Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Saren Elizabeth.
Hey, ELIZABETHA listen, buddy, you know what's ridiculous?
Oh man, dude, I was just reading this email that the interns handed me. They hand me the emails, unlike you. Anyway, it was from this rude dude, Andrew Right, and it's kind of awesome. So subject line ridiculous, but no crime, so he writes, and I quote. A while ago, maybe ten years, I was starting my crafting era. As fate would have it, when visiting a local good Will store, there were two film reels on top of the soda
fridge by the checkout. I thought, oh, gosh, I can craft something out of film, right, No idea what that would have been, but I'm sure pinterest has some ideas. When I got home, of course, I wanted to see what these film reels could be. Enter my trusty flashlight. Turns out they were part one and part two of Deep Throat What Elizabeth the porn film? Oh god, but how can we watch this cinematic masterpiece. We were bragging about our score to friends that we didn't have a
movie projector. One person said, no, we have a movie projector. At church, I can check it out and load it to you. And that is how the Mormon Church assisted me in watching Deep Throat. Wait, thanks Joseph Smith.
Fistbump, this is the greatest femail.
So I was inspired by the Nixon episode because we met a deep throat. So he says, thanks for all the amazing ridiculousness and crimes ing. Thank you for that awesome story, Sir.
Andrew Andrew, I love the crafting and getting the film. I'm desperate to see what you would have come up with, but I'm so glad you used a church projector rupted the greatest. That is ridiculous, amazing. Do you know what else is ridiculous?
No?
I Don't's why I showed up today.
Super secret spy organizations, those I know you do. 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.
Ridiculous siculus sticulous, ridiculous siculus sticulusticulus, siculusticulous.
That was so good. It's really fun. It was fun for us.
That was ridiculous.
Right now, right, I am standing in my.
Truth sitting in it, but shirt whatever.
Sharing my journey as someone who watches and loves television.
Yeah you are, I have.
I've divulged that I'm currently watching Scandal. Yes, it's taking me a while because I only watch a handful of episodes a week.
Sure you know.
When I'm not working or taking time to insult people in their hobbies, I watch the show.
I look forward to your text about it.
Yeah, I like to. I like to live text and then I know that they you know.
Years later live text, and then I respond days later to your year's late live texting of the show.
Go on context free thing. So well, I'm not spoiling anything for anyone who hasn't gotten on the Olivia Pope. I trust my gut and it's always wrong train. So the show is about a woman, Olivia Pope. There's a political fixer in Washington, d C. She was on the President's successful campaign, and she was also on the president
successfully They were having an affairs Aaron. There are a lot of plot lines, some freestanding to an episode, but most running throughout the entire series, like the free standing ones. I feel is just like the first season and they gave up.
Yeah, they figured out the whole Monster of the Week thing won't work for them.
I know, which is kind of a shame because I like that. But here one of the big plot lines is this B six thirteen. Yes, right, it's a super secret spy agency that operates above the levels of government in the US. They work for the Republic.
They're the d state.
They don't answer to the President or the DJ or NSA or.
Another alphabet supreme court them.
They operate above the laws. So the members of B six thirteen are trained spies and killers, experts in interrogation and infiltration and assassination, dancing, and they're they're the greatest dancers. They're everywhere, always everywhere. And then one of them was even once married to Jennifer Garner. Yes, so anyway, B six thirteen. They say this phrase all the time in the show B six thirteen. It gets tossed around like crazy. If you drank every time you've heard someone say it,
RIPU and your vaporized liver. So I have no idea what the B stands for or the six thirteen whatever, but it's it sounds like it's something spy.
Sounds like Bureau six thirteen.
Yeah, and obviously something spyish is something you aren't supposed to know about, super secret.
I think it's also supposed to sound like M I six, where it's like even different than the traditional FBI.
It's very international. It's compelling, right, and so I love And that's why it's a component of Scandal, the wildest telenovela about the beltwet. So that said, let me tell you about a guy.
I love. A guy, go ahead, the.
Name of Garrison Courtney. It sounds like a character on Scandal.
Courtney to Garrison.
Courtney's dad was in the Air Force, and because his dad was stationed there, he was born in the Philippines. But this family moved back to the States, more specifically Great Falls, Montana, when he was only four years. When he's five, his mom is like I can't take it. She leaves, She's like bye bye, Great Falls. And then his dad he meets a lady he marries or he's course the same day, amazing man, like three hours later, just.
Winds are over, fre software feet whirlwind romance.
That's how it works. In Montana, he spent most of his time with his stepmom, and he later characterized that as very difficult and lonely because his dad was always away working. According to the Daily Beast, in high school, he quote worked as a student aid, excelled on the debate team, played in the jazz band, served on the yearbook staff, competed on the drama team, and was named student body president. So he's just like, you know them, a number one guy totally.
Yeah, you know something about jazz band. It's kind of where when you hear jazz band because I can't imagine, like in forty years they're being my high school's hip hop band. I was like it being like kind of geeky and like that, like parents have to get together to give him money to travel.
You know it will be the hip hop band with the DJ. Right, my son is the DJ and the hip hop.
Band hip hop hands.
Sorry, Oh that was terrible and I love it. His theater teacher described him as quote an idea man. I like that, right, and quote your typical class clown who had millions of thoughts, plans, and schemes in his brain and was always looking for a way to manipulate systems and people and create stories about his life.
I kind of got it.
Starts out really wholesome, and then it just starts getting a little bit darker to manipulate systems and people. What a high school could wait? What? Anyway, she warned him at one point to use his powers for good, not evil.
I got that speech, did you? I really did?
Yikes?
Yeah no, so I listened.
Yeah, thank god. In nineteen ninety four, after high school, he joined the Army National Guard.
I did not do that.
