Philip the Tub: John Spano, Jr.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Zarin Elizabeth, How are you heart? I'm so good. I'm just I'm really fantastic today is it's a good day. I've been enjoying it. Havn't done a damn thing. I love that, which is really enjoyable at the end of the year kind of thing. Yeah, So what about you? You have a good day to day? You feel good?

I'm good, good, solid, excellent, solid as a little mac. Yeah, I'm good.

Do you know what's ridiculous I do to do?

Tell?

Oh, well, you're not gonna like this, but I love it so rude dude. Gaz Jackson sent this in, Okay, and I love this because it's an oddity of math, which, as you know, I'm not good at yet I still love.

So.

The idea is it's called Capri Car's number A CAPRICRS Capri cars numbers, K A p R E k A R CAPRICRS Capri Car's number.

Okay.

So the number is six, one, seven, four, six and seventy four. Okay, magic number, Elizabeth. Sure, Here's how it works. Elizabeth. Choose a four digit number, any four digit number, but it can be any four digits as long as one digit is different than the others. So it can't be like one one.

One oh, oh, okay, one zero eight.

Two one zero eight two. Okay. Now with one zero eight two. The next thing you do is you take the number and you select it, and we arrange it so that now it descends from the largest digit to the smallest digit. All right, So this case, it would be eight to zero one one zero. Wait what did I say? Oh, you're right. See, let me take that together, eight two one zero.

There you go.

So, Micha, I've been trying to do too many things over here. I'm going to keep the track of the number you gave me, and then you arrange it so that it also ascends from the smallest digit to the largest digit zero one two eight zero one two eight exactly. And then that's you know, the essentially the verse. In this case, it would only be a three digit number because the zero gets knocked off and then you subtract them, all right, you get a new number, and that new

Okay.

You follow that same process, So in this case it would be eight eight two zero sure, minus zero, two eight eight, okay, okay, And then you get to a number that this case would be eight five three two. Wish you would have given me an easier number to do this with me? Whatever. Never, So then this one's already arranged highest to lowest. So we just now have to subtract two, three, five eight, and eventually you get.

To six one, seven four.

It only took us three numbers and we got right there. That's Capricar's number.

What witchcraft is that?

That's cool. And there's another one that's a three digit number, but I'm not going to overload you with Like, here's another one that's capri cars number. You see, you selected X, we arrange it as Y and Z. You subtract Z from Y, and we get a four digit number. And you keep doing this and it usually only takes a couple of steps before you get to six one, seven four, And every single one of these numbers, no matter what you do, we'll do this.

Wow.

Isn't that math fun? Kind of ridiculous, super ridiculous. That's awesome atle like magical.

I know, I do. I like the little witchcraft magic. Elizabeth, Do you want to know what else is ridiculous.

As long as didn't have meat drawing out a calculator.

Crossing Mario Lemieux.

Oh oh oh, this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

You damn right, you and Mario Lemieux.

All of us. I need to preface everything I tell you today with this. Yeah, I know pretty much nothing about hockey.

That's not true.

Well, I know it's played on ice, and everyone wears skates, yes, and they use a stick to hit a puck.

Yes.

And they fight a lot, yes, which means that many of them are missing teeth.

They're also mostly Canadian, Eastern European, Nordic and Russia.

Well, I know that Wayne Gretzky is like their Michael Jordan.

Yes. Also good.

It's big in the Northern States and New England because it's cold there.

Yeah, if you have actually ice occur, actually occurring ice.

And I know that our better half, our neighbors to the north, the Canadians, they dominate the sport.

Sure, let's go with that.

Let's say it key for Sutherland loves.

It oh yes, you know my thing.

Yeah, fill up the tub, fill up the tubub. So does Mike Myers and Canada's current Prime Minister, the Right Honorable Mark Carney.

Oh right, dude, elbows up or something. Yeah. Yeah, if you find that ad with Keifer Sutherland from like I don't know two thousand and two where he's like talking I only know because of football. But anyway, I was like when Fox was had hockey, he did this thing where he was like letting people know that they have hockey. He was like on A twenty four at the time. Yeah,

It's like an also ran.

Children's exactly, Tomas the tank Engine.

Fill up the Tub twenty four that era of Keifer. My brother's band had a song on twenty four and it was just his guitar solo.

Oh dope, pretty amazing, good job.

Try back to hockey. Yeah, fill up the tub, Fill up the tub, Fill up the tub. It's like a bad mobster name. Fill up the tub, GONGOZI. They have cooled giant jerseys.

