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In this episode of American Greed, captured.
These four American Greed fugitives may have thought they got away with their
schemes and scams, but they thought too soon.
I wasn't going to let this drop.
I wanted him found.
Whether flaunting their freedom in the limelight or taking their newfound
television fame to heart, they've all got something to hide.
And it's only a matter of time before the predator becomes the prey.
By land or by sea, and even with the help of alert American Greed viewers,
enforcement has brought these fraudsters into custody to face the music for a
total of more than $90 million worth of lying and deceit. I am just so
grateful that the show found him as the answer to a prayer.
Nisha is Nisha Jackson.
Chucky or Charles is Charles Barksdale.
And in the summer of 2008, they're wanted by federal investigators.
Over the past several years, the two have found a way to rob banks not only
without a gun, but without the banks even knowing they're being robbed.
Barksdale speaks to American Greed the Fugitives about how they got banks to
just hand over piles of cash.
Robbing a bank with a cell phone and a prepaid credit card, of course.
No violence, nobody get hurt.
Barksdale and Jackson's scheme recruits women all across the country to walk
into banks and convince tellers to pay cash advances on almost worthless
credit cards.
simply by asking them to call the credit card company to confirm their balance.
There's only one problem with the phone number these teams provide the teller.
That's not the number of the credit card company. It's really 1 -800 -CO
-CONSPIRATOR, and the person answering the phone is Nyasha Jackson.
Like a con game, like an old con game.
You know, you could talk a person into doing whatever you want them to do. If
you say it, if you ask them right.
The scheme steals more than $2 .5 million from banks all across the
I ain't going to say I'm proud of it. Well, I ain't mad that I did it,
dog. Everybody's a little bit greedy.
Barksdale claims that the fraud he masterminds is the result of a personal
offensive.
I'm a ladies' man. I could have whatever female I was with at the time do that.
Whoever was riding with me.
I give them the script and they're going to say it. But the feds think it's Nisa
Jackson who has the skills that make the fraud work.
None of this could have happened without Jackson's knowledge of how to
impersonate the customer service rep at the card company and how to walk the
teller through the key presses necessary for a forced transaction.
In early 2008, the FBI and Secret Service pieced together the nearly
cases across the country.
and follow the money back to Sacramento, California, and Charles Barksdale.
Barksdale pleads guilty to one count of bank fraud. And now, from behind bars,
he says he knew all along exactly how this story would end.
Hey, for real, real American Greek, I mean, I knew I would get caught.
But I didn't know I was going to get this much time.
Mark Dale is sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison, and it appears to be a
-up call for Jackson.
After pleading guilty to bank fraud, she is released on a $50 ,000 bond.
On October 6, 2011, she is scheduled to return to court to face sentencing.
Nyasha Jackson was looking at some years.
There's no doubt about it.
And there we are in the morning, and it's time for Nyasha Jackson actually to
sentenced.
Her lawyer's there, and I'm there, the judge is there.
No Jackson.
According to Jackson's defense, Jackson spends the next two and a half years
leading a transient and dangerous life, selling herself to make money.
When American Greed the Fugitive features Nisha Jackson in the episode
Bank Robbing Babe in September 2012, her defense claims things only get worse.
They say she is held hostage and tortured by a former friend demanding
she made during the scam.
But on April 25, 2014, Nisha Jackson's life on the run comes to an end when she
once again finds herself on TV.
And it appears that she didn't disdain her appearance on American Greed as much
as the defense suggests.
Her real name, Naisha Nicole Jackson.
She was caught leaving a hotel in Fairfield. But what she had with her was
more interesting.
She had T -shirts and business cards with the American Greed logo on them, as
well as her moniker, the fake robbing babe. It's almost like wearing a wanted
poster.
In addition to her customized American Greed swag.
She is found with $84 ,000 worth of cash and this array of luxury brand shoes,
jewelry, and more than 25 designer handbags.
She is also found with a bank card and ID in someone else's name, indicating
that she was possibly engaging in some kind of fraud while on the run.
Jackson is not charged with any new frauds, but her time on the run is over.