And one of his duties in that capacity was to fight forest fires in Montana. That is brutal.
Yeah.
In ninety five he went on active duty with the army, but then he got honorably discharged the next year because he got all this lung damage fighting fires.
By the way, shout out to all the firefighters.
Oh my god, especially inmate firefighters.
All of them. Yeah, but like in particular. Yes, those we're getting paid nothing and can't do the job when they get out.
So it's so mad. Things. We've got really bad wildfires going on, right, Yeah.
That's a California thing. We think about it. But all of them, all the fires send a lot of love, not just the ones to help us, like all of the.
Everywhere, all across this world. You know, let's just take a moment to thank every firefighter on.
This It's also one of the coolest job titles ever, Like what do you do? I fight?
Fire fight?
Like can you imagine? Like what do you I'm a water fighter, I'm a wind fighter. None of the other elements would sound yeah, but firefighter.
That's the coolest.
Anyway, go on, So he gets out.
He you know, he attends Montana State University Northern. He's the editor of the school paper there.
So he's just a goer, storyteller, storyteller.
Around ninety seven, he transferred to University of Montana at Missoula and he studied broadcast journalism. Graduated in two thousand.
Nice.
Here's what one of his college roommates had to say. Quote a phone call a couple of weeks before class started in August of nineteen ninety seven, told me that my final semester at UM was going to be anything but ordinary. And wait, doesn't that sound like the beginning of like an essay? Horrible? Anyway? To continue the quote?
To get into college? Yeah, right, college entrances.
On the other end of the phone was Garrison, who said he was going to be one of my roommates. He said he was a stand up comedian, and I believed him because he pretty much did an hour long routine over the phone. Garrison could do hundreds of spot on impressions Oh god. And he proved it to me by doing most of them on that phone call.
As somebody who will entertain himself with impressions, Oh god, an hour long. I'm something you just met, you knowing, I'm like on the phone.
Very few people can do impressions like I can.
No, yeah, are you kidding me? I don't even get close.
Well, so the roommates said that living with him was like quote living with Robin Williams during a Letterman set.
Oh God.
And he said, everyone like gravitated.
Towards him, or like some good cocaine.
That sounds exhausting. He sounds so exhausting, like I am your new roommate.
And then he just chatters for vers impressions. You're like, what the hell?
Man? He's like, can we talk? Wait? What stop? He also gave this anecdote quote one night he told me he was going to join the UM football team. He talked to head coach mc denihey, and he said he was all said to become a grizzly lineman. He was big enough.
But I was.
Skeptical of his story because I was familiar with how players joined the football team just randomly walking by practice and saying, hey, I can play. Usually is and how it works. Garrison, though, was convincing. The next day he told me he failed a physical because of his knees and lungs, so his football plans were over.
Nah darn.
So at the same time, don't worry, though, like, okay, here's here's the problem he ran into. He was like, I'm a stand up comedian, yes, but at the same time, I'm going to be a football player. So he's dead set on the football, so he said he told people that because he was sure that football was a go, he had to cancel a bunch of stand up shows that he'd booked all over the state. The problem is in like football falls through, right.
Of course, now the bookers think he's a flag But well then.
So, yeah, all the slots had already been taken up. They're like, oh, sorry, we booked the spin doctors.
Yeah, this is a very big comedy area. Yeah, so no comedy through all the time.
Well, his roommates said, quote, knowing that Montana is not exactly a hotbed for live comedy. That seems suspect, but again, Garrison was convincing the same wavelength anyway.
It's not a stop on the big comedy circuits than this, right.
He says that Courtney told him that he was going to join the cheerleading squad. Quote. I thought he was full of But the next home game comes and he's down there on the field with the cheerleaders in full uniform. He did so many things that didn't seem realistic, but he sold it to you.
He did them so and then you're like, well, okay, did he go Was he doing the like throwing the cheerleaders up in the air. He's like one of the guys who's like the stand holder guys. Yeah, he'd have to practice. It doesn't sound like a guy who's gonna show up two weeks of practice.
No. There was an article in nineteen ninety eight in the school paper about huh quote. Courtney, a junior whose academic pursuits range from journalism to dance, is a sort of unlikely renaissance man. When asked to list his numerous and varied activities, he rolls his eyes, takes a deep breath, and starts counting on his fingers. There are too many people that just sit back and do nothing, Courtney explained, I wouldn't like it if I wasn't involved in anything.
Aside from juggling his scholastic workload. Courtney currently plays the role of fraternity brother, radio disc jockey, stand up comedian, cheerleader, and part time model. Newly added to his um resume maybe the position of self defense guru.
What this guy really missed out being a technic life coach?
Let me let the paper tell you. Courtney made time in his schedule last week to teach a two part seminar for UM's experimental college program entitled Basic Self Defense. Courtney holds a third degree black belt in an offshoot of Chinese kung fu called Shaolin chin Naw that translated literally means seize and control. The ranking took him the better part of eleven years to obtain, Courtney said, although he only began to study seriously while he was in
high school. So his roommate was like, that's total garbage because he'd never seen Courtney work out train.
You would have some evidence.
They're a little bit important. If you're going to be like a martial art.
You would come back from a gym at least once.
At least once, So like Courtney did know some moves, but like his roommate was, like, I think he learned that as a kid. All kia kia. So after college, Courtney gets a job. He becomes the weatherman at a CBS affiliate in Missoula.
Perfect fie, really.
Forget to mention his meteorological training.
You did forget to mention it.
No, I did not forget because he didn't have any erran. So he was named the Missoula Independence Best Forecaster that year. I mean, I guess there are some weather reporters who aren't meteorologists and they just read, you know, whatever's generated. He gets transferred to science it is he gets well, you know who is a weatherman, David Letterman.
That's true.
