Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zarin Elizabeth, How are you heart? I'm so good. I'm
Speaker 2: just I'm really fantastic today is it's a good day.
Speaker 2: I've been enjoying it. Havn't done a damn thing. I
Speaker 2: love that, which is really enjoyable at the end of
Speaker 2: the year kind of thing. Yeah, So what about you?
Speaker 2: You have a good day to day? You feel good?
Speaker 3: I'm good, good, solid, excellent, solid as a little mac. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm good.
Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous I do to do?
Speaker 3: Tell?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, you're not gonna like this, but I love
Speaker 2: it so rude dude. Gaz Jackson sent this in, Okay,
Speaker 2: and I love this because it's an oddity of math, which,
Speaker 2: as you know, I'm not good at yet I still love.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: The idea is it's called Capri Car's number A CAPRICRS
Speaker 2: Capri cars numbers, K A p R E k A
Speaker 2: R CAPRICRS Capri Car's number.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So the number is six, one, seven, four, six and
Speaker 2: seventy four. Okay, magic number, Elizabeth. Sure, Here's how it works. Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Choose a four digit number, any four digit number, but
Speaker 2: it can be any four digits as long as one
Speaker 2: digit is different than the others. So it can't be
Speaker 2: like one one.
Speaker 3: One oh, oh, okay, one zero eight.
Speaker 2: Two one zero eight two. Okay. Now with one zero
Speaker 2: eight two. The next thing you do is you take
Speaker 2: the number and you select it, and we arrange it
Speaker 2: so that now it descends from the largest digit to
Speaker 2: the smallest digit. All right, So this case, it would
Speaker 2: be eight to zero one one zero. Wait what did
Speaker 2: I say? Oh, you're right. See, let me take that together,
Speaker 2: eight two one zero.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 2: So, Micha, I've been trying to do too many things
Speaker 2: over here. I'm going to keep the track of the
Speaker 2: number you gave me, and then you arrange it so
Speaker 2: that it also ascends from the smallest digit to the
Speaker 2: largest digit zero one two eight zero one two eight exactly.
Speaker 2: And then that's you know, the essentially the verse. In
Speaker 2: this case, it would only be a three digit number
Speaker 2: because the zero gets knocked off and then you subtract them,
Speaker 2: all right, you get a new number, and that new
Speaker 2: number becomes the number you use. So this is in
Speaker 2: this case eight zero eight two.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: You follow that same process, So in this case it
Speaker 2: would be eight eight two zero sure, minus zero, two
Speaker 2: eight eight, okay, okay, And then you get to a
Speaker 2: number that this case would be eight five three two.
Speaker 2: Wish you would have given me an easier number to
Speaker 2: do this with me? Whatever. Never, So then this one's
Speaker 2: already arranged highest to lowest. So we just now have
Speaker 2: to subtract two, three, five eight, and eventually you get.
Speaker 3: To six one, seven four.
Speaker 2: It only took us three numbers and we got right there.
Speaker 2: That's Capricar's number.
Speaker 3: What witchcraft is that?
Speaker 2: That's cool. And there's another one that's a three digit number,
Speaker 2: but I'm not going to overload you with Like, here's
Speaker 2: another one that's capri cars number. You see, you selected X,
Speaker 2: we arrange it as Y and Z. You subtract Z
Speaker 2: from Y, and we get a four digit number. And
Speaker 2: you keep doing this and it usually only takes a
Speaker 2: couple of steps before you get to six one, seven four,
Speaker 2: And every single one of these numbers, no matter what
Speaker 2: you do, we'll do this.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: Isn't that math fun? Kind of ridiculous, super ridiculous. That's
Speaker 2: awesome atle like magical.
Speaker 3: I know, I do. I like the little witchcraft magic. Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: Do you want to know what else is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: As long as didn't have meat drawing out a calculator.
Speaker 3: Crossing Mario Lemieux.
Speaker 6: Oh oh oh, this is ridiculous crime A podcast about
Speaker 6: absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
Speaker 3: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 3: percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You damn right, you and Mario Lemieux.
Speaker 3: All of us. I need to preface everything I tell
Speaker 3: you today with this. Yeah, I know pretty much nothing
Speaker 3: about hockey.
Speaker 2: That's not true.
Speaker 3: Well, I know it's played on ice, and everyone wears skates, yes,
Speaker 3: and they use a stick to hit a puck.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: And they fight a lot, yes, which means that many
Speaker 3: of them are missing teeth.
Speaker 2: They're also mostly Canadian, Eastern European, Nordic and Russia.
Speaker 3: Well, I know that Wayne Gretzky is like their Michael Jordan.
Speaker 2: Yes. Also good.
Speaker 3: It's big in the Northern States and New England because
Speaker 3: it's cold there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have actually ice occur, actually occurring ice.
Speaker 3: And I know that our better half, our neighbors to
Speaker 3: the north, the Canadians, they dominate the sport.
Speaker 2: Sure, let's go with that.
Speaker 3: Let's say it key for Sutherland loves.
Speaker 2: It oh yes, you know my thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fill up the tub, fill up the tubub. So
Speaker 3: does Mike Myers and Canada's current Prime Minister, the Right
Speaker 3: Honorable Mark Carney.
Speaker 2: Oh right, dude, elbows up or something. Yeah. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you find that ad with Keifer Sutherland from like I
Speaker 2: don't know two thousand and two where he's like talking
Speaker 2: I only know because of football. But anyway, I was
Speaker 2: like when Fox was had hockey, he did this thing
Speaker 2: where he was like letting people know that they have hockey.
Speaker 2: He was like on A twenty four at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he was like, oh, they're they're all excited. And
Speaker 2: he goes in there and he's like that he's doing
Speaker 2: this like I don't know poem about hockey, and then
Speaker 2: he ends with fill up the tub. And not like
Speaker 2: the name fill up the tub. It's more like, you know,
Speaker 2: pour water in and fill up the tub. But the
Speaker 2: way he said it, it sounds like fill up the
Speaker 2: tubill up the tub.
Speaker 3: It's like an also ran.
Speaker 2: Children's exactly, Tomas the tank Engine.
Speaker 3: Fill up the Tub twenty four that era of Keifer.
Speaker 3: My brother's band had a song on twenty four and
Speaker 3: it was just his guitar solo.
Speaker 2: Oh dope, pretty amazing, good job.
Speaker 3: Try back to hockey. Yeah, fill up the tub, Fill
Speaker 3: up the tub, Fill up the tub. It's like a
Speaker 3: bad mobster name. Fill up the tub, GONGOZI. They have
Speaker 3: cooled giant jerseys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hockey. I used to sleep in one I was
Speaker 2: a kid.
Speaker 3: Oh did you?
Speaker 2: That was like first my first sleeping shirt with hockey
Speaker 2: the back.
Speaker 3: What team was it?
