Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / Operation Sideswipe

Transcript

Operation Sideswipe · Conspiracy! The Show

0:09
Speaker 1: Dey.
0:10
Speaker 2: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
0:16
Speaker 2: theory podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
0:33
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd Brown.
0:38
Speaker 1: Who are you?
0:38
Speaker 3: I'm Olivia Hidar.
0:40
Speaker 1: And that makes us your hosts. Olivia, how's it going?
0:44
Speaker 3: Uh, you know it's going well.
0:46
Speaker 1: You know.
0:46
Speaker 3: You saying that makes us your host. It reminds me
0:48
Speaker 3: it's something that's new to this episode. You never really
0:50
Speaker 3: said it before. Someone on the Patreon did comment that
0:54
Speaker 3: I guess that would make the listener the parasites, which
0:57
Speaker 3: is kind of an interesting thing to consider there. Sure,
1:01
Speaker 3: I don't know if that would have been the relationship
1:02
Speaker 3: that I would have come up with.
1:03
Speaker 1: But yeah, well parasocial dynamics, well yeah, going on between
1:08
Speaker 1: us me and for showing you and the audience. I
1:12
Speaker 1: like it, Yeah exactly, Yeah, Yeah, I think they're right. Yeah, so, yes,
1:17
Speaker 1: that makes you are parasites. Thank you. That's the nickname
1:21
Speaker 1: for listeners. Every podcast has a listener nickname, you know,
1:25
Speaker 1: all the true crime of.
1:27
Speaker 3: Course of course crime. Yeah, the parasite parasites.
1:34
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, parasites.
1:37
Speaker 3: You deserve to win Best Picture, all of you exactly.
1:42
Speaker 1: This is kind of a precursor to next week's episode, which,
1:45
Speaker 1: because time isn't real, we just recorded before this, which
1:49
Speaker 1: is about the GM streetcar conspiracy. Welcome to Auto Month
1:56
Speaker 1: on Conspiracy the Show.
1:58
Speaker 3: Like chronologically, though, I think the other episode is more
2:01
Speaker 3: of a precursor for this one, and that it is
2:04
Speaker 3: literally about one of the foundational sins of modern America
2:08
Speaker 3: said that led to led to the highway system that
2:12
Speaker 3: would allow for a story like the one we're talking
2:15
Speaker 3: about today.
2:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, what we're talking about today definitely would not exist
2:19
Speaker 1: without what we're talking about next week. But our subject today,
2:24
Speaker 1: we're talking about that classic conspiracy theory podcast subject matter
2:31
Speaker 1: insurance fraud. Yeah, which, if you think about it, if
2:35
Speaker 1: you've ever looked into the Titanic conspiracy, insurance fraud is
2:40
Speaker 1: actually a pretty big conspiracy theory subject because that is
2:45
Speaker 1: at the heart of the Titanic conspiracy too. But we
2:49
Speaker 1: already talked about that.
2:50
Speaker 3: It feels like insurance fraud usually gets covered under the
2:53
Speaker 3: true crime banner.
2:55
Speaker 1: Yes, and this you could go either way. This is
2:59
Speaker 1: a crime for sure, sure, but it's also this is
3:03
Speaker 1: like the government definition of a conspiracy. Right, this is
3:08
Speaker 1: the textbook definition of a conspiracy. This isn't a conspiracy theory.
3:12
Speaker 1: This is an actual conspiracy that was carried out in
3:16
Speaker 1: the city of New Orleans. And man, is it wild.
3:19
Speaker 3: It is and it's it's an interesting pivot from our
3:22
Speaker 3: usual purview in that it's not really an organization or
3:26
Speaker 3: like a government or Aliens or Jews. It's like just
3:34
Speaker 3: a bunch of normal people and some lawyers.
3:37
Speaker 1: It's the rarest of conspiracy. The show episodes in that
3:44
Speaker 1: the police are going to come up a bunch, but
3:47
Speaker 1: never in a very meaningful or important or critical way.
3:53
Speaker 1: They're just there. They're just like support.
3:54
Speaker 3: It's a functionary rule.
3:56
Speaker 1: Characters. We're talking about something called Operation Side Swipe, which
4:00
Speaker 1: is the official name the government gave to this very
4:05
Speaker 1: complex insurance fraud ring that was operating in the city
4:10
Speaker 1: of New Orleans from twenty fifteen until very recently. Yeah,
4:15
Speaker 1: I don't know how to feel about the crimes being
4:19
Speaker 1: committed here. On the one hand, insurance fraud costs us
4:23
Speaker 1: all olivia.
4:25
Speaker 3: It's true, it does not necessarily I don't think insurance
4:29
Speaker 3: fraud targeting like trucking companies necessarily hurts all of us,
4:34
Speaker 3: but like, sure, I get it, Like, yeah, it's interesting.
4:39
Speaker 3: I don't know how I feel either, because like, yeah,
4:41
Speaker 3: obviously you shouldn't do this, but it's kind of cool.
4:47
Speaker 1: It's kind of cool. It's at least it's not a
4:52
Speaker 1: violent crime, which I very much appreciate, right.
4:56
Speaker 3: But it is dangerous. It's very It could easily have
5:00
Speaker 3: resulted in serious injury or death.
5:02
Speaker 1: Right, and I'm sure it did in some cases, not death,
5:05
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there were some legitimate injuries.
5:08
Speaker 3: Well we'll talk about a bunch of people are getting
5:09
Speaker 3: fucking operated on that didn't need it. That's kind of
5:12
Speaker 3: an injury in a round of ELP.
5:14
Speaker 1: Since so crazy, So it is it seems like this story.
5:19
Speaker 1: I've searched around so much just looking for stories about this,
5:24
Speaker 1: because it's not a thing that's gotten. It doesn't seem
5:27
Speaker 1: like it's made it to the national stage yet. No,
5:30
Speaker 1: But we sometimes do local news round up episodes of
5:34
Speaker 1: the Unpopular Opinion podcast, and this landed on my radar
5:38
Speaker 1: when I was researching one of those, And as soon
5:41
Speaker 1: as I started reading about it, I was like, now
5:43
Speaker 1: this deserves its own episode somewhere. Yeah, And it starts
5:48
Speaker 1: at least in terms of a thing the public knew
5:51
Speaker 1: about in twenty nineteen with a report by New Orleans
5:56
Speaker 1: TV reporter Mike Pearlstein. And it was a story about
5:59
Speaker 1: five people who were indicted on accusations of staging a
6:03
Speaker 1: crash with an eighteen wheeler. And this accident in question
6:07
Speaker 1: happened on Chefman Tour Highway in New Orleans in twenty seventeen.
6:12
Speaker 3: Ever been to Chefman Tour Highway?
6:14
Speaker 1: Correct?
6:16
Speaker 2: You know?
6:16
Speaker 3: No?
6:17
Speaker 1: How about I have it?
6:18
Speaker 3: I was trying to think of a joke. No, I
6:20
Speaker 3: have ever been to New Orleans. I have not. I've
6:22
Speaker 3: been to Louisiana, but I've never really spent a lot
6:26
Speaker 3: of time there, you know, like it's I passed through.
6:30
Speaker 3: I've stayed it like for a night, but never spent
6:33
Speaker 3: like a ton of time.
6:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if I've ever even driven through Louisiana.
6:39
Speaker 1: It's possible, but I don't think so. I've definitely never visited.
6:43
Speaker 1: I want to. I would like to visit New Orleans. Yeah,
6:45
Speaker 1: me too, sometime before they shut it down for good.
6:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't. I've never been, Like, I've never spent
6:52
Speaker 3: much time in Louisiana, but I did just Binge drew blood.
6:56
Speaker 3: So I feel like I'm pretty much an expert sure
6:59
Speaker 3: on Louisiana culture.
7:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched LSU win a national championship once, so
7:05
Speaker 1: I get it. There, you go get it.
