Ridiculous Crime is a production of iheartradiozalentm.
Zaren Oh Elizabeth, lady host. Hey, what's up, lady host?
How are you doing?
I'm doing well. Just man hosting over here. Sorry, gentlemen. Hosting host Maxings maxing with a hammer in my hand.
The way to do you know what's ridiculous?
Just hit your temple though, I do. You know, Sometimes you try to explain to somebody about like something you saw online. In my case, usually it's going to be like a skeeter or a tweet or whatever, a post, and I'm like, oh, and they're not not one of your friends who are ever online, And I'm I'm sure you have some of those, right, yeah, So and you're trying to you sound like you're like I sound insane, right.
So I've now started taking screenshots so that I can show them, like the post that I wanted and tended to be trying to remember it and then look finding it, right, So I found one that I wanted to share with you because this reminds me of our conversations about cased meats, and I often want to bring it up whenever we're talking about case to meats.
So, which is often.
It's far more often than my other friends. So the post is by c. Joiner and it's a classic. The post says a sign in the window reads cured Meats. Inside, Salami takes his first steps since the accident, A Preshudo learns to forgive. It is absolutely love. It kills me every time they absurdedes.
You know, I absurd comedy is what is giving me life right now.
Going.
Yeah, I was.
At a bar that was having a birthday for a dog, and I was trying to explain to my friend, Yeah, I didn't know the dog, but I was out there at the bar when the party was going down, so I took photos of it, you know, and I was like, oh, yeah, what's the dog's name? And like they pointed at the sign. I'm like, God, isretty big? I should have seen that. It's like happy birthday lady.
And I was like, oh, could have been anybody?
I thought that could have been yeah, pretty much anyone in here. So yeah, there you go. Ridiculous.
It's ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Love it messing with No Show Jones? What what this is? Ridiculous Crime? A podcast about absurd and outrageous cavers, heists, and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
I know you don't heard that. Oh I don't heard it that grape fun.
You and I have an affinity not just for Encase meets, but for outlaw country music.
Oh my god. Yes, yeah, Willie.
Nelson, Johnny cash, Merle Haggard, Haig Williams, Junior AKA.
But not so much David David Allen co. But I like David Allen I know.
But I like when Junior calls himself bo. Got to bring that up, Yes, Chrisson, he falls up in there.
So what do you call it, Jesse culter? I mean, let's not leave her out.
Yes, So it's a seventies sub genre of country music in this sense, anti establishment, rebellious, stripped.
Down sound outside of Nashville.
Yes, gritty lyrics, it's not polished up. It's very real. These are the guys who are fighting against Nashville for the soul of country. Yes, they wanted to save the soul of traditionalist country. So Willy Willy started out with traditionalist honky Tonk Roadhouse, and then Nashville got slick and glossy. He went outlaws shotgun Willy. So the original traditionalists are folks like Hank Williams, buck Owens, Lorette, A Lynn, and Merle. I'll put Merle back into Jimmy Rodgers in there. Oh yeah,
definitely Jimmie Rogers. And we can't forget George Jones. So while he fell more into the traditionalist camp rather than outlaw, the guy lived the life of a country outlaw, like a big old, messy country out He got them, Yes, the other I want to talk about George Jones today much possom. They called him the possum. He's not the criminal in these stories. No, the crime just like buzzes around him like horse flies in a stable. His run ins with the law were generally a product of his alcoholism,
and I don't find that particularly funny or entertaining. Clear of all that, but let me tell you a little bit about George Jones. Let's set the stage for what's to come. George Glenn Jones born in September twelfth, nineteen thirty one, in Saratoga, Texas. He grew up in nearby Vider in the piny Woods of Southeast Texas, and he was the youngest of eight children in a working class family, and they were poor. There was all this instability because
of the Great Depression. His father, George Washington Jones, was an alcoholic who was sometimes violent. His mother, Clara Patterson Jones, she was musically inclined, and she really encouraged her son's early interest in singing. And so he later said that hearing gospel music in church and on the radio, especially the stuff by Roy Acuff, stirred something in him and
it hooked in. So by the time he was nine, he was performing on the streets of Beaumont for tips, and at sixteen he left home started playing in honky tonks all across East Texas. So by nineteen fifty he got married, got divorced.
You wanted to get one out, just knock it out, Yeah.
Just like just a little trial run. He enlisted in the Marines during the Korean War conflict, so stationed in California, continue to play music when he could. He gets out in nineteen fifty three, goes back to Texas and he's like, I'm going to be a full time musician.
Oh my god, that's my look. You're able to just open my mouth and.
It wouldn't that be amazing?
It would be the most amazing. Imagine.
He gets a recording contract with Starday Records in nineteen fifty four with this producer Pappy Daily.
The names oh Country Pappy Daily.
So his early country and Western yeah, very much so. His early singles had that like hard edged honky tonk style of the period. His breakthrough came in nineteen fifty five he had a song why Baby Why. It was a top ten country hit, got him like national attention, and then through the late fifties he recorded this string of like really successful singles, including White Lightning m and that became his first number one country hit in nineteen
fifty nine. And it has like this really driving rhythm. He has expressive, kind of comedic vocals, and he shows that he can be funny and demonstrate humor, but had this like technical precision like what light So his voice quickly became like his defining instrument. He had this really wide range, incredible breath control.
