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[Music] every reporter loves to get a great story this one was mine it was Charlie's
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Angels meets Philip Marlo meets Orange County Housewives all wrapped into one package there were these hot soccer moms
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who are also private eyes when the media got a hold of it they went wild why do you do this I know
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it's crazy right on the outside you look like any PTA mom driving carpool okay now I want you to read that whole
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sentence but behind the mommy exterior they are gun packing hard-hitting undercover
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piis they were like Cub Scout den mothers in the morning undercover operatives at night
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I'm a very good mother and I'm a great investigator the boss was this EX cop turned Pi named Chris Butler we got to
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really move here Butler was a badass the coolest guy in the room he struck me as
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being a pretty aggressive promoter we create these fantastic sting operations sometimes for corporate Espionage
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infidelity Chris had a way of making his Universe seem sexier and more exciting than real life a lot of these guys
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believe it while they're saying it they buy into their own line Chris was really
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good at making everyone else look bad he knew how to pinpoint a weakness in a person in order to get that person to do
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what he wanted they have no concept of remorse suddenly we were doing things that we said we would never
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do Chris Butler wasn't exactly the person that I thought he was I never saw it coming the entire business was a
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setup it's all about the rush get bigger get richer get faster it was immoral it
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was SED it was illicit Chris Butler abused the power that he had the people he knew he took it and ran with it to
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the extreme there was no doubt in my mind that they would have killed me here we
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go I'm Moren mahard tonight on 48 Hours soccer moms confidential [Music] [Music]
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when I got this story I knew I had something and I stayed up all night writing back in 2010 reporter Pete
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Crooks was invited to profile a group of San Francisco Bay Area soccer moms turned private eyes I was invited to
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come out to Chris Butler's office office I walked in and the first thing I noticed was the walls of the office were
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covered with 8 by10 of all the 1970s and 1980s detective shows that I watched Growing Up Charlie's Angels and Magnum
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PI those are the shows I loved when I was a kid so I was kind of Charmed by it and I knew the guy wanted to be on TV
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krooks is a senior editor for a local Pop Culture magazine called Diablo and a CBS News consultant to him the
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attractive confident women were real life Charlie Angels and their boss Chris Butler a charismatic entrepreneur who
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spent 10 years as a cop was straight out of Central Casting it seemed like a no-brainer that we would that we would
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cover that story Butler bought the agency back in 2000 and turned it into what he claimed
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was one of the most successful private eye firms in the Bay Area investigating everything from insurance scams to
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cheating husbands there's those times where I get a phone call hi oh hey Chris what's up okay
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surveillance that's fine let me go ahead and call my sitter when he added soccer
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moms as investigators he said his business boomed nobody is going to suspect the mom is sitting having coffee
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with another friend who happens to be an investigator and Butler's team was getting noticed from People magazine to
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morning TV shows why are moms good piis the pi moms also became a big story for the Dr Phil show today on an all new Dr
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Phil you would never expect a mom in a minivan to be somebody that's on your tail we busted the guy we caught him and
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now I've got to go to my son's baseball game I'm late Amy wils was one of the pi moms we
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were beautiful women who went out and you know worked this male dominated career this job and we were different we
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were funny exciting like Butler wils was also a former cop turned professional private investigator your C but she was
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juggling a home life with three kids which Butler believed made her and the other moms uniquely qualified for the
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job being a mom I'm able to multitask I'm also you know just naturally nosy and always trying to figure out what my
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kids are doing on the Dr Phil show Butler talked about why he chose soccer moms they come into this field prepped
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for the type of work that they're going to be encountering they're very good listeners I put them in the plastic bag
