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The Knife: Off Record – 126 · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm patia Eton, I'm
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Speaker 1: Hannah Smith, and today we have two crime stories, one
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Speaker 1: from you, maybe one and a half from me. Okay,
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Speaker 1: interesting one and a half and then some res All right,
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Speaker 1: well let's get right into it. Yeah, So I'm really
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Speaker 1: excited about what I have to talk about today. This
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Speaker 1: started when a listener named Nick emailed me. He'd actually
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Speaker 1: been a listener of The Opportunist years before and then
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Speaker 1: a listener of The Knife, and he reached out and
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Speaker 1: said that, you know, we had this question about this
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Speaker 1: scam that his father was involved with, and he wanted
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Speaker 1: to get more information about it and wanted to see
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Speaker 1: if I could find anything.
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Speaker 2: Out about it, and you were the lady for the job.
1:07
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know, I'll try.
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Speaker 1: So we ended up jumping on a video call together
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Speaker 1: and I recorded a little bit of what he told
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Speaker 1: me about what he knew about the situation, and so
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Speaker 1: I'm just going to play a clip here for you.
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Speaker 2: Great.
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Speaker 3: What I remember is that my dad, he discovered this
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Speaker 3: thing that he was involved with that was going to
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Speaker 3: pay him off big time. He explained that it was
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Speaker 3: like this guy down in Amarillo named Tommy Buckley that
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Speaker 3: had discovered some kind of like certificates, like treasury certificates
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Speaker 3: worth like billions, maybe trillions of dollars, and that's somehow
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Speaker 3: it was like illegal, and that Tommy Buckley had discovered
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Speaker 3: this and he was going to sue the US Department
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Speaker 3: of Treasury. I know that he was sending me Buckley
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Speaker 3: seventeen dollars US a month to receive a newsletter, and
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Speaker 3: I remember my dad saying and also seeing in the
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Speaker 3: newsletters the payoff is coming, payday is coming. And my
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Speaker 3: dad like fully bought into it, and then he got sick,
2:15
Speaker 3: like he passed away in two thousand and five. But
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Speaker 3: as he was getting sick, he was like, Nikki, remember
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Speaker 3: if I die before this comes to fruition, you're the beneficiary.
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Speaker 3: You have to get in touch with Tommy and like
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Speaker 3: you're going to get that, you're going to get to
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Speaker 3: reap the rewards. And I was like, okay, okay, Dad,
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Speaker 3: Of course, nothing ever happened. My dad died. I then,
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Speaker 3: like maybe a couple of years after he passed away,
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Speaker 3: I looked up Tommy Buckley Amarillo, and I found his
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Speaker 3: phone number and I called him and this like totally gruff.
2:50
Speaker 3: Texan answered the phone, and then I was like, I
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Speaker 3: told him who I was. I told him who my
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Speaker 3: dad was and that he had died, and he was like, oh, yeah,
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Speaker 3: I remember Kenny was a good green Light member. He was, oh, yeah,
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Speaker 3: I was a good member. And then I was like,
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Speaker 3: well he told me that, like I was the beneficiary
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Speaker 3: into treasury game or whatever. And he's like, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 3: that's true. By you'll need to send me the death
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Speaker 3: certificate in the mail.
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Speaker 1: So ultimately Nick didn't send his dad's death certificate. He
3:21
Speaker 1: was like, I was raising a kid. My life was busy.
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Speaker 1: He also, in the back of his mind was like,
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Speaker 1: I think this is a scam. And then he looked
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Speaker 1: it up a few years later, And this was after
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Speaker 1: Tommy Lee Buckley had been indicted on fraud charges. And
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Speaker 1: so since that happened, it's been over like it's been
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Speaker 1: fifteen years since Tommy Lee Buckley was indicted.
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Speaker 2: But his original call where he said this like gruff
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Speaker 2: text and answers the phone that was prior to Tommy
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Speaker 2: being indicted a few years past. Then he looks back
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Speaker 2: at it again and realizes he's been indicted. Yeah, okay,
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Speaker 2: got it.
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Speaker 1: So he's probably like glad that he never sent his
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Speaker 1: dad's death certificate or any of his personal information to
4:00
Speaker 1: Tommy Lee Buckley. But at this point in time, he
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Speaker 1: is just curious what all was going on with this scam.
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Speaker 1: There's not a ton of information online about it. There's
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Speaker 1: like the Justice dot Gov indictment information that talks about
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Speaker 1: the fraud, but it's pretty vague. And he looked back
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Speaker 1: to see if he had any of the old newsletters
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Speaker 1: because I was really wanting to see those, obviously, but
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Speaker 1: he couldn't find any. So, you know, he was just like,
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Speaker 1: I'd love to know more information about what he was
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Speaker 1: doing if you can find anything. So it's like, I
4:32
Speaker 1: don't know, I'll give it a try. Did some googling,
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Speaker 1: Like not a whole lot of information out there. But
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Speaker 1: then I was able to get court documents actually from
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Speaker 1: the trial because he had a trial, multiple day trial,
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Speaker 1: and I didn't get the whole trial, but I got
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Speaker 1: three days. And these were three days that Tommy Lee
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Speaker 1: Buckley himself was on the stand.
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Speaker 2: Love, so when the defendant testifies, right, a gold mine.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And so that was a lot of information and
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Speaker 1: helpful to see, you know, his version of the story
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Speaker 1: when he's talking with his own attorney and then when
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Speaker 1: he's cross examined, how like, there's just so many holes
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Speaker 1: in the story, right, right, But payday was coming, But
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Speaker 1: payday was coming. And interestingly, at the trial, some of
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Speaker 1: his long standing subscribers to his newsletter were there as witnesses,
5:29
Speaker 1: and a lot of them still believed that payday was
5:32
Speaker 1: still coming, that these certificates were real, and that it
5:35
Speaker 1: was just a matter of time, like even then. So
5:37
Speaker 1: it's a really, you know, it's interesting story about how
5:40
Speaker 1: this guy sort of runs this con and there's a
5:43
Speaker 1: lot of it that feels a little bit cult like
5:45
Speaker 1: to me, honestly. So let's get into it. So Tommy
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Speaker 1: Lee Buckley is a West Texas guy. I couldn't find
5:52
Speaker 1: where he grew up, but he went to three different universities,
5:55
Speaker 1: Arlington State College, Texas Tech, and Texas Christian University. He
5:59
Speaker 1: didn't actually ended up graduating any of them, No, he
6:03
Speaker 1: like spent a little time at one, transferred and transferred,
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Speaker 1: and then ended.
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Speaker 2: Up dropping out. Okay.
6:08
Speaker 1: Originally, in the trial he stated that that was because
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Speaker 1: his mom was having financial difficulties, so we had to
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Speaker 1: leave to help her. In the cross examination, he denies that,
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Speaker 1: and he says he dropped out because he was offered
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Speaker 1: a job. So I don't know, but what I'm gathering
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Speaker 1: is that he didn't come from a lot of money.
6:24
Speaker 1: He ends up in the Amarillo area. He started his
6:27
Speaker 1: own business, a clothing store called Tom Buckley's Men's Shop
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Speaker 1: around nineteen seventy, and he had that for about five
6:34
Speaker 1: years before it went out of business. Then he works
6:38
Speaker 1: at another store, a clothing store, and eventually starts another
6:43
Speaker 1: chain of men's clothing stores with some business partners that
6:47
Speaker 1: last for a couple of years and then goes out
6:48
Speaker 1: of business. By this time, it's nineteen eighty and he
6:52
Speaker 1: decides to change careers completely. And in the eighties there's
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Speaker 1: this huge oil.
6:58
Speaker 2: Boom in West Texas.
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Speaker 1: Like all of a sudden, all of these huge companies,
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Speaker 1: international companies are swarming West Texas and starting to drill.
7:08
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of people who become like very
7:12
Speaker 1: wealthy suddenly because they own land or they own like
7:15
Speaker 1: oil rights, mineral rights to land that is like where
7:18
Speaker 1: there's a lot of oil discovered, Okay, And so he
7:21
Speaker 1: decides to get in on this, and he becomes a
7:24
Speaker 1: right of way agent, which is like someone who helps
7:26
Speaker 1: secure land rights for drilling. Okay, and things are going well.
7:31
Speaker 1: He is an independent contractor. Then he goes he gets
7:34
Speaker 1: a full time job. He's working in the oil industry.
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Speaker 1: He got married in nineteen seventy or seventy one to
7:40
Speaker 1: his first wife. They had three kids, but they got
7:44
Speaker 1: divorced at some point, and then in nineteen ninety he
7:47
Speaker 1: remarries a woman named Phyllis who he'll be with until
7:50
Speaker 1: the end. Okay, so you know he's working in oil
7:54
Speaker 1: and gas. It's the mid eighties. He meets this guy
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Speaker 1: named Lou Driver also known as Lewis Driver, but they
8:00
Speaker 1: call them Alou.
8:01
Speaker 2: So they've got Tommy Buckley and Lou Driver. These are
8:03
Speaker 2: like names ripe for a con story, one hundred percent.
8:07
Speaker 2: I'm like, this could be the best way. No offense,
8:10
Speaker 2: no offense, great names. So they partner up.
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Speaker 1: They start a company called International Gas Recovery. I'm not
8:18
Speaker 1: going to get into what exactly they do. It's in
8:20
Speaker 1: the oil and gas industry. Yeah, copy that, moving on,
8:24
Speaker 1: moving on, not important. But they end up traveling a lot.
8:29
Speaker 1: They meet all different kinds of people working in this industry.