Yes like Frank Sinatra that way yeah.
And a gift for really again like Sinatra, subtle freeze.
Raising totally lets you do with the great breath, you can do exactly what you want.
Exactly. So he could slide between notes in a way that you know, showed a lot of nuance, but it wasn't He was never sappy or sentimental.
Yeah, yeah, no, he had more of an ache than yes.
So all other artists, critics, they said that he was the Many described him as the greatest male country singer of his generation. Yeah. So his ballads were groundbreaking because they were like super conversational and intimate and that went on to influence performers all across country and Americana music. Oh they all are kind of riffing him. Yeah. Yeah. So in nineteen sixty six, George Jones and his band recorded at Nugget Studios, and this was this like really
modest facility in north of Nashville. Musicians loved it because it was cheap and it was out in the country, like out the Millanore. So George Jones, we can make a racket, yeah exactly. Has a hit with White Lightning. He's also got a hit. She thinks I still care. But people are starting to hear about his drinking troubles and like he'd go.
On benders possible.
Yeah, he wasn't particularly reliable in the studio or on the road, but people didn't care. They're just like, you're too good. He still sells out shows. It's kind of like, you know, people buy a ticket to a Lauren Hill show and they're like, she may not show up Morrissey, but you know, I'll hang in there. So during the Nugget Sessions, Jones and his musicians they recorded a ton of songs like tons. He did some originals, but he
covered a lot of Hank Williams tunes. One of his originals was a song called Ship of Love and it was co written with Earl Peanut Montgomery and Johnny Paycheck.
Yeah, Johnny Paycheck right, so.
And he also like saying like harmony vocals and played the bass Johnny Paycheck did.
So.
The recordings are produced under this agreement with Jimmy Donn Enterprises that is a rad hillbilly company. So this was a business partnership between Donald gilbreath Don and Jones's road manager, Jimmy Klein.
So, Jimmy don Jimmy, I don't know why I thought it was one guy.
Gilbreth had known Jones for years. They worked together on music on promo stuff, and according to documentation, that was signed by Jones The arrangement called for payment of six thousand dollars in exchange for recording about one hundred and thirty.
Songs, and one.
Hundred and thirty these would be for radio play sure, and the ownership rights right that's a lot ownership rights would go to Jimmy Dawn Enterprises. So the precise nature of the rights transfer later became unclear, like did Jones formally sell the recordings, did he assign them outright, or did he just straight up relinquish them because he was in a bad way with his addiction. It's not really clear. In a Sword statement years later, Kleine mentioned that Jones had fully given up his.
Interest in the rust rights and publishing.
Yeah, and they're like why, He's like, I don't know. I can't explain it, possum, you just can't. So after the nineteen sixty six sessions wrapped up and when Nugget was in everyone's rear view, the master tapes pretty much disappeared from public view, and more than a decade later, in nineteen seventy nine, Gilbreath he made a friend fellow by the name of David's Snotty s n O D d wy Wow. So the two. They bonded over all
these shared interests they had bowling, go krt sales. You know how you meet someone who're like you, I do go I'm into go kart sales? Like no way, so am I.
Are you saying go kart sales? You don't mean like selling go karts? You mean a go cart that has a sale?
No? No, no selling go carl face.
Was like a desert thing.
And commerce of go carts go cart dealers Like.
I couldn't be that easy talking about you like to move units?
I love power what So they started hanging out with at an Alabama bowling alley that was managed by Gilbreath why not and like George Jones would come by sometimes and be like what's up?
Yeah? They got.
So throughout the eighties, Gilbreath and Snotty they became partners in all these different ventures, vending machine operations for the Mafia construction, real estate development. They also leased tour.
Busuction so cement were they also in like wistmans I think?
So they they leased tour buses to to George Jones and sometimes to.
Oh yeah, one of my favorites.
So in addition to transportation services, they also handled the merch sales at George Jones concerts, of course, and so and he was raking it in one shirts, ball caps, bumper stickers, T shirts and I feel like a George Jones bumper sticker is a surefar way to get pulled over and subjected to a breath lez pull me over right now. Snotty later testified that he and Gilbreath divided the profits from the merchandise sales with Jones and his band over a three year period.
Basically, George Jones bumper stickers is like one of those like I've been to Gillies. It's like, okay, you drink and yeah, exactly so light you.
So. By the early nineteen eighties, the Pals had branched out into a new transportation venture. What is that large scale drug trafficking transportation. They moved marijuana and Colombian coke into Southern States via small aircraft.
I really got the organized crime feeling from them early.
You could sniff it out.
You did a good job, thank you, and I'd like it. I'm glad that they're keeping up with the trends in crime, like thees. Let's get into cocaine.
Sure, good things.
We should sell pot right now.
They're just they're just carrying it over so that we're in the early eighties. Snotty owns some of the planes the sky to play like a little buzzer like he did a little treetop flying. One alleged associate claimed that the pair would hide drugs in the tour buses that they were leasing out to country stars, and Snotty was like, lies, lies, I tell you. I just hope they weren't making Miss Loretta carry wait, like that's just right.
Getting caught on the Texas is wrong.
In late nineteen eighty two, Gilbreath took over Klein's Steak in the nineteen sixty six tapes and he brought Snotty in as a partner and they tried to get a buyer for those Hank Williams covers. By the way, what's your favorite Hank Williams song.