Speaker 2: Okay, before the Calgary Flames were the Calgary Flames. So
Speaker 2: they were the Atlanta Flames, and I had an old
Speaker 2: Atlanta Flames jersey because you know, they burned down Atlanta
Speaker 2: and I love God bless anything about burning down Atlanta.
Speaker 2: So I was like, sureman, do it again.
Speaker 3: Emilio Estevez, he was in that movie The Mighty Ducks,
Speaker 3: about a kid's team, and I think they went on
Speaker 3: to make a new professional team by that name.
Speaker 2: Movie is so good they made a professional team to
Speaker 2: match it.
Speaker 3: I may yeah, I don't know if I had the
Speaker 3: order of things.
Speaker 2: Now, that's true that the Mighty Duck Anaheim Ducks are
Speaker 2: named after the Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I like how Emilio got hockey and his
Speaker 3: brother Charlie Sheen got baseball and one of the best
Speaker 3: baseball movies ever made, Major League totally, that's a good movie.
Speaker 2: You know. He did steroids for that movie so that
Speaker 2: he could pitch faster, and of course he would do
Speaker 2: whatever and he gets multiple weeks. But he was like
Speaker 2: really good. He was throwing five, which back then at
Speaker 2: the time was like a really good, like you know.
Speaker 3: You know what up your butt, Joe Booz. So that's
Speaker 3: what I know about hockey.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Aside from that, I got nothing. But you know what
Speaker 3: I do know crime and scamming. I've become kind of
Speaker 3: an expert. I have for you today a tail that
Speaker 3: involves both hockey and scamming.
Speaker 2: Mario Lemux, get the heck out.
Speaker 3: There are very few good owners of professional sports teams.
Speaker 2: This is true.
Speaker 3: It's like such a flex to own a professional sports
Speaker 3: team football, baseball, you know, basketball or the Big Dogs, right,
Speaker 3: and then we've got hockey and.
Speaker 2: Soccer soccer football. Do you know I am.
Speaker 3: Part owner of two professional sports teams?
Speaker 2: Really, Elizabeth, what are they?
Speaker 3: The Oakland Roots soccer team and Oakland Ballers baseball team.
Speaker 2: Look at you, it isn't you also a part owner
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 3: So both of them offer fans opportunities to invest in
Speaker 3: the team and become part owners. So for the ballers,
Speaker 3: I'm right there with Billy Joe from Green Day and
Speaker 3: Too Short.
Speaker 2: Oh Sam. Yeah, and also Marshaan.
Speaker 3: Right well know what the roots. Some of the other
Speaker 3: owners are Marshawn Lynch and again Billy Joe. He's all
Speaker 3: over this.
Speaker 2: He seems like it.
Speaker 3: You can buy in for like one hundred bucks, don't
Speaker 3: take much.
Speaker 2: Don't lowball it. So maybe wranchise.
Speaker 3: So maybe not all team owners are bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you are one, I am Bill.
Speaker 3: But for big time stuff like the New England Patriots
Speaker 3: or whatever town they are in the A's, the owners
Speaker 3: are no good.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, are there good billionaires.
Speaker 3: You don't become a billionaire without stepping on the backs
Speaker 3: of others. You pretty much have to be a billionaire
Speaker 3: to own a major sports team or go. It all
Speaker 3: makes sense.
Speaker 2: There's three billionaires that are tough for me to say
Speaker 2: that here bad Okay you ready? Yeah, Beyonce just became one,
Speaker 2: Rihanna became one a while ago. She co did mostly
Speaker 2: on top of the fenty makeer sure. And then Mackenzie
Speaker 2: Scott trying to give away her money as fast as
Speaker 2: he can.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, she's a good billion so she's trying
Speaker 3: to not be a billionaire.
Speaker 2: And I have a hard time saying they're bad. But
Speaker 2: I agree with you, and I'm still down to I'm
Speaker 2: on the team of bad billionaires.
Speaker 3: And no war, but class wars eron. Yeah. Anyway, So
Speaker 3: all that said, let me tell you about John Spano Junior.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, I already don't like him. He was born
Speaker 2: in nineteen he's not a billionaire. Oh I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't like him like they'll look.
Speaker 3: So he was born in nineteen sixty four in New
Speaker 3: York City, New York. I never that is, I know
Speaker 3: I've been there. So maybe ten years later or so.
Speaker 3: His family relocated from New York City, New York to
Speaker 3: a rural community about forty miles outside of Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 2: It's a big change, it is.
Speaker 3: He was a quote decent student in high school. He
Speaker 3: played sports, but he like was on any varsity teams.
Speaker 3: Just an average kid from an average family. He went
Speaker 3: to an average Catholic school, Saint John's High School.
Speaker 2: It's like a John Cougar Mellencamp song.
Speaker 3: Oh I had sucking on a chili dog you better
Speaker 3: believe it, but he would later tell people. So he
Speaker 3: went to Saint John's High School, but he was like,
Speaker 3: I went to high school at Saint John's Academy, which
Speaker 3: was like a super prestigious prep school. Yeah, so he
Speaker 3: was like, Saint John's close enough, whatever, they won't realize it.
Speaker 3: So eighty six, nineteen eighty six, he gets a degree
Speaker 3: in finance from Duquane University and that's a private college.
Speaker 2: In Pittsburgh and spelled du Kesney.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it totally is spelled dodu Kesney. And you know
Speaker 3: who is a superstar, and looked up how to pronounce it.
Speaker 3: This gal right here appointing at me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I only know it from a there's a street
Speaker 2: in LA called the Spell that way. And I made
Speaker 2: the mistake of saying it Dukesney was t un to
Speaker 2: somebody who was so snide. I hit myself so I
Speaker 2: wouldn't hit that.
Speaker 3: I felt like this was a trap in the forest
Speaker 3: when I saw it, and I was like, that looks
Speaker 3: like du Kesney, and I promise it is not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm going to say it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say it, and then we're going to
Speaker 3: get so inundated with messages, and it's going to make
Speaker 3: some people so irate that they're like burst a vein.
Speaker 2: In their head.
Speaker 3: So it's like, let's do our due diligence ducane. So uh,
Speaker 3: while he's there, he budied up with future NHL Hall
Speaker 3: of Famer Mario Lemieux.
Speaker 2: Oh for real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mario was a rising star with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was supposed to be one of the greatest ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Spano just like latched onto him. He later
Speaker 3: would refer to Lemieux as one of his best friends.
Speaker 3: Lemieux didn't take it that far. He said that Spano
Speaker 3: was just like a golfing partner.
Speaker 2: I know that guy.
Speaker 3: He got partners owned. So Spano, he gets out of college,
Speaker 3: gets himself a job. Take a guess at what he.
Speaker 2: Did, the equivalent of ball boys, so like puck boy.
Speaker 2: Oh close.
Speaker 3: He was a sales associate with an auto leasing company.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, so he did that for like so
Speaker 2: he was a car salesman.