8:32
Speaker 1: They meet people from all over the world. But eventually
8:36
Speaker 1: this business is also kind of going under in like
8:39
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, and part of that is that the
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Speaker 1: price of oil has dropped, and so this big oil
8:43
Speaker 1: boom is like kind of coming to a little bit
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Speaker 1: of a halt, but not a problem for Tommy Lee
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Speaker 1: Buckley and Lou Driver, because they're about to get into
8:53
Speaker 1: a whole different business, endeavor business. So this is where
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Speaker 1: things start to get strained. Basically, what Buckley says on
9:03
Speaker 1: the stand is that his partner, Lou Driver, was in
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Speaker 1: Los Angeles on business and he met this guy named
9:09
Speaker 1: mister Edison Daminick. Okay, he's an Indonesian lawyer, and somehow
9:15
Speaker 1: they meet, and what I think happens is that mister Daminick,
9:19
Speaker 1: as he's referred to, starts to hear about all the
9:23
Speaker 1: wealth in West Texas, all the new wealth from from
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Speaker 1: this oil boom. So he is like, I'm going to
9:30
Speaker 1: let you in on a little secret to Lou Driver,
9:33
Speaker 1: and he goes on to tell him that, you know,
9:36
Speaker 1: he has come into possession of financial instruments they're referred
9:40
Speaker 1: to as different things CDs, Treasury notes. Certificates is the
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Speaker 1: most common way that Buckley ends up referring to them.
9:49
Speaker 1: I've heard of CDs, Yeah, Certificate of deposit CDs, which
9:53
Speaker 1: is sort of like a.
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Speaker 2: Never knew what it stood for action saying.
9:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, write this down CD fixed interest
10:02
Speaker 1: rate savings account. So I still don't really understand exactly
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Speaker 1: what it is. But it's like money. It's like a
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Speaker 1: certificate that represents money in a bank account, right, And
10:11
Speaker 1: so he's like, I have all of these certificates and
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Speaker 1: some of them are worth billions of dollars, billions, some trillions,
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Speaker 1: Like the amount listed on these certificates is astronomical. And
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Speaker 1: he says they were created by the US government but
10:28
Speaker 1: owned by foreign entities as well as rich influential people
10:33
Speaker 1: across the world. And somehow he's come into contact with
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Speaker 1: them or he has them. But it's complicated. You can't
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Speaker 1: just walk into a bank and redeem them. May I
10:42
Speaker 1: have one trillion dollars please? Yeah, I'll just go ahead.
10:45
Speaker 1: And in twenties, and she had twenties, and he's also
10:49
Speaker 1: from Indonesia. He wants to redeem them in the US,
10:52
Speaker 1: and he's looking for some locals to help him, and
10:55
Speaker 1: he thinks that Lou Davis and Tommy Lee Buckley are
10:57
Speaker 1: just the people for that. So you might be wonder
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Speaker 1: and like how he got these certificates. I am yeah,
11:03
Speaker 1: and you know it's vague. Buckley says in court that
11:07
Speaker 1: some of them are Swiss, and the one in question
11:10
Speaker 1: that they talk about a lot is worth supposedly five
11:12
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars Swiss certificate, and he said he believed
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Speaker 1: mister Daminick, who is from Indonesia and betrayed himself as
11:19
Speaker 1: highly connected, had received them from either the Indonesian government
11:24
Speaker 1: or some very wealthy Indonesian people, but for some reason
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Speaker 1: they'd chosen mister Daminic to be entrusted with these certificates,
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Speaker 1: and it was his job to go figure out how
11:35
Speaker 1: to redeem them.
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Speaker 2: I feel bad for anyone who actually has a Swiss
11:40
Speaker 2: bank account because like the context that I here Swiss
11:44
Speaker 2: bank account being used in, I'm like guilty, guilty on
11:48
Speaker 2: all charges run yeah, yeah, okay, So he is convincing
11:53
Speaker 2: Tommy and Lou that he's the real deal. He's the
11:56
Speaker 2: real deal, okay, and who knows, maybe at this point
11:58
Speaker 2: they really believe him, you know, Yeah, maybe they believe
12:02
Speaker 2: it the whole time. I have no idea, but they
12:04
Speaker 2: come up with a plan. So this is what they do.
12:06
Speaker 1: They go back to Amrello and they put an advertisement
12:09
Speaker 1: in the local paper for low interest business loans, and
12:14
Speaker 1: they mentioned the ad in the court transcript and right
12:17
Speaker 1: up top it has like a big, you know print,
12:19
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollars and they're looking for applicants who
12:24
Speaker 1: want to start a business locally, and they're going to
12:26
Speaker 1: give them very low interest loans each applicant, it said,
12:30
Speaker 1: can be granted as much as two point five million,
12:33
Speaker 1: and encourage people to apply, and there was like a
12:36
Speaker 1: number that they could call to get more information, and
12:39
Speaker 1: it also said something like limited.
12:41
Speaker 2: Spots, you know, of course. Yeah.
12:43
Speaker 1: And so when people called, they were told, okay, there's
12:47
Speaker 1: going to be a meeting. They called it the Executive
12:51
Speaker 1: Summary Meeting, and it's going to take place at Amarello
12:54
Speaker 1: and this is the date. If you want to be
12:56
Speaker 1: invited to the meeting, it costs two hundred dollars to go.
12:59
Speaker 1: So eighty eight people show up to this meeting and
13:02
Speaker 1: they write proposals. And what the meeting turned out to
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Speaker 1: be was, you know, they had these certificates on display
13:09
Speaker 1: at the meeting, and so it really turns into Tommy
13:12
Speaker 1: Lee Buckley mainly convincing the room selling them on this
13:16
Speaker 1: idea that these certificate its are real. The US government
13:21
Speaker 1: legally will have to redeem them. We have figured out
13:24
Speaker 1: this sort of loophole, and once we redeem these, that's
13:28
Speaker 1: where this low interest loan money is going to come from.
13:32
Speaker 1: But really the loan is like a ruse, and everyone
13:34
Speaker 1: gets really excited about this idea. Oh my gosh, we're
13:37
Speaker 1: going to be able to get super rich from this,
13:41
Speaker 1: and he gets people on board. This is the very
13:44
Speaker 1: beginning of what he ends up calling green Light, which
13:46
Speaker 1: is his group, and he'll end up having some loyal
13:49
Speaker 1: followers who will continue to follow him and believe in
13:52
Speaker 1: this for twenty years after, because this is nineteen ninety.
13:57
Speaker 1: So the people that are interested, he encourages them to
14:00
Speaker 1: give a five hundred dollars pledge and they also give
14:04
Speaker 1: their mailing addresses, and he's like, I'm going to keep
14:07
Speaker 1: you updated about this. With this five hundred dollars, you're
14:10
Speaker 1: in on this, and that is an investment so that
14:14
Speaker 1: when we redeem these, you'll get money back. What kind
14:17
Speaker 1: of businesses, do you know or was it just like
14:19
Speaker 1: small businesses West Texas. He had a list of them
14:24
Speaker 1: that I didn't write down, but it was like oil
14:26
Speaker 1: and gas, agriculture, stuff like that. Okay, yeah, five hundred
14:32
Speaker 1: dollars then small price to pay. Yeah, if you think
14:34
Speaker 1: you're going to get two point five million, yeah for
14:36
Speaker 1: your business.
14:37
Speaker 2: Right.
14:38
Speaker 1: So what begins is that he then starts sending out
14:41
Speaker 1: newsletters monthly to everyone who's given him money. And we're
14:45
Speaker 1: talking newsletters. We're talking, you know, physical newsletters pre Internet.
14:50
Speaker 1: You can't email. So he's you know, writing these out,
14:53
Speaker 1: printing them, copying them, putting in envelopes, and mailing them
14:56
Speaker 1: out to people. This would be the newsletter that Nick'
14:59
Speaker 1: dad would eventually Okay, Nick's dad was living in Canada
15:02
Speaker 1: at the time, so he was not at this meeting.
15:04
Speaker 1: I think he joined a few years later, but he
15:06
Speaker 1: would eventually have people from all over who were part
15:10
Speaker 1: of this screenlight. The newsletters were cryptic, and you know,
15:14
Speaker 1: the first one he sent out thanked everyone for their
15:17
Speaker 1: pledge and said things like you're going to receive a
15:19
Speaker 1: special compensation soon. He also talked about how this was
15:22
Speaker 1: highly confidential but very quickly, the newsletters start to change
15:26
Speaker 1: the tone of them. You know, the next month he's like,
15:29
Speaker 1: you know, if you haven't sent in your pledge yet,
15:31
Speaker 1: make sure to get it in. I have gotten really busy.
15:34
Speaker 1: I'm dedicating all of my time to this. And we
15:36
Speaker 1: start to see this narrative develop in his newsletters where
15:39
Speaker 1: he's really creating a world and like a story about
15:44
Speaker 1: what is happening here. And one of the things that
15:47
Speaker 1: pops up quickly is that there are like enemies who
15:50
Speaker 1: are trying to stop him from achieving this goal. In
15:53
Speaker 1: the second or third newsletter, he says, within the last
15:56
Speaker 1: four days, I have found out who complained to the
15:58
Speaker 1: FBI and began the tremendous problems we have. And he's
16:02
Speaker 1: like writing about how they're threatening the project. But don't worry,
16:06
Speaker 1: he's not going to stop it anything. He's dedicated.
16:08
Speaker 2: That's wild because if I'm someone who was at that
16:11
Speaker 2: meeting and decides to give this pledge and I want
16:13
Speaker 2: this money, if I hear that the FBI knowing about
16:16
Speaker 2: it is a problem, I'm out. I'm done. You can
16:19
Speaker 2: keep my five hundred dollars. I want no part of this.
16:22
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have the newsletters. But I think
16:24
Speaker 1: a big part of the appeal and the laura around
16:28
Speaker 1: this is that it's like the secret that the US
16:32
Speaker 1: government is keeping from people. That the US government legally
16:38
Speaker 1: has to redeem these CDs, but they're not going to
16:41
Speaker 1: want to just give it to any old regular citizen.
16:44
Speaker 1: They lost these or I don't know what happened, but
16:47
Speaker 1: somehow these certificates got out of control, and the US
16:51
Speaker 1: government is going to try to cover this.
16:52
Speaker 2: Whole thing up. Peski US government. Yeah, typical.
16:56
Speaker 1: And then of course he ends every newsletter with like
16:59
Speaker 1: the payouts coming soon. We're so close. I'm so excited,
17:02
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for being loyal to me. He says,
17:04
Speaker 1: I won't forget those who stand by me. I don't
17:07
Speaker 1: know that anyone actually reported to the FBI. Probably not.
