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Data accurate as of 220-26. Hello! And welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar.
00:02:29
That is Karen Kilgariff. This is like the most perfectly synchronized intro we've ever done.
00:02:35
We're pros now. We're pros now. We took two weeks off and now we're professionals.
00:02:39
We're actually in the same room. That makes a huge fucking difference in podcasting.
00:02:43
You may have noticed. Oh, man. Vacation made us professional. Turns out all we needed, I needed to be a passenger princess in fucking Michigan.
00:02:53
What was that your dream to actually just be? What? I've watched you be a passenger princess while also being a passenger princess.
00:03:03
That's right. But I'm not good at it in L.A. So it like really strengthens mine and Vince's relationship when I can like be a passenger princess in a different place.
00:03:11
Because like most of our fights are about driving in L.A. And what's the fight? That I'm insane and I can't fucking stand it and I know how to do it best and I should probably be driving.
00:03:19
You're doing it wrong. And like, what the fuck? Go around that guy. Go around that guy.
00:03:22
Like, why are you like we're not getting off for like a quarter of a mile. You don't have to get over all the way yet.
00:03:27
You know what I mean? That's the whole thing. No, I try not to so bad. I try not to.
00:03:32
What pill? What car pill could you take? Jesus Christ, what car pill couldn't I take?
00:03:37
Is there? Do they have car pills these days? They should have a car pill. There was a, the first time I ever took Xanax was a friend gave it to me when we got in the car and we were driving all the way across town to Santa Monica.
00:03:46
And I was like, I'm going to try Xanax. I took it and I found myself on the 10 freeway and fucking bumper to bumper traffic going like, it's so interesting how you can just see into other people's lives and other cars.
00:03:56
Oh, shit. This works. This is drugs in action. Oh, my God. I needed this. I, the first time I took Xanax was also recreationally at Margaret Cho's house.
00:04:09
That was when we spent our days drinking red wine and watching the Food Network.
00:04:13
Oh, sounds fucking perfect. It was new and we just couldn't get over. Old school Food Network is like Sarah Moulton.
00:04:21
Yes, two hot tamales. Two hot tamales. Oh my God. Bobby Flay was all over that shit.
00:04:26
We got Emeril coming in hot. It was really a dream. And I didn't realize how much I, I don't want to cook.
00:04:32
I'm not actually interested in cooking. Yeah. Very interested in watching other people do it.
00:04:36
Remember Yan Can Cook from even further back? Yes. He was like a PBS guy, wasn't he?
00:04:40
He was a legend. He was so good. Also, along those same lines, who was, there was another guy.
00:04:45
Oh, you know what? He was local San Francisco, I think. We used to do an impression of him.
00:04:50
Now I'm not going to be able to remember his last name. He's like a French guy. And when he was making his stuff.
00:04:55
Oh, I didn't think about it. He would go, a little salt, a little pepper. A little salt, a little pepper.
00:04:59
So we always said that. If you were seasoning your food at the dinner table, you had to say that.
00:05:04
Yeah. So are we both on Adderall or just me? If you're on it, I'm on it because that's what I'm like.
00:05:09
You're breathing the fumes of my Adderall. So you're back? I'm back on all the things I'm supposed to be on.
00:05:15
Do you light them along your windowsill? Like all the yellow coming through with sunlight?
00:05:20
No, because the sun's going to damage the... Oh, you got to keep those inside. Room tap.
00:05:26
What is happening? The reason I started back on Adderall, which has been prescribed, I have ADHD.
00:05:31
It's like, that's not bullshit, which I still feel like I have to explain to people because I still feel guilty.
00:05:36
It's got stigma. But yesterday, Vince and I were making our own lunches, and I explained to him my process for what I choose for lunch.
00:05:45
And it was so complicated. It involved so many steps. It involved the past. It involved the future.
