Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Elizabeth Dutton Zaren Burnette. Is so good to see you.
I know where you been.
How you been since the last time I say you. It's been a week now.
It's really sorry to hear that it's been awesome.
Oh good, Thank god it you're just messing with when.
It's not good. You make it awesome.
Oh look at you.
Every day spent above ground is a good one.
Turning broken eggs into lemonade.
For totally so juicy.
That makes anyway you what's ridiculous?
The helicopter outside the studio.
Oh, yes, they we've been listening to that air beater.
I wonder if we should go outside and make sure that they're not like ante situation.
No, I'm sure we're fine. We don't need to know anything. Ignorance is bliss.
From what I want to wind up on our show.
It comes right in live raid on Ridiculous Crime. Okay, well, I have something for you. If you got a second, sure you can just forget about the helicopter.
I can.
I want you to imagine one of the smartest men in the world I.
Didn't get to do. What's ridiculous?
Are you actually haven't. Oh well, tell me what's ridiculous.
It all on the line here. Sure, it's a mashup, all right, so just.
Calm down, okay, just over here.
This may be one of the worst ones I've ever done.
Really, you saved the best. Relax.
That's why the helicopters areund drop that. So do you remember last year I talked to you about Ago Nog sip and cream? Yeah, so it's just like agogg.
Unfortunately I do remember these things, like I wish I get to be like, no, I have no recollection.
What's Ago and Tennessee's sugar Lands Distilling Company? Oh god, they got together, they're the ones who did Ago nog. Well they came up with a new sip and yeah it's a.
New it couldn't be stopped.
It's inspired by brunch. So it's a cream liqueur called Ago Brunch in a jar.
That's funny.
And it combines the flavors of buttered and toasted a gole waffles all right, savory bacon slices, sure, and a drizzle of maple syrup.
That's all. No orange juice to make it at.
Someone if some like Arizona State Sorority Girl goes like buck wild on a brunch and just cuts it loose and then doesn't feel so hot and runs down a hot sidewalk in flip flops and then falls down and barfs in a jar. That yeah, it's my guess. Here's their quote. Between the juggle of constantly changing schedules, household errands, family outings, or busy work days, it can often feel impossible for parents to find moments they can savor for themselves.
I prefer the jiggle, the juggle. That's me.
You're jingling baby, So Joe Boprez, this is the marketing director with Ago got you know, God bless them. So, then he continued Ago Brunch in a Jar makes it easy for parents to kick back when they're not caring for their little ones. So, whether parents want to punch up a weekend brunch on a Saturday or savor some of those classic brunch flavors during their downtime, this feel good Ago inspired liqueur is the perfect treat. So you just crack a jar, put a silly straw in it.
You're waiting for the kids to come out of school, you're in the pickup line, you're just like pounding, just chugging so hard and then you figure I get pulled over. They think I've just been eating waffles.
You can't spell Sunday with that.
So it's available throughout the US. You can purchase it online in some states, and unlike Ego Nog, which only came out for the holiday season, remember around the year round. Baby, you gotta be twenty one and older, so no kids. But it's in a mason jar too, just like you hit rock Bottom. It's white and creamy. It's the perfect way drink white.
Mason jar is glass, right, drink is white.
It looks like mayonnaise.
It looks like, yeah, you're just sipping on glue.
Did you know something ago? Brunch in a jar is the perfect way to elevate weekend brunch, the fun cocktail or to enjoy classic brunch flavors during your well deserved me time in the evening.
They don't know what the word perfect means.
No, they don't. Here's the thing. Basically, they're saying parents who hate their children and love liquor drinking with some lego liquor, and that zaren is ridiculous.
That is certified.
Yeah, you know, this was kind of like mustard Skittles. We got a lot of tips on. Yeah. I can't shout out everybody because it was just weird indentated.
Can I just ask why do you people hate me? Yeah? Well, Elizabeth, I got one for you. If he got a second, I can do that. Okay, please, If you will, imagine one of the smartest men in the world. Yes, okay, Elizabeth, this man, he too, as long as he is straight, can be felled by the power of the bikini. Yes. Now, take the case of Paul Frampton, one of the most brilliant mathematical physicists alive today. He risked it all to
chase after a bikini model a lost it all. The spoiler alert turns out the bikini model was fake, but the kilos of cocaine that the world famous physics professor smuggled for her We're not wait. This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent to free and ridiculous. Yes, that's right, Elizabeth. Yes, I got a question for you, my friend. Yes, you know how I love physics.
I do know that. Actually I've seen this should.
Be scribbling and reading weird stuff. Right. Well, this cat I'm going to tell you about. He's one of my favorite theoretical physicists working today. Oh, I've read his journal papers like I'm a fan of one of them. Yeah, well he's got a lot of papers.
Well no, I'm saying you like one of your favorite the You have like a list of like four of your three favorite theoretical.
John Carlos Bays is definitely a favorite.
Was your second.
I'm not going to fall for this trap, Elizabeth my Man. Paul Frampton, Yeah all right, Peter, but yes, he also came alive for crime. He's proposed novel theories for dark matter. In his theory of dark matter, it would be attributable to primordial black holes. All words you love?
Yum?
Right, dark matter, primordial black holes.
Yes, so much sense to me.
He also this guy he created the chiral color model.
You're kidding.
Yes, he did the three three one model, which re expresses the standard model with a different algy day. He also has built models for matter antimatter asymmetry, and a binary tetrahedral group as a flavor symmetry speak English, Right, you love all this. He also, by the way, has calculated the rate of vacuum decay for the onuantum field theory, and he constructed a matrix to determine if forty two it's truly the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Oh really, no, I through that last one in there just for you. Okay, So let's say. My point is this cat Paul Frampton, major heavy hitter in the world of theoretical physics. But these days, if you google him, that's no longer the first thing that pops up. Yeah, Instead you'll see stories about the time he smuggled cocaine
for a bikini model who never really existed. Now it sucks if you're a physics academic and an academic journal like the like Advancing Physics publishes a story with the headline unc physics professor is convicted of drug smuggling and Argentina and you're the professor because now everyone in physics is gonna read this story. There's nobody doesn't know this story in his field.
