Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton Zaren Burnette. Is so good to see you.
Speaker 3: I know where you been.
Speaker 2: How you been since the last time I say you.
Speaker 2: It's been a week now.
Speaker 3: It's really sorry to hear that it's been awesome.
Speaker 2: Oh good, Thank god it you're just messing with when.
Speaker 3: It's not good. You make it awesome.
Speaker 2: Oh look at you.
Speaker 3: Every day spent above ground is a good one.
Speaker 2: Turning broken eggs into lemonade.
Speaker 3: For totally so juicy.
Speaker 2: That makes anyway you what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: The helicopter outside the studio.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, they we've been listening to that air beater.
Speaker 3: I wonder if we should go outside and make sure
Speaker 3: that they're not like ante situation.
Speaker 2: No, I'm sure we're fine. We don't need to know anything.
Speaker 2: Ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 3: From what I want to wind up on our show.
Speaker 2: It comes right in live raid on Ridiculous Crime. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: I have something for you. If you got a second,
Speaker 2: sure you can just forget about the helicopter.
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 2: I want you to imagine one of the smartest men
Speaker 2: in the world I.
Speaker 3: Didn't get to do. What's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Are you actually haven't. Oh well, tell me what's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It all on the line here. Sure, it's a mashup,
Speaker 3: all right, so just.
Speaker 2: Calm down, okay, just over here.
Speaker 3: This may be one of the worst ones I've ever done.
Speaker 2: Really, you saved the best. Relax.
Speaker 3: That's why the helicopters areund drop that. So do you
Speaker 3: remember last year I talked to you about Ago Nog
Speaker 3: sip and cream? Yeah, so it's just like agogg.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately I do remember these things, like I wish I
Speaker 2: get to be like, no, I have no recollection.
Speaker 3: What's Ago and Tennessee's sugar Lands Distilling Company? Oh god,
Speaker 3: they got together, they're the ones who did Ago nog.
Speaker 3: Well they came up with a new sip and yeah
Speaker 3: it's a.
Speaker 2: New it couldn't be stopped.
Speaker 3: It's inspired by brunch. So it's a cream liqueur called
Speaker 3: Ago Brunch in a jar.
Speaker 2: That's funny.
Speaker 3: And it combines the flavors of buttered and toasted a
Speaker 3: gole waffles all right, savory bacon slices, sure, and a
Speaker 3: drizzle of maple syrup.
Speaker 2: That's all. No orange juice to make it at.
Speaker 3: Someone if some like Arizona State Sorority Girl goes like
Speaker 3: buck wild on a brunch and just cuts it loose
Speaker 3: and then doesn't feel so hot and runs down a
Speaker 3: hot sidewalk in flip flops and then falls down and
Speaker 3: barfs in a jar. That yeah, it's my guess. Here's
Speaker 3: their quote. Between the juggle of constantly changing schedules, household errands,
Speaker 3: family outings, or busy work days, it can often feel
Speaker 3: impossible for parents to find moments they can savor for themselves.
Speaker 2: I prefer the jiggle, the juggle. That's me.
Speaker 3: You're jingling baby, So Joe Boprez, this is the marketing
Speaker 3: director with Ago got you know, God bless them. So,
Speaker 3: then he continued Ago Brunch in a Jar makes it
Speaker 3: easy for parents to kick back when they're not caring
Speaker 3: for their little ones. So, whether parents want to punch
Speaker 3: up a weekend brunch on a Saturday or savor some
Speaker 3: of those classic brunch flavors during their downtime, this feel
Speaker 3: good Ago inspired liqueur is the perfect treat. So you
Speaker 3: just crack a jar, put a silly straw in it.
Speaker 3: You're waiting for the kids to come out of school,
Speaker 3: you're in the pickup line, you're just like pounding, just
Speaker 3: chugging so hard and then you figure I get pulled over.
Speaker 3: They think I've just been eating waffles.
Speaker 2: You can't spell Sunday with that.
Speaker 3: So it's available throughout the US. You can purchase it
Speaker 3: online in some states, and unlike Ego Nog, which only
Speaker 3: came out for the holiday season, remember around the year round. Baby,
Speaker 3: you gotta be twenty one and older, so no kids.
Speaker 3: But it's in a mason jar too, just like you
Speaker 3: hit rock Bottom. It's white and creamy. It's the perfect
Speaker 3: way drink white.
Speaker 2: Mason jar is glass, right, drink is white.
Speaker 3: It looks like mayonnaise.
Speaker 2: It looks like, yeah, you're just sipping on glue.
Speaker 3: Did you know something ago? Brunch in a jar is
Speaker 3: the perfect way to elevate weekend brunch, the fun cocktail
Speaker 3: or to enjoy classic brunch flavors during your well deserved
Speaker 3: me time in the evening.
Speaker 2: They don't know what the word perfect means.
Speaker 3: No, they don't. Here's the thing. Basically, they're saying parents
Speaker 3: who hate their children and love liquor drinking with some
Speaker 3: lego liquor, and that zaren is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That is certified.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, this was kind of like mustard Skittles.
Speaker 3: We got a lot of tips on. Yeah. I can't
Speaker 3: shout out everybody because it was just weird indentated.
Speaker 2: Can I just ask why do you people hate me? Yeah? Well, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I got one for you. If he got a second,
Speaker 2: I can do that. Okay, please, If you will, imagine
Speaker 2: one of the smartest men in the world. Yes, okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: this man, he too, as long as he is straight,
Speaker 2: can be felled by the power of the bikini. Yes. Now,
Speaker 2: take the case of Paul Frampton, one of the most
Speaker 2: brilliant mathematical physicists alive today. He risked it all to
Speaker 2: chase after a bikini model a lost it all. The
Speaker 2: spoiler alert turns out the bikini model was fake, but
Speaker 2: the kilos of cocaine that the world famous physics professor
Speaker 2: smuggled for her We're not wait. This is Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent to free and ridiculous. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's right, Elizabeth. Yes, I got a question for you,
Speaker 2: my friend. Yes, you know how I love physics.
Speaker 3: I do know that. Actually I've seen this should.
Speaker 2: Be scribbling and reading weird stuff. Right. Well, this cat
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you about. He's one of my
Speaker 2: favorite theoretical physicists working today. Oh, I've read his journal
Speaker 2: papers like I'm a fan of one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well he's got a lot of papers.
Speaker 3: Well no, I'm saying you like one of your favorite
Speaker 3: the You have like a list of like four of
Speaker 3: your three favorite theoretical.
Speaker 2: John Carlos Bays is definitely a favorite.
Speaker 4: Was your second.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to fall for this trap, Elizabeth my Man.
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton, Yeah all right, Peter, but yes, he also
Speaker 2: came alive for crime. He's proposed novel theories for dark matter.
Speaker 2: In his theory of dark matter, it would be attributable
Speaker 2: to primordial black holes. All words you love?
Speaker 3: Yum?
Speaker 2: Right, dark matter, primordial black holes.
Speaker 3: Yes, so much sense to me.
Speaker 2: He also this guy he created the chiral color model.
Speaker 3: You're kidding.
Speaker 2: Yes, he did the three three one model, which re
Speaker 2: expresses the standard model with a different algy day. He
Speaker 2: also has built models for matter antimatter asymmetry, and a
Speaker 2: binary tetrahedral group as a flavor symmetry speak English, Right,
Speaker 2: you love all this. He also, by the way, has
Speaker 2: calculated the rate of vacuum decay for the onuantum field theory,
Speaker 2: and he constructed a matrix to determine if forty two
Speaker 2: it's truly the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Speaker 2: Oh really, no, I through that last one in there
Speaker 2: just for you. Okay, So let's say. My point is
Speaker 2: this cat Paul Frampton, major heavy hitter in the world
Speaker 2: of theoretical physics. But these days, if you google him,
Speaker 2: that's no longer the first thing that pops up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Instead you'll see stories about the time he smuggled cocaine
Speaker 2: for a bikini model who never really existed. Now it
Speaker 2: sucks if you're a physics academic and an academic journal
Speaker 2: like the like Advancing Physics publishes a story with the
Speaker 2: headline unc physics professor is convicted of drug smuggling and
Speaker 2: Argentina and you're the professor because now everyone in physics
Speaker 2: is gonna read this story. There's nobody doesn't know this
Speaker 2: story in his field.