00:05:51
It involved like... Let's hear it. I mean, it was just one of those things where it's like,
00:05:54
well if I open that thing of chicken then I have to eat the rest of it by tomorrow or it gonna go bad And if I open that avocado then that avocado tomorrow I know I going to eat this for lunch so I not going to finish that avocado and the avocado is going to go bad but I want to eat this right now but I know we having beef for dinner So if I should I shouldn and last night
00:06:07
I had this for dinner, so I shouldn't have more chicken. Shit. Do you do that? Oh yeah. But me,
00:06:14
everything's like, I just go, it's time to order out. It's the easiest. I stand in front of a
00:06:20
refrigerator full of diet Pepsi and I go, looks like I need to get some Mexican food in here.
00:06:25
I'm going to definitely go to Trader Joe's tomorrow. Like that's happening. It's happening.
00:06:29
But I think that thing of like the problem of half an avocado where you're just like,
00:06:34
it's always a measuring timing, cooking element that was never, what do they say? It was never
00:06:41
shown to me in like a way that I could copy. It was always my mom throwing everything up in the
00:06:47
and going, let's just get Chinese. I can't. I worked all day. God damn it. I can't do this.
00:06:51
And we'd be like, yep, here we go. Yeah, that sounds great. Those people that can throw a couple ingredients in a pan calmly.
00:06:58
That's my fucking sister. Somehow we're from the same place, but she can put a thing in a toaster on an English
00:07:02
muffin and just be like, that's the fucking best thing I've ever seen. Why don't I eat that?
00:07:06
Why don't I do that? What? Does she do a mini pizza on an English muffin? She'll do a pizza.
00:07:10
She'll do a cute little sandwich. That's why she has kids and I don't, because she can fucking handle shit and I can't.
00:07:14
The reason she has kids is because she can make a really good English muffin. And she has to share that with somebody.
00:07:21
That's right. She needs two sweet little boys to share that with. Oh, yeah. Shit.
00:07:27
Damn it. I moved those over there. Kara just placed her water bottle down so delicately because we're trying to be quiet because of the mics pick everything up.
00:07:37
And it was just so, like, dainty. And it also took, I think, 18 seconds. It was a slow lowering.
00:07:43
To go all the way down. Here's the thing that involves the podcast. Oh, good idea.
00:07:48
There is a documentary out called How to Rob a Bank on Netflix about your boy, Scott Scurlock,
00:07:55
a.k.a. Hollywood. Yes. The guy you covered in episode 205, who in Seattle built the fucking treehouse out in
00:08:02
the woods and robbed the shit out of banks. Yes. It shows you the treehouse. It shows you him.
00:08:06
He's hot. It's a lot. It's good. That is How to Rob a Bank on what channel? How to rob a bank on Netflix.
00:08:15
Netflix. Yeah. How was your vacation? Really quick before we go back to the podcast.
00:08:19
It was great. We never started. It was great. I've been holding this since the first night, the first dinner Vince and I had in Michigan
00:08:27
in a town called Petoskey, which was the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen. We had a dinner and it was a steakhouse and they had a one pound twice baked potato.
00:08:36
I was like, I cannot wait to tell Karen about this. It was the size of a baby. Yes.
00:08:43
A baby filled with bacon and cheese. Yes. It was so good. Was it just yours or did you share it?
00:08:49
We shared it. Oh, that's nice. And then I almost ate French onion soup three times on my vacation, but it was only twice.
00:08:54
During the summer. Not that interesting. Yeah. So that's all I have to report. Love that.
00:09:00
What about yours? Well, I was in Milwaukee. Oh. Because I went to see Bradford. Yes, that's right.
00:09:05
Who works in the legal department. That's our Great Lakes office is what he calls his house.
00:09:09
Yes. So we just had a very chill visit. Milwaukee, we've had a very lovely time and experience doing
00:09:18
our shows there every time. As a town, it's as good, if not better than those experiences we've
00:09:23
had. It's so pretty there. People, everybody, like all their stuff looks nice. Every single house,
00:09:32
every single neighborhood, everyone's yard is- All little Victorians and shit. And like, yeah, or even I don't I can't explain it.