7:07
Speaker 3: You're practically up caging.
7:09
Speaker 1: I watched Sits winning Super Bowl hill quarterback to a football.
7:18
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't improvise about sports. I literally don't
7:21
Speaker 3: know anything. I couldn't even begin Williams.
7:25
Speaker 1: All Right, So, insurance fraud of the kind that is
7:30
Speaker 1: talked about here, isn't that rare? Like a stage car accident,
7:34
Speaker 1: those happen usually for insurance reasons or if you're in
7:38
Speaker 1: LA so someone can steal your watch. But yeah, they
7:41
Speaker 1: happen all the time. A person will like stop in
7:44
Speaker 1: front of you so you run into them or Right,
7:47
Speaker 1: this is a little more involved in terms of the
7:51
Speaker 1: staging of the accident.
7:53
Speaker 3: And it's it's got such scale to it that I
7:57
Speaker 3: feel like you don't get in a lot of other
7:59
Speaker 3: insurance cases.
8:01
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. The size of the ring of people involved
8:05
Speaker 1: in this and the number of accidents they stage is
8:08
Speaker 1: mind boggling.
8:10
Speaker 3: Like I would watch a movie about this. I think
8:13
Speaker 3: this could be a really good movie. It'd be kind
8:16
Speaker 3: of like it'd be like fast and furious and like
8:19
Speaker 3: crash like the David Kronenberg crashed about the people who
8:22
Speaker 3: have sex and car crashes, like it'd be kind of
8:25
Speaker 3: like that.
8:26
Speaker 1: So what Mike Pearlstein's report pointed out this first very
8:30
Speaker 1: early report about this what made it different was there
8:34
Speaker 1: was a lawyer named in this indictment also, and that's rare.
8:39
Speaker 1: The scheme involved five people in addition to the lawyer,
8:43
Speaker 1: and the ringleader was said to be a New Orleans
8:45
Speaker 1: man named Damian Lebau. He was accused in the indictment
8:50
Speaker 1: of intentionally driving and accomplices car into an eighteen wheeler.
8:55
Speaker 1: That's the first part of this plot that is very
8:59
Speaker 1: interesting to me because that seems dangerous.
9:05
Speaker 3: Very you're not supposed to get up close to those things.
9:09
Speaker 1: And yeah, everything you've heard in driving class about what
9:12
Speaker 1: not to do when there was an eighteen wheeler in
9:15
Speaker 1: your presence, that's what they were doing to cause these wrecks.
9:19
Speaker 1: They were waiting until that they would kind of just
9:22
Speaker 1: ride in that truck's blind spot and wait for them
9:25
Speaker 1: to change lanes and then just accelerate a little bit
9:30
Speaker 1: so the truck would make contact. And I lived in
9:33
Speaker 1: South Dakota for a lot of years, and the main
9:36
Speaker 1: feature of South Dakota is that it is oppressively windy.
9:41
Speaker 1: Because there are no buildings or features or people to
9:45
Speaker 1: block the wind. It just goes unencumbered all across the plains.
9:50
Speaker 1: And so if you're driving on the highway in South Dakota,
9:53
Speaker 1: you get an added risk when you're driving alongside one
9:57
Speaker 1: of these eighteen wheelers that even if you're doing the
9:59
Speaker 1: right thing and passing on the left, the wind at
10:02
Speaker 1: any moment could just kind of blow that trailer to
10:05
Speaker 1: the side, and that shit will knock you off the
10:08
Speaker 1: fucking road. And that's what the people involved in this
10:11
Speaker 1: are doing intentionally.
10:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really wild, Like not to mention the fact that, like,
10:17
Speaker 3: you know, it's pretty common knowledge that when something's moving
10:21
Speaker 3: pretty fast, like, it doesn't take a huge impact to
10:26
Speaker 3: spiral out of control and cause it total wreck. And
10:29
Speaker 3: the fact that you know, spoiler alert, that it doesn't
10:33
Speaker 3: seem like that ever really happened during this entire operation
10:37
Speaker 3: is kind of impressive.
10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you hear about this scheme and you think, well,
10:41
Speaker 1: how hard can that be? Just intentionally driving a car
10:44
Speaker 1: into another car, and it's like, this is a stuntman. Shit.
10:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say, that's quite a that's quite
10:50
Speaker 3: a question for someone to ask. How hard could that be?
10:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I thought when you think about how
10:56
Speaker 1: a staged accident normally works, it's normally so like just
10:59
Speaker 1: stopping short and you run into him or something really
11:02
Speaker 1: simple like this. This is the Yeah, Like, there's a
11:04
Speaker 1: reason why in all of these cases it's only like
11:08
Speaker 1: three or four dudes driving. The way it works is
11:12
Speaker 1: the person driving in this case, Damien Lebau. He accelerates
11:16
Speaker 1: when this truck starts changing lanes and initiates contact. One
11:21
Speaker 1: of the brilliant things about using eighteen wheelers. They often
11:24
Speaker 1: don't even feel it when they make contact with these cars,
11:27
Speaker 1: so they don't even know an accident has happened. So
11:30
Speaker 1: what are they going to tell the police when the
11:32
Speaker 1: police show up? And so Damien Lebau caused this crash.
11:37
Speaker 1: But then there's another car following him, which is called
11:40
Speaker 1: the spotter car. Damien Lebau is the slammer. The slammer
11:44
Speaker 1: is the person who drives the car and causes the crash.
11:46
Speaker 1: The spotter is the car that drives behind. After Damien
11:50
Speaker 1: Lebeaux causes his crash, he gets out and gets in
11:54
Speaker 1: that spotter car and drives away from the scene. Meanwhile,
11:57
Speaker 1: the car he was driving had three other passing and
12:00
Speaker 1: one of them just pretends they were driving. And then
12:04
Speaker 1: at some point Damian Lebaux returns to the scene and
12:08
Speaker 1: acts as the witness for the people in the car
12:11
Speaker 1: he was driving. And then they all file lawsuits and
12:15
Speaker 1: they make in some cases a shit ton of money. Yeah.
12:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like in this first case, it's not a ton,
12:23
Speaker 3: but you can see that it's kind of enough to
12:26
Speaker 3: get the juices flowing, because, yeah, they eventually make very
12:32
Speaker 3: hefty settlements.
12:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in this case they made seventy five hundred
12:38
Speaker 1: dollars each, which is still not bad for about ten
12:42
Speaker 1: minutes work. And one of the things that's mentioned in
12:46
Speaker 1: this case is Damian Lebau was paid that seventy five
12:50
Speaker 1: hundred dollars before any lawsuits were even filed, and he
12:53
Speaker 1: was paid that by a lawyer. Yes, so that was weird.
12:57
Speaker 1: That was a weird detail of this that doesn't normally exist.
13:01
Speaker 1: And so that initial report, which we'll link to all
13:05
Speaker 1: of this, that was an article from WWLL TV that's
13:08
Speaker 1: where Mike Pearlstein works. A better podcast would have reached
13:11
Speaker 1: out and maybe interviewed him, But he wrote down everything
13:14
Speaker 1: he's got to say about this.
13:15
Speaker 3: Yes, what was he gonna say exactly?
