout of
Speaker 3: the world's most interesting man heavens. So yeah, and he's
Speaker 3: not a very tall guy. And you know, nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with you know, him not being tall. I was a
Speaker 3: short kid. I grew late I have you know, But
Speaker 3: my man, if you're gonna name yourself Rob Tall and
Speaker 3: then and call attention to that, and then put in
Speaker 3: five capital l's to make sure you don't miss it anyway. Whatever,
Speaker 3: So old Rob not exactly Tall University, his suddenly stacked
Speaker 3: bank account right, He's just things get ridiculous for him.
Speaker 3: So he rents an apartment in a downtown LA he
Speaker 3: guess he finds his luxury condo building. He gets a
Speaker 3: place on the thirty fifth story. He's like, you know,
Speaker 3: why would he do this? Because that's a rock star.
Speaker 3: So later on he would then move places because that
Speaker 3: wasn't I guess rockstar enough. So he went up to
Speaker 3: the Hollywood Hills, right, because that's a rock star. And
Speaker 3: his rent was ten five hundred dollars a month. What
Speaker 3: does he care?
Speaker 2: It's not his money, that's true.
Speaker 3: So Rob would also he loved to take trips. He
Speaker 3: was a guy I like to bounce around the world,
Speaker 3: because why, that's what rock stars do.
Speaker 2: He's a citizen of the world exactly.
Speaker 3: You go down the Caribbean, you go to South America
Speaker 3: to be able.
Speaker 2: To put all them flags in his Instagram.
Speaker 3: He had the big map, yeah, and he wanted all
Speaker 3: the pens so well, I would imagine that he would
Speaker 3: tell himself, I'm going to go out there and like
Speaker 3: find my fans, like the ones in South America Europe
Speaker 3: that are waiting for me. But I can't even get
Speaker 3: myself through that sentence So anyway, Rob, he was like
Speaker 3: the kind of guy who liked, you know, all the
Speaker 3: beautiful and expensive things in life. Right. I don't know
Speaker 3: if he did that because he liked rocks. They thought
Speaker 3: that was what rock stars did and he just needed
Speaker 3: to be in the glamorous places or he him stuff
Speaker 3: liked it, but he spent his money that way, or
Speaker 3: rather the bank's money that right. So after spending a
Speaker 3: decade or so dreaming of becoming the next Blink one
Speaker 3: eighty two, because that was his inspiration.
Speaker 2: Oh you're kidding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the dude was like, honey, he'd been down there
Speaker 3: in so Kyle dreaming of being like, you know whatever,
Speaker 3: Travis and uh, Tom and Mark right one of the
Speaker 3: guy that's all yeah, exactly, yeah, I think that's the
Speaker 3: Tom one. Anyway, Tom DeLong. Here we go. Okay, So
Speaker 3: this dude's a He's like, okay, I want to be
Speaker 3: a rock star. He spending ten years trying to do it.
Speaker 3: He can't do it, so he turns to crime. Right now,
Speaker 3: now he's got the money, he's blowing stuff like as
Speaker 3: fast as he can. So he's like, oh, what else
Speaker 3: do I need? Like I got my rock star house.
Speaker 3: I needed tour bus.
Speaker 2: Did he have other people in his band?
Speaker 3: Oh, we'll get to that, okay, So it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, that's why I haven't mentioned them his band,
Speaker 3: So his tour he gets the tour bus right, seven
Speaker 3: hundred fifty thousand dollars. This is not a normal tour bus.
Speaker 3: You not for all roped a university. Oh yeah, like
Speaker 3: a full this dumb bunny's tour bus. It was so
Speaker 3: tricked out that Limo Digest wrote about it. Okay, Limo Digest,
Speaker 3: it sounds like a magazine someone to write for, like
Speaker 3: in a rom com in the nineties. I feel right
Speaker 3: for Limo Digest. That's why I'm here on that.
Speaker 2: It's like a Hallmark movie.
Speaker 3: Yes exactly. It makes no sense, but writing.
Speaker 2: For Limo Digest and I have to go back home,
Speaker 2: you know, my parents. If he wanted to be like
Speaker 2: Blinkoin eighty two, he should have gotten an old.
Speaker 3: Van, oh totally and played the music and all the stuff.
Speaker 3: If he should have done the other part of the
Speaker 3: rock star. So anyway, Limo Digest as a feature story
Speaker 3: on dudes Bus, the new bus for rock band lights.
Speaker 2: Over Paris, and it's also fake.
Speaker 3: The dude had taste, not good taste, but he had taste, right,
Speaker 3: So I went and I looked. The bus was designed
Speaker 3: to look like an airplane, right, And on the side
Speaker 3: of the bus he had he had these exterior awnings
Speaker 3: which when you expanded them to like airplane wings. Inside
Speaker 3: the bus he had all these little airplane like like
Speaker 3: fake wings like for the knobs of the faucet or whatever. Right, yeah,
Speaker 3: everything exactly so luxurious. Master suite, custom built master bedroom.
