Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, they're called the bling ring, a fast

of celebrity wannabes.

Accused of robbing some of Hollywood's hottest young stars of jewelry and other

items. And now they talk to American Greed. Our culture in Hollywood is

extravagant. Some people might strive to go to medical school. I guess in the L

.A. area, young people strive to have Rolex watches.

But the bling ring steals more than jewelry.

They weren't primarily motivated by money. They were almost taking pieces of

fame. But first, Danny Pang is a high -rolling financier with a devil -may

attitude.

I don't give a quote -unquote. He didn't care.

Pang says he makes millions betting on when people will die.

But Pang has a shady past, a gambling habit.

and a murdered wife.

Danny Pang hasn't been able to stop crime since his wife Janie was found

death in the couple's upscale home Friday night.

Soon, this gambler's house of cards collapses.

The whole thing was based on a false underpinning, and it obviously came

crashing down.

September 11th, 2009.

An ambulance races to the posh Newport Beach, California home of financier

Pang.

He was only 42 and relatively thin. You had to kind of wonder what

was behind this.

Mr. Pang was under electronic monitoring and they saw his bracelet when they

took him to the hospital, obviously.

Pang, who is on house arrest, is under investigation by the feds, accused of

defrauding investors out of nearly a billion dollars.

The embattled entrepreneur clings to life overnight, and with his silence

more questions about his alleged dirty dealing.

He left all these disturbing clues through his whole life where people who

close to him felt they'd been deceived.

Danny Pang is born in Taipei, Taiwan, on December 15, 1966.

His father, he told people, was some kind of a trader.

His mother's family owned some kind of a furniture manufacturing business, and

they were reasonably well off. He went to a very prestigious middle school and

elementary school in Taiwan, and a large part of the family moved to the U .S.

Pang's family settles in Las Vegas, Nevada in the early 80s, where they own

operate two cheap motels on the edge of the Strip.

One of them is called the Rummel, and the family lived in the studio apartment

in the Rummel, and he lived there with them, and he helped manage the motel,

he went to a high school in Las Vegas.

It's here, in Sin City, that Pang develops a pension for gambling,

free time at the glitzy casinos on the Strip.

You know, he liked to gamble, always had a little bit of money that he was

throwing around, kind of a, you know, a guy who just liked the high life and

didn't really study very hard.

After graduating from high school in 1984, Pang says he enrolls in the

University of Nevada, Reno, before transferring to the University of

Irvine, where he says he also earns his MBA.

People at Irvine said that he appeared to be a wealthy guy, he drove a BMW.

thought he was just another flashy guy who, you know, appeared to be a good

talker and successful person.

After school, Pang settles in Orange County, where he bounces between stints

real estate and raising capital for high -tech firms.

It's the fast life, Southern California, real estate, gambling.

horse racing, and he was involved in all those different segments.

He was kind of a promoter -type person, doing different deals. He'd move from

one deal to the next.

In 2000, the 33 -year -old Pang establishes Private Equity Management

PEM Group for short, with a few partners, including Nasser Abubakari.

Jeff Benis is Abubakari's attorney.

The first focus of that business was life settlement contracts, that is,

these insurance policies.

The PEM group offers people a way to cash out a life insurance policy before

they die.

PEM offers a cash settlement in exchange for the right to collect on the policy

later.

He would give them the money up front.

In return, he would hold the policy. So when this person passed, he would get

the proceeds of that policy. So that was how he was purportedly going to make

money.

Pang, a gambler since his teenage years, is now literally betting on when people

will die.

And from his perspective, the sooner the better.

But it's far from a safe bet.

Mr. Pang was not a professional in this business. He really didn't know what he

was doing.

But Pang's partner, Nasser Abubakari, has a background in insurance.

And together, they make an interesting couple.

Nasser was kind of an operations person, also a very conservative, straight guy.

Danny was the salesperson. He had the relationships in Taiwan and other Asian

countries with the investors, or so he said.

Pang uses his connections to court Taiwanese banks to invest in Pem Group.

Danny was really good at this. I mean, he dressed in $3 ,000 suits, and he took

the finest suite at the...

At the five -star hotels in Taipei, he was sort of a guy who would try to

convince folks that he had some substance and a track record.