Speaker 3: Aren't those supposed to be like academic paper is not
Speaker 3: like a gossip rag?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, exactly. The physics world, like, hey, we
Speaker 2: got one for y'all. You got to put down your tee.
Speaker 2: This is gonna be good. Okay, Elizabeth, this cat, as
Speaker 2: I told you, he can calculate dark matter and the
Speaker 2: vacuum decay rate of imaginary quasi particles. I hate somehow
Speaker 2: he couldn't see an old fashioned long con right in
Speaker 2: front of him, even when it had been a right
Speaker 2: smack on the ego. Okay, this is what happens when
Speaker 2: a middle aged man thinks that Miss Bikini World is
Speaker 2: in love with him. Yeah. By the way, the Bikinian
Speaker 2: model in question, she is a real woman. She's not
Speaker 2: like an ai creation. Her name is Denise Mulaney. She
Speaker 2: is an internationally famous model, and uh, I want you
Speaker 2: to be able to imagine this person at the other
Speaker 2: end of his online communication. Elizabeth, this is Denise Mulani.
Speaker 3: Oh yikes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think most men would look at that and say
Speaker 3: like or aa, or you.
Speaker 2: Are they cartoons are cartoon wolves.
Speaker 3: I'll just be anyone attracted to women would be like
Speaker 3: Bazonga Zonga.
Speaker 2: Yes, she is very curvaceous. She was known for her.
Speaker 3: Come back.
Speaker 2: I like your cartoon wolf sexuality. Men are just reduced
Speaker 2: to like text ap and.
Speaker 3: Then I see a guy in like short shorts and.
Speaker 4: You're like, it's the leader hosen, that's what does it
Speaker 4: for you?
Speaker 2: You like the spender's in something meat. No, okay, we're
Speaker 2: learning a lot about Elizabeth today. Well, this theoretical physicist
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton, he could, as I said, fully, rationally, logically
Speaker 2: believe that this woman who I just showed you reached
Speaker 2: out to him, started texting with him, and she fell
Speaker 2: in love with him.
Speaker 3: Well, poor lady's bikini tops falling off on the beach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's got too much bothosom so hard for her. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this man has three degrees from Oxford, and yet he
Speaker 2: never questioned the logic of this. Yeah, this is this
Speaker 2: is a likely not surprise you. But as I was
Speaker 2: about to say, one former student they put it, quote,
Speaker 2: women came later in Paul's life.
Speaker 3: Oh well yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well I mean, but hey, women came later in my life,
Speaker 2: you know, ultimately, if you want to put it that way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I wasn't married in my twenties or thirties or any
Speaker 2: of that stuff. So I can relate to Paul right now,
Speaker 2: Like you could say the same thing. So like, I
Speaker 2: don't consider myself naive about women, but this guy, apparently
Speaker 2: he was.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, he's focusing on building his career and
Speaker 3: his brain. Sure, and the numbers.
Speaker 2: Well, there's more to it than that. Yeah, he's kind
Speaker 2: of her. I'll let hit people who know him better
Speaker 2: than I explain it. Before he met the fake Denise Malaney,
Speaker 2: he had been married. He got married at age fifty,
Speaker 2: and his wife was an age appropriate fifty two year
Speaker 2: old French woman. She called herself a physics groupie, so
Speaker 2: that was fun for them. She was smart, but she
Speaker 2: wasn't like you know, in Paul Frampton's league. Smart but
Speaker 2: she He's gonna vanishingly small number of people smart. But
Speaker 2: is what ex wife did say of their relationship quote.
Speaker 2: I couldn't completely follow everything Paul said because of the mathematics,
Speaker 2: of course, But either I could understand the words, or
Speaker 2: I could just listen to the music, the music of physics.
Speaker 3: You talk about physics exactly. I have no idea what
Speaker 3: you're saying.
Speaker 2: Numbers and stuff. I don't know. I love that for
Speaker 2: you. You seem to really get something out of this. Eventually,
Speaker 2: this music of physics was no longer able to bond
Speaker 2: husband and wife, and a divorce it happened. So his
Speaker 2: ex wife, Anne Marie. She she said that living with
Speaker 2: Paul it was difficult in her words, right, yeah, she
Speaker 2: intimated that it was a kin to being married to
Speaker 2: a three year old.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Yeah again, ladies, ladies, we all know about
Speaker 3: one marrying a three year old. We all been there.
Speaker 2: Count who has dated themselves at toddler so little a
Speaker 2: little while after they parted, but then sixty four year
Speaker 2: old theoretical physicists, he wanted to find a new wife,
Speaker 2: a new partner, because he didn't want to be by himself.
Speaker 2: He tasted love, he knew what it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's three years old.
Speaker 2: Exact one's got it dried. Someone's got to do tax reach.
Speaker 2: So he tells his friends and associates he's looking for
Speaker 2: someone news. He wants to find some lady who's in
Speaker 2: her quote prime birthing years, somewhere between the ages of
Speaker 2: eighteen and thirty five. Now keep in mind this is
Speaker 2: a sixty four year old. No, he didn't quite get
Speaker 2: into like the physiannomy what he once, but he did
Speaker 2: say he wanted, you know, like a birth and lady.
Speaker 2: You know, he wanted to not quote that was a
Speaker 2: direct quote, but he did say he was like, I
Speaker 2: want some under prime birthing years into the scientific Imagine
Speaker 2: a scientist saying sure, of course, but also keep in mind,
Speaker 2: this is a sixty four year old divorced man saying.
Speaker 3: This, and asaurus, oh totally totally now.
Speaker 2: His first attempt at finding new love was a rebound,
Speaker 2: so obviously, so he found a young Chinese woman. They
Speaker 2: met online, they exchanged emails. He planned to go see
Speaker 2: her in China. It worked out that he'd be in
Speaker 2: China for work and upcoming trips, right, so he'd be
Speaker 2: near where she lived. He's going to visit a colleague
Speaker 2: in China. They arranged to meet Chakra of all chakras, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Because I was not expecting this, the young Chinese woman
Speaker 2: who he'd been emailing with actually agreed to meet him,
Speaker 2: and she actually existed. Oh wow, I know, right right,
Speaker 2: But the two almost lovers they get together. They meet
Speaker 2: for an hour but sadly, Elizabeth update, no sparks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just didn't happen, just didn't click.
Speaker 2: So but luckily for old Paul. He then met the
Speaker 2: former two thousand and seven Miss Bikini World Denise Maulana.
Speaker 2: Either he met fake Denise Malania that he met, but
Speaker 2: as far as he was concerned he met Denise Mlani.
Speaker 2: Had to be fair, Denise Malani was a little older
Speaker 2: than what Paul Frampton was looking for and a partner. So,
Speaker 2: but he was willing to make an exception for the
Speaker 2: internationally famous bikini models.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, you know, she may not be out the window.
Speaker 2: She wasn't in her prime birthing years Elizabeth. So but
Speaker 2: he's like, and I think she's like in her late thirties.
Speaker 2: So Paul begins to tell his friends about his new
Speaker 2: online galpal, and he's like, you know, these guys all
Speaker 2: being like calculation obsessed, you know, chalkboard nerds and physicists.
Speaker 2: They have no idea who Denise Malani is so, or
Speaker 2: why she's famous anything, right, So Paul used to like
Speaker 2: to contantly tell them go look her up on the internet.
Speaker 3: Did he like print out her picture and put it
Speaker 3: in one of those binders where you can slide a
Speaker 3: picture in the front. He keeps all those calculations and
Speaker 3: the like who's that?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 3: Guys like, it's my gal pal, which is also you know,
Speaker 3: reproductive years, So chill.
Speaker 2: Out look at her. I mean, look at these prime
Speaker 2: fertile hips. Now. One friend did as Paul instructed them
Speaker 2: to do. He went home, he looked her up online
Speaker 2: and he saw who Denise Mulman he was. And then
Speaker 2: he went back the next day to Paul and he
Speaker 2: told his friend, you're out of your damn mind. And
Speaker 2: he said, and I quote, and I told him that
Speaker 2: you're not talking to the real girl. Why would a
Speaker 2: young woman like that be interested in an old guy
Speaker 2: like you. But he really believed that he had a
Speaker 2: pretty young woman who wanted to marry him. So it's
Speaker 2: not like Paul wasn't confronted with the truth. He was.