On May 16, 2015...
She is scheduled to face a judge once again, and this time, there will be no
escape.
She is sentenced to 15 years and 7 months in a federal prison in Central
California.
When American Greed the Fugitives returns, a man accused of embezzling
million tries to start a new life on the Appalachian Trail.
But there are some secrets he can't walk away from.
The agent had told me that Jim Hammons has to be lucky every day of his life.
We only have to be lucky one day.
And May 16th was that day.
The Appalachian Trail.
Between two and three million people a year hike at least some portion of the 2
,100 -mile journey that passes through 14 states from Georgia to Maine.
To many hikers, it's a weekend getaway.
And for others, it's a chance to get in touch with nature.
But for some, it's a quest to escape from the world and become an entirely
person.
evens everybody out.
You do not know if the man coming in my door is a state senator or if he's a bad
boy at the grocery store that saved his money.
Susie Montgomery runs the Montgomery Homestead Bed and Breakfast in Damascus,
Virginia, known as the friendliest town on the Appalachian Trail.
She sees thousands of hikers pass through her 814 -person town every year,
she says, That live and let live is a key motto on the trail.
Hikers even adopt trail names instead of going by the names they're known by in
the outside world.
Names like Thunder Chicken or Eternal Optimist. Or in the case of one man who
first stays at Montgomery's Bed and Breakfast in 2010,
Bismarck.
He got along with everybody very well. He was a very pleasant person, very
man.
The two get along so well that Bismarck comes back every year to stay with
Montgomery during Damascus' annual spring festival for hikers, Trail Days.
But despite the personal connection, like many hikers on the trail,
past remains a mystery.
I don't know what he did in the winter. I don't know what he did when he was off
of the trail.
He never just really revealed it, so I didn't inquire anymore.
If she had, it's doubtful he would tell her the truth, because the truth is
something Bismarck is trying very hard to hide.
February 2009, in the G &J Pepsi Bottling Company offices of Lexington,
Kentucky, the FBI awaits the arrival of the company's controller, James Hammes.
They believe that Hammes has embezzled $8 .7 million from the company.
over the previous ten or more years.
But when Hammes arrives, the meeting doesn't go as planned.
My expectation, generally, when someone is confronted with a situation where
there's such a preponderance of evidence, is that the person will say,
okay, I did it.
Not Mr. Hammes. He completely denied any part of it. When Hammes asks for an
attorney, the meeting is cut short.
And the next meeting won't be for a very long time.
After Hammes leaves that day, the FBI won't see him for another six years.
For Hammes' former sister -in -law, Jane Ryan, it's six years of torment and
frustration.
This is just one of those things that you never would have seen coming.
And I like to think of myself as a pretty good judge of character.
But he just, he fooled everybody.
But for Ryan, the most troubling part isn't what Hammond stole.
It's what he willingly left behind, his 22 -year -old daughter, Amanda.
I'm a mother, so I can't imagine abandoning a child like he did. She
thought she had the best dad in the whole world.
and that he was a good, honorable, honest man.
And when she found out that he wasn't, that was very
devastating.
Heartache seems to follow James Hammes.
Six years earlier, Jane's sister Joy is killed in a fire in the home she shares
with Hammes while Amanda is out on a date.
Not only does the tragedy shatter the family, there are also several
details about the fire that the family can't stop questioning.
The smoke alarm he had taken down, the dogs were pinned in the kitchen and they
couldn't wake her up.
He was out for a walk. This looks not great for Jim, but at the same time I
would rationalize it and say, there is no way.
that he would have done this, what would his motivation have been?
At the time, the family largely accepts it as an accident.
But knowing what they know now about Hammes' alleged secret dealings, the
has a hard time believing his story.
This isn't Hammes' first experience with a building going up in flames.
This man had...
been involved in five different fires. And you know, when I would ask somebody
what they thought about that, their comment would say, you know, I've never
involved in one fire, let alone five.
According to Ryan, once the family learns of Hammes' fraud and flight, they
begin to think about the fire and Hammes in a whole new way.