Aren't those supposed to be like academic paper is not like a gossip rag?
Yeah right, yeah, exactly. The physics world, like, hey, we got one for y'all. You got to put down your tee. This is gonna be good. Okay, Elizabeth, this cat, as I told you, he can calculate dark matter and the vacuum decay rate of imaginary quasi particles. I hate somehow he couldn't see an old fashioned long con right in front of him, even when it had been a right smack on the ego. Okay, this is what happens when a middle aged man thinks that Miss Bikini World is
in love with him. Yeah. By the way, the Bikinian model in question, she is a real woman. She's not like an ai creation. Her name is Denise Mulaney. She is an internationally famous model, and uh, I want you to be able to imagine this person at the other end of his online communication. Elizabeth, this is Denise Mulani.
Oh yikes.
Yeah.
I think most men would look at that and say like or aa, or you.
Are they cartoons are cartoon wolves.
I'll just be anyone attracted to women would be like Bazonga Zonga.
Yes, she is very curvaceous. She was known for her.
Come back.
I like your cartoon wolf sexuality. Men are just reduced to like text ap and.
Then I see a guy in like short shorts and.
You're like, it's the leader hosen, that's what does it for you?
You like the spender's in something meat. No, okay, we're learning a lot about Elizabeth today. Well, this theoretical physicist Paul Frampton, he could, as I said, fully, rationally, logically believe that this woman who I just showed you reached out to him, started texting with him, and she fell in love with him.
Well, poor lady's bikini tops falling off on the beach.
Yeah, she's got too much bothosom so hard for her. Yeah, this man has three degrees from Oxford, and yet he never questioned the logic of this. Yeah, this is this is a likely not surprise you. But as I was about to say, one former student they put it, quote, women came later in Paul's life.
Oh well yeah, yeah.
Well I mean, but hey, women came later in my life, you know, ultimately, if you want to put it that way. Yeah, I wasn't married in my twenties or thirties or any of that stuff. So I can relate to Paul right now, Like you could say the same thing. So like, I don't consider myself naive about women, but this guy, apparently he was.
Well, I mean, he's focusing on building his career and his brain. Sure, and the numbers.
Well, there's more to it than that. Yeah, he's kind of her. I'll let hit people who know him better than I explain it. Before he met the fake Denise Malaney, he had been married. He got married at age fifty, and his wife was an age appropriate fifty two year old French woman. She called herself a physics groupie, so that was fun for them. She was smart, but she wasn't like you know, in Paul Frampton's league. Smart but
she He's gonna vanishingly small number of people smart. But is what ex wife did say of their relationship quote. I couldn't completely follow everything Paul said because of the mathematics, of course, But either I could understand the words, or I could just listen to the music, the music of physics.
You talk about physics exactly. I have no idea what you're saying.
Numbers and stuff. I don't know. I love that for you. You seem to really get something out of this. Eventually, this music of physics was no longer able to bond husband and wife, and a divorce it happened. So his ex wife, Anne Marie. She she said that living with Paul it was difficult in her words, right, yeah, she intimated that it was a kin to being married to a three year old.
Oh man, Yeah again, ladies, ladies, we all know about one marrying a three year old. We all been there.
Count who has dated themselves at toddler so little a little while after they parted, but then sixty four year old theoretical physicists, he wanted to find a new wife, a new partner, because he didn't want to be by himself. He tasted love, he knew what it was.
Yeah, he's three years old.
Exact one's got it dried. Someone's got to do tax reach. So he tells his friends and associates he's looking for someone news. He wants to find some lady who's in her quote prime birthing years, somewhere between the ages of eighteen and thirty five. Now keep in mind this is a sixty four year old. No, he didn't quite get into like the physiannomy what he once, but he did say he wanted, you know, like a birth and lady.
You know, he wanted to not quote that was a direct quote, but he did say he was like, I want some under prime birthing years into the scientific Imagine a scientist saying sure, of course, but also keep in mind, this is a sixty four year old divorced man saying.
This, and asaurus, oh totally totally now.
His first attempt at finding new love was a rebound, so obviously, so he found a young Chinese woman. They met online, they exchanged emails. He planned to go see her in China. It worked out that he'd be in China for work and upcoming trips, right, so he'd be near where she lived. He's going to visit a colleague in China. They arranged to meet Chakra of all chakras, Elizabeth. Because I was not expecting this, the young Chinese woman who he'd been emailing with actually agreed to meet him,
and she actually existed. Oh wow, I know, right right, But the two almost lovers they get together. They meet for an hour but sadly, Elizabeth update, no sparks.
Yeah, it just didn't happen, just didn't click.
So but luckily for old Paul. He then met the former two thousand and seven Miss Bikini World Denise Maulana. Either he met fake Denise Malania that he met, but as far as he was concerned he met Denise Mlani. Had to be fair, Denise Malani was a little older than what Paul Frampton was looking for and a partner. So, but he was willing to make an exception for the internationally famous bikini models.
Oh sure, you know, she may not be out the window.
She wasn't in her prime birthing years Elizabeth. So but he's like, and I think she's like in her late thirties. So Paul begins to tell his friends about his new online galpal, and he's like, you know, these guys all being like calculation obsessed, you know, chalkboard nerds and physicists. They have no idea who Denise Malani is so, or why she's famous anything, right, So Paul used to like to contantly tell them go look her up on the internet.
Did he like print out her picture and put it in one of those binders where you can slide a picture in the front. He keeps all those calculations and the like who's that?
Who?
Guys like, it's my gal pal, which is also you know, reproductive years, So chill.
Out look at her. I mean, look at these prime fertile hips. Now. One friend did as Paul instructed them to do. He went home, he looked her up online and he saw who Denise Mulman he was. And then he went back the next day to Paul and he told his friend, you're out of your damn mind. And he said, and I quote, and I told him that you're not talking to the real girl. Why would a young woman like that be interested in an old guy like you. But he really believed that he had a
pretty young woman who wanted to marry him. So it's not like Paul wasn't confronted with the truth. He was. It was shoved right up in his face and he was like, I'm going to ignore that. But you have to understand, this is the power of his mind. He's a genius, Elizabeth. He's also used to looking far past what was in front of him, instead preferring to chase after elusive things like dark matter or Denise Malani. So there,
his ego was also something to contend with. So, as Paul Frampton himself told The New York Times, well have been accused of having a huge ego. Now, to his credit, his ego was largely earned. I have to give him that, you know, if one can earn an ego right. He started his life in hard scrabble England. He came from what he dubbed quite a lower middle class family. His mother pushed him to achieve and she would often brag of his grades and she would show them to the neighbor.
