0:03

Welcome to episode two

0:07

seventy five of FBI retired

0:10

case file review with Jerry

0:13

Williams. I'm a retired agent

0:15

on a mission. to show you who

0:17

the FBI is and what the

0:19

FBI does through my books,

0:21

my blog, and my podcast case

0:23

reviews with former colleagues. Today,

0:26

we get to speak to retired

0:29

agent, Richard Stout, who served

0:31

in the FBI for twenty two years.

0:34

In this episode, and

0:36

investigative journalist Bob

0:38

Norman, review the

0:41

billion Ponzi scheme case

0:44

perpetrated by Scott Rothstein,

0:46

who was able to convince hundreds

0:49

of wealthy investors to pay

0:51

millions of dollars for fake

0:53

legal settlements.

0:55

This is the

0:56

fourth largest ponzi scheme

0:58

in US history. In addition to

1:00

economic crime, This case,

1:03

full of pay to play politics, also

1:05

covered other illegal activities, including

1:08

bank fraud, public corruption, organized

1:11

crime, and illegal campaign

1:13

contributions. The case

1:15

resulted in the arrest and prosecution

1:18

of thirty individuals. Stout

1:21

and Norman are working together on

1:23

a great fall. Their upcoming true

1:26

crime book and series about

1:28

this case. During his FBI

1:31

career, Richard Stout specialized

1:33

in public corruption cases in the FBI's

1:35

Miami division. He created

1:38

the South Florida public corruption task

1:40

force and directed multiple complex

1:43

investigations in that role.

1:45

He was on the SWAT team and was deployed

1:48

around the world. He spent the latter

1:50

part of his career as a technically

1:52

trained agent.

1:54

He is currently the CEO and managing

1:57

director Stout security consultants,

1:59

a physical and information security

2:02

risk management company specializing

2:05

in the detection of technical

2:07

surveillance devices and

2:08

hazards. Bob

2:10

Norman is a freelance journalist

2:13

serving as news director for

2:15

the Florida Center for Government

2:17

Accountability. His work has

2:19

led to the indentiments of several

2:21

corrupt politicians and the removal

2:24

of bad acting judges from

2:26

the bench. Norman has won

2:28

dozens of journalism awards

2:30

and has been featured in documentary

2:33

films and TV shows

2:35

including frontline American greed

2:38

and investigation discovery.

2:40

Now before we get to the interview, I want

2:42

to thank retired agent,

2:44

Jack Garcia, or introducing

2:47

me to Rich If

2:49

you are a retired or former

2:51

agent with an FBI case you

2:53

think would be great for FBI

2:56

retired case file review or

2:58

if you know someone. Please

3:00

contact me I'm currently

3:02

looking for interesting cases

3:04

to review in twenty twenty three.

3:07

I wanna remind reader team members

3:09

to check their inbox on December

3:11

first for my monthly email.

3:14

If you don't see it in your inbox, you

3:16

know what to do, check your spam filter

3:19

and promotions tab. In your

3:21

podcast apps description of

3:23

this episode, you'll find a link

3:25

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3:27

links to where you can join

3:29

my reader team, buy me a coffee,

3:31

and learn more about my FBI

3:34

crime fiction and non fiction books.

3:36

Thank you for your support. Now here's

3:38

the show. I want

3:41

to welcome my guest, Richard

3:43

Stout, and Bob Norman.

3:46

Hey, Rich. Hey, Bob. Hey. How are

3:48

you, Jerry? Thanks for having us up. Thanks

3:50

for both of you for coming. Bob, you are

3:52

my first journalistsreporter that

3:55

I've had on the show, but I want people

3:57

to understand that you're not just

3:59

a co author or

4:01

a ghost writer you actually

4:04

lived this case too

4:06

from before it started during

4:08

and after the Ponzi and

4:11

I guess you could say that both and

4:13

Rich have work cases

4:15

that

4:15

have led to the arrest

4:18

and conviction of several corrupt

4:20

politicians. So thank you for

4:22

adding to the case review

4:24

that Rich is gonna do. Rich, do you

4:26

wanna start us off? Sure.

4:29

Yeah. Bob and I, our story in

4:31

the FBI's Lair involvement centers

4:33

on a character named Scott Rossi.

4:35

Jerri, he was a Florida attorney.

4:38

And basically, he was a fraudster.

4:40

Seemingly overnight, his law firm came

4:42

out of nowhere to become a huge political

4:44

powerhouse. He was launched

4:46

from obscurity to that of a high living

4:48

lawyer. And then over the course of time,

4:50

he started developing connections with some

4:52

of the most powerful people in politics

4:54

and government. You would see my billboards

4:56

in South Florida during halftime shows.

4:59

He was published in upscale magazines

5:01

with high end cars, his

5:03

catered parties, and he would hobnob

5:06

with power brokers like governor Chris,

5:08

John McCain, Roger Stone in the

5:10

future, president Trump. Behind those

5:12

scenes, he was committing frauds within

5:14

frauds, and he had compromised bank

5:16

managers he was embezzling

5:19

from an Italian aristocrat, and

5:21

he was also using cops to arrest his

5:23

enemies. Bob, do you have anything on that? I

5:24

think that what was really unique

5:27

about about this story

5:29

is the way that he infiltrated

5:32

almost every single part

5:34

of life. Before he was arrested

5:36

even, he was a huge topic of

5:38

discussion. He was involved in the financial

5:41

realm as Rich said he

5:43

had relationships with all the bankers

5:45

in town. Many of them, it turns out, were

5:47

corrupts. You had the financial, you

5:49

had the legal, you had the law

5:51

enforcement, and then you had the political.

5:54

He was pouring hundreds

5:56

of thousands of dollars. It turns out

5:58

stolen money. money

5:59

that

5:59

he was taking from the Schemer,

6:02

which we're gonna get into into politics.

6:04

And he became a huge Republican

6:06

force in Florida. Rich actually

6:09

investigated this, and that's what's fascinating how

6:11

far ranging this case gets.

6:13

He became just a huge political

6:16

force and what he was

6:18

doing to facilitate

6:21

that was one of the biggest campaign

6:23

finance scandals frauds,

6:26

cases in American history.

6:28

Why don't we just go into that a little

6:30

bit, because what I saw

6:33

when the case broke was

6:35

you kind of spearheading

6:38

that political aspect

6:40

and really doing

6:42

this tremendous investigation into

6:45

what he was doing to get that

6:47

political clout that he got.

6:49

Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah.

6:52

Jerri, this was the largest fraud

6:54

case in South Florida history. It's a case

6:56

agreed running a buck. And

6:59

this guy's fall from flamboyant attorney

7:01

to FBI cooperator and then criminal

7:03

defendant. For Bob and myself,

7:05

our story describes his rise to

7:07

power the implosion of a two

7:09

billion Ponzi Schemer, his flight to

7:11

avoid prosecution. He fled to

7:13

Morocco in a private plane and

7:15

then he made the decision to

7:17

come back and work as an undercover

7:19

informant. The Ponzi crossed

7:22

so many of the FBI programs

7:24

including bank fraud, public corruption, organized

7:27

crime, the political corruption itself

7:29

with the campaign contributions. Thirty

7:31

people went to prison, the most ever in

7:33

Ponzi, all of those victims

7:36

who were victimized through the

7:38

Ponzi were made whole again. They got all their money

7:40

back. Wow. To my knowledge, a restitution

7:42

has never been done on that scale for such

7:44

an offense. This was a long

7:46

case, but there was a period of time that we were

7:48

actually proactive with this guy. And during

7:51

that thirty day period, he was recording

7:53

against attorneys, crooked Scott, and

7:55

members of the mafia. So

7:57

before I dive into what the

7:59

FBI did, I'd like to talk a little

8:01

bit about how we came about to know

8:03

this guy in the first place. This was

8:05

around mid two thousand seven. I was

8:07

working on a police corruption case with a

8:09

friend of mine who's a US attorney, Paul

8:11

Schwartz, Paul had mentioned a couple

8:13

of times about the small time attorney

8:15

who is coming out of nowhere. And

8:18

now he's the head of this powerful firm

8:20

of the lost souls boulevard. all

8:22

keeps telling me, you look at this guy, but I

8:24

wasn't interested. I was working comp cases.

8:26

I wasn't interested in looking at an attorney.

8:28

But I'd heard the name. So

8:30

now it's two thousand and eight, and

8:32

Ross Dean's name keeps coming

8:34

up, mostly off the street. He's

8:36

coming to me from pocket sources

8:38

and confidential informants. Think at the time we

8:40

were calling them one thirty sevens, I think they're

8:42

confidential human sources now

8:44

in spring of o nine

8:46

just before the fall of the ponzi.

8:48

some really weird stuff was coming out

8:50

of the local papers. Fort Lauderdale

8:53

Police, they were providing Ross Dean

8:55

twenty four hour protection at his

8:57

home, at his law firm, he owned a restaurant,

8:59

at his restaurant, his wife was being shown

9:01

further around by police

9:03

officer, and I keep reading these stories. keep

9:05

reading stories from this reporter named Bob

9:07

Norman. So at that point, I

9:09

felt like I needed to go back and

9:11

talk to all about it.

9:13

So I called my friend, Paul, the

9:15

attorney, the prosecutor.told him I was

9:17

interested in talking about Rothstein. I show

9:19

up a week later when I walk into his

9:21

office, it's filled with prosecutors, a couple

9:23

of my agent friends, and we start

9:25

kicking around what we know Stout, Austin,

9:27

the information we already have. knew he had

9:29

some involvement organized crime. He had

9:31

unexplained wealth, and there's

9:33

also a tangible predication

9:35

against local cops. So

9:37

I go back to the office, I pin an

9:39

opening EC and electronic communication

9:41

to open an investigation, and

9:43

I submit it to my boss, who's a

9:45

new guy in the program. he looks at it. He

9:47

says, no. I don't think there's enough to

9:49

open this case. What

9:50

did he think was missing?