Speaker 2: It was shoved right up in his face and he
Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to ignore that. But you have
Speaker 2: to understand, this is the power of his mind. He's
Speaker 2: a genius, Elizabeth. He's also used to looking far past
Speaker 2: what was in front of him, instead preferring to chase
Speaker 2: after elusive things like dark matter or Denise Malani. So there,
Speaker 2: his ego was also something to contend with. So, as
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton himself told The New York Times, well have
Speaker 2: been accused of having a huge ego. Now, to his credit,
Speaker 2: his ego was largely earned. I have to give him that,
Speaker 2: you know, if one can earn an ego right. He
Speaker 2: started his life in hard scrabble England. He came from
Speaker 2: what he dubbed quite a lower middle class family. His
Speaker 2: mother pushed him to achieve and she would often brag
Speaker 2: of his grades and she would show them to the neighbor.
Speaker 2: It's like, look what my little Paul did. Did school? Right?
Speaker 2: He went off to Oxford eighteen, He gets a PhD.
Speaker 2: He goes to America. He gets a post doc at Princeton.
Speaker 2: He goes on to have this celebrated career theoretical physics.
Speaker 2: He writes a ton of papers. Now, his name may
Speaker 2: not be as famous outside of physics as say Stephen
Speaker 2: Hawking or Richard Feynman, or even somebody like Murray Gelman.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that one anyway. Murray Glman, he
Speaker 2: had eightieth birthday celebration and he's a Nobel laureate. He
Speaker 2: was a Murray Galmont. He came up with the the
Speaker 2: eightfold way. No, I'm not No, I don't I understand
Speaker 2: that people wouldn't be into the core model of physics.
Speaker 2: Who came up with got a good name for TV,
Speaker 2: don't he? So they're supposed to lionize this living giant
Speaker 2: of physics, right, and Paul Frampton decides to choose to
Speaker 2: talk about himself. At one point, he said he liked
Speaker 2: to think of himself as quote cleverer than Newton, Isaac Newton.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah. He was so taken with this line. He
Speaker 2: repeated it throughout his speech. It's supposed to be about
Speaker 2: the eightieth birthday of Marie Gellman, right, and he's exactly,
Speaker 2: He's better than fake Newton. And he keeps saying this
Speaker 2: like it's like a chorus for a pop song. He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm smarter, I'm cleverer than Newton. Right. He also mentioned
Speaker 2: his grades at Oxford, and he pointed out that he
Speaker 2: and Newton were in the top one percentile of intelligence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly the same metric. It would often come up later
Speaker 2: for Paul Frampton. When he was in prison and being
Speaker 2: interviewed by The New York Times, he gave the obvious
Speaker 2: reason for why he was behind bars being Denise Malani,
Speaker 2: and he said the quote, She's in the top one
Speaker 2: percentile of how women look. So apparently he was very
Speaker 2: preoccupied with the top one percentile. And you know, he
Speaker 2: said as much to Denise Bulani, or actually rather not
Speaker 2: Denise Malani, the one he was texting and chatting he read.
Speaker 3: He calculated the symmetry of face.
Speaker 2: Oh you just hang on, he told her. And I
Speaker 2: used the term lightly her, he said, quote, as these
Speaker 2: days tick by and I think about it a lot,
Speaker 2: the more I realize that we are the perfect couple
Speaker 2: in all respects, you know, just a physicist and a
Speaker 2: bikini model, perfect in all respects.
Speaker 3: He's not three years old, he's like thirteen, exactly.
Speaker 2: I like that he believes that he's in the top
Speaker 2: one percent of big brains. She's in the top one
Speaker 2: percent of big hotness, right, and that makes them a
Speaker 2: perfect couple. It's right there on paper calculations. Elizabeth. Admittedly,
Speaker 2: this is not where most of us think that life happens,
Speaker 2: but you know it does. Because Christy Brinkley married Billy Joel.
Speaker 2: This could happen Paul Frampton, you know he could get
Speaker 2: married to Denise Malani. Sure, I mean stranger. I liked it.
Speaker 2: I like his way of thinking, you know, I like
Speaker 2: that he Denise Malani and Isaac Newton are all elites
Speaker 2: and they are the top one percentile. I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: Denise Malanni got into the one percent club based on
Speaker 2: her bikini pics and her big breast, but her one
Speaker 2: percentiles just as important as Paul Frampton's one percent. He's
Speaker 2: invalidating himself with his own logic.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 2: I love it. Anyway. We'll be back after a little
Speaker 2: break and I'll get into where the cocaine comes into
Speaker 2: this story.
Speaker 3: Oh I can't wait.
Speaker 2: All right, Elizabeth, where worry?
Speaker 3: Uh cocaine?
Speaker 2: That's right, okay, and soon to be in Argentinian prison. First,
Speaker 2: let's get back to Paul Frampton. Yeah, Paul, my man,
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton. So he was working on how to connect
Speaker 2: the Higgs boson aka the god particle, with dark energy,
Speaker 2: so he could explain the rate of cosmic expansion aka
Speaker 2: the Hubble parameter, which shows the universes expanding at an
Speaker 2: accelerated rate.
Speaker 3: Is this part of the dark arts?
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much to you. Yes, energy The New York.
Speaker 3: Times people have dark energy, but they totally do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And some people are dark.
Speaker 3: Matter, and in space there's dark and yeah, exactly, that's
Speaker 3: what we're talking all these things. You know, I should
Speaker 3: start teaching physics.
Speaker 2: You probably could. Yeah, get a couple of books.
Speaker 3: You put on the desk and you let him know
Speaker 3: look I read these. If you guys are all full
Speaker 3: of dark energy, I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: Change your dark vibes. So New York Times they visited
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton, as I said, in his soon to be
Speaker 2: Argentine prison cell. Now I'm just jumping ahead because we
Speaker 2: know that he gets busted. I'd already told you that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So at the moment he was in prison, he was
Speaker 2: hoping that the President of Harvard would slip a note
Speaker 2: to the President of Argentina, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner. And
Speaker 2: he was like, you know, while the presidente was visiting Harvard,
Speaker 2: maybe the president could just give the note tour on
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton's behalf. Now this is what he'd heard somebody
Speaker 2: say could happen. He didn't wait, So the President of
Speaker 2: Harvard didn't tell him she was going to do this.
Speaker 3: And he wants to slip a note to the President
Speaker 3: of arg.
Speaker 2: To get him out of jail. And he was believing
Speaker 2: that this is just what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: So New York Times, wait, wait, wait, wait to get
Speaker 3: him out.
Speaker 2: Of out of prison. He was He's in prison at
Speaker 2: this point of the story, right right, because of the
Speaker 2: cocaine I'm going to get into that. I'm just telling you.
Speaker 2: I'm starting. I'm jumping around like Tarantino.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I'm like totally lost.
Speaker 2: Okay. So he's in prison in Argentina.
Speaker 3: And he's you're gonna tell us how that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've already told you that it happened, So I
Speaker 2: want to know how. I know I'm going to tell you.
Speaker 2: Don't worry, You're gonna love this. So he's just basically,
Speaker 2: I'm just wanting I want to give you more of
Speaker 2: the Paul Framptons stuff at all. Right, the dude is
Speaker 2: sitting in prison and he's telling the New York Times,
Speaker 2: who's just flown down to interview him because it's a
Speaker 2: big deal that this big physics professor is gotten busted
Speaker 2: on charges of drug smuggles. Right, So they're like, dude,
Speaker 2: what happened? And he's like, oh, man, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: The president of Harvard's gonna meet with the resident of Argentina.
Speaker 2: She's probably gonna slip a note and get me out
Speaker 2: of here. And they're like, are you for real right now?
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh totally, And he said, and I quote,
Speaker 2: I think I've never been discussed by two such important
Speaker 2: people in my life, Elizabeth, Oh my god, never happened.