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and I'm going to send it back they're probably more sensitive to people lying to them potentially dangerous it wasn't
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a job for the faint-hearted but Butler said he had that covered he said that also that he trained all these Pi moms
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extensively and self-defense and investigative techniques and Firearms besides the moms Butler also
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employed attractive women to be decoys women like Ryan Romano I'm easy on the eyes basically it was acting it was my
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normal life how far does he need to let it go she may start crawling all over you at that point we have all the
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evidence that we need the decoys also known as operatives worked alongside the pi moms in standard field work but
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sometimes the decoys went beyond that to do some Noto standard operations for example this sting that Butler shared
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with Dr Phil where a decoy Sharon catches a cheating husband we inserted Sharon into the
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hotel bar well sure enough once our investigator was in the bar and he walked in he made a beine right for her
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Sharon is a professional and she does know what's expected of her on these cases and that's I'm going to include
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hugging kissing and she knows to stand at a 90° angle to the camera so if there's any kissing that's going on
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we'll be able to get that on the show Dr Phil questioned whether Butler had gone
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too far with the decoy Sharon one of the pi mom operatives was in a very romantic
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situation with the target here and you I kept saying wow I mean are there boundaries to your scope of employment
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because things are getting pretty rich upon the balcony here I mean that to me seemed like to go beyond the pale it's
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like they had overstepped their bounds is this okay with you is it okay with your husband is it this wouldn't be okay
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with me and it's well you know you do what you got to do criticisms like that didn't slow Butler down in fact his real
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life private investigating team was about to become a reality TV show for the cable network lifetime he just was
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like on the rise of being this huge star in his mind and that this was going to it with the reality show cameras
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following the moms on their investigations Butler would need help with the case load I've always been that
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type of person who's always wanted to to uh you know to serve to help people Carl
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Marino is another ex cop how did you end up meeting Chris Butler I'd actually seen his uh his ad on
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Craigslist Marino spent 17 years as a deputy in Upstate New York Butler's ad seemed like a terrific opportunity for
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marine who had recently moved to the Bay Area they were looking to hire decoys for I
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think he termed it as the most successful private investigative company in the in the Bay Area but when Carl
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interviewed for the job he learned it wasn't a typical Pi agency and it was it was kind of a strange interview they
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they they asked a lot of strange questions like what you know do you drink alcohol how comfortable I was with
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nudity and they would tell me the reason they're asking those questions is because in decoy situations you might
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possibly have to drink shots and possibly get naked in a hot tub with whoever the person is Marino didn't seem
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to mind and with his law enforcement experience it was a perfect fit Butler hired him it was kind of the type of
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work that I'd always imagine Pi's doing to and I think little On The Fringe Always On The Fringe is always on the
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Fring yes for a place operating On The Fringe there were plenty of real cops coming and going including this man Norm
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Welsh the commander of the contracosta County Narcotics task force Welsh and Butler had worked together and were
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friends he would show me how how well he was doing he would tell me how well he was doing he was um he had a beautiful
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car he had a great lifestyle at least it appeared so with those real cops hanging
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around Butler's employees didn't challenge him on some of those questionable operations like the ones
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that came to be called Dirty DUIs which set up husbands in the middle of bitter divorces I was hired by Chris Butler to
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be a decoy to attend a party in hopes to get the target to do something illegal to see if I could see if he was involved
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in any illegal stuff including drugs and just to be a pretty face I mean who's going to say no to a pretty girl the
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Trap sending a pretty girl or decoy as Butler called them to come on to the husband get them liquored up and then