It's like, look what my little Paul did. Did school? Right? He went off to Oxford eighteen, He gets a PhD. He goes to America. He gets a post doc at Princeton. He goes on to have this celebrated career theoretical physics. He writes a ton of papers. Now, his name may not be as famous outside of physics as say Stephen Hawking or Richard Feynman, or even somebody like Murray Gelman. I'm not sure if that one anyway. Murray Glman, he had eightieth birthday celebration and he's a Nobel laureate. He
was a Murray Galmont. He came up with the the eightfold way. No, I'm not No, I don't I understand that people wouldn't be into the core model of physics. Who came up with got a good name for TV, don't he? So they're supposed to lionize this living giant of physics, right, and Paul Frampton decides to choose to talk about himself. At one point, he said he liked to think of himself as quote cleverer than Newton, Isaac Newton. Hell yeah. He was so taken with this line. He
repeated it throughout his speech. It's supposed to be about the eightieth birthday of Marie Gellman, right, and he's exactly, He's better than fake Newton. And he keeps saying this like it's like a chorus for a pop song. He's like, I'm smarter, I'm cleverer than Newton. Right. He also mentioned his grades at Oxford, and he pointed out that he and Newton were in the top one percentile of intelligence. Yeah, exactly the same metric. It would often come up later
for Paul Frampton. When he was in prison and being interviewed by The New York Times, he gave the obvious reason for why he was behind bars being Denise Malani, and he said the quote, She's in the top one percentile of how women look. So apparently he was very preoccupied with the top one percentile. And you know, he said as much to Denise Bulani, or actually rather not Denise Malani, the one he was texting and chatting he read.
He calculated the symmetry of face.
Oh you just hang on, he told her. And I used the term lightly her, he said, quote, as these days tick by and I think about it a lot, the more I realize that we are the perfect couple in all respects, you know, just a physicist and a bikini model, perfect in all respects.
He's not three years old, he's like thirteen, exactly.
I like that he believes that he's in the top one percent of big brains. She's in the top one percent of big hotness, right, and that makes them a perfect couple. It's right there on paper calculations. Elizabeth. Admittedly, this is not where most of us think that life happens, but you know it does. Because Christy Brinkley married Billy Joel. This could happen Paul Frampton, you know he could get married to Denise Malani. Sure, I mean stranger. I liked it.
I like his way of thinking, you know, I like that he Denise Malani and Isaac Newton are all elites and they are the top one percentile. I mean, yes, Denise Malanni got into the one percent club based on her bikini pics and her big breast, but her one percentiles just as important as Paul Frampton's one percent. He's invalidating himself with his own logic.
It's true.
I love it. Anyway. We'll be back after a little break and I'll get into where the cocaine comes into this story.
Oh I can't wait.
All right, Elizabeth, where worry?
Uh cocaine?
That's right, okay, and soon to be in Argentinian prison. First, let's get back to Paul Frampton. Yeah, Paul, my man, Paul Frampton. So he was working on how to connect the Higgs boson aka the god particle, with dark energy, so he could explain the rate of cosmic expansion aka the Hubble parameter, which shows the universes expanding at an accelerated rate.
Is this part of the dark arts?
Yeah, pretty much to you. Yes, energy The New York.
Times people have dark energy, but they totally do.
Yeah. And some people are dark.
Matter, and in space there's dark and yeah, exactly, that's what we're talking all these things. You know, I should start teaching physics.
You probably could. Yeah, get a couple of books.
You put on the desk and you let him know look I read these. If you guys are all full of dark energy, I'm out of here.
Change your dark vibes. So New York Times they visited Paul Frampton, as I said, in his soon to be Argentine prison cell. Now I'm just jumping ahead because we know that he gets busted. I'd already told you that.
Yeah.
So at the moment he was in prison, he was hoping that the President of Harvard would slip a note to the President of Argentina, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner. And he was like, you know, while the presidente was visiting Harvard, maybe the president could just give the note tour on Paul Frampton's behalf. Now this is what he'd heard somebody say could happen. He didn't wait, So the President of Harvard didn't tell him she was going to do this.
And he wants to slip a note to the President of arg.
To get him out of jail. And he was believing that this is just what's going to happen.
So New York Times, wait, wait, wait, wait to get him out.
Of out of prison. He was He's in prison at this point of the story, right right, because of the cocaine I'm going to get into that. I'm just telling you. I'm starting. I'm jumping around like Tarantino.
Okay, yeah, I'm like totally lost.
Okay. So he's in prison in Argentina.
And he's you're gonna tell us how that happened.
Yeah, I've already told you that it happened, So I want to know how. I know I'm going to tell you. Don't worry, You're gonna love this. So he's just basically, I'm just wanting I want to give you more of the Paul Framptons stuff at all. Right, the dude is sitting in prison and he's telling the New York Times, who's just flown down to interview him because it's a big deal that this big physics professor is gotten busted on charges of drug smuggles. Right, So they're like, dude,
what happened? And he's like, oh, man, don't worry about it. The president of Harvard's gonna meet with the resident of Argentina. She's probably gonna slip a note and get me out of here. And they're like, are you for real right now? And he's like, oh totally, And he said, and I quote, I think I've never been discussed by two such important people in my life, Elizabeth, Oh my god, never happened. The discussion never happened. New York Times called up, like, what are you talking about?
You're discussing it.