Yeah, hockey. I used to sleep in one I was a kid.

Oh did you?

That was like first my first sleeping shirt with hockey the back.

What team was it?

Okay, before the Calgary Flames were the Calgary Flames. So they were the Atlanta Flames, and I had an old Atlanta Flames jersey because you know, they burned down Atlanta and I love God bless anything about burning down Atlanta. So I was like, sureman, do it again.

Emilio Estevez, he was in that movie The Mighty Ducks, about a kid's team, and I think they went on to make a new professional team by that name.

Movie is so good they made a professional team to match it.

I may yeah, I don't know if I had the order of things.

Now, that's true that the Mighty Duck Anaheim Ducks are named after the Mighty Ducks.

Okay, So I like how Emilio got hockey and his brother Charlie Sheen got baseball and one of the best baseball movies ever made, Major League totally, that's a good movie.

You know. He did steroids for that movie so that he could pitch faster, and of course he would do whatever and he gets multiple weeks. But he was like really good. He was throwing five, which back then at the time was like a really good, like you know.

You know what up your butt, Joe Booz. So that's what I know about hockey.

Right.

Aside from that, I got nothing. But you know what I do know crime and scamming. I've become kind of an expert. I have for you today a tail that involves both hockey and scamming.

Mario Lemux, get the heck out.

There are very few good owners of professional sports teams.

This is true.

It's like such a flex to own a professional sports team football, baseball, you know, basketball or the Big Dogs, right, and then we've got hockey and.

Soccer soccer football. Do you know I am.

Part owner of two professional sports teams?

Really, Elizabeth, what are they?

The Oakland Roots soccer team and Oakland Ballers baseball team.

Look at you, it isn't you also a part owner of the.

So both of them offer fans opportunities to invest in the team and become part owners. So for the ballers, I'm right there with Billy Joe from Green Day and Too Short.

Oh Sam. Yeah, and also Marshaan.

Right well know what the roots. Some of the other owners are Marshawn Lynch and again Billy Joe. He's all over this.

He seems like it.

You can buy in for like one hundred bucks, don't take much.

Don't lowball it. So maybe wranchise.

So maybe not all team owners are bad.

Yeah, because you are one, I am Bill.

But for big time stuff like the New England Patriots or whatever town they are in the A's, the owners are no good.

Yes, yes, are there good billionaires.

You don't become a billionaire without stepping on the backs of others. You pretty much have to be a billionaire to own a major sports team or go. It all makes sense.

There's three billionaires that are tough for me to say that here bad Okay you ready? Yeah, Beyonce just became one, Rihanna became one a while ago. She co did mostly on top of the fenty makeer sure. And then Mackenzie Scott trying to give away her money as fast as he can.

Oh yeah, no, she's a good billion so she's trying to not be a billionaire.

And I have a hard time saying they're bad. But I agree with you, and I'm still down to I'm on the team of bad billionaires.

And no war, but class wars eron. Yeah. Anyway, So all that said, let me tell you about John Spano Junior.

Oh, okay, I already don't like him. He was born in nineteen he's not a billionaire. Oh I don't. I don't like him like they'll look.

So he was born in nineteen sixty four in New York City, New York. I never that is, I know I've been there. So maybe ten years later or so. His family relocated from New York City, New York to a rural community about forty miles outside of Cleveland, Ohio.

It's a big change, it is.

He was a quote decent student in high school. He played sports, but he like was on any varsity teams. Just an average kid from an average family. He went to an average Catholic school, Saint John's High School.

It's like a John Cougar Mellencamp song.

Oh I had sucking on a chili dog you better believe it, but he would later tell people. So he went to Saint John's High School, but he was like, I went to high school at Saint John's Academy, which was like a super prestigious prep school. Yeah, so he was like, Saint John's close enough, whatever, they won't realize it. So eighty six, nineteen eighty six, he gets a degree in finance from Duquane University and that's a private college.

In Pittsburgh and spelled du Kesney.

Yeah, it totally is spelled dodu Kesney. And you know who is a superstar, and looked up how to pronounce it. This gal right here appointing at me.

Yeah, I only know it from a there's a street in LA called the Spell that way. And I made the mistake of saying it Dukesney was t un to somebody who was so snide. I hit myself so I wouldn't hit that.

I felt like this was a trap in the forest when I saw it, and I was like, that looks like du Kesney, and I promise it is not.

Yeah, and I'm going to say it.

I'm going to say it, and then we're going to get so inundated with messages, and it's going to make some people so irate that they're like burst a vein.

