Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Sarah, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2: Do you have a second I'd love to share it
Speaker 2: with you. Okay, you ever injured yourself taking a selfie? No?
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 2: Okay, did you know that's very common.
Speaker 3: Now, injuring yourself taking a selfie?
Speaker 2: Yes, very very common. One in ten people have injured
Speaker 2: themselves taking a selfie.
Speaker 3: Now is this hurting their arms or their muscles, or
Speaker 3: is this falling over.
Speaker 2: All of their musculature as well as their bones?
Speaker 3: Interesting?
Speaker 2: Anything is at risk with a selfie? In fact, did
Speaker 2: you know it is more dangerous for a human being
Speaker 2: to take a selfie than to go swimming with sharks?
Speaker 3: Oh? You're kidding me.
Speaker 2: More people die each year from taking selfies than from
Speaker 2: shark attacks. Selfie sticks. No, people just they trip, they
Speaker 2: fall over cliffs. I know I shouldn't be laughing, right,
Speaker 2: I'm rooting for the sharks too, because hopefully fewer sharks
Speaker 2: will be killed this way, because people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: you don't need to be afraid of sharks. We should
Speaker 2: start killing phones. I like that, hunting down and killing phones.
Speaker 2: Sarah yes, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I'm here for it.
Speaker 4: Putting a fish in a fish to win a boat.
Speaker 4: This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 4: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and ridiculous.
Speaker 3: You damn right, yes it is. Could you imagine if
Speaker 3: we did the whole show.
Speaker 2: In NPR voices and NPR voices. I think that would
Speaker 2: be very refreshing for some people.
Speaker 3: I think I could do it. I'm not sure about you.
Speaker 2: I might go to sleep though talking.
Speaker 3: Oh, I definitely would. Are you a competitive persons?
Speaker 2: Yes? Now, I'm very from a competitive family. I'm a
Speaker 2: very competitive person. I don't I like to think that
Speaker 2: I'm not one of those mean competitive people because I'm
Speaker 2: not competing against other people. I'm only ever competing with
Speaker 2: my show. I was taught that at a young age
Speaker 2: and that's stuck with me. But I will get very
Speaker 2: mad at myself for losing itself, right, it can be.
Speaker 2: It can be unpleasant to watch me lose, But I'm
Speaker 2: not mean about it. I'm just yea upset.
Speaker 3: I like to say that I'm not competitive, Yes, but
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 4: Well, it's kind of like how I say, I don't
Speaker 4: watch Yes, but I don't watch TV shows like the
Speaker 4: smash Hit nine one one.
Speaker 3: I just moved from Fox to ABC, and if I
Speaker 3: watch TV, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: How I feel about Are you happy about that? If
Speaker 2: you don't know if.
Speaker 3: There's going to be meddling from the mouse house? I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about it. Anyway, I say I'm
Speaker 4: not competitive. It's almost true.
Speaker 2: No, it's not.
Speaker 4: I'm not competitive with like people in the workplace or
Speaker 4: like other writers. Writers are competitive, oh god there and petty, yes,
Speaker 4: And I'm not I'm happy for everyone whenever anything good happens.
Speaker 2: Like I tend to be an actor, and I thought
Speaker 2: they would be really competitive. Writers are so much more
Speaker 2: competitive and petty and also undermining. They do a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff with like campaigns.
Speaker 4: To yes yes, And so that's why I kind of
Speaker 4: like I've narrowed it down right. I don't really interact
Speaker 4: with a lot of writers.
Speaker 2: True writer behavior, you realize the lesson.
Speaker 4: Not like socially competitive, like about status stuff like I
Speaker 4: want everyone to see what kind of carry driver?
Speaker 3: Without who cares?
Speaker 2: I shouldn't tell people about this for a coat you're wearing.
Speaker 2: Shut up? What is that?
Speaker 4: Am though competitive when it comes to things like trivia,
Speaker 4: Yeah you are.
Speaker 3: I'm a beast.
Speaker 4: Trivia like I become a whole another person, or games
Speaker 4: like Rummy Cube or I've seen.
Speaker 2: You play bar trivia where you made a table whole
Speaker 2: table cry so and that family looked at me like
Speaker 2: are you going to stop her? And I was like, look,
Speaker 2: go back to your talk.
Speaker 3: Brings out the best and the worst.
Speaker 2: Yes, it does, because like I do really.
Speaker 4: Well in various categories, like especially if there's word puzzles.
Speaker 4: I used to go to this one where they had
Speaker 4: handouts and.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I.
Speaker 3: Got in the zone. And then that.
Speaker 4: I'm viciously competitive. My trivia team is called Steve Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 4: You're on my trivia team.
Speaker 3: You know. My brother's on a team now. He is
Speaker 3: not competitive, No, he's not, but fun I make up
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 2: He gets a little competitive though, once you start winning.
Speaker 3: He doesn't want to lose. You're winning, that is true, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he does. He wants to hang on.
Speaker 4: I want to I become another person. It's totally wild.
Speaker 4: I'm a true believer in obeying the rules. To an extent. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: So like I won't check my phone for answers.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, not like that.
Speaker 3: But I do like to do little tricks that okay.
Speaker 4: So like I like to pretend that I'm new to
Speaker 4: pub trivia and then I loudly whisper supposed answers to
Speaker 4: my teammates.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and then I get all excited.
Speaker 4: They're in on it and so and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: I know the answer, and they tell me to keep
Speaker 4: it down that the other teams are going to hear
Speaker 4: me saying the right answer, and it's intentionally wrong but
Speaker 4: like feasible.
Speaker 2: So this is a pantomime you're pulling where you go.
Speaker 3: It's a long time, it's bulcarrier.
Speaker 5: And they're like stop, everyone's going to hear you, and
Speaker 5: like but I know it, and then people are like,
Speaker 5: oh crap, and like, so Traviy my brother, he's not competitive,
Speaker 5: but like you were saying, like when it gets down
Speaker 5: to the wire, he and I had an incident where
Speaker 5: we brushed.
Speaker 3: Up against cheating.
Speaker 4: We were in a sudden death tiebreaker during a trivia
Speaker 4: night on a Mexican riviera cruise. So there we are
Speaker 4: off the coast of Portavada, winning our fourth straight trivia
Speaker 4: night on the boat. Everyone hated us, which is we
Speaker 4: come in and just dust them fourth straight, fourth straight.
Speaker 4: I don't remember what the question was. I don't remember
Speaker 4: what the answer was, but like we wrote on the zone. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was totally in the zone AutoZone. So we wrote
Speaker 4: it down on a piece of paper and like showed
Speaker 4: it to the to the host. He looks, and he
Speaker 4: goes over and walks over and looks at the other
Speaker 4: team's sheet, and like we may have heard a team
Speaker 4: that had been eliminated mentioned the answer after we wrote
Speaker 4: ours down after and then like we may have quickly
Speaker 4: changed the answer on our paper, corrected, and then the
Speaker 4: judge may have forgotten our answer and then come back
Speaker 4: over to take a look aheah, and we may have won.
Speaker 3: The whole thing.
Speaker 2: Oh that's cheating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was high stakes, Saren.
Speaker 2: You want to get that fifth when?
Speaker 3: No, do you know what the grand prize was?
Speaker 2: No? What was it?
Speaker 3: Luggage tags?
Speaker 2: It wasn't even luggage, it was luggage.
Speaker 4: My aunt was appalled by our lack of integrity.