So, yeah, he made it, he did. He made it all this press. So one month into his prison's day, Paul Frampton was willing to now face the truth that the real Denise Milani was not in love with him. Yeah. The prisoners in the Argentine prison had helped him see reality. God, this is reality, my man. They pointed out that who he was chatting with the whole time was probably not even a woman, and instead with some low level scumbag
in an organized crime ring. And that's who he'd fallen in love with online, and that's who he'd poured his heart out to. And this is a little bit hard for the physicists to do the calculations on him. Yeah. Well, then as the story is coming out, the real Denise Milani, right, she gets, you know, interviewed. They're like, what's up with the story, the physicists. He goes down, he gets busted smuggling cocaine. He says, you're his girlfriend. She's like I've
never met him. I don't know who he is. But she says, quote, did she feel sympathy for him?
Yeah?
Right, So then this newspaper story gets published. His fellow prisoners they bring it to him. They hey, look, your girlfriend's in the papers. She's talking about you, like she
just said she don't know who you are. Man. He's like, oh yeah, Well he reads the story and he's like, oh, so the New York Times comes down, he quotes the story and he's like, well, I feel sympathy for her too, right, He's like trying to like reach out, And the New York Times reporter told the physics professor, well, she's still not going to date you. Pole. No, I'm kidding say that. I threw that part in there. But anyway, so what really went down between Paul Frampton and not Denise Belan?
Yes you want to know?
I am so confused?
Yes, okay. Well, starting in November twenty eleven, Paul Frampton was on a dating site maitwe dot com mate maate one. Yeah, like mate number one, someone exactly you into matan you like to meet someone to mate. He saw a profile of a bikini model. It met his criteria for what he was looking for in his next part, the chesty bikini model. She had a beguiling smile, warmth in her eyes. He's like, I bet she might like a physics professor
like me. He was immediately smitten. And at the time he as I said, he was a in the physics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the chair of the department, and he was often you know, he'd be at work, obviously he's a chair. He'd have time to himself. So when he wasn't teaching classes, he's in his office and he'd get like a notification
sound from his computer bing. He's like could look over and he's like, oh, look it's my baby, and hey a click and then be not Denise Malani and she'd want to chat all right, and the couple they used Yahoo Messenger as many of us have, right, and she'd be like, are you there, honey, Just not Denise Mulani would text him and she'd be like, what are you doing now? Not Denise Malani would ping him again, like an hour or so later, and he's just like so
pleased by all the attention. Not Denise Malani is giving him right, So this attention it's like catn it for the lonely divorced scientist. So he gets addicted and hook and also remember who it's coming from, so it's double Lee working on him. So this not Denise Mlani. She starts to open up to him. She confides that she's looking to move on with her life. She wants to find a real partner, someone who could love her for who she is, not what she looks like. She's done
being a bikini model. She wants to settle down, have a family, you know, leave modeling behind. She was tired of being an eye magnet for lecherous old men and an arm charm for young wealthy men. Wanted something for Denise right now, not Denise Malaney asked the theoretical physicist, do you think you could ever be proud of someone like me? Now? He told his friends that that he would be able to love her just as she was.
Yeah, I doesn't say she's knocking on the wrong door. She's like, do you I want to be loved not for what I look like. He's like, oh, next.
But he told his friends he would look past her bikini and her breast and see the real woman underneath all that glamor in spray on tan. He's like, I see the heart of the Denise, the tissue. So he he'd ask her. He would ask her to call him sometimes because he was like, oh, why don't we get on the phone and we can talk, and they try to set up a time to talk, and coincidentally she would just miss the call or she wouldn't be able.
So part of him we grew a little suspicious. He's like, oh, we can never manage to do this.
I just want to talk to her. Jugs.
You need some confirmation those boobs were real. Part of him, part of him that was suspicious was apparently very and underdeveloped because it never really got a hold of the rest of him because not when not Denise Malani was right there going what are you doing right now, darling? And she's like, why do we get on a call? And she's like, oh, I can't right now. Maybe later. Right This doesn't bother him, but eventually he's like, you know, I would like to see you. She's like, okay, well
you you should come to see me next time. On da da dam My'm modeling. I'm all around the world that she keeps stalling him. Right. Eventually she's like, oh, darling, I'm going to be in La Pause, Bolivia, and he's like, okay, I'll come down to LAPAs, Bolivia, A right, And isn't that always the way? You're like, hey, we should call each other sometime. A person's like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure,
but you know what, how about instead come down to Bolivia? Yeah, you know, like, instead of a phone call, just come to Bolivia.
Ladies. We've all been there, I.
Mean how many times? Anyway, the internationally famous bikini model she was working, as I said, and according to not Denise Malani, she thought the theoretical physicist could use a vacation. You work so hard for him, so come down and we can finally meet in person.
Right.
January seventh, twenty twelve, The big day. Paul Frampton sets foot on flight to La Pause. At this point, he is now a sixty eight year old physicist. He's off to meet the bikini model he believes is in love with him, and why would he doubt if she's texted him that she loves him.
He has it in writing.
That's like a contract, Elizabeth pretty much. Yeah, so, but you know, unfortunately he runs into trouble at the airport. Not Denise Malani had sent him an e ticket now to Paul Frampton, but when he attempted to use it, the ticket was invalid. It didn't work. Yeah, right, surprise. So he gets stuck in the Toronto airport for about a whole day.
Why is he flying out of Toronto?
He's flying from like basically I thought he was at UNC. Yeah he was. I don't know why he was flying out of tre Maybe his visiting. Anyway, he goes to Toronto and then he goes from Toronto just wait, next stop, Santiego, Chile. Okay, yes, sir. After a day in Toronto, he goes to Santiago, Chile, and then he manages to get over to La Pause after four days. For four days of traveling, four days at airport.
King went from North Carolina at Toronto. Probably had to stop over and.
On a ticket that didn't exist until he could then buy a ticket. And exactly so he arrives in the Pause and now he reaches out to not Denise Belani to tell her the good news. I finally arrived, right and so, but she has some bad news for him. Oh my, paud, I had to leave right. So she tells him she had to fly back to Europe for a modeling job. Right, of course she'll be in Brussels. And he's like, I know where Brussels is, and so Brampton, he's like a dog after a bone. At this point,
he's like, I'll get it. I'll get a new ticket and I'll fly to Brussels. I can join you there in Brussels, and so he goes. He checks in his hotel and he's you know, he's like pulls out his notebooks and starts working on physics.
Wait, he's like, I told all the students I've moved your class online.