In their head.

So it's like, let's do our due diligence ducane. So uh, while he's there, he budied up with future NHL Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux.

Oh for real.

Yeah, Mario was a rising star with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Yes, he was supposed to be one of the greatest ever.

Yeah, and Spano just like latched onto him. He later would refer to Lemieux as one of his best friends. Lemieux didn't take it that far. He said that Spano was just like a golfing partner.

I know that guy.

He got partners owned. So Spano, he gets out of college, gets himself a job. Take a guess at what he.

Did, the equivalent of ball boys, so like puck boy. Oh close.

He was a sales associate with an auto leasing company.

Oh wow, Yeah, so he did that for like so he was a car salesman.

No way you could have figured that out. He did it for about a year and then he got a gig at a company called Recipa Finance. He was a credit manager in their Dallas Texas office. Yeah, and that's where he met his future wife, Shelby Hanson. So Recita financed, they arranged car loans for people with bad credit, and they had offices in forty four states. But they closed up shop in nineteen eighty nine.

For exploitative practices.

Yes, and so his job is gone. He moved to New York City, the Hot Potato, and it was there he started a business called Bison Group. Oh no, Yeah, and for whatever reason, he specialized in leasing heavy equipment to other businesses. Okay, I do wonder what got him into that.

Bison.

They'd buy big items like industrial vehicles, aircraft, and then lease that stuff to other companies.

Do you think that they were leasing them or buying them. They think they leased the vehicle and then leased the vehicle.

I think that's what was happening.

Seems like a middleman very much.

So so Shelby. She's still in Dallas, and so they're long distance for a couple of years, and then Spano he leaves New York and moves to Dallas to be with her. Two years after that, nineteen ninety four, they got married. Congratulations, you guys.

So three years after point break came out.

Yes, that was how they celebrated. Yeah, it's been three years, honey.

You know that movie came out in nineteen ninety one, It really did.

It did. So Spano still had Bison Group. He ran it from Dallas and he used it to network with like movers and shakers in Dallas. For him, that meant rich local businessmen and like a bunch of former athletes looking for investments.

Okay, I get the idea.

Yeah, So Bison was still registered in New York, so he added Bison Leasing Incorporated as a limited partnership in Texas. And then he figured, you know what, John, why stop there? So he set up Bison BLG. And I think it's Bison Leasing Group, but yeah, he incorporated that in Delaware. Then Bison Automotive Leasing Acceptance, and Bison.

Food Services Companies. Yeah, Bison Food.

Services leased cappuccino makers, hot dog machines, and other restaurant equipment to convenience stores. Those are the like necessary businesses we don't think of.

I guess are they necessary?

By late nineteen ninety four, he had negotiated this partnership with Lenco Holdings Limited. Lenco was a publicly traded South African company that specialized in manufacturing aluminum cookware and cutlery. Okay, yeah, Lenco, they wanted to expand into the US market. Naturally, an executive there named Gerald Groot. Groot did a bunch of market research to figure out, like how do we gain traction in the US.

Sure, And it was in that.

Research that he stumbled onto John Spano and his empire and connections. And so Spano he's like stoked that Groot has reached out.

Oh, feign this is his chance.

Yeah, because Lenko is huge, ripe with lucrative contracts.

So Lenko they don't know any better, which is the best.

Part, exactly exactly Lenko Holdings, they opened negotiations. Spano told them that he was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of like one hundred and fifty millions, and it would it should come as no shock that that was not true. No, his net worth was like maybe somewhere between three to five million, probably far less because the five million was like estimated later on when he was in full swing, like a couple of years down the road assets right, and it's not and so he it's not just him

You know what they say, behind every successful grifter, you can find their.

White drifter exactly. So she's she's calling up Nordstrom's right department store. And they used to be more posh than they are today.

Yeah, am I wrong? No, No, not at all. That was totally the deal on the West.

I think more of the department stores just in general used to be more posh.

Yeah, they can till the private equity got involved. They actually had good product, mind, they had had buyers, they had people were going out checking the fashion world and coming back with good stuff. They had specialties.

Yeah, they don't do that anymore. So anyway, Lenko, that deal opened doors. And so remember how Spano loved hockey in this youth.

Sure, yeah, Mario Lemo.

Right, he still loved hockey, of course, and he wanted in on the action, just not on the ice. In nineteen ninety five.

What's the other act?

He and a group of investors made a bid to buy fifty percent of NHL's Dallas Stars team.

Okay, yeah, Minnesota.