Speaker 2: I'm with your aunt.
Speaker 4: She she called them the luggage tags of shame. You know,
Speaker 4: because since my behavior, my love language is shame and guilt.
Speaker 4: That's how my behaviors are motivated.
Speaker 3: I felt terrible.
Speaker 4: I wound up like taking the tags and just setting
Speaker 4: them on a bar in the leado deck and walking away.
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought you're gonna throw them into the sea,
Speaker 2: and like never was back.
Speaker 3: That's that's pollutions Eric.
Speaker 4: On a boat, like on a cruise ship, you're worried about,
Speaker 4: like destroying the oceans. Hello, I couldn't live with my
Speaker 4: little scam. Others though, the ones who wind up here
Speaker 4: me talking about them.
Speaker 3: They went all in for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have for you today some competition scandals.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: So it's not like cycling, doping or fixing college basketball
Speaker 4: nop Okay, we're not living strong right now. These these
Speaker 4: are as inane as cheating at trivia to win luggage tag.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: I still carry that guilt. I will never do such
Speaker 4: a thing ever again.
Speaker 2: I'm going to same time I see a luggage tag.
Speaker 3: From now right now, it was not like me. That
Speaker 3: wasn't me.
Speaker 2: What are you willing to do to get these luggage tags?
Speaker 2: What would you do for a luggage See?
Speaker 4: That's what out of control. Competition does do it? I
Speaker 4: think humans can't help but make things competitive. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: taking pottery. Look, we have all these TV shows trivia.
Speaker 4: You know what I love more than trivia competitions though.
Speaker 2: Baking shows. Bears?
Speaker 3: It was a bee. I love you do you really do?
Speaker 3: I want to hug a bear.
Speaker 2: I come into HQ sometimes and you're just sitting there
Speaker 2: watching those videos you watch where they're sitting at the streams.
Speaker 3: Cat my bear cam.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 4: That's my National Park in southern Alaska. They have they
Speaker 4: have this bear camp. There are volcanoes in this park, salmon,
Speaker 4: most importantly tons of brown bears.
Speaker 2: So cute.
Speaker 4: I want to go there someday and see them in person.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, like in the summer, they have these decks that
Speaker 4: look over the river and the bears come out and
Speaker 4: they loll around, they gorge on salmon. You can watch
Speaker 4: it on the bear cam.
Speaker 3: As I do.
Speaker 2: I've looked over your shoulder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you see like mamas teaching their cubs to grab
Speaker 4: fish and like big papas just parking their RUMs in
Speaker 4: the river rapids shoving it on there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're so cute.
Speaker 4: So anyway, Cat my They've capitalized on this love of
Speaker 4: bears because I'm not alone, Sarah.
Speaker 2: No, I know there are many of you.
Speaker 3: And they hold they hold something called Fat Bear Week.
Speaker 2: Wow I heard of this is good October.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: So in the in October, the brown bears that Catmi
Speaker 4: they've been like prepping for winter hibernation by just gorging
Speaker 4: themselves on sandpors. They increase that's they increase their body
Speaker 4: weight by like fifty percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they eat ninety pounds of food a day.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 4: So the rangers, they have all the bears, you know,
Speaker 4: tagged numbered, and like the naturalists and the rangers at
Speaker 4: the park, they take note of the physical state of
Speaker 4: the bears, and so they decided, like, let's get everyone
Speaker 4: in on this.
Speaker 3: So they they teamed up.
Speaker 4: With explore dot org that's the organization that does the
Speaker 4: bear cam, and they let people cast online votes in
Speaker 4: kind of like a March Madness style bracket Oh okay,
Speaker 4: to determine the bear that has like most effectively and
Speaker 4: impressively plumped up.
Speaker 2: Oh the real like that that's really.
Speaker 3: The big boss.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty three, AP News called the competition quote
Speaker 4: Alaska's most watch popularity contest.
Speaker 3: So it started. They started this up back.
Speaker 2: In twenty is the reality TV I could watch, yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: Bears gaining masks exactly.
Speaker 3: So twenty fourteen. It starts up.
Speaker 4: Every year, it just gets more and more popular. Cat
Speaker 4: My park rangers they pick twelve bears out of all
Speaker 4: of them. They post two photos of the animals, one
Speaker 4: taken in mid July and the other one taken in
Speaker 4: early September.
Speaker 2: There are a baseline photos.
Speaker 3: Again, it's like a before and after.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty two, Fat Bear Week was rocked by scandal.
Speaker 6: How how one of the bears was cheating Organs.
Speaker 2: Bear performance enhancing salmon.
Speaker 3: The ballot had been stuffed, the ballot box.
Speaker 2: Stuffed like the bears wait salmon.
Speaker 3: In favor of a brown bear called Holly.
Speaker 2: Oh the voters, of course, the humans are the cheerers. Ar.
Speaker 4: So Holly's government name is Bear four thirty five, and
Speaker 4: she was dusting Bear seven forty seven the semi finals seven.
Speaker 4: But the numbers seemed hinky to the park ranger.
Speaker 2: It was homegirls the first numbers seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it turns out Holly four thirty five she
Speaker 4: jumped ahead in the in the votes because nine thousand
Speaker 4: votes came in like pretty much all at the same
Speaker 4: time for her, Candice Rush of Explorer dot org. She
Speaker 4: told NPR quote, while not unheard of, it is very
Speaker 4: uncommon for a bear to come back late in the
Speaker 4: day like that. We ended up finding just over nine
Speaker 4: thousand spam votes.
Speaker 3: Wow, so someone just used.
Speaker 4: Bots right the park. The National Park tweeted quote, like
Speaker 4: bears stuffed their face with fish. Our ballot box too, has.
Speaker 2: Been stuff they practiced that.
Speaker 3: Sort of delighted with it. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Quote They're gonna put that on a tote bag.
Speaker 4: It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear
Speaker 4: Week poll. But fortunately it is easy for us to
Speaker 4: tell which votes are fraudulent. We have discard did the
Speaker 4: fake votes, and today's official totals are for seven forty
Speaker 4: seven thirty two thousand, nine hundred and forty votes for
Speaker 4: four thirty five thirty thousand, four hundred and thirty votes. Okay,
Speaker 4: so she lost by like, you know, seven thousand.
Speaker 2: That was a final vote.
Speaker 4: No, not for the for the semi final, that's for
Speaker 4: the semi finals. So the organizers they have a slack
Speaker 4: channel that they used to discuss the event. This is
Speaker 4: like a chat function basically. So the messages were released
Speaker 4: by the National Park Service under a Freedom of Information Act.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we haven't quit on them totally.
Speaker 4: Quote maybe we shouldn't call a vote tonight. I mean,
Speaker 4: we can't really honor the cheating. This is the discussion
Speaker 4: going on on the slack channel. When the numbers showed
Speaker 4: that seven forty seven had like whooped hollieh. The organizers
Speaker 4: are amazed. Quote damn, that is a wide margin, wider
Speaker 4: than seven forty seven's rear.
Speaker 3: This is this is in the slack that they're just.
Speaker 4: Completely amber Craft, who is the interpretation and Education program
Speaker 4: manager at CATMAI. She wrote, quote if we say that
Speaker 4: it was spammed, will that be what reporters are asking
Speaker 4: about instead of staying on the interpretive message.
Speaker 2: Oh, She's like, let's stay on message.
Speaker 3: People like it's all about the bears.