Pang tells potential investors that he has that MBA from University of

California, Irvine, and that he was once a vice president at Morgan Stanley.

No one ever took the time to make a simple inquiry into his background as to

whether he really had that kind of experience, but it never came up as an

He also tells investors that Pem Group is backed by the Irvine family, which

owned a large part of Orange County in the 19th century.

Daddy found a member of the Irvine family, whose name was Morton Irvine

to essentially serve as a front man for Pem Group. And they claimed in documents

that he was the chairman of the holding company, that the family had a big

shareholding in Pem Group.

Irvine, which has a large Taiwanese population, has a certain cachet

And major Taiwanese banks like Standard Chartered PLC, Huanan, and

Sinopac are impressed by Peng's credentials and his connections.

They persuade 16 ,000 individual investors to pour more than $800 million

Pem Group. People would wire $20, $30, $50 million.

And Pem Group grew from having $20 or $40 million of investment capital from a

Taiwanese bank or a consortium of banks. Suddenly it had $500 million or $700

million.

And for the next few years, Pang spends it like water.

He did get rich quick, very quickly.

He owned five cars, including very fancy ones, and he lived in this gated

community in Newport Beach. He belonged to this club. He was flying around in

jets, living the American dream.

But the successful image is propped up with lies.

Next on American Greed, a reporter digs into Pang's troubled past and discovers

his ex -wife has been murdered.

And later, police say Hollywood's A -list is on the bling ring's hit list.

Man, I really like that stuff.

I like that gown. I like that purse. I like that jewelry.

Orange County, California.

Million -dollar mansions and mega -yachts dot the landscape along the

Ocean. In Irvine, financier and gambler Danny Pang is building his empire on

other people's graves, buying their life insurance policies, betting when

they'll die, then cashing out.

To the outside world, it appears that Pem Group is on the up and up. But

the company, there's a big problem.

Life insurance is a bad bet.

The mathematical calculation they were using was not correct because people are

living for a longer period of time, which means the investor who buys that

insurance policy isn't realizing anything in terms of a return until a

later date than was expected.

One man's longevity is another man's shortfall, and Pang needs a cash

from some other source.

He started attracting new investors in order to pay old investors because the

investments that his original investors had been placed in were failing.

Pang's partner, Nasser Abubakari, grows increasingly uncomfortable with Pang's

handling of the business.

This continuing out -of -control spending on large and larger items,

parties, annual trips to Taiwan, taking the whole business overseas to Europe

for some huge extravaganza, it was spiraling then out of control from

perspective.

Tensions between the two reach a breaking point in 2007, and Pang pushes

Bakari out of PEN Group.

Pem Group and Danny elected to then oust him and essentially cut him off from

any income from Pem Group. That's what created the explosion between them.

Abu Bakari vows revenge.

In a wrongful termination lawsuit, he makes several claims.

He says that Pang lies about his past.

He has no MBA. He never went to UC Irvine, as he claims.

And he never worked for Morgan Stanley.

I laughed when I first read the resume.

It was hilarious in the sense that he would make up such a story.

He created it, and you tell a lie and you believe it.

He believed it.

Abu Bakari also charges that Pem Group's life settlement contracts are

flatlining. So rather than telling the investors that things were not going so

well, they would essentially take new money from new investors in order to pay

the first group of investors their money back.

In other words...

Danny Pang is running a Ponzi scheme.

I don't think he really believed he was stealing anybody's money. What he

believed was if there was a shortfall during this first -time segment, in the

future, it'd be solved.

Last -ditch attempts to settle failed.

He wanted to control the show. If he did not control the show, he would not play

the game.

But Abu Bakari still has one last card to play.

Since Pang won't take him seriously, he threatens to contact the Wall Street

Journal.

Jeff Benise recalls Pang's reaction.

I don't give a f***.

Quote, unquote, he didn't care.

Danny at that time had a huge ego.

You know, he felt that he was untouchable.

He raised the specter of the Wall Street Journal.

He didn't care, and Danny's not responding to it.

Abu Bakari makes good on his threat and calls writer Mark Maramont.

It's a call that would change Danny Pang's life forever.