Speaker 3: Suite also has a recording studio in it with Privacy Glass.
Speaker 3: I watched a YouTube video from the makers of this
Speaker 3: tour bus because they were so proud of the work
Speaker 3: that they did, and it's still love. You can't find
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff from this guy, but you can
Speaker 3: find the tour bus. So he actually had like a
Speaker 3: there's a wine cooler in there. There was a custom
Speaker 3: red iron granite countertops. The forward lounge for his bandmates.
Speaker 3: It boasted a three D Sony TV, which was a
Speaker 3: big deal for the time. There were also bunks for
Speaker 3: his quote bandmates which had their own TVs and game systems.
Speaker 3: On the side of the bus, it was painted the
Speaker 3: words lights over Paris. You know that way people would
Speaker 3: know who the hell was inside the finish bus. It
Speaker 3: looks like, you know, I don't know, like if hot
Speaker 3: topic in Miami. Right was handing out the company's like
Speaker 3: first romance novel and it was like complete with Neon
Speaker 3: cover fonts. And someone was like, you know what, this
Speaker 3: would make a great tour bus. That's what it looks like. Well,
Speaker 3: I'll just show you.
Speaker 2: Oh you're show and tell what. Oh and if if
Speaker 2: that is not what I was picturing?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and this is what you would see if
Speaker 3: you happen to be stuck behind this bust in traffic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, they got He's got a picture of himself
Speaker 3: and a bunch of the band mates. My fingers are
Speaker 3: in the air cone like it's a giant cone that
Speaker 3: it's supposed to look like a ship like a plane, like
Speaker 3: like the concord or something. It's super extended blast out
Speaker 3: front and on the back. It looks like it should
Speaker 3: be like we are the band cruise ship magicians. It's amazing, right,
Speaker 3: So I don't know who owns this now, I actually
Speaker 3: do not know. I could not find that, but uh,
Speaker 3: but you may be wondering, right, Okay, so he's got
Speaker 3: this tour bust for like being Abbert Adam Lambert's opening
Speaker 3: act right, and he's like, everything's set, but he does
Speaker 3: he have a band, like who are the cruise ship? Right? Well,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth as you find it out when I think it's right.
Speaker 3: If you have a bus looks like an airplane, that's
Speaker 3: not what you need to become led Zeppelin. You need
Speaker 3: other things. So Rob Tall University is like, well, I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna get me a so he gets a bunch
Speaker 3: of session musicians.
Speaker 2: The he got the tour bus first, yeah, and then
Speaker 2: got the band.
Speaker 3: So it gets like the session musicians and then he
Speaker 3: like has them like, oh, man write the album with him. Man,
Speaker 3: he writes all these songs right, and then he goes
Speaker 3: out and he's like, oh, I'm gonna I need to
Speaker 3: do videos, right, So he's making videos before the album's
Speaker 3: come out. So he's making videos. And so there was
Speaker 3: one of these Lights of her Paris music videos. Well,
Speaker 3: there was a guy who his name is Brian Knight.
Speaker 3: He went on twenty twenty to talk about this, like
Speaker 3: when he was trying to describe his experience on a
Speaker 3: Lights of Her Paris video set, and I quote it
Speaker 3: was crazy. There was a lot happening. There was a
Speaker 3: lot of booze and a lot of champagne, and the
Speaker 3: hotel sweet ended up getting trash at the end of
Speaker 3: the trip. So that's all just rock star stuff, right mostly,
Speaker 3: But then he goes into remember this is the video
Speaker 3: of Vixen era in hip hop. This is early two
Speaker 3: thousand oh right, So back to Brian King, I have
Speaker 3: no idea where all the women came from. He'd get
Speaker 3: a woman to sit in the middle of the buffet
Speaker 3: table and hand people sushi off of her body. Oh god,
Speaker 3: now why would he have a naked woman with a
Speaker 3: buffet on her belly? That's what rock stars of course,
Speaker 3: or maybe they don't because they actually.
Speaker 2: Have class off of someone's gross skin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you maybe don't. My god, completely raw fish off
Speaker 3: of warm skin. It's just like, this is not what
Speaker 3: glitter on it. You got the cool side cool and
Speaker 3: that warm side warm. Anyway, you can't have a music
Speaker 3: video without a song, and you've asked what they sound like, right, Well,
Speaker 3: some of the bank's money went into the studio time right.
Speaker 3: He paid for session musicians to record his Lights Over
Speaker 3: Paris album. He hired a lush string section. It was
Speaker 3: like he was doing his best impression of Charlie Parker
Speaker 3: with strings. He's like, I need strings, Like, bro, you're
Speaker 3: not Charlie Parker. He's like, no, my cheesy, forgettable pop
Speaker 3: songs needs stringing. So his whole bands they said session musicians.