Speaker 6: Guys, come on, let's talk about big bears, the juicy
Speaker 6: booties she was afraid of happened CNN, Jezebel, Rolling Stone,
Speaker 6: Bloomberg News, ABC News, NPR.
Speaker 4: They all reach out as they want to talk about,
Speaker 4: you know, the chakinery so craft. She wants to keep
Speaker 4: things on message, so she released the following statement quote.
Speaker 4: The important thing to remember, however, is that despite which
Speaker 4: bear wins the most votes in the Fat Bear Week competition,
Speaker 4: they are all winners. Bears get fat to survive, and
Speaker 4: the health of Catmai's ecosystem, as demonstrated by the sustained
Speaker 4: run of salmon, clean water, and thriving flora and fauna,
Speaker 4: enables their survival. So everyone's like, this is such a
Speaker 4: funny story, and she's.
Speaker 2: Like, let me throw a blanket on all the fun.
Speaker 3: So why why would someone do this?
Speaker 2: I'd like to talk about a healthy ecology? Can we
Speaker 2: talk from all?
Speaker 4: I'm glad she kept it up beat too, So why
Speaker 4: why would someone do.
Speaker 2: This because they love a thick bear?
Speaker 4: Well, one of the staffers thought, quote in the slack,
Speaker 4: what's this out there? Is it mean of me to
Speaker 4: wish the spammer had a lot of money? Writing on
Speaker 4: four thirty five?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's bear betting. I don't know, Like
Speaker 2: you go into an Irish pub and you can bet
Speaker 2: on a like I don't know, I.
Speaker 3: Bet you you could see they will be anything up less. Quote. Well, y'all, you've.
Speaker 4: Made it the weird corners of the internet tried to
Speaker 4: rig the election. That's another Slack quote, and it was.
Speaker 3: It's a big election.
Speaker 4: The entire contest pulls in more than a million votes.
Speaker 2: Okay? Is that a million unique votes?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. Okay, but come on, make it
Speaker 3: sound impressive.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm just wondering.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 4: As long as we find a way to bring it
Speaker 4: back to the bears, I'm going to count it as
Speaker 4: a win.
Speaker 3: You want, Slack user, have you ever voted in this?
Speaker 3: Of course I haven't.
Speaker 2: Do you vote every day?
Speaker 3: I don't remember you. Would you vote this last time?
Speaker 2: Okay? Now, would you want to go and like vote
Speaker 2: multiple times?
Speaker 4: You don't vote multiple times, like for each round, I'll
Speaker 4: vote one for the semi finals.
Speaker 2: You know, for bracket you're not going through your various
Speaker 2: online personas like I also want to. I'll go this
Speaker 2: way through I use my work account.
Speaker 4: And then just wondering, Well, so they uncover all this
Speaker 4: ballot stuffing, and then the organizers they reviewed the other
Speaker 4: matches for possible signs of tampering. Sure, and like a
Speaker 4: dominion voting machine audit. It was discovered that the outcomes were.
Speaker 3: On the up and up.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, So that meant that Otis and Chunk who
Speaker 4: were ousted midway through the contest, they lost on their
Speaker 4: own merit or lack their own. And going forward, the
Speaker 4: competition now includes a CAPSHA test to prevent bought interference.
Speaker 4: So you have to be able to tell the computer
Speaker 4: like where the stop which pictures have a stop light?
Speaker 3: Or motorcycle crosswalk as a human, I can tell you
Speaker 3: that's not easy.
Speaker 2: Like I can't tell I like that fat bears and
Speaker 2: like shoe beasts have to go through the same thing.
Speaker 2: We need to get rid of the bots because they're
Speaker 2: ruining it for everybody exactly.
Speaker 4: So, like you know, back to the competition. Voters have
Speaker 4: more than just the before and after pictures to help
Speaker 4: in their decisions.
Speaker 2: They have centerfolds like bear fans only bears.
Speaker 3: No, they give little bios.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 4: Holly was first identified by park officials in two thousand
Speaker 4: and one, and her coat is described as quote toasted
Speaker 4: marshmallow in color.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: She's raised several loaders of kids. She's a hardworking mom.
Speaker 2: Toasted marshmallow is an interesting choice because there's a broad spector.
Speaker 2: It's a broad spectrum, and to me, toasted marshmallow is
Speaker 2: closer to the black end because I liked it. Things burnt, right,
Speaker 2: I do like I imagine to you it's more like
Speaker 2: the coffee, and it's like, oh, I put a little
Speaker 2: coffee cream in my coffee. So for both of these,
Speaker 2: you can't picture.
Speaker 4: She's sort of blondeared to her ears. She's uniform color
Speaker 4: like her ears are a little bit lighter.
Speaker 2: The former house painter in me is getting upset the
Speaker 2: non specific use of color. Sorry, I will all back down.
Speaker 4: She's a hard working mom. She is such a hard
Speaker 4: working mom. In twenty fourteen, she took on an orphan
Speaker 4: cub and raised.
Speaker 2: Oh, single mom with an orphan cast.
Speaker 3: She deserves to win. Oh, she's a champion. She did win.
Speaker 4: She'd won a fat bear week twenty nineteen, and that
Speaker 4: one she won.
Speaker 3: Fair and square.
Speaker 2: She's a thick queen. That year she was.
Speaker 4: Bear seven forty seven. She's a real battye bear of
Speaker 4: seven forty seven. He doesn't have a street name, oh,
Speaker 4: or a river name. I guess she would say, you
Speaker 4: just call him Mike. He's just seven forty seven, like
Speaker 4: a Travolta hobby.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that is his.
Speaker 3: Number, forty seven.
Speaker 2: They didnt give him a little theydn't get like a
Speaker 2: little holly And okay, what's he like? Well you should
Speaker 2: call him Sully because.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you need to get a job up there.
Speaker 3: You'd fit right in.
Speaker 2: I want to do that in name paints. These are
Speaker 2: the things I want his jobs getting.
Speaker 3: Bears names Sully Sully forty seven.
Speaker 4: And he's a quote skilled in a angler who is
Speaker 4: found fishing most often in the jacuzzi or near the
Speaker 4: far pool of Brooks Falls fishing. He's the most dominant
Speaker 4: bear and he was the twenty twenty Fat Bear Week champion.
Speaker 3: Do you know how much he weighs?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Eighteen hundred pounds.
Speaker 4: Fourteen hundred pounds. He's one of the largest brown bears
Speaker 4: on earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was ad thrown off because of grizzlies. I
Speaker 2: know better. So my numbers are off.
Speaker 4: So there's the voting scandal. There was a recount the
Speaker 4: eliminated hanging chads when the dust settled seven forty seven.
Speaker 2: The name of Bear Gore and another one. Just let
Speaker 2: it have fun, let it let it run, Let's do
Speaker 2: a classic come on guys throwbacks.
Speaker 3: So seven.
Speaker 4: Yes, he won the semi finals. He still had to
Speaker 4: go to the final, of course. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 4: there that he faced bear nine oh one O one
Speaker 4: a quote medium small yet quickly growing adult female.
Speaker 2: Oh aler, not a shower.
Speaker 3: She's a young gu six and a half years old.
Speaker 3: They live to be about twenty five years old.
Speaker 4: I was wondering, yaw five and so nine oh one
Speaker 4: maybe you know young. But she's like down to knock
Speaker 4: a few buck if someone comes and tries to get
Speaker 4: into her fishing spot.
