What is a sovereign citizen? American Sovereign citizens believe that the laws of the United States do not apply to them. Therefore, no authority should tell them what to do: not judges, lawmakers, lawyers, or police officers. Oh, and they don't pay taxes either. Sounds crazy, right? It would be crazy if they didn't get away with it so often. ________ Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at [email protected]. For more episodes like this, visit pretendradio.org. To get ear...
Aug 04, 2021•44 min•Season 8Ep. 1
This is the very first episode I recorded for PRETEND. Hear how a small-time crook went from breaking into houses to running a phony medical clinic. ------- FEATURING: Follow the Truth Podcast Trailer In 1993, James Jordan, father of NBA legend Michael, was murdered in NC. Was the wrong man convicted of pulling the trigger? E1 and E2 release date: 7/22/21 Check out Follow the Truth Podcast: https://t.co/b4grdGjwJp?amp=1 ________ Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at javier@pr...
Jul 20, 2021•48 min•Season 7Ep. 15
This week, we revisit one of PRETEND's most popular episodes. It's called the Hijacker and it's a collaboration with my friend Chris Knittel. Hear Martin McNally describe the day he hijacked a plane. ________ Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at [email protected]. For more episodes like this, visit pretendradio.org. To get early releases and bonus episodes, go to pretendradio.org/donate Today's episode was written and edited by Javier Leiva Learn more about your ad cho...
Jul 06, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 7Ep. 14
Jules Hannaford from the Fool Me Twice podcast joins me to talk about 4 years of PRETEND. ________ Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at [email protected]. For more episodes like this, visit pretendradio.org. To get early releases and bonus episodes, go to pretendradio.org/donate Today's episode was written and edited by Javier Leiva Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 22, 2021•30 min•Season 7Ep. 13
The Sham vol.1 This week, I turn the mic over to you. Two listeners share stories about their run-in with a con artist. Our first story is from a long-time listener named Paul Schiffbauer Jr. He tells us about the time he learned the truth about the family business. Our second story is about a listener whose con artist husband destroyed her life. Links from the episode: Amusement Only by Paul Schiffbauer Sr. https://amzn.to/3uxsbto Do you have a story to share? Leave me a voicemail 919-444-2800 ...
May 11, 2021•36 min•Season 7Ep. 10
There are two sides to Billy. There's Billy, who just wants to do the right thing. And then there's the criminal lurking from within. So which way did he go? Did Billy end up becoming a criminal? Or did he choose to be the good guy in his own story? Well, he decided to do both. If you've listened to this show long enough, you know I go to great lengths to fact-check my episodes. But today is different because it's tough to corroborate Billy's stories. And that's okay. One of my favorite movies i...
Apr 27, 2021•32 min•Season 7Ep. 9
This week's episode is actually the first episode of my other podcast CRIMINAL CONDUCT. I wanted you, PRETEND listeners to get a sneak peek before it's debut on April 16th. If you like this episode, subscribe to the CRIMINAL CONDUCT feed to listen to the full episode. -------- Criminal Conduct is back with a brand new case. This season, John and Javier investigate a rogue constable in Kentucky who is accused of planting drugs, stealing money, and shaking people down. Like a police officer, a con...
Apr 13, 2021•43 min•Season 7Ep. 8
Doug Williams, the former Oklahoma City police officer who is best known for his crusade against the polygraph industry, teaches an undercover federal agent how to beat the lie detector test. The agent confessed that he had sex with a minor and was smuggling drugs into a prison. Should Doug Williams continue the training? What if Doug William's techniques get into the wrong hands? Watch the undercover sting on YouTube. ________ Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at javier@pre...
Mar 30, 2021•51 min•Season 7Ep. 7
Learn how to cheat a polygraph test. Ex-cop, Doug Williams, says it's a lot easier than you think. Doug Williams is looking over his shoulder because, since 1979, he's been on a crusade to defeat the polygraph machine. In 1996, he started a website called polygraph.com, offering a handbook and one-on-one training teaching people how to pass the test. "There is no Pinocchio response. Your nose does not grow when you lie." - Doug Williams, polygraph critic According to Doug Williams, a lie detecto...
Mar 16, 2021•48 min•Season 7Ep. 6
If you haven't listened to The Prophet series, start here: http://pretendradio.org/the-prophet-word-of-faith-fellowship-revisited/ When I first started this podcast, I reported on a secretive church located in the foothills in western North Carolina called the Word of Faith Fellowship. The church is accused of being a cult and separating families—forcing them to break ties with non-believers. One teenager named Matthew Fenner pressed charges against five church ministers because he said they bea...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Tori Telfer, author of Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion joins us to talk about female con artists. Today, we're focusing on one of the women in her book—Bonny Lee Bakley, the wife of Hollywood actor Robert Blake. ______ Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at [email protected]. For more episodes like this, visit pretendradio.org. To get early releases and bonus episodes, go to pretendradio.org/donate Today's episode was wr...
