Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. They're specific, crimes may vary, but con artists have this one thing in common, the power of persuasion, and that power of persuasion allows them to take advantage of the rest of us. They're charismatic and intelligent, with good memories and the skills to manipulate others. They blend in, and they're diligent at appearing to be
professional and successful. But psychologists have identified that successful con artists exhibit three similar and negative characteristics, one psychopathy to narcissism, and three machiavellianism. Together, they all share malevolent features like entitled self importance, strategic exploitation and deceit, and a general
callousness and cynicism. Experts refer to these socially aversive traits as dark personality traits and believe that they are would allow con artists to scam people without feeling remorse or guilt about their actions. According to Psychology Today, to a person with Machiavellian traits, if you fell for their scam,
you deserved it. Another commonality, ego, the act of the swindle can make a con artist feel even more confident in themselves and their skills, which brings us to how and why the terms confidence artist and confidence game ever, we're coined. So we're going to meet a man named William Thompson, the man who inspired these expressions. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarqui, and I'm Holly Fry. William Thompson certainly was not the first person involved in the con game.
We can assume that people have been tricking and cheating each other, likely since they're were people to trick and cheat. We know from the historical record that serial counterfeiter and confidence man William Chaloner was proven guilty by Sir Isaac
Newton in the seventeenth century. According to the posthumous biography of Challenger, written by Goodsman read A. Vivis and published in sixte Challenger had quote the best knack at tongue pudding, and he established himself as a quack doctor and soothsayer sounds legit. In the eighteenth century, Jean de Valois Saint Remy was chief conspirator in what became known as the
Affair of the Diamond Necklace and act. Certainly, along with other factors that contributed to the start of the French Revolution, But in the eyes of criminal historians and newspaper archives, William is the reason that the term confidence man came about. William Thompson operated in New York City during the eighteen forties.
He often used aliases when introducing himself to his unsuspecting victims, including the names Samuel Thompson, James Thompson, Samuel Thomas, Samuel Powell, Samuel Williams, William Evans, Samuel Willis, William Davis, and William Brown. He was always smartly dressed, and he was always polite. He chose upper class marks and approached them with an
incredibly simple scam. He would strike up conversation with a person, and after a little bit of chit chat, when he was sure he had gained their trust, he would ask if they were confident enough in him to lend him their watch just still tomorrow. Yes, he really did ask strangers to give their watches to him, and many did. We read one slight variance in his scam among the
reports of his confidence career. He may or may not have pretended to know his mark as he began conversation with them, catching them off guard and capitalizing on our human desire to avoid awkwardness. It was best, especially on the upper class at the time, to avoid the faux pall of not remembering someone. We don't know a whole lot about William's life history. He just pops up in the historical record when he starts getting noticed, which, as
you might imagine, is not good for business. Right and William played this same con until he was spotted by a previous mark who just happened to pass him on the street. It's a little early, but before we talk about that fateful day, we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we come back, we'll tell you all about how William's scam caught up to him. Welcome back to Criminalia. Allow us to introduce you to Thomas McDonald, the man who outed William Thompson's
confidence game. Williams New York City con game came to a halt when he was spotted by a previous mark, a Mr. Thomas McDonald of to seventy Madison Street. William had on May twelve nine run his con on McDonald, taking from him a gold lover watch said to be valued at a hundred and ten dollars, and today that's equivalent to about four thousand dollars. As luck would have it.