Speaker 3: No way you could have figured that out. He did
Speaker 3: it for about a year and then he got a
Speaker 3: gig at a company called Recipa Finance. He was a
Speaker 3: credit manager in their Dallas Texas office. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 3: where he met his future wife, Shelby Hanson. So Recita financed,
Speaker 3: they arranged car loans for people with bad credit, and
Speaker 3: they had offices in forty four states. But they closed
Speaker 3: up shop in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: For exploitative practices.
Speaker 3: Yes, and so his job is gone. He moved to
Speaker 3: New York City, the Hot Potato, and it was there
Speaker 3: he started a business called Bison Group. Oh no, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and for whatever reason, he specialized in leasing heavy equipment
Speaker 3: to other businesses. Okay, I do wonder what got him
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 2: Bison.
Speaker 3: They'd buy big items like industrial vehicles, aircraft, and then
Speaker 3: lease that stuff to other companies.
Speaker 2: Do you think that they were leasing them or buying them.
Speaker 2: They think they leased the vehicle and then leased the vehicle.
Speaker 3: I think that's what was happening.
Speaker 2: Seems like a middleman very much.
Speaker 3: So so Shelby. She's still in Dallas, and so they're
Speaker 3: long distance for a couple of years, and then Spano
Speaker 3: he leaves New York and moves to Dallas to be
Speaker 3: with her. Two years after that, nineteen ninety four, they
Speaker 3: got married. Congratulations, you guys.
Speaker 2: So three years after point break came out.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was how they celebrated. Yeah, it's been three years, honey.
Speaker 2: You know that movie came out in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: It really did.
Speaker 3: It did. So Spano still had Bison Group. He ran
Speaker 3: it from Dallas and he used it to network with
Speaker 3: like movers and shakers in Dallas. For him, that meant
Speaker 3: rich local businessmen and like a bunch of former athletes
Speaker 3: looking for investments.
Speaker 2: Okay, I get the idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Bison was still registered in New York, so
Speaker 3: he added Bison Leasing Incorporated as a limited partnership in Texas.
Speaker 3: And then he figured, you know what, John, why stop there?
Speaker 3: So he set up Bison BLG. And I think it's
Speaker 3: Bison Leasing Group, but yeah, he incorporated that in Delaware.
Speaker 3: Then Bison Automotive Leasing Acceptance, and Bison.
Speaker 2: Food Services Companies. Yeah, Bison Food.
Speaker 3: Services leased cappuccino makers, hot dog machines, and other restaurant
Speaker 3: equipment to convenience stores. Those are the like necessary businesses
Speaker 3: we don't think of.
Speaker 2: I guess are they necessary?
Speaker 3: By late nineteen ninety four, he had negotiated this partnership
Speaker 3: with Lenco Holdings Limited. Lenco was a publicly traded South
Speaker 3: African company that specialized in manufacturing aluminum cookware and cutlery. Okay, yeah, Lenco,
Speaker 3: they wanted to expand into the US market. Naturally, an
Speaker 3: executive there named Gerald Groot. Groot did a bunch of
Speaker 3: market research to figure out, like how do we gain
Speaker 3: traction in the US.
Speaker 2: Sure, And it was in that.
Speaker 3: Research that he stumbled onto John Spano and his empire
Speaker 3: and connections. And so Spano he's like stoked that Groot
Speaker 3: has reached out.
Speaker 2: Oh, feign this is his chance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Lenko is huge, ripe with lucrative contracts.
Speaker 2: So Lenko they don't know any better, which is the best.
Speaker 3: Part, exactly exactly Lenko Holdings, they opened negotiations. Spano told
Speaker 3: them that he was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of
Speaker 3: like one hundred and fifty millions, and it would it
Speaker 3: should come as no shock that that was not true. No,
Speaker 3: his net worth was like maybe somewhere between three to
Speaker 3: five million, probably far less because the five million was
Speaker 3: like estimated later on when he was in full swing,
Speaker 3: like a couple of years down the road assets right,
Speaker 3: and it's not and so he it's not just him
Speaker 3: and this company. Shelby's in on the company too. So
Speaker 3: she she went with her husband to South Africa to
Speaker 3: meet with Lenko officials and like cut deals. And then
Speaker 3: she was the one who was like reaching out to
Speaker 3: high end retailer on behalf of Lenco to get them
Speaker 3: into stores places like Nordstrom.
Speaker 2: You know what they say, behind every successful grifter, you
Speaker 2: can find their.
Speaker 3: White drifter exactly. So she's she's calling up Nordstrom's right
Speaker 3: department store. And they used to be more posh than
Speaker 3: they are today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, am I wrong? No, No, not at all. That
Speaker 2: was totally the deal on the West.
Speaker 3: I think more of the department stores just in general
Speaker 3: used to be more posh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can till the private equity got involved. They
Speaker 2: actually had good product, mind, they had had buyers, they
Speaker 2: had people were going out checking the fashion world and
Speaker 2: coming back with good stuff. They had specialties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't do that anymore. So anyway, Lenko, that
Speaker 3: deal opened doors. And so remember how Spano loved hockey
Speaker 3: in this youth.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, Mario Lemo.
Speaker 3: Right, he still loved hockey, of course, and he wanted
Speaker 3: in on the action, just not on the ice. In
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: What's the other act?
Speaker 3: He and a group of investors made a bid to
Speaker 3: buy fifty percent of NHL's Dallas Stars team.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, Minnesota.
Speaker 3: So he's like, I can't get on the ice. It's
Speaker 3: just not in the cards for me. But you know what,
Speaker 3: I can own the ice. Let's do it. He wants
Speaker 3: to fill. My name is Philip the Tub, and I'm
Speaker 3: here to own the ice. Nineteen sixty seven, there was
Speaker 3: an NHL expansion, and so the league created the Minnesota
Speaker 3: north Stars, and then in seventy eight they absorbed the
Speaker 3: Cleveland Barons and then both teams they're like struggling, so
Speaker 3: they consolidate, you know, keep them alive. Ninety three, the
Speaker 3: team moves to Dallas. Dallas Stars are born.
Speaker 2: Yes, because I used to love the Minnesota north Stars.
Speaker 2: Oh really I did, and then they became Dallas. I
Speaker 2: was like, forget that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bye bye.
Speaker 2: I was never here.
Speaker 3: The move wasn't a smooth one. Yeah, And so the team,
Speaker 3: they were coming off a Stanley Cup win. The owner,
Speaker 3: Norman Green, was like.
Speaker 2: A sleazy fellow, completely.
Speaker 3: Known for inappropriate behavior with female staffers. Of course, apparently
Speaker 3: he would shake women to make sure they were wearing bras.
Speaker 2: Oh dear god, so horriful.
Speaker 3: His wife was appalled. Yeah, I'm with her, and somehow
Speaker 3: blamed Minnesota, the state, and she told him if if
Speaker 3: you don't move the team, I'm leaving you. Yeah, this
Speaker 3: Minnesota is making you shake, ladies.