So he's like, I can't get on the ice. It's just not in the cards for me. But you know what, I can own the ice. Let's do it. He wants to fill. My name is Philip the Tub, and I'm here to own the ice. Nineteen sixty seven, there was an NHL expansion, and so the league created the Minnesota north Stars, and then in seventy eight they absorbed the Cleveland Barons and then both teams they're like struggling, so they consolidate, you know, keep them alive. Ninety three, the

Yes, because I used to love the Minnesota north Stars. Oh really I did, and then they became Dallas. I was like, forget that.

Yeah, bye bye.

I was never here.

The move wasn't a smooth one. Yeah, And so the team, they were coming off a Stanley Cup win. The owner, Norman Green, was like.

A sleazy fellow, completely.

Known for inappropriate behavior with female staffers. Of course, apparently he would shake women to make sure they were wearing bras.

Oh dear god, so horriful.

His wife was appalled. Yeah, I'm with her, and somehow blamed Minnesota, the state, and she told him if if you don't move the team, I'm leaving you. Yeah, this Minnesota is making you shake, ladies.

This Minnesota nice I've heard about? Is that? What this is? So so Green?

He's like a developer, a telecom executive. His ventures weren't doing so well, so he had to free up some cash, so he put up a fifty percent stake in the team. You know, up on the market entered John Spano. He and his group of investors. They expressed their interest and entered into negotiations. The thing is Spano didn't have the cash, so he stalled and he made like these outrageous demands of Green. He hired a law firm to run like background research on the team. I guess he wanted like

I've heard about that.

Yes, so the top brass at the Stars they saw warning signs with Spano, but they ignored them. Like, for instance, he invited them to a cocktail party at his house, and he like, all these investors in sports grates are going to be there. It's a schmooz fest. He'd been bragging about how he paid two and a half million dollars for this palatial home. So the Stars guys get there. The place is huge, but it's also empty, like there's

Flash Zarin, Oh hey, wake up, dream to take a good John Spano junior businessman, hockey fan right now.

The known extent of his grift is misrepresenting his worth to a South African cookwear company and trying to buy a hockey team without having the money to do so. Stall tactics. It didn't pan out frohim, you know, buying a hockey team, but he was undeterred.

Now him in.

Early nineteen ninety six, he made another attempt to get himself a hockey team.

Wow.

Yeah, he now had his sights set on NHL's Florida Panthers ranchise. Yeah, he's all puffed up and like ready to put in a bid and likely we'll try to stall things while he worked on like smoking mirrors to get some money.

Where do you think he can get this money from a credit line another South Africa?

It's like shuffling credit lines, I think. But so then the owner decided he didn't want to sell the team after all. So some good did come out of that though for Spano, because he didn't have a chance to like embarrass himself like he did with the Dallas Stars. People started looking at him as a legit possible team owner. Oh god, and he seemed to be like the real deal and with someone who didn't have a team simply

Sarah, you don't deserve the job. You have that kind of discretion.

And this is coming from on high.

Yeah, exactly.

All the money. Folks are on alert that like Spano's a goer.

It was it soun.

He decides to buy his time. He decides to bide his time, so because you know, in the meantime he has scamming to do's Eric, there's Lenco and the nord Strums deals.

Scams aren't going to scam themselves, Elizabeth.

He needs cash to bolster his dreams of NHL team ownership and then just cash for like day to day, so he gets crafty. In October of nineteen ninety six, he submitted some purchase orders on behalf of Nordstrom two million dollars worth of pots and pans stat.

On behalf of nord st Yeah.

He's like, hey, Nordstrum's here, and I love how I make it possessive all the time, Nordstrums, but it's just strum.

Yeah it doesn't sound right.

No, it doesn't just like J C. Penny j C. Pennies.

Yeah, some things need to be pluralized. Yeah, and Black America agrees with me on that.

Yeah, and I agree with you. So anyway, he's like, nord Strum's here, Yeah, two million in pots and pans. I love them, I need them. So Lenko, they get the order and they're like, all right, get to work. They ship the goods off, they wait for payment. Here's the thing though, at this Pointstrom didn't sell pots and pans, and so like Shelby had been working on that, right missus nobody no, but like she hadn't made headway. And that order the product code on it was for Ladies coats.

And pans that he also can't pay for.

Right, so his idea was to borrow against these for a million dollars.

Huh.

So he approaches Co America Bank.

Can they agree? America Bank say yes.

They're like, oh, you got two million dollars of pots and pans up in there, y'all? All right, I'll put a million on it.

I will never understand finance.