00:09:39
It was just like it felt like a homey, cozy, beautiful in every way city. Yeah. I think MFM moves to the Midwest is important.
00:09:49
Decade two. With that idea that it's like we should actually we should go on themed vacations where it's like, yeah, this time we'll go to the Midwest.
00:09:59
This time we're going to South America. And what does that mean to you? And then like we both do our own thing there.
00:10:04
And then it's like, well, what did it mean to you? For me, it was twice baked potatoes.
00:10:07
I think for me, if I had known, I would have just been trying to find a bigger twice baked potato than one pound.
00:10:14
There can't be. If there is, you need to at us. You need to tag us and tell us. There's guys in England that I was watching on TikTok.
00:10:23
They have a, if I'm not wrong, a baked potato food truck. There you go. Have you seen that one?
00:10:28
No, we've been looking for it forever. It's just cute guys in England making people.
00:10:32
I think they call them jacket potatoes. They call them jacket potatoes. Just filling them up with good stuff.
00:10:37
Fuck yeah. But I don't want it covered. I still want the baked potato to be the vessel.
00:10:43
You know what I mean? You don't want bacon to upstage your potato meat. I don't mind the bacon upstaging it, but I don't want it to be like, they open it and they almost use the baked potato like a plate.
00:10:53
And then they just put a bunch of shit on it. No, no, no, no. You know what I mean?
00:10:55
No. No, you can't do that. When you see a really great burrito and they're just covered in a bunch of sauces and things, you're like, well, the burrito is the point.
00:11:03
Yes. So I want the burrito. culinary world now that we've admitted that we like you let's pull back on not only the sauces
00:11:10
but sprinkling parsley everywhere no one needs it i fucking hate it have i brought that up on
00:11:16
this show before not parsley but i know you don't like cilantro i don't like cilantro as a flavor
00:11:20
that's just because it's i have the soap thing yeah but the parsley as a kind of last splash
00:11:25
accent i don't need it especially on scrambled eggs oh let's talk to tom colicchio get him on
00:11:32
here. All right. Well, let's talk about this podcast network that we have. Let's do it. I think
00:11:37
we've talked about this already. Kate Wingler Dawson has done 12 unbelievably amazing seasons
00:11:42
of Tenfold More Wicked. It was an OG podcast on this network. Kate Wingler Dawson is one of our
00:11:48
all So she is putting that podcast to bed So thank you Kate for all of your hard work and everything you brought to this network because it is beyond legit If you haven listened to Tenfold More Wicked and you interested in historical true crime
00:12:05
let Kate Winkler Dawson take you on 12 seasons worth of journeys. There's no better historical true crime podcast, in my opinion, than Tenfold More Wicked.
00:12:13
Yeah, she's the greatest. And so she's retiring it, but she has her podcast, Wicked Words,
00:12:19
which is actually kind of like a true crime talk show where she interviews true crime journalists,
00:12:24
true crime authors, all kinds of people in the space that she knows, that she's worked with,
00:12:29
that she's interested in. And so you can always listen to Kate Winkler Dawson just to have a
00:12:33
conversation with some of the leading people in the true crime space. The people who are the most
00:12:38
enmeshed in the cases that we lightly cover, the people that we use as sources, she interviews those
00:12:44
people about those cases. It's fascinating. And on some upcoming episodes, she's talking to author
00:12:50
Patricia Cornwell and journalist and podcaster Mandy Matney from the Murdoch Murders podcast.
00:12:56
She's our friend. Mandy's our friend. Mandy's our friend too. And then over on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez.
00:13:01
We love her so much. She's joined by actor, comedian, and her best friend, one of the favorite people here at
00:13:07
Exactly Right Network, Sam Pancake. Oh, Sam Pancake. He's my birthday twin. Oh. So over on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, Kara and Liza's guest is none other than Danny
00:13:19
Pino, who played NYPD detective Nick Amaro on four seasons of SVU. Ooh, they got good guests on that show.