Yeah, So Courtney gets transferred to Eugene, Oregon. And it's not really clear what his next jobs were, but they seem to be with the government. Here are some of them. Spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in Seattle, Congressional liaison for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in I and S. And I think that that was in d C communications staffer for a Republican representative from Florida, that Representative Catherine Harris.
No way from this way.
He also said he was chief of staff for a quote high profile member of Congress. That's mysterious. Maybe it was Melly Grant, who knows. Okay, so two thousand and five, he's living in DC like Olivia Pope. Is he wearing spike heels and full length leather gloves?
Is he wearing like full length gloves and spiked heels?
You know? Who's to say? He was working as a spokesman for the DEA, and he stayed doing that until two thousand and nine. But you go back two thousand and five, he did actually apply for and was offered a job from the CIA.
Wait, he applied for one.
Yeah, but they it isn't really how it works. But anyway, he didn't respond to the board and then two years I'm going to go apply And then two years went by and the offer last laps two years.
Yeah, he had his offer in the cis so bad. They're like, we need somebody who can do weather comedy. Maybe sure that.
You can apply for a job at the CIA, but.
Not as like an agent.
Why not? I'm going to write him a letter.
I don't think.
Hey, guys, me, from what I.
Understand that it's more often that they reach out to you, Like, would you consider?
That's what I understood? But who you know?
All the people I know have been approached by the CIA. The CI approached them, right, So I guess that same as speak to yourself. Yeah, it is. You can learn a lot, you can, you can. What's the bar?
All the people I've known named John are named John, So it's safe to say he never worked for the CIA. Like me, I haven't worked for the CIA. No, or have I. So in this era of his life, he got married, he started a family. According to him, from two thousand and nine to twenty ten, he worked as a producer at TMZ. Just a weird career turned totally Yeah, there's no evidence of this.
And you think they could find that.
He might have been a secret agent for TMS.
There you go deep cover on TMZ.
Whatever he's doing. He did leave government work and he started working as a consultant for various defense companies. I mean, like, so he has this dea resume contractor, Yeah.
Defense Secure, Special Security.
Defense contractors, and like he knows tons of people he had government clearance. He's the perfect person to hire to grease the wheels and like navigate contracts.
I don't get it, okay.
He said that his work was quote Marketing and Communications executive at Defense and Aerospace, and according to his Twitter bio quote, Garrison Courtney is a communications ninja focused on the dark arts of online media. Marketing and communications words are my ninja stars?
Oh god, So he's a professionals.
Can I just say that, like every day the world tests me on my abandonment of dark Elizabeth and I'm just like, you know what.
You just set her down. He's already climbing back up.
Nope, get back, get back, Satan. Okay. So he's doing all this insulting work and then he lands a big contract. He was brought onto a project that was trying to press the government to release a few Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo and then, according to the show American Greed on Oxygen quote, Courtney promised his clients op ed placements in top tier media and said he'd reach out to key legislators and President Obama to try and secure the prisoner's release.
The families, no, I don't know.
They thought that they hired Oliver Pope fixer. They wanted results. Courtney said he had them. He presented them with a letter supposedly from the House Armed Services Committee saying they were interested in responding directly to the Kuwaiti government, which is nice. The problem is that the formatting of the letter looked a little.
Off, like wait a minute, be on here, the committee was on cardboard. So he gets fired. The Speed Committee rong.
They didn't report him to the authorities. They just let him go. In twenty twelve, a former coworker of his was trying to start a company, so he reaches out to Courtney, and Courtney said, dude, you are in luck. I know this guy used to be a US ambassador to Costa Rica and he's interested in helping fund something. He just feels like, what would I like today, I'd like.
To fund I'd like to put my money on something.
And so he's like, I know this guy, Curtis Windsor Junior through the Freemasons. What yeah, and.
So through like the Freemasons. Like he's not a member of the Freemasons, he just knows them through the Freemasons. Like I was hanging out with.
Some Freemans they're like, you know, we're pals.
Is he trying to say I am a free Yeah, he's like a freemason when I would get that clear.
Yeah. So now we've cleared that up, we'll take a break and we come back. We're going to find out about this freemason connection. Zarin Elizabeth Saron. All right, so let's talk about the Freemasons.
Okay.
Apparently Garrison Courtney was in the Freemasons, and he knows this guy, Curtis Windsor Junior, former US Ambassador to Costa Rica, who wants to spend money. And then Courtney's pal is like, I need money, need money.
So Courtney's like, I don't have anything for the need of the money.
He connects them, He's like you meet you, and so the colleague and the former ambassador they email back and forth. The ambassador sends over a contract and Courtney's palse signs it, and then the friends just like waiting for the money and waiting and waiting, and then Courtney he's like, oh, you know why there's a delay because the ambassador's wife died and he's all in pieces. He can't focus on his work, like things weren't adding up for Courtney's friend, and there is very.
Much a very working internet at this point, it wouldn't be hard to look so.
Well, So the friend did something you should have done on day one. He asked around, he got the phone number for the ambassador.
Well even better.
Yeah, So the phone rings, The wife answers, wait a miracle. Hey O. So then the ambassador gets on the phone says he has no idea about any contract. He has not been emailing with anyone about one. The friend is like, all right, so do you even know Garrison Courtney? And the Ambassador's like, yeah, I know that guy. He was kicked out of the Freemasons in twenty eleven for quote unexplained reasons, and then he wouldn't clarify any further.
Ooh, kicked out of the Freemasons.
Huh.
You know the only way I think that you can get kicked out of the Freemasons like that unexplained reasons. Either you were like sleeping with like somebody in the Freemasons and everyone found you, like in the cloak clause you're like, that's not what we do here, or else you were trying to do business, which the other thing that you're not supposed to do. You're not supposed to fraternize or do business like no romantic money man, And I.