About two months later, McDonald, while walking along Liberty Street, passed by this very same man who had stolen his watch, our William Thompson. As reported in the local city papers, McDonald alerted the police and officers Swazie of the City Police was nearby at the time. William was taken into custody, but not easily. He first refused, then put up what was reported in newspapers as a quote desperate fight before
being cuffed. When The New York Herald published a brief article about William's arrest the police Intelligence section on July nine, the headline read quote arrest of the confidence Man. And it's this report that is generally considered the first time that wording had ever been used. Later, it went on to become the catch all term con man, and today, along with confidence artist or con artist, it continues to
be used to describe fraudsters. The New York Herald's article described William and his con as so quote for the last few months, a man has been traveling about the city known as the confidence man. That is, he would go up to a perfect stranger in the street, and, being a man of genteel appearance, would easily command an interview. Upon this interview, he would say, after some little conversation, have you confidence in me to trust me with your
watch until tomorrow. The stranger at this novel request, supposing him to be some old acquaintance, not at the moment record did, allows him to take the watch, thus placing confidence in the honesty of the stranger who walks off laughing, and the other, supposing it to be a joke, allows him so to do. In this way, many have been duped. Many con artists face legal consequences on charges of fraud,
but sometimes it's theft. The difference can be subtle. Fraud is when one party knowingly misrepresents the truth or knowingly conceals material facts in order to deprive someone of a possession or right, whereas theft would be outright taking something from that person. It can be difficult to prosecute con artists criminally because they tow the line between what is unethical and what is actually illegal. A good con artist can make just about anything sound reasonable, at least in
the moment. William was seen before a Justice McGrath, who local papers reported recognized him as a prior offender. One story claimed that William had spent time incarcerated at Sing Sing, but we're unable to verify that as a fact. Justice McGrath committed William to prison until a further hearing could be held, and the New York Herald called on anyone who had been taken advantage of or defrauded by him
to come forward and testify against him. He was sentenced for theft to prison time in the Tombs, officially named the Manhattan Detention Complex. The first incarnation of the Tombs, which opened in eighteen forty in Lower Manhattan at one White Street, was called the Halls of Justice, and it was and it was constructed in the image of an
ancient Egyptian mausolea. About five months after it was built, and we should clarify, built on a pond that had been filled in with wood pilings, it began, unsurprisingly to sink when will It was incarcerated there. It was wet, dark and dank. That building was demolished in and it
was replaced with a new City jail complex. But there continues to be historical debate over whether the Tomb's got its nickname because it resembled an ancient burial chamber or because just being there felt like being in a tumbe. The New York Herald continued to cover Williams story and continued to use the new nickname they had coined for him.
A write up that appeared shortly after his arrest notice read quote, during the last week or ten days, the public have been entertained by the police reporters with several amusing descriptions of the transactions of a certain financial genius who rejoices in the sobriquet of the Confidence Man. It appears that the personage who has earned this euphonious and winning designation has been in the habit of exercising his powers and moral suasion to an extent almost equal to
that attained by Father Matthew himself. The Father Matthew in that quote was a well known temperance preacher in the mid nineteenth century, dark and dank accommodations aside. Newly crowned as the Confidence Man, William really enjoyed his celebrity, and he would schedule interviews with the press from his cell inside the tombs. One reporter later described his visit as so he was led to William cell by quote to
country looking individuals. When they arrived at the landing in the second tier, they were accosted by our hero, who sat in the keeper's chair. In this way, gentlemen, have either of you a cigar? I am the confidence Man. We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we will talk about the old saying you can't cheat an honest man, and how that's actually probably not true at all. Welcome back to criminalia. Not all cons are equal, and William Thompson
was really just small time. Let's talk about different types
of cons and who you can and can't trust. Karen halton In, professor of History and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and the author of the book Confidence Men and Painted Women, a Study of middle class culture in America eighteen eighteen seventy, notes that New York City at the time William was active, was a growing urban society, and there was an increase in wealth, especially what she calls movable wealth such as paper, currency
or jewelry. Those kinds of conditions made scams easier for opportunistic con artists like William. In fact, according to Halton, in New York police estimated during the eighteen sixties, so just a decade or so after William was arrested and sentenced to the Tombs, that one out of ten professional criminals in the city was a confidence man, and they
didn't all resemble William. James Gordon Bennett, considered the William Randolph Hurst of the Antebellum era in America, was the publisher of the New York Herald at the time of William's arrest. In his position, Bennett editorialized about the people he considered to be society's true confidence men. And it was not William or even people like William. William he called a petty swindler. It was, he wrote, quote, those
palazzos of the rich. Quote, with all their costly furniture and all their splendid equipages, have been the product of the same genius in their proprietors, which made the confidence man immortal and a prisoner at the Tombs. His genius has been employed on a small scale. There's has been employed in Wall Street long life to the real confidence man, the confidence man of Wall Street, the Confident Man of the Palace Uptown. And yes, Williams scams were small cons.
He was a small time criminal, or what was called a peanut grifter, but he became notorious around New York City, and eventually his story was told across the country. William and his case, it said, we're likely to have been the inspiration for the protagonist in Herman Melville's novel The Confidence Man His Masquerade, which was published on April Fool's
Day in eighteen fifty seven. The story takes place on a Mississippi riverboat called the Fidel, and the premise centers around a con artist who, using a variety of disguises and fake identities, attempts to scam a diverse group of steamboat passengers. One theme in the novel is the relationship between the con artists and their mark, and that the confidence game needs both the greed of the con artist and the vanity of the mark for the swindle to work.