00:13:26
I know. They really, that's our Patrick Cotnoir, the booker. Hell yeah. He kills it.
00:13:32
And if you missed it while we were on vacation, because we didn't get to announce it, Parent
00:13:35
Footprint, the amazing parenting and beyond podcast by my incredible cousin, Dr. Dan,
00:13:41
celebrated its third anniversary on Exactly Right. And he had a great conversation with Tess, Brandy, and Babs from Lady to Lady.
00:13:48
Whether you're a parent, you never want to be a parent, you think about being a parent, you're an aunt, you're an uncle, you're friends of people with children.
00:13:55
Check out Parent Footprint. And finally, go to the exactly right store dot com to get yourself some shoe charms for some time.
00:14:03
We have Croc shoe charms. Let's talk about people rating and reviewing. OK. In this podcast for this podcast.
00:14:10
OK, let me just let me just. OK, here's the thing, you guys, you rate, review, subscribe.
00:14:15
And it really helps us. And we really appreciate it. Every podcast that you love and listen to, make sure you do that because it's kind of what helps make the podcasts we do free.
00:14:24
It keeps us going. It makes other people find us, which is really helpful. And also recently Apple did a thing where now if you subscribe to us, you might not anymore.
00:14:32
So just go double check really quickly. If you're not subscribed, please hit that subscribe.
00:14:37
If you fucking feel like it, write a review. It helps. It helps and we appreciate it.
00:14:42
And all the podcasts on our network appreciate it as well. So thank you for doing that.
00:14:45
Some examples of some great reviews that we've gotten lately. Nancy Girl says MFM is that warm hug with that little extra tight squeeze at the end that makes you realize you can't breathe.
00:14:54
Aww. And from me, you, her, him, us, five stars because of the cussing. See, go over there and explain why you like this podcast.
00:15:04
Just have fun with it if you want to. We are people. We appreciate knowing. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:15:16
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Will Wheaton, who played Gordy Lachance in Stand By Me 40 years ago,
00:15:23
and now narrates Stephen King's The Body, the novella that inspired it all. We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life,
00:15:32
channeling his memories of River Phoenix and the recording booth, and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have.
00:15:41
I know Gordy Lachance. I am Gordy Lachance. Like, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was Gordy Lachance when I didn't know it.
00:15:50
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. All right. I'm going to tell you a story today that is pretty incredible.
00:17:03
I think we talked about this a little bit, but when we went to the iHeartRadio Awards at South by Southwest this year, and I believe it was March, wasn't it?
00:17:13
There was a podcast that won in the true crime category, and that podcast is wrongfully convicted.
00:17:18
That's a podcast that actually overturns convictions that are for wrongfully convicted people, really actually takes action, is doing something in this space, which is so exciting.
00:17:29
So a lot of those stories are just so overwhelmingly about how intense and impacted racial injustice is in our justice system.
00:17:40
And sometimes I can feel very overwhelming or difficult to talk about or like I feel like, oh, I'm not qualified to talk about it.
00:17:47
Yeah. But the stories are important. And I felt I felt like kind of inspired watching those guys and listening to them speak about how important these stories are how common it is So I going to tell you a story that took place in 1994 in Kansas City So it started on April 15th around 2 p Two men Donald Ewing and his
00:18:10
cousin, Daniel Quinn, are seated in a parked car. And witnesses nearby say they watched as a black
00:18:17
man dressed in all black clothing walks down a small hill through a vacant lot up to that parked
00:18:23
car and without warning raises a pump action shotgun to the passenger side window and fires.
00:18:29
Holy shit. The gunman then flees back up that hill, gets into the passenger side of an older model
00:18:34
Chevy, and they speed away. Daniel Quinn dies at the scene. He is 21 years old. He's the father of a six month old baby boy.
00:18:44
34 year old Donald Ewing dies later that afternoon. Wow. So a double murder investigation is opened, and the detective on that is a man named Roger Goluski.
00:18:55
He questions the witnesses, and they include a 21-year-old woman named Nico Quinn.