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suggest that they drive somewhere to have fun just as the husband would pull out onto the street a cop who'd been
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called by Butler would pull him over for driving Under the Influence Ryan says Butler paid her to
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drink and flirt with those targets it was like dangling candy in front of a baby it's hard to say no to a lot of
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things in life and when you have alcohol in the picture and you you impair their
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judgment it makes it even harder the arrests of the men caught in Butler's s would then be used in court
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proceedings which would clearly put the soon Tobe Ex-Wives in a much better bargaining position there was something
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not right in the fact that he probably got high off of doing all this like he found a thrill with the reality show now
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in production and the national media exposure Chris Butler's dreams of stardom appeared to be just a red carpet
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stroll away but what no one knew was that dream was about to turn into a nightmare I was floored the amount of
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stuff that he was doing was just [Music] unbelievable oh I get a kiss how was school good good did that cough medicine
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help yeah you we're so excited about the show I'm telling them all about it and there you go this is a great opportunity
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for pi mom Amy wils the new reality show B boy was going to be a huge break for her and the others miss you too it was a
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great idea you had these women who had various backgrounds but would all come together and work these cases and follow
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people go into stores and get covert video fun very much a lot of fun sexy yes very
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I and to help get publicity for the new show reporter Pete Crooks was invited Along on a piom
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stout in one of the mom's minivans I started to go out to the van and Charmaine said now I've got to be a
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mommy here everybody has used the bathroom and we we're all ready to get in the car now welcome Chris Butler and
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three of his Pi moms the moms who were taking part in The Ride Along were some of the same ones who appeared on the do
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Phil Show Denise and Charmaine so you guys get in the car everybody gets their juice box and their backpack and they've
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all done a py run before they take off and what happens next so we get into position and we were looking for a white
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uh Mercedes with Crooks and toe the pi moms were hot on the trail of this man whose older wealthier wife to be
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suspected him of cheating we start following that car and we stayed right behind him Crooks even
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got into the action when he spotted the Wayward fiance picking up a sexier younger woman
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voluptuous mid 20s siren with long brunette hair and her right arm is tattooed from shoulder to wrist as the
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pi mom spied subject and the Mystery Date walk into a jewelry shop the cheating couple got cozy they come out
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with a couple of gift bags arm and- arm I believe there's a kiss crook says he couldn't believe how much luck the pi
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moms were having they got out of their car they stopped right in front of our van to kiss and Denise captured that all
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on video and there was a new twist every half hour or so did you think man I am just a lucky lucky reporter today yeah
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as the minivan followed the couple to the Napa Valley Chris Butler sent in a backup team it's Carl Marino and his
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wife who was also working for Butler that day it was going to be the first introduction of us to the media is what
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Chris's big story was why did you need to be introduced to the media Chris wanted us to be in his own words the the
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real life Mr and Mrs Smith as in Brad Pit and Angelina [Music] Jolie as Crooks watched Carl and his
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wife Yona worked their way into the sting by striking up a flirtatious conversation with the cheating fiance
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and his mistress at a winery all the while texting the salacious details to the pi moms back in the minivan they
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just invited us back to their hotel is the third text and like so this went from nice to meet you to let swing in
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five minutes you know did you say this is unbelievable it was it was unbelievable
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um and I was just sort of saying like what's going to happen next as outrageous as that Stakeout was
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nothing could have possibly prepared Crooks for what would happen next just before before he was about to go to
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print Kooks received an email that would blow up his entire story or at least what he thought was the
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story the first Monday back in the office after the New Year's weekend this email comes in that's from a a character
