MAN OVERBOARD-Burl Barer

dollar policy on Phil's life. Nineteen ninety two, Washington restaurant tour Harold Stegeman, famous for his thick juicy steaks, is arrested by the Secret Service for printing counterfeit United States currency in an Idaho shed. In addition to the bogus bills, Stegeman also has a fraudently obtained passport, a fabricated Cayman Islands driver's license, and Phil Champaigne's fingerprints. When the uproarious

reality of Harold Stegemann's secret identity hit the headlines. The Counterfeit Resurrection of Phil Champagne became one of the most celebrated and hysterically funny true crime stories of the twentieth century.

And while every supermarket, tabloid and television talk show hounded after the untold story, only Edgar Award winner Burl Bear captured Champagne's confidence and received permission to detail Phil's post mortem career of fraud, deception, trickery, lies and fine prime rib bringing to life the exploits of a man his

family thought dead over a decade ago. The book that we're featuring this evening is Man Overboard, The counter Counterfeit Resurrection of Phil Champagne, with my special guest journalist and author and podcaster Burrel Bear. Welcome back to IRAM, and thank you for grady to to do the legendary Burl Bear. It's always a pleasure to be on your show, Dad, and you know it's not easy being a living legend.

I'm under more pressure than an astronaut and I do understand that pressure, and so I'm glad you have not succumbed to that pressure. And here we are now.

bonus features. It has bonus features that the original book didn't have, including transcripts of the fed's interrogation of Harold's stegment alias to live for Phil Champagne, and also some other little tid vincid, a brand new afterward by Phil himself, who is now eighty four years old, just as charming as ever, and of course additional information, a new introduction by legendary Barrel Bear. And it's a snazzy new publication.

It's both as an e book and a paperback, and I'm really glad the book's out again and people are getting kick out of it. Yes, absolutely so. I think you've corrected me in the nunciation. I should have checked with that when we had a couple of minutes beforehand, so it's Stegman or Stegman.

very unique. But also I want to talk about because you know, I love dropping names myself and tell us how you really came to write this book and and the and rule connection.

You know, we've known each other on off for decades and for me to get a call from him at home was very surprising, and he says, there is this true crime case that I want to know if you're interested in writing about. Apparently Ann the Rule had been approached about the book and her play was pretty full. My name came up and he gave me a call.

I said, well, facts for the information. Well, now you remember fax machines, the kind of a combination between a telephone and the printer, And all of a sudden they're getting all these newspaper articles. So this bizarre story of this guy Harold's Segment arrested for counterfeiting, and then they figure out he's not really Harold's Segment, but they don't know who he is. And it just got crazier from there. And it turned out he was a guy named Phil

Champagne who had been dead for ten years. And I went, yeah, this is fascinating. I've got to find out what in the world this is about. So Phil consented to meet with me. Now, apparently several other authors had gone to Phil. And because this story at the time was one of those top of mind, everyone talking about it, all the tabloid talk shows, you know, wanted this story. I wanted to get in there and talk to Phil because people were just one of those things that captured people's imagination

right off the bat well. I guess other authors had gone to see Phil in prison. He was his Geiger Correctional Center of federal prison but Spokane, Washington, and I figured in my mind that probably these guys showed up looking like authors. And he said, you know, hi, I'm an author. I want to do a book. I decided I'd take a different approach. He knew who I was, I knew why I was there. So I went to

a Geiger correctional center. I was just wearing jeans and my Saints sweatshirt and it was a beautiful day and being in some minimum security federal prison, uh, you know, I was well, he wasn't behind plexiglass or anything. We went outside a little pictic table and got a cup of coffee in a styrofoam company. I just sat there for a minute and I didn't say anything to him. The first thing I said was Phil, how good were the bills? A friend? You know? How good were the counterfeit bills?

but I'm sixty three years old. I know nothing about drug dealers. I know nothing about bad sort of things. So we bought pies instead. So we just started talking about criminal matters, criminal things, you know. Didn't even discuss a book until we were all done talking. He says, what are you going to do the book? I said, yeah, I've you the book, and so we hit it off. We just hit it off right away. Similar sense as

of humor. I said, this is a nice correctional center, and he goes, yeah, well, are you going to correct my golf swing, my table manners?

Falcon movie with Tom Conway or the great Ronald Coleman, you know, handsome, suave, debonair charming. And that's exactly what Phil Champagne was like. It is like and now he loved him.

So if they made the movie about this guy's life and he actually would have died as people thought, the chapter would have been written one way, but instead he's written about three different ways. So let's go back to Let's go back to the lifestyle and the life of Phil Champagne with his brother, Really, what was he involved with? What kind of guy was he? And what was he looking at and at what age and when? If he looked back at his life, really, what was his life like that? Well?

of delivering milk one thing and another. His brother Mitch and Phil and John Robin did form a rather successful construction company in Oregon, you know, building homes and that sort of thing. And he had a wife and kids. But the time of his demise he was going through a very difficult divorce. This was the nineteen eighties when I don't know if you were around them, but interest

rates in the United States were astronomical. It was it became almost impossible to afford to buy a home because the interest rates on your home loan would be so high. This was really impacting the building industry. And you know, things were difficult all the way around, and Phil was getting pretty depressed. And so his brothers trying to cheer him up, you know, said come on, we're going to take you out on the sailboat. We're going to go up, you know, around the San Juan Islands, and we're just

going to have a good time. You know, we'll drink, we'll swap dirty stories, we'll sail around and just have one of those weekends that brothers had where they forget all their troubles. That was the idea. They just wanted to cheer him up because, you know, might want to call a midlife crisis.