Melville also wonders in his writing, aside from opportunism and the chance to make some quick cash, what actually motivates a swindler. As the narrator in the novel shares with us quote was the man a trickster. It must be more for love than for lucre two or three dirty dollars the motive to so many whiles. So was it the act of the con or the stolen goods that really motivated those in the game, or was it both? Some argue the old adage quote you can't cheat an
honest man. They argue that con artists should be compared to the familiar Robin Hood character, turning a con into sort of a noble grift, cheating the greedy out of their money, as only those who are greedy would be willing to skirt the law for the promise of something like money, power, you name it. The types of confidence tricks are limitless, but there are two primary categories that
they fall into, short cons and long cons. Three card Monty, for instance, is a well known street hustle, and it's a short con. It's success us is dependent on the mark wanting to win a little quick cash on a gamble, but a long con refers to a more complex, planned con, such as in a Ponzi or a pyramid scheme. In real life, it's Charles Ponzi who's considered the best and
biggest of the convent in Hollywood. We all know Robert Redford and Paul Newman's characters in The Sting, Michael Caine and Steve Martin, and dirty rotten scoundrels Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects. The fictional and nonfictional lists of swindlers are long, and in today's news we tend to hear the stories of the long cons, not those quick watch thefts with modern con artists like would be socialite and a Delvi whose real name is Amasaurkin, Elizabeth Holmes and
her fake theorised blood testing machine, and Simone Leviev. The tinder swindler Bernie made Off is a familiar name. Sylvia Brown, Robert Hendy, Freegard. Whether we talk about them in a sympathetic light or not, their antics always fascinating and grab our attention. An introduction to her book Confident Women, Swindlers, Grifters and shape Shifters of the Feminine Persuasion, author Tory Telford writes, quote, the fact that we like con artists so much is probably the greatest con of all time.
They prey on us all, yet we're still fascinated by their exploits. Experts believe it's the cleverness of a con artist that often makes them appear sympathetic to the rest of us even after the deceit has been revealed. How many people fell for the scam, We wonder how exactly did they pull it off? What happens when they get caught, what happens if they don't get caught. Their stories carry
a natural drama that we just can't resist. Maria Knakova, author of The Confidence Game, The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It every Time, said in an interview with BBC Culture that though humans have had a long fascination with con artists, quote, the explosion of social media has made conning easier. We are better targets and con artists can craft better stories and has given cons increased visibility. She continued, quote, It's easy to get
wrapped up in the glamour of the con itself. Can you believe she was able to pull that off? We begin to tow the line between telling a story of deception to admiring the person who was responsible. So, while we may be inclined to think con artists should be untrustworthy, their particular talent is actually the ability to gain the
trust of their marks exactly as William Thompson did. They exploit human desires for money, health, happiness, even the desire to help others can be exploited, and this is how William operated. Often these crimes go unreported by victims because mainly because of two things, One our embarrassment by our own complicity in an activity of dubious or criminal nature, and two our embarrassment of having fallen for the con
in the first place. The prospect of something for nothing or very little proves again and again to be so hard for humans to resist. So who do you trust, Well, Maria, you can trust me that this week's scamp sauce is delicious. It's very deserty this time. So if you were hoping for a citrus whiskey situation, that's not what you're getting.
I lured you and switched it out. So one thing I want to talk about, though, is actually a little instruction if you don't already know it, and how to make your own vanilla liqure, because that's going to be part of this one. Making your own liqueurs is very very easy. Usually it's just a combination of whatever your flavoring is, some sugar, some other alcohol, and then you
let it mix and hang out together. So in this case, here's how you make vanilla liqueur, which I know I have used things like Liqueur forty three in the show before. I'm going to use a different vanilla liqueur in this one. But you can make your own. And what's cool is you can spice them as well and make like your signature vanilla liquor. And then all your friends will be like, I had to drink at Maria's house and it was amazing. It tasted like vanilla and cardamom, and you'll be like,
mm hmmm. So here is how we're basically gonna make it. It starts with simple syrup and a vanilla bean. You're gonna put a cup of water and two cups of sugar in a saucepan. Let them warm up, get that sugar dissolved. In the meantime, you will take a vanilla bean, split it in half, and just put it in a a mason jar. You don't have to scrape it, you don't have to do anything with it. Just make your simple syrup, and then you're gonna pour that simple syrup
when it's warm. Be careful, obviously, hot things right over the vanilla bean into the jar, seal it and let it sit. I like to let that go for a while. I like to let it steep like overnight. Some people will do six or eight hours. Taste, taste it and see how it is, and then you're going to strain off that vanilla bean in any of the little inside stuff that's come out. So that's why you don't have to worry about doing anything particularly fancy with that. You'll
strain that out. And then if you just want vanilla syrup, you're done. It's amazing and you can use it in drinks or on ice cream, or just buy the spoonful to make it liqueur with it. This is when I like. You can try it with different kinds of spirits to start with. But a cup of vodka, a cup of brandy, and then a half cup of vanilla syrup that you've made. This makes a delicious vanilla liqure. And you can throw in cinnamon if you want. You could throw in a
little bit of clove. All will be careful. Clove can overwhelm. You can throw in lavender if you want to flooral vanilla licure. You can literally just play with this thing. This is a choose your own adventure. Now that you have your vanilla cure and name, whether you made it yourself, where you purchased it, it's time to make tongue pudding.