Speaker 2: This Minnesota nice I've heard about? Is that? What this is?
Speaker 2: So so Green?
Speaker 3: He's like a developer, a telecom executive. His ventures weren't
Speaker 3: doing so well, so he had to free up some cash,
Speaker 3: so he put up a fifty percent stake in the team.
Speaker 3: You know, up on the market entered John Spano. He
Speaker 3: and his group of investors. They expressed their interest and
Speaker 3: entered into negotiations. The thing is Spano didn't have the cash,
Speaker 3: so he stalled and he made like these outrageous demands
Speaker 3: of Green. He hired a law firm to run like
Speaker 3: background research on the team. I guess he wanted like
Speaker 3: an objective look at the finances. So the law firm,
Speaker 3: you know, like, they get the report done, they're ready
Speaker 3: to settle up for their works. Spano's like, I'm not
Speaker 3: paying you the law firm. He said their work was
Speaker 3: quote shoddy and that they were trying to fleece him
Speaker 3: with ridiculous charges. It's a classic business con man move,
Speaker 3: like you engage smaller businesses for services and then you
Speaker 3: don't pay, and then the con man bullies the businesses,
Speaker 3: makes up all sorts of excuses, and it's cheaper for
Speaker 3: the business to walk away and not get paid than
Speaker 3: to try and sue and get the money. We see
Speaker 3: that a lot, like sometimes in casino construction.
Speaker 2: I've heard about that.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the top brass at the Stars they saw
Speaker 3: warning signs with Spano, but they ignored them. Like, for instance,
Speaker 3: he invited them to a cocktail party at his house,
Speaker 3: and he like, all these investors in sports grates are
Speaker 3: going to be there. It's a schmooz fest. He'd been
Speaker 3: bragging about how he paid two and a half million
Speaker 3: dollars for this palatial home. So the Stars guys get there.
Speaker 3: The place is huge, but it's also empty, like there's
Speaker 3: hardly any furniture, no decorations. So here's a guy who's
Speaker 3: worth one hundred million dollars and he was, as Jim
Speaker 3: Lights and Stars president said quote, rattling around some empty mansion.
Speaker 3: So it shouldn't be surprising his bid for the Stars
Speaker 3: fell apart. He stalled too much. Green sold the steak
Speaker 3: in the team to Tom Hicks, an actual billionaire smart
Speaker 3: and the Stars purchase was just the beginning for Hicks.
Speaker 3: He went on to buy the whole Texas Rangers franchise.
Speaker 3: Then he and a buddy bought Liverpool FC. Oh wow,
Speaker 3: Like this guy's an actual big dog, not someone trying
Speaker 3: to get like South African pots and pans into Nordstrom
Speaker 3: while sleeping on a recliner. Right, so let's take a break.
Speaker 3: I want to hear some ads. Ads we had nothing
Speaker 3: to do with selecting. And you may hear about a
Speaker 3: product or service that you think you'll like. And maybe
Speaker 3: some of the ads just don't float your boat, but
Speaker 3: they keep us in everyone's ears. It's important to remember
Speaker 3: free back in a.
Speaker 7: Flash Zarin, Oh hey, wake up, dream to take a
Speaker 7: good John Spano junior businessman, hockey fan right now.
Speaker 3: The known extent of his grift is misrepresenting his worth
Speaker 3: to a South African cookwear company and trying to buy
Speaker 3: a hockey team without having the money to do so.
Speaker 3: Stall tactics. It didn't pan out frohim, you know, buying
Speaker 3: a hockey team, but he was undeterred.
Speaker 2: Now him in.
Speaker 3: Early nineteen ninety six, he made another attempt to get
Speaker 3: himself a hockey team.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he now had his sights set on NHL's Florida
Speaker 3: Panthers ranchise. Yeah, he's all puffed up and like ready
Speaker 3: to put in a bid and likely we'll try to
Speaker 3: stall things while he worked on like smoking mirrors to
Speaker 3: get some money.
Speaker 2: Where do you think he can get this money from
Speaker 2: a credit line another South Africa?
Speaker 3: It's like shuffling credit lines, I think. But so then
Speaker 3: the owner decided he didn't want to sell the team
Speaker 3: after all. So some good did come out of that
Speaker 3: though for Spano, because he didn't have a chance to
Speaker 3: like embarrass himself like he did with the Dallas Stars.
Speaker 3: People started looking at him as a legit possible team owner.
Speaker 3: Oh god, and he seemed to be like the real
Speaker 3: deal and with someone who didn't have a team simply
Speaker 3: because the whims of the Florida Panthers owner. So this
Speaker 3: was cemented when the then commissioner of NHL, Gary Bettman,
Speaker 3: described Spano as quote the type of guy we want
Speaker 3: as an owner.
Speaker 2: Sarah, you don't deserve the job. You have that kind
Speaker 2: of discretion.
Speaker 3: And this is coming from on high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: All the money. Folks are on alert that like Spano's
Speaker 3: a goer.
Speaker 2: It was it soun.
Speaker 3: He decides to buy his time. He decides to bide
Speaker 3: his time, so because you know, in the meantime he
Speaker 3: has scamming to do's Eric, there's Lenco and the nord
Speaker 3: Strums deals.
Speaker 2: Scams aren't going to scam themselves, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: He needs cash to bolster his dreams of NHL team
Speaker 3: ownership and then just cash for like day to day,
Speaker 3: so he gets crafty. In October of nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 3: he submitted some purchase orders on behalf of Nordstrom two
Speaker 3: million dollars worth of pots and pans stat.
Speaker 2: On behalf of nord st Yeah.
Speaker 3: He's like, hey, Nordstrum's here, and I love how I
Speaker 3: make it possessive all the time, Nordstrums, but it's just strum.
Speaker 2: Yeah it doesn't sound right.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't just like J C. Penny j C. Pennies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some things need to be pluralized. Yeah, and Black
Speaker 2: America agrees with me on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I agree with you. So anyway, he's like,
Speaker 3: nord Strum's here, Yeah, two million in pots and pans.
Speaker 3: I love them, I need them. So Lenko, they get
Speaker 3: the order and they're like, all right, get to work.
Speaker 3: They ship the goods off, they wait for payment. Here's
Speaker 3: the thing though, at this Pointstrom didn't sell pots and pans,
Speaker 3: and so like Shelby had been working on that, right
Speaker 3: missus nobody no, but like she hadn't made headway. And
Speaker 3: that order the product code on it was for Ladies coats.
Speaker 3: So now Spano's sitting on two mill worth of pots.
Speaker 2: And pans that he also can't pay for.
Speaker 3: Right, so his idea was to borrow against these for
Speaker 3: a million dollars.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: So he approaches Co America Bank.
Speaker 2: Can they agree? America Bank say yes.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, you got two million dollars of pots
Speaker 3: and pans up in there, y'all? All right, I'll put
Speaker 3: a million on it.