Guess that that's exactly what that was. Yeah, So I'm guess they're on the phone chatting about this, like wait what he was kicked out? I can't tell you any more about it, please, And then, by chance, right when the friend is on the phone with the ambassador, he gets a text from Courtney. Yes, and the text is like, the ambassador says he's pulling out of the investment, but I have good news. I have another friend from the Freemasons who's interested. And so the friend was like, oh
my god. Yeah, so he calls Courtney a fraud right to his face. And then the friend he gets all the bogus documents that had been provided to him and he goes to the cops. However, since he hadn't actually lost any money, the police didn't care. They send it to prosecutors. The colleague he went around to other contractors, He went over to the Pentagon and like, no one got back to him. He's just like trying to spread the truth. So he started a word press website.
Naturally, he called it guys love this this is the move your guys.
He called it Garrison Courtney cheating America one sucker at a time. There are three posts in the about me section. He has a poll that's like the question is have I screwed you? And then there are three answers. Yes you lied, that's fifty three point nine one percent, Yes you defrauded me twenty five point five to one percent, Yes you stole from me twenty point fifty eight percent above or No. I don't know this guy. I couldn't answer it. Have I screwed No? I have never heard
of him. Another little bit from the site quote, I may tell you how I have traveled the world in secrecy for the Masons. I may tell you I can bring you one hundred million dollars in dea and army contracts. I probably will forget to tell you that I was kicked out of the Masons for unethical behavior and me yow, So we have so now we have this guy. He's like on a min No one's listening to him. Courtney just keeps rolling.
He's a lighthouse trying to warn people at the.
Same time, Like Courtney's like just moving on with it. But things aren't so rosy for him. He's in serious financial that's.
Just about ass. Yeah, he's a new big school.
He's having personal problems. He divorces his first wife, then he marries her, he divorces her apparently wow, and then he marries this other lady. They wind up having like three kids together, not all at once. This is according to the Daily Beast quote. He defaulted on his mortgage and his car loan, and was evicted from his home for not paying rent, according to public records. In March
of twenty fourteen, he filed for bankruptcy. The records show he owed creditors six hundred ninety seven, one hundred and fifty seven dollars, while claiming personal assets of just four eight hundred and twenty three dollars, about four hundred of
which was cash. His obligations included a twenty five thousand dollars divorce settlement, twenty five hundred dollars a month in child support, thirty five thousand in six hundred, eleven of which was in arrears, an eleven thousand, two hundred and forty five dollars IRS bill, a one hundred and nineteen thousand and fifty one dollars civil judgment for breach of contract and hundreds of thousands more dollars in medical bills, car loans, student loans, business loans, lawyer's fees, and credit
card debt.
Damn, that's quite the collection.
So things weren't so great.
No, but then he is a CV it kind of lack of it.
It's rough. But then along came Alpha to fourteen, Alpha to fourteen, Alpha two fourteen aka the Task Force AKAA two fourteen aka not B six thirteen?
Are you kidding me?
This all went down while Scandal was on the air?
Are you kidding?
Early two, mid twenty teens.
He watched TV and he's like, I can.
Do I really do wonder if he was inspired by the show.
He moved from B to A and then got some numbers.
You can't find anyone making that connection, and they didn't.
Nobody, No, only us is immediately thinking that we watched too much Scandals.
So he's not just getting consulting gigs. By playing up his connection to his time in the DEA, he also starts hinting at or just directly stating that he's deep. He's a deep cover CIA operative. The people he's trying to get jobs from. Future He's on a classified assignment crucial to national security, and like somehow a bunch of companies hired him, like not really as a consultant, but is quote commercial cover. So basically a cover job that's
going to make him look like he's gainfully employed. He's just a regular average joe.
Do they think it's a tax?
Right off? They think that they're helping their government. But wait, you'll see, so in exchange for like the title and the paycheck, he's going to make sure that they get like sweet government contracts of course, so that's why they're doing it.
Now.
You'd think that his luck would run out when the contracts didn't materialize.
One would think, but sometimes they did the content.
So yeah, if you can believe it, because I couldn't. He was actually able to con some military and government officials into doling out contracts as part of his cover.
Yeah. I don't even want to depress you with how many contracts are given out.
He said that his mission was so super secret that even government officials weren't suspicious. They just thought it was over their pay grade.
Are you getting no, I'm not.
So his main targets in all of this he must know and he's just we saw it like in his early years, he's just I'm.
Saying from the DA He's figured out the right language to use later exactly.
So his main targets in this small defense contractor. Oh, of course, so he'd say that he was leading up a program to start a new network of companies that could help the US with its intelligence gathering wuff right, And this is around the time of the Edward Snowden leaks. Oh. He used that to his advantage. So when asked, he would say that the task force that he was building was in an effort to head off the next to
make sure it didn't happen again. Or he would tell them that he was quote supporting secret military maneuvers in Africa, or fighting Chinese commercial espionage like whatever he thought would land when he was talking to him.
How how well versed are they with Tom Cruise's filmography, and.
So it depends meaning to meeting what he's going to do. And you know what, I shouldn't just tell you about the meetings, saren closure eyes, Yes, I want you to picture it closed. Your name is Brock Taggington, and you are the CEO of a small defense contractor in Bethesda Maryland. You're in your office at a nondescript office park, waiting to meet with a man who has contacted you about
some government business. That's you, mister government business. Your company makes the joysticks for the drones that you know what. Let's just leave it at that. So there you are in your office. Your assistant Knox and then ushers man to the seat set up in front of your desk, facing you. You stand and shake his hand. He's a tall, milk fed farm boy looking guy, brown hair, with the
slightest tinge of red go tee, navy blue suit. He looks like every other guy at the golf course, and he looks like he may own more than one pair of salmon colored shorts. He one hundred percent owns a visor. He looks like his party has once been asked to leave a buffalo wild wings, but he managed to talk their way out of it. From being eighty six, that's what he looks like. So he's got a good handshake.