Speaker 2: The discussion never happened. New York Times called up, like,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: You're discussing it.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, he made it, he did. He made it
Speaker 2: all this press. So one month into his prison's day,
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton was willing to now face the truth that
Speaker 2: the real Denise Milani was not in love with him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The prisoners in the Argentine prison had helped him see reality. God,
Speaker 2: this is reality, my man. They pointed out that who
Speaker 2: he was chatting with the whole time was probably not
Speaker 2: even a woman, and instead with some low level scumbag
Speaker 2: in an organized crime ring. And that's who he'd fallen
Speaker 2: in love with online, and that's who he'd poured his
Speaker 2: heart out to. And this is a little bit hard
Speaker 2: for the physicists to do the calculations on him. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: then as the story is coming out, the real Denise Milani, right,
Speaker 2: she gets, you know, interviewed. They're like, what's up with
Speaker 2: the story, the physicists. He goes down, he gets busted
Speaker 2: smuggling cocaine. He says, you're his girlfriend. She's like I've
Speaker 2: never met him. I don't know who he is. But
Speaker 2: she says, quote, did she feel sympathy for him?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, So then this newspaper story gets published. His fellow
Speaker 2: prisoners they bring it to him. They hey, look, your
Speaker 2: girlfriend's in the papers. She's talking about you, like she
Speaker 2: just said she don't know who you are. Man. He's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, Well he reads the story and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: so the New York Times comes down, he quotes the
Speaker 2: story and he's like, well, I feel sympathy for her too, right,
Speaker 2: He's like trying to like reach out, And the New
Speaker 2: York Times reporter told the physics professor, well, she's still
Speaker 2: not going to date you. Pole. No, I'm kidding say that.
Speaker 2: I threw that part in there. But anyway, so what
Speaker 2: really went down between Paul Frampton and not Denise Belan?
Speaker 2: Yes you want to know?
Speaker 3: I am so confused?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay. Well, starting in November twenty eleven, Paul Frampton
Speaker 2: was on a dating site maitwe dot com mate maate one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like mate number one, someone exactly you into matan you
Speaker 2: like to meet someone to mate. He saw a profile
Speaker 2: of a bikini model. It met his criteria for what
Speaker 2: he was looking for in his next part, the chesty
Speaker 2: bikini model. She had a beguiling smile, warmth in her eyes.
Speaker 2: He's like, I bet she might like a physics professor
Speaker 2: like me. He was immediately smitten. And at the time
Speaker 2: he as I said, he was a in the physics
Speaker 2: department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Speaker 2: He was the chair of the department, and he was
Speaker 2: often you know, he'd be at work, obviously he's a chair.
Speaker 2: He'd have time to himself. So when he wasn't teaching classes,
Speaker 2: he's in his office and he'd get like a notification
Speaker 2: sound from his computer bing. He's like could look over
Speaker 2: and he's like, oh, look it's my baby, and hey
Speaker 2: a click and then be not Denise Malani and she'd
Speaker 2: want to chat all right, and the couple they used
Speaker 2: Yahoo Messenger as many of us have, right, and she'd
Speaker 2: be like, are you there, honey, Just not Denise Mulani
Speaker 2: would text him and she'd be like, what are you
Speaker 2: doing now? Not Denise Malani would ping him again, like
Speaker 2: an hour or so later, and he's just like so
Speaker 2: pleased by all the attention. Not Denise Malani is giving
Speaker 2: him right, So this attention it's like catn it for
Speaker 2: the lonely divorced scientist. So he gets addicted and hook
Speaker 2: and also remember who it's coming from, so it's double
Speaker 2: Lee working on him. So this not Denise Mlani. She
Speaker 2: starts to open up to him. She confides that she's
Speaker 2: looking to move on with her life. She wants to
Speaker 2: find a real partner, someone who could love her for
Speaker 2: who she is, not what she looks like. She's done
Speaker 2: being a bikini model. She wants to settle down, have
Speaker 2: a family, you know, leave modeling behind. She was tired
Speaker 2: of being an eye magnet for lecherous old men and
Speaker 2: an arm charm for young wealthy men. Wanted something for
Speaker 2: Denise right now, not Denise Malaney asked the theoretical physicist,
Speaker 2: do you think you could ever be proud of someone
Speaker 2: like me? Now? He told his friends that that he
Speaker 2: would be able to love her just as she was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I doesn't say she's knocking on the wrong door.
Speaker 3: She's like, do you I want to be loved not
Speaker 3: for what I look like. He's like, oh, next.
Speaker 2: But he told his friends he would look past her
Speaker 2: bikini and her breast and see the real woman underneath
Speaker 2: all that glamor in spray on tan. He's like, I
Speaker 2: see the heart of the Denise, the tissue. So he
Speaker 2: he'd ask her. He would ask her to call him
Speaker 2: sometimes because he was like, oh, why don't we get
Speaker 2: on the phone and we can talk, and they try
Speaker 2: to set up a time to talk, and coincidentally she
Speaker 2: would just miss the call or she wouldn't be able.
Speaker 2: So part of him we grew a little suspicious. He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: we can never manage to do this.
Speaker 3: I just want to talk to her. Jugs.
Speaker 2: You need some confirmation those boobs were real. Part of him,
Speaker 2: part of him that was suspicious was apparently very and
Speaker 2: underdeveloped because it never really got a hold of the
Speaker 2: rest of him because not when not Denise Malani was
Speaker 2: right there going what are you doing right now, darling?
Speaker 2: And she's like, why do we get on a call?
Speaker 2: And she's like, oh, I can't right now. Maybe later.
Speaker 2: Right This doesn't bother him, but eventually he's like, you know,
Speaker 2: I would like to see you. She's like, okay, well
Speaker 2: you you should come to see me next time. On
Speaker 2: da da dam My'm modeling. I'm all around the world
Speaker 2: that she keeps stalling him. Right. Eventually she's like, oh, darling,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be in La Pause, Bolivia, and he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll come down to LAPAs, Bolivia, A right, And isn't
Speaker 2: that always the way? You're like, hey, we should call
Speaker 2: each other sometime. A person's like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure,
Speaker 2: but you know what, how about instead come down to Bolivia? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, like, instead of a phone call, just come
Speaker 2: to Bolivia.
Speaker 3: Ladies. We've all been there, I.
Speaker 2: Mean how many times? Anyway, the internationally famous bikini model
Speaker 2: she was working, as I said, and according to not
Speaker 2: Denise Malani, she thought the theoretical physicist could use a vacation.
Speaker 2: You work so hard for him, so come down and
Speaker 2: we can finally meet in person.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: January seventh, twenty twelve, The big day. Paul Frampton sets
Speaker 2: foot on flight to La Pause. At this point, he
Speaker 2: is now a sixty eight year old physicist. He's off
Speaker 2: to meet the bikini model he believes is in love
Speaker 2: with him, and why would he doubt if she's texted
Speaker 2: him that she loves him.
Speaker 3: He has it in writing.
Speaker 2: That's like a contract, Elizabeth pretty much. Yeah, so, but
Speaker 2: you know, unfortunately he runs into trouble at the airport.
Speaker 2: Not Denise Malani had sent him an e ticket now
Speaker 2: to Paul Frampton, but when he attempted to use it,
Speaker 2: the ticket was invalid. It didn't work. Yeah, right, surprise.
Speaker 2: So he gets stuck in the Toronto airport for about
Speaker 2: a whole day.
Speaker 3: Why is he flying out of Toronto?
Speaker 2: He's flying from like basically I thought he was at UNC.
Speaker 2: Yeah he was. I don't know why he was flying
Speaker 2: out of tre Maybe his visiting. Anyway, he goes to Toronto
Speaker 2: and then he goes from Toronto just wait, next stop, Santiego, Chile. Okay, yes, sir.
Speaker 2: After a day in Toronto, he goes to Santiago, Chile,
Speaker 2: and then he manages to get over to La Pause
Speaker 2: after four days. For four days of traveling, four days
Speaker 2: at airport.
Speaker 3: King went from North Carolina at Toronto. Probably had to
Speaker 3: stop over and.
Speaker 2: On a ticket that didn't exist until he could then
Speaker 2: buy a ticket. And exactly so he arrives in the
Speaker 2: Pause and now he reaches out to not Denise Belani
Speaker 2: to tell her the good news. I finally arrived, right
Speaker 2: and so, but she has some bad news for him.
Speaker 2: Oh my, paud, I had to leave right. So she
Speaker 2: tells him she had to fly back to Europe for
Speaker 2: a modeling job. Right, of course she'll be in Brussels.
Speaker 2: And he's like, I know where Brussels is, and so Brampton,
Speaker 2: he's like a dog after a bone. At this point,
Speaker 2: he's like, I'll get it. I'll get a new ticket
Speaker 2: and I'll fly to Brussels. I can join you there
Speaker 2: in Brussels, and so he goes. He checks in his
Speaker 2: hotel and he's you know, he's like pulls out his
Speaker 2: notebooks and starts working on physics.
Speaker 3: Wait, he's like, I told all the students I've moved
Speaker 3: your class online.