Speaker 3: Okay, she's super defensive. She's like locals only in her
Speaker 3: little fishing get out the Way movie. Yeah, so he
Speaker 3: you know, uh, seven forty seven took it.
Speaker 4: But like, let's keep our eyes on that upstart nine
Speaker 4: oh one oh yeah, over the coming years, and remember
Speaker 4: vote early enough.
Speaker 2: She's got a lot of competitive years up coming.
Speaker 3: Yes, let's take a break.
Speaker 4: Okay, when we come back, we're going to dance on
Speaker 4: into another competition scandal.
Speaker 3: Zarin, Hi, welcome back to the competition. Dojo.
Speaker 2: Oh, I like what you're done with this place. What
Speaker 2: color is that?
Speaker 3: That orange safety because it's toasted marshmallows.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's interesting color for the ceiling.
Speaker 3: We heard about Fat Bear Week the most wonderful time
Speaker 3: of the year.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pay attention next time.
Speaker 4: And like bears frolicking at the Tay Bears Picnic, we
Speaker 4: now kick and leap into a new scandal landscape.
Speaker 3: Irish dancing.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, what the Michael Flatley's going on?
Speaker 3: It's fantastic.
Speaker 4: I like when you see grown women like get tipsy
Speaker 4: and break out into Irish dance with their pals in
Speaker 4: the middle of the street, like outside of Barn Sanfrances.
Speaker 3: Now we've seen it. It's delightful.
Speaker 2: Yeah we're talking like top half doesn't move bottom tornado. Okay,
Speaker 2: craziest technique.
Speaker 3: So good.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: And like the little girls who do Irish dancing have
Speaker 4: major wig action. By the way, have you seen it all?
Speaker 4: Like little ringlets? I am loving that for them?
Speaker 2: About it?
Speaker 3: So Irish dancing.
Speaker 4: It started out in parish halls and the Scottish equivalent
Speaker 4: is the kaylee and that's super fun.
Speaker 3: Let's say drums and jump in.
Speaker 2: This starts like the daughter of drunks would get changed
Speaker 2: thrown at their feet kind of dancing.
Speaker 4: Probably children of drunk dancing around like you know, love
Speaker 4: folk music and like any activity, though, people want to
Speaker 4: turn it into a competition of course, so you're not
Speaker 4: just all getting out there and having a good time
Speaker 4: dancing a better dancer. It's especially popular with what I
Speaker 4: will kindly refer to as the Irish diaspora, like Americans
Speaker 4: who claim Irish ancestry in an aggressive way. The Massachusetts
Speaker 4: what I like to unkind they like to unkindly refer
Speaker 4: to as leprechaun Irish. You know, it's like houses full
Speaker 4: of shamrocks and stuff like that, not tattoo.
Speaker 2: You're talking about your own people. I get it listening.
Speaker 4: Your grandpa's are a great grandposer from Ireland this now,
Speaker 4: but we get to this generation.
Speaker 2: A lot of nice cozy sweaters and.
Speaker 4: So you know, yeah, there's like Irish this is huge
Speaker 4: in that community, but also there are folks with like
Speaker 4: no Irish ancestry who get into it. It's a global phenomenon.
Speaker 4: It's what I'm trying to tell.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: Anyway, there's a governing body for Irish dance called a commission,
Speaker 4: the Rinki Gualaca. I'm saying that completely wrong. It's the
Speaker 4: CLRG or the Irish Dancing Commission.
Speaker 3: You sound like CLARG.
Speaker 4: So it was established in nineteen thirty and it has
Speaker 4: members on five continents and I don't know what two
Speaker 4: are left out, but I'm guessing it's Antarctica or.
Speaker 2: Africa probably those are the candidates. Who knows, could be Australia.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're just like we don't deal with.
Speaker 3: They could be Europe.
Speaker 2: Oh, could be Europe. That would be wild. It's like.
Speaker 3: So CLRG.
Speaker 4: They oversee international dance tournaments called Seshiona and they hold
Speaker 4: these qualifying competitions in the US, UK, Australia, so I
Speaker 4: guess we have our cons there. They organized Ireland's regional
Speaker 4: and national championships as well as the World Irish Dancing Championships.
Speaker 2: I was a two time champion. I know in April of.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty two they had that in Belfast. Thirty five
Speaker 4: hundred dancers showed up for this, so that's April.
Speaker 3: Of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: We were so nervous, I know you were.
Speaker 3: In October of twenty twenty two all hell broke loose.
Speaker 2: Yes, I wasn't there that year. I quit did an ankle.
Speaker 4: Because like okay, as you well know, because you're a
Speaker 4: famous Irish treat the dance competitions are judged by dance teachers,
Speaker 4: which makes sense, but apparently those dance teachers are easily
Speaker 4: influenced and easily bought. They're thirsty, they're dark, and totally
Speaker 4: they'd been like whispers of bribes, favors that they would
Speaker 4: do and then grants.
Speaker 3: Someone stepped up.
Speaker 4: An anonymous whistleblower steps up, hands off to the CLRG
Speaker 4: Proof of cheating during the summer of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Hard proof.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty much all text messages like stream shots.
Speaker 4: So the dossier provided to c LRG contained text messages
Speaker 4: that talked about like how the dance instructors are trying
Speaker 4: to like lock in high scores for the students from
Speaker 4: these other teachers. There were even offers of sexual favors
Speaker 4: between a judge and a teacher.
Speaker 3: In exchange for a high score. Wow, I want to
Speaker 3: hear it.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course, I do you know who I am?
Speaker 4: A judge wrote to a teacher, quote I didn't wax
Speaker 4: for no reason, followed by laughing emojis, and then quote
Speaker 4: half an hour's up.
Speaker 2: Wait what, I don't know what's happened?
Speaker 3: I don't know, So then the teacher answers shave now.
Speaker 2: And is that is that like a clock thing that
Speaker 2: kept pointing down half an hour?
Speaker 4: The judge replies, quote, that was all done before I
Speaker 4: got here, duh, And then he adds, quote no visit No.
Speaker 4: One hundreds and two winking laughing emojis.
Speaker 2: I love that. Now our evidence has emojic w emojis
Speaker 2: is part of and then winking emoji winking emoji.
Speaker 3: Teacher replies to no visit No.
Speaker 4: One hundreds quote, oh God, babe, put the a's in
Speaker 4: the air. I promise I will be there.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And all this with an Irish accent, which you got
Speaker 2: to imagine that as well.
Speaker 4: In a less raunchy text exchange, a teacher sends all
Speaker 4: his students competitor numbers to a judge and then tells
Speaker 4: the judge where he hopes each dancer is going to
Speaker 4: land in the results. Oh, and the teacher says, thanks
Speaker 4: a million for anything you can do to help. So
Speaker 4: he's like, here all my students go, and how does
Speaker 4: the judge reply? Smiley face emoji is a reply.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: Later the teacher asks who's going to be judging one
Speaker 4: of his competitors in an upcoming competition, and he gets
Speaker 4: the list and he replies, holy duck, that's haunted by spelcheck.
Speaker 4: That is the panel from hell. So I guess he's
Speaker 4: spilled it right that time. And then he added quote,
Speaker 4: I actually want to puke.
Speaker 2: I do too, me three I thought I wanted to hear.
Speaker 3: You get what you asked for.
Speaker 4: Then the teacher writes later to the judge, quote begging
Speaker 4: if you were on and with a competitor's name, to
Speaker 4: do what you can xx, so.
