[00:00:00] She dusts, vacures and mobs the floor. But Maureen Ivo wasn't tidying up her home.
[00:00:08] She had to get a job cleaning another person's home. After she says she lost her entire
[00:00:13] multi-million dollar life savings in Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scam. Before the Madoff
[00:00:19] scandal broke Maureen was living a very comfortable life. Her husband, a prominent doctor, died
[00:00:25] eight years ago and left her with a huge fortune that included homes in Pennsylvania and Florida.
[00:00:32] A relative suggested she invest the money with Madoff.
[00:00:35] Her finances in ruins, the 60-year-old widow put shame aside and was determined to survive.
[00:00:41] She worked a cash register at a concession stand, then a neighbor offered her a job cleaning
[00:00:47] her home and she jumped at it. So the once well-to-do woman found herself working as a maid
[00:00:53] at the house where she had been a welcomed guest. Maureen was also forced to sell her Florida
[00:00:58] home, but walked away with almost nothing. Maureen has now moved back full time to Pennsylvania
[00:01:04] where she's landed a small office job earning just enough to cover her mortgage.
[00:01:09] I've put the word out to all my friends that I would do any type of errands that they
[00:01:15] wanted done.
[00:01:16] So for a little extra money, Maureen agreed to wash her boss's car. Maureen says there's
[00:01:21] no job beneath her.
[00:01:35] Many cons take people for small amounts of money. Some may rob a family of all the money
[00:01:39] they save for a vacation, but others can take everything.
[00:01:45] Money's saved for retirement. Money's saved to pass along to children after their death.
[00:01:51] Even like Maureen and the inside addition clip you just heard, people are left to do whatever
[00:01:56] work they can get to survive predators like Bernie made off.
[00:02:04] I'm Jim Grinstead. Today we're going to explore how con artists justify their crimes
[00:02:09] and how they live with themselves after utterly destroying others.
[00:02:14] It's difficult to know what goes on in the minds of petty con artists. Police rarely investigate
[00:02:19] their crimes because they don't have the resources to do so, and those arrested spend
[00:02:24] little time in jail before disappearing. Those who serve longer sentences are easy to locate
[00:02:30] and allow studies to span many years and multiple conversations.
[00:02:35] My name is Chuck Gallagher. I was a former CPA. I was convicted of one kind of embezzlement
[00:02:40] and one kind of tax fraud for a crime that occurred in 1986-87.
[00:02:47] Gallagher was speaking to the Association of Certified Prought Examiners.
[00:02:51] All of a sudden I'm faced with unexpectedly the announcement from the bank that you're
[00:02:56] behind in your house payment. There's my need. Where am I going to find the opportunity
[00:03:01] to resolve this? Multiple opportunities were there, but the easiest one with the quickest
[00:03:07] solution was tapping into this trust. Now the third component rationalization, if somebody
[00:03:13] said to me, Chuck, would you steal money to solve your problem? Oh, of course not. But
[00:03:20] now I would borrow money to solve the problem. Being able to put those three parts together
[00:03:28] creates the three legs of the stool which gives you a foundation to stand on and I stood
[00:03:34] on that foundation. Of course I sat down at the computer in those days. It was word star
[00:03:38] or word perfect. I Charles Gallagher being of sound-minded body sound-mind, not so.
[00:03:43] Body better than today, but nonetheless being of sound-minded body do hereby and I type
[00:03:48] out a note saying that I'm going to pay back the trust, the Clifford Trust, $2,000 plus
[00:03:55] 10% interest at the end of April and stole the money.
[00:04:00] Chuck didn't see himself as a criminal. He saw himself as a decent guy in a tough situation
[00:04:06] who saw away through it. This is a common theme in this episode. Among the many reason
[00:04:11] the scammers have to justify their crimes in their own minds.