We're not meaning exactly, pretty much like the classs dismissed her next weekend until I get back.
All right, one get on canvas.
So yeah, just read a book or something. Read one of my papers. Tell me it was good. So he tells her. He's like, you know, I'll go back to the hotel. I'll work on some stuff. Then you contact me and give me all the updates on where I should fly, what hotel, blah blah blah. Right, so he starts working on his like you know, Higgs Bosons stuff and then he doesn't hear from Mercy. He texted not Denise Malani and they make a new plant. She gets
back to him. A second e ticket gets sent to him. Right, it's a ticket to Brussels, so at least he's going to the right city this time. Yeah, but not Denise Malani has the one small request for her little Pooky Pie or whatever nickname she Frampton, right, So she says, he Pooky, Bye, could you bring me a bag of my stuff? And she's like, I just need you before you fly to Brussels. And he's like, I left the
bag in the pause. I really need it. And she's like, oh are you sure, Lumpia lump why do you need this whatever whatever a nickname he called her. I'm making him up Elizabeth right, So he goes. He's like, of course, what you know you need your your bag? Is it like importantly the guess it's has sentimental value to me. He's like, okay, no problem. So he goes to pick up her forgotten luggage and he contacts a friend of his like you know, He's like, I'll do that later today.
So he's at the airport. He talks to his friend of his, who is a physicist and a lawyer, this lawyer friend, right, So missus Dixon's son, John Dixon, she's listening to her friend's story. And this is John Dixon's account, he says, and I told Paul, quote, well inside the suitcase, swing into the lining will be cocaine. You're in big trouble. Paul said, I'll be careful. I'll make sure there isn't cocaine in there, and if there is, I'll ask them to remove it. I thought they were probably going to
kidnap him and torture him to get his money. I didn't know he didn't have any money. I said, well, you're gonna be killed, Paul, So whom should I contact when you disappear? And he said, you can contact my brother and my former wife. So he's being all shaky. My god, so his friend and lawyer, John Dixon, he's like the Oracle of Delphi the story. And just like the Oracle of Delphi, no one listens or they misinterpreted right.
So a little after a week after he arrived in La Pause, Paul meets up with the stranger to get the luggage bag for his baby not Denise Malani, right, And he meets the stranger on a quote dark street, and the bag was brought to him by a young man. The luggage was not one would expect for an internationally famous model. It wasn't like an rmez bag, it wasn't givon. The luggage was just some ratty, plain black carry on that you'd see like going around the airport turnstile baggage pickup.
You're like, whose bag is that? It's got like duct tape on it. He's like, just shy of that.
Wait, where are you talking about my luggage?
So he wheels this luggage back to his hotel room and so assuage that voice of his friend, the physicist lawyer. He's like, let me open up this luggage to make sure there's no cocaine in here. So he does it. He opens up the luggage. It is empty, there's nothing inside of it, and he's like, wait, there's nothing inside of it.
But it was it heavy enough that he thought there was something inside of it before he opened it. I mean, you can tell the difference from an empty suitcase to a full suit.
Sure, but a couple of kilos doesn't weigh that much. So if you put a couple of kilos with cocaine and an empty suitcase. You may not know that they're the difference.
I don't know. I'm just thinking, how did he not know he was handed an empty suitcase? When I get this, three fellow.
He's just a physicist, Elizabeth. Only he can answer this question. How did you how did you detect the nothingness in the suitcase?
Yes, that's a good question. Was it full of dark matter?
Exactly? Catching on? So anyway, it.
Got a Higgs boson in it, there's out.
There's no Higgs bosons, no cocaine knocking inside?
Are Higgs.
The back of forth?
But these tell the buns and six packs. It's a total problem. You're so annoying. How do I get How do.
I get my Higgs bosons in the bun?
How do I get my quantum fields into my general relativity? Anyways?
Physicist dark matter?
Anyway, So he feels around the empty suitcase. He's like, Okay, this is weird. It's an empty suitcase. Why does my baby, lumpy lump need an empty suitcase? He writes her. He's like, lumpy lump baby, why the empty suitcase? And she's like, oh, my peachy pie, don't worry. It has sentiment. That is sentimental value to me. I told you this, and he's like, Okay, that's good enough for me. Maybe. So the next day he packs up for the airport, goes down, carries the empty bag.
For her and empty sentimental values.
Yeah, I love that. My grandfather he gave me that luggage after the war.
That roller bag. That's how he got how he brought.
It all over mountains. He carried that.
He is a symbol of bravery.
He has it down generations to generation. He stuffed some dirty clothes in the bag. And he goes down to the airport, right, and he's like, Okay, I got my baby, not Denise Mlani sentimentally important luggage. I've got my own bag. Let's rock, right, and he flies out of La Pause, no problems, he checks. But so interestingly, Elizabeth, I forgot to tell you he did not fly directly to Brussels instead. I don't know what his deal is on. He just
loves airports. His ticket goes from flies to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Okay, he flew south.
Sure the other direction.
I don't get it. Maybe it's South America.
That's not like I don't know how what flies out of la Pause. I would imagine you can get to Europe. I'm sure.
I'm sure France.
Anyway.
So he lands safely in Argentina, and but now he's gonna have to wait for a new e ticket from not Denise Blani for his connecting flight from Buenos Aires up to Brussels. How long do you wait, Elizabeth? How long did he wait? Try? Forty hours, a day and a half and then some for this airport. Like I said,
Homie was a dog after a bone. Yeah, exactly. He sits up in the buenas Ares airport for damn near two days, waiting on I don't know, doing physics problems, eating from various airport restaurants, and just sleeping on his luggage. New ticket from not Denise Blani. It finally arrives before he started day three of the airport. Right, So, Paul Frampton this point, he's almost lost his patience. He's already contacted friends back home and asked them to get him
a ticket to fly Hi back to North Carolina. He's like, I got students, they've been online for two weeks. Now, I've got to do something. But this is when fate plays a hand. Elizabeth and I'd like you to close your eyes and picture.
It as closed.
You are at the Aziza Airport in Buenos Aires.
Are in cam Hi.