13:18
Speaker 1: And at the end of this first article he published
13:22
Speaker 1: about this or TV report, this is like a transcript
13:24
Speaker 1: of the report. It mentions at the end that right
13:27
Speaker 1: before that indictment was handed down, several other truck accident
13:31
Speaker 1: lawsuits had recently been halted by multiple federal judges due
13:36
Speaker 1: to an ongoing criminal investigation. So this was like the
13:40
Speaker 1: very beginning of this scheme, right, And then the Danziger
13:45
Speaker 1: Bridge incident happens about four days after that first crash,
13:51
Speaker 1: another shockingly similar incident happens on the Danziger Bridge in
13:57
Speaker 1: New Orleans. And when I say shockingly similar, it's the
14:00
Speaker 1: exact same thing, right formula. Yeah, it's most of the
14:06
Speaker 1: same people, the same driver, Damien Lebau, But because of
14:10
Speaker 1: the way the scheme works, no one knew he was
14:12
Speaker 1: the same driver. But he was the witness in both
14:15
Speaker 1: of these crashes. And the difference here the eighteen wheeler
14:18
Speaker 1: they targeted uh Oh was outfitted with a camera. Yeah,
14:23
Speaker 1: and footage from that camera shows that as this truck
14:29
Speaker 1: is coming to the bottom of this bridge, there's two
14:31
Speaker 1: cars parked in the right hand lane where cars should
14:35
Speaker 1: not be parked, so the truck naturally switches lanes to
14:39
Speaker 1: go around them, and you see as it goes around
14:43
Speaker 1: those two cars start moving in unison. And then there's
14:47
Speaker 1: a separate camera that's attached to a convenience store that
14:51
Speaker 1: catches the car Damien Lebau is driving accelerating when that
14:56
Speaker 1: truck starts getting back over into the right lane and
15:00
Speaker 1: causing the accident. Right and the second vehicle in that
15:04
Speaker 1: again acts as like the innocent bystander witness for when
15:09
Speaker 1: police show up. And after that incident, everyone in the
15:12
Speaker 1: car that struck the eighteen wheeler filed lawsuits claiming their
15:16
Speaker 1: injuries resulted in more than one hundred thousand dollars in
15:19
Speaker 1: medical treatments. But they didn't realize that video existed.
15:23
Speaker 3: Whoops.
15:24
Speaker 1: And once that was shown to their lawyer, Daniel Patrick Keating,
15:29
Speaker 1: he withdrew from the case and they abandoned their claim. Yeah,
15:33
Speaker 1: and that is the point where people start getting suspicious.
15:37
Speaker 3: Right m Yeah, bummer for bummer for those three people
15:42
Speaker 3: who bought their way onto this. Well I'm guessing probably
15:46
Speaker 3: bought their way onto this little joy right.
15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing we find out later the people
15:52
Speaker 1: doing this, this was like an investment. This wasn't just
15:56
Speaker 1: like yeah, let's try to make money. This was a
15:58
Speaker 1: guy going, well, if you give me two thousand dollars,
16:01
Speaker 1: I'll turn this. I'll turn that into like fifty thousand.
16:03
Speaker 1: And they're like, how it's like I'm going to drive
16:05
Speaker 1: your car into a semi with you in it.
16:08
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean like it almost sounds like a
16:13
Speaker 3: like a ride, you know, Yeah, like it's like a tourist.
16:16
Speaker 1: Track insurance fraud the ride.
16:19
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, like you know, these people are paying money
16:23
Speaker 3: per person they get in the car, like they have
16:26
Speaker 3: to be there in order to get the settlement.
16:29
Speaker 1: Universal Studios ninth Ward Insurance fraud the ride.
16:35
Speaker 3: Look, I'd ride it. Hell Yeah, sounds like that fast
16:39
Speaker 3: and furious, Right, it was fun.
16:40
Speaker 1: And this first highway robbery article is where it's revealed
16:44
Speaker 1: that's I forgot to mention that's the name Mike Pearlstein.
16:47
Speaker 1: Eventually he writes a whole series of reports about this,
16:51
Speaker 1: and they're called highway robbery, And we'll I'll link to
16:55
Speaker 1: all of it in the show notes. It's fat. This
16:57
Speaker 1: needs to be compiled somewhere as one one thing, because
17:01
Speaker 1: it's right now this story is spread out around among
17:05
Speaker 1: like thirty different articles.
17:08
Speaker 3: That's what we're doing here, man, this they're doing the
17:10
Speaker 3: Lord's work.
17:11
Speaker 1: Damn right. Oh hey, hello, Hi, this is Adam, co
17:18
Speaker 1: host of the podcast you're listening to right now, just
17:20
Speaker 1: dropping in to let you know that I'll be doing
17:23
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17:29
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Speaker 1: you there. Thanks, we love you. Let's get back to
18:42
Speaker 1: the show. So that first article, which is actually the
18:50
Speaker 1: second article about this but the first in the Highway
18:53
Speaker 1: Robbery series, that's where it's revealed that the lawyer Damien
18:57
Speaker 1: Lebau was working with was a guy named Daniel pat
19:00
Speaker 1: Keating from a local law firm called Nugent Keating, the
19:04
Speaker 1: nugent being Ted Nugent of course, the Nuge Yeah, lawyer
19:09
Speaker 1: Ted Nugent. Also, it turns out Lebau was the witness
19:13
Speaker 1: in this case also, and that's what tips everyone off.
19:16
Speaker 1: This guy is just happens to witness two identical car
19:22
Speaker 1: crashes within four days, completely independent of the people involved
19:28
Speaker 1: in the crash, just right place, right.
19:30
Speaker 3: Time, Meanwhile, I have seen like maybe four car crashes
19:35
Speaker 3: in my life.
19:36
Speaker 1: The fact, yeah, I've seen that. I've seen very little
19:40
Speaker 1: highway or traffic related mayhem in my life. I mean
19:44
Speaker 1: I would say knock on wood, but now I am
19:45
Speaker 1: a car right now, So.
19:47
Speaker 3: Well there you go.
19:47
Speaker 1: I mean I could still see it. I could see
19:49
Speaker 1: it when I'm walking somewhere.
19:51
Speaker 3: Of course, and like look, and I'm not going to
19:53
Speaker 3: say knock on wood because I don't believe in superstitions.
19:56
Speaker 1: So yeah, that'll that'll fix it too. So yeah, this
20:02
Speaker 1: is the point where reporters, especially Mike Pearlstein and lawyers alike,
20:07
Speaker 1: start looking into similar cases to see if there were
20:10
Speaker 1: any patterns. One thing they catch right away is that
20:13
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of suspicious accidents all happen along one
20:18
Speaker 1: narrow stretch of eastern New Orleans.
20:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the part that is like kind of
20:24
Speaker 3: unfortunate about this whole thing.
20:27
Speaker 1: Well, it's the one just absolute stupid decision and in
20:32
Speaker 1: otherwise pretty well thought out scheme.
20:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what makes it stand out so much, is
20:40
Speaker 3: like like it never occurred to you to spread out
20:44
Speaker 3: a little bits.
20:46
Speaker 1: I feel like it's just the one guy I feel
20:50
Speaker 1: like it's Damian Lebau. Here's here's what I picture happening.
20:53
Speaker 1: Imagine you have to promote something with flyers, and you
20:59
Speaker 1: gather up all the neighborhood kids and you're like, look,
21:02
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you each ten dollars if you
21:04
Speaker 1: hand out this entire stack of flyers, do not take
21:08
Speaker 1: them to a garbage can and just throw them all
21:10
Speaker 1: away at once. Damian Lebau is the kid who's gonna go, yeah, okay,
21:16
Speaker 1: I'm going to hand all this shit and immediately chuck
21:19
Speaker 1: that shit in the church. I feel like giving him
21:23
Speaker 1: the idea. I feel like that version of the talk
21:26
Speaker 1: for this criminal enterprise was do not stage all your
21:32
Speaker 1: crashes in the same spot.
21:34
Speaker 3: Okay, literally within like miles of the same spot.
21:39
Speaker 1: The same truck stop. Yeah, yes, man, I feel like
21:45
Speaker 1: that has to be what it was, because you don't
21:49
Speaker 1: you hear about that part, but you only hear about
21:52
Speaker 1: it with the cases that involved Damian Lebau, And there's
21:55
Speaker 1: other drivers who it seemed like they were mixing their
21:58
Speaker 1: shit up a little bite, right.
22:00
Speaker 3: But it's just this whole percentage just taking place in
22:04
Speaker 3: like this one stretch offy Away.