Speaker 2: Like fix it, please make it happen.
Speaker 4: The judge replies, not a problem, they're just outright. A
Speaker 4: teacher on another one says she would quote really appreciate
Speaker 4: a hand with my good you eighteen, which is under eighteen,
Speaker 4: and the judge goes, absolutely, not a problem.
Speaker 2: I'd like a hand with my under eighteen.
Speaker 4: Then the teacher thanks him, oh xxx, thank you. Another one,
Speaker 4: like the teacher, says she has a dancer competing soon.
Speaker 4: Appreciate anything you can do, she says. Judge gives a
Speaker 4: thumbs up emoji, and then the teacher responds with like
Speaker 4: a kiss in a wink, it's just emoji's all over
Speaker 4: a cupcake. Uh there's A teacher writes to a judge
Speaker 4: saying she doesn't have her student's competitor numbers, but she
Speaker 4: does have their names and like pictures of them in
Speaker 4: their full costumes.
Speaker 2: These are kids, by the way, is that for the
Speaker 2: judge be able to recognize you.
Speaker 3: Yea, because they like, don't.
Speaker 2: Hit man, but you just don't do a judge exactly
Speaker 2: how this is.
Speaker 4: So she's like, here are all the pictures of the
Speaker 4: kids that I want to win all the competitions. The
Speaker 4: judge replies with a smiley winking emoji.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and maybe they feel like if they don't
Speaker 3: say it out.
Speaker 2: Right, that's what is legally binding because it was an
Speaker 2: emoji exactly.
Speaker 3: There's no court definition of this emoji.
Speaker 4: So a bunch of the parents and the dance instructors
Speaker 4: they told the Irish Independent newspaper that the competitive Irish dance.
Speaker 3: Community is like the mafia.
Speaker 4: Resident There was an American teacher who said that she
Speaker 4: was afraid to ask one of the crooked judges for
Speaker 4: just like the slightest thing quote because once you do,
Speaker 4: you're indebted to them for life.
Speaker 2: It's like the Godfather, I think the human beings. At
Speaker 2: this point, we have three analogies. Either something is like Hitler,
Speaker 2: slavery or the mafia or Harry Potter, like this is
Speaker 2: the worst thing.
Speaker 3: This isn't It's exactly we need, We need to read more.
Speaker 4: So the CLRG said in a statement in July the
Speaker 4: next year that had received the dossier and that they'd
Speaker 4: appointed a former appeals court judge to investigate, and the
Speaker 4: judge was given full access.
Speaker 2: To all of their records and all the emojis.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they made a statement quote, the process will no
Speaker 4: doubt be difficult and arduous, but this grossly unethical behavior
Speaker 4: must be eliminated from our competitions, dance schools, and governing organizations.
Speaker 2: We got Irish Dance to say.
Speaker 4: Now this is unethical. The Irish dancing message boards were
Speaker 4: on fire, y'all. People were calling for protests and events.
Speaker 4: They wanted CLRG to to like, yank the teachers and
Speaker 4: judges that were named in the text.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you need a whole new crew.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They wanted them absolutely, like you're out of here.
Speaker 2: You can't ban from the sport or whatever.
Speaker 3: Sondra Konnik, who's chairwoman of the CLRG.
Speaker 2: Oh, Sandy Conic, Yeah, yeah, she didn't know.
Speaker 3: She said she didn't know about all the fixing. Quote.
Speaker 3: I can honestly say.
Speaker 4: I wasn't aware, but it is very disappointing when you
Speaker 4: have something like that happen. You have to stamp it
Speaker 4: out immediately. It's not just acceptable, it won't be tolerated.
Speaker 2: As a former two time champion of Irish dance, I
Speaker 2: completely agree, you know, respect what we did.
Speaker 3: I know she was a dance teacher herself.
Speaker 2: Also, you don't have to stamp it out. Otherwise people go, oh,
Speaker 2: it's okay, this is your.
Speaker 4: Stamp it hey, hey, just like the dancing She was
Speaker 4: originally from Cork by the way.
Speaker 2: She moved Great County.
Speaker 3: She moved to the United.
Speaker 4: States thirty years ago and then set up the dance school.
Speaker 4: So anyway, there were disciplinary hearings within the organization. Forty
Speaker 4: four people were up against it. Quote this is what
Speaker 4: Saunders said. All forty four will have their day in court.
Speaker 4: The Commission is adamant that we're going to hear each
Speaker 4: and every one of these and the respondents.
Speaker 3: Have the right to be heard.
Speaker 4: She's trying to be fair for the dance fanatics that
Speaker 4: were found guilty, she said, quote, we're looking to punish
Speaker 4: them if punishment is due, or if there's no punishment.
Speaker 4: They're found not guilty, then just move on in the
Speaker 4: normal manner.
Speaker 2: Now, this is not a criminal proceeding. This is just
Speaker 2: like a cord of dance is doing this.
Speaker 3: Taking it to court.
Speaker 2: So hold on.
Speaker 4: So punishments, yes, right, I have to tell you. The
Speaker 4: punishments are kind of light, like they're not going to
Speaker 4: get whipped with the laces of the dancing shoes, not
Speaker 4: going to get If it's really bad, the purp has
Speaker 4: to step down from their position.
Speaker 3: Immediately on one, two, five, six seven.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't be able to run for office with the
Speaker 4: c LRG. Oh no, And they might get a fine.
Speaker 2: No, one's getting like knuckles broken.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: No, for smaller offenses, they might get written up and
Speaker 4: it would go in their permanent record.
Speaker 2: If this was ballet, there'd be corporal punishment. People would
Speaker 2: be getting hit with s.
Speaker 4: No, they're just going to get a and then they
Speaker 4: go ooh but teachers, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: They're rough nuns.
Speaker 3: So this thing, this didn't just taint the organization's reputation. No,
Speaker 3: I bet not hit them in the pocketbook, is what it.
Speaker 4: Oh, of course, so they were like all these crazy
Speaker 4: legal costs. People were dropping out of event event canceling.
Speaker 3: It added up to a million euro loss for them,
Speaker 3: is like, don't call us a million. They lost a million.
Speaker 4: That's like half of their membership funds. In comparison, the
Speaker 4: year before twenty twenty one they had a forty one
Speaker 4: euro surplus, which you know, it's not a whole lot,
Speaker 4: but they were they're, you know, doing really well before.
Speaker 4: One of the cases actually made it out of their
Speaker 4: internal investigations and was adjudicated in the High Court. Amanda Henigan.
Speaker 4: She was a judge who also runs an Irish dancing
Speaker 4: school in the UK. She took a case after she
Speaker 4: was suspended while the disciplinary hearings proceeded, and then the
Speaker 4: court lifted her suspension, but it ruled that CLRG could
Speaker 4: with their hearings and she denied that she had anything
Speaker 4: to do with it. She said quote no favoritism was
Speaker 4: sought or provided. When she was talking about all her
Speaker 4: text messages. She was a judge at the twenty nineteen
Speaker 4: All Ireland Championships.
Speaker 2: And they equally went after teachers and judge.
Speaker 3: Both sides of it.
Speaker 4: And she had texted appreciate anything you can do, and
Speaker 4: she was like, that's not I'm not trying to get
Speaker 4: it fixed. I'm just appreciative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: CLRG lifted everyone's suspension and said continuing to fight the
Speaker 4: legal challenges would put them in a severe financial difficulty.