[00:04:16] So I paid it back, but I found out it was easy and I think this is probably true at least
[00:04:23] for the now 20 plus years, almost 30 years of kind of looking back at this and seeing other
[00:04:29] examples. If you once get by with something, you can start to believe in your head the illusion
[00:04:35] that you're probably always going to get by with it. So as a result of that, I did it
[00:04:41] again and I paid it back. And now the rationalization is hard. I mean this is now good. The unfortunate
[00:04:51] thing is and it's easy to look back and see it. It's hard when you're in the midst of
[00:04:56] it. But the unfortunate thing is is nothing changed in my relationship. Nothing changed
[00:05:02] in my relationship with my wife. It was still a relationship where we both, not blaming
[00:05:09] her, but we both like the finer things of life.
[00:05:13] Until he was caught there were no consequences. Chuck stole money and even though he paid
[00:05:17] it back and knew what he was doing was wrong, he continued to do it. He didn't see any
[00:05:23] reason not to. In fact, if there were any consequences, they were good. He got to
[00:05:28] hang around with wealthy people who needed a good accountant and Chuck seemed to know
[00:05:32] his stuff.
[00:05:34] So as I began to slowly tap into clients' trusts or retirement plans, either one was
[00:05:41] a trust of sorts, but as I began to tap into those my lifestyle increased. And as my lifestyle
[00:05:48] increased miraculously, it seemed we attracted more clients. So it became a circular process
[00:05:57] of more, tends to be get more, which tends to increase my income, which therefore says
[00:06:04] well I have a greater capacity to pay back. So therefore I need to take more, to steal
[00:06:09] more, which is really what it was. I called it borrowing but it wasn't borrowing at all.
[00:06:13] And it became a process that continued for right at three and a half years.
[00:06:24] I need to get a bit wonky in this episode. What we do know about how criminals justify
[00:06:28] their crimes comes from researchers who deal in psychology, statistics and probabilities.
[00:06:35] Before we dive into that research, there's something you need to know. There's no difference
[00:06:39] between a white-colored criminal like Bernie made off and the person who picks your pocket
[00:06:44] on the subway. The justifications they all use are the same.
[00:06:53] Okay, we begin with the theory of neutralization and it comes from research done in the late
[00:06:58] 1950s by Gresham Sykes and David Motsett. They identified five techniques criminals used
[00:07:04] to justify their crimes. Dose R, denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial
[00:07:12] of victim, combination of the condemners and appeal to higher loyalties. For example,
[00:07:19] an individual who engages in theft may use the technique of denial of responsibility by
[00:07:24] claiming that they were forced. You hear me use the word sucker frequently in this
[00:07:32] podcast and I do that for a reason. That's the word scammers use to describe their victims.
[00:07:39] They are seen to be stupid and deserve to lose their money.
[00:07:42] Do you feel that you owe anyone an apology?
[00:07:44] You mean for what? I'm not a 12 year old kid.
[00:07:48] That's Anna Sorokin speaking to NBC News. She was also known as Anna Delavie and she
[00:07:54] pretended to be a German arist and used that light as steel from friends, companies and really
[00:08:00] anyone she could.
[00:08:02] So who would I be apologizing to?
[00:08:05] The banks that you tried to take the money from?
[00:08:08] I don't think they care. Do you think that was wrong?
[00:08:11] Yeah, that was different from the Anna had gone. Yes, and I would not encourage anybody
[00:08:16] else to follow my footsteps.
[00:08:18] She has similar defiance when it comes to former friend Rachel Williams who accused Sorokin
[00:08:23] of sticking her with a $62,000 hotel bill, a charge of larceny in the second degree
[00:08:29] that Sorokin was ultimately acquitted of.
[00:08:31] Do you have any interest in connecting with or making up with Rachel?
[00:08:36] No. That's the reason she's played out and that's just not interesting to me.
[00:08:41] Contention is obvious and she's just trying to write the narrative of her being a victim.
[00:08:45] Do you see any part of her being an actual victim with the hotel bill?
[00:08:50] It wasn't an unfortunate situation, I never said like, I'm right, but like, I was never planning
[00:08:56] to defraud her.
[00:08:58] What do people not know about you that now you have the chance to say?