Speaker 2: I will never understand finance.
Speaker 3: No, Nordstrom, Lenko, they have no idea any of this
Speaker 3: is going down. So now back to hockey. He made
Speaker 3: his third bid for team ownership at this point October
Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety six. He worked his magic and actually
Speaker 3: entered into an agreement to buy the New York Islanders
Speaker 3: Oh Wow, and their cable rights from then owner John
Speaker 3: Pickett for about one hundred and sixty five million dollars.
Speaker 2: This is like the lesser New York franchise in hockey.
Speaker 2: This would be like buying the Jets in football.
Speaker 3: Yes, sure, if you say something put in I'm guessing
Speaker 3: I don't know. So how how did he manage that?
Speaker 4: How?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: He did he make a trade for the pots and pans?
Speaker 2: Oh? Maybe like stone soup, he just keeps trading up.
Speaker 3: No, Zaron, don't, don't be foolish. He convinced Fleet Bank
Speaker 3: to okay an eighty million dollar loud.
Speaker 2: Okay, so like the Philadelphia Base Bank to be like hey, well,
Speaker 2: because this is what he did.
Speaker 3: First, he told the bank that he had a net
Speaker 3: worth of about two hundred and thirty million dollars. And
Speaker 3: I don't understand when they do this, when the bank
Speaker 3: isn't like, well then you use that money? Yeah anyway?
Speaker 2: Or like what's that name again? Let me check? Don't
Speaker 2: they have like the equivalent of Lexus nexus but for banking.
Speaker 3: So then he busted out the oldest con artist line
Speaker 3: in the book. He told the bank that a relative
Speaker 3: of his had established a one hundred and seven million
Speaker 3: dollar trust on his behalf and he'd have access to it.
Speaker 2: Soon, really soon on my birthday.
Speaker 3: People always full for that one. That's crazy. So the
Speaker 3: official closing on the deal was coming up quick. April seventh,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven. That was supposed to be the big day.
Speaker 3: That's when he's going to hand over a check for
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty eight million dollars to John.
Speaker 2: Pickett, like one of those really big comically oversized chess.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, well actually he's supposed to have. I guess
Speaker 3: he's putting like a down payment, sure, an overly you know,
Speaker 3: a comically oversized down payment, sixteen million. So April seventh comes,
Speaker 3: there's no check, Like, hey, Spano, what gives? He had
Speaker 3: all manner of excuses. So at first he's like, well,
Speaker 3: actually there was a fire at the office that was
Speaker 3: supposed to send out the funds, and there's actually no
Speaker 3: okay because like the money is coming from London and
Speaker 3: there was like an IRA bomb threat that shut down
Speaker 3: the London Underground and closed the office that was supposed
Speaker 3: to send the money.
Speaker 2: Courier got trapped and then now their printers out sh
Speaker 2: you blame.
Speaker 3: The IRA, right, So this is this is a year
Speaker 3: before the Good Friday agreement, So that kind of you know,
Speaker 3: excuses still makes sense. I guess okay, So now send
Speaker 3: the check. He's like, well, there's a problem. See it
Speaker 3: seems that there was a decimal point error and the
Speaker 3: payment was processed is five thousand dollars instead of five million.
Speaker 2: That's a big DECIMALO.
Speaker 3: He's like, okay, I got a check and then oh
Speaker 3: it bounced. Okay, that's so weird. How about if I
Speaker 3: get you a transfer of seventeen million dollars with that work.
Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2: Yeh, wire transfers are great.
Speaker 3: You're like, hold on the transfer. What do you mean
Speaker 3: the transfer was only for seventeen hundred Oh those decimal points.
Speaker 3: He's constantly doing the damn decimal points thing. It's becoming
Speaker 3: a circus. And the same could be said about the
Speaker 3: Lenco deal. So March of ninety seven, in the middle
Speaker 3: of the Islanders negotiations and a month before payments due,
Speaker 3: the Lenco folks are like, we'd like a word, please, Yes,
Speaker 3: what's up with the north Stroms order? Why haven't they
Speaker 3: paid up? And so Spano he's like, all right, calm down,
Speaker 3: there's nothing to be word worried about. In fact, I
Speaker 3: can get the money wired to you in an hour.
Speaker 2: They just out of I don't know if you have
Speaker 2: a little bit of anxiety. I don't have anxiety, but
Speaker 2: like I can't deal with this level of lying nor so,
Speaker 2: like I don't know how somebody gets up every day
Speaker 2: and just things. I'll just keep lying these people. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like to me, it's like juggling chainsaws. I'm like,
Speaker 2: why would you do that?
Speaker 3: You say these things and knowing it's totally fault. Well,
Speaker 3: he says, I can get you the money in an hour,
Speaker 3: it can be to you in an hour.
Speaker 2: I've known guys like that.
Speaker 3: Never obviously the money doesn't materialize, there's no wire. How
Speaker 3: can you do that? And then what's going to happen
Speaker 3: in an hour?
Speaker 2: And they away seem to think it's going to work out,
Speaker 2: and it's going to work out. I mean, yeah, some
Speaker 2: people don't argue, but I mean, like they just they
Speaker 2: just lie in the dumbest.
Speaker 3: Ways, unbelievable and the decimal point thing, Oh, that's a
Speaker 3: mix up. So the money did eventually show up for Lenko, though.
Speaker 3: On April eighteenth, they got a check for just over
Speaker 3: one point six y three million, Okay, and it was
Speaker 3: written out of Bison Leasing's Komor Emerica Bank account.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Did I say the money showed up?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, I said the check I got that one bounced
Speaker 3: ten days later.
Speaker 2: Like like a super Bowl. Yes.
Speaker 3: So Lenco's frustrated, right, and they're like, okay, you know what,
Speaker 3: will take a payment plan with you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's like, sure, of course I could do that.
Speaker 3: He couldn't do that. June of ninety seven, his installment
Speaker 3: check bounced. He'sus writing rubber checks everywhere.
Speaker 2: In early July, news Day.
Speaker 3: Gets wind of this whole thing. Oh yeah, the magazine
Speaker 3: got all these anonymous tips from Islanders executives.
Speaker 2: I was just about to say, this is like a
Speaker 2: whistleblower New York outlet to get this story. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: So they had like they figured out this new owner,
Speaker 3: he's worth way less than he says he is. Reporters
Speaker 3: pounce on it. On July ninth, they published an expos
Speaker 3: about Spano. Yeah, they pointed out that he was like
Speaker 3: completely lied about his net worth hundreds of millions, like
Speaker 3: try five million. Was Bise Group a massive organization like
Speaker 3: he pretended it was?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: Twenty two employees companies worth three million.
Speaker 2: They operate out of a po box. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Basically, the magazine reported that Spano lied on his resume.
Speaker 3: They busted him on that whole high school.
Speaker 2: The Saint John's thing. I knew they get.
Speaker 3: On that, and the inheritance.