Speaker 3: So there's no band yet, but his store bought band.
Speaker 3: They do record albums and uh.
Speaker 2: No albums.
Speaker 3: Sorry, songs for the album. Should say yeah, songs for
Speaker 3: the album, right, but I like, is that one of
Speaker 3: the songs? Like the first single, I guess it was
Speaker 3: called turn on Off the Lights. Now, the band's name
Speaker 3: is Lights Over.
Speaker 2: Parents, Lights Over Pairs? Are you okay? Do you need
Speaker 2: to talk to someone?
Speaker 3: I'm not the fake rock star here.
Speaker 2: Everyone check on Lights Over.
Speaker 3: They're sending mixed signals turn off the Lights. So for
Speaker 3: their EP, turn Off the Lights, the first that they named.
Speaker 2: The lights or just something totally different.
Speaker 3: Not just a song, they're they're single. They also named
Speaker 3: the EP turn Off the Light Lights a genius yes,
Speaker 3: So that the band decides to make the visually stunning
Speaker 3: music video. They're like, we need to get, you know,
Speaker 3: the best stuffs. They hire actors, actresses and the main
Speaker 3: bikini clad actress Olivia Hart was suspicious of where this
Speaker 3: talentless band and this talentless singer got the money to
Speaker 3: hire someone like her. So she went up and just
Speaker 3: asked the dude. She's like, how do you have the
Speaker 3: mighty to do? Yeah, what's going on here? Robb Tall University.
Speaker 3: He thought for a moment, ran his fingers through his air,
Speaker 3: and he's like, yeah, well my grandpa died. He's like,
Speaker 3: I took his money and I dropped six Yeah. Whatever.
Speaker 2: Wait, and so she's walking around at a bikini. It
Speaker 2: seems so outlandish to me when I think about how
Speaker 2: videos used to be, Like, I just can't imagine a
Speaker 2: band doing like a bikini babe video.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, except this one. I did my dude intelligence, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I watched the video. I listened to the songs. Here's
Speaker 3: a sample lyric. I have a sample lyric for you already.
Speaker 3: This is Ah. I met a girl. She's super cool.
Speaker 3: I love the city lights, she loves the pool. I'm
Speaker 3: signing autographs she writes at school. She's taking photographs that
Speaker 3: make me want to drool. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm into you. I did no music for that. It
Speaker 3: doesn't need the music, the poetry, it's right there.
Speaker 2: I momentarily lost the ability to speak. Wait, she's writing
Speaker 2: at school exactly.
Speaker 3: There's so many red flags. So I watched the videos
Speaker 3: that school. So the video features him walking around a
Speaker 3: rental La mansion as his girl is checking her makeup
Speaker 3: on a floaty in the pool. She also reads a
Speaker 3: book because you know that was in the lyrics, so
Speaker 3: she's there's a shot, take a book. And the whole
Speaker 3: thing is about as the brainless the music video as
Speaker 3: you've ever seen. It's as bad and as dumb as
Speaker 3: the song. It's like pop punky, No, it's more like
Speaker 3: justin Timberlake punk. You keep going, that's what it sounds
Speaker 3: like to me, Like, but if you just take everything
Speaker 3: out of that, you know, if you just dial down,
Speaker 3: all the things that are talent or music are good
Speaker 3: and just do you leave the stuff that is beat
Speaker 3: and his string in his voice the holy ground exactly.
Speaker 3: So when the dude in this music video, I was
Speaker 3: like sitting there watching it, I'm like, I'd be willing
Speaker 3: to bet shoot if I just like randomly thought of
Speaker 3: an idea, it'd be better than this. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: if you took like a camera, turned it on, put
Speaker 3: it in like a red wagon, and just drug it
Speaker 3: down the street. That would be a better music video
Speaker 3: than this. If you took the camera, turned it on
Speaker 3: and just kicked it down a flight of stairs, that
Speaker 3: would be a better music video than this. But whatever,
Speaker 3: the guy didn't do any of that because he's got
Speaker 3: millions of dollars. He just threw millions of dollars at
Speaker 3: the screen, right, So, now, chasing good money with bad,
Speaker 3: the front man decided to guide his pretend band of
Speaker 3: session musicians onto the pages of Billboard Magazine. His plan
Speaker 3: works on the band's website. They're the band's website. Their
Speaker 3: sound is described as quite a mix of melodic rock
Speaker 3: hooks with pulsating dance rhythms and a taste of hip hop.
Speaker 3: Yeah that taste of hip hop? I don't even know
Speaker 3: that anyway, though, this mix works and Billboard names them
Speaker 3: on their heat Seekers Albums chart stop it. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: make it to number six and they were officially an
Speaker 3: up and coming band.
