WEBVTT - Meet the Real 'Wolf of Wall Street': David Lamar 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.520 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:15.800 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.400 third season of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.200 and motivations of some of the most notorious impostors throughout history. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.599 Today we're talking about the original and legendary Wolf of 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:31.000 Wall Street. I'm Maria Tremarki and I'm Holly Fry. And 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.680 you may think you know who. The Wolf of Wall 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.360 Street was based on Martin Scorsese's movie, which was appropriately 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.879 named The Wolf of wall Street. Right, that is a 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.920 person named Jordan Belford, and that movie was based on 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.680 Jordan's book where he described his debaucherous rise as a 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:52.080 New York stockbroker right up to his very corrupted, messy fault. Yeah, 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.920 so Jordan's rise. At his peak, he bought mansions. He 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.000 bought cars for those car people out there, especially from 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.680 the eighties. He had two superstars, the Lamborghini Kuntosh and 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.399 the Ferrari Tester Rosa. He bought a helicopter which he crashed. 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:10.800 He bought a yacht which he sank. And as a 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.160 side note to that yacht, he bought it from cocosan. Now, 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.560 he took a lot, a lot which explains a lot 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.560 of his behavior. He took a lot of coludes. He 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.679 said that he modeled himself after his on screen hero, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.080 Gordon Gecko, who was the ruthless corporate raider played by 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.040 Michael Douglas in the eighties movie Wall Street. Ultimately, Jordan 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.480 was arrested that was in and he pled guilty to 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.959 fraud and various crimes associated with defrauding investors out of 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.399 more than two hundred million dollars. And because he was 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.679 willing to cooperate with the FBI and give testimony against 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.800 his partners and subordinates in this whole thing, his sentence 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.840 was lightened. He only spent twenty two months in prison, 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.559 and it was during his prison time when he began 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.400 writing his book, his memoirs, which he called the Wolf 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.760 of Wall Street. That's a road name. We're going to 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:02.840 talk about that in the second need. He did steal 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:09.280 something in years after Jordan had served his time, Martin 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.120 Scor says, he's movie was released, it wouldn't be wrong 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.040 to call Jordan's the Wolf of Wall Street because he 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.800 certainly sounds as though he could be the wolf of 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.160 Wall Street. But it turns out though that Jordan's just 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:24.920 a Wolf of Wall Street. He's not the first, and 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.639 of all things he did, he actually never impersonated anyone. 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:35.079 Enter the real topic of today's conversation, David Lamar. David 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.520 Lamar is the original Wolf of Wall Street, not Jordan Belfort. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:44.200 Although comedically enough, they do have something in common despite 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.440 that it's in their name. Neither of these men actually 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.080 ever really worked on Wall Street. It's just coincidence. Bryan, 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.919 So um, it is a little bit early, But we're 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:56.560 going to stop now for a break for a word 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.359 from our sponsor, so that when we come back, will 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:13.760 introduce David Lamar. Welcome back to criminal LYA. Do you 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:15.840 know how to short stock? This has been in the 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.120 news in recent times. Everyone's trying to figure it out. Well, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.919 David Lamar, sha knew how to do it. Yes, So 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:27.320 David David was born in or around seventy seven, we 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.079 don't know the exact date. He went on to become 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.920 a legend for his financial scams as well as his 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:39.400 impersonation of a member of Congress and various other people. 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.000 Let's just say for right now, he was known for 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.000 walking about New York City with his diamond studied walking 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.240 stick for his horses, and also for being brash and 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:55.520 cutthroat in his dealings. So he was actually born David Levy. 