22:06
Speaker 1: One guy's like, nah, they're not gonna catch on.
22:09
Speaker 3: No one will notice football. It's only millions of dollars
22:14
Speaker 3: in in like the works here, no one's gonna pay attention.
22:18
Speaker 1: So, speaking of video, which is what brought this ring
22:22
Speaker 1: down initially, is that truck video. We'll link to the
22:26
Speaker 1: bodycam video from the cop which again I mentioned up top.
22:31
Speaker 1: This is one of those episodes where the police are
22:33
Speaker 1: gonna come up and it just is uncontroversial at all.
22:37
Speaker 1: How often do we get to talk about bodycam footage
22:40
Speaker 1: and not be completely fucking irate about it? But yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: I mean, you see what happens. Like again, because they're
22:47
Speaker 1: using eighteen wheelers, that guy's not even gonna feel the
22:50
Speaker 1: impact of the crash. And because they're using two cars
22:54
Speaker 1: like that truck driver is going to be like, well, okay,
22:56
Speaker 1: so I saw two cars. There's like two gray SUVs
23:00
Speaker 1: and I went around him. And then while he's saying that,
23:03
Speaker 1: that other SUV comes back and is like, yeah, hey,
23:06
Speaker 1: I saw this. And they run up to the fucking
23:09
Speaker 1: cops and they tell the story like what can the
23:11
Speaker 1: truck driver say? He didn't see anything, he doesn't know anything.
23:14
Speaker 1: And now it seems like this independent witness is on
23:17
Speaker 1: the scene to straighten everything out, and that's what's happening
23:20
Speaker 1: in this BODYCM video. And good scheme.
23:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, it's a I mean, except for the fatal
23:27
Speaker 3: flaw of everything kind of being you know, linked in
23:32
Speaker 3: these in these subtle ways, it's a very good scheme.
23:37
Speaker 1: So the next major development happens in September twenty twenty,
23:43
Speaker 1: and I don't think we ever promised that. Actually I
23:46
Speaker 1: think we did say no one dies. I should clarify.
23:49
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay.
23:51
Speaker 1: No one dies in the staged car accidents, right, but
23:58
Speaker 1: if you want to be a stickler for details, someone
24:01
Speaker 1: was absolutely murdered over this. Yes, at least it's they
24:05
Speaker 1: haven't solved the murder, but it seems like someone was
24:08
Speaker 1: murdered over this.
24:10
Speaker 3: I mean, like he come on, what else is it?
24:15
Speaker 3: It DIDs so clearly.
24:17
Speaker 1: The guy's name was Cornelius Garrison, and in September twenty
24:21
Speaker 1: twenty he was indicted as a co conspirator in an
24:26
Speaker 1: entirely different series of staged crashes. But he was also
24:30
Speaker 1: one of the drivers capable of pulling this off, right,
24:34
Speaker 1: And the difference with Garrison is that he had allegedly
24:38
Speaker 1: uh oh started working with the FBI.
24:41
Speaker 3: See, this is this is no good. This is no good.
24:44
Speaker 3: Don't do that. If you're in a criminal conspiracy or
24:47
Speaker 3: I mean, like whatever, don't do that.
24:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what's it? Is it gonna help that much?
24:53
Speaker 1: It certainly in this case did not. But by this
24:56
Speaker 1: point this had become a massive investigation because because it
25:00
Speaker 1: turns out all of those active cases that federal judges
25:04
Speaker 1: were mentioned as having shut down at the end of
25:07
Speaker 1: the first Highway robbery article, those turned out all to
25:10
Speaker 1: be fraud pretty much, and the Feds realized pretty quick
25:14
Speaker 1: they had a conspiracy on their hands. Oh get it,
25:18
Speaker 1: just like the name of the show, living up to
25:20
Speaker 1: the title.
25:20
Speaker 3: Of the show.
25:21
Speaker 1: By this point, twenty eight people had been charged as
25:25
Speaker 1: part of this ring, and Garrison was a key figure.
25:28
Speaker 1: His name was the first to appear on a list
25:31
Speaker 1: of seventy seven crashes that the courts had deemed suspicious
25:36
Speaker 1: by this point. And also, yeah, he was shot to
25:39
Speaker 1: death four days later inside the New Orleans apartment complex
25:43
Speaker 1: where he lived, and in that span of four days,
25:47
Speaker 1: he told his lawyer frequently that he was in fear
25:50
Speaker 1: of his life.
25:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sucks, I mean, you know, obviously that's no good,
25:54
Speaker 3: no good no.
25:56
Speaker 1: And the FEDS wouldn't confirm to reporters that he was operating,
26:00
Speaker 1: but they are pretty confident that he was right. And
26:04
Speaker 1: he probably had a lot to say, seeing as how
26:06
Speaker 1: he was accused in that indictment of staging more than
26:09
Speaker 1: fifty crashes since twenty fifteen.
26:13
Speaker 3: That is wild.
26:14
Speaker 1: That is dare devil shit.
26:16
Speaker 3: It is because this is like what twenty nineteen, that
26:19
Speaker 3: this is happening like in a four year span, doing
26:23
Speaker 3: fifty crashes. That's a lot.
26:27
Speaker 1: That's a whole lot. And his problem wasn't so much
26:31
Speaker 1: that he was doing it all in the same place.
26:33
Speaker 1: I think his downfall was that he kept inserting himself
26:36
Speaker 1: into it a little more than Damien Lebau. And so
26:41
Speaker 1: the way people get suspicious of him is it's like,
26:44
Speaker 1: why are you in so many fucking car accidents? Man? Like,
26:47
Speaker 1: what's the right? What is happening?
26:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he would he would, you know, he would
26:51
Speaker 3: act as the witness. But that he also was like
26:54
Speaker 3: he also got a settlement in a case too.
26:57
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm on the fence about so that first settlement,
27:01
Speaker 1: because yeah, at one point he gets a six hundred
27:05
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars settlement for one of these initial crashes.
27:09
Speaker 1: But he also had spinal fusion surgery. Yeah, and what
27:14
Speaker 1: his mom claims is that that first accident was legitimate
27:18
Speaker 1: and that he was legitimately injured. But also what happens
27:22
Speaker 1: is he ends up being represented in that case by
27:26
Speaker 1: a woman named Vanessa Mada, who, for one thing, she
27:29
Speaker 1: was married to a disbarred lawyer named Sean Alfordish who
27:33
Speaker 1: had spent twenty eight months in federal prison on fraud
27:36
Speaker 1: charges after admitting he'd rigged the election of the State
27:42
Speaker 1: Horsemen's Association. And they mentioned that he got very rich
27:46
Speaker 1: embezzling from the State Horsemen's Association. It's like, how much
27:50
Speaker 1: money can they have?
27:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say, like, if I got a
27:54
Speaker 3: six hundred and fifty thousand dollars settlement, I don't think
27:58
Speaker 3: I would ever get into a car crash again personally.
28:01
Speaker 1: I would figure out how to make that work for
28:03
Speaker 1: me the rest of my life.
28:04
Speaker 3: That would be plenty for me, I know my means.
28:08
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Vanessa Mada, she became an injury attorney after a
28:13
Speaker 1: neck injury ended her Hollywood stunt woman career and the
28:17
Speaker 1: insurance company, in her opinion, treated her unfairly, so she
28:22
Speaker 1: enrolled in Loyola Marymount College and got a law degree
28:25
Speaker 1: and went into this. Here's my thinking. What if it
28:28
Speaker 1: was their idea for Garrison to get involved in this,
28:32
Speaker 1: and she's the one who taught him how to drive
28:37
Speaker 1: in these accidents.
28:38
Speaker 3: I mean, i'llo, I will say, like.
28:41
Speaker 1: Because she's a stunt woman, she's a former hollywoodsman, she
28:44
Speaker 1: would know how to.