17:10
Speaker 1: I think that he sort of was creating these scenarios
17:14
Speaker 1: where he was like under attack. So then in December
17:17
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety, which is like a few months after
17:20
Speaker 1: the meeting, he has a newsletter where he's saying, you know,
17:23
Speaker 1: my costs are more than expected. I'm having to pay
17:25
Speaker 1: for phones, facts FedEx travel. He says, I spent four
17:29
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars alone on plane tickets this month. So
17:33
Speaker 1: now he's like, if you want to keep being part
17:35
Speaker 1: of this, you're gonna have to pay fifty dollars a month.
17:38
Speaker 1: If you want to drop out, fine, I'll reimburse you
17:40
Speaker 1: all the money you've paid as soon as that first
17:42
Speaker 1: payment comes through with the CDs. But if you want
17:45
Speaker 1: to keep in on this and this really important thing,
17:48
Speaker 1: now you've got to pay me every month. And so
17:50
Speaker 1: people start paying him.
17:52
Speaker 2: Dang. Yeah.
17:54
Speaker 1: So this continues to go on, and you know, he
17:58
Speaker 1: is doing things to try to supposedly redeem these certificates.
18:05
Speaker 1: So we're thinking that this stage and whatever is happening,
18:09
Speaker 1: that he's a believer in the certificates. He claims that
18:12
Speaker 1: he is, and he's calling people, he's trying to make
18:16
Speaker 1: meetings with people who he thinks might be able to
18:20
Speaker 1: help him with this, like bankers and stuff. Okay, And
18:23
Speaker 1: then he's writing about all of his efforts in the
18:26
Speaker 1: newsletter to keep everyone updated with what he's doing to
18:29
Speaker 1: try to like get them their big payout. He separates
18:39
Speaker 1: his green lighters, as they're called, into active and inactive.
18:44
Speaker 1: You know, Nick remembered his dad saying that he would
18:46
Speaker 1: call a number to get updates sometimes, and that's true.
18:50
Speaker 1: So Buckley used something called facts Mail that was faster
18:54
Speaker 1: than the mailed newsletter. So if you wanted updates outside
18:57
Speaker 1: of the monthly newsletter, you called a number and then
19:00
Speaker 1: you would receive a fax automatically with updates on green Light.
19:05
Speaker 2: So he was writing a lot of letters. He was really,
19:07
Speaker 2: really he was busy writing letters. Yeah, it was just
19:10
Speaker 2: like in publishing basically, and he like no longer is
19:13
Speaker 2: working at any other job. This is his full time job.
19:16
Speaker 2: He gives himself a salary, you know, like he's doing
19:19
Speaker 2: things like he travels to Las Vegas to meet with
19:21
Speaker 2: some people who are selling a hotel that's in bankruptcy,
19:25
Speaker 2: and I don't know what his plan was, but obviously
19:27
Speaker 2: that he doesn't buy it, but he you know, includes
19:30
Speaker 2: that in the newsletter. And he flies to Mexico City
19:35
Speaker 2: to meet with someone who he thinks is going to
19:37
Speaker 2: help him redeem these certificates. That doesn't pan out, Okay,
19:41
Speaker 2: of course he writes about it, and the question really
19:43
Speaker 2: becomes too are all of these meetings real that he's
19:45
Speaker 2: writing about? Is he really flying in Mexico City? I
19:48
Speaker 2: don't know, stories from far away places like maybe but
19:51
Speaker 2: maybe not maybeeah, a telltale sign of ACAN. Well, I mean,
19:54
Speaker 2: this whole thing starts with the Indonesian government supposedly, which
19:59
Speaker 2: you know, our away places that you can't verify, especially
20:03
Speaker 2: in the nineties, but there is one meeting that's real.
20:07
Speaker 2: Through his network, he ends up securing a meeting in
20:11
Speaker 2: Dallas at the Federal Reserve Bank for July of nineteen
20:14
Speaker 2: ninety one. So he brings these certificates along with blu Driver.
20:20
Speaker 2: He brings these certificates to the US Federal Reserve Bank
20:24
Speaker 2: and meets with people there and hands them over to
20:27
Speaker 2: them and is sort of like, we just want to,
20:30
Speaker 2: you know, confirm that these are legitimate. Seems like a
20:34
Speaker 2: step that should have been taken a few steps ago,
20:36
Speaker 2: but okay, well yeah, and you know, we want you
20:40
Speaker 2: to use your resources to confirm these are legitimate.
20:43
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. One of the certificates that was
20:47
Speaker 1: supposedly created by the Federal Reserve Bank is listed to
20:51
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein. So he hands us over. I mean, he
20:54
Speaker 1: has this meeting at the Federal Reserve and they're like,
20:59
Speaker 1: we'll take a look at them. And so then you know,
21:03
Speaker 1: Tommy Lee Buckley and his people leave. What he ends
21:06
Speaker 1: up writing about and how he tells the story is
21:09
Speaker 1: that this like gets them in trouble and that someone
21:13
Speaker 1: from the Federal Reserve calls him back and says these
21:16
Speaker 1: are real, but Saddam Hussein's assets are frozen in the US,
21:20
Speaker 1: so unfortunately we can't redeem this for you.
21:23
Speaker 2: That's what he says. Happens, okay, and.
21:25
Speaker 1: Then he later says that you know, they're having lunch
21:28
Speaker 1: and they're being followed by the Secret Service and they
21:30
Speaker 1: get arrested. What is true about this story is that
21:34
Speaker 1: they were arrested, and they were probably followed because they
21:38
Speaker 1: brought fake certificates, you know, fake US money into a
21:45
Speaker 1: bank and tried to cash them, and so they were
21:47
Speaker 1: followed and they were arrested and taken to Dallas County jail,
21:51
Speaker 1: and Buckley spent a week in jail.
21:53
Speaker 2: He can't send any faxes. What are the people going
21:56
Speaker 2: to think?
21:56
Speaker 1: I know, Well, fortunately this is like you know, before
21:59
Speaker 1: the internet, so they're only getting monthly newsletters. True, so
22:03
Speaker 1: mister Daminick is not in Dallas, he's not with them
22:07
Speaker 1: for this whole thing, but he is in Austin and
22:10
Speaker 1: he's apprehended and arrested. And what authorities quickly realize is
22:14
Speaker 1: that this all traces back to mister Daminick, that he's
22:17
Speaker 1: like the one who started this, and so everyone else
22:20
Speaker 1: is able to get out of jail. Mister Daminick is
22:23
Speaker 1: in prison for seventy days and he has charges against
22:26
Speaker 1: him for being like the mastermind of all of this.
22:28
Speaker 1: But Tommy Lee Buckley is undeterred. He goes to Austin
22:31
Speaker 1: and he visits mister Daminick in prison like five or
22:34
Speaker 1: six times, and according to him, mister Daminick is insistent, no, no,
22:39
Speaker 1: the certificates are real, like they just don't want us
22:41
Speaker 1: to have them, like they're real. And does he believe
22:45
Speaker 1: this or not?
22:47
Speaker 2: Man, I don't know, like you were just arrested. Yeah,
22:51
Speaker 2: And somehow the Sadam Hussein of it all like that
22:55
Speaker 2: doesn't that doesn't get alarm go off.
22:59
Speaker 1: Right, and it only adds to the narrative that the
23:02
Speaker 1: US government doesn't want you to know the truth, right,
23:07
Speaker 1: And so this only like fans the fire for him.
23:11
Speaker 1: So he starts calling it Project Treasury Gate. That's when
23:13
Speaker 1: this happens, and he decides he's going to sue the
23:16
Speaker 1: government for not redeeming these certificates, and he looks for
23:20
Speaker 1: a lawyer, takes some time to find a lawyer will
23:23
Speaker 1: take this case, as you can imagine. Yeah, And the
23:28
Speaker 1: other thing he does is he writes a two hundred
23:30
Speaker 1: and fifty page book and makes a videotape of him
23:33
Speaker 1: talking about Treasury Gate and spinning his like story, and
23:37
Speaker 1: he starts selling that for one hundred dollars and people
23:40
Speaker 1: are buying it. And one of the things he says
23:42
Speaker 1: in it is that he was he survived an assassination attempt.
23:45
Speaker 2: Oh so at the lunch where he was arrested and followed,
23:49
Speaker 2: is that where the assassination attempt was supposed to be?
23:52
Speaker 2: I think, so, yeah, wow, but pretty good marketing, you know, scheme.
23:58
Speaker 2: You know.
23:58
Speaker 1: You were like, does he believe that? I don't know,
24:01
Speaker 1: you know. As I was looking into this, I wondered like,
24:05
Speaker 1: is he just a victim of the scam? Like did
24:09
Speaker 1: he meet mister Daminick and he was like totally convinced
24:13
Speaker 1: that this was real? Yeah? Or is he scamming people?
24:19
Speaker 1: Hard to say, yeah, So I wondered like, maybe he
24:22
Speaker 1: just really believes this, yeah. But then I kept reading
24:27
Speaker 1: and it just seems like impossible because when mister Daminick
24:31
Speaker 1: was arrested, they confiscated many of the certificates and they
24:36
Speaker 1: actually had an expert analyzed them to see if they
24:39
Speaker 1: were real. A physical and microscopic examination was performed. They
24:44
Speaker 1: were compared against United States Secret Service genuine specimen files
24:50
Speaker 1: like real certificates of deposit, as well as those of
24:54
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and they were determined
24:57
Speaker 1: to be not genuine monetary certificates issued by the US government.
25:01
Speaker 1: And it also said these documents were produced by a
25:03
Speaker 1: combination of poor quality offset printing, stamp pads and press
25:08
Speaker 1: or rub on letters and numbers. Oh no, that's a
25:11
Speaker 1: bad day for Tommy. Yeah, and he was there. He
25:14
Speaker 1: was at the court hearing, so he heard this being said.
25:18
Speaker 1: He heard this is not real.
25:20
Speaker 2: Okay, So at this point it's like whether or not
25:23
Speaker 2: he believed it in the beginning. He's continuing to collect
25:25
Speaker 2: money from people, and now he knows it's not real.
25:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, this doesn't make it into the newsletter update. No,
25:32
Speaker 1: I imagine it wouldn't. And he continues to spend this
25:36
Speaker 1: story and collect money for like sixteen more years from people,
25:41
Speaker 1: and the certificates are wild. They talk about them, you know,
25:45
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein. And there's also one in Fidel Castro's name,
25:49
Speaker 1: the former president of Uganda is one. But the prosecuting
25:53
Speaker 1: attorney points out that there are spelling errors, like people's
25:56
Speaker 1: names are spelled wrong. Oh no, there's one for seventy
26:02
Speaker 1: six trillion dollars payable to Gandhi dated nineteen fifty eight,
26:07
Speaker 1: even though Gandhi died in nineteen forty eight.
26:09
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay, So damn Nick who's at the
26:14
Speaker 2: center of all of this. He's at this trial.
26:17
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was at Tommy Lee Buckley's star.
26:19
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think he like fled the US.
26:22
Speaker 1: He was pretty much out of this whole scheme once
26:25
Speaker 1: he got arrested in Austin and they were like these
26:28
Speaker 1: aren't real we've caught you. He's like gone, he's no longer.
26:33
Speaker 2: Part of it. He's yeah, okay, got it.
26:35
Speaker 1: He was the emphasis of this. But then once he leaves,
26:38
Speaker 1: Tommy Lee Buckley just like runs with this narrative and
26:41
Speaker 1: he's already created this whole following. He has a brand, okay,
26:46
Speaker 1: and he's got a newsletter to keep up with he's
26:48
Speaker 1: got a newsletter, he's got monthly money coming in.
26:51
Speaker 2: Does Phillis think of this?
26:52
Speaker 1: Phyllis is a nurse, but eventually she quits her job
26:56
Speaker 1: because they're making so much money and she's helping him
26:59
Speaker 1: package the news and sent them out. I don't know,
27:02
Speaker 1: does she know it's a scam? I would have a
27:04
Speaker 1: lot of questions. Yeah, so they're doing really well off this.
27:08
Speaker 1: It's not just like they got some five hundred dollars
27:11
Speaker 1: pledges back in the nineteen eighties and they're riding the
27:16
Speaker 1: wave like this is really continuing to grow on a
27:19
Speaker 1: global scale. I don't know where all his subscribers come from,
27:23
Speaker 1: probably mostly the US, maybe some Canada, maybe elsewhere. Yeah,
27:26
Speaker 1: how did Nick stad hear about it? Do you know
27:29
Speaker 1: he heard about it on the radio? I'm pretty sure.
27:31
Speaker 1: So at a certain point it stops becoming highly confidential
27:35
Speaker 1: and Tommy Lee Buckley starts sort of advertising this is
27:37
Speaker 1: what he's doing. You know, he had made that videotape
27:40
Speaker 1: and written that sort of manifesto and is selling it
27:42
Speaker 1: for one hundred dollars, so he's making money off that.
27:46
Speaker 1: He is interviewed on local radio shows and he's talking
27:49
Speaker 1: about this scheme and the government is lying to us,
27:52
Speaker 1: so he's getting people reaching out to him because of that.
27:55
Speaker 1: And then every time that there is like getting arrested
27:59
Speaker 1: and then plan to now sue the US government. That
28:02
Speaker 1: brings in money too, because it's like it's expensive to
28:05
Speaker 1: bring a lawsuit, but I think it is important.
28:07
Speaker 2: And at the end of it, you all get paid.
28:09
Speaker 1: You're going to get millions and millions of dollars. Yeah,
28:12
Speaker 1: So what ends up happening is that he charges people
28:15
Speaker 1: seventeen dollars a month to be active green Light members,
28:20
Speaker 1: and if you stop paying the seventeen then you're inactive.
28:23
Speaker 1: This means you'll still get some money because you've already
28:25
Speaker 1: paid him, but you're not going to get as much money.
28:28
Speaker 1: He doesn't really specify what that means. And you also
28:31
Speaker 1: don't get as many newsletters. And what's seventeen dollars a
28:34
Speaker 1: month for that kind of hope? You know, I mean
28:37
Speaker 1: it is kind of a lot for like the nineties
28:40
Speaker 1: and early two thousands. True, Yeah, maybe, like what's thirty
28:42
Speaker 1: dollars a month?
28:43
Speaker 2: Maybe?
28:43
Speaker 1: Now I'm not really sure, right, Like I've canceled subscriptions
28:46
Speaker 1: over less. Yeah, but yeah, you're right, it's like this dream.
28:51
Speaker 1: Then you're in on something. Okay, So if you are
28:56
Speaker 1: paying regularly, you're getting all of the newsletters an update,
29:00
Speaker 1: and some of them are like he's like, I have
29:02
Speaker 1: a big update coming. I've just gotten contact with an
29:05
Speaker 1: important person and I'm about to send out a newsletter.
29:08
Speaker 1: But some of it will be it will be sanitized
29:10
Speaker 1: as the words, and so he's like blocking out some
29:13
Speaker 1: of it, like you would like redacted, redacted.
29:15
Speaker 2: But he's writing it, so he could have just left
29:17
Speaker 2: everything out to begin, or it'll be like I got
29:19
Speaker 2: this letter from so and so I'm going to redact it.
29:22
Speaker 1: So he's creating this intrigue. So if you're not an
29:24
Speaker 1: active member, you don't you don't get the newsletters. But
29:26
Speaker 1: every once in a while he'll send out a newsletter
29:28
Speaker 1: to everyone and sort of tease what they're missing. Okay,
29:31
Speaker 1: it's like they don't have the reality shows that we
29:34
Speaker 1: do right now, like this is exciting.
29:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like a monthly sort of mystery. Totally.
29:41
Speaker 1: That's like updating you on some secret conspiracy in the
29:45
Speaker 1: US government and you're getting updates and it's I mean,
29:48
Speaker 1: they are paying for like entertainment in some ways. Right,
29:52
Speaker 1: but except that it's he's telling them that this is
29:55
Speaker 1: an investment.
29:57
Speaker 2: Yikes.
29:57
Speaker 1: So he does sue the US government. He files a
30:00
Speaker 1: lawsuit in nineteen ninety three, includes one of the CDs
30:04
Speaker 1: that's worth two hundred and seventy eight billion dollars, and
30:07
Speaker 1: of course the lawsuits just completely dismissed. In nineteen ninety four,
30:11
Speaker 1: a judge noted the note was fraudulent and that quote
30:14
Speaker 1: any reasonable person who investigated would have known that. And
30:18
Speaker 1: it seems like the judge is like pretty upset that
30:20
Speaker 1: this lawsuit was ever brought, because the judge orders Buckley's
30:25
Speaker 1: attorney to pay for the other side attorney fees, which
30:30
Speaker 1: is ten thousand additional dollars.
30:32
Speaker 2: Oops.
30:33
Speaker 1: So this whole thing cost him forty thousand dollars and
30:36
Speaker 1: all that money is coming out of the money that
30:38
Speaker 1: the green Lighters are giving him their investment that he's
30:41
Speaker 1: supposedly taking care of. Okay, So around two thousand and one,
30:44
Speaker 1: it's estimated that he has two thousand, seven hundred and
30:47
Speaker 1: thirty three members in one of his groups, and like
30:51
Speaker 1: another thousand in his sort of inactive group that are
30:55
Speaker 1: sometimes giving money. It's a pretty big operation to send
30:58
Speaker 1: out to these newsletters. He also has started to tell
31:01
Speaker 1: communications business called comm M Group, and it has capacity
31:06
Speaker 1: for eight hundred voicemail system. It's like a voicemail system.
31:09
Speaker 1: People pay twenty twenty five dollars a month to have
31:12
Speaker 1: a voicemail box.
31:13
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, imagine what you'd pay now not to.
31:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, to never have to listen to a
31:18
Speaker 1: voicemail ever again.
31:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, that's a million dollar idea. It's
31:22
Speaker 2: a subscription that we need to start seriously. And so
31:31
Speaker 2: his wife is working for him. He has like a
31:33
Speaker 2: full time employee. He's giving himself a salary, and he's
31:37
Speaker 2: sort of still trying to sell these certificates ish, even
31:42
Speaker 2: after a judge has said these are absolutely not real
31:46
Speaker 2: and any reasonable person would know that.
31:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the beginning, he was like meeting with bankers,
31:51
Speaker 1: he was going to the Federal Reserve. At this point,
31:52
Speaker 1: the people that he's meeting are not reputable people, Like
31:57
Speaker 1: he meets these brothers in Canada, who's where they can
32:00
Speaker 1: redeem these certificates and he ends up paying them seventy
32:03
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars but they can't. He also says that
32:07
Speaker 1: he goes to Germany to meet someone and he ends
32:10
Speaker 1: up feeling like his life is threatened, so he pays
32:12
Speaker 1: that guy fifty thousand dollars and flees the country. And
32:15
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, Okay, is he being scammed by
32:19
Speaker 1: other scammers at this point?
32:21
Speaker 2: He seems like he's in this in between of scammer
32:25
Speaker 2: and victim. Yeah, because just the fact that he is
32:29
Speaker 2: paying other people that kind of money makes me question
32:34
Speaker 2: like does he get it or is he just similarly
32:37
Speaker 2: to those people who are at the trial still believing,
32:40
Speaker 2: like is he just that sort of unwilling to let
32:43
Speaker 2: go of the dream that all this money is coming. Yeah.
32:47
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, I mean, I don't know how
32:49
Speaker 2: many subscriptions did you see that he had or how
32:52
Speaker 2: many members.
32:53
Speaker 1: I would estimate he had like three thousand.
32:55
Speaker 2: Because if he had three thousand members and they're paying
32:59
Speaker 2: seventeen dollars a month, that's fifty one thousand dollars a month,
33:04
Speaker 2: I mean at the time, and also probably and where
33:06
Speaker 2: they live, Like that's a lot of I mean, that's
33:08
Speaker 2: a lot of money period even right now, but like wow,
33:11
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one in West Texas, that's a
33:14
Speaker 2: ton of money. Yeah, a ton of Money's a ton
33:17
Speaker 2: of money, now, don't get me wrong, But like then
33:20
Speaker 2: that's like unbelievable. That's enough money to pay his salary,
33:23
Speaker 2: to pay a full time employee, and to live like
33:26
Speaker 2: a very nice life and save money, right, And so.
33:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Like when I hear about, okay,
33:33
Speaker 1: he paid these brothers seventy five thousand dollars to try
33:36
Speaker 1: to redeem these certificates, It's like, is that true? Is
33:40
Speaker 1: that not true? I don't know if there's paperwork to
33:42
Speaker 1: support that. Did he just write that in his newsletter?
33:45
Speaker 1: Am I getting scammed? Because I was like thinking, yeah,
33:47
Speaker 1: he probably did pay them, but I don't know, did
33:49
Speaker 1: he Well, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I
33:51
Speaker 1: think he might have. And the only reason I think
33:53
Speaker 1: that is because they do have on record that at
33:57
Speaker 1: one point he takes money out of one of his businesses,
34:01
Speaker 1: the telecommunication business, as well as money that has been
34:05
Speaker 1: given by the Green Lighters. He takes two hundred thousand
34:08
Speaker 1: dollars and he invests it with this person named mister
34:12
Speaker 1: and Weia. It's a real person. I looked him up.
34:15
Speaker 1: He was the president of the Worldwide Equity Corporation and
34:20
Speaker 1: apparently this guy is like promising him insane returns on
34:23
Speaker 1: his investment, Like this is going to turn into multiple
34:27
Speaker 1: millions of dollars red flag like a matter of like
34:30
Speaker 1: a year, right, And so he gives him this money
34:33
Speaker 1: and his money disappears and this guy disappears and he
34:37
Speaker 1: loses it. He loses two hundred thousand dollars on this
34:41
Speaker 1: investment thing. And when I look this up, this guy
34:45
Speaker 1: was running a scam and he was caught by the
34:49
Speaker 1: SEC and lost his job. He was running like a
34:51
Speaker 1: huge scam.
34:53
Speaker 2: It's like, hasn't Tommy been down this road before?
34:56
Speaker 1: So Tommy is like, yeah, is he believing he was
35:00
Speaker 1: taking money out and investing it and trying to make
35:02
Speaker 1: more money off of this? So this was like he
35:05
Speaker 1: was conned by this investor. But it also seems like
35:10
Speaker 1: he was paying people to try to redeem these certificates.
35:13
Speaker 1: And so is this a situation where he just had
35:15
Speaker 1: convinced himself it was real to not feel guilty about
35:19
Speaker 1: how he was just like conning all these people.
35:21
Speaker 2: M M. Yeah, I don't know. Wow, that is nuts.
35:25
Speaker 2: And I mean I don't know how old Nick's father
35:28
Speaker 2: was when he became a member, but I wonder if
35:31
Speaker 2: a lot of the people who started sending him money
35:36
Speaker 2: after he started advertising and it was no longer confidential,
35:39
Speaker 2: if they were elderly, if he was taking advantage of
35:42
Speaker 2: more vulnerable populations, obviously things were a lot different. Then
35:47
Speaker 2: you couldn't get on in Google and find a whole
35:49
Speaker 2: Reddit thread about someone if they were up to no good.
35:51
Speaker 2: But I mean, month after month of the same thing
35:55
Speaker 2: in different scenarios would be troublesome, for sure.
36:02
Speaker 1: Nick did say that his dad lived alone for a
36:05
Speaker 1: long time, was very like lonely and sort of struggled
36:08
Speaker 1: with depression, and also was living in Canada but was
36:11
Speaker 1: born in the US, and that being part of this
36:14
Speaker 1: green Light group sort of gave him this feeling of
36:16
Speaker 1: connection and community and probably excitement every month when that
36:20
Speaker 1: newsletter came to read, like what other intrigue is happening? Yeah,
36:24
Speaker 1: and so in some ways, like, well, maybe it was
36:26
Speaker 1: worth it for him to pay seventeen dollars a month.
36:27
Speaker 2: That's so true.
36:28
Speaker 1: It's like Facebook of the moment. Yeah, yeah, totally. So
36:33
Speaker 1: as far as like how much money he is making
36:36
Speaker 1: in trial, they look at his financials and in two
36:39
Speaker 1: thousand and three he bought a BMW for forty six
36:42
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. He and his wife bought a house in Aberdeen, Texas,
36:45
Speaker 1: for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In two thousand
36:49
Speaker 1: and four, he listed his assets as one point three million,
36:52
Speaker 1: and then by two thousand and seven it's listed as
36:54
Speaker 1: three point one million. He's like a member of multiple
36:57
Speaker 1: country clubs, living a pretty fancy life in West Texas.
37:02
Speaker 1: And another part that he always talks about is when
37:05
Speaker 1: he gets this big payout, he's going to give most
37:07
Speaker 1: of it to charity.
37:09
Speaker 2: Not to the people who have been hanging on every
37:12
Speaker 2: word he has said for years and years and years.
37:15
Speaker 2: That's what I wonder too.
37:16
Speaker 1: My gosh, Yeah, he's going to give at least a
37:19
Speaker 1: trillion dollars to charity. Well that's so kind of him. Yeah,
37:24
Speaker 1: But when they looked at his financials, interestingly enough, he
37:26
Speaker 1: had hardly ever given any money to charity.
37:29
Speaker 2: That's shocking. Yeah.
37:31
Speaker 1: By two thousand and seven, he still has the same story.
37:33
Speaker 1: You know, he updates. This is amazing and I have
37:35
Speaker 1: so much information to share with you. I know who
37:38
Speaker 1: the good guys are, I know who the bad guys are.
37:40
Speaker 1: And he's just like it's just around the corner, like
37:42
Speaker 1: maybe this is the last update, because maybe you're going
37:44
Speaker 1: to get paid next month. You know, the story has
37:47
Speaker 1: evolved now. At some point, he says, he sends the
37:50
Speaker 1: certificates to Europe with someone who's trusted to carry them,
37:53
Speaker 1: and they're with the UN and there's this big international
37:56
Speaker 1: plan at some point to cash them out and like
37:59
Speaker 1: totally get rid of all us debt. It doesn't make
38:02
Speaker 1: any sense, but his lore has become bigger and grander.
38:05
Speaker 1: And part of this, I think is that by two
38:07
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, he's now on
38:09
Speaker 1: the internet okay, and he's now connecting with other people
38:13
Speaker 1: who are also sort of interested in similar topics. He
38:16
Speaker 1: starts reading a lot about the Illuminati, and his newsletters
38:21
Speaker 1: sort of reflect this. He has all this code and
38:23
Speaker 1: stuff that he starts putting in them. He refers to
38:26
Speaker 1: this one person who's an insider kind of person, who
38:29
Speaker 1: he calls White Rosetta Stone WRS for short. He writes
38:34
Speaker 1: in one letter, WRS has introduced me to two very
38:37
Speaker 1: very important but secretive individuals who are critical to our success.
38:41
Speaker 1: But in court, when they ask him about this, he
38:44
Speaker 1: admits that WRS is just this woman named Carol that
38:46
Speaker 1: he met online and they like to chat about their theories.
38:51
Speaker 2: That's actually Carol is fascinating to me. Now does she
38:55
Speaker 2: know that she's WRS newsletters like this? Was this like
38:59
Speaker 2: a citing for Carol? Caroly, if you're listening, reach out, Yeah, Carol,
39:03
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you. Wow.
39:05
Speaker 1: At some point this catches the attention of the FBI
39:08
Speaker 1: and they start an investigation, and in twenty ten, he
39:11
Speaker 1: is indicted by a grand jury on thirty nine counts.
39:14
Speaker 1: He's charged with mail fraud, frauds, and swindles related to
39:17
Speaker 1: his operation of a fraudulent investment scheme. And he's sixty
39:20
Speaker 1: three years old at this point. From Justice Dutgov, between
39:24
Speaker 1: two thousand and four and two thousand and eight, he
39:25
Speaker 1: deposited approximately two point eight million consisting of monthly checks
39:30
Speaker 1: and money orders into his account. So that's only four
39:32
Speaker 1: of the twenty years, right. You know, he was paying
39:35
Speaker 1: his wife's salary. He had about eighteen hundred members at
39:39
Speaker 1: that time, they estimated, and that he misappropriated funds from
39:43
Speaker 1: this investment and was living in a lavish lifestyle. So
39:46
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, he goes to trial, and the first
39:50
Speaker 1: day he shows up and when he has to testisfy
39:52
Speaker 1: and he's like really sick. He talks about how he
39:54
Speaker 1: has had this accident the year before and he had
39:57
Speaker 1: brain damage and so his memory is an good so
40:00
Speaker 1: we might not remember details. And it's like maybe he did,
40:03
Speaker 1: but it's hard to believe someone who's been lying and
40:05
Speaker 1: scamming for so long.
40:07
Speaker 2: I would actually say I don't believe him at all.
40:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has a walker, he's doing the whole I'm
40:13
Speaker 1: like this weak old man thing. But it doesn't end
40:15
Speaker 1: up mattering. He is found guilty on twenty four counts
40:20
Speaker 1: of mail fraud. The government is like seizing his assets
40:23
Speaker 1: and I don't honestly know what happened, like how this happened,
40:28
Speaker 1: but okay, so he was found guilty and then the
40:32
Speaker 1: next day it just says he was supposed to show
40:35
Speaker 1: up for a seizure of his assets, that there was
40:38
Speaker 1: a meeting and he did not show up.
40:40
Speaker 2: Why wasn't he arrested when he found guilt? I don't know.
40:42
Speaker 1: But he had died by suicide. Oh that's awful. Yeah,
40:47
Speaker 1: so he never ended up, you know, going to jail.
40:50
Speaker 1: He wasn't even sentenced yet, although the sentencing that he
40:54
Speaker 1: likely would have gotten would have been at least twenty
40:55
Speaker 1: years for all of this and a hefty fine like.
41:00
Speaker 2: The rest of his life.
41:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but
41:03
Speaker 1: it seemed like his wife was going to leave him
41:05
Speaker 1: as well, So it just sounded like he didn't have
41:08
Speaker 1: anything left. And some money was recovered for the victims,
41:11
Speaker 1: but I don't think it was very significant.