for his body. Of course, he didn't find it, and it was devastating. I mean, the brothers were devastated here. They took about for a good time and he winds up dead. His wife, even though divorcing him, of course, was unamused, as were the children, four kids that were grown. They were adults, but you know, like so, when their dad dies in a boating accident, the wife sues the other two brothers for wrongful death and wins, of course, and Phil was heavily insured because he was a key

man at this major reconstruction company. He was insured for one point five million dollar. Key man insurance wasn't Phil's idea. I talked to the insurance man who sold the policy, and he's the one who talked Mitch into getting the policy. He says, you know, you should have insurance on Phil, he's key man, just in case God forbid something happens. Well, when Phil died in that accident, the claim was put in federal temper life insurance. Peter Richter was the investigator

on that. Due to the fact there wasn't a body recovered, they only paid half. I think it was about whatever half of one point five million is, you know, six seven hundred thousand. And that was that. And that was that for ten years as far as anyone knew Phil was dead.

remembered her name, and they remember the particulars. And when the private detective hired by the insurance company went back to the restaurant, he could not get any confirmation on anything, couldn't get a straight answer. There was another waitress, but the things didn't match up, but there was some aspects of the story didn't quite pan out. Found out afterwards that whoever the detective was that they sent out rubbed

everybody the wrong way. I don't know whether he smelled a booze or what the deal was, but they didn't want to cooperate with him, and they didn't want to talk to him. They just got better. They didn't like the guy. Got a good quality for a private detective. And it turned out I was able to put together the pieces and find out that there was a temporary worker that evening they were shorthanded. They brought it a

temp worker. One thing and another and so a Phil's story and the brother stories did check out and everything was cool. There was no real reason to doubt that Phil died in that accident, except for well, g we're only going to pay out half because the body wasn't recovered, you know, and if we ever fight out, this is this game. Of course you have to give the money back, which they never had to do actually, but you can get to that later.

Phil Champagne. No one else knows. So campaign now tell us, and this creates problems for his younger brother, John Robbin. What is the drunken argument that these guys have? What is it? What kind of deal is it concerning.

coming down. It was a stupid discussion for two brothers, one of them rather tipsy to be having in front of a friend because they had this other buddy of theirs with him. Not just the brothers, but they had another buddy of theirs with them.

on my fault. Says Phil, don't blame me for things I can't control, and we'll blame, as Barlber says, it is only important to drunks and lawyers, and that's often the same thing.

street shoes, turned towards the stern, slipped and went overboard. Now, according to John Robbin, his first reaction was, well, that's going to wake his ass up hitting that cold water. He stopped the boat, turned it around and thought he'd be able to just you know, see Phil right away and grab him but he didn't, so he grabbed the handheld searchlight. He jumps down from the wheel, still confident he's gonna, you know, see Pill at any moment. And as I got his quote here rightsed, I couldn't see

him anywhere. I had a life ring on the back of the boat and a strobe light. I took the damn life ring, attached the strobe light, turned it on, dropped it into mark the spot. I was worried about the current and now we were drifting, and I went below what I call the coastguard, told them I had a man overboard and marked the spot and that we were circling. It took them about twenty minutes to an hour to show up. Now their buddy Larry willis Larry Wills Rather, who had join them for this fun event.

He became panic stricken. I mean he was just totally frantic, you know, about Phil falling overboard. And he said, shut off the engine and so we could hear if Phil's yelling for help, which they did well. The coastguard brought it a helicopter, and they brought it a cutter called the polar Seat, and for thirteen hours they searched for the body of Phil Champagne.

this bizarre accident. So all in all, it was not a pleasant thing at all for anybody. Phil of course is he's alive, but he doesn't know it, and he doesn't know he's dead either.

back and forth. Make it two stories, the story of Phil Champagne once he's once he's arrested, and the story of Phil Champagne from after when he falls off the boat, and go back and forth. And it worked. But one of the great joys of doing it, and I was being kind of tricky with it and taking some chances with my good friend Kathy Scott, who's a wonderful true crime writer right by all her books. I'm sure you

probably have her on the show. He loved the transitions from going from one chapter to the next, setting each up each chapter even though the next chapter is not sequentially what happened next, but what happened in the past, so it moves forward even though you're going back in time. And that was the fun of writing it, and the great challenge of constructing it, and it came out.

just a very unique format. I've never seen a book like that, so it adds to the entertainment either.