Speaker 2: So this just tells me that you can never trust anything.
Speaker 2: Billboard Magazine ever says.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ever, they pretty much stepped in it on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah they did, so, Now, well, is it. But they
Speaker 3: are at officially an up and coming band, and Billboard
Speaker 3: has basically proved and as you point out that they
Speaker 3: have no validity, zero credibility now and uh, well, you know,
Speaker 3: what are you going to do with Rob Tall University
Speaker 3: now that he is an actual rock star and he
Speaker 3: can point to himself in the pages of Billboard magazine.
Speaker 2: Oh no, is he going to take the magazine to
Speaker 2: the banks.
Speaker 3: He's going to go bigger. It's the year twenty ten,
Speaker 3: and so things are changing, the cultures shifting. He's like,
Speaker 3: I got to get ahead of things. So to keep
Speaker 3: momentum going for his entirely pretend band, the frontman went
Speaker 3: for the biggest gambit yet yet. He said, I need
Speaker 3: to go bigger. I need to get stars involved. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: So for his next video he ups the star power
Speaker 3: and he hires out the rapper the Game. He asked
Speaker 3: the Game to come over and star in his video
Speaker 3: for his new latest Lights Over Paris Banger. I'm not
Speaker 3: a gangster.
Speaker 2: Wait no, like hearing the first lyrics set like that
Speaker 2: and now I'm.
Speaker 3: Not a Just imagine a Seth Green personating an impression
Speaker 3: of Tom Cruise walking up to some girls in a bar.
Speaker 3: That's how the video starts. Well, no, sorry I left
Speaker 3: out apart. First video starts with like a girl's finger
Speaker 3: fingering the buttons of an old school jukebox. Right, she
Speaker 3: seductively presses as a button and the song starts, the
Speaker 3: song that.
Speaker 2: We don't want to hear, I'm not a.
Speaker 3: Gangst It comes out right, and then this, you know,
Speaker 3: the pop backbeat drops And when I say drops, imagine
Speaker 3: like a Kleenex landing on a bed of cotton balls.
Speaker 3: It just dropped. So now you mentioned the lyrics from
Speaker 3: the last song.
Speaker 2: Yes, I got more lyrics for your girl, Thank you.
Speaker 3: I need these, alady. Yeah, the lyrics go down in CALLI.
Speaker 3: The girls drink until they go crazy and smoke until
Speaker 3: they all get dizzy. She told me I could call
Speaker 3: her my baby. None of them rhyme Callie crazy dizzy
Speaker 3: baby rhymes, but whatever slant rhym so he keeps going,
Speaker 3: Oh good, Yeah she could. She told me I could
Speaker 3: call her my baby, but just for the night. We
Speaker 3: were coasting all the way down to the ocean. And
Speaker 3: then she slipped something inside my hand. Can you guess
Speaker 3: what she slipped inside his hand?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth so scared of what baby slipped, the baby's kid
Speaker 2: put in her hands.
Speaker 3: I've got good news for you. I don't know what
Speaker 3: it is. He never says. He's like, who knows, who cares?
Speaker 2: He was like he was afraid, there's no good way
Speaker 2: to go with No, he's just let me a permission
Speaker 2: slip for her to go on.
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows. And I do not have a
Speaker 3: bloody knife.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many, so many ways I can
Speaker 2: go with this.
Speaker 3: Instead he keeps it ring.
Speaker 2: I mean I can keep going, I can keep going.
Speaker 3: So instead he just sings. And this is what I said.
Speaker 3: I'm not a gangster, but I would ride for you,
Speaker 3: and if it came down to it, I would die
Speaker 3: for you. I'm not a gangster, but I get high
Speaker 3: with you. I would throw away my whole life for you. Okay. One,
Speaker 3: I don't think he understands what a gangster his just
Speaker 3: right off the bat. I'm just gonna take that. Two,
Speaker 3: did he write this is a love song to his
Speaker 3: own ego? Because man, that last line really turn out
Speaker 3: to be prophetic. Yeah, I would ruin my whole life
Speaker 3: or whatever. So and also three, this is where the
Speaker 3: song really gets starts to get good. And why by
Speaker 3: good I mean just not as bad. Right. So this
Speaker 3: is when the rapper of the game shows up. Now
Speaker 3: I'm guessing the game was like, well, if the check clears.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking it's like, I will soak this fella.
Speaker 3: Apparently the check clear because Elizabeth, he was there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: after the break, I will be back to tell you
Speaker 3: all about what the game does on this video shoot.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that it's gonna bend your brains. Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: I promised you the game on the set whites Over
Speaker 3: Paris with my man Rob Tall University. Yes, now this
Speaker 3: is gonna be so good. I'm just gonna need you
Speaker 3: to just pretty much just close.
Speaker 2: Your eyes they are closed, and picture it.