28:45
Speaker 3: Do absolutely, Like I will say, I think that I
28:49
Speaker 3: have no doubt that the insurance company treated her unfairly.
28:52
Speaker 3: That's like where the it kind of gets a little
28:53
Speaker 3: gray where it's like, yeah, I mean, look, insurance company
28:57
Speaker 3: suck ass, and like that's definitely a huge evil country. Yeah.
29:01
Speaker 3: But also, man, man, this would be a good movie.
29:04
Speaker 3: This would be a really good movie. It would be
29:06
Speaker 3: like just just with her.
29:08
Speaker 1: And yeah, I can see that being like there's no,
29:11
Speaker 1: it's not brought up in any of this, But what
29:13
Speaker 1: if that that's her whole evil villain origin story is
29:18
Speaker 1: this insurance company fucked me over, So I became a
29:21
Speaker 1: lawyer and now I fuck over insurance companies.
29:25
Speaker 3: Right like other we're insurance companies.
29:27
Speaker 1: Where did this guy learn to drive like this otherwise?
29:30
Speaker 3: Right, No, well, and also like not only fucking over
29:33
Speaker 3: insurance companies, but she's there specifically targeting trucks which you
29:38
Speaker 3: know have corporate insurance, so yes, exclusively, so you're not
29:42
Speaker 3: hurting a individual really, And it's easy to see how,
29:48
Speaker 3: you know, if you want to apply a little bit
29:50
Speaker 3: of creative writing to it, it's very easy to connect
29:52
Speaker 3: the dots and make it seem like oh yeah, like see,
29:56
Speaker 3: it makes sense how this could spiral out of control,
29:59
Speaker 3: like once pople start getting a taste of the kind
30:01
Speaker 3: of money that they could make on it.
30:03
Speaker 1: Right, And yeah, if he's like if he's patient zero
30:06
Speaker 1: in this, if he's the first person who was taught
30:10
Speaker 1: how to do this, like, yeah, he's going to have
30:13
Speaker 1: a whole lot to say about it. I mean, any
30:16
Speaker 1: number of people involved in this probably would have wont
30:19
Speaker 1: him dead. But so far no developments in the investigation
30:24
Speaker 1: into Cornelius Garrison's murder. But by the time he had
30:28
Speaker 1: been killed, Damian LeBeau had already been arrested and charged
30:33
Speaker 1: and convicted, and in court he shed a little more
30:36
Speaker 1: light on how the fraud scheme worked in his role
30:39
Speaker 1: in it. He initially started working with local law firms
30:43
Speaker 1: as a runner, and those are people who refer actual
30:46
Speaker 1: car crash victims to injury attorneys. That's supposed to be illegal,
30:50
Speaker 1: but it is actually very very common. I knew a
30:53
Speaker 1: guy when I was growing up in Illinois. I knew
30:55
Speaker 1: a guy who did that for money.
30:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean I guess it's it's a living yeah.
31:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not surprised that it happens. Like lawyers
31:05
Speaker 1: need referrals like any other business. So he would get
31:08
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars for passengers and big rigs and five
31:12
Speaker 1: hundred for passengers in any other vehicle. And it seems
31:16
Speaker 1: like maybe he started staging accidents on his own mm hm,
31:22
Speaker 1: without Danny Keating the lawyer, knowing about it at first, right.
31:27
Speaker 1: But it also seems like when Danny Keating found out
31:29
Speaker 1: about it, he was like, oh, fuck, yeah, let's do this.
31:33
Speaker 3: Well yeah, cause, like le Beau is, probably you have
31:36
Speaker 3: to imagine he's staging these car accidents in order to
31:40
Speaker 3: get the referral money. And so it's very easy for
31:44
Speaker 3: Danny Keating to see that and be like, well, I
31:46
Speaker 3: mean I could pay this guy twice what he's making
31:50
Speaker 3: for referrals to just do this and then I'll make
31:55
Speaker 3: way more than that on the wins of the cases.
32:00
Speaker 3: It's it's kind of makes sense.
32:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. There is an Apple TV Plus documentary called The
32:05
Speaker 1: Big Con which strikes me as kind of similar to
32:10
Speaker 1: this in that it feels sort of like a victimless crime.
32:13
Speaker 1: But what was happening there this lawyer, I believe he's
32:15
Speaker 1: in like the Appalachia area, like extreme poverty. He was
32:19
Speaker 1: basically conspiring with a judge to get people's disability claims
32:24
Speaker 1: approved so they would get disability from the state, whether
32:27
Speaker 1: they actually had any conditions that warranted it or not.
32:32
Speaker 1: And he portrayed it as kind of a robin Hood
32:36
Speaker 1: thing where it was like, well, there's no other opportunities
32:38
Speaker 1: here for people, Like, yeah, I'm breaking the law, but
32:41
Speaker 1: I'm breaking the law in the good way.
32:43
Speaker 3: I mean, look, as somebody who just got denied and
32:47
Speaker 3: is currently in an appeal process for disability, kind of
32:50
Speaker 3: would like to have someone like that on my side,
32:53
Speaker 3: and I have an attorney working for me. Yeah, and like,
32:57
Speaker 3: I still would love to have someone who's willing to
32:59
Speaker 3: be a little bit of a robin Hood and helped
33:01
Speaker 3: push this thing through because it's a pain in the ass.
33:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only problem is once he was found out,
33:06
Speaker 1: all the state did was strip everyone who had ever
33:10
Speaker 1: gone through them to get their benefits approved. They had
33:14
Speaker 1: them stripped of those benefits. And here's the thing, because
33:17
Speaker 1: he was so prominent and so public in advertising, people
33:21
Speaker 1: with legitimate disabilities would go to rights to get there,
33:24
Speaker 1: and he would still just go through that bullshit fraudulent
33:27
Speaker 1: system to do it, So those people got stripped of
33:30
Speaker 1: their benefits. Also, Yeah, it ends up being just a
33:34
Speaker 1: fucking tragic and harrowing story.
33:37
Speaker 3: Like that's the thing, Like the truth the villain of
33:40
Speaker 3: that story is the government. Yeah, not like they like
33:45
Speaker 3: just fucking give people money.
33:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's kind of how that documentary ends, with
33:51
Speaker 1: the government absolutely being the villain in that case. But yeah,
33:56
Speaker 1: this feels kind of similar where this lawyer is. You know,
34:00
Speaker 1: it's New Orleans is a high poverty area, and you know,
34:05
Speaker 1: I guess this is a quick way to make money,
34:08
Speaker 1: but yeah, my god, it's dangerous.
34:10
Speaker 3: If they had if they had, well, this is something
34:13
Speaker 3: we'll talk about later, but like if they had just
34:15
Speaker 3: put a little bit of extra thought into this, really
34:19
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have much problem with it. It's just kind
34:24
Speaker 3: of some of the blind spots make it become unsavory.
34:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's that danziger Bridge video that brings Damian
34:31
Speaker 1: Lebau down and then the dominoes just kind of start
34:34
Speaker 1: falling from there. Daniel Keating was finally indicted for his
34:39
Speaker 1: role in November twenty twenty. He's the lawyer. By this point,
34:42
Speaker 1: the investigation had expanded to include five indictments and a
34:46
Speaker 1: total of thirty three people charged. And even though we've
34:49
Speaker 1: named three so far, this was the first time any
34:52
Speaker 1: of the lawyers in the indictments were officially named, right,
34:55
Speaker 1: And this is also when speaking of official names, this
34:59
Speaker 1: is the point where the government kind of takes over
35:02
Speaker 1: and calls this Operation side Swipe, and the Justice Department
35:06
Speaker 1: starts investigating this in full, and it is Operation side Swipe.
35:12
Speaker 1: It's appropriate, it's not like it's not confusing. You get
35:15
Speaker 1: why it's called.
35:16
Speaker 3: That, absolutely, and its really well done Louisiana Department of Justice.
35:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, how often are we going to say that on
35:24
Speaker 1: this podcast?
35:26
Speaker 3: I would imagine never again.
35:29
Speaker 1: So I love this part when Keating and Lebau. This
35:33
Speaker 1: came out in court when Daniel Keating finally pled guilty. Yeah,
35:37
Speaker 1: they would communicate via text using coded language. Oh yeah,
35:41
Speaker 1: that made it seem like they were talking about fish.
35:44
Speaker 1: And I actually found a very brief transcript of the
35:48
Speaker 1: text exchange. Here goes, this is Damian Lebau, do you
35:53
Speaker 1: want some more fish today for lunch?
35:54
Speaker 3: Bro?
35:55
Speaker 1: That's two exclamation points today spelled the number two d
35:59
Speaker 1: Y and then for of course the number four.
36:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, two D is two D is a fun one.
36:05
Speaker 3: That's a that's a fun way to spell that. Also,
36:08
Speaker 3: like that's a question and there's only only exclamation points.
36:12
Speaker 3: He's really stoked.
36:14
Speaker 1: And also he spelled out yo you but used number
36:17
Speaker 1: four for why not just do a you duty?
36:20
Speaker 3: And four you out there?
36:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like why are there any vowels in this? Honestly,
36:25
Speaker 1: this guy made a free time. So then Keating replies, Okay,
36:29
Speaker 1: I need to catch my breath after today. Money not
36:32
Speaker 1: the issue. Processing, The catch is the problem. Here's the thing.
36:36
Speaker 1: One of these two knows how to use coded language
36:39
Speaker 1: in a text, right, and it is not Daniel Keating.
36:43
Speaker 2: No, he did.
36:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like Lebo maybe has a little bit
36:47
Speaker 3: more experience with this sort of thing.
36:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is such a clumsy, fucking reply.
36:54
Speaker 3: It's also like such a fucking boomer.
36:58
Speaker 1: Text perfect. That's how I text sentences, punctuation.
37:05
Speaker 3: I've had to. I had to train myself to not
37:10
Speaker 3: always use perfect grammar punctuation to text, like because I realized, oh,
37:15
Speaker 3: people find that alienating and off putting. If I and
37:19
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, well, then I guess I'll learn out
37:23
Speaker 3: text like a normal person.
37:25
Speaker 1: It is crazy how much thought people put into that.
37:28
Speaker 1: I saw a guy on Facebook years ago. It was
37:31
Speaker 1: like just barely a friend of mine, but he was
37:34
Speaker 1: texting with someone about a job interview and they wrote
37:37
Speaker 1: back and they said something like okay, interview confirmed for
37:41
Speaker 1: three point thirty, and they put a period at the end. Yeah,
37:44
Speaker 1: And this fucking psycho texted them back and asked why
37:47
Speaker 1: they put a period at the end and if he
37:50
Speaker 1: did something wrong, and then posted a line Facebook as
37:54
Speaker 1: if that was the proper response to that situation. It's
37:58
Speaker 1: like a line yes, my god. So yeah, I wish
38:03
Speaker 1: I could read all of their texts.
38:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love it. We should just do a
38:08
Speaker 3: whole bonus episodes that's just us re enacting their text chain.
38:13
Speaker 1: I do you're right, I do want to see this
38:14
Speaker 1: movie though it needs to happen.
38:16
Speaker 3: It'd be good. It would be like a good like
38:19
Speaker 3: it would be like a little Coen Brothers e. But
38:22
Speaker 3: it would also be like Coen Brothers doing Fast and Furious.
38:25
Speaker 3: But then also like a little bit of logan lucky.
38:28
Speaker 3: Did you ever see the logan?
38:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like slogan lucky a lot.
38:31
Speaker 3: Fucking rules.
38:34
Speaker 1: So Daniel Keating's role in this scheme. On top of
38:39
Speaker 1: being the lawyer who represented most of the victims, he
38:43
Speaker 1: also referred victims out to various unnecessary medical treatments to
38:48
Speaker 1: boost the eventual payments. Yeah, one participant underwent a completely
38:54
Speaker 1: unneeded neck surgery in the name of securities larger insurance payout.
38:59
Speaker 1: And I think that speaks to like there's some level
39:03
Speaker 1: of desperation here. Yes, because you can die having surgery.
39:09
Speaker 1: They tell you that at the beginning, especially if you
39:13
Speaker 1: need anesthesia. They're like, you might die, you might never wake.
39:18
Speaker 3: Up or at least have life altering complications, yes, or
39:22
Speaker 3: even if it goes well, like you might, you'll have
39:26
Speaker 3: to take care of it, like it's just a nightmare.
39:29
Speaker 3: And that's where really like the moral ground kind they
39:32
Speaker 3: kind of seed the moral ground when they start like
39:36
Speaker 3: coercing people into having unnecessary surgeries. That's had some really
39:41
Speaker 3: evil shit right there. That's that's not good. You shouldn't
39:44
Speaker 3: be doing that. Now, we can make it funny in
39:47
Speaker 3: the movie, but like in real life.
39:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we write the script, this will go down either.
39:53
Speaker 1: So Yeah, this indictment he's named in it mentioned seven
39:56
Speaker 1: defendants who receive unnecessary surgery and another seventeen who underwent
40:02
Speaker 1: various medical treatments that they didn't need. And also that
40:06
Speaker 1: indictment only covered five of the dozens of staged crashes,
40:11
Speaker 1: but in those cases alone, he and his co conspiracy,
40:15
Speaker 1: he and his co conspirators netted around one point five
40:18
Speaker 1: million dollars.
40:21
Speaker 3: You know, what they should have done is bring in
40:23
Speaker 3: a few doctors into the scheme and have the doctors,
40:27
Speaker 3: you know, do a rotation of you know, phony medical
40:31
Speaker 3: write ups and shit, like just keep the whole Like
40:35
Speaker 3: why why farm any of it outside of your little ecosystem.
40:39
Speaker 3: You've already got the lawyers, you've got the victims all
40:42
Speaker 3: on the same side. Like some doctors in there.
40:45
Speaker 1: I bet they did. I wonder if it just because
40:47
Speaker 1: this is still an ongoing investigation.
40:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I feel like if they did, they wouldn't
40:52
Speaker 3: be faking surgeries.
40:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. So in June twenty twenty one, Keating
41:00
Speaker 1: becomes the first lawyer to plead guilty in the staged crashes.
41:04
Speaker 1: At that time, he acknowledged that he paid Lebau for
41:07
Speaker 1: thirty one staged accidents into tractor trailers, and also came
41:11
Speaker 1: out around this time that another New Orleans law firm,
41:14
Speaker 1: the King Firm, and three of their attorneys were also involved,
41:19
Speaker 1: and by that point the investigation had expanded to include
41:22
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty staged crashes all in one little
41:28
Speaker 1: stretch of eastern New Orleans.
41:31
Speaker 3: That he again, that's just a mistake. Once you guys
41:35
Speaker 3: get past like a couple dozen, you should start realizing that,
41:38
Speaker 3: maybe you know, we need to expand.
41:42
Speaker 1: Why not like road trip it, like go see it
41:46
Speaker 1: every Major League Baseball stadium, And when you're in each
41:49
Speaker 1: new town, stage a car accident and file a lawsuit.
41:53
Speaker 3: It would be exponentially more difficult to do it outside
41:57
Speaker 3: of Louisiana because I have to assume that these lawyers
42:02
Speaker 3: are only licensed to practice law in Louisiana, right, true,
42:08
Speaker 3: So I feel like that would make things a little harder,
42:11
Speaker 3: but they could at least go a rabbit. Louisiana, like,
42:15
Speaker 3: you know, there's it's it's not a huge state, but
42:19
Speaker 3: there's room. There's more than one fucking highway in it.