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:57.760 We know that because he had a brother, Henry, who 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.440 would sign his last name Levy, and that how people 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.320 put it together. But David later told people that he 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.000 changed his last name to Lamar to match that of 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.720 a noted Mississippi senator in order to help facilitate his 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.840 business dealings. And Holly just said facilitate with quotation marks 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:19.479 around him. Yeah, that person he's referencing would presumably be 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.680 a man named Lucius Quintus Cincinnatis Lamar. And in the 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.960 eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties that Lamar served as both 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.240 a member of the U. S. House of Representatives and 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.400 then the U. S. Senate, and then he became Secretary 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.880 of the Interior and eventually an Associate Justice of the 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.480 Supreme Court. But here's the thing. L QC. Lamar's legacy 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.120 is one that is deeply rooted in racism. It is 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:47.239 extraordinarily ugly, and he had a lot of very active 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.600 rhetoric around white supremacy. So really not a great choice 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.920 for someone to associate yourself with via a name change. 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.600 It was not actually the only name that he would use, though, 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.839 David at Lamar also went by David Lewis, particularly during 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.760 a stretch of time he spent in Omaha, Nebraska, and 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:13.000 at one point JP Morgan smartly had become suspicious of 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.800 Lamar and his financial doings, and he put two and 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.920 you together, and he figured out that these were very 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.279 likely the very same man. So Morrigan actually paid to 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.960 have a judge from Omaha who had had dealings with 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:30.200 David Lewis fly to New York to identify David Lamar 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.920 as being the same man. And as you probably expected, 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.800 he was. And many sources say that David pretended to 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.640 be the heir of a wealthy Georgia family that allowed 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.719 him not only to live very extravagantly, but also gave 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:49.719 him better access to politicians and financial heavyweights. Some sources 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.719 also suggest that around people with money, David pretended to 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:58.960 be a legitimate businessman. He was charged with bribery in 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.800 in Virginia after what he got involved with, which the 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:06.560 press called quote electric franchise fight. Presumably he was trying 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.560 to help monopolize the delivery of electricity to people. He 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.960 went on to pose as a New York businessman while 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.719 he was in Mobile, Alabama. I mean, the list goes 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.040 on and on and on. It's actually kind of tricky 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.600 if you look back partically at his obituaries that came 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.159 out when he died, all of the newspapers are just 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.920 like lists of weird things that he was involved in, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.239 and like his rap sheet, and it's actually so thick 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:32.760 it's you can see that they were even having trouble 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.680 keeping it all straight. It's hard to track the timeline 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:42.000 with the name and the associated event. Because he was mobile, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.440 he was in a lot of places, and you can 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.480 see he managed to get into a lot of scrapes. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.719 But he was very driven and even after any of 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.320 these scrapes, he always continued simply moving on from one 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.200 ruse to the next because he he had big imagination 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.120 um and knew a lot of people. Uh So, David 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.120 was the type of fraudster who would do whatever it 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.000 took to close a deal and make some money. And 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.080 early and really significant score for him was when he 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:17.200 fleeced the Rockefeller's in by manipulating George Rogers, who was 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.560 the secretary to Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller Senior. 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:26.040 David convinced the junior Rockefeller to buy stock in US Leather. 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.680 Rockefeller did buy that stock, and then David did short it. 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:36.640 Rockefeller Junior lost about a million dollars of his father's money. Okay, 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:38.680 so we told you we would talk about shorting. If 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.760 you do not know what shorting is, here is the 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.119 quick and dirty version because this will come up again, 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.920 and also it's just good life information to have. Shorting stock, 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.000 also called short selling, is when an investor borrows shares 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.680 and then immediately sells them with the intention of buying 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.640 them back later at a lower price. This is a 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.200 trading technique for people who are willing to take substantial 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:06.080 risk of capital laws, at least potentially substantial risk and lass. 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.840 It's also a trading technique that can make someone like 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.920 Jordan who we mentioned earlier, or David Lamar a lot 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.760 of pocket change. Yeah, he's gonna need a lot of 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:21.440 pockets right now. So much of David's story actually revolves 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.720 around following his arrest record, So we're moving ahead a 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.280 few years to a really great example of how ruthless 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.480 and cutthroat he could be, as well as his air 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:36.360 of feeling sort of above the laws he was doing things. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.840 So in July, David's coachman was a man named James McMahon, 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.840 and he was supposed to appear in court to testify 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:50.239 against David Lamar on an assault charge. But unfortunately McMahon 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.800 was stabbed and beaten before he was able to enter 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:57.320 the courthouse, and because of this he was unable to testify. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.560 David's brother in law and two of David's plays were 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.440 arrested and subsequently charged with having been involved in the 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.160 attack on McMahon. So now we're going to move on 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.080 the timeline to and that was an extraordinarily busy year 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.880 for Lamar. And during one scandal, a reporter actually asked 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.520 Lamar about his name change and his involvement in various 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:24.120 nefarious business dealings, and David replied, quote, I'm sorry, I've 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.680 never given an interview and I can't start now on 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.600 a personal matter. As for the matter of my change 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.679 in name, well, the Senate records show I declined to 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.520 tell the right one because it would make the innocent suffer. 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.160 Perhaps we really have no idea what he was getting 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.680 at with that, none whatsoever. I my personal suspicion is 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.280 that he was just trying to continue to cultivate his 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.560 air of mystery. I agree to, especially the addition of perhaps. 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:55.040 But it's here in nineteen thirteen when David begins to 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.360 impersonate some real big fish for power and financial gain. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.040 Say you want an drive down steel prices in an 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.120 effort to short the stock and make huge amounts of 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.240 money for yourself. If you're David, you settle on a 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.520 plan to defraud the US Steel Corporation as well as 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.600 JP Morgan and Company, which pretty much dominated the corporate 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.720 finance world on Wall Street at the time. So to 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.480 do this, he figured he would pretend to be a 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.959 member of Congress. And he really did just do exactly that. Yes, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.240 Like he woke up one day, I know this will work. Uh. 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:37.920 His target to impersonate was Pennsylvania Representative Alexander Mitchell Palmer, 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.560 who was a lawyer and a politician, and David faked 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.960 this persona in telephone interviews, and he even attempted but 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.880 failed to deliver a floor speech to persuade Congress to 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.760 his proposal. Sometimes your schemes, though, do not go as planned. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.760 In this instance, while no one could see him over 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:57.880 the phone, and that seemed to work. He could not 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.080 mask his face in front of all those gersman who 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.400 actually knew Alexander Mitchell Palmer. That would actually been really 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.079 impressive on his impersonate, like the way that he was 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.040 imperson in people. And now he's like, now I covered 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.680 my face and face job it becomes Harry mission impossible 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:19.760 with the very much right, so Palmer. Actually, Palmer served 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.520 in Congress from nineteen and nine to nineteen fifteen, although 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.280 you probably actually know him better as the U. S. 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.920 Attorney General under President Wilson Woodrow Wilson. By nineteen twenty, 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.600 Palmer had his eye on the White House, and so 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.400 if you're not really familiar with his name, you may 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.360 be familiar with one of the things he's most famous 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.280 for doing, which were the Palmer Raids, conducted by the U. S. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:49.520 Department of Justice between nineteen nineteen and January nine. The 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.840 raids kicked off what became known as the Red Summer, 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.040 and this was all led by Palmer, but it was 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:00.400 executed by a young j Edgar Hoover. This campaign targeted 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:05.040 people who were alleged communists anarchists, focused on people of 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.640 certain countries Russians were targeted, but basically any people who 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.160 were suspected of far left extremism were targets, and in 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.720 the end, about four thousand people were arrested and about 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.920 eight hundred were deported. Yeah, that whole thing started because 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.600 there was a bombing attack on Palmer, but then he 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.240 parlayed that into I am going after anyone I don't like, 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:32.680 particularly anyone for him, Like he just went mad with 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.120 his quest on that. It was kind of a weird 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.680 