We got word that this fellow who was running this purported $4 billion hedge

fund in Orange County did not have his degrees, and it sort of seemed

intriguing.

Maramont digs into Pang's past and discovers a shocking chapter.

He learns that in May 1993, Pang marries 29 -year -old Janie Buschlein, a

stripper who he had met at a club.

Danny Pang and Janie Pang had a very, some would call it passionate, others

would call it tumultuous, call it what you will. It was a marriage that brought

a lot of tension to itself.

The police are summoned to the Pang House at least four times over the next

years for domestic disturbance complaints.

And by 1997, divorce is imminent.

She was going to visit an attorney to get a divorce. The fact that she had had

private investigator, that she knew he was having an affair, or at least

suspected he was having an affair.

On May 29, 1997, the PI spots Danny Pang holding hands with another woman.

The next day, as Janie Pang prepares to meet with the investigator, a well

-dressed man with a pencil -thin mustache and a briefcase rings the

He pulls a gun and pushes his way in, chasing Janie Pang through the house.

He finally corners her inside a master bedroom closet and fires a single round

at point -blank range.

It's the Pang's fourth wedding anniversary.

If there's anybody knows anything about this, please contact the police.

Days after the murder, police release a sketch of the suspect, who they say

bears a striking resemblance to Hugh McDonald, Danny Pang's former attorney.

At the same time, McDonald disappears and stages his suicide on San

Golden Gate Bridge. But police become suspicious when they can't find his

An arrest warrant has been issued for an Orange County attorney, Hugh Randy

McDonald, at the time of the homicide.

He handled all the business affairs for the victim's husband.

McDonald remains on the lam for four years until 2001, when police finally

him down.

Michael Molfetta is McDonald's attorney.

My client has maintained his innocence from the get -go.

He has always told me I did not do this. I had no reason to do it, which is

true. He really didn't.

At trial, Molfetta argues that Danny Pang was responsible for Janie Pang's

murder, that he was an abusive husband, and that he hired a hitman to kill his

wife.

The question of whether or not I think Danny Pang is guilty of the murder of

Janie Pang, I think he's complicit in it.

I think at a minimum he knows way more than he let on.

Danny Pang takes the fifth and doesn't testify.

And on October 4, 2002, the jury returns a 10 -2 not guilty verdict

and the case against McDonald is dismissed.

To this day, who killed Janie Pang is an unsolved mystery.

Murder is just one of many suspicious things that Mark Merriman uncovers about

Pang's past.

When Merriman examines Pem Group's investments, he discovers that Pang is

investors under false pretenses.

Turns out, Pem Group isn't backed by the wealthy and influential Irvine family.

Pang has fabricated his entire past, and he's using the Pem Group as his

personal piggy bank, taking out over $100 million in salary, fees, and

There was all kinds of...

Loans, unauthorized loans or undocumented loans going from the

to Danny personally, to companies that he controlled.

Every time they'd place an investment, Danny would pay himself and other

partners of Pem Group a pretty substantial fee.

With those fees, Pem Group buys not one, but three private jets.

Pang uses one of them to take his employees to Las Vegas on a high -stakes

gambling trip.

And Merrimont knows he can't sit on this story for long.

Eventually, as these little pieces started coming into place, and it just

really intriguing.

I mean, it's just, who is this guy? How did he raise this money? What was he

doing with the investments?

What did he tell the investors?

Was all this stuff that he looked like he fabricated, did he really fabricate

it, and why?

When the Wall Street Journal publishes the first of a series of articles about

Pang in April 2009, alarm bells sound at the SEC and the heat comes down.

There was no way there was going to be a front page article about an Irvine

company involved in a massive Ponzi scheme where the SEC is not going to get

their car, come down here and shut them down.

When American greed returns, with Pang's web of lies exposed, will he

crack under the pressure?

In April 2009, the Wall Street Journal blows the whistle on Irvine, California

-based financier Danny Pang.

Mark Merrimont's searing page one article recounts Pang's shadowy past,

wife's murder, his false credentials, and his alleged $800 million Ponzi

It was just a really, you know, interesting, colorful guy who obviously

of intelligence and maybe brilliance in financial matters.

He left all these disturbing clues through his whole life where people who

close to him felt they'd been deceived.