That was just there's no way that wasn't going to be the drink, and so I was, of course thinking of drinks that would be creamy, and also I wanted it to ideally have a little bit of a golden color, which is to reference the gold Watch situation, which is why we're doing vanilla liquor. Mine came out kind of more big, I'll be honest. This is also a flip. So if you're one of those people that doesn't like the egg drinks, I'm sorry. But if you are, get ready,
because this business is okay. So one whole egg into your tin, and then it's super easy because it's a three part one ounce of each of these, one ounce of gin, like a good, very neutral gin. I like to have a gin that's not too piny, one ounce of your vanilla liquor, and one ounce of Irish cream. Throw in a dash of bitters with that eye shake it so that means you're not putting ice in your tin.
Initially you are dry shaking it to get that egg super frothy, super blended with everything else you want it basically to be a super smooth situation. And then throw your ice in there and shake it up. Then you will strain it double strain it, meaning you use your hawthorn strainer or whatever you normally use, pour it through a mesh strainer as you're doing it into your ideally pre chilled glass. I like a Nick and Nora or a coope for this one. You can also add bitters
to it before you do that second shake. Delicious, and then you have a thing that's a little bit eggnoggy but also has that Irish cream flavor which has some whiskey notes to it, the vanilla flavor. It's delicious. It's tongue putting to make the mocktail. There's more recipe doings to do Irish cream. You can buy Irish cream flavored syrup, add that to some cream and you're ready to roll.
You can just use that in your thing. But if you want to make homemade Irish cream, and I will also tell you how to make your own homemade alcoholic Irish cream if you want. But this base recipe is just to make a non alcoholic one delicious. So you're gonna take a can of condensed milk, a cup of heavy cream, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a teaspoon of almond extract, one and a half tablespoons of chocolate syrup, and anywhere between a pinch and a teaspoon of instant
coffee ground can be so good. It's so easy too, because you don't have to do any stovetop anything. You throw that business in a blender, you go to town and you have Irish cream. If you want to make the alcoholic version, throw in a cup and a half of Irish whiskey, and that's essentially what Irish cream is. I don't know if people are always clocking when you drink Irish cream there's a chocolate note in it, but there is, so that's why there's That's why there's that
chocolate in there. But like with the vanilla and the almond, it just tastes like this uni beautiful little like a cookie in a cream and alcohol or not. Like I said, use it without the whiskey. You can keep that in your fridge for like a couple of weeks. Usually once you blended all of that together. Depending keep an eye your milk products obviously, So there you have your fake Irish cream. For your mock tail, I would use a thin out version of the vanilla syrup, just so it's
not quite as thick and heavy. Like literally, you can add a little bit of water to it, and then in lieu of the gin, I would do a camrameal tea and that makes a really really beautiful Oh this mocktail feels like a hug. There's something lovely about it. The thing is, when you start making things like liqueor on your own, you realize, oh, the sky's the limit. I could make a vanilla watermelon liqueur. I can make apple cinnamon liqueur or some sort of like coffee and
other fruit. Oh, a banana coffee liqueur sounds really good. I might have to get a that. Um Maria made a face that said, no, it would not be gooding bananas. Oh that's right, I forget. I was like, what have you done to that's listen? I want banana and everything that I know. Sometimes the cheese stands alone. You can have them all. So that is the tongue pudding again. The base recipe is a whole egg and ounce of gin and ounce of Irish cream and ounce of vanilla liquor.
I used Galiano, which has become my big favorite lately. But yeah, again, we're in no way sponsored by them. That's just a liqueur that I love. You can even start playing with this if you want to build your own adventure. You can use different liqueurs in lieu of the vanilla or the Irish cream. Start switching things out, get your own crazy flips going on. I love a flip. Also, obviously you can use fake egg white. If you want to do a vegan one. You can sub out any
of your non dairies for any of these two. So again, it's all about playing. Because there's no such thing as cocktail. Jail makes something delicious that tastes good to you. I love to choose your own adventure cocktails always. That's what the home bar is for. Really, let's see what happens when this happens. If you know the basics of like how a drink should balance, the rest gets real fun. What else is real fun is spending this time with you,
Maria and with our listeners. So we're very grateful that everybody has hung out with us to hear about William's story. Hopefully you will never be the victim of a con but we hope that you will hang out with us again next week, because we'll be right back here with another another con man story and another cocktail. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.