No, Nordstrom, Lenko, they have no idea any of this is going down. So now back to hockey. He made his third bid for team ownership at this point October of nineteen ninety six. He worked his magic and actually entered into an agreement to buy the New York Islanders Oh Wow, and their cable rights from then owner John Pickett for about one hundred and sixty five million dollars.

This is like the lesser New York franchise in hockey. This would be like buying the Jets in football.

Yes, sure, if you say something put in I'm guessing I don't know. So how how did he manage that?

How?

Elizabeth?

He did he make a trade for the pots and pans?

Oh? Maybe like stone soup, he just keeps trading up.

No, Zaron, don't, don't be foolish. He convinced Fleet Bank to okay an eighty million dollar loud.

Okay, so like the Philadelphia Base Bank to be like hey, well, because this is what he did.

First, he told the bank that he had a net worth of about two hundred and thirty million dollars. And I don't understand when they do this, when the bank isn't like, well then you use that money? Yeah anyway?

Or like what's that name again? Let me check? Don't they have like the equivalent of Lexus nexus but for banking.

So then he busted out the oldest con artist line in the book. He told the bank that a relative of his had established a one hundred and seven million dollar trust on his behalf and he'd have access to it.

Soon, really soon on my birthday.

People always full for that one. That's crazy. So the official closing on the deal was coming up quick. April seventh, nineteen ninety seven. That was supposed to be the big day. That's when he's going to hand over a check for one hundred and sixty eight million dollars to John.

Pickett, like one of those really big comically oversized chess.

Yes, yes, well actually he's supposed to have. I guess he's putting like a down payment, sure, an overly you know, a comically oversized down payment, sixteen million. So April seventh comes, there's no check, Like, hey, Spano, what gives? He had

Courier got trapped and then now their printers out sh you blame.

The IRA, right, So this is this is a year before the Good Friday agreement, So that kind of you know, excuses still makes sense. I guess okay, So now send the check. He's like, well, there's a problem. See it seems that there was a decimal point error and the payment was processed is five thousand dollars instead of five million.

That's a big DECIMALO.

He's like, okay, I got a check and then oh it bounced. Okay, that's so weird. How about if I get you a transfer of seventeen million dollars with that work. They're like, yeah, that's great.

Yeh, wire transfers are great.

You're like, hold on the transfer. What do you mean the transfer was only for seventeen hundred Oh those decimal points. He's constantly doing the damn decimal points thing. It's becoming a circus. And the same could be said about the Lenco deal. So March of ninety seven, in the middle of the Islanders negotiations and a month before payments due, the Lenco folks are like, we'd like a word, please, Yes, what's up with the north Stroms order? Why haven't they

They just out of I don't know if you have a little bit of anxiety. I don't have anxiety, but like I can't deal with this level of lying nor so, like I don't know how somebody gets up every day and just things. I'll just keep lying these people. I mean, it's like to me, it's like juggling chainsaws. I'm like, why would you do that?

You say these things and knowing it's totally fault. Well, he says, I can get you the money in an hour, it can be to you in an hour.

I've known guys like that.

Never obviously the money doesn't materialize, there's no wire. How can you do that? And then what's going to happen in an hour?

And they away seem to think it's going to work out, and it's going to work out. I mean, yeah, some people don't argue, but I mean, like they just they just lie in the dumbest.

Ways, unbelievable and the decimal point thing, Oh, that's a mix up. So the money did eventually show up for Lenko, though. On April eighteenth, they got a check for just over one point six y three million, Okay, and it was written out of Bison Leasing's Komor Emerica Bank account.

Okay.

Did I say the money showed up?

No?

No, I said the check I got that one bounced ten days later.

Like like a super Bowl. Yes.

So Lenco's frustrated, right, and they're like, okay, you know what, will take a payment plan with you?

Yeah, and he's like, sure, of course I could do that.

He couldn't do that. June of ninety seven, his installment check bounced. He'sus writing rubber checks everywhere.

In early July, news Day.

Gets wind of this whole thing. Oh yeah, the magazine got all these anonymous tips from Islanders executives.

I was just about to say, this is like a whistleblower New York outlet to get this story. Oh yeah.

So they had like they figured out this new owner, he's worth way less than he says he is. Reporters pounce on it. On July ninth, they published an expos about Spano. Yeah, they pointed out that he was like completely lied about his net worth hundreds of millions, like try five million. Was Bise Group a massive organization like he pretended it was?

No?

Twenty two employees companies worth three million.

They operate out of a po box. Yeah.