42:22
Speaker 1: So yeah, did you not even try to drive to
42:25
Speaker 1: Baton Rouge?
42:27
Speaker 3: At least Baton Rouge. Maybe take a swing through La Fille.
42:32
Speaker 1: We know the names of towns and Orleans.
42:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, take take a take a you know,
42:38
Speaker 3: take a job and bon tau and make sure you
42:41
Speaker 3: watch out for the vampires.
42:43
Speaker 1: Morrero, I know that's Marrero. That's a place in Louisiana.
42:48
Speaker 3: I thought you were just stringing syllables together.
42:52
Speaker 1: No, there was a very terrible rap song by a
42:54
Speaker 1: guy named mc thick and he was from Morrero. And
42:57
Speaker 1: I only know that because a friend of mine briefly
43:01
Speaker 1: moved to Louisiana when we were all in high school
43:04
Speaker 1: and it only lasted a couple of months, and he
43:06
Speaker 1: came back and he had this cassette single of this
43:09
Speaker 1: song called Marero by mc thick, and it was a
43:12
Speaker 1: very very bad song, and we made fun of him
43:14
Speaker 1: for bringing it back home. And at one point we
43:17
Speaker 1: were all just out on the town driving in the
43:20
Speaker 1: car listening to music, and my friend Brion just grabbed
43:23
Speaker 1: the tape out of the cassette player and threw it
43:25
Speaker 1: out the fucking window. It's one of the funniest things
43:29
Speaker 1: I've ever seen happen.
43:31
Speaker 3: That is funny.
43:33
Speaker 1: So that's how I know about Morero though. Sorry mc thick,
43:38
Speaker 1: Sure you're a great guy.
43:39
Speaker 3: So anyway, I would not have been able to spell
43:41
Speaker 3: the name of that town without autocorrect, so thank you Google.
43:45
Speaker 1: Oh I can because of the song he spells.
43:47
Speaker 3: It of course. Yeah, of course, So this song sucks.
43:51
Speaker 1: It's bad. You see why it got shucked out the window. Yeah,
43:55
Speaker 1: cruising down the street real slow? What the fucking l MAREO.
44:02
Speaker 1: So after Keating gets indicted, from there, the indictments and
44:06
Speaker 1: guilty please just start flowing in left and right. One
44:11
Speaker 1: of the most shocking cases I think is the case
44:14
Speaker 1: of Anthony Robinson and Audrey Harris. They are a husband
44:18
Speaker 1: and wife team, and at first it sounds like they're
44:23
Speaker 1: being scammed because this was the first of all the
44:26
Speaker 1: articles I read, This was the first one that I
44:29
Speaker 1: read where people were paying to be involved in this. Right,
44:34
Speaker 1: Anthony Robinson and Audrey Harris paid Damian Lebaux two thousand
44:38
Speaker 1: dollars for the honor of participating in one of these
44:42
Speaker 1: staged crashes with their vehicle, and Robinson arranged for his wife,
44:48
Speaker 1: along with their daughter, Cashira Robinson, and a neighbor, Jerry Schaefer,
44:53
Speaker 1: to go for a ride in his vehicle, and at
44:56
Speaker 1: one point during that ride he pulls over and a
44:59
Speaker 1: sl named Roderick Hickman jumps behind the wheel and almost
45:04
Speaker 1: immediately causes a crash with an eighteen wheeler. Then he
45:08
Speaker 1: gets out, he gets picked up from the scene by
45:10
Speaker 1: Damian Lebau, and Robinson gets back behind the wheel. That's
45:15
Speaker 1: how most of the stage crashes work, so none of
45:17
Speaker 1: that is too shocking. What is shocking is the amount
45:21
Speaker 1: of money this one crash netted as a result of
45:25
Speaker 1: the various claims. The trucking and insurance company paid out
45:29
Speaker 1: around four point seven million dollars to settle these claims.
45:34
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
45:35
Speaker 3: Mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot
45:38
Speaker 3: for two thousand down.
45:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a huge return on investment. Hold. Yeah, shit,
45:43
Speaker 1: not bad at all, because like, yeah, if you told
45:47
Speaker 1: me you were going to turn that two hundred or
45:49
Speaker 1: that two thousand into like two hundred thousand, I'd be like, yeah,
45:52
Speaker 1: let's try it. Worth the risk four point seven million.
45:57
Speaker 3: The thing is like, if it had if it was
46:00
Speaker 3: I not coming at a time where these guys were
46:02
Speaker 3: kind of on the back end of the scheme, if
46:05
Speaker 3: this was like early on, I'd totally be down. Also,
46:08
Speaker 3: it seems like, like I was saying earlier, it kind
46:11
Speaker 3: of just seems like a good time, seems like a
46:13
Speaker 3: theme park cry, like you know it does.
46:16
Speaker 1: But that money wasn't as easily earned as it seems.
46:21
Speaker 1: Because that's the thing. You see all these like hot, rich,
46:24
Speaker 1: high profile athletes and you're like, well, why is Lebron
46:27
Speaker 1: James so much better at basketball than everyone else? It's
46:31
Speaker 1: because he puts in all that work. He puts in
46:33
Speaker 1: all the extra work, he gets in the gym, he
46:36
Speaker 1: goes to practice early, he does all the extra things.
46:40
Speaker 1: And that's what Anthony Robinson and his wife did. I
46:44
Speaker 1: did all the extra stuff, and that's why they made money.
46:48
Speaker 1: Because Anthony Robinson and his wife both underwent extensive neck
46:54
Speaker 1: and back presumably also pussy and crack surgeries to boost
46:59
Speaker 1: the amount of their respective payouts. So that's why their
47:04
Speaker 1: shit got up to four point seven million.
47:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, they had, they shelled out, they did.
47:09
Speaker 1: The work, they put in the extra effort they had
47:13
Speaker 1: to follow through necessary to really capitalize on this, and
47:16
Speaker 1: then they got hit with five million dollars restitution.
47:20
Speaker 3: All for that's the thing, that's the part you really
47:23
Speaker 3: want to avoid getting caught, Yes, yeah, getting caught and
47:27
Speaker 3: then paying three hundred grand more than your settlement.
47:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, this turned out to be a better investment for
47:34
Speaker 1: the trucking company, unfortunately. And by that point, the number
47:39
Speaker 1: of people charged in the scheme had climbed to forty seven.
47:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the thing. I would be doing this
47:45
Speaker 3: like with maybe like five people charged at the time, Like,
47:48
Speaker 3: I don't want to be getting into this when we've
47:50
Speaker 3: got forty seven people charge.
47:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm just going to say it. I think
47:56
Speaker 1: we've we've both kind of hinted at it already leading
47:58
Speaker 1: up to this point. But this scheme should still be
48:01
Speaker 1: going on, Like yeah, just for legal reasons, I don't
48:05
Speaker 1: want our massive legal team getting on my back, So
48:08
Speaker 1: I will say not from a moral standpoint, Sure, insurance
48:12
Speaker 1: fraud costs people money. A lot of those people are poor,
48:16
Speaker 1: like getting a driving without insurance ticket can fucking ruin
48:19
Speaker 1: your life if you're in the right situation for it.
48:22
Speaker 1: So sure, for moral reasons, this is a bad thing
48:26
Speaker 1: in it right, it should stop.
48:28
Speaker 3: But also insurance premiums and.
48:30
Speaker 1: Shit, yeah, insurance premiums are set based on loss experience
48:35
Speaker 1: of the insurer in that state, so it drives insurance
48:38
Speaker 1: rates up. So it's not a victimless crime by any
48:41
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination. But it also again should still
48:44
Speaker 1: be happening.
48:45
Speaker 3: If they were slightly smarter. You have to imagine it
48:49
Speaker 3: would be.
48:50
Speaker 1: Because they all it seems like all they really needed
48:53
Speaker 1: to do was just not do all those crashes in
48:57
Speaker 1: that one same spot.