He seems like you're kind of guy. He clears his throat and sits down, pulls a folder from his briefcase, drops it onto your desk. You look at the label on the front of the folder A two fourteen that kind of reminds you of something from your favorite TV show, Scandal. You like to curl up on the sofa in your man cave with a glass of red wine and an enormous bowl of popcorn. I'm talking enough popcorn to feed
a family of four. So thinking about the show makes you think of all the amazing saying if ill timed soul music used in the episodes, excuse me, You tell the man, do you mind if I put on the radio not too loud or anything. It just helps me think when I'm working on government contracts. Go right ahead, the man says. You flip on the digital radio on the table behind your desk, and the sweet sounds of
Motown just barely drift into the air above you. You do one of your affirmations, I am command, you tell yourself. Then you tell the man to go ahead start his pitch. I'm part of something called the task force, he says. Some call it A two fourteen or Alpha two fourteen. This is a very sensitive project, one authorized directly by the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and President
Obama himself. Go on, you say, The man proceeds to tell you that if anyone ever asks you about a two fourteen or even this conversation that you're having, he'll deny everything. And then he goes on to explain that he needs a job. He needs a cover story, nor job that would act as cover since he was a super secret undercover adventure man. You reach over and open the folder. Inside is his resume. You scan it quickly, weather Man, Well, these could be his other cover jobs.
Courtney explains to you that he served in the US Army during the Gulf War and had hundreds of confirmed kills while in combat. You love that. That makes you happy, because your soul and your conscience are but charred husks. He says that he has a little wheeze sometimes because he got lung injuries from smoke caused by the fires
set to Iraq's oil fields. Oh and a hostile foreign intelligence service once attempted to assassinate him by poisoning him with ricin So he may or may not be able to fulfill the job description requirement of the ability to lift twenty pounds. So you stare at the man for a while. His story is wild, and why would he tell you such secrets. You always trust your gut just like Olivia Pope. You know what to do. You're hired, you tell him so as you can guess. Everything Courtney
told the defense contractor you was garbage. So the truth was that his dad was the one who served in the golf for he was in the National Guard after the golf w he did have asthma that was made worse by fighting fires in Montana and not the Iraqi oil fire skills. This is according to the Justice Department.
He watches a lot of movies. It sounds like because these are all iconic things, oil fires.
Totally, Totally, this is what, according to the Justice Department quote. Courtney went to extraordinary lengths to perpetuate the illusion that he was a deep cover operative. Among other things, he falsely claimed that his identity and large portions of his conduct were classified, and directed victims and witnesses to sign fake non disclosure agreements that purported to be from the US government and that forbade anyone involved from speaking openly
about the supposed classified program. So he's walking around with NDA's just handing them out. Some of the Defense exist katives that he met with got even stranger fishtails. He would tell them that they could be in danger or under Russian surveillance just.
By working by contacting.
Yeah, and so for this reason, I'm He's like, you know what, you should buy everything with cash, like stop using your credit cards? Like why is it just you know, it adds to the it adds to it. He's like, you need to be careful what you say on the phone, which is honestly just good advice. An he tells them that they should think about buying guns. But I feel like these dudes probably already hadn't covered like guns. I guess.
So he's saying all this crazy stuff, but his paperwork seemed legit, and he had authentic looking contracts NDAs from the CIA Pentagon. They're on official letterhead, and they're signed with serious names like Glenn Nelson, the Glen has two ends? There whoa or Glenn or Glen Nielsen and the Glen has two ends? Or Gary Pearson or Garrison Pearson. Wait a minute, they're all fake names, but they sounded super real to do guys. Yeah, According to the New York Times quote.
I like the you know, not to do Gary Pearson. He's like, I got it, Yeah, make it sound read.
I don't want to go to the far side. Yes, this is what it was. In the New York Times, quote Norman Hayes, a retired Navy rear admiral and thirty year veteran of intelligence work who was bamboozled by mister Courtney. He told me, quote he knew the jargon had connections everywhere in government. No door seemed closed to him. You'd need access to a highly secure video teleconferencing system, and no problem. He'd get access to a government facility whose
name I can't even reveal. So he is some guy who was in intelligence for thirty years.
So he's partly legit in terms of how he's able to connive someone else. And it shows that to another person. But the person that he probably conned originally he doesn't know that that's what he's doing, right, but then it gives him the authority or the least, you know, the gravitas of that, and the person believes and then now they.
Will vouch it exactly. And that's how he has.
He's making stone soup, but for his well And the thing is it's.
One thing to pull the wool over the eyes of some war profiteers. He went even bigger. He convinced seven government officials DEA military intelligence community that A two fourteen was real. What Yeah, Like, who he gets? He gets a high ranking Navy officer, he gets a person in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Two DEA officials. The only name that was made public later was Eileen Prasser, a senior Air Force liaison to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agents.
Wait, you're telling me he got all these guys the only person to hear about his one woman.
Of course.
Yeah, I'm just saying I just noticed Eileen. I was like, wait a minute.
Like, but come on, Eileen. Yeah, okay, so but the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency NNGA, I've never heard of that. Amazing. So she Eileen. She worked for thirty years again in intelligence defense, and when she was asked by two trusted senior intelligence officials to act as an unpaid program manager for A two fourteen, she said, yes.
She's working on the spike.
Eileen, we talked about this. Come on, Eileen, but it's because two trusted senior officials, like he just the snowballing it, right.
Yeah. So it's not who you know, not what you know, it's who you know.