9:52

Here's my

9:53

opinion. This is the same thing

9:55

that was happening across a bureau. We

9:57

had run up against a five year up and

9:59

up policy. We lost most of our experienced

10:01

bid management talent exchange

10:03

for people with very little experience. I

10:05

mean, there's a friend of mine, Jerry Hester,

10:07

who was an agent in organized crime,

10:09

who months earlier, had some info on

10:11

Rothstein, and try to

10:14

open a case, and his boss didn't wanna do it

10:15

either. I think we have to

10:18

let everyone know what the five

10:20

here up and out is. as we

10:22

know. The five year up and up

10:24

policy was a policy

10:26

that director Bob Mueller had

10:28

put together following nine

10:30

eleven. what he was trying to do was build

10:32

up the intelligence branch at

10:35

FBI headquarters, and he just

10:37

wasn't getting the bodies to do it. So

10:39

if people didn't want to

10:41

progress up into leadership

10:44

positions, then he was gonna remove

10:46

the existing mid level

10:48

managers. I think what ended up

10:50

happening was he wiped out all of

10:52

those key individual leaders in each of

10:54

the fifty six field offices who had the

10:56

experience and knowledge and

10:58

knew about the areas that they were in, knew about

11:00

the people who operate in those areas

11:02

that pretty much gutted. I

11:05

absolutely agree with you when you talk

11:07

about the loss of institutional

11:10

knowledge because in the field office,

11:12

there were supervisors that may have had

11:14

a squad Rothstein

11:17

And

11:17

they knew everybody. They knew

11:20

the sub jigs. They knew they had connections. You

11:22

could go into their office and ask

11:24

them a question and come out of there

11:26

with all kinds of leads and

11:28

things to do. what you might want to look

11:30

at because they

11:33

had seen it all before. They had heard it

11:35

all before. And, yeah, with the

11:37

five year up and out, they had been

11:39

that office for more than five years,

11:41

they were told that they would either move

11:43

on up, which meant being transferred

11:45

out of the division to

11:47

headquarters or they were

11:49

told they would have to step down.

11:52

Being a supervisor. Well, you

11:54

think about private enterprise. you'd

11:56

see someone who's left the bureau

11:58

and they're looking through their resume,

11:59

they see their supervisor, and then they've

12:02

been knocked down to agent. Well, now

12:04

that prospective employee has to

12:06

explain, it wasn't a penalty that I

12:08

did anything bad that I did. It's just

12:10

how the bureau works. They end up

12:12

promoting you and then they end up promoting you. don't

12:14

think it was healthy for the bureau overall. I

12:16

think bureau wide, we got gutted

12:18

and it suffered and we were replaced

12:20

with people who didn't have the institutional

12:23

experiences and leadership where

12:25

they could say no to bad ideas.

12:27

Are yes to

12:29

good ideas? Yeah. Exactly.

12:31

Like you opening this case that

12:33

was obvious if everyone

12:35

else was something that needed to

12:37

be pursued. yeah, there's a fire over here,

12:39

and we need to address it. So,

12:41

ultimately, this is what happens. I've

12:43

turned away on this investigation from

12:45

a case opening I keep my notes,

12:47

and I keep pressing on just gathering

12:49

as much intelligence as I can. Ultimately,

12:51

what happens is a couple months later, and

12:53

this is towards the end of October two

12:55

thousand nine. Rothstein implodes

12:57

and he flees a country almost

12:59

overnight and he goes to Morocco

13:01

on a private jet. This is all

13:03

over the local news. This is a big deal

13:05

because this guy has been the

13:07

past few years. He's just so involved

13:10

with the South Florida culture. I

13:12

get called back into the office and I'm asked

13:14

to give back the EC and they

13:16

sign it and because no good

13:18

deed goes unpunished, they gave the

13:20

case to someone else. And I'm glad.

13:22

I was furious. Oh

13:24

my god. That's the same supervisor.

13:27

Yeah. It was crazy.

13:29

I noted my objections. There's a little bit of

13:31

back and forth. There there was some yellow.

13:34

Rosslyn was coming back.

13:36

His attorney had given

13:38

a debrief myself and some

13:40

prosecutors at the US attorney's office

13:42

in southern district of Florida through

13:44

his attorney's words Mark

13:46

Nurek gives us sort of a snapshot of what he's been

13:48

involved in. It was pretty intense. I'm

13:50

tasked with opening Rothstein as a

13:52

source. Now, I think in their

13:54

minds, they're gonna pacify me.

13:56

And I was just gonna be like

13:58

an admin agent. But in my mind, I'm

14:00

running every facet of the investigation. So

14:02

that's what I start doing. That's my

14:04

attitude. And I go in. I sit in on a

14:06

meeting. Frosting's being debriefed by the

14:08

government. This was in a hotel conference

14:10

room. There were probably fifteen people in

14:12

that room, including US attorneys,

14:14

FBI, IRS, and only

14:16

then did we begin to realize full

14:19

magnitude of what have been going on at South

14:21

Florida. All the institutions impacted.

14:23

The banks, the attorneys

14:25

offices, police agencies, court

14:27

houses, the governor's office, there was

14:29

a huge amount to unpack. The

14:31

front office, which is the executive

14:33

part of the Miami Division

14:35

office, they wanted him arrested immediately.

14:37

And the US attorneys were saying, listen,

14:39

we're we're only beginning to understand what he's

14:41

even done. And we don't know who

14:43

else's exposure in this thing. We don't have evidence

14:46

on anyone else. And this thing was so

14:48

complicated. They actually needed Rothstein to

14:50

continue to explain it. Rothstein's

14:52

cooperating and we have this limited

14:54

window to open investigation and collect

14:56

evidence against some of those co conspirators.

14:58

And for added measures, you

15:00

have Reporters like our friend Bob here

15:02

who's conducting his own Bulldog

15:04

journalism. They're trying to locate Rothstein.

15:06

They're outside his house. They're outside his

15:08

business. They're following up with their sources.

15:11

And I'm having to move roasting from hotel to

15:13

hotel trying to dodge people. Well, let me

15:14

ask you, Bob, because we

15:17

understand what the

15:19

FBI knows at this

15:21

point. And we should go back

15:23

after I ask you this question. and talk

15:25

about Ponzi schemes and

15:27

how they implode and how

15:29

they all eventually do

15:31

that. But tell me from your point

15:33

of view, What is it that

15:35

makes you interested in

15:37

roasting? Why are you on this

15:39

Stout trying to find him? Great

15:40

question. And it started back in

15:42

two thousand six, two thousand

15:45

seven. I didn't know who Rusty was. You

15:47

have to understand just a few years

15:49

before this started, Rossstein was a work a

15:51

day attorney. He probably had a net

15:53

worth of a quarter million dollars or

15:55

something in his house. He was married

15:57

to another attorney. He was always a

15:59

little bit flamboyance. Rothstein

16:01

a huge character, and you're gonna kinda

16:03

gather that as we go along in

16:05

this story. but I was hearing from my

16:07

own sources about this

16:09

attorney who came out of nowhere. He's

16:11

got twenty cars. Two of

16:13

each Lamborghini's porsches,

16:16

Mercedes. He buys two Bugattis, you

16:18

know, million dollar vehicles. He keeps them in a

16:20

warehouse. He's buying twenty million dollars

16:22

in property. He bought up Retired Street

16:24

on the inner coastal. He buys

16:26

into South Beach.

16:28

He's just spending. He's

16:30

giving millions of dollars to

16:32

local charities become the bell of the

16:34

ball across Broward County. There

16:36

was this huge question. Where

16:39

is the money coming from? nobody

16:41

could figure this out. He's an attorney.

16:43

There's a lot of attorneys in Broward

16:46

County. And the attorneys were like,

16:48

this doesn't add up. I mean, I know

16:50

successful attorneys, maybe even more

16:52

successful than he is. They aren't spending money

16:54

like this. It became almost like a

16:56

guessing game like how is making this

16:58

money? I went to the easy

17:00

go, which was he was laundering

17:02

drug cards. That was my

17:04

best desk because I'd seen that with

17:06

other businessmen and and other

17:09

crooks. Right. And you are in Miami.

17:11

You're in Florida. Yeah. We're

17:13

right there. what I ended up doing is kinda looking into

17:15

him a little bit and going to his

17:17

office. And surprisingly, he

17:19

invited me. he said, come on in. I'll give

17:21

you an interview. Let's get this over

17:23

with. And it was pretty interesting because

17:25

most people like him, they don't want

17:27

the media attention. He craved it.

17:30

he really loved to be the center of

17:32

attention. So I go into his

17:34

office, it was a really

17:36

strange interview. He

17:38

was again, very open

17:41

friendly. He's got a charisma. I mean, you know,

17:43

you can't raise two billion dollars

17:45

without some sort of talent. does

17:47

have some talent. It's charisma.

17:49

He's cunning. He's kinda crazy. And

17:51

he was talking about how he had I

17:53

don't remember the number, Rich. Four forty

17:56

three. he counted him forty three

17:58

voices in his head. And he said, a

18:00

few of them are great businessmen. There's

18:02

some great attorneys in there, but then there's

18:04

some guys from the Bronx where I grew up.

18:06

who know how to get things done. It's all

18:09

true. He went from the very top high

18:11

places to low places. And he

18:13

was as Richard said, he did have

18:15

organized crime. Connections, which is why he's in

18:17

Whitsec today in prison. He

18:19

was very friendly, but at the same time, very

18:21

threatening. He said if

18:23

you ever say anything wrong about me, you're gonna feel the

18:25

heat of a thousand suns. And

18:27

so I did a story. And the story was

18:29

called House of Cards, which

18:31

turned out to be president maybe

18:33

accidentally so. It just never added up. It

18:35

seemed like a house of cards. I asked him if it was

18:37

a house of cards. He said it wasn't. He

18:40

explained that his wealth was

18:42

due to these business investments

18:45

that he had made. Couple of

18:47

obscure businesses that he said were were

18:49

making him tremendous amounts of money.

18:51

Of course, That was all a lie. Did

18:53

you ever suspect that it was a scheme?

18:55

That's a good question. I obviously,

18:57

that would cross your mind, but

18:59

I didn't have any basis for it. I

19:01

didn't know if he was selling anything. What

19:04

he was doing, he kept on the

19:06

wraps very well. I knew that he was

19:08

very close friends with a big car

19:10

dealer in town named Ed Morse. That

19:12

was part of it. You thought maybe there

19:14

in on something which is

19:16

exactly what it turned out being. And we can

19:18

get into what exactly he

19:20

was doing, but just to continue with

19:22

my involvement early on. I kept dogged

19:24

him because he was a

19:26

real force. You know, it's my job.