Speaker 2: We're not meaning exactly, pretty much like the classs dismissed
Speaker 2: her next weekend until I get back.
Speaker 3: All right, one get on canvas.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just read a book or something. Read one
Speaker 2: of my papers. Tell me it was good. So he
Speaker 2: tells her. He's like, you know, I'll go back to
Speaker 2: the hotel. I'll work on some stuff. Then you contact
Speaker 2: me and give me all the updates on where I
Speaker 2: should fly, what hotel, blah blah blah. Right, so he
Speaker 2: starts working on his like you know, Higgs Bosons stuff
Speaker 2: and then he doesn't hear from Mercy. He texted not
Speaker 2: Denise Malani and they make a new plant. She gets
Speaker 2: back to him. A second e ticket gets sent to him. Right,
Speaker 2: it's a ticket to Brussels, so at least he's going
Speaker 2: to the right city this time. Yeah, but not Denise
Speaker 2: Malani has the one small request for her little Pooky
Speaker 2: Pie or whatever nickname she Frampton, right, So she says,
Speaker 2: he Pooky, Bye, could you bring me a bag of
Speaker 2: my stuff? And she's like, I just need you before
Speaker 2: you fly to Brussels. And he's like, I left the
Speaker 2: bag in the pause. I really need it. And she's like,
Speaker 2: oh are you sure, Lumpia lump why do you need
Speaker 2: this whatever whatever a nickname he called her. I'm making
Speaker 2: him up Elizabeth right, So he goes. He's like, of course,
Speaker 2: what you know you need your your bag? Is it
Speaker 2: like importantly the guess it's has sentimental value to me.
Speaker 2: He's like, okay, no problem. So he goes to pick
Speaker 2: up her forgotten luggage and he contacts a friend of
Speaker 2: his like you know, He's like, I'll do that later today.
Speaker 2: So he's at the airport. He talks to his friend
Speaker 2: of his, who is a physicist and a lawyer, this
Speaker 2: lawyer friend, right, So missus Dixon's son, John Dixon, she's
Speaker 2: listening to her friend's story. And this is John Dixon's account,
Speaker 2: he says, and I told Paul, quote, well inside the suitcase,
Speaker 2: swing into the lining will be cocaine. You're in big trouble.
Speaker 2: Paul said, I'll be careful. I'll make sure there isn't
Speaker 2: cocaine in there, and if there is, I'll ask them
Speaker 2: to remove it. I thought they were probably going to
Speaker 2: kidnap him and torture him to get his money. I
Speaker 2: didn't know he didn't have any money. I said, well,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be killed, Paul, So whom should I contact
Speaker 2: when you disappear? And he said, you can contact my
Speaker 2: brother and my former wife. So he's being all shaky.
Speaker 2: My god, so his friend and lawyer, John Dixon, he's
Speaker 2: like the Oracle of Delphi the story. And just like
Speaker 2: the Oracle of Delphi, no one listens or they misinterpreted right.
Speaker 2: So a little after a week after he arrived in
Speaker 2: La Pause, Paul meets up with the stranger to get
Speaker 2: the luggage bag for his baby not Denise Malani, right,
Speaker 2: And he meets the stranger on a quote dark street,
Speaker 2: and the bag was brought to him by a young man.
Speaker 2: The luggage was not one would expect for an internationally
Speaker 2: famous model. It wasn't like an rmez bag, it wasn't givon.
Speaker 2: The luggage was just some ratty, plain black carry on
Speaker 2: that you'd see like going around the airport turnstile baggage pickup.
Speaker 2: You're like, whose bag is that? It's got like duct
Speaker 2: tape on it. He's like, just shy of that.
Speaker 3: Wait, where are you talking about my luggage?
Speaker 2: So he wheels this luggage back to his hotel room
Speaker 2: and so assuage that voice of his friend, the physicist lawyer.
Speaker 2: He's like, let me open up this luggage to make
Speaker 2: sure there's no cocaine in here. So he does it.
Speaker 2: He opens up the luggage. It is empty, there's nothing
Speaker 2: inside of it, and he's like, wait, there's nothing inside
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: But it was it heavy enough that he thought there
Speaker 3: was something inside of it before he opened it. I mean,
Speaker 3: you can tell the difference from an empty suitcase to
Speaker 3: a full suit.
Speaker 2: Sure, but a couple of kilos doesn't weigh that much.
Speaker 2: So if you put a couple of kilos with cocaine
Speaker 2: and an empty suitcase. You may not know that they're
Speaker 2: the difference.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm just thinking, how did he not
Speaker 3: know he was handed an empty suitcase? When I get this,
Speaker 3: three fellow.
Speaker 2: He's just a physicist, Elizabeth. Only he can answer this question.
Speaker 2: How did you how did you detect the nothingness in
Speaker 2: the suitcase?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's a good question. Was it full of dark matter?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Catching on? So anyway, it.
Speaker 3: Got a Higgs boson in it, there's out.
Speaker 2: There's no Higgs bosons, no cocaine knocking inside?
Speaker 3: Are Higgs.
Speaker 4: The back of forth?
Speaker 2: But these tell the buns and six packs. It's a
Speaker 2: total problem. You're so annoying. How do I get How do.
Speaker 3: I get my Higgs bosons in the bun?
Speaker 2: How do I get my quantum fields into my general relativity? Anyways?
Speaker 3: Physicist dark matter?
Speaker 2: Anyway, So he feels around the empty suitcase. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is weird. It's an empty suitcase. Why does my baby,
Speaker 2: lumpy lump need an empty suitcase? He writes her. He's like,
Speaker 2: lumpy lump baby, why the empty suitcase? And she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: my peachy pie, don't worry. It has sentiment. That is
Speaker 2: sentimental value to me. I told you this, and he's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's good enough for me. Maybe. So the next day
Speaker 2: he packs up for the airport, goes down, carries the
Speaker 2: empty bag.
Speaker 3: For her and empty sentimental values.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. My grandfather he gave me that
Speaker 2: luggage after the war.
Speaker 3: That roller bag. That's how he got how he brought.
Speaker 2: It all over mountains. He carried that.
Speaker 3: He is a symbol of bravery.
Speaker 2: He has it down generations to generation. He stuffed some
Speaker 2: dirty clothes in the bag. And he goes down to
Speaker 2: the airport, right, and he's like, Okay, I got my baby,
Speaker 2: not Denise Mlani sentimentally important luggage. I've got my own bag.
Speaker 2: Let's rock, right, and he flies out of La Pause,
Speaker 2: no problems, he checks. But so interestingly, Elizabeth, I forgot
Speaker 2: to tell you he did not fly directly to Brussels instead.
Speaker 2: I don't know what his deal is on. He just
Speaker 2: loves airports. His ticket goes from flies to Buenos Aires
Speaker 2: in Argentina. Okay, he flew south.
Speaker 3: Sure the other direction.
Speaker 2: I don't get it. Maybe it's South America.
Speaker 3: That's not like I don't know how what flies out
Speaker 3: of la Pause. I would imagine you can get to Europe.
Speaker 3: I'm sure.
Speaker 2: I'm sure France.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 2: So he lands safely in Argentina, and but now he's
Speaker 2: gonna have to wait for a new e ticket from
Speaker 2: not Denise Blani for his connecting flight from Buenos Aires
Speaker 2: up to Brussels. How long do you wait, Elizabeth? How
Speaker 2: long did he wait? Try? Forty hours, a day and
Speaker 2: a half and then some for this airport. Like I said,
Speaker 2: Homie was a dog after a bone. Yeah, exactly. He
Speaker 2: sits up in the buenas Ares airport for damn near
Speaker 2: two days, waiting on I don't know, doing physics problems,
Speaker 2: eating from various airport restaurants, and just sleeping on his luggage.
Speaker 2: New ticket from not Denise Blani. It finally arrives before
Speaker 2: he started day three of the airport. Right, So, Paul
Speaker 2: Frampton this point, he's almost lost his patience. He's already
Speaker 2: contacted friends back home and asked them to get him
Speaker 2: a ticket to fly Hi back to North Carolina. He's like,
Speaker 2: I got students, they've been online for two weeks. Now,
Speaker 2: I've got to do something. But this is when fate
Speaker 2: plays a hand. Elizabeth and I'd like you to close
Speaker 2: your eyes and picture.
Speaker 3: It as closed.