I'm trying to think of my favorite Hank Williams song. Give me a second. What's your favorite Hank?
I think mine is you win again. Yeah, they're great covers of that, Like Mike Nest does an incredible cover. Grateful Dead used to cover it. Fats Demino, that's Domino. But some say some say Fats Domino, Johnny Cash, Keith Richards does a weird cover it. I also I also like cold cold Heart. Aretha in like the Muscle Shoals Sessions does an incredible cold cold heart. Tony Bennett's the one actually who made it popular in the first place and drew attention to it, and that drew attention to Hank.
That was Tony Bennett, old Tonetti.
God bless him.
A thank you, Tony.
So any strike your fans.
I was thinking, like, you're cheating heart, but uh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's that's a tough question.
Give me.
Let me see if I can answer that later. A good looking Well, yeah, that's a fun one.
Do you think on it? Let it percolate?
Yeah, because I don't anyway, I often so I do it so flippant, I always, and I hear back the episode, I'm like, that's you'll have.
A chance to think on it for a second. It's so anyway, these two bosos, they're trying to sell off the Hank covers, okay, And before they could get that together, they got arrested in connection with a conspiracy to purchase tens of thousands of pounds in marijuana. Oops, Like, I don't think Hank done it this way. So they posted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond backed by real estate holdings. And so you know, there was a conviction and they appeared it and they had to satisfy their
bail while they were on appeal a million dollars. Now, So at that stage, Gilbreath presented the George Jones tapes as collateral. He said the five reel to reel tapes contained thirty five live performances by George Jones and his band, and that their value was more than a million dollars. And he said there were projections that you know, the price could go up sure because Jones was so legendary and like the finite nature of his recording career. I mean, we all got to go sometimes.
Oh that's what they mean. I was wondering, are they trying.
To say, like they're like right, so as soon as he's gone, the price.
Will be they should sell.
So the court accepted the tapes as collateral and both of them got temporary release pending appeal. Let's take a break. You think on your favorite Hanks on when we return the tapes?
Nice Zaren Elizabeth, we're back where we are?
So have you thought a little bit more about your favorite Hank song?
I did while you were brushing at your hair during the break. I had a moment.
Are you making fun of the fact that I don't brush my hair?
No? Never, Why would I do that? You caught me off guard. You know, I'm terrible a song titles, Like if you don't sing the song title in your song, I'm like, I wants the name of that song. Yeah he does, so I'm good there, right, and a lot of them. But I wanted to be certain because like I always feel bad and I said earlier, like you know, you're cheating heart as probably, but I don't want to be like all modling, like, oh I'm so lonesome, I
could cry. It was my favorite song. So I'll go with the one that I had a lot of fun as a boy singing, which always was like, you know, wear my blove the country started just singing country with my dad driving around or dancing and while he's cooking breakfast. So I'm gonna go with hey, good looking, cooking cooking up with me that.
Looking. We could just sing Hank songs for the rest of it Ridico's crimes.
Are you giving me that time to think about it? Because I always feel like a bozo whenever I'm like no, no, no songs I like on.
This spot, you know, like and I've been in this, you know, working on this for a bit here, so.
Well, yeah, I just I can't thought about my dud. That's kind of tough because like they're all such different moves.
Well, yeah, that's the thing too, all right. So where when we left off Guild Breath and Snotty, They got busted for drug running and they needed to pay their bail while on appeal, so they put up George Jones's nugget sessions.
Some original.
No, some originals, had a bunch of Hank Williams covers. So this is in nineteen eighty four. By nineteen eighty six they were hooked up with none other than the Medaine Cartel. Yeah, they had upsized and so this was coke running on the biggest scale imaginable. They used their planes. They got some pilots who were willing to take some risks, and sometimes it got a little squirrely with those pilots that they oh the.
Small planes with an uneven load shifting around.
In the back.
Saren close.
Yes, I want you to picture it.
It's February thirteenth, nineteen eighty six. You are a US customs agent named Gary Gingrich, not Jerry Gurgich, and likely no relation to Newt Gangridge. You're a helicopter pilot. I know how much you love that. You and your partner are on a patrol ship north of the Gulf Coast. You got a report of a suspicious cessna. The registration number came back to a David Leon Snoddy out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Turns out the guy is a known drug runner. You get eyes on the plane and begin
to follow. You've just gassed up, so you're ready to track him wherever he may go. You picked him up near the Louisiana Mississippi border. He's flying a little low and won't respond when you try and raise him on the radio. You move in closer. The pilot still won't answer you on the radio. You get closer. You're now about ten feet behind the plane. You and your partner notice a side window open up and then a package is fluffed. It spins and flips as it topples to
the ground. You are a customs agent. You know what a kilo of coke looks like? Crab apple, you shout, You don't say Badwards. Down below, in the parking lot of a small Baptist church out in the woods of the Hamachido National Forest, a brick of coke comes to sumbling toward the earth. Taped and wrapped like a high school senior's visits class project. It bounces off the dirt of the lot without splitting open. It carives through the air, clears a low chain link fence, and skitters across the
neat grass of the church's small cemetery. The package rolls away deep into the thick woods, where it sits to this day. You continue to follow the plane. Another brick of coke flies out the window, then another. You continue to follow goodly. Time goes by with still no answer from the pilot of the plane. It's just the whirr of your blades and the crackle of an empty radio channel. You pull alongside the plane. Now there are two men in there. The pilot wears large dark aviator sunglasses and
a polo shirt. The passenger's wearing a Hawaiian shirt and looks straight at you. He smiles, then he gives you the finger, bark a lounger. You shout, you radio to the ground. The passenger just gave me the finger. They tell you to continue pursuit. You ask if they're sending up support. I mean, you're in a helicopter and you've been flying for a while.