19:28

I gotta cover these people. he

19:30

kept on popping up, mostly in political realms. He

19:32

was paying off a couple of politicians that

19:35

I knew. I was doing a story about one

19:37

of those. how he had given a

19:39

politician, a local state

19:41

rep, a job. I

19:43

called up the state rep, talked to him,

19:45

then I called up Rossstein. He didn't

19:47

answer. he calls me back. He

19:49

just goes absolutely

19:51

crazy. He's screaming at me. One

19:53

of those voices from the Bronx

19:55

I mean, it it was very jolting

19:59

because he was literally screaming at me and

20:01

telling me he was gonna destroy my

20:03

life. destroy my wife. Now understand my wife was

20:05

a reporter and is a reporter at the Sun

20:07

Central Newspaper. She did the story

20:09

about the police details.

20:11

she actually broke that story. I was breaking a lot of these

20:14

stories. She broke that story. He went

20:16

after her. So he was coming after

20:18

me and then he went after her. he

20:20

actually threatened a lawsuit at the

20:22

Sunset Old Newspaper, and

20:24

they were scared of them. It was a

20:26

ridiculous claim like it was

20:28

torturous interference where she had

20:30

supposedly said, there was nothing wrong with the reporting. So he

20:32

was saying that she had said some false

20:34

things to his business associates. It was a

20:36

big smoke screen, but he had

20:38

that newspaper on his heels,

20:40

worried that this guy who had hundreds of

20:42

millions of dollars was going to

20:44

come in and destroy it. That was the power

20:46

he had. when you've got that much money

20:48

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20:50

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20:52

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21:23

he comes

21:24

at He actually says

21:26

he's gonna throw a press conference to

21:30

offer money to anyone who wants to

21:32

sue me. He's gonna do it on Los Aolis Boulevard, which is this

21:34

name sort of tourist downtown

21:36

area in Fort Lauderdale. And I

21:38

gotta tell you, it got a little

21:40

bit stressful. And

21:42

I was actually kind of waiting for the cavalry to

21:44

come in, and they were not there. Now

21:46

I know where they were, and Rich was the

21:48

cavalry, and he was being stymied in

21:51

his office. Alright. Well, let's go back

21:53

to Rick. I'm trying to understand the

21:55

time frame. So when all of this is

21:57

happening with Bob and his

21:59

wife as

21:59

her reporting, there is not

22:02

yet a case. You want to open a case,

22:04

but you don't have a case. The FBI does

22:06

not have a case open on

22:08

Rothstein at this time. Is that correct?

22:10

Yeah. That's that's correct. So let let

22:12

me just footnote something Bob said.

22:15

He talked about Whitsec. I,

22:17

of course, cannot dive bulge where Roski

22:19

is right now, and I can't even talk

22:21

about that or whether or not he's even in that

22:23

program. What I can tell you,

22:25

even despite the fact that it's been

22:27

publicly reported he's in that program. I've never

22:29

discussed that with Bob and it's just

22:31

nothing that's come up. I can't say

22:33

that Ross is now in a federal

22:35

system and he's under control of

22:37

the government. That's all I could say about

22:39

that. With regard to this scheme.

22:41

Let me explain a little bit about what the ponzi

22:43

is, and then I could go into the timing

22:45

on this. Right. Because that is

22:47

actually what you arrested him

22:49

on initially. We know that there's all this

22:51

other stuff. And actually, for most

22:53

of my career, I worked

22:55

economic crime, and I worked pawnsy and

22:57

advanced fees schemes, and

22:59

embezzlement It sounds like you had

23:01

everything in the kitchen sink, but

23:03

the posse scheme was what your

23:06

initial actual

23:08

on paper predication was all

23:10

about. Is that correct? Yeah. No.

23:12

Let me clarify. And in fairness and in

23:14

total transparency, I

23:16

did not arrest him well, I

23:18

guess I did arrest for a Ponzi, but

23:20

he pretty much plead guilty to

23:22

an information on the ponzi. we

23:24

were finished using him for the proactive

23:26

part, I picked him up and delivered him

23:28

to the office. He, for the most part,

23:30

turned himself in, gave himself up

23:32

and plead guilty to the Ponzi? I

23:35

was proactive in all the

23:37

peripheral people. But as to

23:39

the ponzi scheme itself,

23:41

stated rather simply, it's what he

23:43

called his cockamane idea. He would

23:46

swindle his friends, he would swindle

23:48

clients with non existent

23:50

legal settlements. These

23:52

settlements were were bogus in

23:54

nature for investors. And this is how

23:56

it worked. Rossstein would tell prospective investor

23:58

that he had a client. Usually, for

24:00

example, it was a young woman. This

24:02

person doesn't exist Stout Rothstein

24:04

would purport a settlement had been reached

24:07

between this young woman and the

24:09

defendant, and it generally is for

24:11

big money. Part of this agreement,

24:13

let's say it's five million dollars was to

24:15

be paid out over a period of time, let's

24:17

say six months. This young woman needs the

24:19

money now. She's a single mom behind

24:21

her mortgage payments. She has

24:23

to pay her attorney, and this is the

24:25

convincing sell. So now

24:27

the investors offer the option to invest in the

24:29

settlement, pay her at a discounted

24:31

rate, so the victim will get her

24:33

reduced portion immediately, and the

24:35

investor will get the full amount over

24:37

the next six months. Now the investor thinks he's making

24:39

this huge return, but reality he's

24:42

getting money from the investor

24:44

before. That's how it worked as a

24:46

classic Ponzi. it was quite extraordinary

24:48

because he ended up doing, as

24:50

we say, over a billion dollars

24:52

selling these. And it

24:54

didn't make any sense. what

24:56

you're gonna see hedge funds piled money

24:59

into this. It started locally with

25:01

Ted Morse, actually. And it

25:03

started small But Ponzi schemes feed upon

25:05

themselves and they just get bigger. They have

25:07

to find a definition they have to get

25:09

bigger. It was a miracle how

25:11

long he kept this going and ended up involving two

25:14

hedge funds in New York who are pouring hundreds

25:16

of millions of dollars. One thing Fort

25:18

Lauderdale has is a lot of very wealthy

25:21

People make money elsewhere in the country. They come

25:23

to Fort Lauderdale. Downtown by the beach.

25:25

It's the yacht viewing is one

25:27

of the great tourist pass

25:29

times. he managed to tap into a lot of that money. And

25:31

he always seemed to be able to get that next

25:33

hundred million dollars, but it never

25:35

made any sense because how

25:37

could this one lawyer have

25:40

this many settlements involving

25:44

work, harassment, etcetera. It made no

25:46

sense. But once he

25:48

became Scott Rossi, the

25:50

king of Florida, because he called himself,

25:53

people kinda had their blinders on. It was like

25:55

they were laser focused on

25:57

that money. They wanted what he had, and that's

25:59

he was Williams.

26:02

cultivating that. I think he built

26:04

a restaurant in the large downtown building

26:06

that he was in, Bank of America building. On

26:08

the ground floor, it was called Bova.

26:11

the slogan was, it's where you

26:13

want to FBI. And that's sort of

26:15

where he was across

26:18

all lines. you want to be with

26:20

me and man people bought it. The

26:22

management of the law firm wound up kind

26:24

of colluding in all of this. That's why

26:26

so many of them went to prison. and he

26:28

sucked in the police officers and

26:30

everybody else. This thing got bigger

26:32

and bigger and bigger until

26:35

as you noted, Jerri, at some

26:37

point, it has to blow up. I

26:39

remember the call it was on Halloween and

26:41

a source of mind called me and said, he's

26:43

gone. I said, what do you mean? He

26:45

laughed, what? he's out of the country. He

26:47

fled, where? We think

26:49

Morocco. Wow. And it was I

26:51

remember looking at my wife and I was on the

26:53

phone and I just went,

26:56

That's what it was. It was just like

26:58

this bomb dropped. And I'm telling

27:00

you, when Scott Rothstein fled the

27:02

country, this story went into

27:04

overdrive that Fonzi scheme blew up and it blew up

27:06

in the public consciousness. Because again,

27:08

he had ties to every part

27:10

of life, the courthouse. the

27:12

police financial institutions, everything, the

27:15

politicians. Now,

27:15

this is

27:16

when the FBI, you know, and then Rich is

27:19

getting called at this point and

27:21

they're gathering and figuring out what they're gonna do, everybody

27:23

thinks he's gonna stay in Morocco. He

27:25

actually sent a email to all of the

27:27

associates saying, I have a client who needs

27:30

to find a country to go to when they're in

27:32

trouble. They're safe, and he chose

27:34

Morocco. And he was already he took

27:36

twenty million dollars with him

27:38

stolen money, he was gonna

27:40

start a chain of restaurants

27:42

there. I mean, he had big plans in

27:44

Morocco, but he was a mess. He

27:46

was drug at old, drunk,

27:48

one of the things about this is, while this

27:50

is going on, you know, yeah, Bernie Madoff. He

27:52

was the most stayed calm. He

27:55

didn't socialize much. Rossstein was

27:57

everywhere every night and he was

27:59

partying,

27:59

prostitutes everywhere. He called it the rock and

28:02

roll lifestyle. It was another way

28:04

that he sucked people in. This idea, you

28:07

can have the women, you can have the

28:09

drugs, you'll be in the best clubs, he

28:11

bought a piece of the Versace mansion,

28:13

Jerri. this was something like

28:15

we never seen. We never expected him

28:17

to come back, but he did. He

28:19

made that decision to fly back

28:21

on the G five. Rich,

28:23

I gotta ask you. This guy got away

28:25

with it. Why did he

28:27

come back? I think

28:28

he got over there and a

28:31

few things were happening He

28:33

was in a league with a lot of bad people,

28:35

including the Israeli mafia. I think he

28:37

started to worry about that. He wanted

28:39

his wife to come over. She didn't want

28:41

any part of it. he had asked his

28:43

Bobbyguard, Bobby Skandipio,

28:45

who's a giant of a man, to come over and

28:47

protect him. Bobby didn't wanna have anything to do

28:49

with it. Scott knew that

28:51

once the government started coming

28:53

after him, that his parents

28:55

were free game and that his parents

28:57

were local. So I think he wade

28:59

what could possibly happen. He was

29:01

looking at the type of sentences made off

29:03

guard and dryer and other

29:05

ponzi schemers and

29:07

was also factoring in how many

29:09

people he could give up towards some

29:11

sort of credit. So he made the decision to

29:13

come back and that he did. We debrief

29:15

him. We're being followed by the

29:17

media. He was trying to find out exactly where

29:19

he is so they can get an interview about

29:22

exactly what happened. and I'm moving

29:24

him from hotel to hotel. I'm dodging people.