24 hours later, the SEC launches its investigation into Pang.

SEC attorneys Paris Wynn and David Van Havermaet allege that by falsifying his

resume, Pang violated the Investment Advisors Act.

You're telling investors that, look, based upon my background and my

you should hire me.

We would consider that a material fact. You're telling people one thing that's

important in their decision -making process when, in fact, there's no truth

your representation.

They also look into the Ponzi scheme that Pang is accused of running, and

file a civil suit against him.

At the same time, the FBI begins its own criminal investigation into Pang.

They allege that he is illegally diverting more than $360 ,000 of

for his own personal use.

Pang steals the money and amounts just under $10 ,000 to avoid federal

It's a crime the feds call structuring.

It's the most egregious structuring case that I've certainly seen.

We normally see structuring, we see it to the tune of, you know, five, six,

seven, eight transactions, and here you had more than 50 transactions to the

tune of close to a half a million dollars.

Within a week, the FBI arrests Pang for the structuring offenses, and he's

placed on house arrest.

The feds buy themselves time to look into the allegations that Pang defrauded

Taiwanese investors out of at least $800 million.

It's not a situation where you have unsophisticated investors that are being

taken in by Mr. Pang. These were all big Taiwanese banks that got taken in by

him and were convinced to invest their money with him in what turned out to be

fraud.

But no one could imagine what Pang would do next, an act so shocking it would

stop the investigation in its tracks.

September 11, 2009, just five months into the investigation,

Pang's mother finds him in bed.

He's unresponsive.

A family friend calls 911, and he's rushed to the hospital, where he's

pronounced dead the next day.

Pang, the man who once believed he was invincible, has taken a cocktail of

prescription drugs.

More than five times the lethal dose is found in his system.

It was strange. That was way out of character for him.

He was not a guy who, you know, would give up easily, typically. So a lot of

people just don't believe that he, you know, could have or would have committed

suicide. For such a mysterious man, paying suicide poses the ultimate

leaving everyone scratching their heads.

This FBI agent is working undercover and asked that we protect his identity.

That was obviously a big shock to me.

I was preparing a case.

And we had a trial date set.

Once he's no longer living, there really isn't a case against Danny Pang.

A month later, Pang's family releases a statement.

Danny was a wonderful husband, loving father, and honest businessman.

We remain steadfast in our belief that Danny would have been vindicated if he

had been given that opportunity.

But the SEC continues with its civil suit and will sue Pang's estate in an

effort to get restitution.

In all, Pang allegedly defrauded eight banks and 35 individuals who had

$823 million with Pem Group.

Only a small fraction of that amount has been recovered.

These were very sophisticated.

financial institutions that were victimized by Mr. Pang.

And if they can become victims of a fraud like this, it just goes to show

everybody needs to be careful with their investments.

Still, questions about Pang's life and death remain.

But for a man who gambled on other people's fate, controlling his own

was his safest bet.

He's just this iconic type of figure in America, the immigrant who...

Looks like he's making good, but in fact, you know, the whole thing was

a false underpinning and it obviously came crashing down.

Next on American Greed, the bling ring breaks into the homes of some of

Hollywood's brightest stars.

They focus very much on the personality of the star, almost as if they wanted

not just their fame, but almost to touch the star themselves.

In the early morning hours of July 13, 2009, under the cover of darkness, four

people approach the Hollywood Hills home of superstar Orlando Bloom.

Two vehicles arrive, and they park far, far away from Mr. Bloom's property. And

then you see the people get out of their car.

They slink past security cameras that guard the modern black mansion.

Everybody's faces covered.

Everybody's in hoodies.

Police say the gang enters through an unlocked door by the pool.

They ransack the house, grabbing pricey Rolex watches, clothing, and art worth

nearly $500 ,000.

So much property was taken from Mr. Blum.

Not just in a monetary stance, but just valuable personal property that

irreplaceable, kind of mementos and what have you.

One of those burglars is 18 -year -old Alexis Nyer, a Valley girl.

who hangs out in Hollywood's Fast Lane.

I started going out to Hollywood when I was about 17, and we kind of took it by

storm, I guess you could say. I mean, we were friends with, like, everyone, and

we're having fun and being young and looking for that adventure and that fun.