I think we kind of all felt that he was running from more than just...
You know, a lot of people are caught embezzling, but when you just take off
you're missing, then there's something more that he's running from.
In 2012, the family is interviewed for an episode of American Greed, The
Fugitives, hoping that someone will identify Hammett and they can have some
their questions answered.
Until they do, no one is going to give up the hunt.
Not the FBI, and especially not Jane Ryan.
I wasn't going to let this drop.
I wasn't going to let them forget.
I wanted him found.
When American Greed returns, a new look and a new life.
But James Hammes can't disguise his lies forever.
It's him.
I was 100 % sure.
I just thought, he's alive.
He's alive and he's out there and we're going to get him.
By 2015, accused Lexington, Kentucky, embezzler James Hammis has been on the
from the FBI for nearly six years.
And it's been three years since his story was told on American Greed, The
Fugitives. When three years went by, I won't say, I didn't give up hope,
but I thought he might have gotten away with this.
He just might have gotten away with this.
The disappearance is hard for Jane Ryan and her family to believe.
But for Hammes' daughter, Amanda, it's not just hard to believe.
It's hard to live with.
Every holiday was very hard because I think in her mind she was maybe
is this the time when he'll reach out if he's out there somewhere?
Amanda declined to speak with American Greed for this episode.
But in her interview for the original show, she is desperate to have him
And she has an idea about how her father is living his life on the run.
I think he's enjoying it. I think he's probably somewhere where he can do the
things that he likes, and I would not be surprised if there were other people
that he has duped into being close to him.
She doesn't know how right she is.
Patrick Bredlow first meets a hiker going by the name of Bismarck at the end
the summer in 2014, while Bredlow is in the final month of his first complete
hike of the Appalachian Trail.
We spent a lot of time just talking about family.
He talked a little bit about his one child, that she was in medicine, and
he missed her.
But he hadn't seen her for quite a long time just because he preferred to stay
in the woods and she was quite independent, as he described it, and
well. Bismarck tells Bredlow that he's hiked the trail every summer the last
five years.
And he isn't doing it alone, either.
He's with a woman he met on the trail several years ago and has been with ever
since.
He always said, this is everything I ever sought and wanted.
I've got nature's beauty always around me and a woman I love.
What else can a person ask for?
He said many times he would want to spend the rest of his life hiking the
Appalachian Trail back and forth.
It beats prison.
Because this gregarious hiker is not a selfless nomad with the wanted fugitive
James Hammes.
And despite his status as a fugitive, he allows dozens of photos to be taken of
him, each one smiling more broadly than the last.
But his overconfidence will be his downfall.
One day, I was on my way home from the grocery store, and Amanda called me and
said, where are you?
I've got an email you need to see.
Amanda Hammes forwards Ryan a remarkable email from an American Greed viewer.
who tracks Amanda down after watching a rebroadcast of the show.
It is the message the family has been waiting for.
He had said, I believe I've traveled the Appalachian Trail with your father, and
here are pictures of him.
I took one look at the pictures, and he was bearded and long hair and
everything. I took one look, and I knew.
100 % sure it was him.
Ryan contacts the FBI and gets them in touch with the hiker who identifies
Hammes from American Greed the Fugitives.
Now the FBI has to try to determine where on this 2 ,100 -mile trail they
able to track down the rambler who goes by Bismarck.
They eventually zero in on the one event he never misses, Damascus, Virginia's
annual festival, Trail Days.
And on the morning of May 16, 2015, Hammes is once again staying at the
Montgomery homestead, just like he does every May.
But this year's wake -up call is going to be different.
I heard a knock at the door, and I came, I was in the kitchen, I came to the
door, and the first thing I thought was all these, all these men.
I thought, these are not hikers.
No, they are not.
They are FBI agents, and they say they want to speak to a man who goes by the
name Bismarck.
I said, okay, and I went upstairs, and I knocked on the door.
I said, Bismarck, are you here?
And he said, yeah.
And I said, well, there's some guys out here that want to talk with you.
The FBI agents speak with Hammes in his room for approximately 15 minutes, then
lead him back to the living room.