Now.
You are ironically just passing over Muscle Shoals, Alabama. You've got to stop for fuel soon. You pull up beside the plane again in gesture for the pilot to answer his radio. The two men in the plane laugh. You gesture for him to land. Well, that's what you mean. Your partner asks, what are you trying to tell them land? You say, oh, it looks like that Egyptian dance. He says, Gogenheim. You yell the passenger, and the plane flips you off once again, and then opens his side window and tosses
another brick of cocoa. You're just approaching Huntsville, Alabama. You radio control that you have to stop and refuel. They promise to send another flyer up to track the cessma. You peel off and head for an airstrip. The plane keeps going. You land and a crew comes out to fill up your tank. And you slam your fist on your knee. Man at Toba, you yell. Your partner asks what the problem is. You tell them that you hate to not get your man. Just as they're finished, you
get a message. The plane landed in Collegedale, Tennessee, just outside of Chattanooga, Chattanooga. You cry. Your partner asks him, what is it this time? We're headed to Chattanooga. You tell him off. You go racing through the sky. When you land at Collegedale, the cops on the ground have the passenger in custod You approach and confirm what it's the value you saw? Not so funny now you kill. You walk over and peek your head into the plane.
Looking back into the passenger area, a little transistor radio plays a mournful country ballad. Kilos of cocaine raptpe are stacked along the ground. You walk back over to the cops. What about the pilot? Where's he? I'd like the word with him, you say. They tell you that as soon as the plane landed, the pilot hopped out and skid outled into the woods. They were unable to locate in Hippopotamus foiled again, so the FEDS got Snotty's plane full
of coke. The pilot, Samuel Klaus Burchard, managed to escape and not get caught. In fact, he was featured on America's Most Wanted in nineteen eighty eight as a result of this.
As a result of this.
Yes, he made it off of the airfield in College Dale, got a friend to come pick him up and drive him to Miami, and then from there he was believed to have gone to the Bahamas. He was never seen again.
Ever, Sure he's never came back to America if he could help it. Sure, so she can still.
Fly around because he'd been smuggling cocaine and other drugs since the early seventies. He had connections all over the place.
I'm hoping some savings probably, I hope also, you know, around the same time, if I'm not mistaken, it could have been these guys. But Pabulo Escobar found out that Whalen was like doing his blow and he had a like kilo sent directly and the FBI ended up tracking a shipment that went directly from Pablo.
These kind of makes sense how long that they were exactly so the pilot he gets indicted, along with forty other members of this smuggling ring, and that included Snotty and gil Breath. And that was May of nineteen eighty six. There had been this year long undercover operation to bust what was a billion dollar operation at that time. So,
following the new charges, Bond gets revoked. The nugget tapes, remember those, They get returned to the men's attorney, who acknowledged retrieving them in nineteen eighty six, and he later stated that, acting under instructions from his clients, he sold the recordings for twenty eight thousand dollars to cover mounting legal expenses. And it was only a fraction of their value.
That's what that was.
Grand they're saying it was a million.
Yeah.
So in nineteen eighty seven, both Gilbreath and Sicho.
Selling a car for a book of stamps. Yeah exactly, I need to send this postcard.
Yes exactly. They get convicted in the cocaine case in nineteen eighty seven. Gilbreath gets out in nineteen ninety two after cooperating against a cartel figure. I know, right, brave.
So it wasn't now long.
Snotty got free in nineteen ninety three, but then he went back to prison for something else, and then he got released in twenty fifteen. Now unexpectedly, in twenty fourteen, a Louisiana court found some of the Jones tapes stored in a bank vault that had been used for court collateral decades earlier. Because only Gilbreath had been formally listed as the owner when the tapes were pledged, the court released them to his estate following his two thousand and
five death. Current there was no will in place, a Tennessee court appointed Dwayne Maddox the Third as the estate administrator. He transferred the tapes to a Tennessee bank vault, where they remain unplayed. Huh and then it gets, you know, transferred over. It just bounces all over the place.
Does he know what they were? And you think, oh, they got some real to real tape.
I guess Snotty, whose co ownership had never been formally recorded, successfully pursued a legal claim to shared ownership in twenty eighteen. Than twenty twenty, George Jones's sons find out about the tapes.
Thank you. I was wondering when the family would here about these.
They sued Snoddy and the Gilbreath estate. They disputed the ownership rights and they questioned the validity and the scope of that original nineteen sixty six contract. So they said, even if it's enforceable, the agreement seemed to restrict usage only to radio broadcast, so not like records and not April of twenty twenty two, a federal court intend.
And am.
So that's their suit. Right April of twenty twenty two, a federal court in Tennessee dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction. So, decades of legal maneuvering, we still don't know what's on the tapes.
No one's heard them, no, no one.