The club -hopping teen gets her good looks from her mother, a former Playboy

playmate who now works as a masseuse.

With dreams of money and fame, the Nyers family stars in E!'s reality show,

Pretty Wild.

We're a very different family. The way that we live is very non -traditional.

My mom being an ex -playmate, me working on modeling, and the fun, crazy stuff

that we were doing, they were like, why wouldn't you have a reality show?

The show elevates Nyer's profile, and she becomes a well -known fixture on L

.A.'s nightclub circuit.

Around this time, Nyer starts hanging out with 18 -year -old Nick Prugo.

We had been working on the show around the same time that I met Nick, and I

could kind of tell that he was getting more friendly around that time period,

for sure.

Like Nyer's, Prugo also grows up in the Valley.

Daniel Horowitz is Prugo's attorney.

Basically, Nick was a kind, gentle, sweet young man. I don't think he's ever

a fight in his life.

He's artistic, but he's not that academic, although he's very bright.

And he never felt that he fit in.

Prugo's family is also in the entertainment industry, and his attorney

like Nyers, he too is obsessed with fame.

sense of self -value was to be at clubs, to have the right clothes, to be

accepted. All the things that we see and criticize in the abstract, here is a

young man who accepted those values and temporarily, almost like a shot of

drugs, it satisfied him short term.

In 2006, Prugo meets Rachel Lee at Indian Hills High School, an alternative

school in the valley town of Agoura Hills.

And all of a sudden he met Rachel.

And they clicked.

And he felt wanted, cared for, and accepted for who he was.

The two bond over a mutual love of fashion. And they soon become

constantly connecting via email and text.

But police say their friendship soon takes a darker turn.

In the time that they were in high school, the two of them committed...

untold hundreds of crimes.

Frugo and Lee allegedly break into homes and unlocked cars.

They grab thousands of dollars in cash, which they blow on Rodeo Drive in

Beverly Hills.

Before long, other kids begin to take notice.

As people saw the nice items they had, as they bragged about what they were

doing, their circle widened and other people wanted to participate.

Police say teenagers Courtney Ames, Diana Tamayo, and 27 -year -old Roy

Jr. round out the gang that will later be dubbed the Bling Ring.

Together, they are accused of hatching a plan to get a piece of their favorite

celebrities.

Detective Brett Goodkin heads the case for the Los Angeles Police Department.

It was kind of like a minor league.

system that they had going on. So by the time that they really graduated into

targeting people of real substance and wealth, they were really good at doing

burglaries.

Detective Goodkin says that each burglary begins with Lee obsessively

the web or flipping through magazines to scope out a star's wardrobe.

Man, I really like that stuff.

I like that gown. I like that purse. I like that jewelry.

Then police say...

Brugo and Lee would log on to social networking websites to monitor their

schedule. People know when you're doing these huge events, and they know when

you're out on the red carpet or, you know, what you're doing. And Twitter and

Facebook is definitely an enabler for these people to get attached to your

or your lifestyle or what you're doing.

When a celebrity is out of town, it's the perfect time to strike.

They're impulsive.

They're selfish.

Young people make mistakes, but they did it more systematically.

They did it on a bigger scale than most.

Next on American Greed, police say the bling ring goes on its first shopping

trip inside Paris Hilton's closet.

They went to the place like termites.

Southern California, the entertainment capital of the world, home to

and celebutants alike.

It's here that a ring of teenage burglars are accused of ripping off some

world's biggest stars, lifting their clothes, jewelry, and accessories.

They weren't primarily motivated by money.

They were almost taking pieces of the fame of the people whose houses they

entered. It's not...

oh, wow, I really like that, I have to have that.

In October 2008, the bling ring targets hotel heiress Paris Hilton.

The reality TV star is as well known for her chihuahuas as she is for her Jimmy

Choo shoes.

According to the L .A. County D .A., Nick Prugo cases Hilton's 7 ,000 -square

-foot Hollywood Hills home on the Internet.

There was a site called CelebrityAddressAerial .com, and

on the address to give you kind of an aerial sense of the property, the

And once they would do that, then the next stage was to go out and case their

target.

You look at these kids, they don't look like hoodlums.