29:26

He's got twenty four hour protection

29:28

of agents. He's being debriefed

29:30

daily. by investigating agents for a myriad

29:32

of white collar crimes, crimes

29:34

with the mafia, corrupt

29:36

cops, corrupt bankers, and

29:39

he's going out day and night to record

29:41

against co conspirators. And he's

29:43

convincing him that his attorney had him

29:45

hidden and he's not cooperating with

29:47

the government. Now he's not starting anything new. He's just submitting

29:49

past historical offenses. Aside

29:51

from this, everything that's going on, what he

29:53

did. Yeah. He was was incredibly

29:56

narcissistic, but he was also incredibly

29:59

charismatic and convincing. He can think

30:01

fast and wherever he is, he's

30:03

the life of the party. those thirty days were

30:05

very fruitful. Yeah. I think another

30:07

thing to add to that in terms of

30:09

why he came back. There was a lot

30:11

of speculation that he

30:13

came back because he believed or

30:15

was feared that his family was gonna get

30:17

killed by these organized

30:19

crime forces that he was involved

30:21

with. He had the Italian mafia

30:23

connections, but he also had the

30:25

Israeli mafia connections. and

30:27

that I think was even more

30:29

serious. They had put

30:31

figures involved in

30:33

the Israeli mafia.

30:35

It piled in quite a bit of money into the of,

30:37

you know, twenty, thirty, forty million. I

30:39

I can't remember the exact sum.

30:42

And he paid that

30:44

back. He paid a lot of that back first.

30:46

I can understand why.

30:49

Yeah. So he was clearly

30:51

concerned about that. It was it may very

30:53

founded fear, if you will. That

30:55

has been the talk of South

30:58

Florida. Why did he come back? obviously,

31:00

he, as Rich said, he felt like he

31:02

could strike a deal with the government and

31:04

probably pull a three year sentence or something.

31:06

just didn't understand the

31:09

outrage that the public was gonna

31:11

have with him. And part of that was the way

31:13

that he had corrupted the political system in the way

31:15

that he had corrupted the police departments.

31:17

Those are two things that

31:19

Rich really dived

31:21

into. what amazed me about

31:23

Rich's work was that and I'm not

31:25

here to criticize the FBI or

31:27

the government in this investigation. Overall,

31:30

it was a good job, but Rich

31:32

really spearheaded some stuff and

31:34

he brought justice to this case

31:37

where it wouldn't have been there. specifically

31:39

in the political realm, in

31:41

the police realm. And I'm gonna go ahead and kick it

31:43

off to Rich here. If you wanna talk about

31:45

what you did and I would start with

31:47

police corruption. Because the thing about this case, Jerry, is

31:49

it it's not one book. It's eight books

31:52

because there's so much

31:55

there in so many

31:57

different sectors of

31:59

life. The police corruption aspect

32:01

of this. And I've been in South Florida. I've

32:03

done a tremendous number of police

32:05

corruption cases. It's just about

32:07

as bad. I mean, you know, there's a few cases that stand

32:09

out that are a little worse, but it's one of the

32:11

worst cases of police corruption.

32:13

You'll see because of the just

32:15

the dastardly horrible

32:17

nature of it. Rich, why don't you talk about that

32:19

investigation that you underwent? I

32:21

will. Let me let me just say this. one

32:23

of his first targets was in the

32:25

mafia. It was a guy named Roberto

32:27

Saginary or the Sicilian mafia in

32:29

a conduit between the Italian,

32:31

Bob, and New York crime families. Now,

32:33

the FBI knew satinary was. They just

32:35

didn't have a case, but Rothstein was

32:37

able to brief agents and record against

32:39

satinary. And based on those

32:41

connections, simultaneous rest were

32:43

made in the U. S. and in Italy.

32:45

That was the first thing and and we

32:47

got that off the books pretty quick.

32:50

thing that he was doing was the campaign

32:52

financing, which we've talked about. He was using

32:54

the Ponzi Ponzi to fuel

32:56

illegal campaign contributions to local

32:58

state and federal elections. was over

33:00

two million dollars. So what he would do is he

33:02

would use his partners and his employees to

33:04

make maximum allowable donations,

33:06

and then he would reimburse those

33:08

people as bonuses. It was

33:10

through this fraud. He was able to secure a

33:12

position on the Florida Judicial

33:14

Nominating Committee, whose job it was

33:16

to pick state district court

33:18

judges. when we talk, you would often say

33:20

to me, it's better to be the kingmaker than

33:22

the king. Future elected officials now

33:24

would come into the firm's office lobby

33:27

waiting to get a few moments with this

33:29

guy. Request his backing. And there's

33:31

another thing. Deborah Viegas, work

33:33

Rothstein, would tell me, you know, the lobby

33:35

was always filled from hookers who wanted their

33:37

money politicians who wanted votes. It

33:39

was through the campaign financing

33:42

that he was getting into

33:44

the police departments because

33:47

the executives of those

33:49

officers wanted his backing.

33:51

Now at the time, they didn't know he was, you

33:53

know, involved in sort of criminal dealings

33:55

agents. He he was just a very

33:57

powerful guy in South Florida. Rothstein

33:59

had learned how easy it was to corrupt long

34:02

force early on in his career, and that was one of his

34:04

special talents in reading people, gauging how

34:06

far someone would be willing to go. For cops,

34:08

it would the opening

34:10

for him was to offer pro bono services,

34:12

work related stuff, injuries, divorces,

34:14

and then after sizing somebody up,

34:17

he would ask for a return on that free service, it would be

34:19

the for a favor, like running a tag

34:21

or fixing a ticket. So he

34:23

would offer to help

34:25

a police officer give

34:27

him free legal service if he was getting or

34:30

she was getting a divorce.

34:32

It wasn't a media print quote pro. If

34:34

he would get these

34:36

people comfortable and then it would be maybe a short time later, he would and

34:38

say, hey, I need a really big favor. Can

34:40

you help me with this? And then it would be

34:42

whatever the favor is. Yeah.

34:45

He was doing union work as well, specifically

34:47

in the plantation police department.

34:50

So that was his first beginnings

34:52

with law enforcement. By the time

34:54

he'd graduated, with police corruption. He was now

34:56

dealing with top level people in some

34:58

of the police agencies and having them arresting

35:00

people on trumped

35:02

up charges. He was using a lieutenant who was an acting captain

35:04

over internal affairs who was highly

35:06

placed in a sheriff's office, one of the largest

35:08

sheriff's offices in

35:10

the US and he

35:12

was using this captain as

35:14

part of his private enforcement

35:16

wing, which would be a small number of cops

35:18

used to arrest any of his opposition.

35:20

Anybody who could expose the ponzi. That investigation was

35:22

particularly hard to crack and that's sort of

35:24

one of our our bigger stories

35:26

I think Rothstein all

35:28

these allegations about police corruption. However,

35:30

he was the only witness. He

35:32

had compartmentalized And he was the

35:34

one who benefited from most of

35:37

the police corruption. Yeah. He was the

35:39

benefactor and easy only witness. The

35:41

other witnesses involved had some sort

35:43

of exposure in some other

35:45

part of the investigation and they had already lured up. They

35:47

were represented by counsel, so we couldn't

35:50

interview them. The first real breakthrough

35:52

happened with a prostitute

35:54

named Jill. And when I

35:56

located her and she cooperated,

35:58

she really exposed the undervalue of

35:59

the law firm and how he was

36:02

using corrupt cops for protecting

36:04

the secrets. and that interview

36:06

was to corroborate what he had

36:08

told you. Yeah. I mean, there was a

36:10

series of allegations, and that one was

36:12

the hardest one to prove because

36:14

Jill had relation shipped with one of

36:16

the associates at the firm and was now extorting this associate.

36:18

And they wanted Jill taken care of.

36:22

But when I interviewed Scott, he didn't have any information on

36:24

her. He just had a story about a prostitute.

36:26

That's all he knew. But I

36:28

felt like I could identify her

36:31

if I just did a little gumption

36:33

work, but there was a price to pay

36:35

for that. I'm out

36:38

interviewing prostitutes associated with the firm. I was getting called up at the front office.

36:40

They were second guessing my judgment while I was

36:42

interviewing these prostitutes. I need to

36:44

wrap this case

36:46

up. It is the ponzi. I should be moving on to other cases that

36:48

they have, and I just didn't really feel like I was

36:50

getting the support I needed. I like the support I've

36:52

been getting over the

36:54

previous year. And on the contrary, it's getting roadblock.

36:56

And the biggest setback

36:58

was in terms of this IA

37:02

captain. wanted to work him as a possible defendant. The front

37:04

office wanted to open him as a source on

37:06

another case. Scott's telling me that

37:08

he's paying him hundreds of thousands of

37:10

dollars at this sky is

37:12

playing up situations for people to

37:14

be arrested without any probable

37:16

cause. Within our office, it was

37:18

just plain about how the

37:20

direction they wanted to go and just sort of the

37:22

lack of assistance that I felt that I was

37:24

getting. Well, I mean, you're talking about

37:26

David Benjamin. you're talking about Jill,

37:28

the prostitute. You know, the law firm is Rothstein Rosenfeld

37:30

Adler. The number two person

37:32

in the law firm was

37:36

Mister Rosenfeld, I mentioned the Rock and Roll lifestyle.