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named Ronald Rutherford that says don't run that story Rutherford's email said quote it would be a mistake to publish
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the article unquote because the ride along with the pi moms was fake so I called Butler at his office and he said
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in that kind of cool voice hey Pete what's going on I said hey you know I got this email that said that that right
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along was uh scripted and he his voice just like peaked out he said what that is bull crap it's the only time I ever
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saw him Spike like that but the emails from Rutherford kept coming got an email at 3:00 a.m. that was the entire
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itinerary of the ride along this is an inter office email setting up the entire shoot
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itinerary location Etc sent the day before the Ride Along along that's pretty damning yeah and the attachment
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is a Google Earth map of the holiday and express with little notes on it Mercedes
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Parks here couple walks through the hotel gets into silver Honda Civic parked here can drive away without being
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seen later Rutherford would send Crooks this photo to prove the Ride Along had been an enormous
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fake remember Ryan the decoy she played the sexy girlfriend my role in The Ride Along was to be the mistress or to be
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the girlfriend that the fiance was cheating on his fiance with and that fiance according to Ryan
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was also an actor hired by Chris Butler and elaborate over-the-top setup designed to get Chris Butler and his new
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reality show a huge splash of publicity I never thought anyone would find out the truth that this whole thing was fake
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it was fun it was easy money and I got to go to lunch and go wine tasting and have a great day did you not say to
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yourself at any point I'm not really comfortable with this this this guy thinks he's doing a real story I wasn't
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really comfortable the entire time investigations but again this is CHR Butler show he's done it 100 times
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already no one's ever figured it out and ultimately it's to get more business for
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the business that he's hired me to run for Chris Butler it may have been business as usual but Pete Crooks was
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about to learn that his fake Ride Along was just the tip of the iceberg that's because his mysterious Source Rutherford
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was about to reveal a set of Darker and far more dangerous secrets [Music] [Music]
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is this exciting definitely now that his piom reality show for Lifetime television was in full production truth
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lies on here Chris Butler appeared to be on the fast track to reality TV stardom
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that's all he talked about was the show the show the show and the moms and he was ready to be a star but while Chris
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Butler was basking in the reality TV Spotlight the bizarre string of emails from the mysterious Rutherford continued
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I became Beyond fascinated obsessed with trying to figure out the equation of who
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knew what and who was continuing to lie and and what was the motivation of Rutherford to tell me this but
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Rutherford still had one more secret to reveal about Butler and it was a bombshell Rutherford
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says that Chris Butler is attempting to sell uh narcotics that have been seized by the contracosta County Narcotics
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enforcement team CET that's right Rutherford was now alleging a far more serious situation that Chris Butler was
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a drug dealer and his old friend Norm Welsh one of the County's top drug cops was the supplier Butler is conspiring
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with Norm Welsh a the highest ranking narcotics enforcement officer in the area to take those drugs and put them
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back on the streets and sell them he's the cop who has seen what it does out on the street he's the guy that sent
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somebody to jail for selling the drugs in the first place Brook says Rutherford sent him
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this photo to prove Butler had asked him to sell marijuana now Rutherford was looking for a way out he's not a drug
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dealer he doesn't want to go any further with this but he doesn't know who to go
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to because you can't go to the top cop in the county did you feel like Rutherford was afraid for his life I got
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the feeling that Rutherford was backed into a pretty dangerous corner with some pretty bad guys krooks was able to
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connect Rutherford with a contact at the California Department of Justice it's a
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pretty unbelievable position to be in yeah it was really really weird and really stressful Rutherford safety could
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be in Jeopardy and that it would be because of the ball that I got rolling after some intense moments Rutherford