Speaker 2: You are at the Aziza Airport in Buenos Aires.
Speaker 3: Are in cam Hi.
Speaker 2: When this temple to flight opened way back in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nine, it was the third largest airport in the world.
Speaker 2: It was built during the first presidency of Juan Pern.
Speaker 2: You know a Vida's husband.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: For me, it's a nice looking airport as far as
Speaker 2: airports go. But as you sit by yourself waiting for
Speaker 2: your flight back to the States, you do one of
Speaker 2: your favorite activities, people watching. Your Spanish isn't the best,
Speaker 2: so you don't always know what's going on, but you
Speaker 2: catch sight of a cool looking family. They're all smiles.
Speaker 2: The mother huddles or family to the adjacent gate. You
Speaker 2: watch as they seat. You enjoy watching this clearly indigenous family.
Speaker 2: You guess it. They're most likely from the Imara tribe
Speaker 2: in Bolivia. You know this only because they're bedecked in
Speaker 2: traditional Bolivian dress and the mother is wearing one of
Speaker 2: those cool looking bowler hats.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: You casually watch the family get comfortable and the father
Speaker 2: breaks out some chapperware and give snacks to the kids.
Speaker 2: A man seated by himself rather close to you catches
Speaker 2: your eye. He's been mostly scribbling in a journal. You
Speaker 2: guess he's a writer, maybe a journalist, maybe a poet.
Speaker 2: Who knows. He looks far more like an aging academic
Speaker 2: of the kind of the science set. He looks like
Speaker 2: a rumpled physics professor, which turns out is exactly what
Speaker 2: he is. Good job, Elizabeth. Next to him are two bags,
Speaker 2: one white, one black. You don't know it and you
Speaker 2: never guess it, but inside one of the bags is
Speaker 2: a life changing amount of cocaine. There's an announcement over
Speaker 2: the airport speakers in Spanish first, then in English. The
Speaker 2: heavily accented pa announcer asked for passenger Paul Frampton to
Speaker 2: come to the ticket counter. You watch the rumpled academic
Speaker 2: look up as if his name was called. Turns out
Speaker 2: his name was called, and then he confirms this by
Speaker 2: getting up and walking over to the airline employee at
Speaker 2: the counter about the gate. You hear him say to
Speaker 2: the woman, I'm Paul Frampton. Is the airline giving me
Speaker 2: an upgrade to first class? The woman at the counter
Speaker 2: at the gate some houses says, no, you're not to
Speaker 2: get an upgrade. You see them before, Paul Frampton does.
Speaker 2: It looks like a police and dea task force. They
Speaker 2: come in, matching jackets, hats, guns, lots of guns. They
Speaker 2: aim the guns at the physics professor. One Argentine officer
Speaker 2: asks him, are you Paul Frampton. The academic's answers, yeah, yes,
Speaker 2: but what the hell is going on? You now, wonder?
Speaker 2: Totally geeked out on this excellent people watching. This is
Speaker 2: so rare, a police bust in the airport. This Argentine officer,
Speaker 2: he asked the rumpled professor, a second question, is this
Speaker 2: your bag? Mister Frampton? You lean in, waiting to hear
Speaker 2: the answer. You hear the rumpled professor answer. He says,
Speaker 2: that's my bag. The other one's not my bag, but
Speaker 2: I checked it in. That's good enough for the cops.
Speaker 2: They arrest the rumble professor right in front of your eyes.
Speaker 2: He's dragged away as he argues in English, no, no stop,
Speaker 2: So wait, this is not supposed to happen.
Speaker 3: I'm Paul Frampton, So Elizabeth, yes.
Speaker 2: You don't get to see it. But when the officers
Speaker 2: take the rumpled physics professor into a secluded back area.
Speaker 2: The officers rip open the lining of the baggage and
Speaker 2: they discover more than four pounds of cocayem. Oh wow, yes, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: do you know what a honeytrap is?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: You do. Well, let's take a little break and after
Speaker 2: this we'll get into discussing a honey trap. Elizabeth, I
Speaker 2: teased you before with the honey trap, said, you know
Speaker 2: what it is? Do you know what a honeytrap is?
Speaker 3: Isn't it when you like lure someone into a con
Speaker 3: with a beautiful lady?
Speaker 2: Yeah, or basically sex appeal. It can be a man,
Speaker 2: a woman, whoever. You just say, hey, you typically it's
Speaker 2: a woman and you if you bait the trap with
Speaker 2: a woman, it almost never fails. It's kind of the
Speaker 2: same except just a little more colloquially said. So it
Speaker 2: may surprise you, or it may not surprise you. Probably
Speaker 2: not to learn that Paul Frampton was far from the
Speaker 2: first to fall for this long con drug sile muggler move. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a woman from New Zealand, Sharon Armstrong. She
Speaker 2: fell home almost the exact same game. She was an executive, smart,
Speaker 2: accomplished woman similar to Paul. She met a new guy online.
Speaker 2: They chatted online for months, then they made a plan
Speaker 2: to meet in person. They would finally meet in person
Speaker 2: in life. She acters, of course, she made a quick
Speaker 2: stop in Buenos Aires to grab some important business papers
Speaker 2: for her lover. So she was arrested at the.
Speaker 3: Airport like a dancer at the thunder down under.
Speaker 2: But he's got my papers, my very important business papers.
Speaker 2: So she gets messed, five kilos of cocaine, tried, convicted,
Speaker 2: she gets four years, ten months. So yeah, she also
Speaker 2: had the same judge in her case as Paul Frampton
Speaker 2: had in his case. Yes, So anyway, sitting in his
Speaker 2: Bueno Satter's prison, it's apparently an old style South American prison.
Speaker 2: On the pavilion that he was staying on, on his level,
Speaker 2: there were seventy nine other prisoners like him. Almost all
Speaker 2: of them claimed that they were innocent, and Paul Frampton
Speaker 2: was just another innocent man in prison with all these
Speaker 2: other innocent men. But that's not how he saw it.
Speaker 2: To his way of thinking, he was still someone special,
Speaker 2: as he told the New York Times reporter who flew
Speaker 2: down to interview him, quote, some people will say they're innocent,
Speaker 2: but when I talked to them further it becomes very
Speaker 2: clear that they were somehow involved. I think people like
Speaker 2: me are less than one percent. He is, So now
Speaker 2: he's less than one percent. He's in an Argentine prison,
Speaker 2: and yet he's gone up in the ranking himself. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So his fellow prisoners in prison guards, they used to
Speaker 2: like to tease them, Ay, professor, have you won the
Speaker 2: no bell yet? So the New York Times included that
Speaker 2: they're a little write up on him. I loved that
Speaker 2: note moment, just saying anyway, so please imagine this British born,
Speaker 2: Oxford educated theoretical physics professor sharing a prison pavilion in
Speaker 2: an old South American prison was seventy nine other hardened criminals,
Speaker 2: all from South America, most of them on drug charges.
Speaker 2: Just picture that moment for a second. Let right, He
Speaker 2: liked to get up early on Sunday mornings before his
Speaker 2: fellow inmates would awaken, and he put on the classical
Speaker 2: music station and the French Yeah exactly, And then when
Speaker 2: the hard men woke up, they'd switch it back to
Speaker 2: a music video channel that played music they wanted to hear.
Speaker 2: Thus was life in prison for Paul. Now, of course,
Speaker 2: plenty of picks of the real Denise Malaney. They would
Speaker 2: make it into prison, and his fellow inmates were sure
Speaker 2: to send them over to Paul, like, look, your girlfriend,
Speaker 2: she's in another.
Speaker 3: Magazines every time she's rough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was tough on him, so he got to
Speaker 2: see how his girlfriend was doing on the outside.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyways, before he was convicted and locked up, Paul Frampton
Speaker 2: never thought he'd be found guilty. The trouble for him
Speaker 2: was that the prosecutors had his text messages and his
Speaker 2: chats with not Denise Malani.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The trouble was that the theoretic physics professor took the stand.
Speaker 2: And you don't watch TV, Elizabeth, but I do. And
Speaker 2: I know this from law and order. Never take the
Speaker 2: stand if you don't have to, NH.
Speaker 3: Exactly, he took the stand.