37:38

Huge part of that

37:40

was prostitutes. And Rosenfeld

37:44

a family man, two daughters.

37:46

Everyone says, he was the he

37:48

and the Yang. He was the sweet guy

37:51

he just didn't seem to have a bad bone in

37:53

his body, but he really got sucked

37:56

into this whole scheme because

37:58

Rothstein was giving him millions

37:59

of dollars a year. You know,

38:02

he was making more than any other

38:04

attorney in town, and he wasn't doing

38:06

much work. And he

38:08

became obsessed

38:10

with prostitutes that's why

38:12

Richard was following this because it was

38:14

part of this corruption. And

38:16

Rosenfeld's relationship with Jill Jill's

38:19

drug addicted boyfriend wound up getting Rosenfeld's

38:22

phone number and called him up

38:24

at his home

38:26

one night. basically extorted

38:28

him. And Rosenfeld is literally on

38:30

the verge of suicide, and he

38:33

sees completely panicked. So life

38:35

is gonna come crashing down. Rosenthal

38:37

calls the fixer. Rosstein, he says, I'm in trouble.

38:39

I'm sorry. I'm in trouble. Rosstein calls

38:41

me. He says, don't

38:43

worry about it. come in before

38:45

seven o'clock in the morning, whatever. Early tomorrow, we'll take care of it. He goes

38:48

in with Rothstein. Rothstein

38:50

says, Okay.

38:52

We can handle this. We can handle this situation. Give me

38:54

the numbers. Give me the stuff I'm gonna call up

38:56

lieutenant Benjamin. And lieutenant Benjamin becomes

38:59

part of the conversation. the goal

39:01

was to it it was open ended, but it was to get

39:03

rid of her and to get rid of him. Rich,

39:05

if you can pick it

39:08

up there. what you found out happened. How did

39:10

they get rid of Jill? It's

39:12

so complicated. Student

39:14

was talking to

39:16

Jill's pimp. They they communicated together and he calls the pimp. The

39:18

pimp says this is where she lives and they

39:20

turn that address over to Rusty and

39:23

turns it over to Benjamin, and then Benjamin sends a crew

39:26

out there to -- Of course. -- to

39:28

basically rough her up at least, you know,

39:30

that's the idea. Some of those cops

39:32

who were there didn't really know

39:34

exactly what the situation is. They were

39:36

just taking the lead of one of the cops,

39:38

a detective named Jeff Poole. And,

39:40

incidentally, both Poole and benign, they

39:42

they were convicted. They went to prison for their

39:44

roles in this. This wasn't the only

39:46

incident. There was a couple incidents that was

39:48

like this. they went out and convinced Jill that she to

39:50

leave town. Her story is she

39:52

got roughed up. Their story is

39:55

as they try to open

39:57

her as a source. Anyway, it scared her

39:59

when she she went out of town. Tracking

40:01

her down was hard because I

40:03

was not allowed into any part of investigation

40:05

dealing with this corruption angle because there was

40:08

a parallel case that was going on at

40:10

the time. they

40:12

didn't want me to touch it. I had to wait six months when they

40:14

finally closed that case down due

40:16

to lack of prosecutorial interest.

40:20

There was no follow-up case was closed. And once that was closed, I ended

40:22

up getting Stu's call records. I

40:24

knew he had to blow out with his girlfriend

40:27

that he had met fall of, I think, two thousand

40:29

and nine. And I was just looking for a

40:31

number that he was calling all the time

40:33

and a number that would have

40:35

immediately dropped off. and I came up

40:37

with one number in the call detail records and I

40:40

identified that number as Jill and I

40:42

found her

40:44

and went to her door knocked on the door. The first thing out of her mouth is if this

40:46

is about Stu Rose and found a way to cooperate

40:48

from Scott. She started piecing

40:50

it all together and so once

40:53

you understood the methodology at which they took

40:55

in taking care of any of the dissenters,

40:57

you could apply it to

40:59

the other cases of police corruption, and then

41:02

we found another lady who was the

41:04

wife of one of the attorneys that Christine

41:06

was having

41:08

He wanted her removed because they were in a bad

41:10

marriage. He was fighting over custody of the

41:12

kids. They had her

41:14

arrested on trumped up, trump

41:16

charges, which never exist. And that's a horrific story. Oh,

41:18

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supply. See all the deals in the

41:50

Meijer app. Her name

41:51

is Marcy Romeo, and she was

41:54

married to this attorney, Doug Bates.

41:56

She was divorced from him. As

41:58

Rich said, they were having

42:00

custody issues. Doug Bates was part of the posse scheme. As I said,

42:02

you know, that the pure

42:04

volume of cases that he needed to have

42:06

in order

42:08

to tried to authenticate them. He had lawyers in

42:10

town willingly lie and

42:13

authenticate these cases and

42:15

it didn't exist. just to make that clear, none of these cases

42:17

existed. It's not like one of them didn't or most of them didn't? Are

42:19

you talking about the settlement cases? Yeah.

42:22

None of those cases existed.

42:24

Doug Bates

42:26

was central and helping to perpetuate that fraud.

42:28

He was having these problems with Marci

42:30

Romeo, Benjamin, the lieutenant

42:33

who really was almost like Rothstein's man serving.

42:35

He did everything for him. He gave him security. I mean,

42:38

when Rothstein fled

42:40

the country, Benjamin

42:42

exported him through the commercial airport that

42:44

he left in and transported some of

42:46

the money that he was taking with

42:50

him. he was doing anything and everything. He was on the payroll. He

42:52

was collecting secretly collecting. I don't

42:54

remember fifty thousand something like that.

42:56

He made a lot of money on this.

42:59

This is what's so really horrible

43:01

about this. He didn't need to do this

43:03

with Marcio Romeo. It was just a favor.

43:05

He gets Benjamin to do it. Benjamin

43:07

calls detective pool, who's in vice, detective

43:10

pool begins to surveil her

43:12

and they basically gin up

43:14

a drug case on her based on the

43:16

prescription medicine where they think that Doug had

43:18

told the label off the prescription earlier. They

43:20

fabricate a case and she's

43:22

arrested on a felony. They

43:25

take her to the station.

43:28

And there she says that she's held

43:30

in a room and two

43:32

officers come in. They say, look at

43:34

the wall. she can't see them and they walk in and they I

43:36

think they had actually told her to

43:38

strip to just humiliate her.

43:42

She has a special needs son. She had just dropped him off at the

43:44

school. She was being surveilled over the course

43:46

of two days to his school.

43:49

she gets arrested. She's taken to the

43:51

local district office. Her story is

43:53

she strip searched. That was one of the things

43:55

I tried to chase down, but they don't have

43:58

any cameras keep in mind too

43:59

that I wasn't able to get this case going

44:02

until months and months and months

44:04

later. So a lot of this information was

44:06

cold case stuff that I had to go

44:08

back and search and research and try to timeline stuff

44:10

back together. But one of the things that they didn't

44:12

have cameras, so I was never able to prove that

44:14

that didn't happen. But the arrest, I was certainly

44:16

was able

44:18

to prove and it was later admitted to by the

44:20

detective. Now, this guy is

44:22

a piece of work,

44:24

definitely fueled by greed,

44:26

but also

44:28

A huge part of this sounds like just ego. He

44:30

wanted to be like you said, the man,

44:32

the king maker. And he didn't

44:35

care who he had to

44:37

hurt or over or kick over or stomp

44:40

over Stout get there. Scott's

44:42

an interesting guy and he'll tell

44:44

you now that the more that

44:46

he tried to take the more he

44:48

wanted, and it was just an insatiable

44:50

appetite. He wanted to be the loudest

44:52

guy in the room, and he wanted to be the star

44:54

of the show and the life of

44:56

the party He's a musical talent. He could sing. He could do just

44:58

about everything. He's smart guy.

45:00

He had no conscience about the people that he

45:02

destroyed. And he destroyed a lot

45:04

of people. one of the things that

45:06

he had he drew people in and

45:08

people really became close to

45:10

him and fond of him and affectionate

45:12

with him he had a

45:14

very loyal following that was real

45:16

based on friendship and an

45:18

emotion. And then he had this

45:20

other realm, like, orbiting around him

45:22

was just solely based on the money, like the bankers. I think two bankers

45:24

went to prison. It's hard to keep up with

45:26

everybody that went to prison. It is hard to

45:28

keep up, but he would need for some

45:30

of scams that he was

45:32

pulling. He had a friend on the payroll, so

45:34

it wouldn't involve hedge funds or

45:36

be verifiers. Well, they would have

45:39

meetings at banks and he would be friendly with everybody at that bank and he

45:41

would ask to use a conference Scott. And once in the

45:44

conference room, the doors were shut

45:46

his counterpart his friend would

45:48

act as a president of that bank.

45:50

Part of it was he did have accounts, you

45:52

know, accounts with virtually nothing in them,

45:54

but it would be all show. He'd walk over to

45:56

a desk, where the verifier

45:58

could see Stout what was happening,

45:59

asked for a printout of all the

46:02

accounts, and then he would come back and

46:04

present the accounts to

46:06

the verifier. What the verifier didn't see is he switched envelopes

46:08

between the desk and coming back to the

46:10

conference room and looking at the counter to

46:12

show millions and millions

46:14

of dollars. that was just one of the

46:16

techniques they used in showing investors that we have this money, this is money

46:18

through the settlements, and we wanna

46:20

have some sort of financial agreement.

46:23

Yeah. That was one of the things I was gonna ask

46:25

you about because, I mean, you're talking, I

46:27

can see the Israeli

46:31

or the New York mafia not doing

46:33

due diligence because they're thinking no

46:35

one's gonna lie to us, but these

46:37

other investors, these other banks

46:40

and businesses I'm

46:42

thinking,

46:42

how did he get away with this? What

46:44

was he showing them? And most of these

46:46

big settlements that you're

46:48

talking about

46:49

usually get reported in the

46:51

paper. So it's just hard for me

46:54

to understand how so many

46:56

people believed in it. But

46:58

I guess, they depended on the fact that this

47:00

guy believes it and this guy's

47:02

smart. So if he believes it, I don't

47:04

have to do my own due

47:06

diligence. Oh, see, there he is. He

47:08

has everybody in his background. It

47:10

is all seemingly reputable people.