Has publicly verified whether they contain the labeled master recordings of the nineteen sixty six performances or if that old magnetic tape could survive being digitized. It's so fragile at this point. So a judge previously noted concerns that the judge was like, look, there are these concerns that exposure to magnetic or electrical interference could permanently erase them and snatty in the Gilbreath estate. They want to market it,
but Jones's sons are like, no, no, you can't. You can't make money off of this like, we need to get this all settled.
So good for them.
Let's go back to nineteen sixty nine's Elizabeth. That's when George Jones married Tammy Wynette.
On the Age of Aquarius.
It's the age Tammy was a huge.
Country Tammy wan George.
Oh yeah, forget about it.
Their partnership became one of country music's most commercially successful and publicly scrutinized.
Marriage Honey, hush, honey.
They divorced in nineteen seventy five, and so his personal George's personal struggle really escalated in the seventh.
A lot of the craziest stories yes to come from there.
Alcohol cocaine addiction would disrupt the recording sessions, the tour schedules. He was notorious within the industry for missing concerts, and that got him the nickname no Show Jones.
Yes, you know that the Gwaylon Jennings talking about the time he had to like basically tie a rope and tie George Jones to a tree. Yes, right, I mean like that's where like he was a willful Yes he was.
Yes, he was a country boy, thank you. He started to have more and more financial problems because he wasn't showing up for these paid performances.
Oh yeah, he's gonna do what he's going to do, because.
Erratic behavior became legendary. And then there's the often retold story that he once wrote a lawnmower riding lawnmower to a liquor store after Tammy why Nutt hit his car keys.
I was trying not to bring that one up because he sat up top, but U one of my favorite stories of all country music history, just because of the choice of like, yeah, like I was saying, he's wilful, He's like, I'm going to get there. I'll take my rod and.
Mower and I'll come get on the john there you can get down there. So despite these setbacks.
Did you know why people drove past him and didn't give him a ride?
I've seen that when I lived down South. Oh I bet I saw someone take a writing lord of the liquor store. It was it was a thing.
See in California. It's like, oh, you're riding a little girl's bike.
So despite all these setbacks, George Jones continued to record really important work, and in nineteen eighty he released he Stopped Loving Her Today, Oh Song, produced by Billy Cheryl.
This I'm talking about.
Somber, somber narrative about lifelong devotion ending only in death, and that became the defining recording of his career. He stopped loving her today. If you haven't heard it, you got to listen to it. It won multiple awards, is frequently cited by critics and other artists as one of the greatest country songs ever recorded. Oh yeah, definitely, and so the performance revitalized his reputation and also introduced him
to this whole new generation of listeners. So in nineteen eighty three he married Nancy Sepulvido, and she became a total stabilizing force in his life and in his career. And so with her support, he got sober, rebuilt his professional standing, and he credited her in nineteen eighties and early nineties had all this renewed touring success.
Can you imagine both the strength and will you have to have to meet George Jones and overcome him, and then the kindness you also have to be. She has to be one of the hardest and softest people.
Yes, exactly, and just like a rock Yeah, you know, he had all these other hits, still doing time. I always get lucky with you. He gets into the Country Music Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety two, and in April of twenty thirteen is when he passed away and Nancy wanted to sell. They had this huge estate in Tennessee Country Gold. It was called She wanted to sell it when he passed away. During that summer, a guy named Kirk West toured the property. He presented himself like
this seasoned investor. He wanted to buy it. There was no deal that came about, but he starts buzzing around. You know, he's like two decades younger than she is. Handsome, No, okay, but we'll see anyway, who is Kirk? I mean for some some ladies would probably look at the mir a handsome man.
Are we talking about, like one of those like you know, handsome, good old boy, like you know, conn to come.
Around, That's what I would say. So but like a little bit like Schlubier. Yeah yeah, anyway, who who is Kirk West?
That's kirk question.
Let's take a break, and when we come back, I shall tell you, Zaren, Zaren, who is Kirk West?
Elizabeth? I have been wondering who Kirk West is ever since you mentioned his name. I know me too, possibly before.
I was hoping you could tell me because I have nothing else on here. Let's find out, let's join that Kirk. He was born Kirk Leipzig, was raised in Wisconsin, and he initially worked as a grocery store manager before he reinvented himself as a career placement consultant. What I need a new career. Let me talk to this guy.
So he's like essentially like a headhunter and life coach.
Yeah, god, the whole life coaching. By the early two thousands he had relocated to Nashville, was he had all these different business names. The most notable one J. L. Kirk Associates.
Oh you literally a bunch of different names like oh yeah, welcome to Kirk America.
Oh yeah.
He had like a bunch of.
L's unfurnished furterature.
He had all these different explanations of why it was J. L. Kirk Associates, And sometimes he, you know, was like, well, it's either Jesus Lord or Jesus loves.
He needs a Matthew McConaughey.
Just live in Kirk, Just live in Kurtney exactly. So in two thousand and seven, this blogger Catherine Coeble in Tennessee publicly criticized his firm. Apparently, her husband got an unsolicited call promising executive level employment with his firm.
With his firm, yes, with JKL, with.
JK, just keep living. He he had to pay some fees up front first five grand.
Sorry j LK. You know Matthew McConaughey through me.
Yeah, Oh Jesus loves Kirk.
Ye remember that way.
She had to pay five thousand dollars in fees up front.
Oh, he had to pay five thousands.