Speaker 4: So it was just was costing them too much money,
Speaker 4: so they gave up.
Speaker 2: We'd rather have the rumors of improprieting corruption because at
Speaker 2: least those were still a going back, And.
Speaker 4: They did make some changes to try and eliminate funny
Speaker 4: business in the future. Just like pub trivia, judges can't
Speaker 4: use their phones or other electronics throughout the day of judging, okay,
Speaker 4: And they don't have access to competitor phone numbers until
Speaker 4: right before the competition, okay. And they also.
Speaker 3: Change the way that the judging works.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 4: Typically at large competitions, you'll have three judges. We've put
Speaker 4: in five judges. Now we drop the highest score in
Speaker 4: case someone gets a really off the cuff mark. We
Speaker 4: dropped the lowest score in case somebody felt they were
Speaker 4: being penalized severely. We take the three in the middle,
Speaker 4: which gives a fairer playing field.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 4: I recognize the hurt that was caused to every teacher
Speaker 4: out there, including myself. When you send your children. They
Speaker 4: have invested so much of their time in their parents' time.
Speaker 4: For them to find out this was going on, that's devastating.
Speaker 3: That's the head of the place.
Speaker 4: What blows me away is that this is pretty much
Speaker 4: adults using kids to fulfill their desire for competitions.
Speaker 2: Sounds like everything I know about adults.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's like pageants, soccer.
Speaker 2: Leads, soccer, youth football, youth baseball.
Speaker 3: Everyone takes a two.
Speaker 2: I can keep going.
Speaker 3: Let's take a break.
Speaker 4: I need to listen to some ads, and you need
Speaker 4: to answer all those texts you got from your Irish student.
Speaker 2: Me and Joe Biden are not looking good. They're telling us, hey,
Speaker 2: don't call us, We'll.
Speaker 7: Be back in a flash.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hi, how you doing good?
Speaker 3: Good good. I'm getting ready to fight the real enemy
Speaker 3: over here.
Speaker 2: Look at you. Bring it back.
Speaker 4: We've had cheating in competitions, you know, like stuff in
Speaker 4: a fat bear ballot box, bribing a judge with you know,
Speaker 4: saucy offers. I cheated in act too, Yeah, exactly, But
Speaker 4: either way, people had their hand on the scale. The
Speaker 4: next group of no good nicks I want to tell
Speaker 4: you about did it kind of literally their hand on
Speaker 4: the scale. I'm talking about fishing competition.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: I have a good friend who's pretty much like my
Speaker 4: brother Pappy. He's honestly the best. I love him to death.
Speaker 4: Great nickname pay Yeah, and he's my brother.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 4: He used to do those fishing tournament things where he
Speaker 4: had to like catch one of each of these fish
Speaker 4: on a long list, and he'd be like down in
Speaker 4: the Gulf of California, like off the Mendocino Coast, cruising
Speaker 4: around like a boat or a kayak, I don't know,
Speaker 4: checking off his catches. I loved hearing about it. It was
Speaker 4: super cool and it was like this huge broad range.
Speaker 4: You have a friend who's really into fishing, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, My buddy Chris, he is an excellent fisherman, and
Speaker 2: we used to every morning we were house spanners together.
Speaker 2: We would go and fishing creeks and everything, and we
Speaker 2: take this john boat everywhere and he is an absolute
Speaker 2: menace on fish. Sometimes we would go and catch thirty fish.
Speaker 2: We go it to a hole and I don't know
Speaker 2: why I don't fish so well with other people, but
Speaker 2: he is a beast. He's Serbian. They're really good fishermen, right,
Speaker 2: So traditionally go a lot of culture, a lot of rivers,
Speaker 2: a lot of Yeah. So he taught me a ton
Speaker 2: about how to fish out here. Because I know deep
Speaker 2: sea fishing and East coast fishing, I didn't know the
Speaker 2: lakes and rivers you're used to.
Speaker 4: That's the thing is that, Like, that's what I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be talking about, is like when you're pulling it, just
Speaker 4: a ton of fish out of a lake or a river.
Speaker 4: These fishing tournaments, right, yeah, you're like glistening rods, night reels,
Speaker 4: fancy boats.
Speaker 3: YETI coolers.
Speaker 2: Yes, everywhere he goes us up on an Eagle lake.
Speaker 2: People go out there and like they're waiting at whatever,
Speaker 2: like four thirty in the morning, they sound an announcement.
Speaker 2: Everyone goes tearing off to get to their hole.
Speaker 4: Well, they want to do it because they're like high
Speaker 4: dollar payouts.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 3: They can make a lot of money.
Speaker 4: It's like golf, you can make cass anywhere you have
Speaker 4: fancy boats.
Speaker 3: YETI coolers and high dollar payouts.
Speaker 4: You can have criminals and you and me and Chris
Speaker 4: and so flim flammers at fishing tournaments.
Speaker 3: Have been a problem for a while.
Speaker 4: I bet yeah, tournament cheating was rampant in local tournaments
Speaker 4: for just years in the sixties. There was a guy
Speaker 4: named Ray Scott and he came up with the bass
Speaker 4: tournament circuit and he figured that like all the trickery
Speaker 4: would be discouraged if they charged huge entry fees that
Speaker 4: only serious professionals could afford.
Speaker 2: Oh, interesting, it didn't help. That's not going to work.
Speaker 3: No, cheaters find a way they could.
Speaker 2: They could cooborate their money and go, we'll get one
Speaker 2: cheater in there.
Speaker 4: Well and if if it's worth it, the stakes anyway.
Speaker 4: So there was l Row McNeil in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 4: He tried to rig a fishing tournament in Texas and
Speaker 4: he had a pretty good con He went to Florida
Speaker 4: and he bought an enormous black bass, just massive, and
Speaker 4: he had this errated water tank fitted into his truck
Speaker 4: and then he drove the fish to his house in Louisiana.
Speaker 2: I think where you're going with this? Yeah.
Speaker 4: He picks up his co conspirator, his buddy, this angler
Speaker 4: named Terry Isam.
Speaker 3: Terry gets in the.
Speaker 2: Truck like Terry is like it's a religion, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a.
Speaker 4: Practitioner, I s a m Terry is is is We'll
Speaker 4: call it so Terry Terry. He had signed up to
Speaker 4: be in the road Runner Bass Tournament in Tyler, Texas.
Speaker 2: Oh, Tyler, Texas.
Speaker 3: Yes, so he and l Row, They Terry and l Row.
Speaker 4: They're in the truck with the tank in the back
Speaker 4: with a fish bobbing around in it. They get to
Speaker 4: the tournament. He you know, Terry's out there, you know he, oh,
Speaker 4: look at this thing, and he like, I guess I
Speaker 4: don't know that. He like stuck a hook into it
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh, you guys, and you.
Speaker 4: Know they it's just they made a ton of money.
Speaker 4: So l Row and all his buddies they're honing this con.
Speaker 4: They do it over and over and kidding, they did
Speaker 4: it way more than once, and they make a ton
Speaker 4: of money. He was able to scam three hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty thousand dollars from the Texas Bass Tournament circuit.
Speaker 3: Damn right. The judges got wise to.
Speaker 4: Him, though, and they eventually they called someone in to
Speaker 4: analyze the fish and they're like, this is not local.
Speaker 2: This is a local species.
Speaker 3: This is like, Nemo, get this out of here.