They came down the stairs, and he was handcuffed at that point.
And I was able to hug him, and he said, just whispered to me, said, I'm sorry,
Susie. And then they just left.
And that was how it was.
That afternoon, Jane Ryan gets the call she and her family have been awaiting
for six years.
It was the FBI, and he said, we arrested Jim Hammond this morning in Damascus,
Virginia. I almost dropped the phone. I can't even explain the feeling.
Mission accomplished.
That's what I thought. Mission accomplished.
Currently, James Hammes awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to wire
The family believes that the truth about the fire that killed his wife may never
be known.
But it's been reported that the Lexington Fire Department at one point
the investigation, though nothing conclusive has yet been revealed.
In the meantime...
They are just glad that the journey down this long trail has finally come to an
end.
I don't think we'll ever know the truth about Joy's death, but as long as he's
behind bars, it doesn't matter what for.
As long as he's behind bars, that gives me satisfaction. I just hope he's there
for a really long time.
And if he had anything to do with it, he will get his justice later on.
Amanda Hammes has moved on with her life.
working her way through medical school.
But the sudden reemergence of her father has been a shock.
Ryan says that Hammes has been in contact with Amanda since his arrest,
been a challenge for Amanda to reconcile all the feelings she is going through.
I think it's been difficult emotionally. I think she's had to relive a lot of
things and face a lot of things.
I think she's trying her best to continue with her life and deal with the
emotions that come with this.
We're all very proud of her. She's very tough. She's a tough cookie.
After all she's been through, losing her mother and then finding out what her
father had done is something that most people wouldn't rebound from. He has.
Right. It's amazing.
Next on American Greed, a routine traffic stop leads to the end of the
this American Greed fugitive.
June 16, 2012.
Security video shows investment manager Aubrey Lee Price at the ferry terminal
in Key West, Florida, buying a ticket to Fort Myers.
Price has collected approximately $40 million in his Georgia -based investment
fund, PFG.
And by the time he boards the northbound ferry, it appears he's burned through
nearly all of it.
In a letter sent to regulators and to investors like Stark Wilbur, just before
his departure, he confesses his guilt and his intentions.
I apologize in advance for the lack of structure, grammar, and harmony of
thought. I realize that my time is up, and there is no way that I can work my
way out of the mess that I have created.
Price leaves regulators and investors to believe that his last act on Earth...
will be to jump from the ferry into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving behind a wife
and four children and drowning his once -admired life in shame and regret.
It's a dramatic conclusion to a devastating story, if only it were true.
But it's not where this story ends.
FBI Special Agent Douglas Left pours over security footage from that day.
and finds evidence of a man not looking to die, but disappeared.
At the airport, he's wearing a burgundy cap. A short while later, when he
arrives at the ferry terminal, he's now wearing a white cap.
People that commit suicide, it's probably unlikely that you'll find too
them that decided that they needed to change the color hat they were wearing
just before that terrible moment was to take place.
The FBI never gives up the hunt.
But after nearly two years, no sign of Price is to be found.
And it appears that the FBI's investigation may drown along with
That's where the curtain goes down and we're left to try to put the pieces
together. But behind the curtain, there's an entirely new show in the
Aubrey Lee Price himself is the author.
In 2014, journalist Charles Bethea writes a story about Price for Atlanta
Magazine, where he gets an exclusive interview with Price, as well as an
from a manuscript Price is writing about his time on the run called The
Inglourious Fugitive.
In it, Price tells his version of what happened on that not -so -fateful day in
2012.
When the last light of day was gone, I became engulfed in a sea of great
darkness, a darkness that would bring terror to any man's heart.
He sat there, you know, woe is me, why, why?
And then he had these sort of series of epiphanies about why he couldn't or
shouldn't jump off the ferry.
Instead, he, with or without a plan, we don't really know, he set out in a new
life.
According to U .S. Attorney Ed Tarver, Price most definitely had a plan, and he
started preparing it far in advance.