When this temple to flight opened way back in nineteen forty nine, it was the third largest airport in the world. It was built during the first presidency of Juan Pern. You know a Vida's husband.
Huh.
For me, it's a nice looking airport as far as airports go. But as you sit by yourself waiting for your flight back to the States, you do one of your favorite activities, people watching. Your Spanish isn't the best, so you don't always know what's going on, but you catch sight of a cool looking family. They're all smiles. The mother huddles or family to the adjacent gate. You watch as they seat. You enjoy watching this clearly indigenous family.
You guess it. They're most likely from the Imara tribe in Bolivia. You know this only because they're bedecked in traditional Bolivian dress and the mother is wearing one of those cool looking bowler hats.
Oh yeah, I love that.
You casually watch the family get comfortable and the father breaks out some chapperware and give snacks to the kids. A man seated by himself rather close to you catches your eye. He's been mostly scribbling in a journal. You guess he's a writer, maybe a journalist, maybe a poet. Who knows. He looks far more like an aging academic of the kind of the science set. He looks like a rumpled physics professor, which turns out is exactly what he is. Good job, Elizabeth. Next to him are two bags,
one white, one black. You don't know it and you never guess it, but inside one of the bags is a life changing amount of cocaine. There's an announcement over the airport speakers in Spanish first, then in English. The heavily accented pa announcer asked for passenger Paul Frampton to come to the ticket counter. You watch the rumpled academic look up as if his name was called. Turns out his name was called, and then he confirms this by getting up and walking over to the airline employee at
the counter about the gate. You hear him say to the woman, I'm Paul Frampton. Is the airline giving me an upgrade to first class? The woman at the counter at the gate some houses says, no, you're not to get an upgrade. You see them before, Paul Frampton does. It looks like a police and dea task force. They come in, matching jackets, hats, guns, lots of guns. They aim the guns at the physics professor. One Argentine officer asks him, are you Paul Frampton. The academic's answers, yeah, yes,
but what the hell is going on? You now, wonder? Totally geeked out on this excellent people watching. This is so rare, a police bust in the airport. This Argentine officer, he asked the rumpled professor, a second question, is this your bag? Mister Frampton? You lean in, waiting to hear the answer. You hear the rumpled professor answer. He says, that's my bag. The other one's not my bag, but I checked it in. That's good enough for the cops.
They arrest the rumble professor right in front of your eyes. He's dragged away as he argues in English, no, no stop, So wait, this is not supposed to happen.
I'm Paul Frampton, So Elizabeth, yes.
You don't get to see it. But when the officers take the rumpled physics professor into a secluded back area. The officers rip open the lining of the baggage and they discover more than four pounds of cocayem. Oh wow, yes, Elizabeth, do you know what a honeytrap is?
Yes?
You do. Well, let's take a little break and after this we'll get into discussing a honey trap. Elizabeth, I teased you before with the honey trap, said, you know what it is? Do you know what a honeytrap is?
Isn't it when you like lure someone into a con with a beautiful lady?
Yeah, or basically sex appeal. It can be a man, a woman, whoever. You just say, hey, you typically it's a woman and you if you bait the trap with a woman, it almost never fails. It's kind of the same except just a little more colloquially said. So it may surprise you, or it may not surprise you. Probably not to learn that Paul Frampton was far from the first to fall for this long con drug sile muggler move. Yeah, there was a woman from New Zealand, Sharon Armstrong. She
fell home almost the exact same game. She was an executive, smart, accomplished woman similar to Paul. She met a new guy online. They chatted online for months, then they made a plan to meet in person. They would finally meet in person in life. She acters, of course, she made a quick stop in Buenos Aires to grab some important business papers for her lover. So she was arrested at the.
Airport like a dancer at the thunder down under.
But he's got my papers, my very important business papers. So she gets messed, five kilos of cocaine, tried, convicted, she gets four years, ten months. So yeah, she also had the same judge in her case as Paul Frampton had in his case. Yes, So anyway, sitting in his Bueno Satter's prison, it's apparently an old style South American prison. On the pavilion that he was staying on, on his level,
there were seventy nine other prisoners like him. Almost all of them claimed that they were innocent, and Paul Frampton was just another innocent man in prison with all these other innocent men. But that's not how he saw it. To his way of thinking, he was still someone special, as he told the New York Times reporter who flew down to interview him, quote, some people will say they're innocent, but when I talked to them further it becomes very
clear that they were somehow involved. I think people like me are less than one percent. He is, So now he's less than one percent. He's in an Argentine prison, and yet he's gone up in the ranking himself. Anyway, So his fellow prisoners in prison guards, they used to like to tease them, Ay, professor, have you won the no bell yet? So the New York Times included that
they're a little write up on him. I loved that note moment, just saying anyway, so please imagine this British born, Oxford educated theoretical physics professor sharing a prison pavilion in an old South American prison was seventy nine other hardened criminals, all from South America, most of them on drug charges.
Just picture that moment for a second. Let right, He liked to get up early on Sunday mornings before his fellow inmates would awaken, and he put on the classical music station and the French Yeah exactly, And then when the hard men woke up, they'd switch it back to a music video channel that played music they wanted to hear. Thus was life in prison for Paul. Now, of course,
plenty of picks of the real Denise Malaney. They would make it into prison, and his fellow inmates were sure to send them over to Paul, like, look, your girlfriend, she's in another.
Magazines every time she's rough.
Yeah, that was tough on him, so he got to see how his girlfriend was doing on the outside.
Yeah.
Anyways, before he was convicted and locked up, Paul Frampton never thought he'd be found guilty. The trouble for him was that the prosecutors had his text messages and his chats with not Denise Malani.
Yeah.
The trouble was that the theoretic physics professor took the stand. And you don't watch TV, Elizabeth, but I do. And I know this from law and order. Never take the stand if you don't have to, NH.
Exactly, he took the stand.