Speaker 2: This is a European fish totally.
Speaker 4: So in eighty five, nineteen eighty five, he and three
Speaker 4: anglers they got fines and five year prison sentences because
Speaker 4: and they pled guilty.
Speaker 2: Of course three fifty thousand fraud.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Im Terry, he's the government's star witness, which got
Speaker 4: him a lighter sentence in the lesser.
Speaker 2: Okay, he went snitched, Yeah.
Speaker 3: He snitched. But this isn't just an American problem, No,
Speaker 3: I bet not.
Speaker 4: Romania's national carp fishing team they were as crooked as
Speaker 4: they come, you star. They cheated their way to a
Speaker 4: win at the fourteenth World carp Angling Championships in twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: That was on their home waters. No really, it was
Speaker 4: held in Romania. The England national team thought something was fishy,
Speaker 4: so they lodged a formal complaint against the host Romanians
Speaker 4: because it turns out that like for months, the Romanians
Speaker 4: had been going down to like where they were going
Speaker 4: to go fishing and feeding the carp like a special
Speaker 4: local bait that would give them an advantage during the
Speaker 4: turn brilliant. And so they're just get this is the
Speaker 4: bait They're going to brilliant, fattening them up, and they're
Speaker 4: like creating a preference in the fish for their special baits.
Speaker 2: A little freaky fish treats and the Brits.
Speaker 3: The Brits use like a slurry of flour egg.
Speaker 4: And dog beans. No, it's like, you know, this is
Speaker 4: the English carp respond to flower egg and dog food kibble.
Speaker 4: It's you know, insert English cuisine joke. So the Romanian
Speaker 4: carp they're like, not about this, Like we have been
Speaker 4: eating delicacies and you want to give us this garbage
Speaker 4: where it's like a year ago they would have been like,
Speaker 4: sounds good to me, you know, keep spoon and pops.
Speaker 4: So that kind of baiting. It's not illegal, but it's unsportsmanlike.
Speaker 5: The fish apparently not okay, I guess the judge didn't
Speaker 5: think of it.
Speaker 4: Ian Huntington, team manager of the England carp team. He
Speaker 4: said their defeat was tough bait to swallow, so quote
Speaker 4: hard lessons have been learned and it has been a
Speaker 4: very difficult experience to pick the team and ourselves up
Speaker 4: after this event. It is obvious that any team fishing
Speaker 4: with the particular type of bait would do well and
Speaker 4: the rest would really struggle to get a bite. Within
Speaker 4: two hours of the match starting, we were asking ourselves
Speaker 4: questions about the bait.
Speaker 2: I understand that his team flounder. Is he going to
Speaker 2: keep carping about this?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, that was for you was so good. I felt
Speaker 3: that through my whole body. This is so good.
Speaker 4: So Romania they take first place in both team and
Speaker 4: individual categories. The Bulgarian, Siberian and Portuguese teams they were
Speaker 4: practicing at the same lake as the Romanians and they
Speaker 4: saw them in the lead up to it. They're like,
Speaker 4: what's you fishing with? And they're like, maybe a little
Speaker 4: bit of this, So they started using that same bait
Speaker 4: and that's why they came in second thirty four, right
Speaker 4: behind Romania. England came in eighteen. Well it wasn't just England,
Speaker 4: but South Africa and France came up empty two.
Speaker 3: How much fish did the Romanian team yank from the
Speaker 3: water in order to win the gold?
Speaker 2: How much? Elizabeth One report.
Speaker 3: Said one point seven tons of fish. That's just laying wasteed.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Speaking of England, they had a bass switcheroo, kind of
Speaker 4: like the one in Texas. Matthew Clark won Guernsey's twenty
Speaker 4: twelve Balwick Basque Club tournament. He pulled in a thirteen pound,
Speaker 4: thirteen ounce bass.
Speaker 2: Yea fish.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was three pounds bigger than the second place fish.
Speaker 3: Okay, and you know it's.
Speaker 4: Usually like a game of ounces pounds ridiculous. So the
Speaker 4: winner was announced, and then Clark and the second place fisherman,
Speaker 4: Shane Bentley, they posed for photos with their fish, you know,
Speaker 4: like when they're holding up the line or like you
Speaker 4: know how someone they cradle it in front of them
Speaker 4: like they just caught a newly birthed baby.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Speaker 2: Okay, So my friend Chris posted those pictures on Instagram
Speaker 2: cradling baby fish, right, so babyish.
Speaker 4: Bentley the second place He looks over at clark'sfish and
Speaker 4: he realizes.
Speaker 3: I've seen that before, but where I can't fish? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've seen I know that fish.
Speaker 2: I know that you know him.
Speaker 3: Where do I know him from?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: He recognized him from? The local Saint peter Port aquarium.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, he recognized aquarium.
Speaker 4: He said, he said, he tells the Express newspaper quote.
Speaker 4: It stood out because it had very distinct markings on
Speaker 4: its head. When the bass was lifted out of the
Speaker 4: tank for the photo, I thought, that's the fish from
Speaker 4: the aquarium. The next morning, I went to the aquarium.
Speaker 4: I looked in the tank, but I couldn't see the fish.
Speaker 4: Then the woman looked and she couldn't find the fish.
Speaker 4: So Clark scale the cliff. The winner, Scale the cliff,
Speaker 4: climbed a rope ladder and broke into the aquarium, and
Speaker 4: he told police that he was going to return the
Speaker 4: fish after the contest, but he dropped and injured it
Speaker 4: as he made his getaway. Quote he took it to
Speaker 4: a fish seller who didn't realize it was stolen and
Speaker 4: chopped it up. An aquarium spokesperson told The Express. All
Speaker 4: we got back was the head and tail. You know,
Speaker 4: I love animals more than anything, but for some reason,
Speaker 4: this is absolutely hysterical. So he got sentenced to one
Speaker 4: hundred hours of community service for that. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 4: then that brings us to the most infamous of fishing scandals. Okay,
Speaker 4: you know, like the Irish dancing Hullabluo. This one went
Speaker 4: down in twenty twenty two. Scan It's sort of what
Speaker 4: kicked off this whole episode idea, because we got a
Speaker 4: lot of recommendations for it, and I remember when I
Speaker 4: first saw the clip, I was like, oh, I gotta
Speaker 4: just show them this, So Jacob Runyon, age forty three,
Speaker 4: and Chase Kaminski, aged thirty six, two grown men who
Speaker 4: should know better.
Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, I recognize this tone.
Speaker 4: So the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Tournament in Cleveland is
Speaker 4: high stakes. Oh yeah, big, thirty thousand dollars on the lines.
Speaker 4: Er Oh yeah, it draws dozens of teams, big sponsors,
Speaker 4: and you can win not just cash, but like super
Speaker 4: snazzy fishing boats.
Speaker 3: You know, kind of like the glitter paint.
Speaker 4: So since this is fishing and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: money on the line, the organizers routinely subject winners to
Speaker 4: polygraph tests. Do you remember remember Erlo McNeil, right, the
Speaker 4: Texas guy. Uh he and his crew used to get
Speaker 4: around those polygraph tests by taking kludes.
Speaker 2: What yeah, where are they finding kluds?
Speaker 4: Well back in the day, oh of course, eighties, Yeah
Speaker 4: they still so run In and Kaminsky, you know, they
Speaker 4: had a bang up twenty twenty one season.
Speaker 2: And they're used like GHB to beat the test.