He also convinced two private citizens, described by The Daily Beasts as quote a pediatric anesthetus with a side gig as a writer and video producer and then consultant for private companies doing business with the federal government. He tells them that they've been selected for a two fourteen, and he asked them to pose as government officials in meetings as like their first big undercover op. So he's meeting with the intelligence officials, big dogs. Where do they.
Meet Denny's Starbucks?
No, girl, No, that's not where they met. Sometimes they met in actual government secure rooms, sensitive compartmented information facilities, scaled the skiff.
Are you kidding me?
No, the ones where they patch you down before you had no cell phones. Law.
I thought he was doing like the Rockford Files where you meet him in the lobby of the building and you act like you've just come from it. I gotta go outside because he.
Had fooled so many government officials to.
The living into the clear rooms.
He's like, we need the skiff for this one. This is according to the Washington Post, quote Courtney didn't take you out to the waffle house. They met in secure facilities at the National Geospatial Intelligence agency and at Riverside Research, a nonprofit that does scientific research for the government. He said both required extensive background checks, and in the room
were current and former high ranking government officials. We were in there with some major companies that were sitting right next to us CEOs of companies, said Ed MacDonald, who ran a small Gainesville, Virginia based contracting firm with his wife that was defrauded by Courtney. I was like, well, if they've already validated it, who am I to question it?
Always question everything exactly.
So he's bringing together defense contract actors to meet with government officials about some totally made up spy group.
And also, if you don't know why you're in the room, probably not be in the room exactly. Like there's a reason why you're not in that room.
Yes, And like I think, because it sounded so cool.
Everybody wants it. I could told me he would.
Give the government folks a list of quote official talking points, information that he just pulled out of his patuit totally, and they'd all sit around and play scandal together. Meanwhile he's setting up millions of dollars in deals that would ultimately go to him. Oh my god, he did get an actual job as a contractor at a government agency, the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center. Wow, they do you know it? Related government contract There.
Are another alphabet, but not a common one.
He told them that they'd also been chosen by the CIA to handle a two Fourteen's it stuff big win, right, and then he's going to be the supervisor for all the personnel. Brothers, Let's pause here for commerce, and upon our return, we shall find out how Garrison Courtney's little scam was going now that he was bringing in actual government agencies. Okay, so Garrison Courtney, he's playing both shorte ud Okay.
During the break, I was thinking about it. You pointed this out earlier. So it's B six thirteen. He name says A two fourteen, So he keeps the one in the teensplice. He goes up one or from three to and then he's like, oh two six, I gotta go away from six. There's only so many numbers. Let's go with two. I mean, they he did almost no work, and nobody, nobody's ever mentioned this.
I looked, I could not find any mention of it.
People need to watch more TV. That's what that's what I'm getting from this.
So he's telling the government that they have given him a secret spy operation and they should allow him to hire folks and contracts to defense. And then he's telling the defense contractors he's in charge of a secret spy operation and they can get government contracts from there. So it's like if he said at enough times, it became true.
It feels like that, you.
Know, soon enough, though, contractors, they're wondering.
He has a wife and three kids right now, he's got like a normal life. Okay.
The contractors are like, why are there no actual contracts coming in? And the ones that have come in, why aren't they paying out? So Cordy and he's on the payroll of all these places because remember they're providing him cover job, So where's the balance for that? They're like, you were on health dental vision. Come on, he's got like quintuple coverage on the medical, so they you don't have a co pay, They pay you when you go
in for an appointment. So when he's confronted, right, hey, Garrison, what's up, he would threaten the security clearance that he got them, which wasn't real to begin with. He's like you have level eight security. They're like, oh my god, don't tell anyone about it. So then he's like, you know what, I'm pulling your security clearance if you have a problem with this, or he would just like straight up accuse them of being spies, like you're from j
twenty five. So yeah, so just like it flips it around. The Department of Justice said he also quote created fake letters purporting to have been issued by the Attorney General of the United States, which claimed to grant blanket immunity to those who participated in the supposedly classified program.
He's handing out get out of jail free cards from the government from the government.
Yeah, and that worked for a while until it didn't.
So in.
Twenty fifteen, one company, Blue Canopy, they wanted the government to pay. Yeah, that sounds like one of those meal or like a dog food confusing with a bunch of other things. So they want the government to pay sand company. They had a one point nine million dollar contract that he needed to be paid. Yeah, that's a lot of chicken.
So Cortney, he gets desperate, and so he goes to an investment firm in Virginia and he tells him that the government is going to try and seize Blue Canopy for criminal violations by the senior executive Sarah, but that he the man in charge of a secret spy agency. He had a one point nine to five million dollars he throws in an extra, you know, fifty grand contract.
Was Canopy and A two fourteen really needed the money, and if the Fed seized everything, all spying hell would break loose, that they wouldn't be able to pay their windbreaker and earpiece bills, and that there's wine and popcorn to buy for crime Andy's sake. So why was Blue Canopy funding this secret spy project?
And there's no like those called the assassin hats.
Those aren't all the assassin hats like they're very expensive these days. So Courtney is like tells the investment firm that the money couldn't come directly from the government, that there had to be plausible deniability if A two fourteen got found out, of course, so this investment firm had to be the one to wire Courtney the money. But no worries someone's going to wire them two point five million on behalf of the government. They're going to make
money on the risk. But here's my thing. Did no one at this investment firm ask why the third party wiring them the two point five million? Couldn't wire Courtney the money.
Or like, could I get like a purchase order or some kind of like paperwork maybe like.
A well a wire train if you asked for paperwork. He had official looking paperwork, and it would be so cool to be involved in a secret spy organization. They watch Scandal. Oh yeah, they're like, all right, it's worth the risk.
They go to work with their phone on their hip. They're like, I want to pull.