We think about 2011, he realized that things were going south. He purchased a
condo down in Orlando, Florida, and he purchased a truck, I believe it was,
he pre -positioned in Bradenton, Florida. And he started making plans to
further detection.
According to Tarver, it's all part of a plan Price is ready to execute the
moment he steps off the ferry in Key West.
He left the ferry, made his way to Bradenton, got in the truck and drove to
Orlando and began his new life as a fugitive.
Tarver says that Price gets work where he can to try to keep his new life
afloat. That's the official version, anyway.
According to Bethea, Price's version of what happened after he gets off the
ferry in Fort Myers is a remarkable and somewhat self -aggrandizing story of a
man seeking redemption.
He gets on the ferry in Key West with, I think he said, you know, a couple
dollars in his pocket, with the understanding that he can't or shouldn't
to his family, but instead...
Set off and find a way to make back the money that he's lost.
I mean, it's this sort of heroic narrative, setting off into the
unknown, with the holy mission.
But the holy mission takes a decidedly unholy turn.
When American Greed returns,
Aubrey Lee Price claims his personal tale of redemption takes him south of
border. and this time he may be faced with a death that can't be faked.
He heard me cock the trigger.
I said, listen to me very carefully. Do not take your eyes off of my eyes.
Do not even blink at your bodyguards. We will both die right here, right now,
and I'm more than ready to go.
In June 2012, alleged $40 million fraudster Aubrey Lee Price is on the
run from law enforcement. And in an interview with journalist Charles
the Georgia native claims he hits the high seas once more, this time to the
south. He said Venezuela at one point, he said Central America, South America.
It was south, south of the United States somewhere in his telling of it.
He went down there and quickly fell in with a guy who he called Pedro, which
perhaps not the most creative of names if it was made up.
Before Price managed hedge funds, he was a Baptist preacher who did missionary
work in Central and South America.
And according to his retelling, he knows Pedro as a legitimate businessman from
those earlier days.
But there's a dark side to Pedro.
In Price's telling of it, This man sort of had Price where he wanted him and
could use Price to further his ends, whatever those might be.
And so he began to work for him as a bag man, essentially, for a cocaine
operation. And a bag man for a cocaine operation is a dangerous job.
He said that Pedro made it very clear to him that if he were to out Pedro for
Pedro's illegal activities, Pedro would kill his family, that Pedro knew exactly
where they lived.
Maybe it contained some truth, maybe it contained no truth.
We don't really know, but it was Lee's attempt at creating a narrative about
this missing time.
And it's a fascinating narrative.
Talking to him convinces Bethea how Price could have swindled more than 100
people of $40 million.
He told good stories. Whether or not they're true, people like to be around
storytellers. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day, and that's...
That's how he got as far as he did in life, I think. And even though at the
I felt like this guy almost certainly has lied to me throughout this process,
still felt a genuine connection to him.
Price tells Bethea that for several months he works as a bag man and a
bodyguard, a drug dealer and a pimp.
Authorities haven't been able to confirm Price's claims, but facts that are not
in dispute... are that Price eventually ends up near Jacksonville, Florida,
where he begins to explore a new line of work.
When he was growing up, a young man, he loved planting palm trees.
He had a green thumb of some kind. So here was a guy who had an ability with
growing plants, now needing money, and in a rural part of Florida where people
probably bought and sold marijuana, and he began to do that.
Price has 225 marijuana plants growing in a mobile home and unattached garage
a property he rents in Citra, Florida, under a fake name.
And the former preacher seems to believe he's found yet another calling.
He talked to me a lot about different varieties. He learned about the names,
I think he kind of enjoyed the fact that he was becoming this connoisseur of
cannabis.
And it appears his resurrection is not a surprise to everyone.
U .S. Attorney Ed Tarver believes that Price makes contact with both his father
and his daughter while on the run, and even a girlfriend.
But oddly, not his wife.
The indication is that he asked his father and his daughter not to tell his
that he was still alive.
And we have no evidence that they told her.
But she and the rest of the world...
are about to find out.