Basically, the magazine reported that Spano lied on his resume. They busted him on that whole high school.

The Saint John's thing. I knew they get.

On that, and the inheritance.

New York people love busting you about. Yes, yes, more than in the West.

No, yeah, totally totally no inheritance they find, you know not. Of course, so the Islanders deal is now like being blown apart. There are threats of lawsuits for breach of contracts swirling around Lenco's.

Like, excuse me over here. Yeah, they filed a.

Lawsuit over the nord Strom Pots and pans deal, and then another Dallas company, Richmond Capital Partners, they filed a civil lawsuit in Dallas against him. They too, were all about breach of contract, fraud, negligent missrepresentation. They said that Spano came to them in March of nineteen ninety seven wanting a short term loan for a million dollars and they gave it to him. Quote based upon representations of Spano regarding his strong financial condition is.

That like bank talk, frilet, we liked the cut of his jewel.

Basically, he swore to them that he could put up a two million dollar certificate of deposit issued by Comerica Bank as collateral. So he's just shuffling everything around. On July eleventh, he was forced to surrender control of the team after failing to uphold his end of the deal.

He just came along too early for Crypto.

He really did it, oh buddy, Yeah, And the thing is he was actually running the team for a couple months, like he owned it for a couple months. So he in return for surrendering the team, pickt the owner who sold it, was like, I won't sue you for breach of contract. So during the three plus months that he was in control of the team, he collected one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in management fees three months and spent two hundred and twenty thousand dollars of the team's operating budget.

On what do we have? Just like I've always wanted a wall to wall flooring.

On July seventeenth, federal authorities they charged him with bank and wirefraud.

Maybe he was decorating as a empty mansion. Oh, I think he's just using their money to buy art. Shag Rug.

He goes to brunners. So he the Feds are like, look, you forged bank letters, you lied about your holdings, your net worth, and your network, and then you just like straight up cheated everybody you came into contact with pretty much. July twenty first, the FEDS show up at his house with an arrest warrant. Jokes on them. Spano had run off to the Cayman Islands.

No extradition. Well he wasn't there long.

Like cooler heads prevailed and he surrendered and then he got arraigned on July twenty third. His bail was set at three month million dollars and they had this requirement of like, if you want to make bailis half cash. So in order to make that, he put up the equity he had in his house, plus his mom's house and his sister's house.

They still trust.

He still trusted him. So all of the investors and the business tycoons that he's running around with, they were trying to like put space between them Spano, but it would come out in court like how deep of a network he developed in like this fraud, you know, fantasy of his and how many people he owed money he betrayed investment bankers, other business owners, and even Mario Lemieux.

He's like a reverse Midas touch. Yeah, I'll turn everything to Pewter. So how is he Mario Mario Lemieux.

He took his money. He did so under the guise of it being for other businesses. He's like, you know, I've got all. I've got pots, I've got pants, i have cappuccino. Makers used the money to buy the Islanders a rival team. What that's dirty. That's dirty. So he falsified documents.

I don't know if i'd call them a rival team, but it wasn't his team. Yeah, it's not the Penguin. Yeah, he was on the Pittsburgh Penguin.

He falsified financial documents, he forged signatures, he faked letters, and he even had like he had this whole universe of false identities and shell companies. And he worked really hard to create this facade and it only lasted him a couple months of glory.

Oh my god, that's what I got, I guess as an owner.

So he pleaded guilty to the charges in late nineteen ninety seven and was still out on bail at that point.

Two years later.

Shelby files for divorce. They sold the Dallas house. He moves into a luxury condo in Philadelphia.

Shelby had to have known, Oh, she had to there's no innocence here. Yeah.

If she's talking to Nordstrom and they're like, we don't sell pots and pans, and then like go ahead and put the order in it.

Yeahs.

So he's in this luxury condo in Philly. Of course he has no legitimate income. So he gets evicted because it turns out you can't pay rent with a bad credit card, bounced check, or failed wire transfers. All true landlords don't like that. So the US attorney found out about the eviction and then put in a petition to have his bail revoked due to quote, continued criminal conduct, and he summed up the filing with quote Unfortunately, he could not stop.

Lying at statement irony.

So in January two thousand, Spano was sentenced to just under six years in prison. He was also ordered to pay almost twelve million dollars in restitution to all these various banks and team owners and all the other people who got caught up in the schemes. Let's take a break. This feels like the end, but it most certainly is not.

Oh Saren Elizabeth.