47:12

Political figures,

47:14

financial people. told you police officers in his office. Alright. He's got

47:16

police officers literally standing

47:18

guard in the office. Yeah. One of

47:20

the other things he did was he had

47:23

to computer guys that work for him,

47:25

they created a TD Bank

47:28

webpage, manufactured it, that he could click and

47:30

he could pull up accounts the day

47:32

of the meeting, he would make sure that the

47:34

ticker that was running in the bottom was up

47:36

to date. He would hand them a computer and

47:38

they're clicking through and they're saying, okay,

47:41

well, accounts are funded. So this seems to be a

47:44

legit deal. Yeah. There's always something going

47:46

off. Yeah. The EIT guys end up going

47:48

to prison as well,

47:50

of because they created these completely fake

47:52

bank accounts for him. And it that

47:54

was another you know, everyone has

47:56

seemed to have a line, and

47:58

it was people who were, you think, were

47:59

not criminals. They were

48:02

just regular folk. They

48:04

succumb to him, and they

48:06

believe that he

48:08

was gonna get away with it, and so they were gonna get away with

48:10

it. The power of money itself, staggering

48:12

when it's in such tremendous

48:15

amounts that he had again,

48:17

spending I I don't remember exactly how

48:19

much he spent, but it was hundreds of millions

48:21

of dollars. He spent while he was doing this.

48:23

He probably could've kept the thing going on.

48:25

for a little longer. It was amazing how

48:27

long he did keep it going. It was

48:29

one miracle after another. Rich

48:32

touched

48:32

on this show. It was basically

48:35

an act. that he produced for potential

48:37

investors inside the bank. With

48:39

his friend, Steve Caputti, who,

48:41

you know, he was a he was a bar owner. He was

48:43

a club owner. he would have

48:46

Steve Caputo play all these

48:48

roles. And one of the roles was the bank

48:50

manager inside the bank. I

48:52

mean, think about that. he's got an

48:54

entire force going

48:56

on. And that was one of the things that distinguished

48:58

him. Nobody in the bank

49:00

knew that they were doing this

49:02

play in one of their conference rooms? It's a very good question.

49:05

And two of the bankers ended up

49:07

going to prison over this.

49:10

but exactly what they knew were not. I I don't think

49:13

Rich, I'm not sure. I'm I'm not

49:15

sure exactly what they knew, but

49:17

they definitely broke rules him

49:20

to continue operating when

49:23

they knew damn good and well

49:25

that this wasn't legit. And one

49:27

of the things that he did

49:30

was introduce them to the

49:32

rock and roll lifestyle, which was he

49:34

would buy them tickets. One of the things

49:36

that he openly advertised that he was gonna

49:38

give everyone a ticket to the good

49:40

life. And it might be a ticket to the

49:42

front row. to the best show in

49:44

town, the best seat in the best

49:46

restaurant, etcetera, etcetera. He

49:48

delivered on those things and people became

49:50

enamored of it. them feeling, oh, we're the

49:53

kings of the world. We own the world.

49:55

That was the kind of vibe that he

49:57

had at that time. It

49:59

was

49:59

a powerful powerful force, but at the same time, as I say, Rich about

50:02

his musical talent. He was also in the drama

50:04

club, in high school. Oh, I

50:07

can imagine so.

50:10

He was the director. He was putting on shows left and right

50:12

when one of the investors or

50:14

the hedge funds became concerned

50:18

And this is a really convoluted actually set

50:20

up a conference call, wasn't Zoom at

50:22

that time. He was still a conference call with

50:25

the hedge fund and the

50:28

president. of the Florida bar who he claimed was looking into

50:30

his accounts, which is why his accounts

50:32

were frozen and very convoluted

50:36

financial stuff. It wasn't the

50:38

president of the Florida Bar. It was one of

50:40

his attorneys, Christine Kiderman.

50:42

Christine Kiderman ended up going

50:44

to prison for playing

50:46

this role. rightfully so. He had people

50:48

doing crazy things all

50:50

over town in service

50:52

of this

50:54

absolutely massive crime he was pulling off.

50:56

It's insane. And none of them,

50:58

I guess, knew what the other was

51:01

doing, and they thought they just were

51:03

playing a small role. And he

51:04

wanted to keep the IRS off his

51:06

back, so he wrote a check to them. I think

51:08

it was for twenty four million dollars. because he's afraid

51:11

he's gonna get audited. He gave the IRS plunging money. Wow. Yeah. This

51:13

is, like, a prepayment for

51:16

taxes? He

51:16

exactly. Exactly. prepayment

51:19

for tax fraud. Wow. Let me ask you both for

51:21

question

51:21

because you talk so much

51:24

about him developing

51:26

these relationships Usually,

51:29

they were dealing with reciprocity where he

51:31

gave them stuff and then

51:33

later on called for

51:36

a favor. at something that

51:38

he'd just seen, that was his way

51:40

of doing things, of befriending

51:42

people, to false friendship.

51:44

Bob, did you ever get back

51:46

into his good graces

51:48

where you had an opportunity

51:50

to talk with him and he

51:52

tried to develop a friendship with you. And then, of course, Richard, I'm

51:54

gonna ask you that question because I

51:56

think your answers will be

51:58

very interesting. Jerri

52:00

Bob, other than him trying to sue you

52:02

and ruin your life, did you ever

52:04

have a chance to talk to him

52:06

after he was caught and interview

52:08

him about

52:10

his activities. Well, one of the things about Rothstein

52:12

is that he's

52:13

totally material

52:16

and hectic.

52:17

when he

52:18

was attacking me on the phone and claiming

52:20

he was gonna destroy my life and bury

52:22

me in depositions and all this and

52:24

take my house and everything else,

52:27

he would go back and forth and he would

52:29

scream and then, like, a light switch.

52:31

You would be calm and say, can we

52:33

be friends now? He was always, like, Let's

52:35

be frank. He wanted to be friends. FBI would love

52:38

to have the meaty in his pocket, like he had

52:40

everybody else in his pocket. That

52:42

was

52:44

always extended. did

52:44

he try to bribe you, give you anything, offer

52:46

you something? Because he's threatening you

52:48

as one method of getting you

52:52

to stop writing these negative stories, but it sounds like

52:54

his real gift in

52:56

life is doing the

52:58

opposite, is giving you stuff

53:00

money, gifts, in order to get you

53:02

to stop doing negative stories

53:04

about him. Did he ever do that? Try to

53:06

bribe you. No. I I

53:07

think he knew better. than

53:09

that. He was going the other extreme. When I look back

53:11

at this and even at the time, I knew he had all

53:13

these close relationships with police officers

53:16

and this was getting so heated the thought crossed my

53:18

mind. I I'm gonna get pulled over, you know, and

53:20

there's gonna be something in my car that wasn't

53:22

in there before. That's what I thought was

53:24

gonna happen. and I did come to

53:26

find out from an associate of

53:28

his kind of on the wrong side of

53:30

the law. I've guide

53:32

from Southie Boston that he had called him in and talked

53:34

about actually offing me. And

53:36

that he said, no, I'm not I can't. I'm not gonna do

53:38

that. You know, he's got kids. You're crazy.

53:40

There's way.

53:42

but that's how far it went with him. I don't think he knew how to deal

53:44

with me. But after this huge blow up that

53:46

he had, I did a story about

53:49

that blow up. And that story got tremendous attention. This is

53:51

a month before he fled town. And

53:54

he called me up, and he was like, let's just

53:56

put this

53:58

behind us. I got bigger fish to fry, and he also

54:00

made a really weird claim that one of

54:02

my fans had called him up that

54:04

morning and threatened to kill

54:06

him, which I don't even I don't

54:08

believe that. It's just, like, it just didn't

54:10

make any sense. It's a Rothstein

54:12

fiction to add drama and

54:14

weirdness to the situation. I think,

54:16

like, certain political figures that we've seen here

54:18

recently, he thrived on chaos. He just

54:20

absolutely thrived on chaos.

54:22

The more the better. So

54:25

no, he never tried to bribe me, and we never really became friends. But

54:27

after, I mean, friends, friendly

54:30

or not

54:32

at war. after he

54:34

fled and I got the tip, I

54:36

called him and I just wanted to confirm

54:38

he was in Morocco. He picks up the phone

54:40

and he's like, he's talking to me. for just a little

54:42

while, I can tell he's in the street and I hear

54:44

foreign voices. That's all I could pick

54:46

up. And then we lost the connection, but he

54:48

was gonna talk to me. This was all

54:50

a game to him. You understand? This

54:52

was all a show. I don't know that he

54:54

had hard feelings against anybody. I

54:56

mean, it was just he knew that he

54:58

was the the master, criminal,

55:00

and all of this. He did

55:01

and said what he needed to do and

55:03

say in order to get his way.

55:05

Richard, tell me about your relationship

55:08

because it sounds like since you're in

55:10

charge of debriefing

55:12

him and going after

55:14

all of the people that helped

55:16

him with his scheme that you

55:18

spent a lot of time

55:20

with this guy. Yeah. I

55:21

spent off and on five years with him.

55:24

What'd you say? It was

55:26

friendly, cordial. I don't

55:28

know the Scott Rothstein that Bob's describing and that other

55:30

people describe. I haven't dealt with

55:32

this angry guy. It's things where it

55:34

could be different. We would we have a

55:36

friendly relationship. and

55:38

we do and we do this thing. I still communicate with them

55:40

often. Our relationship is friendly

55:42

and it's generally funny. It's generally

55:46

something, you know, we joke. We talk about

55:48

our lives now, and it's just it's

55:50

strange. It's just a it's a strange

55:52

but I think also too that agents who work

55:54

with sources who are on the wrong

55:56

side of the tracks, they have that

55:58

weird relationship that any other circumstance

56:00

would never place them together.

56:02

Aside from the fact that they did something wrong

56:04

and other jammed up. I don't know if that really

56:06

explains it. You were actually working.

56:08

You had the same goal. You were

56:10

a team. you Rothstein became

56:12

this two man team to try to bring down these corrupts

56:16

folks. Right?