It was New Year's Eve in 2013 when we observed an old Dodge pickup truck in
slow lane that had a large crack in the windshield and the window tint was
illegal. A cracked windshield and tinted windows. The ultimate downfall of a $40
million fugitive.
How you doing, sir?
I'm Deputy Giuliano with the Glynn County Sheriff's Office.
I knew he was very nervous from the beginning.
He was holding the license in his hand and he started fumbling through
looking for his license. I actually had to tell him that I wanted the license
that was in his hand.
Deputy Justin Giuliano asks Price to step out of the car.
And I searched him first, and as I was searching him, he kept trying to reach
into his pocket to grab something. And I removed another license from his
pocket, different from the license he had given me.
Who is this guy?
That's me.
Who is that?
That's when we determined that he was giving us a
false name and date of birth. He was lying about his identity.
The deputies slap on the cuffs and take him to the sheriff's office.
Once we got him into the booking room, I told him he was going to be
fingerprinted in, and we were going to learn his true identity one way or the
other. At that point, he said, if y 'all can get a reward, y 'all are going to
be rich.
And he gave us his name, and he gave it to us by spelling it out, at which point
I had to ask him, all right, who is Aubrey Lee Price?
Deputy Giuliano may not know the name Aubrey Lee Price, but when he contacts
FBI, they certainly do.
And while Deputies Giuliano and Brian Falk aren't eligible for the reward
the arrest does put the Glynn County Sheriff's Office in the national
Now to a headline -making arrest out of Georgia. A former banker accused of
faking his own death to cover up the theft of millions of dollars captured...
During a routine traffic stop, Peter has more on that.
When I found out he was alive, I was immediately thinking, what does this
for the victim?
Melanie Damien is assigned as the court receiver while Price is still a
fugitive. And it is her job to get as much money back for Price's victims as
possible. His capture puts her in an awkward position.
Frankly, there's pros and cons because there was a lot of information we needed
from Mr. Price. So it has been helpful to have him to explain things and to
provide information and tell us where additional assets might be. But the
biggest struggle with it has been the life insurance.
While Price was missing, Damien was able to assist in getting a death
certificate issued by the court, allowing her to collect $1 .8 million
life insurance.
When Price is found alive, the insurance company wants their money back.
The court agrees to a compromise, and as a result, Damien has to give back half
the money.
What would have been a million dollars better? About $900 ,000 better for the
victims if he had remained dead.
The living Price has his own problems.
On April 10, 2014, Price is brought to face arraignment for the 17 -count
indictment relating to his fraud.
The former preacher turned financial advisor is almost completely
unrecognizable, both in spirit and appearance, especially to those who
once trusted him.
No, he looked like a kind of a thug that would do you harm, possibly.
But ironically, it's not the thug, but the clean -cut Aubrey Lee Price who did
the most damage.
And just weeks after Price's arrest, Wilbur...
who lost almost his entire retirement savings in Price's scheme, receives yet
another letter from Price that seems sadly familiar.
Stark, I am writing to you to once again express my deepest and most sincere
apologies for the financial, emotional, and painful losses you have experienced
as a result of my mismanagement of your investments.
The letter was basically a rehash of what the original investor's letter had
been. And in this particular letter, he said that he was going to work for the
rest of his life to try and repay everybody for what he had lost for them.
Wilbur doesn't buy it, and neither does the judge.
On June 5, 2014, Price pleads guilty to three counts of fraud.
And his journey from spiritual advisor to financial advisor...
fugitive to felon comes to an end as a prisoner sentenced to 30 years in a
federal penitentiary.
Next on American Greed, American Greed fugitive David Kauf just can't seem to
keep out of the spotlight and alert viewers leave law enforcement right to
door. There were a number of calls from people who had seen the show who knew
that was the person we were looking for.
On November 14, 2013, American Greed to Fugitives airs the story of Los Angeles
resident David Kaupp, a part -time mortgage lender, part -time partier, and
-time scam artist.
April 2012.
29 -year -old David Kaupp pleads guilty in Los Angeles to orchestrating a series
of mortgage and lending frauds across the country.