was not the final version. The publisher sent the wrong disc to the printer. So things that I have labored over to fix, you know that you're doing page proofs weren't fixed. God spelled with with fall g. You know, few other errors and things that I mentioned in the introduction that I was concerned about the first nineteen pages of the book, you know, which are very important, and it was choppy and I was really having I mean, that was the part I was wrestling with the most

of the first nineteen pages. Well E w count as an Edgar wardwin and true crime writer herself, very graciously reviewed the first nineteen pages and she made wonderful editorial suggestions on how to make the first nineteen pages easy, you know, more readable. And so I followed her suggestions and I rewrote the first nineteen pages and I was shocked when the book came out that that wasn't the final version, that the version that was printed as an

earlier draft. And I bet Ellen probably felt offended by that, but it wasn't on purpose. So people. In fact, I read a brand new review of the book. They said the first nineteen pages were a little rough, but once I got past that. When I would autograph the book, I'd always write, if you make it get past the first nineteen pages. You've got him made, which.

supporter of my career. We would chat on the phone, email back and worth and he always could put right blurbs for my true crime books. So you notice my more serious true crime books from Kensington always contained a blurb on the front that says Barrel Bear writes true crime as best as Jack Olds, and that meant a lot up.

with Pearl Bear. Is okay? And he laughed. He said, Burrow, He says, how many people do you think read that newspaper article compared to those that see across the top of your book above your name, you write true crime as best as Jack Olsen's. He says, that means more than my newspaper article. He was a great guy, great great supporter. And what it was it was the journalistic aspect. I come from a journalism background and the code of journalistic ethics, and so I did a lot of research

and I had a lot of fun writing it. But I stuck. You know, the quotes are real quotes, the research is real research. And the boy I was lucky, Lyle Workman from the United States Secret Service had just retired and he had the entire Secret Service file on this case in his home and he handed it to me. And this was a test I found out. He gave it to me and he says, I'm going to entrust this Secret Service file to you to take and make copies of whatever you want. How fast can you have

it back to me? We were in Spokane, Washington. I had to drive one hundred and forty miles to walla wall Off. The next day, go to a copy store, get everything, be then Federal Expression back to me. He had it back faather than thirty six hours, he told me later, says that was a test to see how honest and trustworthy and reliable you were. He says that you got that scause you got that back to me in perfect condition, exactly as I gave it to you.

You couldn't have come back any faster. Who sent it by Federal Express for early morning delivery of the first day, he says it. So he wrote me. In fact, he wrote me a letter of introduction. It's beautiful.

I was just the mid Atlantic Miss Tree conference. Uh, back in Philadelphia, and I'm hawking the book like a vegeomatic salesman. Lady, is this true crime? And I said, yes, it is. It says, well, I only buy fiction. I said, in that case, spam, you'll be delighted in the book as a pack of lies.

would be better if I left. Tell us about I get yeah, I guess you can tell us about the fishermen, which just seems no fiction has anything on this story here. But tell us about first before we do that, before we go backwards a little bit, tell us about Harold Stegment and his life.

but who only lived to be eight years old. Well, with the information from the cemetery, he was able to get the birth certificate. With the birth certificate, he was able to get a driver's license. That he was able to get a Social Security number, and next thing you know, Phil Champagne is Harold Richard's Stegman. There was a problem, however, which Phil was unaware. He was not the first person

to take that name from the Florida graveyard. That name had been taken, mind used, reused around the world by organized crime Senate Minority lead leader David Joel Friedland of New Jersey, who faked his death in a boating accent off the Bahamas and traveled to the Maldive Islands, traveled

under the name Harold Richard's statement. When the Secret Service ran the name Harold Richard's statement and Phil's fingerprints, they got nothing on the fingerprints but the name Harold Richard's Stegman printed out smuggling guns, drug smuggling guns, smuggling fermenting revolution in Africa. He may have been providing tanks to rebels in the Congo. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So when they had finally had

this Harold Richards segment, they thought they had Kaiser. Sosee, they thought they had the mastermind of a vast criminal empire when all they had was Social Champagne.

of his friends and associates arrested. One week after Phil Champagne got a driver's license in the name of Harold Richard's statement, Ronald Callister attempted to get a driver's license in the name of Harold Richard's statement. Phil had a very difficult time following his arrest. That they quite often people thought he was the same guy as this Ronald Callister,

that he had the drug dealer, which he wasn't. Now while worker the Secret Service takes a look at this situation and goes, wait, a second, exact, same name, exact same everything, except the descriptions don't match at all. He's got pictures of both guys. I mean he's seen Phil face to face. There's photographs of as Ronald Calliser looks nothing like Phil Champagne. And I mean, how many other people use that name? We know of at least two that I can show you pictures of, but the list

goes on and on. This name had been used by organized crime and criminals for decades. It was just Phil pat luck to pick the name Harold, which his segment.

use that first. After he survives being drowned and is rescued out of the water by this illegal fisherman who's not going to take him to the hospital but takes him back to his cabinet of chorus, Phill has hypothermia and you know all that sort of stuff. He finally finally comes to actually I have it here. Eighty eighty hours eighty hours after the United States Coast Guard called officearch for a Phil, he woke up to sizzling bacon,

fried eggs, and fresh fruit coffee. Bill Champagne showered, shaved the dress, cleaned his plate through the assistant jingle of the bearded Man's keys well before he swallowed his final triangle of toast. If this was the bum's rush, at least the bum was well fed. The guy drives Fill into end of Chordus. He says, I didn't see you, You didn't see me, and lets him out. Now I say, well, gee, what does Phil have any money?