little story, you know, like somebody tried to bomb his house, 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:42.559 that messed up and blew themselves up, and the Roosevelts 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.880 looked across the street and they were afraid. So all 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:50.440 of this kind of played into what became this terrible year. Yeah, 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.880 they treated people absolutely horribly. David Lamar, not surprisingly, did 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.559 not get away with impersonating the Palmer, even though this 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.720 was several years price or when Palmer really would have 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.280 been in the every single paper in the United States, 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.320 though he was already a prominent politician, and David was 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.000 subsequently arrested at his apartment at the Hotel Laurelton, which 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:17.720 was in Manhattan's Midtown neighborhood. So to set the wealth scene. Here. 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.640 Let's say, if you're not familiar with New York City, 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.200 this is a neighborhood today where you'll find the Empire, 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.839 State Building, the christ they're building Times Square. I can 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.720 just keep listing them. There are many more attractions. But 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.520 back at the turn of the twentieth century, Midtown was 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.800 kind of a stagnant, almost commercial neighborhood. When David moved 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.440 in there though, it was undergoing a huge transformation and 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:47.040 moneyed families were turning the neighborhood into this bustling business district. 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.280 And that's when the big towers were created, the Prysler 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.080 Building was built, and it was all on par with 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.120 Wall Street when it came to power. Yeah, if you 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:57.959 look at the history of New York City, it's very 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.840 fascinating how initially the population was all clustered at the 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.200 south end of the island and it just slowly spread 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.400 up and up and up and up northward. Um, that's 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:12.240 a whole other story. It's a whole another show. In 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.840 a Senate committee hearing on this whole matter, Lamar, calmly 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:20.480 and perhaps amazingly, just confessed to impersonating people all the time. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.920 A big deal. He would be like a picture of 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.080 nonchalance about it, and joked about it, like, oh yeah, 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.760 you got me. I'm impersonated people. It's hilarious, Like you 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:35.600 don't do that too. One press write up noted quote, 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.800 never before had the national lawmakers listened to such brazen 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.800 effrontery and acknowledgement of chicanery as came from the lips 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.880 of the Wolf of Wall Street on that occasion. His 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.360 own confessions clearly proved that his character was a dash 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.440 of Baron, Munchausen and Anius and a trace of Cagliostro. 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.960 I love that. That's a good description. It's a great 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.640 description that just apeared in the newspaper, like it has 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.240 a great description of him. So David was charged for 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.880 his attempt at impersonating a member of Congress, and on 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:13.280 December three, he appeared in the Federal District Court before 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.280 he had judged sessions, and after just about forty five minutes, 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:22.080 the jury found him guilty of impersonating by telephone representative 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:27.000 Alexander Mitchell Palmer with the intention of defrauding two major 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.240 corporate players. He was convicted on two counts of the 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.480 second of three indictments against him and his council planned 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.440 to appeal, and the court granted his counsel a writ 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.080 of error that meant a stay of execution of the 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.160 sentence pending the result of that appeal. And if that 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.800 just sounds like a lot of legal language in mumbo jumbo, 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.400 because kind of is. What it boils down to, is 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.440 that the court temporarily suspended David's sentence while his lawyers 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.680 prepared to challenge the case's outcome. And we did look 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.960 that up, of course as well. David did go on 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.600 to serve two years in Atlanta pen a tentury in Atlanta, Georgia. 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.400 We're going to take a quick break for a word 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.400 from our sponsor, but when we're back, we'll talk about 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:21.160 the sunset of david sordid occupation. Welcome back to Criminalia. Okay, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.680 let's kick things off with David conspiring with a German 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:31.040 spy surprises no one. So over the years, the type 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.000 of David's engagements kind of changed a bit, although his 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.120 end goal was still, of course, power and money. So 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.880 fresh out of prison in nineteen fifteen, he acted as 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.480 an agent for Captain Franz von Rintelin, who was a 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.800 German naval intelligence officer which you could also call him 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.960 a German spy in the United States during World War One. 