Speaker 2: New York people love busting you about. Yes, yes, more
Speaker 2: than in the West.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, totally totally no inheritance they find, you know not.
Speaker 3: Of course, so the Islanders deal is now like being
Speaker 3: blown apart. There are threats of lawsuits for breach of
Speaker 3: contracts swirling around Lenco's.
Speaker 2: Like, excuse me over here. Yeah, they filed a.
Speaker 3: Lawsuit over the nord Strom Pots and pans deal, and
Speaker 3: then another Dallas company, Richmond Capital Partners, they filed a
Speaker 3: civil lawsuit in Dallas against him. They too, were all
Speaker 3: about breach of contract, fraud, negligent missrepresentation. They said that
Speaker 3: Spano came to them in March of nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 3: wanting a short term loan for a million dollars and
Speaker 3: they gave it to him. Quote based upon representations of
Speaker 3: Spano regarding his strong financial condition is.
Speaker 2: That like bank talk, frilet, we liked the cut of
Speaker 2: his jewel.
Speaker 3: Basically, he swore to them that he could put up
Speaker 3: a two million dollar certificate of deposit issued by Comerica
Speaker 3: Bank as collateral. So he's just shuffling everything around. On
Speaker 3: July eleventh, he was forced to surrender control of the
Speaker 3: team after failing to uphold his end of the deal.
Speaker 2: He just came along too early for Crypto.
Speaker 3: He really did it, oh buddy, Yeah, And the thing
Speaker 3: is he was actually running the team for a couple months,
Speaker 3: like he owned it for a couple months. So he
Speaker 3: in return for surrendering the team, pickt the owner who
Speaker 3: sold it, was like, I won't sue you for breach
Speaker 3: of contract. So during the three plus months that he
Speaker 3: was in control of the team, he collected one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty thousand dollars in management fees three months and
Speaker 3: spent two hundred and twenty thousand dollars of the team's
Speaker 3: operating budget.
Speaker 2: On what do we have? Just like I've always wanted
Speaker 2: a wall to wall flooring.
Speaker 3: On July seventeenth, federal authorities they charged him with bank
Speaker 3: and wirefraud.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was decorating as a empty mansion. Oh, I
Speaker 2: think he's just using their money to buy art. Shag Rug.
Speaker 3: He goes to brunners. So he the Feds are like, look,
Speaker 3: you forged bank letters, you lied about your holdings, your
Speaker 3: net worth, and your network, and then you just like
Speaker 3: straight up cheated everybody you came into contact with pretty much.
Speaker 3: July twenty first, the FEDS show up at his house
Speaker 3: with an arrest warrant. Jokes on them. Spano had run
Speaker 3: off to the Cayman Islands.
Speaker 2: No extradition. Well he wasn't there long.
Speaker 3: Like cooler heads prevailed and he surrendered and then he
Speaker 3: got arraigned on July twenty third. His bail was set
Speaker 3: at three month million dollars and they had this requirement
Speaker 3: of like, if you want to make bailis half cash.
Speaker 3: So in order to make that, he put up the
Speaker 3: equity he had in his house, plus his mom's house
Speaker 3: and his sister's house.
Speaker 2: They still trust.
Speaker 3: He still trusted him. So all of the investors and
Speaker 3: the business tycoons that he's running around with, they were
Speaker 3: trying to like put space between them Spano, but it
Speaker 3: would come out in court like how deep of a
Speaker 3: network he developed in like this fraud, you know, fantasy
Speaker 3: of his and how many people he owed money he
Speaker 3: betrayed investment bankers, other business owners, and even Mario Lemieux.
Speaker 2: He's like a reverse Midas touch. Yeah, I'll turn everything
Speaker 2: to Pewter. So how is he Mario Mario Lemieux.
Speaker 3: He took his money. He did so under the guise
Speaker 3: of it being for other businesses. He's like, you know,
Speaker 3: I've got all. I've got pots, I've got pants, i
Speaker 3: have cappuccino. Makers used the money to buy the Islanders
Speaker 3: a rival team. What that's dirty. That's dirty. So he
Speaker 3: falsified documents.
Speaker 2: I don't know if i'd call them a rival team,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't his team. Yeah, it's not the Penguin. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was on the Pittsburgh Penguin.
Speaker 3: He falsified financial documents, he forged signatures, he faked letters,
Speaker 3: and he even had like he had this whole universe
Speaker 3: of false identities and shell companies. And he worked really
Speaker 3: hard to create this facade and it only lasted him
Speaker 3: a couple months of glory.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's what I got, I guess as
Speaker 2: an owner.
Speaker 3: So he pleaded guilty to the charges in late nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven and was still out on bail at that point.
Speaker 2: Two years later.
Speaker 3: Shelby files for divorce. They sold the Dallas house. He
Speaker 3: moves into a luxury condo in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Shelby had to have known, Oh, she had to there's
Speaker 2: no innocence here. Yeah.
Speaker 3: If she's talking to Nordstrom and they're like, we don't
Speaker 3: sell pots and pans, and then like go ahead and
Speaker 3: put the order in it.
Speaker 2: Yeahs.
Speaker 3: So he's in this luxury condo in Philly. Of course
Speaker 3: he has no legitimate income. So he gets evicted because
Speaker 3: it turns out you can't pay rent with a bad
Speaker 3: credit card, bounced check, or failed wire transfers. All true
Speaker 3: landlords don't like that. So the US attorney found out
Speaker 3: about the eviction and then put in a petition to
Speaker 3: have his bail revoked due to quote, continued criminal conduct,
Speaker 3: and he summed up the filing with quote Unfortunately, he
Speaker 3: could not stop.
Speaker 2: Lying at statement irony.
Speaker 3: So in January two thousand, Spano was sentenced to just
Speaker 3: under six years in prison. He was also ordered to
Speaker 3: pay almost twelve million dollars in restitution to all these
Speaker 3: various banks and team owners and all the other people
Speaker 3: who got caught up in the schemes. Let's take a break.
Speaker 3: This feels like the end, but it most certainly is not.
Speaker 8: Oh Saren Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Yes, John Spano, so, John Spano. Yeah, he's sentenced to
Speaker 3: six years in prison in January of the year two thousand,
Speaker 3: how was it? He got about a little early in
Speaker 3: June of two thousand and four, and he moved back
Speaker 3: to northeastern Ohio and he was supposed to be on
Speaker 3: five years of supervised release, live it on the street
Speaker 3: and narrow. But he just couldn't hold it. Couldn't hold it.
Speaker 2: At least he didn't like waste his sister and mother's house.
Speaker 2: I was really worried.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, he didn't come, but he did. He
Speaker 3: They revoked bail. Yeah, so, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: they got that back. Who knows. February of two thousand
Speaker 3: and five, he got busted for what now. The US
Speaker 3: Postal Service came after him, which is that's bad business,
Speaker 3: that's feral charges.