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was finally meeting the right people I got an email from Rutherford that said finally made contact from the da bruford
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not only told them about the alleged drug sales but other potential illegal activities Butler was running like those
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dirty DUIs within a day or two after that Rutherford had met with the Department of Justice and kind of gave
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them the full download and the investigation began the California doj asked Rutherford to start secretly taping
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Chris Butler and Norm Welsh Butler was oblivious he was feeling the pressure from the reality show there was friction
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and cases were falling through first of all there weren't a whole lot of real cases coming in second of all the real
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cases that did come in that people didn't want their dirty laundry aired on a reality TV show so when Butler's Pi
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agency got a missing teen case to solve Carl thought it was good news a father came in to uh hire us to find his
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missing daughter she was a 15-year-old girl who'd been missing for uh just over two months did the parents think she was
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kidnapped no it was it was very obviously she'd run away Carl tracked the teen to the home of her boyfriend he
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confirmed with the boyfriend's mother that the girl was safe and texted the good news to Butler he rides back wow
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that's that's amazing don't actually go find her though cuz he wants to wait until there's lifetime cameras to film
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that which that's disgusting and it really is but Butler didn't let on to the pi
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moms that Marino had already solved the case instead he had his Pi moms work their own
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investigation he would rather have success with the show than success with the case well he wants both he wants
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success with the case but the show involved and I'm not a pi Mom I'm not part of the
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show and when the pi moms did get involved they tracked the woman who was hiding the missing girl to this Safeway
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parking lot with the lifetime cameras rolling for the reality show they ambushed her but they were literally
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over the top of her accusing her of everything Marino says Butler got physical and grabbed the woman you know
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there was a lot of yelling there was a lot of arguing it was just wild I'm looking at Chris B and I go up to him
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and I'm like what are you doing what's going on and I can see he's lost control of the
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situation the police were called to break up the melee for Lifetime it was the last straw according to Marino who
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says Chris Butler had failed to deliver everything he promised soon after the reality show shut down production at
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that moment I knew that I was done because I I just couldn't work for someone who would sabotage their own
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cases but the news was about to get far worse for Chris Butler what's up while the reality cameras had been turned off
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the mysterious Rutherford had turned on a tiny undercover camera hidden in his keychain okay come on back here let's
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see that s it captures an astonishing scene Butler and his cop buddy Norm Welsh in the orange t-shirt making a
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drug deal they count out nearly $10,000 and carefully divide it in two before Butler goes for the drugs let me
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the burrito the burrito is a TI wrapped package of crystal meth which Butler weighs 1 then hands over to ruford who
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continues to play along all right let me I can but as soon as the deal is done Rutherford brings the incriminating
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video to the California Department of Justice which finally has enough evidence to make arrests the very next
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day Butler and Welsh are arrested you know it's the lead story on the news that night
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tonight the head of contracosta County's narcotics task force is behind bars accused of dealing
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drugs I actually got a phone call from one of the moms and she said are you sitting down I have something to tell
00:25:12
you Chris was arrested today both men are in the contracosta county jail accused of selling narcotics that's
00:25:18
really out there you know that's that's bad Chris were you the Puppet Master Behind These criminal schemes Chris
00:25:31
Butler along with Norm Walsh was arrested and later charged with multiple federal drug charges plus Butler was
00:25:39
also charged for his alleged role in those dirty DUI scams Chris is this all your fault now the man who once loved
00:25:48
busting bad guys in front of the cameras was out on bail hiding in shame but one question remained
00:25:57
unanswered who was the mysterious ruer the man who brought Chris Butler [Music] down for weeks writer Pete Crooks
00:26:23
received dozens of emails from the mysterious Rutherford alleging Chris Butler was a fraud and a
00:26:31
drug dealer and who is Ronald Rutherford I'm Ronald Rutherford that's right Carl
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Marino was Rutherford Chris Butler's number two man the director of operations for the agency had exposed