Speaker 3: Yes, Downtown La, nighttime, the industrial section the arts district.
Speaker 3: You are standing by a generator, drinking coffee with a
Speaker 3: pair of Teamster truck drivers. You're in charge of a
Speaker 3: Rolls Royce, part of the luxury vehicle rental package for
Speaker 3: the music video shoot. You've never heard of the band.
Speaker 3: You could care less about the band. You don't even
Speaker 3: care about this shoot. But when you heard that the
Speaker 3: game would be on the set, that's when you decided
Speaker 3: you would be the one to take this gig. Normally
Speaker 3: you'd send over one of your coworkers for these late
Speaker 3: night independent shoots. But you are a huge fan of
Speaker 3: the game, and ever since he first dropped his EP
Speaker 3: back in the day on the label of JT the
Speaker 3: Biga Figure, you have been down with the game. Now,
Speaker 3: when he dropped his major label album, The Documentary, you
Speaker 3: thought that album was a masterpiece. You still haven't forgiven
Speaker 3: fifty cent for pushing the game out of docre Is
Speaker 3: Aftermath Records. No, that is wrong.
Speaker 2: I will never forgive him for that.
Speaker 3: But now this video shoot is your chance to finally
Speaker 3: see the game up close personal. Oh yeah, Now at
Speaker 3: the moment, one of the pair of Teamster truck drivers
Speaker 3: is having a big chest rumble and chuckle. It's the
Speaker 3: spring of twenty eleven and you were all laughing about
Speaker 3: the late night talk show host take on Obama ordering
Speaker 3: the strike that took out Osama bin Laden.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And kim Old did a weekend at Bernie spoof
Speaker 3: that had been lauden enjoy quote one last day in
Speaker 3: the Sun. It's a weird time in the culture. Anyway.
Speaker 3: You see the game as he steps out of his trailer.
Speaker 3: It's one of those rental star wagons trailers, the kind
Speaker 3: that they're always on the streets of the valley for
Speaker 3: real movie shoots. Whoever is paying for this music video
Speaker 3: shoot is going all out. I say, hey, babe, this
Speaker 3: young production assistant tells you it's time to bring around
Speaker 3: the Rolls Royce for this part of the shoot. But
Speaker 3: you were already headed over to speak with the game. Yeah,
Speaker 3: plan to tell him all about how much fifty cent
Speaker 3: was a bum. But yes, you're like, I guess that
Speaker 3: can wait, you think to yourself as you go wandering
Speaker 3: over to the car. You are at work. You can
Speaker 3: always speak with him later. Since you're the one who
Speaker 3: hearing the car around, he's supposed to be in the car,
Speaker 3: so you will have a moment with him no matter what.
Speaker 3: So you go walking off on the soaked down streets,
Speaker 3: the ones that are wedded to look the best for
Speaker 3: a music video, and you splash through the puddles of
Speaker 3: neon light, and then you hop in the whip and
Speaker 3: you do your best impression of driving Miss Daisy, and
Speaker 3: you wheel that luxury auto around the late night downtown
Speaker 3: video shoot. And when you get back to the set
Speaker 3: with the car. You hear the video playback booming the song.
Speaker 3: It bounces off the downtown canyon walls. The lyrics you
Speaker 3: hear are thankfully from the game's portion of the song,
Speaker 3: but they are not good. Oh no, peace to my
Speaker 3: old girl. Got me a new one. She's so hood,
Speaker 3: she's so me. I love is like a drug and
Speaker 3: we od cuz got me a winner. Charlie Sheen invited
Speaker 3: us for dinner. Oh y, and we both went in
Speaker 3: her and we both went our separate ways, and Charlie
Speaker 3: had this to say, I'm not a gangsta.
Speaker 2: Okay, someone needs to.
Speaker 3: Go get you. You're all out the window and park
Speaker 3: the car. Sit there for a moment. You wonder if
Speaker 3: this is really how you want to spend your one
Speaker 3: wild life. You contemplate turning the Rolls Royce back on
Speaker 3: and just driving away, but you have bills to pay,
Speaker 3: and so you're a boss is expecting his car back
Speaker 3: at the rental place. So instead you tell yourself I'm
Speaker 3: not a gangstuf. And then you open the door to
Speaker 3: the Rolls Royce, step out and shut the door. You
Speaker 3: ask a production assistant, where can I find mister lights
Speaker 3: over Paris? Okay?
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just gonna go take a silk wood shower.
Speaker 3: Get that off. You imagine the Charlie sheen of it all.
Speaker 2: No, I can't. I don't want to.
Speaker 3: At the start of twenty eleven, Rob Tay University is
Speaker 3: on top of the world. You'd have to look up
Speaker 3: to see him. Yeah. So he's the frontman of a
Speaker 3: fake band. He has a very real custom to her bus.