Feb 16, 2021•31 min•Season 7Ep. 4
In today's episode, we're going to take another look at the opioid crisis, but this time from a pharmacist's perspective. But this is not just any pharmacist. Dan Schneider is a vigilante who helped bring down his son's killer, a pill mill, and one of Earth's largest pharmaceutical companies. Watch the Pharmacist on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81002576 ______ Today's episode was written by Javier Leiva and edited by Logan Castrodale. ______ Story idea? If you have a story to share, em...
Feb 02, 2021•43 min•Season 7Ep. 3
A doctor caught trading prescriptions for cash leaves a trail of bodies behind. A respected anesthesiologist ran a pain-management clinic on the weekends out of a basement in Flushing Queens, New York. Each Saturday, Dr. Stan Li saw more than seventy patients a day, writing prescriptions for Oxycontin, Xanax, and other opioids. Today's episode features Charlotte Bismuth, author of Bad Medicine. Links Here's a link to the Birth of a Con Man series. Also, subscribe to the new PRETEND YouTube chann...
Jan 19, 2021•47 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Johnny Depp played Donnie Brasco in the Academy Award-nominated film. But the real-life story of Donnie Brasco is even more fascinating. Joe Pistone, an FBI agent, went deep undercover as Brasco and spent six years inside the Bonanno and Columbo crime families. The movie, if you remember, starts with Joe Pistone immediately infiltrating with the mob. In today's episode, we will talk about everything that happened before the movie even begins. What was Donnie Brasco's backstory? Where did he come...
Jan 04, 2021•56 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Brian Earl with the Christmas Past podcast shares a Christmas story you’ve probably never heard before. In the early 1900s, children’s letters to Santa Claus never made it to the North Pole. They landed in the dead letter office and were eventually destroyed. But along came John Gluck, a hustler who took these letters to Santa and turned it into an opportunity to get rich and famous. It’s the strange and true story of government agents, spies, an art thief, U.S. presidents, and gun-toting boy sc...
Dec 22, 2020•47 min•Season 6Ep. 11
Remember when we used to go out to parties? Well, since you can't really go out these days, today we're going to celebrate together. In this episode we're talking about party crashers. Act 1: How to crash a party Our first story is about the art of crashing a party. What do you need to do to attend a party you weren't invited to without ever getting caught? Megan Gillikin a wedding planner and the host of the Wedding for Real Podcast shows us how. Act 2: The White House party crashers Our second...
Dec 09, 2020•43 min•Season 6Ep. 10
A real-life Indiana Jones? The word on the street is that Michael Torres is Ph.D. by day and a treasure hunter by night. Torres claims he has an aeronautical engineering degree from Duke University. Don’t believe him? He has a photo of his diploma. Michael Torres also claims to have taught at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He has the library card to prove it. When he’s not in the classroom, Torres is out looking for treasure. He claims he raided catacombs in Turkey, he’s recovered one of Sir Francis Dr...
Nov 25, 2020•49 min•Season 6Ep. 9
In this episode, Michael Torres discovers "a mass Jewish grave." But is it what he thinks it is? And I talk to the CEO of Seafarer Exploration to figure out why he hasn't found a single treasure in 13 years. ------- Story idea? If you have a story to share, email Javier at [email protected]. For more episodes like this visit pretendradio.org. To get early releases and bonus episodes go to pretendradio.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 6Ep. 8
A modern-day pirate Michael Torres is a self-proclaimed pirate. He says his most recent finds include the crown jewels of a pre-Incan civilization, a missing colonial settlement, and a desecrated Jewish burial site at Bonaventure cemetery. These larger-than-life discoveries have come into question. In today’s episode, we’ll follow the evidence to separate fact from fiction. Seafarer Exploration Michael Torres is currently being sued by Seafarer Exploration, a treasure salvage company. The compan...
Oct 30, 2020•49 min•Season 6Ep. 7
A Florida treasure-hunting CEO says he was tricked by a conman. Seafarer Exploration, a treasure salvage company, has spent the last 13 years trying to find a 300-year-old Spanish galleon sunken off the coast of Florida. A galleon is a large sailboat, with multiple leveled decks, and 3 or 4 masts. These ships were designed to carry large treasures found in the new world and bring them back to Spain. Lost treasure In 1715, a Spanish fleet loaded up with silver departed from Havana, Cuba. Seven da...