best friend. Going all the way back years and years and years. A guy in the book would call alias Mike and he tells Mike Man, I'm running away from home, and Mike tells him he's crazy. He says Alway says, by the look as my kids are growing and goes as bad divorce. You know. I talked to Phil just the other day and Phil said what a boilers out do was guys are born, they go to school, they grow up, to get a job, to get married, they have kids, they die, and that's all there is to

their life. I didn't want that to be me. I wanted something different. And if this was my one chance to be in death what I hadn't been when I was alive, I had nothing to lose because I was already dead. He was just gonna go for whatever happened. Decided to be the one thing in death he hadn't been when alive, and that was to have a sense of adventure instead of a search for security.

it out. In those days, unlike today, he got a FEUs in nineteen eighty two. It is so easy to make fake ID, fake driver's license, you know. They didn't have holograms on him, didn't have computer data banks to check hitting this stuff. He just got a letraset kit. And if you were in california'll caull you make a driver's license, says Rhode Island unless you know something from Rhode Island. And they even though what it looks like. So he made him film some fake ID, called himself

Peter Donovan and made himself a fake driver's license. Took him about three days, he said, in the motel room of trial and error, and made it into Mexico and looks this guy up and uh starts doing some work for him and moving a boat here, moving the boat there. But it turns out they don't trust Phil. And how do you deal with people you don't trust? Hmmm, Well,

their way of doing it was to kill him. A Fortunately for him, they weren't successful, but he sure got the hell out of there in a hurry, got the first plane to the first place, and it happened to be Miami, Florida.

and he can romance. And he had no trouble with the ladies, especially with ladies of ladies of means, ladies with wealth. And as the old saying goes, the definition of charm is the ability to get the answer yes without ever asking the question. And Phil never had to ask for anything. He'd say, you know, I'm going to go back to wherever we're supposed to he's from. I'm going to go back to San Francisco. I'm going to

do this. I'm going to do that, And they go, oh no, don't go he says, I know, he's I don't feel right. I'm not you know, I'm not providing money. You know, I just don't feel right about this. Goes, well, get as one lady's shown a company to make the wire, all every kind of wire you can think of, based out of New York or something. It's quite a lot of money. Said, I'll give you a job. He'll have income. You won't be sponging off of me. He said, Well,

I don't know nothing or anything about wires. He says, you don't have to. You know, it's just a job. One hundred and fifty thousand a year. Yeah, okay, okay. I didn't have to ask for it. It was just given to him and when he was maybe done with a relationship and say say, hey, I'm going, I'm gone.

There were no regrets here. Take this sale boat with you and there's that one hundred and fifty thousand dollars has you know, come visit me on occasional reminiscent old times and do it again, you know, And that he was telling me the story that's not in the book that they were talking. He never told me this story before. He Uh, he was feeling uncomfortable because the woman's kids didn't like him and they were there at the house and they was really uncompany. Wanted to leave, and so

why don't you leave? And he's not going to go. And there were two cars in the drive with us, one with these little sports cars of gold wing you know where you get in it and your butts on the ground, and you know, he's like six foot two or something, so that was uncomfortable. There was some other vehicle that you know, he thought was dorky. I don't know, sees his way out. I can I'm not come from those cars. So what kind of car would be comfortable? And he said, I don't know, I don't you know,

Lincoln Continental. Bang, next thing you know, delivered to the house is a new Lincoln Continental for him to drive him away. Tough life, tough life for Phil.

stops into a place for a cup of coffee. There's this waitress there. The waitress's name is Barb Frailey, cute as a button, five kids, but she doesn't tell Harold about filled. But his new name is Harold, doesn't tell him about final sees. After their dating quite a while, it's getting kind of serious. He says, you know, I got five kids. Says I knew that, as you know. He says, I could cramp the number of noses pressed against the glass, and I come to pick you up.

But he had money. He built her a brand new home, gave the kids anything they needed. They needed school clothes, one kild Weill a dirt bike, Finder's a dirt bike. And he builds her her own restaurant, Barb's Country Kitchen and the Stickys Blue Room, and he becomes well known for his thick, juicy steaks. And everything's just going along swimmingly. As Barber said, there was She never had to ask

for anything the kids and didn't want for anything. The restaurant employment taxes did want, the sales tax payments did want. Phil was not that good at show. He's say, running a restaurant, real good at being generous, real good at being kind and no heart getting good help. And Sheldon.

Little side note that you may get a kick out of, and this is in the book, is that Barb's former husband was the father of her children, was a correctional officer at the Sheldon Correctional Facility minimum security prison in Sheldon, Washington. Prior to being a correctional officer there, he had been an inmate under a different name. Wow, I mean changed names and identities run rampant in this story, sot fake ideas.

In fact, I got a call from Peter Richter, who was the investigator for Federal Kemper Insurance, because I had gone I'd spent an afternoon with him about this case back when they were still trying to get their six hundred grand back. And he starts telling me about his life. Anyways, he was complaining about phise is philled, you know this and that, and his fake names and his fake ID

and his false passports and all this. And you turn the page in the book and it says the documents that got three year old Peter Richter out of East Germany or whatever it was were forgeries he escapes to the West with with fraudulent documents, just as Phil did, and he got a He called me up and said, I just read your book. He says, very funny, he says, you got me. It's all you know, it's all dependent how you look at it.

to rob somebody that gun. He figures counterfeiting. And then he told me something last Saturday. They'd never told me before. And that is all of his life he had the fantasy of being a counterfeiter. Never told me about. So we thought about when he got books on it, read about it. He figured, if you pass one hundred dollars bill at one store, it's not going to hurt him.