00:26:46
the Dark Side of Butler's operation did you suspect it was Carl when I got the initial email from Ronald
00:26:53
Rutherford no I didn't are you curious about what is the motivation of Rutherford absolutely I'd like to say
00:27:00
it's it was the good person in me in his old Life as a cop Marino says he spent his entire career fighting drugs and
00:27:09
turning in Butler and Welsh was simply the right thing to do it definitely had a lot to do with the cop and me also I
00:27:15
mean literally it was that day when I first saw those drugs that I knew I was going to do something about it I had no
00:27:20
idea what it was how I was going to do it when I was going to do it but knowing where those drugs came from I knew
00:27:25
something had to be done I mean I want to know were you terrified wearing a wire oh yeah I you're not just dealing
00:27:33
with a guy who's an incredible scam artist who's scheming constantly now you're dealing with a allegedly a drug
00:27:41
dealer who's allegedly got the head of Narcotics on his side there's not a lot of safe places to run outside of that I
00:27:48
think that the scariest part about it is I'm filming the master of stings kind of
00:27:54
the same way that he would do it is it too dramatic to ask if you were afraid for your life if those guys had have
00:27:59
found out what I was doing there was no doubt in my mind that they would have killed me that's why is Rutherford he
00:28:06
confided in Pete Crooks who put him in touch with the California Department of Justice did you feel like Rutherford was
00:28:14
disseminating the information because it was the right thing to do or because he
00:28:18
was afraid he was going to get sucked into it or he was trapped both he said straight up in that first email I'm not
00:28:25
a drug dealer and I'm not going to sell the drugs for Chris but I can't tell him
00:28:31
no I'm not interested in doing that because he trusted him enough to um let him in on the big secret and norm and
00:28:39
Chris are scary guys you know to be in that position so my feeling was that Rutherford was doing something very
00:28:45
brave and doing the right thing but why would Chris Butler get involved in selling drugs in this lengthy statement
00:28:53
obtained by 48 hours Butler puts the blame squarely on his old pal the boss of the County Narcotics task force Norm
00:29:02
Welsh Butler itemizes more than 20 crimes that he says Welsh forced him to commit for example Welsh instructed me
00:29:11
to sell this marijuana and Welsh instructed me to sell the oxycotton for $25 to $40 per
00:29:19
pill Norm Welsh is accepting some responsibility I feel horrible that I did this and anybody that knows me would
00:29:29
know that it's not me and I I want to admit to what I've done and I just want people to know that I'm very truly sorry
00:29:37
forget the pi moms forget Dr Phil people all that other stuff putting drugs back
00:29:43
on the street that's really really hard to swallow it really is it for me too it's very difficult for me to to live
00:29:50
with that shame every day I mean I I did it well she was out on Bale says he'd been ill for several years and became
00:29:58
became easy prey for Butler when a debilitating nerve disorder disfiguring his feet threatened to end his career I
00:30:05
made these decisions on my own and I I don't want to make it that I'm blaming anybody but inside my heart I do feel
00:30:12
that I've been manipulated in that I've been used something Walsh's attorney Michael Cardoza says Butler is very
00:30:20
capable of is he guilty of manipulating every single one of these people the pi moms Carl Marino Norm is he guilty of
00:30:30
puppeteering this entire situation I think he really is guilty of that if there were such a crime he did
00:30:37
manipulate everyone from the get-go Chris Butler is a very intelligent man he understands people he understands how
00:30:46
to use people he understands how to groom people and to bring them along slowly what will you do here for me will
00:30:53
you do this all right you'll do that will you do this now well if you'll do that
00:30:58
then let's take the big step into crime will you get some marijuana for me and that's what Norm stepped into do you
00:31:05
think Chris Butler is a dangerous man no I don't think a dangerous man but a man who can talk a cop a good cop into
00:31:16
committing crimes and he can Puppeteer all these other people into lying and manipulating is that a dangerous man I
00:31:24
think that makes him a sociopath you have Butler out there deal dealing with the television show fooling the
00:31:30
producers of that fooling the people who we spoke to People magazine fooling Peter Crooks at Diablo magazine we
00:31:38
welcome Chris Butler and three of his Pi moms fooling Dr Phil going on The Today
00:31:44
Show and fooling them a lot of people were manipulated by him for pi mom Ami wils she feels
00:31:53
nothing but betrayal and says she knew nothing about the alleged drug deals it was humiliating um to find out that he
00:32:01
was doing these things right under our noses I guess I just wish that he would have just either fired me and told me
00:32:08
you know go instead of dragging me into this fortunately I didn't know he was a criminal so I wasn't involved in
00:32:15
anything illegal believe it or not there's still one more outrageous chapter to Chris
00:32:23
Butler's dark story here we go it's like I'm going for the brass ring I'm going to get it out there I push the envelope
00:32:31
get bigger get better Chris get richer get faster from an ex cop with a successful
00:32:46
Pi business to allegations of dirty DUIs and Drug deals it appeared it couldn't get much worse for Chris
00:32:56
Butler but there was one one more dark chapter in this Twisted tale and it would be written by this woman my name
00:33:04
is Megan bnab Bay I uh was hired to work as a private investigator for Chris Butler and to write a book about my
00:33:11
experiences when aspiring author Megan bab Bay took the job at Butler and Associates she said she had no clue what
00:33:19
she was signing up for when she was assigned to work as a decoy she had to kiss targets to help in
00:33:27
Butler's St by manipulating us and by breaking us down emotionally and psychologically
00:33:33
Chris was able to push us to do things little by little that crossed that moral boundary until suddenly we were doing
00:33:40