00:19:01
Nico had been walking to her mother's house when this shooting took place, and she's actually related to both of the victims.
00:19:10
One is her cousin, then another. It's kind of unclear, distant cousin, basically.
00:19:14
So in her statement, Nico tells police that she could identify the shooter if she saw him again.
00:19:20
Then police speak with a 27-year-old witness named Ruby Mitchell. She lives near the crime scene and describes the shooter as having slicked back hair and brown skin.
00:19:29
She says he looks like a man named Lamont that used to date her niece, but she can't remember Lamont's last name.
00:19:36
So Detective Goluski drives Ruby to the police station and shows her a photo array of five different men.
00:19:42
And Ruby identifies one of the photos as the shooter. And Nico later confirms that identification.
00:19:50
The man, Lamont McIntyre, is then arrested and charged for both murders. And ultimately, he's convicted.
00:19:57
He's handed two consecutive life sentences. When I say the man, Lamont is 17 years old.
00:20:03
Oh, my God. And that's not the end of the story. It's actually just the beginning of Lamont's nightmare.
00:20:10
This is the story of Lamont McIntyre's wrongful conviction and the individuals within the criminal justice system who knowingly orchestrated his imprisonment.
00:20:18
It's so crazy to be like, that person looks like so-and-so. That's it. That's all you're going on.
00:20:25
Yeah. That is like, what if you're trying to describe how someone looks by saying he kind of looked like my uncle and then they go after your uncle.
00:20:32
You know what I mean? It's like, don't say it looks like anyone when they're questioning you.
00:20:36
Right. Right. And I mean, we'll get into this later, but it's that idea that when you see something as horrifying and traumatic as a double murder, a double shotgun murder in front of you, your instincts as a witness would be, I'm going to help.
00:20:50
Right. I'm going to say what's going to get that man caught. And that very kind of like innocent motive to be a part of it gets turned on these people.
00:21:01
And it's just, it's crazy. So the sources for today's show, a write-up on the website for the nonprofit Centurion, reporting by Peggy Lowe on the Overlooked podcast produced by Kansas City NPR affiliate KCUR, and articles from the Kansas City Star.
00:21:19
And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. Okay, so in 1994, Lamont McIntyre is a tall, skinny, 17-year-old kid who dreams of becoming a comedian.
00:21:31
He's very close with his family. he actually works with his mother, Rosie, part-time at a restaurant called Fifi's Diner,
00:21:37
and he's also a skilled barber. He's been cutting his friends and family's hair since he was 11 years old.
00:21:45
On April 15th, the day that Donald and Doniel were murdered, Lamont is supposed to attend class for a GED program
00:21:52
at a nearby college, but he decides to skip and hang out with his cousins at his aunt's house.
00:21:58
They spend the day watching soap operas and watching movies on HBO. So basically several members of Lamont's family live in the same neighborhood.
00:22:07
So basically throughout the day, Lamont goes from his aunt's house back to his mom's house to another aunt's house.
00:22:14
He's just kind of hanging out with his cousins. And at around 2 p.m., which is the time of the shootings, Lamont is en route between two of his family's homes.
00:22:24
Those homes in that neighborhood is more than a mile away from the parking lot where Donald and Donnell are killed.
00:22:32
Regardless, the police show up at Lamont's family members' homes that afternoon saying that they want to speak to him.
00:22:39
They don't explain why. And so when they hear about it, Lamont and his mom, Rosie, drive down to the police station to go talk to police.
00:22:48
Lamont had recently missed a court date regarding a drug possession charge. So he figures that that's why the officer came and that he's going to go down and get it cleared up.
00:22:59
Neither has any clue that a double homicide has taken place, much less that Lamont is currently considered a suspect in these murders.
00:23:07
But Rosie McIntyre, Lamont's mom, is familiar with Detective Goluski, and she has seen a very dark side of him.
00:23:15
Goluski had aggressively pursued Rosie in the past, asking her once to come down to the station, kind of for no reason, and then once she was there in his office, he sexually assaults her.