Speaker 3: He's got a spot on the Billboards chart for up
Speaker 3: and coming new bands. He's got an album that's out there.
Speaker 3: It's an EP. He's a couple of songs, but he's
Speaker 3: got videos and the games in it, and you know
Speaker 3: things are about to go boom for him. But then
Speaker 3: the banks show up and they're like, hey, man, remember
Speaker 3: when we gave that dude that money? Yeah? Yeah, has
Speaker 3: he paid us back yet? No, I haven't heard from him. Right, Well,
Speaker 3: they had expected their money back. It wasn't a donation, right.
Speaker 3: So the trouble starts with a series of friendly calls.
Speaker 3: Right now, these are not actually calls from Bank of America.
Speaker 3: These are not quotes, but this is how I imagine
Speaker 3: the calls I would have gone.
Speaker 2: This is probably way better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so sir, it's Bank of America calling. We keep
Speaker 3: missing you. This is the fourth message we've left. We'd
Speaker 3: like to discuss your repayment schedule for your loans. Please
Speaker 3: call your earliest convenience. You know a couple of days, sir,
Speaker 3: Bank of America calling, so I haven't heard from you.
Speaker 3: Please call back at the earliest convenience. Another week passes
Speaker 3: Bank of America again. Look, man, you have millions of
Speaker 3: dollars of our money and we expect you to pay
Speaker 3: it back. You better call us back. Another week goes by,
Speaker 3: still no hearing nothing from him. Bank of America gets
Speaker 3: back on the phone. Hey man, Bank of America trying
Speaker 3: to dodge us. You think that's gonna work out for you?
Speaker 3: Bank of America is gonna get its money, pal, But
Speaker 3: you know what you go, You run and hide. You
Speaker 3: try to hide from us, because Bank of America is
Speaker 3: gonna find you. Your ass is grass and we are
Speaker 3: the lawnmower. Good day, sir. Now that's just how I imagine.
Speaker 3: That is not what Bank of America said.
Speaker 2: That's their call center script.
Speaker 3: That's the vibe though, right. I've never worked in a
Speaker 3: call center, but it seems like that's what they would say. Anyway,
Speaker 3: August twenty eleven rolls around. He's still managing to dodge
Speaker 3: the banks as they're circling on him, going where's our
Speaker 3: millions of dollars? So the front man eventually does have
Speaker 3: to call the banks back. So what does he say?
Speaker 3: What's he going to tell them about the money and
Speaker 3: his rise to stardom? The investment's going great, guys were
Speaker 3: on the billboards hot seekers album, well, he explained to
Speaker 3: He calls him up and look, I know I missed
Speaker 3: your guys calls, but I was on the road, man, rockstar,
Speaker 3: I was on tour, you know what it is. And
Speaker 3: they're like, oh yeah, okay, Well, when are we gonna
Speaker 3: get our money? He's like about that, man, I got updates.
Speaker 3: Look okay, So I'm gonna put everything on the table
Speaker 3: with you, guys. I was in a car wreck. I'm
Speaker 3: on pills now, so things aren't going so well for me.
Speaker 3: I'm dealing with an incredible amount of pain here, guys.
Speaker 3: That sounds like a pick exactly where's our money? Rob?
Speaker 3: So he's like, look, and by the way, Lizabeth, just
Speaker 3: to keep facts on the table. There was no car accident,
Speaker 3: and I don't know where it was on pills. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so the banks are Yeah. So at this point, the
Speaker 3: banks are fully after up. So what does our amateur
Speaker 3: ponzi scammer do next, Well, he keeps reaching for those
Speaker 3: stars and he's running out of time. But in October
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, Lights Over Paris's booked to play a big
Speaker 3: gig in.
Speaker 2: La Right, Oh, yeah, is this their first gig?
Speaker 3: No, he's playing like small gigs at this point. But
Speaker 3: he's gonna play a gig at the Roxy. This would
Speaker 3: be like their first bank gig. Right. It's a club
Speaker 3: up on the Sunset Strip and it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: rock star Legends, so it's a space you want to
Speaker 3: be in. Right. For some reason, I'm thinking he knew
Speaker 3: the banks might know that he was going to be
Speaker 3: there because he's lights Over Paris and he's worried that
Speaker 3: if I go somewhere Ritzman advertised, there's gonna be people
Speaker 3: waiting for me. So what does he do? He sends
Speaker 3: a DJ. He's like, just go hit play on like
Speaker 3: the laptop. Yes, he sends a DJ to his biggest
Speaker 3: gig yet. And yeah, then.
Speaker 2: Were they playing like were they opening for somebody or no?
Speaker 3: It was his gig, He just you be lights Over Paris.
Speaker 2: To anyone buy ticket.
Speaker 3: I don't know the deal on that part.
Speaker 2: I have so many questions.