But what are they ninety five dollars and boy, the insurance covers or you know, it's not going to impact it's not going to hurt you know, a chain store to them all that much. So if you have, say twenty bills and you hit twenty stores in a shopping mall in a different state one day, Like if you go from Idaho to Bellevue, Washington, you go to Bellevue Square and or go to you know, one of the shopping malls there, bang bang, bang bang, and go home.

You've got your money. And that money was the seed money. I think he was looking at a dry cleaning franchise or something, you know, a respectable you know legal business, and he was going to do this one illegal thing to make the money to do the legal thing, and they figured that was the path of illegality of least

damage to other people. Sadly, on the way, they stopped for pancakes and waffles at Perkins Cake and Steaks in Richfield, Washington, and Barb accidentally pays for the breakfast with a counterfeit hundred dollars bill, which would have worked if they'd had sufficient change in the register. They didn't, so Linda Bright, who is the waitress, hands the bill to her manager and he takes it back in the office to open

the safe to make change. Well, this means he has the bill in his hand long enough to become suspicious that this bill isn't real and he makes the call. Now, a lot of people don't know what the process is when you think you've got a counterfeit bill. So the comps can't come and arrest you for a counterfeit bill,

it has to be the Secret Service. They are They're only charge with two things in the United States, protecting the security of the United States currency and being willing to take a bullet for the president, vice president or other dignitaries, you know, and getting hookers in Guatemalas.

that the United States Secret Service has. And a lot of people mistakenly think this ties in with murders as well, as you may know. When people murder for some reason, when they run away in America, they go to Las Vegas. For some reason. Killers think if I go to Las Vegas, they'll never find me. I'll blend in with all the tourists. No one would think of looking for me there. Know

that the first place they look for you. The United States Secret Service has its major office, a major facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, simply because so many idiotic criminals think that the best place to pass phony bills or pass fake money orders is Las Vegas. It is the worst place to try that, because they're waiting for you, sitting,

they're waiting for you. Well, when the Secret Service showed up at Perkins Cake and Steak, they see Barb and they see her son is you know, wasn't obviously not the brains of the outfit, and they see Harold, and Harold just doesn't seem to fit. As Lyle worked on, the Secret Service agent says, I look at this guy, says that all my years in the Secret Service, I have never ever encountered a woman who was the head

of a counterfeiting ring. One she may pass them, she may store them, but the one running the operation there may be an exception, but I haven't seen it yet. Is it's going to be some guy. And here is this guy that doesn't look like he fits with these people. And in Lyle's words, is here is this guy who looks like he's Ronald Coleman, the famous factor, you know from the thirties and forties. Swall, there's a slight British accent. He's very polite. They have no reason to hold him

because he didn't pass the bill. All they could do is fingerprint him, and they run the fingerprints and nothing comes up because the guy has no criminal record, but the name, the name Harold Stegment bing bing bing bing bing bing. So now they go, wow, we may have the John Dillinger of the nineteen nineties here, we may

have an international criminal mastermind. And so they they start following Harold, and finally they d raid the trailer and they find some of the counterfeiting stuff, and so he's charged with conspiracy to counterfeits. But then they find out, figure out whatever that so many people have been Harold's Stegment at the real Harold Stent. Harold Richard's statement died

when he was eight. So who is this guy? Who is this mystery man who was calling himself Harold's statement, who says he's from the Cayman Islands and he won't say he won't say who he is. But his attorney says, listen, my client has no previous criminal history, despite having used the name of someone who, you know, maybe the biggest

criminal in the universe. So tell you what. Give him the lowest possible sentency on everything, because he has no criminal record first offense, and he'll tell you everything about his vast criminal empire. So they sit Harold down still think he's here. You know, they got one thing. You have to call it of any other name, and it's

Lyle Workman's. In fact, you can read this yourself. The interrogation by Phil Champagne is one of the bonus features that comes along with the book, the actual transcript of the interrogation. And they sent him down. One of the first questions they ask is what kind of copy camera did you use to take the picture of the nineteen ninety series Z American one hundred dollars bill you counterfeited? And he looks at them and says, general, and if I could have afforded a copy camera, there would have

been no reason for me to be a counterfeitter. And I just look at him and what, well, how did you take the picture? I built a box camera out of a cardboard box. I poked a hole in it with a pin. I got a lens from this, you know, Saint Vincent de Paul for a light source, I used a regular light bulb. Well, to build a box camera like that old fashioned, you need frosted glass, he said, where did you get the frosted glass. I couldn't afford

to buy frosted glass. I just took an old, broken pane of glass and put Scott's Magic Cape on it. They're sitting there drop jawed listening to this guy describe how his counterfeiting operation was a cardboard box with a pinhole in it. And then they have, wow, how come you printed so few bills? All I couldn't afford more than one rim of paper was twelve bucks or so. And then he hand painted the bills with like what of these little sets you used for painting model cars?