Yeah, in order to get executive level employment. There were just some like upfront fees.
It sounds like a modeling scam of the children. Totally wed to give a couple lesson.
Don't worry, you can put it on a credit card week except credit cards. Five thousand dollars, like, ignore all the red flags, she said. She described the intake process as aggressive and manipulative rather than constructive, like, lady, come on, I can't help you through everything. Think about this. So after she published her account West so she goes and blogs it out. She's like, I'm going to blog all over this. We're going to regret when she.
Found her way out of the public restroom. She was stuck in for three days.
They won't let me reverse the charges on this credit card. So attorney sent a cease and desist and threatened legal actions. So what did she do? She posted the letter on her blog. Yeah, rare, and so there's all this like public commentary. By the year's end, West had closed his office.
Wow, that's far more.
And then local media reports the Better Business Bureau he had received numerous complaints. And that's the end of that period.
Who cares a lot of.
West. He went on to promote himself as a real estate investor specializing in distressed properties. And so he somehow gets this favorable profile in Forbes and it highlights these like rapid home flips, those with huge profits. He's like, I'm flipping, flipping back and forth, slap it up, flip it. So he uses all this he gets all this credibility with perspective. According to Forbes quote, West boasted about flipping two homes within six weeks, making nearly half a million
dollars in profit. The spread became a calling card for West, referring potential investors to the flattering piece as proof of both his trustworthiness and track record.
Should I say it's neither. I'm just going to go with the opposite of what he said.
Yeah.
Over time, lawsuits start stacking up. Investors are like, you know, we gave him money, he bought the properties, then he resold them and didn't tell us that he had sold them. Like still they think they're still just on the market and sit.
He bought the properties with our money. Yeah, and then he sold them and he kept all the money.
According to Rolling Stone quote, after reading West's Forbes article, a couple who'd been in touch with West withdrew from their retirement fund, used a portion of their savings, and borrowed money from their adult son to invest one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a home West was flipping in August of twenty ten. Allegedly promised a double return. They learned West sold the house a year later and
never shared the profits. Only after confronting him did they manage to recoup one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, filing suit for the remaining thirty five thousand dollars. This is like, so that case eventually gets dismissed because they started missing deadlines on it. So I mean anyway, financial institutions, other entities, they start suing him too. He has all these unpaid debts. He owed a local paper money for ads that he ran.
Mercedes Benz was subscription. Basically, Mercedes Benz is like, we need to talk. You owe us thirty thousand in car payments at leasing and even as attorney sued him after the property that he was renting entered foreclosure. Also form Rolling Stone magazine quote, even West's own attorneys sued him. Scott Johansson said he successfully fought off several fraud litigation claims against West, but after the house Johansson was living in which he rented from West, suddenly went into foreclosure,
he filed suit. In February of twenty fourteen, Johansson listed seven alleged Ponzi schemes West was involved in between November twenty eleven and August twenty thirteen. He alleged West followed
the same pattern in each instance. After West was quote threatened by an attorney with a civil law action and potential criminal prosecution for allegedly orchestrating and participating in a Ponzi scheme, Johansson claimed Westwood settle with moneies borrowed and or otherwise secured for one or more third parties.
So I had to wonder about Johansson. Yeah, as the lawyer who knows what he's defending, he seems yeah, and then he decides, like I'm going to run a house from this guy who's like scamming everybody won't scam he.
Will skim me, no special baby. So the case becomes moot because West declared bankruptcy. Okay, thanks, Personally, like the guy had been married multiple times and then court records show like he had all these child support disputes. There was infidelity alleged and abuse. In one of the divorces, there was an order of protection. His ex wife accused him of harassment. He had a misdemeanor charge for violating the order, but it got dropped.
Is there anything not gross about it?
No, family members, It gets worse. Family members described that he had like two different personas. He had like this publicly affable religious side and then the private, controlling, volatile partner.
Okay, once again my previous answer.
So Rolling Stone spoke with his former stepdaughter Alicia Porter quote he was also a cheater. Porter claims he told my mom that he was going on a spiritual retreat, and she followed him to the airport and found another woman's luggage tag and that he was taking the woman on a ten thousand dollars vacation on their anniversary.
Morn says, maybe he had plans to see God with that woman.
I bet he did. So. All sorts of exes tell similar stories. I'm sure he'd overwhelm them, love bombam, shower them with gifts, help around the house. He targeted like single mombs who were struggling, straight up predator. Then he turn and like get mean and violent and basically.
He was a piece of I hate this guy.
He was a piece of Yeah, I'm gonna say one. We're talking about twenty fifteen.
I mean, did I not blush?
He has all these like lawsuits, all this stuff. He legally changed his name from Leipzig and in the court documents he listed his reason as quote, don't like my name always misspelled too hard, And that's when he became Kirkquest. So in April of twenty thirteen, that's when he met Nancy Jones. She wanted to sell Country Gold, the ninety six hundred square foot home on eight acres that she shared with George Jones.
How did their circles intersect.
I'm about to tell you. I can just imagine George Jones coming back and tuning this guy up.
Like just bending a golf club over his head.
So when West went to look at Country Gold, do you know who was with him? No, Jamie Spears, father of Britney Spears, That scumbag, as Marissa researcher. Marissa said, quote this is entirely unexplained, but seems to track.
Birds of a feather.