49:00
Speaker 3: Like maybe that would have been a good idea, Like
49:03
Speaker 3: you could.
49:03
Speaker 1: Even just confine it to eastern New Orleans, I guess, Like, sure,
49:08
Speaker 1: then it's just gonna kind of be an urban legend
49:11
Speaker 1: that all of these accidents are happen happening there if
49:13
Speaker 1: you like, use a big enough group of people, I.
49:16
Speaker 4: Guess, right, But but just even just spread it out,
49:19
Speaker 4: if you just if they were a little bit more
49:22
Speaker 4: systematic about it, if they came up with some sort
49:25
Speaker 4: of schedule that seemed random enough from a cursory inspection,
49:30
Speaker 4: so that like say, you know, today you do it
49:33
Speaker 4: on that one highway.
49:34
Speaker 3: And tomorrow you're like on the other side of the state,
49:37
Speaker 3: and that's where the next one is. And then you
49:39
Speaker 3: go like north and then you go all the way
49:42
Speaker 3: down towards New Orleans. You know, you vary the location
49:47
Speaker 3: enough and it's gonna be a lot harder for people
49:50
Speaker 3: to figure out what you're doing.
49:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it would have also helped to enlist
49:54
Speaker 1: more witnesses, Like why did Damian Lebaux have to be
49:57
Speaker 1: the witnessed so many times? Like yeah, I mean one
50:01
Speaker 1: less person file a lawsuit and have that person be
50:05
Speaker 1: the witness. Switch it up every time.
50:08
Speaker 3: We're just fixing this plan. We should do this.
50:10
Speaker 1: I think that is my last note, is that we
50:12
Speaker 1: should try it. And it's not just that all of
50:18
Speaker 1: these crashes happened in eastern New Orleans. It's not that
50:22
Speaker 1: all of them happened along one stretch of road. But
50:25
Speaker 1: for a bunch of them, you can pinpoint it to
50:27
Speaker 1: one travel plaza, the big easy travel Plaza. Starting around
50:32
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, that place just turns into the Bermuda Triangle
50:37
Speaker 1: for truck drivers. Over the course of thirteen months, at
50:41
Speaker 1: least twenty trucks were involved in staged accidents while traveling
50:46
Speaker 1: through that one area.
50:47
Speaker 3: Crazy.
50:48
Speaker 1: This is a quote from Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donnellan.
50:52
Speaker 1: It's like, how dumb can you be? There's lots of
50:55
Speaker 1: intersections with eighteen wheelers available to be targeted without doing
50:59
Speaker 1: it at the corner over and over again.
51:02
Speaker 3: Fair, And I hope someone agree.
51:04
Speaker 1: I hope somewhere the next young superstar and insurance fraud
51:09
Speaker 1: is reading that and going, yep, yeah, that's where they
51:12
Speaker 1: fucked up. That's that's where they messed up.
51:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're listening, just think about it a little
51:18
Speaker 3: bit more.
51:19
Speaker 1: And he also speaks to the fact that they were
51:23
Speaker 1: just a very small handful of lawyers involved in this, right,
51:28
Speaker 1: and he says, uh, because there's not that many lawyers
51:31
Speaker 1: willing to do this kind of stuff. It's really really crazy.
51:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, Fair, this guy's making lots of good points.
51:39
Speaker 1: And he's got one more. I've never seen it at
51:42
Speaker 1: this large of a scale, with such ignorance in the
51:45
Speaker 1: way they operated in the same vicinity, with several of
51:48
Speaker 1: the same participants acting as victims of these crashes, that's
51:52
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. They just needed a bigger group
51:55
Speaker 1: of people and to move around and this could still
51:58
Speaker 1: be happening.
52:00
Speaker 3: I imagine Jim Donnellan being played by like JK. Simmons
52:04
Speaker 3: in his birth After reading role, you know, it's just like,
52:07
Speaker 3: what even is? What is going on? Why are you
52:10
Speaker 3: doing this?
52:12
Speaker 1: Yeah? We need this movie. It's got to happen.
52:14
Speaker 3: I would watch it. I would watch it.
52:17
Speaker 1: In somewhere someone is listening to this and they have
52:20
Speaker 1: the connections to make that happen, and they probably already
52:22
Speaker 1: have and we will see no fame nor fortune from it.
52:26
Speaker 1: But that's not why.
52:27
Speaker 3: Where's anybody listening to this who has the connections to
52:30
Speaker 3: make that happen. I would also like to direct it.
52:33
Speaker 3: How about that? I would like, let me make a movie, please.
52:36
Speaker 1: I would enjoy being involved in some capacity. So just
52:42
Speaker 1: keep us in mind.
52:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know you're a fan of the show. Maybe
52:45
Speaker 3: be a fan of my film career.
52:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't be an asshole about it if you're a
52:49
Speaker 1: fan of the show. So that's that's kind of where
52:53
Speaker 1: it sits right now. This is still an ongoing thing. Again.
52:56
Speaker 1: The murder Cornelius Garrison has not been solved, Like I'm speculating,
53:02
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't be shocked if that shady husband and
53:05
Speaker 1: wife lawyer team connected to him is maybe involved in that.
53:09
Speaker 1: But that's just speculation to get part. I'm not accusing
53:12
Speaker 1: public citizens of murder on this podcast.
53:15
Speaker 3: But I mean, poor Cornelius Garrison. What a tough run
53:19
Speaker 3: he had. First he was named Cornelius right in the
53:23
Speaker 3: twentieth century, and then he was killed.
53:26
Speaker 1: That's just sad, very sad. And so yeah, we'll link
53:30
Speaker 1: to all of this. It's an ongoing story. Lots of
53:33
Speaker 1: people have gone to prison for it, lots of people
53:36
Speaker 1: have been indicted. There are dozens and dozens of links.
53:40
Speaker 1: You can read all about it, and I'm glad. I've
53:44
Speaker 1: been wanting to do this episode for a long time.
53:46
Speaker 1: It was really intimidating looking at all of those links
53:50
Speaker 1: and having to put them in an order that made
53:53
Speaker 1: it so we could tell the story on the podcast.
53:56
Speaker 3: So yeah, there's a lot of background, but fascinating story.
54:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope people enjoyed this episode. I know it's
54:03
Speaker 1: a little different than what we normally do. Yeah, we've
54:07
Speaker 1: been doing this a long time.
54:09
Speaker 3: It's true.
54:10
Speaker 1: Can't just all be a drenochrome.
54:12
Speaker 3: Sorry, no, Unfortunately, it's not always a dream of chrome.
54:16
Speaker 1: For one thing, I am running low on a Dreana chrome.
54:20
Speaker 3: Whoa, well, you got a hook up? Man? Come on,
54:23
Speaker 3: let me know.
54:24
Speaker 1: I'm in LA. We all got a dream out here.
54:27
Speaker 1: Come on. It's the main reason I wouldn't move back
54:30
Speaker 1: to the Midwest. No, a dream of chrome.
54:32
Speaker 3: No, it's almost impossible. I found like a vial on
54:36
Speaker 3: the street the other day. That's like all I've been
54:38
Speaker 3: able to find.
54:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real it's a coastal elite drug, just
54:42
Speaker 1: like powder cocaine.
54:43
Speaker 3: You know, truly is so? H?
54:46
Speaker 1: Do we have anything to plug before we get out
54:49
Speaker 1: of here? I don't think so.
54:51
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, going back pod, Yeah.
54:55
Speaker 1: Give that a listen. You can follow me on Twitter
54:58
Speaker 1: and Instagram and Adam Todd Brown STI with one D.
55:01
Speaker 1: I'll have some stuff to announce soon. And uh, I
55:04
Speaker 1: think that's it right. Hell yeah, let's get out of here, Olivia.
55:08
Speaker 1: Say goodbye bye, goodbye everybody. We love you people of
55:17
Speaker 1: a y