56:17

Yeah. I agree with that. And as long as that person is working

56:20

for the government, you're doing

56:22

everything that you can to make those

56:24

cases and also to

56:26

minimize their time. I know what you

56:28

mean, but if you could explain -- Sure. -- what you

56:30

mean by minimize their time?

56:32

Well, minimizing exposure. So a

56:34

person who is under

56:36

investigation who faces

56:38

some sort of federal time in

56:40

prison. Generally, they're looking more often

56:42

than not and to cooperate. And

56:45

through their cooperation, the judge can be more lenient on

56:47

the sentence and reduce

56:50

exposure on fortunately for him,

56:52

it didn't happen in this case. He

56:54

got sentenced to fifty years in

56:56

prison. And while in

56:58

prison, it started to

57:00

come out. through other sources that he had been hiding

57:02

money and lying to the government. So

57:04

he jeopardized the down

57:06

departure in a sentence because lying

57:08

to the government government didn't

57:10

feel like there was any reason to

57:12

honor their agreement because he didn't meet

57:14

his agreement. Now he's serving

57:16

fifty years. Will he ever get

57:18

out of jail? Well, I

57:20

don't know. How old is he? He

57:22

was born in sixty two, I think. So

57:24

what does that put him that puts him sixty.

57:26

Yeah. He just turned sixty. And he's got ten years in, so do

57:29

the math. Yeah. He he really

57:31

messed up. He was married

57:33

to Kim, Ross steam. This

57:36

sort of trophy second

57:38

wife beautiful blonde who

57:40

was kind of this queen,

57:42

he turned into

57:44

the of Fort Lauderdale that he collected watches. He had

57:46

millions of dollars in watches and

57:48

millions of dollars in And he

57:50

instructed his

57:52

wife to take a few diamonds and secret

57:54

them away. And she

57:57

ended up getting

58:00

Scott. trying to essentially fence him, and

58:02

he initially lied about

58:04

the dishonesty. And Rich can talk about

58:07

this. It not destroyed his chance of getting a

58:10

downward departure, but it also

58:12

hurt the case a lot in the rich because, I mean,

58:14

then you couldn't they were never gonna use

58:16

him as a witness after that?

58:18

Yeah. He was I think he was

58:20

borderline a witness, but that

58:22

really just took care of it. The government can

58:24

never produce them as a witness for any of

58:26

the cases. Ironically, for

58:28

the Kitimat trial, the one where she

58:30

said she was a president of the Bar Association, she

58:32

had plead not guilty and gone to

58:34

trial. and the defense had

58:37

brought Rothstein as a

58:39

witness against the government. And

58:41

his testimony was just

58:43

so incredible and believable that it didn't

58:45

help her and she ultimately got convicted. Oh, yeah. He was

58:47

a master witness. Everything that

58:50

he brought to the table

58:52

in terms of crime he could bring into the

58:54

courtroom, in terms of his resourceful thinking

58:56

and his

58:58

convincing attitude. he just had an ability to persuade. This is the

59:00

Christina Kitterman trial. And she

59:02

went to prison, and it was typical

59:04

Rothstein. Not only was

59:06

it this legal

59:08

corruption and other forms of corruption, but

59:10

also it was very Jerri. That's

59:12

where he talked about having an affair

59:14

with Christina Kiderman introducing her

59:16

to mobsters, bulk parties,

59:18

all of these things. So it was just microcosm

59:20

of the entire case. and

59:22

it was sort of what I think the government was

59:25

dealing with. I wonder if they had decided to

59:27

use him as a witness

59:30

Wow. I mean, the kind of cases that we would have seen.

59:32

We would have seen judges on trial.

59:34

We would have seen more police officers

59:36

on trial. We would have seen politicians

59:40

on trial. Isn't that right, Rich? I

59:42

mean, if they had gone full Lawrence and we're

59:44

gonna use him. Initially, in the

59:46

beginning, one of the things

59:48

that I suggest and thought was and and report it back to the

59:50

offices. We actually need to create a

59:52

squad just to go handle these leads.

59:54

Yeah, that

59:56

never happened. never happened. So I'm I'm working, I

59:58

think, four PC cases

59:59

related to roasting at one time, and

1:00:02

then I'm getting called to go work something

1:00:04

else as

1:00:06

well. you know, here go take a look at this too. I was told this once.

1:00:08

I had a meeting and I was told

1:00:10

the SEC, this is running into year

1:00:12

two and three. He says, my manager's

1:00:16

telling me that the SAC doesn't wanna hear another word about

1:00:18

Rosty. It just became

1:00:20

frustrating. I have

1:00:20

to say this because I

1:00:23

try to thank like all of

1:00:25

the listeners. And the

1:00:28

roadblocks that you were getting kind of

1:00:30

makes me think and I hate to say

1:00:32

this, but kinda makes me think that there were some very

1:00:34

powerful people Jerri we know they all

1:00:36

knew Rothstein and they were certainly

1:00:38

afraid of what he had

1:00:40

to say. but there may

1:00:42

have been a lot of powerful people who were putting pressure on

1:00:44

some of the management there

1:00:46

in Miami not to look too

1:00:50

closely at this case. And I hate to say that, Stout,

1:00:53

this sounds so strange.

1:00:55

My response to

1:00:58

that is I don't think that's assessment's correct. I

1:01:00

think and you'll agree with this

1:01:02

that with the

1:01:04

SCS or the people,

1:01:06

asexual, they they cycle in and

1:01:08

out. They just are really

1:01:10

not as close to the

1:01:12

community as we would like them

1:01:14

to be, then you gotta think about the

1:01:16

talent that's managing mid

1:01:18

level and some of the things I told

1:01:20

you anecdotally. I mean, I could see it

1:01:22

from my side. They just want numbers. They just

1:01:24

want the numbers. FBI is good

1:01:26

at coming out of the box and going after

1:01:28

things. But longer term, you know,

1:01:30

six months and beyond, that case is pretty

1:01:32

much forgotten and it's off to the new

1:01:34

case. I will say this, and by

1:01:36

no way do I want to give the impression that

1:01:38

it's just me working the case. When

1:01:40

this case blew up. The whole office was responding. We had put

1:01:42

together administratively taped teams

1:01:44

were being called in to go through the hundreds

1:01:46

of thousands of emails that

1:01:49

Rothstein or the law firm had, and there was a white collar

1:01:51

squad that was looking at the asset

1:01:53

for future angle. there's

1:01:56

my friend Jerri Hester and Dave Roberts who were looking at the OC angle,

1:01:59

and then public corruption, there was people

1:02:01

that came and went that were helping

1:02:03

me do the PC stuff. Stout

1:02:06

it's funny. I was on that case from the very beginning, and

1:02:08

then I went over to tech, but I

1:02:10

was still going out and doing interviews.

1:02:13

and when people cooperate, guys going there because I pretty

1:02:16

much knew everything that was going on.

1:02:18

And there was a friend of mine who

1:02:20

was a very

1:02:22

hardworking agent He'd spent a couple of years, two or three years working the case. He calls me

1:02:24

and he goes, hey, just wanna let you know.

1:02:26

Director Comey called me and and thank

1:02:28

me for doing such a good

1:02:30

job on

1:02:32

that case. I'm like Man, I'm like I'm

1:02:34

like you gotta be kidding

1:02:36

me. No call. You got no

1:02:38

call. I got hey. You know what I got

1:02:40

at your years, I got I

1:02:42

got an eight hour time awful war. That's

1:02:44

what I got. And and a lot

1:02:46

of people around me

1:02:48

got promoted. Alright,

1:02:49

before we wrap everything up, you said something

1:02:51

at the beginning that

1:02:53

was very interesting. Jerri, I

1:02:56

know that the maid of

1:02:58

victims received

1:03:00

a lot of restitution Stout.

1:03:04

which was surprising. Now they didn't get the money back that they

1:03:06

thought they had invested and were gonna make

1:03:08

interest and dividends on, but they did

1:03:11

a lot of them got a good portion of their

1:03:14

initial investment. And you're

1:03:16

telling me that in this

1:03:18

particular case, Ponzi Scheme received

1:03:20

restitution? Yeah. The government

1:03:22

went after

1:03:23

TD Bank because

1:03:26

TD Bank had just so much exposure in the case with the connections between

1:03:28

the bank and Rothstein. And I forget

1:03:31

the amount When we say two billion dollars,

1:03:33

a lot of that money was

1:03:36

recycled money. It was investments time and time again.

1:03:38

The money that was returned was

1:03:40

in the the higher millions. I

1:03:42

just I don't remember the number

1:03:44

It was hundreds of millions of dollars, and

1:03:47

it and it actually did make those

1:03:49

investors whole. And it was because of

1:03:51

the corruption in the bank. and it was also

1:03:53

because of some really tenacious attorneys and some

1:03:55

very well heal clients. have

1:03:57

to understand it's hard to

1:03:59

have too much sympathy

1:04:02

for a lot of these investors who

1:04:04

lost their money. Number one, they're super

1:04:06

rich people. And number two, they should have

1:04:08

known better. from the very

1:04:10

beginning. And they put a lot of money

1:04:12

into getting their money

1:04:13

back on the point that you've brought

1:04:15

about potential political pressure. We don't

1:04:17

know if there was political pressure, but there

1:04:20

could have been I mean, you have US

1:04:22

senators, you had McCain, you

1:04:24

had the governor, You had

1:04:26

very powerful people who were

1:04:28

deeply involved with Rothstein.

1:04:30

And I wouldn't think it would go to the FBI.

1:04:32

I think would if that was gonna be exerted in

1:04:34

some way, it may be very subtle and nothing it would be at the US attorney's office, which

1:04:36

is FBI, honestly, a more political institution

1:04:39

than the actual FBI I

1:04:43

think there could least perceived like danger. Obviously,

1:04:45

there's trepidation when you're going after

1:04:47

very powerful figures.

1:04:51

by law enforcement, the US attorneys are

1:04:53

it's just natural. Public corruption cases are tough

1:04:55

because they know they're gonna have the best lawyers.

1:04:57

They're gonna come with a

1:04:59

full that's gonna be very well publicized.