Kaupp may be young, but he's destroyed lives and stolen nearly $11 million.
At the time, Kalb had skipped his sentencing and went on the run, even
pleading guilty.
His whereabouts were completely unknown.
But according to law enforcement, it is only a matter of time before he is
brought back to face the real music.
David Kalb may have avoided the law for now, but James Bowman assures American
Greed he hasn't forgotten about it.
We're very motivated to do whatever we can and to follow any lead so that we'll
see Mr. Kalb.
back in that courtroom.
And I look forward to that day.
Joseph Hoffman is one of Cobb's prey.
He hands over $400 ,000 to Cobb with the expectation that he will earn a $4
million -plus line of credit for his growing cosmetics business.
We had a written contract that was signed that clearly stated...
that the funding would be completed within 45 days, otherwise there'd be a
refund.
Unfortunately, Hoffman never gets the funding, nor the refund.
And he's been suffering the consequences ever since.
The company is just really crippled, you know, at this point, and
it's just like every year it's on its last leg.
When Kaupp pleads, Hoffman doesn't even get the satisfaction of seeing the
shackles put on.
Looking back, former assistant U .S. attorney James Bowman sees signs that
isn't as remorseful as his guilty plea might suggest.
The one thing in meeting with him that just seemed off was he really seemed to
feel like this was just how business is done. The effects to the victims didn't
really seem to sink in for him, didn't seem to bother him.
When the feds look into his days leading up to sentencing, it appears Kaup has
been planning on leaving his dance card empty for a while.
He had never told his family that he had pled guilty, that he was going to
prison. He told them that he was going to be going on a business trip to China
and was going to be gone for a little bit and then turned off his cell phone.
So it didn't look like this was just a moment of...
The panic, you know, leaving someone at the altar, got cold feet on his way to
court and just couldn't go through with it. It was very clear this had been
something he'd been thinking about.
But the more David Kopp changes, the more he stays the same.
This partier isn't headed overseas.
He's headed to the biggest party city of all.
Within about a month or two from the time he fled, he ended up in Las Vegas.
And he used the name Tyler Cohen and really set up a new life for himself
He met a woman who became engaged. He started up his own stock trading
investment company, which certainly raises questions.
But at the time, law enforcement seems to have no idea where David Kaupp is.
Without any substantial leads, they turn to the media.
We came on this show, on American Greed the Fugitive, and explained what
happened and showed a lot of information that could help people identify him if
they saw him.
And as it turned out, a number of people did.
Within weeks after the show first airs, an American Greed viewer reaches out to
the website featured on the program.
And it's only a matter of time before the feds are ready to act.
So an operation was put into place. The FBI went out to the house where he was
staying. First thing in the morning, he...
Saw them coming, actually. I think he was up early trading and came outside
surrendered. But his spirit of surrender is short -lived.
He decided to fight his sentencing vigorously. And he explained his reason
fleeing as saying he was really afraid of one of the victims.
So he said it threatened him before so severely that he was worried for his
safety. And so he made the rash decision to flee to protect himself.
According to Bowman, Kalb's claim doesn't ring true.
And on November 20, 2014, Kalb is once again scheduled for sentencing.
This time, there is no running away.
It meant a lot to me. I had thought a lot about what I wanted to say at that
first sentencing because I really wanted to do right by the victims. I really
wanted to make sure that for the victims who couldn't be there, that I was able
to explain to the court in a way that really gave their voice to what had
happened.
That was even more important the second time around.
And if Bowman's focus is increased for Kauff's second chance at sentencing,
only further amplified for the judge.
Judges are mad at me if I'm late to court by a minute.
You know, for somebody who's late by a year and a half, that's a whole
matter.
Kauff receives eight years and four months in federal prison.
But for victim Joseph Hoffman, he's not sure prison is enough.
I have no doubt that when he is out, he is going to create.
And he's a guy that needs exposure on TV so that hopefully
people could be able to see the guy and run.
On American Reads, cosmetic surgery nightmare.
Hip -hop hustlers sell backroom beauty until one client pays the ultimate
American Reads, next, only on CNBC.
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