[00:09:02] I never really had any malicious intent and I'm not just like this vicious, like scamming
[00:09:07] person trying to take advantage of anybody who's just like stupid enough to fall for it.
[00:09:13] Then how do you square the lifestyle aspect of what people see as the scam?
[00:09:19] The staying at extremely nice hotels, the shopping, the high tipping.
[00:09:23] Well, at the time staying at hotel made sense for me because I was traveling so much and
[00:09:29] it wasn't like I was not staying like in a big as penthouse.
[00:09:31] I was just staying like in a regular room.
[00:09:34] It clearly doesn't feel remorse for what she's done and passes the responsibility for
[00:09:39] her actions onto others.
[00:09:42] It's time now to meet Dr. Stanton Saminau.
[00:09:45] He spent his career studying criminal intentions.
[00:09:48] He's a graduate of Yale in the University of Michigan.
[00:09:51] He's been in private practice and taught for a decade at the University of Michigan.
[00:09:55] He's an author and a regular speaker.
[00:09:59] Here he is at the International Spine Museum in Washington, DC.
[00:10:02] A place I can highly recommend.
[00:10:04] If you're in DC, check it out.
[00:10:07] Dr. Saminau talks about con artists.
[00:10:09] The man who said when I walk into a room and he's talking about a break and entry,
[00:10:16] everything in that room belongs to me.
[00:10:19] That is not a mental illness.
[00:10:21] He knows he's in a house that is not his.
[00:10:24] He looks at the laptop computer, the jewelry, the flat screen TV in his mind.
[00:10:31] All these items already belong to him.
[00:10:34] All he has to do is to figure out how to get them out of there and then how to dispose
[00:10:40] of them.
[00:10:41] There is this sense of ownership and entitlement to the extreme.
[00:10:53] To tell you that they lack a concept of injury to others may appear to state the obvious.
[00:11:00] If you were to ask some of the people I deal with, who was hurt by what you did?
[00:11:05] You would get answers like, well, I know the guy missed his stuff but I have to do the
[00:11:11] time.
[00:11:12] A kid might say, well, if he wanted to keep on his jacket, he wouldn't have left the locker
[00:11:19] open.
[00:11:20] There is no concept of the ripple effect of injury, the stone and the pond, and the concentric
[00:11:26] circles of injury that ripple not only to the direct victim, but the indirect victim.
[00:11:38] A boy that I saw in the Prince William County Juvenile Detention Center, he had worked at
[00:11:43] a restaurant part-time so he knew the schedule and he knew that late at night they tallied
[00:11:47] up the receipts and made up the depository for the bank.
[00:11:51] So he and a friend came into that restaurant just prior to closing, ski masks, gun, rope,
[00:11:59] tied up the two women who were counting up the receipts, made off with a money, stole
[00:12:04] a car and left.
[00:12:06] The next morning one of these kids, the one I was talking to in the detention center, came
[00:12:14] back to the restaurant and he said, hey, I heard you guys were held up as everybody alright.
[00:12:21] When I asked him who was hurt, he said nobody.
[00:12:25] He said there was no blood, there were no broken bones, nobody got shot and when I said
[00:12:31] to him did it ever occur to you that for those two women life may never be the same again
[00:12:38] that in a place that they thought they were safe, that they had gone to work no longer
[00:12:45] a safe place.
[00:12:47] Who knows whether these women will ever even want to go out to work again or even leave their
[00:12:53] house?
[00:13:02] He just looked at me kind of wide-eyed and shrugged and said well I never thought of all that.
[00:13:07] Well, of course had he thought of all that.
[00:13:10] It's highly likely I wouldn't have been having that discussion because he wouldn't
[00:13:14] have been where he was.
[00:13:18] These are individuals many of them have told me how religious they are, they will go to
[00:13:24] church, they will wear a cross, they will read the Bible.
[00:13:28] However, there is no concept of religion as a guide to life.
[00:13:33] It is a set of concrete observances.
[00:13:36] Once you pray at ten and you commit an arm robbery at 130.
[00:14:00] Can this type of thinking be changed?