I mean, so she's going out on the market and he goes as a real estate investor, okay, and he's like, he presents himself as this quiet, god fearing man.
So he gets a home tour and she has to be the one. Dude.
Yeah, and Nancy, she's religious and so that was really appealing to her. He laid it on stick. He gained her friendship and her trust per Rolling Stone, Well.
Will you pray with me, sister?
Oh my god. Quote. Nancy had been distraught when the Honky Tonk crooner died, and she cherished what seemed to be a genuine friendship with West in the immediate months after Jones's death. That quickly blossomed into romance.
Teeth so hard.
My friends of hers were suspicious that he targeted Nancy because she was vulnerable and wealthy.
Yes quote, and he's a sleeves ball quote.
I never trusted him. An old friend of Nancy's who knew the couple for more than a decade tells Rolling Stone George had just passed and all of a sudden, this guy shows up hanging around with Nancy. It's kind of obvious what he was looking for. It seems to me that he was just looking for the widow's money. But he's hung around for a long time. I guess he was playing the long game. And he's a guy that reads obituaries and praise on people, said one former
ex girlfriend. And I'm fairly confident that's how he managed to get in touch with Nancy.
Oh my goodness. So I've heard about people reading obituaries trying to find like a rent control department in York, and I was like, that's a good angle, but like this is like just next level, like just cruising the Nashville widow scene and like, go on, who's got money the lowest?
So but she seemed happy, So her friends decided to mind their own business. But in October twenty fourteen, they did run a background check on him. They found over a dozen like state and federal lawsuits filed against him Wisconsin, Tennessee. They didn't tell Nancy about the background check, just for gossip. A friend said, quote. A friend said quote. Time went by and she was still with him. I just let it be. I never showed it to her because it seemed like she was happy.
No, it's tough, I will say that, friend.
It is tough in those situations when you see someone in Nancy's type of position, like bad relationship, whatnot, because a lot of times if you do say something, either the person won't listen or they'll get defensive or start to pull away.
But now your standard like that, but if you have receipts.
But even then, if they start to pull away, you won't be able to see when things get really bad. Like you such a.
Tough I totally agree, but I'm saying that. But can't you have the conversation if you've got pages of lawsuits and civil complaints and like, But you know, these these predator guys, they have they have answers that they're ready.
Yeah, so within weeks of their meeting. Now, remember he shows up like, oh, yeah, I'm a real estate investor. Yeah, He's like, I have to tell you something, Nancy, and broke. So she's like, you know what, I will help you. She moves him into the home in a separate wing of the estate. And she later said, you know, it was totally platonic at first, but then it became intimate and from early on and they're like, you know, twenty something years different.
Just like as in Day and Tom Holland lovers friends.
To lover her, friends to love her exactly classic.
So we're gonna yank my tongue out and wrap it around my throat and pull real tight. Don't mind me.
So from early on she financed their lifestyle. Of course, she They went on these like fancy tropical vacations. She bought them a new Mercedes he to replace the other one.
He said, twenty years separates them. Yeah, do we have any idea of like where those twenty years are located? Like, is it like seventy to fifty forty?
I don't know, I don't know. I'm gonna guess probably like seventy to fifty sixty too.
In the sixty five forty five the difference.
In late twenty thirteen, jewelry went missing from Nancy's safe and police identified West as a suspect, but the matter was closed without resolution over time.
You know, she didn't want press charge.
Yeah. He then starts taking on more and more roles in her business affairs. So he helped Nancy make the George Jones Museum in Nashville a reality. There was a restaurant, events space, roof, deck, bar, and of course a gift shop. I would certainly hope they sold the bumper stickers there. West became the general manager and he worked in the restaurant. Nancy worked as a waitress, and she cleaned the toilets.
Wait, wait, wait, I'm going to need you to back up. He's the manager in the restaurant. She's cleaning toilets of her own volition, in her the place that she owns.
I know George Jones was looking down on all this and was absolutely steaming.
I'm sure he insisted on being reincarnated just so he could have time to come beat this guy up from there. Give me a couple of years, just enough to learn to watch.
So then Nancy made a deal Concord Bicycle Music. They bought George Jones's music catalog for thirty million dollars in twenty sixteen.
In twenty sixteen, that seems like a crazy discount.
In the paperwork for the sale, West is listed as secretary for the record company and business manager for the estate, and.
Then the double books the sale.
That same year, West gets arrested on federal bank fraud charges. Prosecutor say that he falsified income and net worth figures. He submitted forged documents all in order to get mortgages, and he made himself look like a high earning investor and not a predator who scams vulnerable women. So he pleaded guilty. He received a sentence that included house arrest and around a million dollars in restitution. Nancy paid the legal expenses. Oh advanced the funds to satisfy the restitution obligations.
He's like, I will pay you back, Zarin. He never paid her back, no kidding, yeah, And then West told others that like, Oh, I was able to pay it back because she and I did a lot of good investing together.
I don't understand how you go from I can like hang with the possum to I can get worked by this bozo e.