So it would make sense if you're a normal guy and you're watering your lawn

you see these kids coming out of someone's garage.

Hey, what are you kids doing? And you probably wouldn't think twice about it.

According to police, Prugo and Rachel Lee are confident they'll pull this off.

By the time they went into the burglary at Ms. Hilton's house, they had done

untold amount of residential burglary, so it wasn't the first time at the

They didn't have that kind of nervousness that maybe would have gotten

caught.

They reportedly find a key beneath Hilton's doormat, unlock the door, And

waltzed right in.

They just went into Paris Hilton's house and said, hey, let's see what it's like

to hang out in Paris's bedroom and try on her jacket.

And then maybe it became, let's take the jacket.

They went through the place like termites and took what they want and

and, you know, partied. And I'm sure just reveled in the fact that they were

a famous person's home.

Hilton doesn't notice anything missing.

And police say the bling ring returns nearly ten times over the next several

weeks. And then they kept coming back. And as they came back, they didn't just

come back with two of them. They would bring friends with them.

One of those friends is 27 -year -old Roy Lopez Jr.

According to the L .A. County D .A., Lopez would commit the last burglary

steal whatever he can, then fence the goods.

The whole plan was to take it out of the hands of these amateurs and put it in

the hands of the professionals.

On December 19th, Lopez allegedly breaks into Hilton's house.

According to police, he doesn't do as much recon as Prugo and Lee, and he

runs into the socialite during the heist.

But he manages to steal away just as she's arriving home.

And this time, police say Hilton notices that much of her jewelry collection is

missing. You know, when you go into somebody's house and take $2 million

of jewels, they notice.

But the bling ring is just getting started.

The L .A. County District Attorney says that Prugo and Lee then target MTV

reality star Audrina Patridge, who, like Hilton...

has her picture plastered all over celebrity websites.

Ms. Patrick came home one night and instantly realized that she had been

burglarized. That is them running through this courtyard with gobs of bags

whatnot that they've stolen.

And they leave carrying bunches of stuff that they didn't have in their hands

when they got there.

In July 2009, the L .A. County D .A. says Prugo and Lee set their sights on

actor Orlando Bloom.

best known for his role in The Pirates of the Caribbean.

Before they hit Bloom's house, the pair reportedly picked up two more

accomplices, including Pretty Wild Star 18 -year -old Alexis Nyers.

Surveillance video shows what happens next.

It's the middle of night, and then they walk up the hill towards Mr. Bloom's

driveway, and...

And then something funny happens. They turn around and they walk backwards,

the old monkeys television show, right?

Police say they enter the house through an unlocked door and begin grabbing

whatever they can.

They took artwork, they took jewelry.

Mr. Bloom had a wonderful, very, very expensive and rare collection of watches

and a lot of his personal clothing.

Pretty much anything you could think of that one would take out of a home, they

took.

Police allege two of the burglars are caught on tape carrying big plastic bags

to their car.

The surveillance video clearly shows two of the four going in and coming out

multiple times. And every time they come out, they're so laden down with stuff.

that at one point, one or both stumble and fall. It's kind of like a cartoon,

because they're walking down the steep hill, and they're just loaded with

Some time later, Frugo allegedly decides to unload some of Bloom's property.

They had so much stuff that they had taken, they certainly weren't going to

throw it out.

And someone's probably going to notice if they're wearing a Rolex watch, so

maybe they should try to sell that.

After the Bloom heist, prosecutors say the bling ring continues its spree.

But Fugo's beginning to have second thoughts.

He fears that sooner or later someone will recognize the gang on surveillance

footage.

He's right.

We instantly started getting phone calls. I know who those two people are.

When American Greed returns, police say the bling ring goes after one of their

biggest targets yet, actress Lindsay Lohan.

But will this hit be their last?

By August 2009, the bling ring has allegedly stolen more than $2 million

of designer clothes and precious jewels from some of the world's brightest

stars.

And in some cases, the alleged crimes were caught on tape.

And these mysterious burglars are becoming celebrities themselves, leading

newscasts nationwide.

Until now, Nick Krugo and Rachel Lee, the alleged original bling ring members,

have managed to stay under the radar.

Initially, the police didn't know what was going on. They hadn't even connected

any of these celebrity burglaries together.