So, according to the Argentine prosecutor, Frampton had sent highly questionable text to not Denise Malani. They had his phone after all, right, So the prosecutor goes into court and he reads out the text to not Denise Malani and he's like, quote, on January twenty second, the nine to forty six am, you wrote from Aziza Airport to the person you understood to be Denise Milani. Quote was worried only about sniffer dogs, but more so Oh no, thought
his defense attorney. Yeah yeah, things are not looking good for old Paul Shampton. So the prosecutor would read more of these text messages aloud, And there was one from nine to fifty two in the morning of his airport arrests. Quote, need to know if your loyalties with the bad guy agent and Bolivian friends or good guy your husband. Oh no. There was another damning text from nine to fifty six am. It was about the hotel in Brussels where they were
planning to meet. The hotel was called Seru Elizabeth Siru. So this Frampton text. Frampton texted not Denise Malani quote zero in all caps, right to the hotel. Zero zero is ambush a right, that's it. Another at ten fourteen am. So now twenty minutes later, quote, your naivete is bad for me us this is millions no zero, okay, all caps at am. Seriously, he starts winding his own pedal, and at eleven nineteen am, sitting there at the airport waiting for his flight to finally meet Not Denise Milani,
Frampton switches it up and sends her an email. He's like, you're apparently not getting my text messages, and he directly references the cocaine in the email. Always a bad place to reference cocaine is in your emails.
This is the email totally. Denise said, no.
I don't know any email, but he writes, quote, this stuff is worth nothing in Bolivia, but millions in Europe. You meet me at the airport and we do not go near the hotel. The agent suggested stay at another hotel.
So he's in yeah.
This way, it's pretty much clear that he's arranging the cocaine deal that he thinks he's doing with, not Denise Mula.
So it's not like, oh I didn't know my luggage.
Oh yeah, no, no, no, yeah. He's texting like he's in a crime movie and he's looking at for the double cross. He's like to convinced. He's like now in heat. So he just wants he and his baby to do one last deal and then get free together. There's more texting emails, so then forty seven am Forramny goes back to text messages. He writes, Monday arrival change. You must not tell the coca goons. So now he actually puts in the word Coca. Oh god, yeah, yeah, it's not
like a band name Coca. You want to see the Coca Goons, You know your friends, the Cocagoons. Yeah.
No.
So twelve sixteen pm he writes in all caps because now apparently he's redlining, He writes, why are you ignoring me at this last moment, we did not decide how to meet tomorrow in Brussels and keep Coca and lives zero. We may lose both, not at Zeru brother sitting right there in that airport. But barely he calms down because at one oh six he then tries to get back into her like graces. He's now texting the normal letters, not all caps. We may do a cool one million.
So, oh my god.
The Big Prosecutor asked Frampton to explain his text. He told the court that they were just jokes. No, he told the New York Times quote, I was trying to keep Denise amused. I had already decided to fly back to North Carolina. So to keep not Denise Millennia mused, he sent her roughly thirty messages and emails. Now it seemed very amusing to me. I mean like I laughed, yes.
Card.
So what was really wild was how Chile was in the airport while he's sending all these text messages. He's got the bag of cocaine, right, and now we know he knows is there. The prosecutor played security footage from all his time at the airport, so he's the airport security camera right and in the foot did you see Paul Frampton working at a cafe table. Then he just gets up, he wanders away from his open laptop. He's
leaves on the table next to the two bags. One is filled with pounds of cocaine, and he just wanders away and he's just like, I'll just lead by behind my mismatching his and her luggage with the coke, one in one without. So he's gone for twenty five minutes. He comes back. He's doing windows shopping. He's window shopping. He's just sitting there looking in like how much for the bottle of rum? And then he's.
Taking that Brookstone neck pillow.
Yeah exactly, I want one for her, one for me, one for her. Anyway, at twenty five minutes past he comes back. He uh checks on his stuff and then he's like, you know what I want to go check out Brookstone pillow again. Yeah, he goes to another one. He's gone for another half an hour. He leaves all the stuff behind again. Apparently he's far more trusting than anyone I've ever known.
Really.
Yeah, so a guy. He also apparently believes, like my mother does, that God protects fools and children, and he ain't a child. So yeah. Anyway, there's a lot of other damning evidence in the court case, Like there was calculations he had done of how much the kilos of cocaine would be worth, and it was in frampton handwriting. According to Frampton, he'd done those calculations after he was arrested. He was just trying to figure out to calculate the
street value of the cocaine he was caught smuggling. He was just like, I just want to see what I was gonna be thrown at me. So I did a couple, you know, back of the envelope calculations and the calculations like one gram two hundred dollars, two thousand grams, four hundred thousand dollars. Turns out he was caught with nineteen hundred and eighty grams cocaine, and the calculations were more evidence that quote, my mind works in a strange way.
Yeah it does. Buddy, you're out there calculating. You make one is you're taking notes on a criminal conspiracy, right like the Stringer Bell rule. You're just broke right off the back. And also you're a physicist. Can't you do these in your head? I mean you can't you do these numbers? That was multiplying by two? Well, one ram two hundred dollars, two thousand grams, four h two thousand dollars. That's multiplying by two.
Does they have a calculator on his phone?
Yes? Anyway, I don't get it anyway. So after he also he decided, you know, mom amusing myself. He calculated the odds that not Denise mulaney would marry him. Oh get no prosecutor quoted than the note he had quote five standard deviations ninety nine point nine nine four percent. Frampton then explained, quote the criterion for the discovery of the Higgs boson had to be five standard deviations, which means it's extremely unlikely to be a statistical fluctuation. Yeah.
Quote calculating the probability that Denise Malani would become my second wife, which was almost a certainty.
No, but she's in that point zero zero zero six.
So, as I told you, you said that they're all bad jokes. Unsurprisingly, that did not work as a court defense, even in Argentina, which apparently he had very little respect for their court, and the court found him guilty. He sent him to prison, as I've already told you, Elizabeth, and he went four years eight months.
Wow.
Yeah, so that's where he got to sit and think about all those emails he sent to not denise Malani. How he'd laid out their future together. Naturally, he told her that she'd relocate to where he lived, and she'd moved to North Carolina and then they'd make a life together in Chapel Hill. He told the bikini model that she would have to leave all that behind, as she already wanted to, because she'd have to be ready for the wife of a college professor. It's a totally different
skill set herself. Yeah. She wouldn't have to work, of course, because he had his work, and she could spend her time working out and making girlfriends at the gym or yoga studio or wherever else she decided to keep fit. And when he got home his hard day of calculating bosons and leptons, they go down to the shore, maybe take a long walk on the beach. He literally is the guy who likes long walks on the beach, so he was like, what do you like to do? I
like long walks on the beach. Eventually, she'scases she would get pregnant with one of their many children, and after she lost the baby weight, maybe she would go back to work as a lingerie model. She could get a contract. Was Victoria's secrets, because you know, his mind is in the nineties.