Speaker 2: So, according to the Argentine prosecutor, Frampton had sent highly
Speaker 2: questionable text to not Denise Malani. They had his phone
Speaker 2: after all, right, So the prosecutor goes into court and
Speaker 2: he reads out the text to not Denise Malani and
Speaker 2: he's like, quote, on January twenty second, the nine to
Speaker 2: forty six am, you wrote from Aziza Airport to the
Speaker 2: person you understood to be Denise Milani. Quote was worried
Speaker 2: only about sniffer dogs, but more so Oh no, thought
Speaker 2: his defense attorney. Yeah yeah, things are not looking good
Speaker 2: for old Paul Shampton. So the prosecutor would read more
Speaker 2: of these text messages aloud, And there was one from
Speaker 2: nine to fifty two in the morning of his airport arrests. Quote,
Speaker 2: need to know if your loyalties with the bad guy
Speaker 2: agent and Bolivian friends or good guy your husband. Oh no.
Speaker 2: There was another damning text from nine to fifty six am.
Speaker 2: It was about the hotel in Brussels where they were
Speaker 2: planning to meet. The hotel was called Seru Elizabeth Siru.
Speaker 2: So this Frampton text. Frampton texted not Denise Malani quote
Speaker 2: zero in all caps, right to the hotel. Zero zero
Speaker 2: is ambush a right, that's it. Another at ten fourteen am.
Speaker 2: So now twenty minutes later, quote, your naivete is bad
Speaker 2: for me us this is millions no zero, okay, all
Speaker 2: caps at am. Seriously, he starts winding his own pedal,
Speaker 2: and at eleven nineteen am, sitting there at the airport
Speaker 2: waiting for his flight to finally meet Not Denise Milani,
Speaker 2: Frampton switches it up and sends her an email. He's like,
Speaker 2: you're apparently not getting my text messages, and he directly
Speaker 2: references the cocaine in the email. Always a bad place
Speaker 2: to reference cocaine is in your emails.
Speaker 3: This is the email totally. Denise said, no.
Speaker 2: I don't know any email, but he writes, quote, this
Speaker 2: stuff is worth nothing in Bolivia, but millions in Europe.
Speaker 2: You meet me at the airport and we do not
Speaker 2: go near the hotel. The agent suggested stay at another hotel.
Speaker 3: So he's in yeah.
Speaker 2: This way, it's pretty much clear that he's arranging the
Speaker 2: cocaine deal that he thinks he's doing with, not Denise Mula.
Speaker 3: So it's not like, oh I didn't know my luggage.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, no, no, yeah. He's texting like he's
Speaker 2: in a crime movie and he's looking at for the
Speaker 2: double cross. He's like to convinced. He's like now in heat.
Speaker 2: So he just wants he and his baby to do
Speaker 2: one last deal and then get free together. There's more
Speaker 2: texting emails, so then forty seven am Forramny goes back
Speaker 2: to text messages. He writes, Monday arrival change. You must
Speaker 2: not tell the coca goons. So now he actually puts
Speaker 2: in the word Coca. Oh god, yeah, yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: like a band name Coca. You want to see the
Speaker 2: Coca Goons, You know your friends, the Cocagoons. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: So twelve sixteen pm he writes in all caps because
Speaker 2: now apparently he's redlining, He writes, why are you ignoring
Speaker 2: me at this last moment, we did not decide how
Speaker 2: to meet tomorrow in Brussels and keep Coca and lives zero.
Speaker 2: We may lose both, not at Zeru brother sitting right
Speaker 2: there in that airport. But barely he calms down because
Speaker 2: at one oh six he then tries to get back
Speaker 2: into her like graces. He's now texting the normal letters,
Speaker 2: not all caps. We may do a cool one million.
Speaker 3: So, oh my god.
Speaker 2: The Big Prosecutor asked Frampton to explain his text. He
Speaker 2: told the court that they were just jokes. No, he
Speaker 2: told the New York Times quote, I was trying to
Speaker 2: keep Denise amused. I had already decided to fly back
Speaker 2: to North Carolina. So to keep not Denise Millennia mused,
Speaker 2: he sent her roughly thirty messages and emails. Now it
Speaker 2: seemed very amusing to me. I mean like I laughed, yes.
Speaker 4: Card.
Speaker 2: So what was really wild was how Chile was in
Speaker 2: the airport while he's sending all these text messages. He's
Speaker 2: got the bag of cocaine, right, and now we know
Speaker 2: he knows is there. The prosecutor played security footage from
Speaker 2: all his time at the airport, so he's the airport
Speaker 2: security camera right and in the foot did you see
Speaker 2: Paul Frampton working at a cafe table. Then he just
Speaker 2: gets up, he wanders away from his open laptop. He's
Speaker 2: leaves on the table next to the two bags. One
Speaker 2: is filled with pounds of cocaine, and he just wanders
Speaker 2: away and he's just like, I'll just lead by behind
Speaker 2: my mismatching his and her luggage with the coke, one
Speaker 2: in one without. So he's gone for twenty five minutes.
Speaker 2: He comes back. He's doing windows shopping. He's window shopping.
Speaker 2: He's just sitting there looking in like how much for
Speaker 2: the bottle of rum? And then he's.
Speaker 3: Taking that Brookstone neck pillow.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, I want one for her, one for me,
Speaker 2: one for her. Anyway, at twenty five minutes past he
Speaker 2: comes back. He uh checks on his stuff and then
Speaker 2: he's like, you know what I want to go check
Speaker 2: out Brookstone pillow again. Yeah, he goes to another one.
Speaker 2: He's gone for another half an hour. He leaves all
Speaker 2: the stuff behind again. Apparently he's far more trusting than
Speaker 2: anyone I've ever known.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a guy. He also apparently believes, like my
Speaker 2: mother does, that God protects fools and children, and he
Speaker 2: ain't a child. So yeah. Anyway, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: other damning evidence in the court case, Like there was
Speaker 2: calculations he had done of how much the kilos of
Speaker 2: cocaine would be worth, and it was in frampton handwriting.
Speaker 2: According to Frampton, he'd done those calculations after he was arrested.
Speaker 2: He was just trying to figure out to calculate the
Speaker 2: street value of the cocaine he was caught smuggling. He
Speaker 2: was just like, I just want to see what I
Speaker 2: was gonna be thrown at me. So I did a couple,
Speaker 2: you know, back of the envelope calculations and the calculations
Speaker 2: like one gram two hundred dollars, two thousand grams, four
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars. Turns out he was caught with nineteen
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty grams cocaine, and the calculations were more
Speaker 2: evidence that quote, my mind works in a strange way.
Speaker 2: Yeah it does. Buddy, you're out there calculating. You make
Speaker 2: one is you're taking notes on a criminal conspiracy, right
Speaker 2: like the Stringer Bell rule. You're just broke right off
Speaker 2: the back. And also you're a physicist. Can't you do
Speaker 2: these in your head? I mean you can't you do
Speaker 2: these numbers? That was multiplying by two? Well, one ram
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars, two thousand grams, four h two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That's multiplying by two.
Speaker 3: Does they have a calculator on his phone?
Speaker 2: Yes? Anyway, I don't get it anyway. So after he
Speaker 2: also he decided, you know, mom amusing myself. He calculated
Speaker 2: the odds that not Denise mulaney would marry him. Oh
Speaker 2: get no prosecutor quoted than the note he had quote
Speaker 2: five standard deviations ninety nine point nine nine four percent.
Speaker 2: Frampton then explained, quote the criterion for the discovery of
Speaker 2: the Higgs boson had to be five standard deviations, which
Speaker 2: means it's extremely unlikely to be a statistical fluctuation. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Quote calculating the probability that Denise Malani would become my
Speaker 2: second wife, which was almost a certainty.
Speaker 3: No, but she's in that point zero zero zero six.
Speaker 2: So, as I told you, you said that they're all
Speaker 2: bad jokes. Unsurprisingly, that did not work as a court defense,
Speaker 2: even in Argentina, which apparently he had very little respect
Speaker 2: for their court, and the court found him guilty. He
Speaker 2: sent him to prison, as I've already told you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: and he went four years eight months.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's where he got to sit and think
Speaker 2: about all those emails he sent to not denise Malani.
Speaker 2: How he'd laid out their future together. Naturally, he told
Speaker 2: her that she'd relocate to where he lived, and she'd
Speaker 2: moved to North Carolina and then they'd make a life
Speaker 2: together in Chapel Hill. He told the bikini model that
Speaker 2: she would have to leave all that behind, as she
Speaker 2: already wanted to, because she'd have to be ready for
Speaker 2: the wife of a college professor. It's a totally different
Speaker 2: skill set herself. Yeah. She wouldn't have to work, of course,
Speaker 2: because he had his work, and she could spend her
Speaker 2: time working out and making girlfriends at the gym or
Speaker 2: yoga studio or wherever else she decided to keep fit.