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.560 Much later, while giving a speech, the Captain joke amid 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.120 the audience is laughter that a secret service agent is 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.000 a spy. He is on the other side, but an 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:06.560 intelligence officer if working for you. He also admitted he 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.640 had lived in New York under five aliases, but that 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.760 was just about all he ever divulged of his intelligence 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.280 slash spy work. He was always pretty tight lipped about 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.600 what exactly he did and how exactly he did it. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.879 Von Brintlin spoke on occasion about how the war would 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.240 not be decided in Europe. He believed rather that it 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.879 would be in the United States. So he struck a 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.840 plan to conduct a campaign of propaganda to improve relations 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.840 between the United States and Germany, and it would also, 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.600 he hoped, create a pro German sentiment in the US. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.280 There was actually a second piece to this plan as well. 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.160 You know. So this was war and he also wanted 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.320 to curtail the commercial power in other countries and in 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.960 particular Great Britain. To do that, he wanted to prevent 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.440 munition manufacturing and shipments, and that meant strikes in American 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:02.200 munitions factories. This was important to the war effort, of course, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.240 because munitions factories were making military weapons and equipment that 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:10.480 we're in high demands. Working together, Von Rintlin and David 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.280 Lamar as David Lamar this time concocted a plan to 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:19.240 pressure American munitions factories and shipping agencies to strike. They 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.440 figured out that they could do this by taking aim 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.679 at financial institutions and business organizations. And because of his 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.520 talent for manipulating people, as well as his obvious total 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.760 disregard for ethics and morals, David was considered the brains 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.960 behind this campaign. Von Rinteln gave him somewhere between three 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.280 hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dollars at the reports 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.840 on just how much vary. It's all big numbers, uh. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.600 And this was given to David to implement the plan. Yeah. 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.240 You know, when you're doing spy work, you don't really 0:18:51.280 --> 0:19:00.359 like broadcast your receipts on people speak your David Lamar 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:05.159 was not signing a received three dollars with a copy 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:10.400 right for this little carbon book. This whole thing, though, 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.640 despite all the money involved and promises of what would 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.280 be done with it, did not go as planned, and 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.720 that is because of David. Remember he was not any 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.960 kind of expert in such matters. He was an opportunistic poser. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.479 David's reports on the campaign's success, when he reported von Riddlen, 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.280 we're all faked and they were always exaggerated, he was 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.080 basically like, yes, boss, everything is according to plan. Where 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.639 it was not until later that von Rentalin realized that 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.119 David had swindled him out of a large amount of 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.040 money and didn't deliver any results. And we should point 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:52.560 out this really doesn't reflect well on von Rentalin's intelligence 0:19:52.840 --> 0:20:00.960 at all, Like, yeah, surely he should have spotted a collaborator, 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:03.919 but David somehow convinced him that he would be a 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.200 great partner in such a move. Why not, I's got 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.120 a lot of risk in and here's five thousand dollars um. 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:15.200 So it actually wasn't after he was swindled. It wasn't 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.360 bon Vinoline or any other man involved in the plan 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.359 as far as we can tell, who actually tipped off 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:26.720 the authorities. But David was yet again arrested. This time 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.879 he was convicted of conspiring with Germans and interfering with 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.359 munitions shipments, which technically yes, um he testified on his 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.960 own behalf that indeed he had engaged in the anti 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.720 munitions scam. David also gave up the captain and claimed 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.359 that the campaign was done at the request of actually 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.800 another man, someone named the Reverend doctor Thomas C. Hill, 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.399 who had also been a professor of Christian ethics at 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.880 Union Theological Seminary. Hill only comes up in the men's testimony. 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.320 Actually he remains a bit of a mystery to both 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.040 of us. Another man who was implicated in this plan 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.720 was Henry B. Martin, and he, like David, took the stand. 