00:23:27
Holy shit. But this is a well-known, powerful cop in their community, right? Rosie knows she has to keep quiet about this assault.
00:23:34
She can't. Who's she going to turn the cop into? The top cop. Yeah. Yeah. So even after that assault, Golovsky continues to harass her for sex.
00:23:45
Rosie always denies him. But now she's in this difficult position of having to cooperate with and trust the police department that employs her abuser.
00:23:54
Still, Rosie will later say when she brought Lamont to the station that day, quote,
00:24:00
I believed in the system. They said, give them 15 minutes, and I did. The next thing Rosie knows, they're taking her 17-year-old son into custody,
00:24:09
and they will keep him there for the next 23 years. Holy shit. So Lamont McIntyre's murder trial takes place five months after his arrest,
00:24:17
which was incredibly fast for a murder case. The trial is overseen by a judge named J. Dexter Burdett,
00:24:25
and the lead prosecutor is a woman named Tara Moorhead, whose case relies on Detective Golovsky's investigation.
00:24:33
And to be clear, the case is a weak one. There's no physical evidence. There's no murder weapon.
00:24:39
There's no prints at the scene. No bloody clothes are found in Lamont's possession.
00:24:43
In fact, there are no clothes and evidence whatsoever or any personal items belonging to any of the people involved in this case
00:24:50
because, unbelievably, Detective Golovsky didn't obtain a single search warrant during his investigation.
00:24:57
Okay. The thing you need to go look for and find evidence. There's no evidence and there isn't a clear motive.
00:25:05
Lamont has no connection to either of the victims. In fact, the two eyewitnesses, Ruby Mitchell and Nico Quinn, are the prosecution's entire case.
00:25:15
So Lamont pleads not guilty. He's actually kind of not worried. He's like, I have five witnesses who all can collaborate my alibi.
00:25:24
and those people testify Lamont was in a different part of town with his family when these murders took place.
00:25:30
Family members testify Lamont wasn't wearing an all-black outfit the day of the murders,
00:25:35
which is what both witnesses said they saw the Genman wearing. But even with all of that in his favor, the defense's case goes sideways fast.
00:25:44
Lamont's court-appointed lawyer is a man named Gary Long, and he has no experience with double homicide cases.
00:25:51
to make matters worse at the time of Lamont's trial. Gary Long is on supervised probation for failing to properly defend three previous clients.
00:26:02
No, that's not probation anymore. That can't be probation. I mean, it's not like there's no other lawyers.
00:26:08
Yeah. Like, how many times? But I mean, as I was reading Maren's research, I was just kind of like, that can't be a coincidence.
00:26:16
that Lamont gets one of the worst lawyers maybe that there is nearby. We don't have motive, means, or opportunity,
00:26:24
so let's give him the lawyer who can't defend him against anything. Let's give him a lawyer who's on probation for being a bad lawyer.
00:26:34
Even still, Lamont refuses to take a plea bargain, and he would later say, quote,
00:26:38
I was innocent. I thought the truth will come out and everything will be okay. Yeah.
00:26:43
End quote. this double murder trial lasts four days no jury comes back with the verdict lamont mcintyre is
00:26:52
guilty on both counts of murder and he has given two life sentences with basically eyewitness
00:26:59
testimony it says like no silver lining rough brutal justice system story as you can get he goes
00:27:07
to jail and he's just in jail now but he immediately starts writing to innocence groups
00:27:12
including a New Jersey-based nonprofit called Centurion that investigates wrongful convictions.
00:27:19
It was founded by a man named Jim McCluskey in 1980. And since that time, they have freed 70 wrongfully convicted men and women
00:27:28
serving life sentences or death row sentences. Wow. Lamont reads an article about that nonprofit in a magazine in 2001.
00:27:37
And so he sends him a letter. And here is a part of that letter. Lamont says, quote, I'm 100 percent innocent of the crime I'm doing time for.
00:27:45
I've been doing my best trying to prove that. I have no money and I don't know where to go from here.