Yes, John Spano, so, John Spano. Yeah, he's sentenced to six years in prison in January of the year two thousand, how was it? He got about a little early in June of two thousand and four, and he moved back to northeastern Ohio and he was supposed to be on five years of supervised release, live it on the street and narrow. But he just couldn't hold it. Couldn't hold it.

At least he didn't like waste his sister and mother's house. I was really worried.

Yeah, I know, he didn't come, but he did. He They revoked bail. Yeah, so, but I don't know if they got that back. Who knows. February of two thousand and five, he got busted for what now. The US Postal Service came after him, which is that's bad business, that's feral charges.

Also they make the charge count crazy.

Oh yeah, So he got accused of failing to complete lease deals and using bad checks for purchases involving clients in Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, and Wisconsin, across mail fraud across state lines. Seems he bounced a check for one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars to buy some equipment.

You ever written a check for that much all the time?

And they're just and I just shred them.

I wouldn't think someone would take a check from Absolutely, we're going to keep putting numbers on here?

Are you kidding me? He leased the equipment out, Okay, so he bounces a check for the equipment. Then he least said equipment out.

So he's back to his original scam of inking.

Thousands in rental agreements. So to make this whole deal and the vibe seem believable, he rented jets and told both sides that he owned them, Like, hey, what a broke guy owned jets? I don't think so like that. This is some things, so what do you know? He was convicted sentenced to fifty one months in federal prison in January two thousand and six. Six months later they tack on another six months for violating the conditions of his release in the Islanders case over the fraud conviction

He knows image.

He knows how to wow people. So it's not shocking that he impressed the owners and was quickly promoted to a sales position. It's not just a driver now he's a salesman. It's like giving an arsonist a cute book of matches for their birthday. So like one season sales. He started creating false invoices for services that were never ordered or delivered, just like with nord Strums, just like Nordies. But there were other things brewing. One of those was Twitter.

Oh yeah.

In twenty twelve he joined Twitter, and hockey fans, especially chaotic ones, loved it. They were so excited. One Islanders fan in particular, Eric Kipperwasser, he was stoked to be able to reach out to the businessman turned felon.

Oh they love specifically him.

He was talking to the people are like John Spanno's on Twitter. Oh hell yeah yeah, and so like this guy. Like briefly he spent three months as.

Own a team owner, a flagrant.

Let's do it so as a goof this Eric. He invited Spano to the twenty twelve, twenty thirteen season opener for the Islanders, and it was like a shortened season thanks to the NHL lockout labor dispute, and Spano he gets this DM or whatever, and he's like nervous about it, but he accepted the invitation.

Of course, it's act Haron, close you out. Oh yeah, I.

Want you to picture it. It's January nineteenth, twenty thirteen. You are a die hard New York Islanders fan. You hold season tickets. You love this team. The season has been on hold due to the lockout, but that has finally been resolved, and here you are at opening night. The air is electric. People file in to take their seats to watch the home team take on the New Jersey Devils. This is your happy place. You're home away from home, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

They're partying it.

Up with a pretty big group, larger than usual. People walk up, stop and shake this one guy's hand. Chat for a bit and then head into the arena. As you approach, you look at the man in the Islander's sweatshirt and ball cap. He looks familiar. You greet the guys, your section mates, and nod at the new guy. Eric, the guy whose seat is always next to years, introduces you. This is John Spano.

No way.

You think, what is this guy doing here? You shake his hand. Not wanting to be rude, you try and think of something to say. You fired Milbury as the head coach and put in Bowness. You tell him. He nods, excellent move. Everyone laughs. A guy walks by, sees Spano and calls out.

What are you doing here? You bum?

Spano lowers his head. You feel kind of bad for him, but at the same time the guy is a total crook. Eric announces that you should all head inside, and you walk together to your seats. Through years of ticket holding and increased spending, you now have great seats. In fact, you are directly across from the owner's box and you can look right in at the folks in there tonight.

He is a bum.

So well, Spano's enjoying a night out thanks to his new Twitter buddies. His criminal life went on so from June of twenty eleven to No Member of twenty twelve, he stole almost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Image First, the place that gave the sales gig.

I like that. You can name almost any criminal who goes into like a convenience store and they will get a way more severe penalty. Criminal penalty for stealing like I don't know, eight dollars worth of merchandise, and this guy is writing bad check after bad checks, literally stealing hundreds of thousand dollars everyone's like that span out, I know.

So it was like not just image first. They had a sister company, London Cleaners, was stealing from them too. His attorney was like, you know, my client is not the one to blame. He was just a minor part in this. Was to blame the owners of the businesses. They're the actual criminal masterminds here.