So he's like, you know, I just want to stand behind him and kick him in the back of the knees, just watch him crumble.
At one point, this fake cocaine cowboy, he told the not Denise Malaney, You're the best thing that's happened in my cursed life. I just hope that the scumbag reading it on the other was absolutely Hector come here. So eventually the dude gets out of prison, and he'd spent time working on his papers, his calculations because he's a physicist. No no, but he did work on new papers of colleagues. He got some journal papers out of it. He was
advising students from his prison. So, yeah, he still had one hope in his life that somehow he'd only imagined in his mind that would be proven real by some other scientists experiment and that one day he'd win a Nobel Prize based on one of his predictions. Right, And he'd made plenty of predictions of new particles, all sorts of physical models, And he told The New York Times quote that would bring an enormous sense of fulfillment quite apart from the Nobel Prize. I predicted a particle that's
actually in the universe. Wouldn't that be a rush? Much better than other ways of getting a lot of dopamine? Bro, that's what love does. Love makes you feel like, oh, you know anyway, but anyway. So when one of his emails and not Denise Malani, Paul Frampton wrote, quote, I only think of cuddling all day and having sex all night with Denise Malani. How can you prove that you
are Denise Malani. Since he didn't have a fellow scientist to confirm his prediction that she was indeed Denise Malanie, he had to rely on his own mental and emotional calculations. He decided she's real and he was obviously wrong. So now he at at one point did contact a forensic linguist to ask him to go over some text messages to prove that he had not written the text messages and because he claimed I quote I didn't write the text. I've always known that they were invented. They were invented
by or or for the prosecutor in my trial. The forensic linguist say he hacked he hired, reported that Frampton's emails are written in a very formal style and that no one would expect a professor to use that sort of language in his emails to a not Denise mulaney. But that was not the case, and quote, approximately six hundred words of running text, there's only one contraction, which was in a message he wrote he said, I'll try
to send you a more specific email tomorrow. The rest of the time in his text messages, he's substituting the number two for the infinitive too. He's putting in the word you for the word you. Didn't seem like him. It seemed much more like a text speak from like a teenager. Then there was also the fact that when one of the text messages which is member. This is a monolingual theoretical physicist. In his text messages, he apparently wrote situ like situation in Spanish with the sea. So
that's only something that usually a native Spanish speaker would do. Anyway, the forensic linguist, they went on the whole thing, and they say quote. In addition to the above points, I suggest the text message read like a film script. This phrase is such as sniffer dogs, the apparent obsession of the writer with loyalty and therefore it's antithesis betrayal, the danger ergo as in life death, situacion, the reference to weapons as in with no gun, and I suggest melodramatic
want to kiss you before I die. As the linguals concluded the quote, the preoccupations inherent these messages, and more importantly, the terms in which they are expressed, are not compatible with a person who has spent his life in academia. But I mean, it's kind of like the thing I always tell you. If I was gonna go do a crime, I would just give my phone to a friend and have them walk around with it. Because police are so convinced that if they see your phone somewhere, that's you.
If I was an academic trying to get away with this, I would type like that somebody who's not me. But I don't bet he he did that. So he said he blamed the translator. He said that when he said he was in court and he said that the text messages were his and he was joking. He's like, no, that's not what I said. I said the prosecutor and must be joking. So that's how you tried to get out of it. So he's over here using all of his big brain to try to come up with weird lies. Anyway,
he chalks up all of it. It didn't work. He decided he's not going to try to go after the prosecutor at Argentina. He said that, you know, quote, the whole thing was surreal. Just you know, I'm just gonna say, the whole thing was cereal. And he's shocked the whole experience up to not his own foolish, ego driven fantasies, but rather that the Argentine prosecutor was just out to get him. So there's a conspiracy too, as he told The New York Times, quote, you might say, what did
they have against Paul Frampton? And if you as if you press him, he will add the Argentinian system is totally corrupt. Do you think that the prosecutor is going to admit he created this evidence? Not a chance on Argentina. That's far less likely than him winning a Nobel prize, And given his choice, Paul Frampton's going to focus on that Nobel prize. So there you go, the cocaine tails of the not. Denise Malani, Oh gosh, what's a ridiculous take away, Elizabeth?
Ridiculous takeaway is that you can be BookSmart, but that's street smart, as we all know. And that's street smarts for maybe a little bit more important. And I say that as an educator, former teacher, I love the former teacher.
As a professor. Do you want to say that one more time? Just for the listeners like me?
Sometimes I think street smarts are a little more important than book smarts.
Yes, uph I Burnette, you gotta just say it. That's on the record. Yes, all right, So thanks for listening, folks, and thanks for asking me about my ridiculous takeaway.
I really care.
Yeah, okay, Well mine was you can't always trust a big button to smile. Apparently the same is true for big breasts, So there you go, or a physicist. Yeah, so three things we learned today. Anyway, all as always, you can find us online a Ridiculous Crime on Twitter, Instagram threads. I think as long as Elizabeth doesn't get her hands on it. We also have a website, Ridiculous Crime dot com. You can leave us a message on the iHeart Talkback. You can find that on iHeart apps.
We enjoy those. Elizabeth loved, she tells me.
On a loudspeaker when I'm driving my ice cream truck.
Yeah, what do you do when you're not here?
I did?
Also, you can obviously email us that what you want a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, care of Elizabeth Dutton.
Once again, thanks for listening. Catch you next crime They Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dudden and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by a leading experimenter in quantum chromeo dynamics theory and it's implication in sound for podcasts, Dave Kistein research is by Maris, I can't believe you didn't say Frampton cam alive to Crime Brown and Andrea, I can believe you didn't say it, and technically he did. Song Sharpened Tear. Our theme song is Thomas Bosonic string theory,
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