41:14
Speaker 2: And that's that. You know, what shocks me about that
41:17
Speaker 2: story is that back when he takes these certificates into
41:21
Speaker 2: the bank and they're like, these aren't real, and then
41:24
Speaker 2: he's arrested. I'm surprised that so much time passed between
41:31
Speaker 2: that point in his story and when the FBI catches
41:35
Speaker 2: on all these years later and then he's, you know,
41:39
Speaker 2: charged with fraud. Yeah, it seems like it wouldn't have
41:42
Speaker 2: taken very much to stop him earlier. But I knew
41:46
Speaker 2: no disrestract of that. But I'm sure they're very busy,
41:49
Speaker 2: but like, right, but guy brings fraudulent certificates for a
41:52
Speaker 2: trillion dollars into the bank. I know, maybe it's one
41:56
Speaker 2: of those things where it's like this is so outrageous
41:59
Speaker 2: we don't even need to concern ourselves or something.
42:01
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, it's weird. And maybe they thought, well,
42:05
Speaker 1: you got to slap on the hand. You will spend
42:07
Speaker 1: a night or a week in jail, I think, and
42:10
Speaker 1: so now you'll learn your lesson.
42:12
Speaker 2: But then he's like advertising it on the radio. He
42:15
Speaker 2: learned nothing. Yeah, so a week in jail, Yeah, no problem. Yeah,
42:20
Speaker 2: so I hope that answers next questions. Mm hmm. About
42:23
Speaker 2: Tommy Lee Buckley, yeah, I imagine Nick never received a
42:28
Speaker 2: payout never. Yeah, that's disappointing, but I would have done
42:33
Speaker 2: the same thing if I was him, I would have
42:35
Speaker 2: been like, I wonder what that was because also at
42:37
Speaker 2: the time, you know, even when our parents are aging,
42:41
Speaker 2: it's like you don't want to make them feel silly
42:43
Speaker 2: for believing something totally and what can you say. It's
42:46
Speaker 2: like if his dad was lonely and this was entertaining
42:49
Speaker 2: for him, not like it was okay, but maybe he
42:52
Speaker 2: got something out of it. Mm hmm. Yeah. So my
42:56
Speaker 2: story is in a different world, but similar in that
43:00
Speaker 2: money makes people go absolutely haywire. It really does. And
43:05
Speaker 2: I would love the opportunity to show everyone that they're different,
43:08
Speaker 2: but you're different. Yeah, give me money. Yeah, see how
43:10
Speaker 2: responsible I am. Yeah. This story begins in nineteen ninety
43:15
Speaker 2: nine and the small town of Grand Bay, Alabama, which
43:19
Speaker 2: has a population of less than four thousand people, and
43:23
Speaker 2: you know the surrounding land is Okay. I feel like
43:27
Speaker 2: I looked up how to say this word because I
43:29
Speaker 2: know that there's different ways of pronouncing it.
43:32
Speaker 1: Pecan orchards, pecan, pecan. I say pecan, but I think
43:36
Speaker 1: probably in Alabama do they say peacan?
43:38
Speaker 2: Well I don't. I feel like it will come off
43:40
Speaker 2: as I'm not trying to say it wrong. Pecan orchards
43:45
Speaker 2: and fields of watermelon. So in March of ninety nine,
43:50
Speaker 2: a woman named Tanda Dickerson is waiting tables at the
43:53
Speaker 2: local waffle house and for her it's an ordinary day.
43:58
Speaker 2: A regular diner comes in by the name of Edward Seaward,
44:02
Speaker 2: and he stopped by pretty frequently to get coffee in
44:05
Speaker 2: the morning. And in one report I saw he was
44:08
Speaker 2: a long haul trucker and another one he owned a
44:09
Speaker 2: seafood restaurant. Interesting couldn't pin it down, but apparently a
44:13
Speaker 2: thing that Edward did sometimes is instead of a cash tip,
44:18
Speaker 2: he would leave a lottery ticket, and so this lottery
44:21
Speaker 2: ticket was one that he had purchased in Florida. That's
44:24
Speaker 2: pretty cute.
44:24
Speaker 1: It's cute. Yeah, I mean probably better to give cash.
44:27
Speaker 2: Better to give cash, I think a lottery ticket in addition,
44:30
Speaker 2: great yeah, yeah. And Tonta's a single mother at this point,
44:33
Speaker 2: so she has recently left an abusive relationship that was
44:37
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety seven, so she's been on her own
44:40
Speaker 2: for two years. She's working all the time to make
44:43
Speaker 2: ends meet. She probably would have rather had the cash,
44:46
Speaker 2: and in a way, I'm actually going to tie back
44:49
Speaker 2: to that, but basically, there was a ten million dollar jackpot.
44:53
Speaker 2: There were two winning tickets, and Tonda's tip was one
44:58
Speaker 2: of them. Wow. Yes, so that's wild. It's wild. Can
45:02
Speaker 2: you imagine? And I would be so excited, Oh my gosh,
45:05
Speaker 2: I know, I don't know what i'd do first. But
45:07
Speaker 2: so she goes home from the shift and wakes up,
45:10
Speaker 2: you know, a multi multi millionaire and this amount of
45:14
Speaker 2: money life changing for just about anybody. For Tanda, it's
45:17
Speaker 2: no exception and she knows that, and she wants to
45:21
Speaker 2: take instead of the lump sum, her plan is the
45:24
Speaker 2: annual payments, so that she doesn't end up one of
45:27
Speaker 2: those people who wins the lottery and goes broke or
45:31
Speaker 2: has something terrible happen in her life. She wants to
45:33
Speaker 2: be responsible about it. She wants to help her family.
45:36
Speaker 2: But when she arrives at the lottery office in Tallahassee,
45:40
Speaker 2: Florida to collect her winnings, she is denied. And that
45:44
Speaker 2: is because four other weight staff at the waffle house
45:49
Speaker 2: filed a claim that said through the courts in Alabama
45:52
Speaker 2: that said, we had an agreement. Now if any one
45:56
Speaker 2: of us won the lottery, we split it, and Tanda says, no,
45:59
Speaker 2: we didn't, and so that did they know she won.
46:02
Speaker 2: I don't know if she told them or if it
46:04
Speaker 2: was just obvious, but she quit immediately. And I would
46:08
Speaker 2: think in a little town, you gotta pretend like nothing
46:11
Speaker 2: has changed, nothing has changed. Yeah, And I would just
46:13
Speaker 2: imagine word traveled really fast, like if you tell one person,
46:17
Speaker 2: they tell one person. I mean, whoa, It's over.
46:20
Speaker 1: So already by the time she tries to go collect
46:23
Speaker 1: this lawsuit or aplaint has been filed, and so before
46:29
Speaker 1: she even has a moment to breathe and like enjoy
46:31
Speaker 1: this new life, she's in a legal battle, and so
46:34
Speaker 1: Florida has to withhold this money until this is resolved.
46:38
Speaker 1: Another person also files lawsuit which is Edward Seaward the
46:42
Speaker 1: person who wants it, and he says that he was
46:45
Speaker 1: owed a portion of it and she promised him a
46:47
Speaker 1: new truck if she won, and that lawsuit was later dismissed.
46:51
Speaker 2: But like, that's unbelievable.
46:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, immediately, these vultures are descending on this woman. If
46:57
Speaker 1: you give someone a lottery ticket as a you gotta
47:01
Speaker 1: just be okay that if they win, it's theirs.
47:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I mean, you have a single mother
47:07
Speaker 2: here working to support her household alone, left an abusive relationship,
47:13
Speaker 2: and you're not giving her cash, you're giving her a
47:15
Speaker 2: lottery ticket. So like you got to stand by that, yeah. Wild.
47:20
Speaker 2: So there was actually a jury trial in April, so
47:23
Speaker 2: things moved really quickly in this case, and the jury
47:26
Speaker 2: decided that Tanda did have this verbal agreement with her
47:30
Speaker 2: colleagues and she was ordered to pay them. So this
47:34
Speaker 2: is upsetting, but the fight's not over yet. They appeal
47:37
Speaker 2: the decision, and the Alabama Supreme Court actually ends up
47:43
Speaker 2: reversing the judgment against her in two thousand and one,
47:46
Speaker 2: because I'll read the and we'll probably have to cut
47:50
Speaker 2: this down. But the agreement between the parties was nothing
47:53
Speaker 2: more than an attempt by each of the five lottery
47:55
Speaker 2: ticket holders to increase his or her odds of winning
47:58
Speaker 2: some portion of the Florida Lottery. Stated differently, the agreement,
48:02
Speaker 2: according to the plaintiff's own evidence, was that Dickerson would
48:04
Speaker 2: pay the plaintiffs a sum of money upon the happening
48:08
Speaker 2: of an uncertain event over which the party had no control.
48:11
Speaker 2: So basically, this whole supposed agreement was founded on a
48:17
Speaker 2: gambling consideration, which, in Alabama, the Supreme Court rules, is
48:22
Speaker 2: therefore void because you're all gambling. So we're not going
48:26
Speaker 2: to honor this as a real agreement. You can't make
48:29
Speaker 2: a legit agreement when you're gambling, Yeah, you can't. And
48:32
Speaker 2: Tanda has remarried by this point, and she has her
48:35
Speaker 2: new husband, James, And so.
48:37
Speaker 1: How long has passed since she won the Yeah, she.
48:41
Speaker 2: Got the ticket March of nineteen ninety nine, winning ticket
48:45
Speaker 2: April of that year. She's already in court. And then
48:48
Speaker 2: I believe she remarried pretty quickly, but I couldn't find
48:51
Speaker 2: an exact date, But maybe she had already been dated
48:54
Speaker 2: the first simon no idea, But anyway, Tanda is then
48:57
Speaker 2: sued by the IRS, who says that she owned over
49:00
Speaker 2: a million in taxes for not reporting the money as
49:02
Speaker 2: a gift. So she has to hire a lawyer again
49:04
Speaker 2: to fight the IRS. And she's saying her lawyer is saying, well, look,
49:09
Speaker 2: she was tipped a lottery ticket that could have been
49:12
Speaker 2: worthless and statistically would have been worthless, and she was
49:17
Speaker 2: literally working for this money because waiters are paid in tips.