Speaker 2: Also they make the charge count crazy.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So he got accused of failing to complete
Speaker 3: lease deals and using bad checks for purchases involving clients
Speaker 3: in Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, and Wisconsin, across mail fraud across
Speaker 3: state lines. Seems he bounced a check for one hundred
Speaker 3: and seventeen thousand dollars to buy some equipment.
Speaker 2: You ever written a check for that much all the time?
Speaker 3: And they're just and I just shred them.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't think someone would take a check from Absolutely,
Speaker 2: we're going to keep putting numbers on here?
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? He leased the equipment out, Okay,
Speaker 3: so he bounces a check for the equipment. Then he
Speaker 3: least said equipment out.
Speaker 2: So he's back to his original scam of inking.
Speaker 3: Thousands in rental agreements. So to make this whole deal
Speaker 3: and the vibe seem believable, he rented jets and told
Speaker 3: both sides that he owned them, Like, hey, what a
Speaker 3: broke guy owned jets? I don't think so like that.
Speaker 3: This is some things, so what do you know? He
Speaker 3: was convicted sentenced to fifty one months in federal prison
Speaker 3: in January two thousand and six. Six months later they
Speaker 3: tack on another six months for violating the conditions of
Speaker 3: his release in the Islanders case over the fraud conviction
Speaker 3: of Cleveland. Okay, so back in the clink you go, Spano,
Speaker 3: But he wasn't in there forever. He was released, and
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven he got hired as a driver for
Speaker 3: a company called Image First Healthcare Laundry Specialists. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's a con man, saren No.
Speaker 2: He knows image.
Speaker 3: He knows how to wow people. So it's not shocking
Speaker 3: that he impressed the owners and was quickly promoted to
Speaker 3: a sales position. It's not just a driver now he's
Speaker 3: a salesman. It's like giving an arsonist a cute book
Speaker 3: of matches for their birthday. So like one season sales.
Speaker 3: He started creating false invoices for services that were never
Speaker 3: ordered or delivered, just like with nord Strums, just like Nordies.
Speaker 3: But there were other things brewing. One of those was Twitter.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: In twenty twelve he joined Twitter, and hockey fans, especially
Speaker 3: chaotic ones, loved it. They were so excited. One Islanders
Speaker 3: fan in particular, Eric Kipperwasser, he was stoked to be
Speaker 3: able to reach out to the businessman turned felon.
Speaker 2: Oh they love specifically him.
Speaker 3: He was talking to the people are like John Spanno's
Speaker 3: on Twitter. Oh hell yeah yeah, and so like this guy.
Speaker 3: Like briefly he spent three months as.
Speaker 2: Own a team owner, a flagrant.
Speaker 3: Let's do it so as a goof this Eric. He
Speaker 3: invited Spano to the twenty twelve, twenty thirteen season opener
Speaker 3: for the Islanders, and it was like a shortened season
Speaker 3: thanks to the NHL lockout labor dispute, and Spano he
Speaker 3: gets this DM or whatever, and he's like nervous about it,
Speaker 3: but he accepted the invitation.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's act Haron, close you out. Oh yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Want you to picture it. It's January nineteenth, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: You are a die hard New York Islanders fan. You
Speaker 3: hold season tickets. You love this team. The season has
Speaker 3: been on hold due to the lockout, but that has
Speaker 3: finally been resolved, and here you are at opening night.
Speaker 3: The air is electric. People file in to take their
Speaker 3: seats to watch the home team take on the New
Speaker 3: Jersey Devils. This is your happy place. You're home away
Speaker 3: from home, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
Speaker 3: You're walking through the parking lot on your way inside
Speaker 3: when you see the guy who have the set of
Speaker 3: seats next to yours.
Speaker 2: They're partying it.
Speaker 3: Up with a pretty big group, larger than usual. People
Speaker 3: walk up, stop and shake this one guy's hand. Chat
Speaker 3: for a bit and then head into the arena. As
Speaker 3: you approach, you look at the man in the Islander's
Speaker 3: sweatshirt and ball cap. He looks familiar. You greet the guys,
Speaker 3: your section mates, and nod at the new guy. Eric,
Speaker 3: the guy whose seat is always next to years, introduces you.
Speaker 3: This is John Spano.
Speaker 8: No way.
Speaker 3: You think, what is this guy doing here? You shake
Speaker 3: his hand. Not wanting to be rude, you try and
Speaker 3: think of something to say. You fired Milbury as the
Speaker 3: head coach and put in Bowness. You tell him. He nods,
Speaker 3: excellent move. Everyone laughs. A guy walks by, sees Spano
Speaker 3: and calls out.
Speaker 2: What are you doing here? You bum?
Speaker 3: Spano lowers his head. You feel kind of bad for him,
Speaker 3: but at the same time the guy is a total crook.
Speaker 3: Eric announces that you should all head inside, and you
Speaker 3: walk together to your seats. Through years of ticket holding
Speaker 3: and increased spending, you now have great seats. In fact,
Speaker 3: you are directly across from the owner's box and you
Speaker 3: can look right in at the folks in there tonight.
Speaker 3: It's packed with the owners and executives and swells, looks
Speaker 3: like a great party and sitting a couple seats down
Speaker 3: from you is John Spano, and he can look right
Speaker 3: into the owner's box. You realize this and grow uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: You look over at Spano and he's anything but there.
Speaker 3: He is, sipping a beer and soaking it all in.
Speaker 3: He'd made a laughing stock of your team, and now
Speaker 3: he's acting like it never happened. The first whistle sounds
Speaker 3: and the ref drops the puck. Everyone cheers. You look
Speaker 3: over at Spano. He grins and leans back in his chair.
Speaker 3: The guy in the parking lot was right.
Speaker 2: He is a bum.
Speaker 3: So well, Spano's enjoying a night out thanks to his
Speaker 3: new Twitter buddies. His criminal life went on so from
Speaker 3: June of twenty eleven to No Member of twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: he stole almost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
Speaker 3: Image First, the place that gave the sales gig.
Speaker 2: I like that. You can name almost any criminal who
Speaker 2: goes into like a convenience store and they will get
Speaker 2: a way more severe penalty. Criminal penalty for stealing like
Speaker 2: I don't know, eight dollars worth of merchandise, and this
Speaker 2: guy is writing bad check after bad checks, literally stealing
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousand dollars everyone's like that span out, I know.
Speaker 3: So it was like not just image first. They had
Speaker 3: a sister company, London Cleaners, was stealing from them too.
Speaker 3: His attorney was like, you know, my client is not
Speaker 3: the one to blame. He was just a minor part
Speaker 3: in this. Was to blame the owners of the businesses.
Speaker 3: They're the actual criminal masterminds here.
Speaker 2: Society is to blame.
Speaker 3: Right as not a successful defense. So August of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: he gets indicted by a grand jury in Ohio on
Speaker 3: one count of theft and forty four counts of forgery.
Speaker 2: Jeez.