This boy Houlster for that. Yes, they totally guys got the Oakley's on the loa. So he had this official looking document. He's holding meetings in a skiff. Government officials there, they're like, deal, all right. So the investment firm wires one point nine million to Blue Canopy, who didn't care that the money was coming from some lawyer's escrow account. So it made sense. You know, it's like spy stuff. It's going to come. You know, it will come as
no surprise that the investment company was never paid. What yeah, I know, crazy, huh. So twenty fifteen, the government finally opens an investigation into Garrison Courtney, and they finally spoke to the guy who got so check cheesed off that he made a website. But there was a problem. Courtney had convinced these people. Hell, by the.
Way, the guy with the website that's easy to find, like all type in his name, but he's using all these fake names so people can't find Yeah.
He is, he's clouding the fake names. So but he Okay, he's convinced all these people that he's deep undercovered, sure, and that A two fourteen is the most sensitive of sensitive operations. And you're very lucky that he'll tell you about it, like I'll tell you because you're amazing.
Command doesn't like you to talk exactly.
Knowing about it could get them killed.
Karen, I'm putting you in danger even mentioning it.
That's right. So a lot of the companies he bamboozled they wouldn't talk to the FEDS because they felt that they had quote a legal and patriotic duty to remain silent, perfect marks right, And this goes above this is above the president.
They don't ask questions, they believe what they want to believe, and they tell themselves a story. He doesn't even need to tell them.
Yeah, yeah, decisely.
So.
January twenty sixteen, the FBI serves as subpoena to one of the companies that where he had a job.
Jobs.
He finds out and he tries to stop it. So he what does he do? He goes and tries to get a two fourteen legitimized under National security law. He's just gonna make it real.
What how under who's aegis Like, I don't well.
A government memo later said, quote, it is chilling to consider what the defendant could have accomplished. Yes, that's serious B six thirteen s.
Yes, if he actually did manage to get the clarence and then become confidential, he actually would be able to erase a lot of his trial and then people he would be above the law.
Uh huh.
Yeah, he almost makes it.
He gets called up to the Pentagon, Oh my goodness, and the Air Force's highest ranking intelligence officer, Lieutenant General Robert Otto, wants to meet with him. They already knew each other because Courtney had come to AUTO a year before with his scam. He tried to scam the highest ranking intelligence officer in the Air Force, and so AUTO at the time like when he hears this, it sounded fishy to him. He tells him, kicks, I'm not interested. But now Auto's reaching out to him. So super spy
Garrison Courtney He's like, this is great. He finally figured it out. I can rope this dude in I can get some leverage cards. Zaron, he could not close your eyes. I'm just kidding. So Courtney he meets with Auto and Auto is wearing a wire for the FBI. So Courtney he starts bragging about how he'd had a meeting at the White House with the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. What kind of meeting He's like, oh, you know, like stuff, And the FBI told the general to ask some specific
questions to try and trap Courtney. So, for example, one of them, who is your boss at the CIA? Courtney says, I don't know.
Yeah, that's how it is.
Many questions they start to make Courtney think that maybe his goose was coicked. So he got out of there and he tried to figure out his next move. He goes to one of the government officials that he duped into believing a two fourteen he is real, and he tells them, you've got to shut down this FBI investigation, and then he calls some of the companies he's working with and says, don't cooperate with the FBI like that
there you know. It's it's like they're they're going to feel like they're part of a spy operation.
Oh yeah, just like mentioned Paul Maniford. They're like, oh, Man's happening. We got to protect that.
So, in a pretty scandal esque move, that official in Courtney then met with the FBI demandingly stop the investigation like they're investigating. He goes, He's like you have to you have to drop it, and the FBI like thinks about it for like thirty seconds, is like.
No, yeah, no, we don't do that.
This is according to the Justice Department quote. Among other things, Courtney caused a public official to attempt to prevent a private company from responding to a grand jury subpoena. Caused a civilian attorney with the Air Force to contact one of the prosecutors on the case in an attempt to read that prosecutor into the bogus program, thereby freezing the investigation.
Caused a public official to threaten FBI agents investigating this case with themselves being prosecuted if they did not drop the investigation. Falsely told victims who had questioned his legitimacy that they were about to be arrested by the FBI
for supposedly leaking classified information. Used unwitting public officials to feed the names of innocent witnesses to the FBI in the hopes that the FBI would seek to prosecute those innocent persons for supposedly leaking classified information, thereby diverting attention from himself.
He so basically he's on a getaway wagon and throwing people off the web and helping them.
Well, the FBI, though, they're like, no, not going to happen. They raid his house, of course, and then they tell his wife that he's under investigation. He corney tells his wife, though, no, it's a case of mistaken identity and that totally unrelated. We need to all move to Tampa. But like, guess what, the FBI knows where Tampa is, you know what I mean?
Like so related?
Yes, So while in Tampa, Courtney starts calling himself Bear Pearson. Yeah, Bear Bear Bear b a e r oh Bear Pearson. He gets a job with Huntington Ingles Industry, a military shipbuilder. Sure why and he lets them in on a secret. You know you shouldn't tell him this, But he was deep undercover for the CIA. But my cover got blown, is what he tells him. But hiring me would mean you'd have access to huge government contracts. Great, huh, like what a favor I could do? So in twenty.
Nineteen and shoehorn, what shoe do you want to go in? Show?
In the twenty nineteen the FBI drops in on him again. They tell him they have enough evidence to press charges now. And one government official who fell for his whole act made a guess estimated that with the commercial cover of thirty five plus companies, what get thirty five five more than thirty five jobs at once, he would conservatively be making two point twenty five million dollars a.
Year easily conservatively.