49:22
Speaker 2: So Tanda is, by all accounts like a very responsible
49:27
Speaker 2: lottery winner. She goes and gets another job. She decides
49:31
Speaker 2: to take the annual payments instead of the lump sum.
49:34
Speaker 2: She sets up a business account that she's able to
49:37
Speaker 2: pay family from in certain percentages. And her ex husband
49:42
Speaker 2: or ex partner, I'm not sure if they're married, the
49:44
Speaker 2: abusive relationship that she left. This guy's name is Stacy Martin.
49:48
Speaker 2: He finds out that she's one, and he is angry.
49:51
Speaker 2: Of course he wants in on it, of course, yeah,
49:54
Speaker 2: and so he knows he has no legal standing here.
49:57
Speaker 2: We also know that he's abusive, and so what he
50:00
Speaker 2: do In February of two thousand and two, he kidnaps Tonda,
50:05
Speaker 2: and he waits outside her house and when she leaves,
50:08
Speaker 2: he forces her into his car and begins driving her
50:11
Speaker 2: to a rural area. And his plan is, and he
50:16
Speaker 2: tells her this, to kill her and take the money.
50:19
Speaker 2: How he planned to do that after killing her, I
50:21
Speaker 2: have no idea. So Tanda, she already knows what this
50:25
Speaker 2: person is capable of because she was in a relationship
50:27
Speaker 2: with them. Yeah, horrible situation. Horrible. So she was ready
50:31
Speaker 2: and she was carrying a gun. Oh wow. Yeah. And
50:34
Speaker 2: so twenty minutes into this drive, I think it's Tanda's
50:38
Speaker 2: phone that's going off. Somebody's phone is going off. And
50:41
Speaker 2: she's able to convince him that she needs to answer
50:44
Speaker 2: it because I think it's her phone, because if she doesn't,
50:47
Speaker 2: people will start wondering where she is and that could
50:50
Speaker 2: be a problem for him. So he's like, okay, fine,
50:53
Speaker 2: answer it. Well, when she reaches for the phone, or
50:56
Speaker 2: when he reaches for the phone, she grabs a gun
50:59
Speaker 2: and he lunges at her and she fires and she
51:02
Speaker 2: hits him in the chest. She then drives him to
51:06
Speaker 2: the hospital. I mean this is someone that.
51:09
Speaker 1: He's driving the car. Yeah, she shoots him.
51:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then she somehow drives him to the hospital
51:16
Speaker 2: to get emergency care for this gunshot wound. Wild and
51:21
Speaker 2: she is not charged in relation to any of this
51:25
Speaker 2: because it was self defense. But here's something that's really strange.
51:28
Speaker 2: He wasn't charged either for kidnapping. I couldn't a single
51:33
Speaker 2: charge on him that had been reported on or in
51:35
Speaker 2: the court system. So if if I'm wrong, I would
51:38
Speaker 2: love to correct that record. But like, I couldn't find
51:41
Speaker 2: anything on that. That's so strange to me because it's like,
51:46
Speaker 2: if you can rule that someone shot someone in self defense,
51:49
Speaker 2: then surely you can rule that that person that the
51:52
Speaker 2: shot was doing something that warranted that. Yeah.
51:56
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was like she would have to
51:58
Speaker 1: press charges and she didn't, but no idea. Yeah, that's
52:03
Speaker 1: wild wild.
52:04
Speaker 2: And so at one point I had reached out to Tonda,
52:07
Speaker 2: and she she never got back. I imagine she's just you know,
52:10
Speaker 2: she's probably told this story a lot, but you know,
52:12
Speaker 2: she's still working, she's living a quiet life. I mean,
52:16
Speaker 2: I think by any stretch, she probably handled it as
52:20
Speaker 2: gracefully as the one could have considering what happened to her. Yeah,
52:24
Speaker 2: And I think it was for people that came after
52:27
Speaker 2: the money that worked at the same diner. Maybe it
52:29
Speaker 2: was five, but still to have all of those people
52:33
Speaker 2: saying one thing and you going up there and saying
52:35
Speaker 2: another must have been really scary.
52:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you think these people are your maybe friends,
52:41
Speaker 1: your coworkers.
52:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
52:42
Speaker 1: So did they ever get any of that money before
52:45
Speaker 1: it was reversed? No, they didn't, so Tanda got to
52:48
Speaker 1: keep it. She ended up having to pay the IRS
52:51
Speaker 1: I think around seven hundred thousand because of the way
52:54
Speaker 1: she opened her business account or something. But I feel
52:58
Speaker 1: like they probaly would found some way to tacky.
53:01
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm going to say that's not on her.
53:04
Speaker 2: So Tanda's story is obviously one of a kind because
53:08
Speaker 2: that is insane and she came out alive. But it's
53:12
Speaker 2: actually not that uncommon of a story for a lottery
53:15
Speaker 2: winner to be like doomed. It's common enough that there's
53:19
Speaker 2: several examples which I found, and one of them I'm
53:23
Speaker 2: going to talk about little more in detail. But we
53:25
Speaker 2: have a guy named Jack Whitaker in West Virginia who
53:28
Speaker 2: won over three hundred million dollars and that so much money,
53:32
Speaker 2: so much money, And this was in two thousand and two.
53:34
Speaker 2: A powerball jackpot. He immediately hit with a series of lawsuits.
53:40
Speaker 2: Close family members around him died, and four years later
53:44
Speaker 2: he's broke and says that he wished he had just
53:47
Speaker 2: torn up the ticket, Like that's how bad his life got.
53:51
Speaker 2: I mean, that's just like a nightmare, nightmare. Three hundred
53:55
Speaker 2: and fifteen million dollars.
53:57
Speaker 1: How you even go broke from that so quickly is
54:01
Speaker 1: hard to even imagine. It's spectacular. Yeah, I have to imagine.
54:05
Speaker 2: It's just like, if you have that kind of wealth,
54:09
Speaker 2: it probably feels very never ending. Then people come out
54:12
Speaker 2: of the woodwork, and maybe you get in over your
54:15
Speaker 2: head with taxes. I have no idea, but there was
54:17
Speaker 2: a woman named Evelyn Adams who won the lottery in
54:20
Speaker 2: New Jersey actually two years back to back, and I
54:24
Speaker 2: think she wented total back to back in two separate years.
54:27
Speaker 2: And this is in the nineteen eighties. It was around
54:29
Speaker 2: five and a half or six million dollars and she
54:32
Speaker 2: gambled it away. Tricky, Yeah, I mean, gambling can be
54:37
Speaker 2: such a serious problem. A guy named Jeffrey danp Pierre
54:41
Speaker 2: I think is how you say his last name in Illinois.
54:45
Speaker 2: He was kidnapped and murdered by his sister in law
54:48
Speaker 2: and her boyfriend less than ten years after winning twenty
54:51
Speaker 2: million dollars, which happened in nineteen ninety six. Terrible and Okay.
54:58
Speaker 2: So there's another story I want to talk about a
55:00
Speaker 2: little bit, which is a man by the name of
55:03
Speaker 2: Abraham Shakespeare. This is also a lot of story. There's
55:06
Speaker 2: also a lot of story with just I mean, it's
55:10
Speaker 2: tragic actually. So in two thousand and six he wins
55:14
Speaker 2: the lottery. There's, similar to Tanda, an immediate dispute with
55:18
Speaker 2: the person who bought the tickets with him. I guess,
55:21
Speaker 2: if I'm understanding it correctly, his coworker buys two tickets,
55:25
Speaker 2: but like, at his request, can you go in and
55:27
Speaker 2: buy two tickets? Okay, here's a ticket. And so one
55:30
Speaker 2: of the tickets ends up winning. Ah.
55:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then the coworker's like, wait, I want some
55:34
Speaker 1: of that money exactly, and so again has to go
55:38
Speaker 1: to court. The jury rules in Shakespeare's favor that he
55:42
Speaker 1: did not steal from his coworker Michel, and so he
55:45
Speaker 1: wins in two thousand and six, the court rules in
55:48
Speaker 1: his favor two thousand and seven, and in two thousand
55:50
Speaker 1: and eight he hears from a woman named Dedie Moore,
55:52
Speaker 1: and she's like, I want to write a book about
55:54
Speaker 1: your story.
55:55
Speaker 2: And Abraham was known to be generous and trusting, and
55:59
Speaker 2: here comes and she gets her claws into him, and
56:05
Speaker 2: she slowly sort of takes ownership of properties. Their relationship
56:09
Speaker 2: is a bit murky as to how close they were getting,
56:12
Speaker 2: and she starts buying a lot of things in his name,
56:17
Speaker 2: putting things in her name the whole nine yards. Is
56:20
Speaker 2: she writing a book? No, she's not writing a book. No,
56:24
Speaker 2: I don't know if she ever actually wrote anything. But no,
56:27
Speaker 2: that wasn't It was all just a fraud. Yeah. So
56:32
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, Abraham Shakespeare goes missing and
56:36
Speaker 2: it comes out that Dedi Moore she murdered him, and
56:40
Speaker 2: she tried to get his friend in on it and
56:44
Speaker 2: pay them a certain amount of money to say they
56:46
Speaker 2: had recently seen him so that the missing person's case
56:49
Speaker 2: would go away. And that person, I think, started cooperating
56:53
Speaker 2: with the police when they realized how much trouble they
56:55
Speaker 2: would be in for doing that, that they weren't accessory
56:58
Speaker 2: to a murder yeah, of their own friend. And she
57:02
Speaker 2: was found guilty of murder in twenty twelve, sentenced to
57:05
Speaker 2: life in prison without parole, still wants to be paroled,
57:10
Speaker 2: and I think tries to appeal. It's so sad.
57:12
Speaker 1: What was this gentleman's name, Abraham Shakespeare and lakenns Florida.
57:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, very cool name. So sad. It's so sad. So
57:22
Speaker 2: if you win the lottery, don't tell anybody.
57:25
Speaker 1: You hear so many stories about it causing so much
57:27
Speaker 1: pain and people losing money, and it just it doesn't
57:31
Speaker 1: seem like a good luck thing. It seems like you
57:34
Speaker 1: really have to dodge that. The bad luck is just
57:37
Speaker 1: coming at you. Used up all your good luck to
57:41
Speaker 1: win the lottery, and then all you have left is
57:43
Speaker 1: bad luck.