Society is to blame.

Right as not a successful defense. So August of twenty fourteen, he gets indicted by a grand jury in Ohio on one count of theft and forty four counts of forgery.

Jeez.

So he pleaded guilty to sixteen counts of forgery, got sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Hikes, So that's you know, he got it.

He got his count up enough to actually get some time.

And he had to repay seventy five thousand dollars to the company in restitution. He did his time at the Grafton Correctional Facility just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Got released in November of twenty twenty four recent huh, and there's no word on whether he's gone back to grifting again.

That's the thing that I kind of pointed this out earlier, is that we don't look at on paper crime nearly the same. And so eventually get up to a place where people will just believe you, and you got Deutsche Bank to give you like one hundred million dollars because they're like, oh, then they don't want to admit that they do. Then they'll bury it for two years totally and buy you time to go find some other sucker, and then be like, give him a little bit more money.

And the thing is, like he said he was a little embarrassed by his bad behavior a little and that he wasn't the only one who was punished like his family and his friends they went through it too, you know, by association.

Did he recognize it when he says they were punished, they were punished by him, But here's the thing.

At the same time, he was like, I would do it all over again.

I would punish everyone I know all over again. And they were like, what for three months ownership of the Islanders?

He said it was quote a fulfillment of a dream, even if it was for a short time.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I'm so offended, Like just that.

Guy Milbury that he fired. Yeah. They asked him like in an interview, it's like a decade after this all goes down, Yeah, Like what do you think? And he referred to him as an that remains full of.

Like Milbury. Yeah.

When interviewed regarding one of the scandals, former executive Jim Lights remember him, he said, like, why the grift worked?

Yeah? Why? Quote?

You know, with John, you got none of that funny feeling you would expect to get about a guy trying to scam you. You always get a picture of these guys driving around in big limos with busty girlfriends on their arms. He wasn't like that at all. John and his wife were very simple people, very Middle America. We're very forgiving people, sometimes too forgiving.

See, this is the other part that I didn't want to like bring all the way home as my point, which is because it feels like I'm blaming somebody for this, but these people are natural born suckers. If you think that the devil's gonna show up with a pitchfork, you know, it's like he wasn't in a limo with bucks and blondes. Bodacious point of a con artist is that they show up and they make you feel confident.

Yeah, oh my goodness, there it is, is Aaron, what's your ridiculous take away this whole thing?

Something like talk about fill up the tob with just crap. I'm with the dude Milbury dude, like he nailed it. This guy isn't fully Yeah he heard ridiculous takeaway.

I'm just always done, like you're saying the lying.

I couldn't.

I couldn't get five minutes into this without melting down. Yeah, and like, but to maintain this, and then especially when you're put on the spot where they're like, okay, where's the payment, and then to come up with excuse after excuse.

And then and everyone's just buying it.

They're like, Okay, no, right now, you gotta pay me. Okay, fine, now now you have it. Just doesn't enough.

They're not buying it, and they're just mad and you're still lying to.

You're still lying, and then you're like hold on, and then you go over to the next guy like, hey, listen, can I get a loan on because I have this amount. The whole thing's nuts.

Have you seen my rented jet? Because you know guy would have that and not be rich.

Oh you know what, it's time for talkback.

Oh my god, did he do super?

I went you.

Ridiculous crime fam. Hello, this is Catherine from Albuquerque with an update for you.

One.

My husband who broke his back can now walk on assistant and is healing very well. And we're all very excited for him because he's healing much quicker than we all expected. So that is super exciting. To he copy a shirt from your merch store on your award winning website, which I just love, and so that's amazing. I hope you all had a merry Christmas.

Oh my god, Yes, I am so excited because back injuries are new joke.

Oh yeah, congrats to your That is really cool. We were pulling for his recovery.

I love it, hear it, and I love how sweet for him to get you the best.

Merchant good partner. I love it and I used to work construction, so trust me, I know about healing, especially from back injuries and things like that. Yeah, please tell them extra congrats for me on that.

Oh yeah yeah, what a wonderful way to wrap up the year. We need good good end of the year.

Yeah, we need some good energy and that made me give me a big smile you too. No more Winter of Dark, Elizabeth, No, No, that's it for today.

You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.

There's also merch on there.

We're at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky on Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, Leave it, talk back on the iHeart app. Share your excellent news like that reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by owner of the Rhode Island Rabbit Holes, Dave Cousten, starring Annale Rucker as Judah. Research is by Nordstrom Housewares

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