But some of them made them all the way to the Federal Reserve Bank before they were caught. Amazing, amazing story point they were at the point they were dumbfounded. The point is he did some incredible work having no technology at all. I mean no, I mean he's the ultimate low tech. They thought they were getting a criminal mastermind, you know, who was using a high tech copy camera.

this guy? They shouldn't have, because Phil Champagne at this point it is like sixty four years old. When he was nineteen, he took a car without permission and was fingerprinted. That shouldn't even have been in their system. It should have been you know, done away with decades ago. Why it was even in there they don't know, but they got a match. By the way, he said, oh yeah, this is Philip Wendell Champagne. Who Philip Wendell Champagne. What's

this criminal record? He doesn't have any. The only reason we have his fingerprints is when he was nineteen years old he got in trouble for taking a car without permission and brought it back. But we, you know, fingerprinted him and that's it. Not even any major traffic violations. But now they knew who he was. Well, once they knew who he was, that meant he'd have to get hold of his brothers and his kids and say, uh, hey, I'm not dead, because it was gonna come out, you know,

all over the news. So he said, down with Lorning. He wrote a letter. He said, well, you guys probably hate me, he says, but u this is the story, and some of them were mad as hell. His kids still don't talk to him, although one of the daughters did actually babysit Barba's kids while Barb and Phil Harold over the Elliotts were in the Slammer for eighteen to twenty one months minimum security work release, but they got into a tiff later on. I guess anyway, so his brothers,

he's still close with his brothers. They kissed him, made up. His brothers maybe were furious with him, but Mitch was really upset. First he was upset that his brother died, and then he was mad as hell that his brother was alive. But he got over that John Robbin. He

just was eager to see his brother, you know. And in the new edition of the books, the brand new twentieth Anniversary Special Edition of Man Overboard, there is a picture of all three brothers taken recently on a little fun vacation in Mexico, Whereas Still said, this time there was no one trying to kill me, although he did have trouble getting into Mexico for this family reunion because one of the questions they asked is have you ever had a passport under another name? Well, if he lies,

he'll be in big trouble. So he told the truth, Yes, I had a fraudulent passport, partially if they had passport the name of Harold's segment, Well, they denied him a passport for a long time until he finally got an attorney said, listen, the guy went to prison. He paid his debt to society. You know there's no charges hanging over him. Give him a passport. So he did. Now he has a real passport and the name was phil Champagne, and he was able to go down to travel down,

and he and his brothers had a wonderful time. No one got someone got drug a least no one fell overboard.

He and Mike don't talk much anymore. Mm because the way he looks at it is that well, as people want to read the book will understand, Mike pretty much gave Philip's life back before he became Harold's segment and uh, before he came back and because as he gave me my life back and I screwed it up by the counterfeiting thing, and so he's hasn't you know, It's like, okay, I'm done.

to me. He says, this kind of stuff happens down here, and we'd be the last to know about it, he says, So I can't say it isn't true. And it sounds pretty you know, pretty nineteen eighties Florida to me. Yeah. Yeah,

And then everything after that checks out. So I mean, because when the Secret Service got him and they got all of his stuff, they had his bank cards from his old bank accounts in the Florida and Texas, So I mean the stuff the things that I could verify by investigative poor investigative techniques and with the help of the United States Secret Service and law enforcement and the attorneys.

Everything that was verifiable was verified. The things that weren't verified in these little gaps fit too well to be one hundred percent of lies. It was too much, you know. It was just if this is a lie, then how did this happen afterwards that matches up to it, that is verified, so you know, if it's a scam.

guy right talk about him. And they made some mistakes in their serving in their filing that they made on their claim because they were serving Phil and John Robert at the same time, and the long story short, they messed up, it was thrown out, and they just decided to drop the whole thing federally. I got a phone call from Peter Richard Federal Kemper Assurances is going back course, you know, like eighteen nineteen years ago, saying, you know,

we're not trying to get the money back anymore. You know, we're not going after it. They got a fair and square.

school english teacher, and it just cracked him up. And if you went to the signing, the book signing the Seattle Mystery Bookshop for Man Overboard Counterfeit Resurrection Phil Champagne, you got the book not only autographed by the author but also by the criminal Phil Away because Bill was out of prison by then, and so Phil Champagne and Barb Frailey came to the book signing the autographed books, and I can tell you that I know for a fact that a copy of a copy of the original

hardback edition of Man Overboard, signed by Burl Bear, Phil Champagne and Barb Frailey is in the private collection of former presidents of William Jefferson Clinton. Yeah, that's appropriate. And Barb Frailey there too is. Barb being there is pretty wild as well. Yeah, Barb is a real kick.