things that we said we would never do and she was totally unprepared for what Butler told her about next an
00:33:49
unusual case he was working on with his old cut buddy Norm Welsh Chris Butler told me that he was running a massage
00:34:00
parlor for Norm Welsh a massage parlor that was allegedly a front for prostitution Megan
00:34:08
says Chris Butler showed her the operation and claimed he was gathering evidence for Welsh in an undercover
00:34:15
police sting the story was that the women who worked there were communicating with norm and telling him
00:34:22
who these men were who were frequenting the massage parlor and that way Norm supposedly would have evidence on them
00:34:30
and be able to go out and find the other massage parlor through them it was all very convoluted and not
00:34:37
believable prosecutors weren't buying it either they added charges related to running an illicit massage parlor and
00:34:45
extortion to the long list both Butler and Welsh faced so how did it come to this
00:34:52
spectacular Fall From Grace how does somebody go beyond that man status and move into more dangerous territory and
00:35:02
convince people to do really dangerous illegal Behavior well you know a lot of times you'll see these people with a
00:35:09
narcissistic or Psychopathic personality they are often very good and very persuasive at what
00:35:16
they do and they basically have no fear and their use and abuse of other people is based on a complete lack of empathy
00:35:28
[Music] welcome the owner Christopher Butler the desire for stardom with his Pi mom's reality TV
00:35:36
show and his insatiable appetite for publicity may have contributed to Butler's demise Chris is this all your
00:35:45
fault if they feel an adrenaline rush maybe that'll bait him into talking about our client from being on The Today
00:35:53
Show or being in some big article in the newspaper or a magazine that ego Rush drowns everything else out
00:36:01
and their ability to predict the consequences of their actions their ability to see wow there could be a real
00:36:07
downside here never makes the radar screen for them when I switched to women specifically Pi moms Dr Phil says he had
00:36:18
no idea when Butler appeared on his show that Butler was anything but a private eye with the unique idea of employing
00:36:25
soccer moms to do some snooping I didn't know him that well our Focus was on the
00:36:30
women because there were what we were interested in just what was fake and what was real
00:36:38
about Butler's Pi mom's operation depends on who you talk to Carl Marino says it was a little bit of both we were
00:36:46
working on real cases that had fake elements to it we were working on fake cases that had real elements to it where
00:36:53
some people knew they were fake but other people thought they were real but according to Pi mom Ami wils who now
00:37:01
runs her own Pi agency in the Bay Area hey Chuck it's Chris if Butler was manipulating cases to beef up the
00:37:08
reality TV show she was not in on it and did you work any cases that were specifically for the show yes I did and
00:37:18
were those legitimate cases no one ever told me that they were fake to my knowledge even today those were real
00:37:24
cases that we were working and if you you believe or you're discovering now that these cases were all setups how do
00:37:32
you feel about Chris putting you in that position well I I mean it's over and done with it is shocking to me that
00:37:38
you're telling me this Megan babay thinks it's not unreasonable to believe that the pi moms
00:37:46
really were in the dark about what Butler was up to it is very possible that people who worked at the office
00:37:53
didn't know anything about what Chris was up to and you can just say you know I I I'm just not comfortable he let
00:38:00
people in on things as he chose and if he didn't choose to let you in on what he was doing then you would have no way
00:38:08
of knowing a private investigator connected to a police corruption Scandal cut a
00:38:15
deal do you think you did anything wrong Chris facing seven felony charges a lot
00:38:19
of damning evidence and a possible life sentence Chris Butler decided to take a plea deal and on May 4th 20 12 he
00:38:28
appeared in court to plead guilty to crimes ranging from extortion to robbery to conspiracy to deal drugs Butler has
00:38:36
turned himself into a government witness Butler agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors which could include
00:38:43
testifying against Norm Welsh when he goes on trial Welsh who also faces a possible life sentence tried but failed
00:38:51
to make his own deal with prosecutors he denies any involvement with the massage
00:38:56
parlor scheme but continues to apologize for stealing drugs I feel so bad and horrible
00:39:04
about the citizens of California paying me to do a job and I violated their trust I mean I've always told my guys
00:39:12
that I was training that Integrity is the only thing you got in life when it comes down to it and my Integrity is
00:39:21
gone not everyone is buying Welsh's story especially the man that helped bring him to Justice this is the guy
00:39:28
that would go into schools eam addicts and tell children you have to stay off marijuana because it leads to crystal
00:39:35
meth and this is the guy that's taken those same drugs and put him back on the street he's the ultimate hypocrite he's
00:39:41
the dirtiest of dirty cops there are Carl Marino will likely play a large role in the legal proceedings against
00:39:50
Welsh and is still having a tough time dealing with everything that has happened I'd be lying if I say I don't
00:39:56
have nightmares about it times and dream about it quite frequently I still sleep with the loaded
00:40:02
Glock that I got from the TV show underneath my bed Chris got any reality TV ideas the story that reporter Pete
00:40:12
Crooks finally wrote for Diablo magazine was a very different one from the one he
00:40:18
set out to do Chris Butler's universe is like a snow globe that you can peek into
00:40:24
and it's fascinating inside investigations what was very strange and a bit scary
00:40:30
was to realize that I wasn't looking at the snow globe I was inside the snow globe I was in his Universe at his
00:40:37
invitation we got to really move here and everybody that gets sucked into his Universe I think has a bit of their soul
00:40:43
taken with it okay bye-bye [Music] [Music]