Speaker 2: And when he got home his hard day of calculating
Speaker 2: bosons and leptons, they go down to the shore, maybe
Speaker 2: take a long walk on the beach. He literally is
Speaker 2: the guy who likes long walks on the beach, so
Speaker 2: he was like, what do you like to do? I
Speaker 2: like long walks on the beach. Eventually, she'scases she would
Speaker 2: get pregnant with one of their many children, and after
Speaker 2: she lost the baby weight, maybe she would go back
Speaker 2: to work as a lingerie model. She could get a contract.
Speaker 2: Was Victoria's secrets, because you know, his mind is in
Speaker 2: the nineties.
Speaker 3: So he's like, you know, I just want to stand
Speaker 3: behind him and kick him in the back of the knees,
Speaker 3: just watch him crumble.
Speaker 2: At one point, this fake cocaine cowboy, he told the
Speaker 2: not Denise Malaney, You're the best thing that's happened in
Speaker 2: my cursed life. I just hope that the scumbag reading
Speaker 2: it on the other was absolutely Hector come here. So
Speaker 2: eventually the dude gets out of prison, and he'd spent
Speaker 2: time working on his papers, his calculations because he's a physicist.
Speaker 2: No no, but he did work on new papers of colleagues.
Speaker 2: He got some journal papers out of it. He was
Speaker 2: advising students from his prison. So, yeah, he still had
Speaker 2: one hope in his life that somehow he'd only imagined
Speaker 2: in his mind that would be proven real by some
Speaker 2: other scientists experiment and that one day he'd win a
Speaker 2: Nobel Prize based on one of his predictions. Right, And
Speaker 2: he'd made plenty of predictions of new particles, all sorts
Speaker 2: of physical models, And he told The New York Times
Speaker 2: quote that would bring an enormous sense of fulfillment quite
Speaker 2: apart from the Nobel Prize. I predicted a particle that's
Speaker 2: actually in the universe. Wouldn't that be a rush? Much
Speaker 2: better than other ways of getting a lot of dopamine? Bro,
Speaker 2: that's what love does. Love makes you feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know anyway, but anyway. So when one of his
Speaker 2: emails and not Denise Malani, Paul Frampton wrote, quote, I
Speaker 2: only think of cuddling all day and having sex all
Speaker 2: night with Denise Malani. How can you prove that you
Speaker 2: are Denise Malani. Since he didn't have a fellow scientist
Speaker 2: to confirm his prediction that she was indeed Denise Malanie,
Speaker 2: he had to rely on his own mental and emotional calculations.
Speaker 2: He decided she's real and he was obviously wrong. So
Speaker 2: now he at at one point did contact a forensic
Speaker 2: linguist to ask him to go over some text messages
Speaker 2: to prove that he had not written the text messages
Speaker 2: and because he claimed I quote I didn't write the text.
Speaker 2: I've always known that they were invented. They were invented
Speaker 2: by or or for the prosecutor in my trial. The
Speaker 2: forensic linguist say he hacked he hired, reported that Frampton's
Speaker 2: emails are written in a very formal style and that
Speaker 2: no one would expect a professor to use that sort
Speaker 2: of language in his emails to a not Denise mulaney.
Speaker 2: But that was not the case, and quote, approximately six
Speaker 2: hundred words of running text, there's only one contraction, which
Speaker 2: was in a message he wrote he said, I'll try
Speaker 2: to send you a more specific email tomorrow. The rest
Speaker 2: of the time in his text messages, he's substituting the
Speaker 2: number two for the infinitive too. He's putting in the
Speaker 2: word you for the word you. Didn't seem like him.
Speaker 2: It seemed much more like a text speak from like
Speaker 2: a teenager. Then there was also the fact that when
Speaker 2: one of the text messages which is member. This is
Speaker 2: a monolingual theoretical physicist. In his text messages, he apparently
Speaker 2: wrote situ like situation in Spanish with the sea. So
Speaker 2: that's only something that usually a native Spanish speaker would do. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the forensic linguist, they went on the whole thing, and
Speaker 2: they say quote. In addition to the above points, I
Speaker 2: suggest the text message read like a film script. This
Speaker 2: phrase is such as sniffer dogs, the apparent obsession of
Speaker 2: the writer with loyalty and therefore it's antithesis betrayal, the
Speaker 2: danger ergo as in life death, situacion, the reference to
Speaker 2: weapons as in with no gun, and I suggest melodramatic
Speaker 2: want to kiss you before I die. As the linguals
Speaker 2: concluded the quote, the preoccupations inherent these messages, and more importantly,
Speaker 2: the terms in which they are expressed, are not compatible
Speaker 2: with a person who has spent his life in academia.
Speaker 2: But I mean, it's kind of like the thing I
Speaker 2: always tell you. If I was gonna go do a crime,
Speaker 2: I would just give my phone to a friend and
Speaker 2: have them walk around with it. Because police are so
Speaker 2: convinced that if they see your phone somewhere, that's you.
Speaker 2: If I was an academic trying to get away with this,
Speaker 2: I would type like that somebody who's not me. But
Speaker 2: I don't bet he he did that. So he said
Speaker 2: he blamed the translator. He said that when he said
Speaker 2: he was in court and he said that the text
Speaker 2: messages were his and he was joking. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: that's not what I said. I said the prosecutor and
Speaker 2: must be joking. So that's how you tried to get
Speaker 2: out of it. So he's over here using all of
Speaker 2: his big brain to try to come up with weird lies. Anyway,
Speaker 2: he chalks up all of it. It didn't work. He
Speaker 2: decided he's not going to try to go after the
Speaker 2: prosecutor at Argentina. He said that, you know, quote, the
Speaker 2: whole thing was surreal. Just you know, I'm just gonna say,
Speaker 2: the whole thing was cereal. And he's shocked the whole
Speaker 2: experience up to not his own foolish, ego driven fantasies,
Speaker 2: but rather that the Argentine prosecutor was just out to
Speaker 2: get him. So there's a conspiracy too, as he told
Speaker 2: The New York Times, quote, you might say, what did
Speaker 2: they have against Paul Frampton? And if you as if
Speaker 2: you press him, he will add the Argentinian system is
Speaker 2: totally corrupt. Do you think that the prosecutor is going
Speaker 2: to admit he created this evidence? Not a chance on Argentina.
Speaker 2: That's far less likely than him winning a Nobel prize,
Speaker 2: And given his choice, Paul Frampton's going to focus on
Speaker 2: that Nobel prize. So there you go, the cocaine tails
Speaker 2: of the not. Denise Malani, Oh gosh, what's a ridiculous
Speaker 2: take away, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Ridiculous takeaway is that you can be BookSmart, but that's
Speaker 3: street smart, as we all know. And that's street smarts
Speaker 3: for maybe a little bit more important. And I say
Speaker 3: that as an educator, former teacher, I love the former teacher.
Speaker 2: As a professor. Do you want to say that one
Speaker 2: more time? Just for the listeners like me?
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think street smarts are a little more important
Speaker 3: than book smarts.
Speaker 2: Yes, uph I Burnette, you gotta just say it. That's
Speaker 2: on the record. Yes, all right, So thanks for listening, folks,
Speaker 2: and thanks for asking me about my ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 3: I really care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Well mine was you can't always trust a
Speaker 2: big button to smile. Apparently the same is true for
Speaker 2: big breasts, So there you go, or a physicist. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so three things we learned today. Anyway, all as always,
Speaker 2: you can find us online a Ridiculous Crime on Twitter,
Speaker 2: Instagram threads. I think as long as Elizabeth doesn't get
Speaker 2: her hands on it. We also have a website, Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime dot com. You can leave us a message on
Speaker 2: the iHeart Talkback. You can find that on iHeart apps.
Speaker 2: We enjoy those. Elizabeth loved, she tells me.
Speaker 3: On a loudspeaker when I'm driving my ice cream truck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you do when you're not here?
Speaker 3: I did?
Speaker 2: Also, you can obviously email us that what you want
Speaker 2: a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, care of Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 2: Once again, thanks for listening. Catch you next crime They
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dudden and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by a leading experimenter in quantum chromeo
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