Yeah. So the government they reached out to hunt well, because that's the thing is that they if he has thirty more than thirty five jobs, say it's thirty five jobs, he can tell them, oh, you don't have to pay me.
That may like twenty grand a year. Yeah, and I'll be forty grand.
I'm good, you know what, I don't even need benefits and they're like, all right, that's.
I got vision from his other p and I can get a two.
Million dollar contract. Yeah, that's great. So the government they reached out to Huntington Ingles Industries in twenty twenty and they tell them all about their employee Bear, and so he resigns, immediately resigns. In June of twenty two, he pleads guilty to one count of wiref and then he admitted to defrauding at least twelve companies of over four
point four million. His lawyer told the court that Courtney had only taken a million dollars for himself because he had that all that debt and the rest had gone to quote maintaining the fraud. Oh here's the thing, though, the prosecution said that he had another nearly four billion with a b as in Beyonce in upcoming military contracts million set up and because he cooperated, he avoided criminal charges.
He was released on cooperated from who else do they want to get?
He was released on twenty five thousand dollars bond fitted with an ankle monitoring while he's awaiting sentencing. In a letter to the judge, he said it was a scheme that had just gotten out of control.
Yeah.
Think while he's out on bail, he gets a job at Pizza Hut to try and pay some bills, and I doubt that they pay as well as a defense contractor. Pizza Hut workers deserve to be paid defense contractor wages.
They do. You'd be surprised how many spies you run into.
I haven't had Pizza Hut in decades, but I will go on records saying that they need to make defense contractor money. No further questions at this time. So remember Huntington Ingles Industries.
Forget them.
I feel like they're fake too. Like anyway, they asked the government for a real classified briefing to understand Courtney's fraud. They wanted their turn in the skiffs erin and they wanted it to be real, magical, authentic, But give me the real experience that I was promised. Somehow, Courtney finds out about their request for a classified meeting. Pizza Hut
was his B six thirteen cover. He called an attorney for Huntington Ingles Industry and said he was someone named Devon Asimoria from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. OH Devon Hut he told the lawyer he was calling to set up a meeting for company executives to be read in to the classified program. They would of course have to sign NDA's and they couldn't tell anyone about any of this. That they'd all get together in McLean
you know, CIA headquarters, the mothership. So everyone involved in this had learned to be suspicious, a lesson that I learned as a child. But apparently they had to come around to this. Someone from huntingdon Ingles Industries got with investigators to confirm the meeting. Finally turns out that no one named Devin Asimoria works at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Can you believe that, JOCKAMAI.
So they looked at the phone records and they traced the caller's number to an Internet address assigned to Garrison Courtney's house. He should have called from Pizza Hut. So his bail, as you can guess, was revoked. He had to cool his heels in the clink until sentencing, and that happened in October twenty twenty who he was sentenced to seven years in prison. Really, that's where he is right now. He also has to pay back four point formula dollars, and it should be noted at this point
his wife divorced him. I was guessing, Yeah, she's either so Zaren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
I didn't try hard enough. I mean, like, just where are roads diverged in that snow? We would I'm sorry to question I could he lived with such an interesting life's agency. I mean, like, come on, I would have been so good inventing a spy agency. Man, I'm just envious. But also I'm always blown away by this, Like how
I mentioned it earlier. Basically, it's how easy it is to make someone like to get over their gollibility, or to basically weaponize their go ability against them, or to get over their their critical thinking skills and get them to no longer be critical at all. With the no longer questioning, they're just trying to make sense of things. Yeah,
it happens rather quickly. You see it, like in in religion or culture where the people but this is that same place where it's they're moving from a place of belief. They're not thinking, they're just going all this makes it. I believe that he's this. I believe this is how the world works. I believe spy. I mean, that's what they're operating by, is their beliefs. And so how hard is it? But yet if you talk to them, they
would all think that they were very savvy. They listen, they waited until he had he used the right language. I'm like, sir, if you could be convinced by the right language, is it the right language exactly?
Well, And you know, in case you were wondering, let me tell you my take, Elizabeth. I you know, everyone wants to be involved in something cool, be involved in something.
I learned this in Hollywood. That's the power of being on.
The inside, that yeah, that you know something that no one else does. And but I'm shocked of all these people who've been in intelligence for thirty years. But we think about all these con men, con artists that we've seen on the show, who are able to just swindle people by their their charm.
And their magnifice flash of a badge.
Well, but also there's just a certain quality within some people that you can get, you know, others to do whatever they want. And so you know, I think that's it's a curious combination. He hit a sweet spot that's amazing to convince people at the level that he did.
But they don't expect somebody to con them, you know what I mean. So they're not he knows this stuff. He does that, so they don't have to actually think about it. They're all excusing themselves from ever being critical because he fits in.
I mean, this is a want the scandal.
No, that's why I don't believe anything I see.
I believe nothing.
Yeah, my father kind of taught me that with Peekaboo. From that point on, I've been skeptical exactly.
I think what I need right now is a talkback David. Oh, oh my god, Ie.
Nope, nope, there you shut up, shut up, Let Elizabeth do it.
Just go.
No, it's I'm laughing. You don't stop her. Oh her beautiful Elizabeth, You're beautiful.
Uh.
Rendition of the German Oh good, That obviously what I think of when I think of a German official. Okay, Dutch spot up.
I have to tell myself once again, Montuta Burnett. One doesn't do that. One does I apologize about that. I don't know where my head was at. Okay, Fanny got that beautiful German lab.
That's about it for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and leave a talk back the iHeart app, or you know, just.
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Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by shondaland Shadow CEO Dave Kusten, starring Emilie Rep as Judith. Research is by C eight thirty four agent Marissa Brown and L three nineteen agent Andrea Song Sharpenedear. The theme song is by Trusting Defense contractors Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andrea. Executive producers are names are redacted on the
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