Tim Almes. He's a real nice guy. I mean, it's the strange thing that here you had this case that everyone found vastly amusing, including the Secret Service and the prosecutor, and they all liked Phil. Why did they find the case?

insane and so daring. Is what Phil Champagne does as the climax of the of the uh of so, I mean, here is a guy that had a fear of flying at one time who actually jumps out of an airplane and the static line, jump into a drug lord's layer to liberate over a half million dollars in money at risk to his life, something no sane, rational person would do unless they were already dead and had nothing to lose.

before he died. Afterwards, he's going to jump out of an airplane and whatever it was that he didn't do before that. He was afraid of her, too, timid of what the hell? You know? You only live once, and I was I'm supposedly my life supposedly ended. This is my second chance, this is my chance ants to be other than what I was, he said. Didn't want to be the guy who just born, went to school, had married, got married, had kids, died, and you know, what do

you take with you? Maybe except your memories, you know, He says, if I had ten years of adventure, ten years of living under the shadow of the sword, of having people chasing me trying to kill me, you know, the wealthy women, beautiful exotic women, sail boats, an adventure and then he meets Barb, falls in love with her, and he says, she stuck with me through everything, and he says in her love is worth more than all

the real money and account of money put together. And they're so happily married and she still give gives him crap and slaps him around and he laughs and they have a wonderful time, and they got grandkids and you know, it's social Security. He's eighty four years old and just great, great fun. We had about an hour conversation last Saturday, and he's just a delight.

let's go over to Belgiue and she's played in ignorance. Meanwhile, he's saying that she's in on it. Now, that doesn't seem to make much sense, except I found out from a legal standpoint it did for her to deny involvement, but for him to claim she was involved for some reason, which is explained legally in the book. It was to her advantage, it was to protect her, and it was

some lawyer explained it to me. But it sounds weird at first, Blush, but anyway, she does not know anything about Harold not being Harold, and tell they're in court and he is scheduled Harold is there to testify on her behalf. And when he gets jump on the stand and they say to him, will you please say your name? Whatever spell I said, was that your real name? Nope? Who are you? I refuse to answer, and grants me

to to incriminate me. And she's going what she does not know that he is in Harold, that she's who the hell he is, And then they promptly get married, get me, after all, her husband and wife can't testify against each other. She will you marry me? She says yes. He says, well, I don't care what your name is. Harold or Phil. I married marrying a man not a name. I'll figure out who you are too earlier, he says, yes, he proposes to He says, yes, I'll marry you. I

don't know quite who you are, but yes, I'll marry you. Yes. She didn't know until they were sitting in the courtroom when they put him up on the stand and said what's your real name? And he wouldn't tell him.

through a midlife class life divorce is god. I want to run away from home, and he said he was walking down the street down, of course, weighing the pros and cons. Do I say, hey, I'm not dead here I am folks, Or do I just roll with it, just keep going? And once he started going, he didn't stop to the area. He'd go through ballots of going, gosh, I feel horrible that my brothers think I'm dead, Abb but they didn't know, but they didn't want to see me anyway. You know, I feel bad my ex wife

thinks I'm dead. Well, she was divorcing. He was able to justify it back and forth. So he said, I have good good times and then bad times at nights. Sometimes you think about it and one of your is doing the right thing. But well, it's been six weeks, it's been six months, it's been two years, he's been three years, four years. And then when he meets Barb, falls in love with her and they have the restaurant, it just seems like, well, it's all going to work

out just fine. You know. The strange thing is Dad, it did all his Burl Bear says, it all comes out in the wash. It's just the spin cycle that makes you crazy, and it has all come out in the wash. Phil is happy, Barb's happy living and you know they got social security. You know, they got grandkids. He's tied with his brothers. He is not tied with his kids, but they weren't too tight with him, you know, first time when he died, so they had plenty of time to get away from him. But on a day

to day basis, he's healthy, he's happy. And of course now this the twentieth anniversary special edition of ban Overboard Counterbeit Resurrections of Phil Champagne with special Bodus material. Now that this has come out in a book paperback at an ebook for instant download, he's getting some more publicity again and he kind of gets a kick out of that. There's been two songs written.

then the other versions by Willie Fasts Rockmore. The rap artist is doing a rap man Overport song about Phil Champagne that's coming out here real soon. So you got a rap artist doing Phil story, and you got Daryl Rodgers doing it, and I just get the biggest kick out of it, So to Phil, and I love the

all people's response to the book. You might want to tell the audience about when the news is when this story first broke after you know, it was off when the book first came out, the original version, and Phil's face was splash in full color on the front page the newspaper in Idaho, Cortline or whoever it was, and it was a big story, you know. And Phil's walking down the street. This lady recognizes him for the newspaper

and she just starts giving him hill. They make you out some sort of adventure stars, some sort of an action hero. You're nothing but a two bit cook at a criminal counterfeiture and you're worthless, And she just goes on and on because he runs out of steam and runs out of insults. In Phil Charmus Ever just looks at her and says, I bet your husband wishes he

could fall off the sailboat too. It's a it's a fun story, and I really I love hearing from people who read the book to get their response to it, because everyone who reads it he that says, is this true? You know, is this is the wildest story I've ever read. For a true crime book to be funny is unusual, and it is probably I don't know if there's any other funny true crime books out there, but people do find this one vastly amusing.

And I always worry and things are too good. But and I'll see how how things go with Man Overboard. But uh, it's Steve Jackson, who was a great true crime writer himself, right, and put this thing together. And we've got some starting off with a core group of authors that people know, that people know they're hopefully geting good you know, they know they're going to get a good book. Got Kaitlyn Rother, who, by the way, I

went to this party with Kaitlyn the other night. She looks like she's graduating from middle school.

that haven't been available and some new ones. Well. Two things that I'm excited about with Wild Blue Press had great books, great covers, are printed beautifully, and they're doing promotion which I've never had a publisher do before, and got coming out in the coming year my private high novel Headlock, which has been out of print forever. It was a book they got internationally great rave reviews and due to the fact they used a technology that's now common,

but back then it was new. I think I made fifty six dollars on the book. So now it'll come out to a whole new audience. And we have a new true crime book that I've been working on, or actually should have been working on. But Frank Gerardo Junior, is an award winning journalist, is doing all the research and the basic writing on the case of a woman who murders her husband by putting anti freeze in his gatorade, actually has her daughter put the anti freeze and gatorade.