1:05:01

So I think that might have played

1:05:04

into sort of, let's dial

1:05:06

it back. Meanwhile, you

1:05:08

had out there, this

1:05:10

wildcard who was doing all this

1:05:12

amazing investigation

1:05:14

that ultimately, he made tremendous successes.

1:05:16

Lieutenant Benjamin would never

1:05:18

have been arrested without him.

1:05:22

Pool the detective never would have been arrested without him. There's

1:05:24

a slew of those folks, but he didn't

1:05:26

say it, but he made a very credible

1:05:28

case that

1:05:30

a judge took a payoff, and that never

1:05:32

went anywhere. I think if you would have

1:05:34

had more support and that you would have

1:05:37

gotten that team wanted that we could have seen

1:05:39

real justice in the case. We there's a lot of

1:05:41

justice here. There is. Rothstein's put away,

1:05:44

thirty other people put away. I mean,

1:05:46

you can't really fault it too much, but the crazy part is it

1:05:48

could have been so much more. Rich was out there in

1:05:50

the wilderness. I give him all kinds of

1:05:52

props for the work

1:05:54

he did. And

1:05:55

so the other

1:05:57

option, as we've stated, that

1:05:59

this case didn't move forward

1:06:02

in looking

1:06:04

at additional subjects and people involved was

1:06:06

because there's so many more

1:06:08

victims out there and they were just ready

1:06:10

for you to move on. Yep. That's a

1:06:12

good assessment.

1:06:12

that's good assessment Alright, so

1:06:14

we have covered so

1:06:16

much in this case review, but

1:06:18

I know for a fact that there

1:06:22

are so many other stories fascinating, interesting,

1:06:24

weird stories that we could

1:06:26

have also spoken But luckily,

1:06:28

for all of us, you both

1:06:31

are currently working on a true

1:06:33

crime story about this case,

1:06:36

about the Ponzi scheme,

1:06:38

about Scott Rothstein, and book

1:06:40

is going to be called a great

1:06:42

fall. So when will we

1:06:44

see it published? Or is that the state

1:06:46

or stage that you're in right

1:06:49

now? Well, right

1:06:49

we're developing it with a

1:06:52

production company, and we're

1:06:54

working on that. That's sort of

1:06:57

the primary focus right now is the spucci

1:06:59

productions, which is up and coming

1:07:01

really great production company that wants

1:07:03

to do a limited series, and

1:07:06

that's in development. And as

1:07:08

we're working on that, we

1:07:10

are writing this book,

1:07:12

which we have the full rights to. It's

1:07:14

something that we intend

1:07:16

to have completed in

1:07:18

the next year. It's an amazing story. Rich

1:07:20

and I worked, I don't know, six

1:07:22

months solid, just putting together

1:07:24

the spine of the story. It's

1:07:27

been really amazing to work with them and to get this

1:07:29

where we have it today. And

1:07:31

hopefully, everybody's gonna know

1:07:33

those story soon. Yeah.

1:07:37

We hope. And Rich, are you

1:07:37

a And Richard

1:07:40

you are you telling your

1:07:42

story, your part to Bob, and and Bob

1:07:44

is using

1:07:46

his skills to get it on I think

1:07:48

I'm a great writer. Bob doesn't

1:07:51

really

1:07:51

think that. No.

1:07:55

I I listen, the details

1:07:57

and timelines I'm I'm good at and

1:07:59

the personal stories

1:08:02

Bob writes has a better flow about him and he's got a better eye

1:08:04

on the introduction of characters

1:08:06

into the story. So I'd always defer to

1:08:08

him because

1:08:10

he's always pointing that quality of type writing where mine has been more

1:08:12

just the facts, investigating

1:08:14

based stuff. We'll look out

1:08:17

for both the

1:08:18

limited series and for the book in the future. And

1:08:20

just make sure you

1:08:23

let me know when those

1:08:25

are available for us to watch and read. Of course, we are

1:08:27

now at the

1:08:29

part of

1:08:32

the episode where

1:08:34

I like to ask my retired agent

1:08:36

guest when and why they

1:08:38

joined the FBI. So, Rich,

1:08:41

what's your story? It

1:08:42

was a natural evolution. I

1:08:44

began my career as a deputy sheriff, and

1:08:46

then I was a state trooper posted

1:08:48

just outside of Quantico. So one day,

1:08:50

I'm I'm reading a story and reader's Digest about

1:08:52

Hogan's Alley. One day, I'm I'm working, and this was obviously four

1:08:54

nine eleven. I drove up to the FBI gate

1:08:59

and asked if I could drive around and check out Houghton's alley. So I'm on

1:09:01

duty. I'm in my patrol car and they

1:09:03

let me in, something they

1:09:05

would never do. No. And also because I was

1:09:07

based outside Quantico, I had the opportunity to

1:09:09

meet agents and employees who worked there. And

1:09:11

over time, a couple of them had told

1:09:14

me to apply, so I did. was in early ninety seven. So October,

1:09:16

I was in new agents class, and

1:09:18

that itself was sort of ironic because

1:09:21

the day I left Quantico, I guess my wife could

1:09:23

buy extensively for four months, and then I

1:09:25

drove fifty minutes down the road, and I'm

1:09:28

in the academy parking

1:09:30

lot. definitely

1:09:30

a different ride

1:09:32

to Quantico than most

1:09:34

other people have. Alright. So

1:09:37

I know during your

1:09:39

career, you not only work these type of corruption

1:09:41

cases, but you were a big

1:09:43

SWAT guy too and

1:09:45

did a lot of

1:09:48

international assignments how did you

1:09:50

utilize those skills when you retired? And when did you retire?

1:09:53

What are you

1:09:56

doing now? I

1:09:56

retired in April of twenty nineteen. And keep

1:09:58

in mind, I was in the tech department the latter

1:10:02

half of my career. I of TSCM program,

1:10:05

the technical surveillance countermeasures

1:10:08

program in Miami.

1:10:10

Went to some schools for that. And and from that, I created

1:10:12

a security management company that

1:10:14

specializes in technical attacks. My

1:10:16

company, my staff, we utilize

1:10:19

tools and equipment for technical surveillance

1:10:21

detection like bugs, trackers, hidden malware. We also offer training and

1:10:23

advice to our clients

1:10:27

to mitigate attacks. that's how

1:10:29

I'm spending my retirement in a job. I really enjoyed doing a job I created. I'm

1:10:31

meeting all sorts of

1:10:34

people in different places.

1:10:37

What's

1:10:37

the name of your

1:10:39

company? My company is stout security consultants. It's

1:10:40

Stout insurance company

1:10:42

in that state of Florida.

1:10:45

Stout.

1:10:46

And I will put a link to

1:10:48

the company and the show

1:10:50

notes on my website for

1:10:53

this episode. Excellent. The next

1:10:56

standard thing I do for every episode

1:10:58

is to give my guess the last

1:11:00

word I'm gonna

1:11:02

ask Bob to tell us what he would like for us to know about this case,

1:11:05

our investigative

1:11:08

journalism, or whatever

1:11:10

he wants to talk about. And then,

1:11:12

Rich, I'll ask you to end the episode with

1:11:14

your last words of wisdom. So Bob?

1:11:18

Yeah.

1:11:18

I think when you look at this

1:11:20

case, you see dozens

1:11:22

of people who really

1:11:24

found that line that they

1:11:27

were willing to cross. to go to the

1:11:29

dark side. And it's very interesting when you look at what that line

1:11:31

is for people, how far, how much

1:11:34

they needed to get to

1:11:36

cross the line and how far they were willing to go.

1:11:39

And some went all the way to prison. I

1:11:41

think the real

1:11:43

lesson that I see from

1:11:45

this case and that can be

1:11:47

applied to anyone is that greed, you think pay most

1:11:51

of the time it doesn't.

1:11:53

It's gonna be a scam. It's gonna be a con. Or

1:11:55

if you're gonna actually

1:11:56

commit immoral

1:11:59

unethical acts and the pursuit

1:12:02

of it, you're probably gonna end up getting caught because whoever you're doing that in the service of, they're probably

1:12:04

gonna be caught and

1:12:06

they're gonna come after you.

1:12:09

I think that the moral of this

1:12:11

story is do the right thing. It sounds trite, exactly what you find. It's

1:12:14

like, don't go to the dark

1:12:16

side.

1:12:18

and ranch. My advice is to the new

1:12:21

agents that are coming, not only the FBI,

1:12:23

but any of these investigative agencies,

1:12:25

and that's not to sit at the

1:12:27

desk for phone need to go They need

1:12:29

to learn their community. Spend time with

1:12:31

US attorney's office. State

1:12:34

attorney's office. Spend time

1:12:36

just meeting people in any capacity

1:12:38

they can and just understanding how the community works. It just seems

1:12:40

now that our agency

1:12:43

wants their agents desk found

1:12:46

taking virtual classes and responding

1:12:48

to information coming down from headquarters. It's

1:12:51

really not a good way to

1:12:53

develop. It's to actually go out and

1:12:55

be part of cases that are being tried, testifying in interviewing people, and

1:12:58

then working these collateral

1:13:00

duties. those

1:13:02

collateral duties help you in your investigative

1:13:04

talent. Invest in the thrift early. Tell

1:13:07

new agents, invest in the thrift early, it'll

1:13:09

it'll pay off in the end. Go

1:13:11

by fast. And that's the end

1:13:13

of the interview. In your

1:13:15

podcast app's description of

1:13:18

this episode, You'll find a link to jerry williams dot com

1:13:20

Jerri the show notes where you'll

1:13:23

find a photo of Rich

1:13:26

Stout and Bob Norman, links

1:13:28

to several articles about Scott Rothstein and

1:13:30

this billion dollar ponzi scheme case and

1:13:32

a link to where you'll

1:13:35

find more FBI retired FBI

1:13:38

fall review episodes featuring Ponzi

1:13:41

schemes and frauds. I

1:13:43

hope you enjoyed the interview

1:13:45

and that you'll share it with your

1:13:47

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1:13:50

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1:13:53

There's a link in your

1:13:55

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1:13:59

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1:14:02

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1:14:06

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1:15:00

end. I hope you come back

1:15:02

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1:15:05

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1:15:07

Williams. Thank you.

1:15:08

thank you