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.000 While he denied he knew that the money came from 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.040 a German source, he did admit that he accepted large 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.840 amounts of money from David, which he spent on the 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.760 behalf of the Labors National Peace Council as well as 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:24.040 promoting and distributing pro German propaganda to Americans. All of 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.800 the Labors National Peace Council really does sound like a 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.679 very official group. It actually wasn't at all. It was 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.800 a reputable organization, it was just one that David formed 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.960 all as part of this larger plan. So also taking 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.840 the stand that day was George Plockman, who was treasurer 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:47.200 of the Transatlantic Trust Company. He testified against von Riddlin, David, 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.119 a former congressman, and five associates for the Labors National 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:56.160 Peace Council. Other prominent businessmen and former politicians all denied 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.360 that they knew about any of this, and they definitely 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.800 or so claimed did not know that the Labor's National 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.720 Peace Council was backed by a German spy. The Sherman 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.800 Act passed in eight nine as a way to prosecute 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:14.359 violations that would include things like price fixing, market allocation, 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.000 and interfering with trade with the intent of lowering economic 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.960 competition for your personal gain. And if that doesn't sound 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.360 like David Lamar to you, yeah it does to us. 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:30.280 So the charge was conspiracy to instigate strikes, and the 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:34.120 men were all found guilty. David, Ron Ridlin, and Martin 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:38.199 were all sentenced to one year in jail. Yeah, it 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.400 kind of sounds like David Lamar read the Sherman Act 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:42.640 as like a job description, right, He's like, I could 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:47.320 do all these things, check in check. It should surprise 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:50.520 no one that after losing a scheme this big David 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.440 initially tried to run. According to the Evening Star of Washington, 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.200 d C quote, he jumped an appeal bond and fled 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:01.479 to Mexico by airplane, subsequently sur rendering himself and serving 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:05.000 out the sentence in Trenton, New Jersey. There's actually a 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:07.920 pretty steady stream of press coverage about all of this 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.200 while it was going on, and one of the most 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:13.520 fun to read is uh this story that ran in 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:18.240 the San Francisco Examiner in April of n under the 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:23.240 headline the Wolf of Wall Street Trapped, with the subheadline 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.320 A prison cell at Last awaits David Lamar, the most 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:32.520 daring and resourceful pirate whoever tormented New York's Great Financial District, 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.159 And perhaps the best paragraph from all of this the 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:40.280 reads quote, David Lamar has been one of those hovering vultures, 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:43.000 and from time to time he has prayed upon the 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.679 best workers of the financial district for many years until 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:50.240 he became known as the Wolf of Wall Street. While 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:55.439 he was surely active in his fraud and impersonations games, 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:58.760 it actually wasn't until ninety three when we find that 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:02.399 David again gets arrested, and this time it was a 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:06.399 charge of grand larceny involving the sale of rubber. History 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:09.919 actually doesn't have to say about this particular trial and 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:14.639 arrest and jailing. We don't really know that much about 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:18.000 the story except that he sold but he never delivered. 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:21.840 Throughout all of this, we should mention that David he 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:24.560 wasn't just scheming. He had a social life and a family. 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:28.000 In Nive he got married to an actress who was 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:30.159 thirty six years younger than him. She was just twenty 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:32.040 one at the time, and her name was Edna French. 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:35.520 But that was actually his second marriage, his first wife, 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:39.000 Marie Anderson. You'll remember we mentioned his brother in law earlier, 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:42.119 but Marie divorced him in nineteen four, a year before 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:44.720 he married French. Yeah, and and she doesn't come up 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:50.040 very much at all. So, not long after his rubber scandal, 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:54.879 on January twelve, four, when he was in his mid fifties, 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:58.000 David was found dead in a hotel room at the 0:24:58.119 --> 0:25:01.560 Hotel Wellington in New York City. His death was determined 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:04.639 to have been caused by heart disease um and all 0:25:04.680 --> 0:25:07.120