Oct 16, 2020•42 min•Season 6Ep. 6
A man says his best friend scammed him out of almost $100,000. Now, he's getting revenge. Jonathan Walton fell for the oldest trick in the book. He said, “It wasn't some Nigerian Prince emailing me in my spam folder. It was a living, breathing, lovable woman.” That lovable woman’s name is Mair Smyth. She’s also known as Marianne Smyth, or Marianne Andle, or Marianne Welch. She has 23 known aliases. The way Johnathan Walton describes her, Marianne Smyth is a gifted con artist who brilliantly jugg...
Oct 02, 2020•53 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Confessions of a former identity thief Dartanyon A. Williams stole his parents' identities at the age of 15. Unfortunately, they weren’t his last victims. Dartanyon, who also goes by DAW, claims he has stolen thousands of identities. So many that he lost count. How to steal someone’s identity How did he do it? He had many tactics. But the most proven technique was paying off employees at restaurants, car dealerships, and tax preparation companies. These employees served as double agents. When no...
Sep 18, 2020•55 min•Season 6Ep. 4
In the last two episodes, you heard from Michael Bazzell a privacy expert whose job is to make people disappear. But who is he? Why is he so passionate about privacy? And how exactly does he make people disappear? I'm going to do my best to figure him out. It turns out Michael Bazzell eats his own dog food. He's pretty much an invisible man. I have no idea where he lives or what he looks like. I've spent hours talking to Michael these past few months hoping that he will slip up and let out some ...
Sep 04, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 6Ep. 3
In the last episode, we talked about the wrong way to disappear. Faking your own death rarely works. But did you know that there are real people out there who legitimately need to fade away into society? Who needs to disappear? There are many reasons to live anonymously. However, we’ve broken it down to four different archetypes: the executive, the celebrity, the victim, and the government employee. The executive CEOs and business executives are easy targets. They take all the credit when things...
Aug 21, 2020•46 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Did Olivia Newton-John’s Former Boyfriend Fake His Own Death?Faking your own death is almost always a bad idea. Hear the story of Patrick McDermott, Olivia Newton John’s boyfriend, who many believe staged his own death. The wrong way to disappear People have been playing dead since the beginning of time. There’s really no way of knowing for how long this has been going on. But I can imagine that the illusion of dying is closely correlated with the concept of debt. If you owe someone lots of mone...
Aug 07, 2020•42 min•Season 6Ep. 1
The COVID-19 pandemic is a conman’s Super Bowl. In times like these, when there's so much uncertainty, snake oil salesmen are ready to promise you a cure. In this episode, you'll hear from a woman who takes one of these miracle drugs. I ask her why she takes it. Special thanks to: Joe Terrell with Instrument of Mercy https://instrumentofmercy.com/ A Concerned Citizen and host of Swindled Sources: https://www.who.int/csr/don/2011_11_24/en/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/20170722143956/https:...
Jun 16, 2020•43 min•Season 5Ep. 12
COVID-19 Scams I wasn’t expecting to be back with a new PRETEND episode so soon. In fact, I’m still wrapping up the final episodes for my new show called CRIMINAL CONDUCT. But the world around us has changed. And scammers are on the prowl. If you live in the US, chances are you probably received your stimulus payment. It went either straight into your bank account through direct deposit. Or some of you may have cashed the check that you received in the mail. We’re talking about much-needed money...
May 26, 2020•38 min•Season 5Ep. 11
//Criminal Conduct debuts on March 23rd.// Get an inside look into the making of the new podcast. Thank you to Jerri Williams from FBI Retired Case File Review for helping us with this bonus episode. You can listen to the episode one now on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/posts/34832524 Subscribe to Criminal Conduct now so you won't miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 16, 2020•20 min
On September 2nd, 2010, 24 year-old Michelle O’Connell broke up with her boyfriend, St. Johns County Sheriff’s Deputy, Jeremy Banks. Minutes later, she was dead. The St. Johns Sheriff’s Office quickly ruled the case a suicide, without examining crucial forensic evidence or interviewing any key witnesses. A medical examiner ruled her death a homicide, yet other investigations failed to gain traction. Her boyfriend, Deputy Jeremy Banks was never charged and is still working as a St. Johns County S...
Feb 03, 2020•3 min
The Joe Schmo Show is a real-life Truman Show—where everyone is an actor except one unsuspecting guy. It’s a reality show within a reality show. The series everyone watched on SPIKE TV was called The Joe Schmo show. But the show Matt Kennedy Gould thought he was participating in was called The Lap of Luxury—a Big Brother style television show. He had no idea that the people he was living with were all actors. The series was created by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Deadpool). It was hosted by Ral...
Jan 14, 2020•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 10