Speaker 4: Well, there's no kaludes anymore, so I know. But the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one they won more than three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: That came in in prizes.
Speaker 2: Impressive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they also lost some of that money when
Speaker 4: one of them failed a tournament's polygraph test of like
Speaker 4: you know, stockpiled luthes.
Speaker 2: So beta blockers. Oh god, I love.
Speaker 4: So they signed up for the tournament and they went
Speaker 4: out to catch the heaviest walleye and Lake Erie okay,
Speaker 4: and it seemed like they did. They pulled out four
Speaker 4: whoppers and they took the day. There is a viral
Speaker 4: video of the event, and it is amazing, of course.
Speaker 4: And since I can't show it, here's Sarin. I invite
Speaker 4: you to close you eyes.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I want you to picture.
Speaker 4: It's September thirtieth, twenty twenty two. The Ridiculous Crime Antarctica
Speaker 4: episode dropped yesterday and let me tell you you loved it.
Speaker 3: Who were you?
Speaker 4: Your name is Braden Lee Ryder. That's all one word,
Speaker 4: spider Man. You're a fictional attendee of the Lake Erie
Speaker 4: Walleye Trail Tournament. You aren't a fisherman. You just like
Speaker 4: their fashion and the smell of fish. So there you
Speaker 4: are on the shore of the lake with scores of
Speaker 4: other fish beans, all eager to take a look a
Speaker 4: winning catches. You heard their enormous.
Speaker 3: God, what a time to be alive.
Speaker 4: As men murmur and mumble around you, you watch Jacob
Speaker 4: Runyan and Chase Kamiski strut to the stage and accept
Speaker 4: their places first top Dogs, big Fish.
Speaker 3: Everyone hates them.
Speaker 4: They hoist two heavy walleye into the air, their oakley
Speaker 4: blade sunglasses reflecting the cloudy sky. They're under armour hoodies
Speaker 4: and blazoned with a mishmash of sponsor logos and the
Speaker 4: word Runyon Ranger on the back. This is their moment.
Speaker 4: And then the tournament director, Jason Fisher, I mean, can
Speaker 4: you are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: That is his real last name, Jason the Argonaut.
Speaker 4: Jason Fisher makes his move. Runyan and Kamisky. They put
Speaker 4: their catch into a milk crate. Fisher walks over, takes
Speaker 4: the crate away. He walks to the side of the
Speaker 4: stage and sets.
Speaker 3: The crate on the ground.
Speaker 4: After conferring with an associate, he lifts one of the
Speaker 4: fish from the crate and sets it on the asphalt.
Speaker 4: Runyon stands by, stone faced as Fisher takes a knife.
Speaker 3: From his potu. The crowd grows silent.
Speaker 4: Fisher stabs his blade into the side of the fish
Speaker 4: and draws it upward from the tail to the glassy
Speaker 4: dead eyes. He reaches into the guts of the walleye
Speaker 4: and pulls something out. It's a lead weight the size
Speaker 4: of a ping pong ball. The crowd irrupts. There is
Speaker 4: shouting for a freshwater sport. They share our using salting language.
Speaker 4: Saren Runyon stands there, silent, staring as fisher continues to
Speaker 4: slice open the winning catches, pulling out more weights and
Speaker 4: even fish filets.
Speaker 3: A filet of fish somebody else.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's likes just each fish, tons of weights coming
Speaker 4: out of it and fish filets. They shoved extra fish
Speaker 4: into the fish to win a boat.
Speaker 3: Call the cops.
Speaker 4: One guy yells he needs to go to jail. The
Speaker 4: man standing next to you, holding his phone and recording
Speaker 4: the whole thing, ask the question on everyone's mind.
Speaker 3: You got anything to say? Runyan does not.
Speaker 4: So the five weighted fish were confiscated. Runyan and his
Speaker 4: pal get kicked out, and he's just he's just standing
Speaker 4: there the whole time.
Speaker 2: I'm just taking it as.
Speaker 3: Everyone's yelling at him and swearing, and it's just like.
Speaker 2: Going there on a dock, right, or I could.
Speaker 4: Right exactly and So, by the way, if you want
Speaker 4: to watch the video, search Walleye Tournament Cheaters on YouTube
Speaker 4: and there's one posted by any oh Outdoors that's it's
Speaker 4: like uncut, it's it's raw tape. They don't even bleep
Speaker 4: out all the bad words. It's it's it's heavy.
Speaker 3: So a grand jury indicted the two on charges of cheating,
Speaker 3: attempted grand theft, and possessing criminal tools, and the charges
Speaker 3: are fifth degree felonies.
Speaker 2: Damn.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 4: I take all crime very seriously, and I believe what
Speaker 4: these two individuals attempted to do was not only dishonorable
Speaker 4: but also criminal. Prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley chimed in. The
Speaker 4: dudes also faced a misdemeanor count of unlawful ownership of
Speaker 4: wild an animals, and that's related to the raw fish
Speaker 4: filets that they allegedly have on their boat to shove
Speaker 4: into the fish they caught. They pleaded guilty to cheating
Speaker 4: and unlawful ownership of wild animals. They were sentenced to
Speaker 4: ten days in jail and a year and a half probation,
Speaker 4: and they each also had to pay twenty five hundred
Speaker 4: dollars fine.
Speaker 2: Damn.
Speaker 3: Both men had their fishing licenses suspended.
Speaker 2: For three years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maximum penalty allowed by law. Kaminski was also required
Speaker 4: to forfeit his boat worth one hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: Michael O'Malley, the prosecutor, said that the duo quote deserve
Speaker 4: to have their fishing license suspended for life. These two
Speaker 4: should be banned from every fishing tournament for life. They
Speaker 4: are thieves and now they are convicted felons.
Speaker 3: What is your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: Oh Man, I would have tried, and I have to
Speaker 2: admit this to pull off the answer of I don't
Speaker 2: know what these fish have been eating, and I would
Speaker 2: have tried for a long time to save and they
Speaker 2: would have been filming that. I would have regretted it
Speaker 2: later on, but I would have tried it.
Speaker 3: I think that's amazing and I think they should have done.
Speaker 2: What's your ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: That was really good.
Speaker 4: My ridiculous takeaway is everyone should try their hardest to
Speaker 4: not be competitive.
Speaker 2: Not be competitive.
Speaker 3: Don't be competitive.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be less competitive than you are.
Speaker 3: I'm more talking to myself.
Speaker 2: I bet I could be less competitive.
Speaker 3: Than it could be way more or less producer Dave.
Speaker 2: Take note of this. I'd like you to mark that
Speaker 2: I can be less competitive.
Speaker 3: That's all I have for today.
Speaker 4: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 4: We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 4: You can email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and
Speaker 4: no one will answer you. Leave us a talk back
Speaker 4: on the iHeart app reach out Biby. Ridiculous Crime is
Speaker 4: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited
Speaker 4: by Angler Dangler, Dave Cousten. Research is by Cutthroat Squared
Speaker 4: Answer Marissa and big Mouth Bass Resistance leader Andrea Song
Speaker 4: Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by Bear seven point
Speaker 4: thirty two Thomas Lee and Bear five.
Speaker 3: Ten Travis Dutton.
Speaker 4: Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Executive producers
Speaker 4: are Ben We Got a Live One Bowlin and Noel
Speaker 4: How is your catch already Battered? And Fried Brown.
Speaker 2: Dis Crime Say It One More Time, Geeks Cry.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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