Speaker 3: I'm going to call the Rocks. So he gets to
Speaker 3: the gig, the DJ and a process server is there
Speaker 3: to love it with court papers and he's like, are
Speaker 3: you mister a lights Over Parison guys? I know, yeah,
Speaker 3: it says so, but I mean I just said that
Speaker 3: on stage, but I'm not him. It's complicated, Like, well,
Speaker 3: here and they hits him with the papers, right, the
Speaker 3: papers are not from the bank, they're from his landlord.
Speaker 3: He's now being sued because he's months behind darn rent
Speaker 3: as well. He's pretty much blown the cash at this point,
Speaker 3: the millions are gone, right, So what does our man
Speaker 3: do now? Well, he finally does something smart, finally something
Speaker 3: I'm proud of. He leaves the country. He gets the
Speaker 3: hell of die.
Speaker 2: Thinking about like if I suddenly had all this money
Speaker 2: in my head, I'm like, okay, I could pay the electric,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I could pay water, no problem.
Speaker 3: This cat yeah no, he's he's in MAJORCA, so he's
Speaker 3: not I'm out of here. But then he does the
Speaker 3: like another rob Tall University thing. He comes back, He comes,
Speaker 3: He comes back to America for god knows what reason.
Speaker 3: And in February twenty thirteen, he has a flight coming
Speaker 3: in from Buenos Aires and he touches down in Miami
Speaker 3: International Airport. It was an auspicious day for him. It
Speaker 3: was his thirtieth birthday and his life was about to change.
Speaker 3: He was a man. Now, No, that's not what it was.
Speaker 3: When he walks into Miami International, there's a crowd of
Speaker 3: folks there to meet him. They it's like a real
Speaker 3: rock star returning home. It's all these people cameras. But no,
Speaker 3: it was a flock of Feds. The Feds are there
Speaker 3: to meet him at the airport. They arrest the front man,
Speaker 3: and his rock star dreams were now officially done. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he was in court the very next day to be arraigned.
Speaker 3: And then what does he do. The day after that
Speaker 3: he's bailed out. He goes into a bank and he asks,
Speaker 3: I can do not stop it. He has tried to
Speaker 3: defraud the bank from millions of dollars to pay off
Speaker 3: the banks that he's now in trouble for.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: According to the.
Speaker 2: The day after he gets the day after.
Speaker 3: He's arraigned the US Attorney's office, like they like when
Speaker 3: you read the reports, they're just like shocked. At one point,
Speaker 3: they're at quote the day after he pleads guilty, he
Speaker 3: goes into a credit you do Norrange County, California, and
Speaker 3: it does exactly the same crime one more time. That's
Speaker 3: in the credit credit Like, do you guys have the
Speaker 3: same reporting as banks? So I don't know why he
Speaker 3: thinks he can get away with this. He's not good,
Speaker 3: but anyway, whatever, you know, he decides to go for it.
Speaker 3: And uh, he said he wanted to just you know,
Speaker 3: they said give all the money to the banks. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to defraud them to pay you guys. It's
Speaker 3: not screw them, right guys. But his lawyer, the guy
Speaker 3: we already met, al Jaron, he claimed that his client
Speaker 3: was not the one who was at fault, right I
Speaker 3: already told yeah, he said he quote, he knowingly submitted
Speaker 3: false numbers on fraudulent documents, but the banks took them
Speaker 3: at face value. They kept upselling him. So he's claiming
Speaker 3: that the banks didn't do their job like his client.
Speaker 3: He's like, they would have done their job. Client couldn't
Speaker 3: have gotten away with this. And then he said, then,
Speaker 3: because they did give him, as they told you, additional loans.
Speaker 3: His lawyer says, quote, the banks were really eager to
Speaker 3: loan him a lot of money, and they did go
Speaker 3: with him. They showed him around the recording student. They
Speaker 3: looked at face value what he was telling them and
Speaker 3: the documentation he was showing them, and they loan Rob
Speaker 3: the money. Damn it, Banks, Why did you do that? Rob?
Speaker 2: Is why the rest of us can't They can never
Speaker 2: get anything taken at face value.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Completely Well the judge, of course threw
Speaker 3: this out. He just laughed at the face of it.
Speaker 3: He's like law. And then so his girlfriend comes into court.
Speaker 3: She's trying to, like, you know, help him out. I
Speaker 3: don't know how he has a girlfriend, but he has
Speaker 3: a girlfriend someone like really loves and cares and believes
Speaker 3: in his dream. And she says, and I quote, I
Speaker 3: know that Rob knows what he did was wrong. But
Speaker 3: I also know is that a lot of what Rob
Speaker 3: did came from the passion of wanting to live out
Speaker 3: his dream, the dream of being a rock star. Starting
Speaker 3: lights over Paris was not a selfish attempt at fame,
Speaker 3: but rather a way to involve so many people in
Speaker 3: a shared dream. I would love to imagine that. Now,
Speaker 3: remember the brothers they were dragged in, the Salazar brothers, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they were part of that shared dream. Well they got
Speaker 3: their time in court as part of that share dream. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so he broke some off for.