Speaker 3: So he pleaded guilty to sixteen counts of forgery, got
Speaker 3: sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Hikes, So that's
Speaker 3: you know, he got it.
Speaker 2: He got his count up enough to actually get some time.
Speaker 3: And he had to repay seventy five thousand dollars to
Speaker 3: the company in restitution. He did his time at the
Speaker 3: Grafton Correctional Facility just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Got released
Speaker 3: in November of twenty twenty four recent huh, and there's
Speaker 3: no word on whether he's gone back to grifting again.
Speaker 3: If so, he's like in the process of it. There's
Speaker 3: an ESPN thirty for thirty documentary about him called Big Shot,
Speaker 3: and in it, he says that the process of getting
Speaker 3: the eighty million dollar loan to buy the Islanders was
Speaker 3: easier than it was for him to get his first
Speaker 3: car loan of twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That's the thing that I kind of pointed this out earlier,
Speaker 2: is that we don't look at on paper crime nearly
Speaker 2: the same. And so eventually get up to a place
Speaker 2: where people will just believe you, and you got Deutsche
Speaker 2: Bank to give you like one hundred million dollars because
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, then they don't want to admit that
Speaker 2: they do. Then they'll bury it for two years totally
Speaker 2: and buy you time to go find some other sucker,
Speaker 2: and then be like, give him a little bit more money.
Speaker 2: They're like, we'll take ten million dollars just to keep
Speaker 2: this going.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, like he said he was a
Speaker 3: little embarrassed by his bad behavior a little and that
Speaker 3: he wasn't the only one who was punished like his
Speaker 3: family and his friends they went through it too, you know,
Speaker 3: by association.
Speaker 2: Did he recognize it when he says they were punished,
Speaker 2: they were punished by him, But here's the thing.
Speaker 3: At the same time, he was like, I would do
Speaker 3: it all over again.
Speaker 2: I would punish everyone I know all over again. And
Speaker 2: they were like, what for three months ownership of the Islanders?
Speaker 3: He said it was quote a fulfillment of a dream,
Speaker 3: even if it was for a short time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm so offended, Like just that.
Speaker 3: Guy Milbury that he fired. Yeah. They asked him like
Speaker 3: in an interview, it's like a decade after this all
Speaker 3: goes down, Yeah, Like what do you think? And he
Speaker 3: referred to him as an that remains full of.
Speaker 2: Like Milbury. Yeah.
Speaker 3: When interviewed regarding one of the scandals, former executive Jim
Speaker 3: Lights remember him, he said, like, why the grift worked?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Why? Quote?
Speaker 3: You know, with John, you got none of that funny
Speaker 3: feeling you would expect to get about a guy trying
Speaker 3: to scam you. You always get a picture of these
Speaker 3: guys driving around in big limos with busty girlfriends on
Speaker 3: their arms. He wasn't like that at all. John and
Speaker 3: his wife were very simple people, very Middle America. We're
Speaker 3: very forgiving people, sometimes too forgiving.
Speaker 2: See, this is the other part that I didn't want
Speaker 2: to like bring all the way home as my point,
Speaker 2: which is because it feels like I'm blaming somebody for this,
Speaker 2: but these people are natural born suckers. If you think
Speaker 2: that the devil's gonna show up with a pitchfork, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like he wasn't in a limo with bucks and blondes.
Speaker 2: Bodacious point of a con artist is that they show
Speaker 2: up and they make you feel confident.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my goodness, there it is, is Aaron, what's
Speaker 3: your ridiculous take away this whole thing?
Speaker 2: Something like talk about fill up the tob with just crap.
Speaker 2: I'm with the dude Milbury dude, like he nailed it.
Speaker 2: This guy isn't fully Yeah he heard ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 3: I'm just always done, like you're saying the lying.
Speaker 2: I couldn't.
Speaker 3: I couldn't get five minutes into this without melting down. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and like, but to maintain this, and then especially when
Speaker 3: you're put on the spot where they're like, okay, where's
Speaker 3: the payment, and then to come up with excuse after excuse.
Speaker 2: And then and everyone's just buying it.
Speaker 3: They're like, Okay, no, right now, you gotta pay me. Okay, fine,
Speaker 3: now now you have it. Just doesn't enough.
Speaker 2: They're not buying it, and they're just mad and you're
Speaker 2: still lying to.
Speaker 3: You're still lying, and then you're like hold on, and
Speaker 3: then you go over to the next guy like, hey, listen,
Speaker 3: can I get a loan on because I have this amount.
Speaker 3: The whole thing's nuts.
Speaker 2: Have you seen my rented jet? Because you know guy
Speaker 2: would have that and not be rich.
Speaker 3: Oh you know what, it's time for talkback.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, did he do super?
Speaker 6: I went you.
Speaker 4: Ridiculous crime fam. Hello, this is Catherine from Albuquerque with
Speaker 4: an update for you.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 4: My husband who broke his back can now walk on
Speaker 4: assistant and is healing very well. And we're all very
Speaker 4: excited for him because he's healing much quicker than we
Speaker 4: all expected. So that is super exciting. To he copy
Speaker 4: a shirt from your merch store on your award winning website,
Speaker 4: which I just love, and so that's amazing. I hope
Speaker 4: you all had a merry Christmas.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yes, I am so excited because back
Speaker 3: injuries are new joke.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, congrats to your That is really cool. We
Speaker 2: were pulling for his recovery.
Speaker 3: I love it, hear it, and I love how sweet
Speaker 3: for him to get you the best.
Speaker 2: Merchant good partner. I love it and I used to
Speaker 2: work construction, so trust me, I know about healing, especially
Speaker 2: from back injuries and things like that. Yeah, please tell
Speaker 2: them extra congrats for me on that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah, what a wonderful way to wrap up
Speaker 3: the year. We need good good end of the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need some good energy and that made me
Speaker 2: give me a big smile you too. No more Winter
Speaker 2: of Dark, Elizabeth, No, No, that's it for today.
Speaker 3: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 2: There's also merch on there.
Speaker 3: We're at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky on Instagram. We're
Speaker 3: on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. Email Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com, Leave it, talk back on the iHeart app.
Speaker 3: Share your excellent news like that reach out. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and
Speaker 3: edited by owner of the Rhode Island Rabbit Holes, Dave Cousten,
Speaker 3: starring Annale Rucker as Judah. Research is by Nordstrom Housewares
Speaker 3: buyer Marissa Brown and Islanders whistleblower Jabbari Davis. The theme
Speaker 3: song is by Goaltender. In a season long Slump, Thomas
Speaker 3: Lee and rookie left wing phenom Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe
Speaker 3: is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
Speaker 3: by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are La King's
Speaker 3: Jersey Taylor, Ben Bolan and Mighty Ducks Stunt Double, Noel Brown.
Speaker 5: We Dickus Crime Say It One More Times.
Speaker 1: Crime Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more
Speaker 1: podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.