00:27:51
So I'm asking for your help. If you could just look at my case, you would see I shouldn't be here.
00:27:57
And Jim McCloskey reads up on this whole story and he agrees with Lamont. He should not be in prison.
00:28:04
So between 2009 and 2010, this is 15 years after Lamont's conviction. And Jim starts traveling to Kansas City talking to these eyewitnesses, as well as the people who knew Donald, Doniel, and Lamont.
00:28:20
And one thing becomes blatantly clear to him, and that's no one believes that Lamont committed these murders.
00:28:27
But one name does come up when he talks to people, and that is the name of a notorious Kansas City drug dealer and convicted murderer named Cecil Brooks.
00:28:35
So Jim goes to talk to Cecil. Cecil's in prison at the time, and he agrees to meet with Jim.
00:28:42
And when he does, Cecil tells Jim a teenager who went by the nickname Monster is the one who actually killed Donald and Daniel over a dispute about drugs.
00:28:53
Cecil says he knows this because he's the one who ordered the hit. Cecil signs an affidavit confirming that all of this is true.
00:29:02
That is unbelievable. You actually have like the criminal responsible saying this kid is innocent.
00:29:10
Yeah. So at this point, Centurion has connected Lamont with a new lawyer who is very good at her job.
00:29:16
Her name's Cheryl Pilot. And Jim and Cheryl are joined in this fight by a retired detective named Mark Bussell and by the Midwest Innocence Project.
00:29:26
So their work exposes the fact that the case against Lamont is even flimsier than anybody could have suspected.
00:29:33
Since the prosecution's case hinged on those two eyewitnesses, Ruby Mitchell and Nico Quinn,
00:29:39
the team goes and looks back at their testimony. Nico Quinn identified Lamont as the shooter after being shown his photograph,
00:29:47
but she explains that she felt manipulated into making that identification. While questioning her about the murder Nico claims Detective Roger Golovsky lied to her saying that the gunman had already been arrested and police had recovered the murder weapon And Nico said the officer with Goluski quote
00:30:06
had his thumb on one photo as if pointing Lamont McIntyre out. Can't do that, turns out.
00:30:14
Remember that part in Making a Murderer? That kind of like, they laid out a photo away.
00:30:20
And they basically were like, what about this guy? And it's that it's just that thing where, like, you see it, you know, it happens.
00:30:27
But the idea that in an investigation that important. Yeah. That you would just be like pushing this all in a certain direction.
00:30:36
Yeah. That overtly. It's horrible. So it was only at the trial that Nico saw Lamont in person for the first time.
00:30:44
And when she saw him, she immediately knew that he was innocent. He looked nothing like the gunman that she saw that day.
00:30:51
Dude. So before she was slated to testify, Nico told prosecutor Tara Moorhead twice that they had the wrong man.
00:31:00
And Nico claims that Moorhead told her, quote, if you don't do what we discussed, I'll throw your black ass in jail.
00:31:06
I'll send the police to get your kids and you'll never see them again. End quote.
00:31:11
That is so shocking to me, a white girl from Southern California. But I don't think, unfortunately, that rare for black people who go through that on a regular basis.
00:31:22
It's not fucking idle threat. No. It's not. No, not in the least. It's the mark of unchecked power.
00:31:28
It's the system that black people have been talking about for decades, if not centuries, that white people are like, there's no way that could happen.
00:31:37
It's just that isn't right. That's not our justice system. It's not our justice system.
00:31:43
Yeah, that's right. It's everyone walking out. It's the systemic racism justice system.
00:31:46
So in the face of those threats, Niko was forced to comply with the prosecution.
00:31:52
She perjured herself by testifying that Lamont was the shooter. And she absolutely felt like she had no choice.
00:31:58
And then there's Ruby Mitchell, the witness, who gave Lamont's name to investigators the day of the shooting.
00:32:04
But she couldn't think of his last name. So only one person with the name Lamont was included in the photo array that Golovsky presented.