Speaker 3: Them to one point seven millions for them. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: so they had to plead guilty to loan fraud and
Speaker 3: they also went to prison. Yeah, so thanks for that
Speaker 3: shared dream. Then there's lights over Paris. The band.
Speaker 2: You can be wondering, what about the band?
Speaker 3: How do we get that band back together? Well, the
Speaker 3: keep in mind session musicians, right, we've got we've gone
Speaker 3: over that. But the band is not calling it quits.
Speaker 3: I don't know what that means because there is no band.
Speaker 3: But apparently a Japanese record label signed Rob and the
Speaker 3: band to a recording contract. And this happened just before
Speaker 3: he pleaded guilty. Right, so this was like he finally
Speaker 3: got his dream, right he made he signed the record contract.
Speaker 3: So anyway, in the meantime, he can now write new
Speaker 3: songs while he's behind bars. It worked out for Merle Haggard.
Speaker 3: I mean, like maybe this could do it. But at
Speaker 3: the moment he's in a federal prison in El Paso, Texas,
Speaker 3: a place called Latuna. If you were in a place
Speaker 3: called Latuna, Texas, you are Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking like any he would ever make money
Speaker 2: off of what he's doing, but like if he were
Speaker 2: to make royal like royalties, it would go to restitution.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yep. So like he's gonna make royalty, Well,
Speaker 3: start right, you get all those pennies from YouTube, send
Speaker 3: them that way. So dude spends his days now learning Spanish,
Speaker 3: taking yoga classes, and fiddling around on the guitar. On
Speaker 3: the guitar. SO twenty twenty caught up to him. They
Speaker 3: did an interview from jail from prison rather Rob Tall
Speaker 3: University said of his brief time as a rock star,
Speaker 3: and I quote the thing I regret is kind of
Speaker 3: losing control. My lifestyle was crazy, and I was open
Speaker 3: deep down that I could rectify the situation and pay
Speaker 3: these things back. It was crazy, man, crazy. You can
Speaker 3: hear the music with the lyrics and how he talks.
Speaker 3: He's just he's just right.
Speaker 2: There, guyse it was so crazy what everyone made me do.
Speaker 3: Could you believe that that was wild? Guse so It
Speaker 3: must have been like so far down in him that
Speaker 3: that desire to rectify the situation that was just buried
Speaker 3: by all of his burning desire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything that was like a log jam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he couldn't pay. Yeah, yeah, exactly all fluxed up there.
Speaker 2: And who did that? Who did that to him?
Speaker 3: Oh? The banks? Elizabeth, Do we have a ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: My ridiculous takeaway would be number one. I still don't
Speaker 2: understand how these banks went ahead and made those loans.
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't think that a studio, even if
Speaker 3: it was making twelve million dollars, would be something that
Speaker 3: they would want to put a collateral and we're going
Speaker 3: to give you three million.
Speaker 2: Against Yeah, it makes no sense. And more than one bank.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you want to get into the recording industry
Speaker 3: as Bank of America?
Speaker 2: Anyway?
Speaker 3: Can you sell that to somebody? I don't think it's
Speaker 3: worth that enough on paper that it's like it carries value.
Speaker 2: So my takeaway is that this whole thing makes no sense.
Speaker 3: No, there you go. Money is not real.
Speaker 2: No, it's not.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for that one, Zarin. You're welcome, Zarin. So
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna do it for you, Elizabeth, you're not
Speaker 3: going to do it. I'm doing it for you, all right.
Speaker 3: You can find us online if you'd like a ridiculous
Speaker 3: I'm about Twitter and Instagram. We also have a pitching
Speaker 3: new website, ridiculous Crime dot com. Emails if you like
Speaker 3: a ridiculous crime at gmail dot com. Also, we do
Speaker 3: talkbacks on the iHeart apps, so download that and talk
Speaker 3: back at us well. Once again, thanks for listening. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crimes mostly by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarah Rinett, produced
Speaker 3: and edited by lead singer and driver of the Winnebago
Speaker 3: Dave Houston. Research is by Marissa Lights over Paris, Texas
Speaker 3: Brown and Andrea Lights over Paris, Indiana. Song Sharpen Tear,
Speaker 3: our theme song is by Thomas String, Daddy Lee and
Speaker 3: Travis the Strings. She's Incident cover band director Dutton. Executive
Speaker 3: producers are Ben We need a tour of Us Bowlin
Speaker 3: and No No, we need a tour Train Brown Ridics
Speaker 3: Why Say It One More Time?
Speaker 1: Ulus Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.