57:44
Speaker 2: Truly, It's like the only way to get out of
57:46
Speaker 2: that happy and alive is to just like lay low,
57:50
Speaker 2: tell no one unless you absolutely have to, and make
57:53
Speaker 2: sure you trust that person, and get a lawyer.
57:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to get a lawyer immediately. Okay, So
57:59
Speaker 1: I understand. I think if I were in tanda situation
58:02
Speaker 1: and I had four coworkers who were like, we agreed,
58:04
Speaker 1: I would sort of be like, no, we didn't. If
58:07
Speaker 1: I were in the situation where I was buying a
58:10
Speaker 1: lottery ticket, with my coworker or friend every day, and
58:13
Speaker 1: we were like one or the other would go in
58:15
Speaker 1: and buy them. I don't know, maybe part of me
58:18
Speaker 1: be like I should give them some money.
58:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I couldn't find exact examples, but
58:24
Speaker 2: I know that Abraham was known to be pretty generous,
58:27
Speaker 2: So I don't know that he didn't buy this person
58:29
Speaker 2: any gifts, or if maybe it got so contentious right
58:33
Speaker 2: away that he had to totally put the brakes on.
58:36
Speaker 2: But one thing that his coworker said was that Shakespeare
58:38
Speaker 2: stole the lottery tickets out of his wallet. I guess
58:41
Speaker 2: I left that out, but it wasn't just like a, well,
58:43
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have bought these, and then you know we
58:45
Speaker 2: should be splitting it. I think it was like Abraham says,
58:49
Speaker 2: let's go buy these, here's the money, he buys them,
58:52
Speaker 2: he wins, yeah, and then Michael changes his story. Mm hmm. Yeah.
58:57
Speaker 2: Abraham Shakespeare is famously quoted as having told his brother,
59:00
Speaker 2: I'd have been better off broke. I thought these people
59:03
Speaker 2: were my friends. I realized, oh they want is money.
59:06
Speaker 1: That's a sad part too. You hear about people winning
59:08
Speaker 1: and then you have money, but then your friends or
59:11
Speaker 1: your family kind of betray you and then you're lonely
59:15
Speaker 1: and yeah, then you're a target for someone like Dedie
59:18
Speaker 1: to come into your life and scam you.
59:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, murder. I mean it would be so strange, like
59:24
Speaker 2: because it's not like if you get super rich, Okay,
59:26
Speaker 2: now all my friends are super rich and we can
59:28
Speaker 2: go do everything together. It's like, no, you're like gonna
59:32
Speaker 2: have to figure that one out, yeah, or pay for
59:34
Speaker 2: everything or pay for everything, which for some people maybe
59:37
Speaker 2: they can handle it, other people I don't know. Yeah,
59:40
Speaker 2: that's interesting.
59:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what do you think the right amount of
59:44
Speaker 1: money to win in a lottery is to where I'd.
59:46
Speaker 2: Be fine to win this one billion dollar power one billion?
59:50
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I'd be fine. I'd I'd trust me,
59:52
Speaker 2: I'd give some of it away, swear I swear okay
59:58
Speaker 2: to me, Yeah to you. Hand on I'm salary. Well,
1:00:03
Speaker 2: whether right amount be, I feel like I could handle
1:00:05
Speaker 2: any amount, okay, universe, I could handle any.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: Whin like five hundred thousand dollars. It's not enough to
1:00:11
Speaker 1: put you on the map for any kind of fraud
1:00:14
Speaker 1: or scammers. It's just sort of like, could it be
1:00:17
Speaker 1: a nice, great chunk of change. Yeah, or even a million.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: Even a million, I take a million.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: I take it. I don't need a billion any Yeah. Well,
1:00:28
Speaker 2: those those are interesting stories. Yeah.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: Good luck to everyone out there who wins the lottery. Seriously. Okay,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: so recommendations. Do you have a recommendation today?
1:00:37
Speaker 2: I do have a recommendation. I just on the way
1:00:41
Speaker 2: driving into the studio. This morning finished an eight part
1:00:44
Speaker 2: series called The Lodge, which I'll just read the log line.
1:00:48
Speaker 2: In a world obsessed with well being, would you put
1:00:50
Speaker 2: your health in the hands of a cult? A cautionary
1:00:52
Speaker 2: tale about the consequences of going alternative when wellness becomes
1:00:56
Speaker 2: a matter of life and death. And it's fascinating. The
1:01:01
Speaker 2: host and writer, his name is Phil Vine, does a
1:01:04
Speaker 2: really great job. There's a cult leader. I guess she
1:01:07
Speaker 2: wouldn't call herself a cult leader, probably not. Her name
1:01:10
Speaker 2: is Iping Wang, and she is really into energy healing
1:01:15
Speaker 2: and basically like, if you're sick, no matter what, you
1:01:18
Speaker 2: can heal yourself by being more in tune with energy.
1:01:22
Speaker 2: And we're all made of energy. It is fascinating how
1:01:27
Speaker 2: much trust people put in her. Actually, there are multiple
1:01:31
Speaker 2: deaths that take place some believe because of this alternative
1:01:36
Speaker 2: healing that doesn't heal. I think the podcast is a
1:01:41
Speaker 2: place to think about what is someone's own power over
1:01:47
Speaker 2: their decision making when it comes to their health, because
1:01:51
Speaker 2: we can say this person is incredibly influential and giving
1:01:55
Speaker 2: really dangerous medical advice. Yeah, but if you are in
1:01:59
Speaker 2: adul you don't have to take that advice. You can
1:02:03
Speaker 2: go seek conventional treatment that could save your life and
1:02:06
Speaker 2: is proven by science to have a better chance of that.
1:02:10
Speaker 2: Or you could choose not to. You could choose not
1:02:12
Speaker 2: to and that's you know, and it's her fault, you know, right.
1:02:16
Speaker 2: So that's really an area that dives into. But I
1:02:20
Speaker 2: thought it was a great series and there's lots of
1:02:24
Speaker 2: really incredible interviews, and I would say check it out.
1:02:28
Speaker 1: Cool, the Lodge great, my recommendation. I've been listening to Blink.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: It's been on the charts. It's really good. It's from
1:02:37
Speaker 1: the Binge. It's the story of this guy Jcandle, and
1:02:41
Speaker 1: he's interviewed a lot in the podcast. The host meets
1:02:45
Speaker 1: him because he lives in her building and they end
1:02:47
Speaker 1: up becoming friends and he tells her the story of
1:02:50
Speaker 1: what's happened to him and she's like, how is this
1:02:52
Speaker 1: not a true grand podcast? And so I actually haven't
1:02:56
Speaker 1: quite finished it yet, but it's so inter stain. What
1:03:01
Speaker 1: they kind of tell you right up the top is
1:03:03
Speaker 1: that j Candle he contracted this super rare disease that
1:03:09
Speaker 1: is very very fatal and you lose your sort of
1:03:15
Speaker 1: muscle abilities. It happens super quickly, so like als, it's
1:03:20
Speaker 1: not it's so much it's like more rare than that
1:03:22
Speaker 1: that I can't remember the name of it. It comes
1:03:24
Speaker 1: from inhaling really toxic things. That's one of the oh gosh,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: one of the causes. And he was an addict. He's
1:03:32
Speaker 1: very open and vulnerable about like what happened in his
1:03:35
Speaker 1: life and how he started getting into drugs and his
1:03:38
Speaker 1: like journey with addiction and it got really really bad
1:03:40
Speaker 1: and he ended up contracting this disease that they were
1:03:45
Speaker 1: basically like, you have six months to live maybe, oh,
1:03:47
Speaker 1: and what's going to happen because he started like not
1:03:50
Speaker 1: being able to use his hands and like things, and
1:03:52
Speaker 1: they were like, you're going to eventually not be able
1:03:55
Speaker 1: to do anything. You're gonna slip into a coma and
1:03:57
Speaker 1: probably die. And so this does how old is he
1:04:00
Speaker 1: at this? He's I think twenty nine. So this happens,
1:04:05
Speaker 1: and he eventually loses all ability to move his bodies,
1:04:09
Speaker 1: like completely paralyzed. It's not even like he can communicate
1:04:13
Speaker 1: with his eyes. And they think and believe that he's
1:04:16
Speaker 1: essentially brain dead.
1:04:19
Speaker 2: He's not.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: He's aware the entire time. He can hear everything. He
1:04:27
Speaker 1: is completely aware of what's going on around him.
1:04:29
Speaker 2: It's like locked in syndrome ooh, nightmare. Oh.
1:04:33
Speaker 1: And eventually like he's the only person I guess what
1:04:37
Speaker 1: they say that has had this disease gotten to the
1:04:39
Speaker 1: stage four and has actually like lived and recovered. But
1:04:44
Speaker 1: he hears a lot of things whenever he's locked in,
1:04:48
Speaker 1: and this is where the true crime comes in. So
1:04:51
Speaker 1: he's sort of like this silent witness to some things.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: And I don't know exactly, I haven't listened to the end,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: but it's just really interesting. I think it's really well done.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: Jay Candle the person who it's his story, and he's
1:05:03
Speaker 1: interviewed in it, and he's just like he's such a
1:05:05
Speaker 1: sweet person and he's so honest and vulnerable and very endearing,
1:05:11
Speaker 1: and it's just I can't stop listening to it.
1:05:13
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I'm gonna listen on my drive home today.
1:05:16
Speaker 2: Yeah that's great. Yeah, love the bench. Well that's our
1:05:20
Speaker 2: show today. Thanks for listening to you next time. If
1:05:25
Speaker 2: you have a story for us, we would love to
1:05:26
Speaker 2: hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com,
1:05:30
Speaker 2: or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
1:05:32
Speaker 2: Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
1:05:35
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
1:05:38
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith.
1:05:39
Speaker 2: And me payshia E. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and
1:05:43
Speaker 2: Alexis Samarosi.
1:05:44
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
1:05:47
Speaker 1: is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
1:05:50
Speaker 1: the Airport Artwork five a andsa Lilac executive produced by
1:05:54
Speaker 1: Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.