It's Los Angeles. It's a big city. There's a lot of burglaries.

But with each heist, they press their luck. And police allege Lee, an aspiring

fashionista, is desperate to get him to start at Lindsay Lohan's closet.

Lee had the taste for these material trappings of celebrity.

The dresses, the bling.

the accoutrement they didn't seem to realize that what they were doing was

the night of august 23rd frugo lee and diana

tamayo allegedly use a screwdriver to pry open a window at lohan's rented

hollywood hills bungalow it wasn't like an oceans 11 caper you know they're not

paragliding you know from the hollywood sign on the roof and then using C4 to

blow holes through the ceilings. It's common stuff.

They make off with $128 ,000 in goods.

But Prugo's worst fears are about to come true.

When Ms. Lohan got home and found her window pried open and all her things

missing, she realized that she'd been burglarized.

Three days after the break -in, Lohan and the LAPD released the surveillance

footage of the burglary to TMZ .com.

As soon as we...

aired the images, we instantly started getting phone calls. And it wasn't, hey,

those kids look familiar. It was essentially the same call, but different

people. I know who those two people are. That's Rachel Lee, and that's Nick

Prugo.

Around this time, a CNN employee and a friend claimed to overhear Prugo and Lee

at a party bragging about the heists.

They went to the head of security at CNN.

a former police officer who then tipped the LAPD.

The whole thing just unravels. They have names they can check on the Internet,

who's friends with whom, do those match -ups to the videotape evidence, and then

they're off and running.

When he's arrested on September 17th, police say Pugo literally wears his

on his sleeve.

His mugshot shows him in Orlando Bloom's black -and -white striped shirt.

He initially refuses to talk, but three weeks later, police say he comes clean.

Nick wanted to talk about crime, and he wanted to tell me about crimes that we

knew about and some crimes that maybe we didn't know about.

And we met Nick and his attorney at the office, and then we started getting a

real account of what's really been going on.

According to police, Prugo also fingers the other members of the Bling Ring.

Police move fast, serving search warrants on Rachel Lee, Alexis Nyers,

Tamayo, Courtney Ames, and Roy Lopez Jr.

And when they arrive at Nyers' house, reality and reality television collide.

The celebrity -obsessed teen is set to film a scene for her reality show,

Wild. At like 8 o 'clock, the camera crew is just getting there and they're

setting up.

All of a sudden, there's like a knock on the door, and it was nothing that I was

expecting because I didn't really fully grasp what was going on.

Nyers is arrested and posts bail.

She's free while her attorneys work to strike a deal.

I'm here to be your lawyer, so as far as I'm concerned, you're grounded.

We would tell Alexis, you can't go out, don't talk to the press, no parties, no

clubs, and like as soon as we... would hang up the phone, TMZ or somebody would

have her talking or clubbing.

Nyers pleads no contest for her role in the bloom burglary, the only crime she's

charged with.

And on June 24, 2010, the reality star reports to an L .A. County women's jail

to begin serving her 180 -day sentence.

Are you nervous at all, scared?

We're in a jail.

This just happened to be a case where reality collided with reality.

And it just helped feed the media circus.

Ironically, Nyers does her time alongside bling ring victim Lindsay

serving time for a drug -related offense.

Nyers is released after serving only 30 days.

Looking back on it, the Pretty Wild Star says it was a case of being at the

wrong place at the wrong time.

I accept responsibility for what happened because...

If I hadn't trusted Nick, if I hadn't been so naive, and if I hadn't been out

drinking, I wouldn't have gotten myself into this situation.

So just to say this is about the Paris Hilton thing, leave it in open air.

Krugo, Lee, Ames, Tamayo, and Lopez plead not guilty to their charges in

2010.

They are awaiting trial.

I hope that Nick Krugo will have been given a sentence that allows him to do

jail time.

to pay his debt to society for what he's done. I hope he can begin his new life

and have a rich and fulfilling life.

This is kind of a classic thing in crime where success actually can breed your

downfall.

Hollywood lifts people up as much as it quickly discards them. And it's a pretty

hard lesson that for all the celebrity worship and the whole Hollywood

limelight, that that limelight...

as it were, can be turned off very quickly.