This woman is such a piece of work. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but it's one of the most This woman is one of the most horrific individuals. She had a horrific life, even got knocked up by her grandfather when she was sixteen. Well, but it's going to be a pretty amazing story and we're going to have that coming out this year. I

just talked to Frank today. He's been doing all the you know, she always said, the research and the journalist sick writing, and then I'll come in when he's got his part that and I go to and put in my commentary and we gas what we did with the Manley Williams Deadly Sins, which was just a quick, little, you know, two star ebook we put out real quick to go along with the Deadly Sins episode where he

I provided it. On that one, he wrote the thing that I came in at the end with my commentary on this one, we're going to do it together, where he writes the basic initial research and then I come in and add so we say my color commentary, and I think we make a great team. He's a true old school you know, shoe leather. He's almost like a Raymond Chandler character himself, real old school investigative journalist with

great cred and a great guy to work with. And so I'm pretty excited with the things that we got coming out for Wild Blue this year. I'm gonna have my Private Eye novel, brand new true crime book because Man Overboard. And then some of the the things I've been writing. I did some deadly Sins shows that'll be on season four. I just did two episodes like cases I had to investigate it. They just like my commentary, and so we're writing up some mini books on those,

and then we'll combine them all together. And I think the original the eventual idea, which I think is great, is that in time, you will be able to go on I say, the Wild Blue site and pick, like

picking from a menu. Yeah, I'd like this story by Taylor, and I'd like, well, this thing by Ron looks interesting, and well this thing Burl did, Oh yeah, and then you got this by so and so and the other artists we're adding and like put checks next to the boxes and they'll turn that into a book for you, you know, the different things by the different authors, whether there's short things or longer things, and it's all come

to you your own personalized book. You know, the dan Zoopansky True crime collection book with articles by you know, Caitlin and Burl and Ron and just with that one, that one to your personal specifications put together, it's the way you would like it.

each other as well. I mean, like you said, Kathy Scott, And so what I wanted to say too is that it seems like a completely different approach with Steve saying listen, this is you know, for once a publishing company really run by authors and really looking at what was wrong with the publishing companies and their approach, like not advertising and probably having twenty people when maybe they should have four and concentrate.

to write and won't publish it. I've never had that before. It with the exception of Man Overboard, where they said, okay, we like the idea, you go ahead and write it and just let us know when you're done. It has been twenty years since I've had that sort of with exception of my private eye novel Headlock, which was done for the now defunctently Alibi Press, which was another wonderful group to work for, but unfortunately they were too They

were the right idea too soon, which is unfortunate. But it says so far everything's in delight, the pleasure and be happier. Yeah.

doesn't do commentary at the end. He could have his office comments at the end, but mostly you're just kind of Joe Friday. There were no such rules as far as Man Overboard was concerned. It was the first true crime book I wrote. I didn't care about what the rules were of traditional true crime books because I wasn't writing one. I was writing this so and if you will read my commentary on The Little Book of Manling William's Deadly Sins, My writing in there is much more

like it is in Man Overboard. It's just me writing the way I normally write when I'm not trying to be Joe Friday the ow in fact Murder in the Family. I was only able to get one questionable line on the entire book, and that was.

there's many different kinds of authors with different styles. And it's the same with my Private Eye novel, the closest thing to because I always wanted to be a hero of a book, and my Private Eye novel Headlock, where the character's name as Jeff Reynolds, but everyone knows it's not his real name. I wrote that in the first person, present tense, which is a nightmare to write, but GRAY had great fun doing it and I got to be the hero of the book. I always wanted to be

a hero. Sure, I even get be the hero in the gun battle and everything. I'm so proud of myself. And I did it all without leaving my.

I actually got half of the show. But Phil was on Saturday for an hour with us where we grilled him like a swordfish, and then we got we have the Fellow I don't want to get the Whitechapel murders, yeah, the Bank Holiday murders, yeah, and then very uncharacteristically but kind of. You've heard of PF Sloan, a big hit song by Rumor. You know, I've been seeking PF Sloan, but no one knows where he has gone. I said, well,

I'm going to find PF Sloan. So I found him and I said, hey, PF Sloan, will you come out of invisibility, grab your guitar and come down all radio, and much to my eternal gratitude, he said yes, I'll be there. So the real, honest to god, real live PF Sloan, who has just been nominated to the American Songwriters Hall of Fame, will be live on True Crime Unsensor and the reason I persted from a crime standpoints of what happened to his career was a crime, he says.

and Capture the Saint, and some other novels. A lot of true crime from Kensington, but right now, the one, of course I'm most excited about is Man Overboard, the counterfeit Resurrection of Phil Champagne, which makes wonderful holiday gifts no matter what the holiday may be.