So during house arrest, West got super into crypto. Oh, so he encouraged Nancy to buy a bunch of cryptocurrency Doge and ethereum. Those are like the big ones. In a sworn Affidavid, Nancy said, quote, mister West volunteered to access my accounts with crypto trading platforms in light of his assertion that I was far too inexperienced. Each investment was funded by assets transferred from my personal bank accounts and was performed by mister West on my behalf and
for my benefit. In twenty twenty five, she finds out that West is hooked up with another lady who has just publicly announced their engagement. According to Rolling Stone, quote, in late April twenty twenty five, the woman posted a video of a massive oval cut diamond ring marking herself engaged on Facebook with book officially all that's how, that's how you really send out good announcements.
So after I don't know if I can grind my TV any harder.
And they're going to come spraying out of the side of your face. After confronting him, Nancy had her granddaughter helped her secure her valuables, and they found that there was four hundred thousand dollars in cash missing from a safe in the house.
And does she even know what all of her valuables are at this point since he's got some of it in crypto?
I mean like, also, how much cash do you have in the safe? In that worse worse though, you know what else was missing from the safe a ledger containing more than eleven million dollars in cryptocurrency. There you go, it was gone from the safe. Stand yep, So she fouled a police report. Then she hired forensic specialists to come trace the assets. West calls her up and is like, I'll give you some of the crypto back. I'll give you five million.
Are you going to make a deal?
And he's like the rest is mine for because it's mine because they were According to Rolling Stone quote, what happened next is unclear. West says Jones agreed to split their assets evenly so he would move out of the house. Jones's lawsuit does not mention such an agreement. None of the traditional assets were divided between them. When West left, doesn't she I know all he needs like two good rowans, you can get this done with call in Jim and Dawn.
It became pretty obvious that West was going to make a break for it, like he's going to run Kim.
I'm surprised he's still in the country.
Sure enough, authorities arrested him at the airports Court YEP July of twenty twenty five. He had a one way ticket to the Philippines and he was with a lady friend.
Of course.
Yeah, so charged with felony theft. He pleaded not guilty. He did two weeks in county while he worked and weaseled to get his bail reduced from a million to four hundred thousand. He's looking at fifteen to sixty years, so it's pending. Nancy subsequently filed suit seeking recovery of the cryptocurrency. Her complaint characterizes West's conduct as consistent with this pattern of exploiting women through charm and the appearance of financial success. This is what it says in the
suit quote. It was West's well established modus operendi to use his looks, gentlemanly manners, and veneer of a successful real estate career to exploit wealthy, potentially vulnerable women. And she's being generous with the whole looks thing.
Okay, I was wondering. I mean, he sounds like this is a very classic, like dating backs when I was a kid. This is an average year about like a whatever, like carpet bagging Southerners into in the post Civil war period, coming down and like romancing some civil war widow and whole plantation like this has been all basically story.
Yes. In early twenty twenty six West countersuit, he said that their assets had been combined and that he's entitled the half of certain holdings, including crypto currency, five million dollars in gold and silver and a million in cash. And then he also part of his lawsuit was reputational harm and defamation. Sir, sure, sure, ma'am. No, ma'am. That's when I swat him on the nose, No, ma'am. The litigation remains ongoing.
Under the windy xerous Sir, you are under a Windy's.
Zero. Your ridiculous takeaway.
I hope that goes to George Jones, catches up to him as soon as he's behind bars and can't get away, and spends all of his nights just like getting whispered too till he goes mad or till his cellmate just you know, like helps him find heaven.
I just I just this guy, what the like?
I cannot believe. I don't know. You know me, I'm not a big fan of taking it. I don't mind con men in particular because I understand, but I like it when they go for fat cats, when they get somebody who's full of themselves and they know the hoists it on the pitard bit Like I'm okay with like Robin A. Rockefeller, But if you're going and robbing the widow of a country music legend.
I mean, she she's well whatever, but he's a predator.
That's what I'm saying it. Also, she's very vulnerable.
He's vulnerable.
The Rockefeller ain't vulnerable. He's just a fool. Like you can rob a rich full and all I may applaud, but you rob like a rich, vulnerable person who is grieving essentially when they first meet, Yes, exactly, lonely and low, and you're like, oh I can take I can fill that hole in your heart.
My takeaway is I love that you got me so mad on Tuesday and now today I got you so mad.
That is how do we see this?
That's fun?
Well, we have a lot of tent up rage that we're just directing.
We have like this weird InSync quality, like you know, like two college women who would get on the same period cycle. You know, it's like you become roommates. You're like, I don't know, now we're on the same side. A week after a week we go through and like this week apparently was let's rage bait the other.
Yeah, exactly, well there it is. I think I need to talk back.
Oh my god.
I went you. Hey, guys, Scott from here in North Carolina. Here so I actually have lyrics to.
Your theme song.
Here it goes Zarah Nan Liza the crimes head all.
Ridiculess, murder free Eliza, but hate SERBESO, dude are here.
Knows?
Who cares?
Love you guys, wait so much? That is so good base. That was incredible, brother, that was amazing. And also, by the way, you can say, I like I.
Heard this song, you know hey those good time is good man, Thank you, thank you.
That's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also a Ridiculous Crime on both luskay and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime pod. You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Most importantly, as always, leave us a talkback on the free iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave the Lonesome Fugitive Cousten, starring.
Annals rutger Is Judith.
Research is by Marissa hass Brown and Jabbari tater Davis. The theme song is by Thomas the Gambler Lee and Travis Bociphus Dutton post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guests Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben the Coal Miner's Daughter Bowlin and Noel the Hillbilly Shakespeare Brown.
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