[00:14:02] For these folks just incapable of realizing the impact they have on other people?
[00:14:07] That's a good question and researchers are still working on it.
[00:14:12] Like with other criminals some do turn their lives around, change their perspective and
[00:14:16] take responsibility for their actions.
[00:14:19] But there is also the theory of drifting.
[00:14:21] It happens when criminals are put in jail with other criminals and they feed upon one
[00:14:25] another about how unfair the world is and why they should have their share of the good
[00:14:29] life.
[00:14:31] Is it nature or nurture?
[00:14:33] Are scammers born that way?
[00:14:35] Or are they the victims of circumstances in which they find themselves?
[00:14:40] The psychologists I've heard from dismissed the question quickly by saying it's both
[00:14:44] and I think that's right.
[00:14:46] We might all be scammers in the right circumstances and most importantly justify our actions to
[00:14:51] ourselves.
[00:14:54] If you believe you're not a bad person one small indiscretion can grow one step at a time.
[00:15:01] Diane Katani told her story to the association of certified fraud examiners.
[00:15:06] It began when she joined a small company, helped automate its bookkeeping system and taught
[00:15:11] others in the company how to use it.
[00:15:13] The company trusted her to keep things tight and do the right thing.
[00:15:18] The company grew and she began to travel frequently.
[00:15:26] I was also trying to manage my personal life, travel, social responsibilities connected
[00:15:32] with my husband's career that thrust us into a lot of prestigious opportunities.
[00:15:39] Same time I was having dinner at the White House under the Reagan administration having
[00:15:43] dinner with Georgian Barbara Bush and Hawaii.
[00:15:46] I was working with their son on the National Crones, Gladys Fundraising campaign.
[00:15:50] I was consulting executive coaching with a lot of Fortune 500 companies.
[00:15:55] I was just caught in this really fast life in the fast lane and I liked it.
[00:16:03] The first point that I crossed the line was actually very innocuous.
[00:16:07] We were traveling out west for the holidays and I got my travel itinerary and I had noticed
[00:16:13] that they put my personal travel on to my corporate profile, American Express Card.
[00:16:18] It was not a big deal.
[00:16:20] It was a simple mistake.
[00:16:25] I went out west for the holidays and came back and thought, okay, we'll all pay it back.
[00:16:29] Get that first paycheck and I'll pay the company back but get that first paycheck and I
[00:16:33] start weighing it out.
[00:16:36] You got all these bills from the holidays and the paycheck?
[00:16:39] Okay well next time, next paycheck I'll pay the company back.
[00:16:44] In between there, I crossed into that gray area and started down that road of rationalization.
[00:16:56] We're out there for the holidays with my family, voicemails, emails, constant interruption.
[00:17:01] We're trying to snowsky.
[00:17:02] I have to come in for a conference call, very disruptive.
[00:17:05] Okay well we'll just call it a business trip.
[00:17:11] So once I crossed that line, it became easier to rationalize more and more.
[00:17:18] I stole nearly $500,000 from this company who not only gave me a wonderful career opportunity
[00:17:23] but making what I did more despicable was that they also treated me like family.
[00:17:37] Simple things in life can get us into trouble.
[00:17:40] Not quickly but gradually.
[00:17:43] The question is, do we know where to draw the line and do we care enough to find out?
[00:17:56] Scams and cons is an independent production so if you enjoy the podcast please help us
[00:18:01] by telling your friends and encouraging them to listen.
[00:18:06] Scams and cons is available wherever podcasts are found and it scamsandcons.com.
[00:18:12] Thanks for listening.
[00:18:17] From DNA testing to the Dixie Mafia, Crime Capsule brings you new stories of true crime
[00:18:23] in American history.
[00:18:26] I'm your host Benjamin Morris.
[00:18:28] Join us for exclusive interviews with authors from Arcadia Publishing, writing the hottest
[00:18:33] books on the most chilling stories of our country's past.
[00:18:37] You can find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts or on evergreenpodcasts.com.
[00:18:44] Crime Capsule, history so interesting it's criminal.