00:32:12
And of course, that was Lamont McIntyre. they could have included multiple men with the name Lamont and without last names and just been
00:32:21
like, oh, here's all the Lamonts that we could find. Is it any of these people? But they didn't
00:32:26
do that. They just had the one guy. So knowing that's his name and being like, oh, well, that's
00:32:32
the, I guess. So not only did Goluski's five person photo array only contain one Lamont,
00:32:39
It included a photo of Lamont McIntyre's brother and one of his cousins. KCUR reports, quote, Lamont's lawyers later called that unduly suggestive, meaning police were trying to get witnesses to choose him out of the lineup.
00:32:56
And that's what Ruby did. She looked at the photo. She identified the supposed shooter by his full name.
00:33:03
But this is especially bizarre because Ruby and Lamont were strangers. Lamont's attorney, Cheryl, says, quote,
00:33:11
This witness provided in a taped statement my client's last name, a man she did not know and had never heard of, which raises the very interesting question, who gave her his name?
00:33:23
So it was only after Ruby sees Lamont's photo in the photo array that she changes her initial description of the shooter's hair.
00:33:32
And her new description now matches Lamont's hairstyle, the one he had in that photo.
00:33:37
So I'm not slicked back, whatever. Right. Yeah. Now she's like, oh, it actually kind of looks like this, the picture you were pushing toward me as I was looking at this five photo array.
00:33:47
Then during Lamont McIntyre's trial, it comes to light that the Lamont Ruby thought she saw, the one who dated her niece, was actually a man named Lamont Drain.
00:33:57
And she confirms this in her testimony. And these two men look nothing alike. The inconsistency alone should have tanked her reliability as a witness.
00:34:07
But in an effort to explain it away, Tara Moorhead claims that the two Lamonts looked, quote, like identical twins.
00:34:14
Oh, my God. They don't. And also, spoiler alert, Lamont Drain was out of town on the day of the murder.
00:34:20
So it was a misidentification all the way around. It was no Lamonts. Yes, no Lamonts.
00:34:26
So most people consider Ruby's contribution to be a very unfortunate mistake made by someone experiencing trauma and confusion after witnessing a double homicide.
00:34:34
And as Cheryl Pilot points out, quote, take a person who's traumatized, who's just witnessed a really horrific event, and they can be pretty easy to pressure and manipulate.
00:34:46
For sure. And it's pretty easy to believe that they would when the person that you're talking about is Detective Roger Golovsky.
00:34:53
Oh, dear. According to the Kansas City Star, the team investigating Lamont's case will collect, quote, more than 15 affidavits from criminals and their cronies to police that point to the detective Roger Golubsky using terms like crooked and dirty, end quote.
00:35:12
Among other terrible things, Golubsky is accused of using his position of authority to pressure black women and girls into having sex with him.
00:35:20
A retired FBI agent named Alan Jennerich investigated Golovsky for several years, and he says in one of these affidavits, quote,
00:35:29
As my investigation uncovered, he used the authority of his position to extort sexual favors from black females.
00:35:36
These women complied with his demands because they knew they would be arrested if they said no.
00:35:41
The women were powerless and Golovsky exploited them, end quote. And Ruby Mitchell would be one of these women.
00:35:50
As Centurion writes in their report, quote, Ruby had a reason to fear him and succumb to his influence in identifying Lamont McIntyre as the shooter So when Ruby Mitchell was going to go give her witness statement
00:36:05
Golovsky goes and picks her up and drives her to the station. And so she testifies that on that drive, he made sexual advances toward her,
00:36:15
made her feel super uncomfortable, very pressured. And like, so now you're just in this situation where you're just trying to help a crime.
00:36:23
You're just trying to help some victims. But suddenly somebody is basically threatening you.
00:36:28
It's just the grossest, like it's exploitation of power in every possible direction.
00:36:35
So this story is as much about who the police and prosecutors leave out of the case as it is who they decided to include in it.
00:36:43
The biggest one, prosecutor Tara Moorhead never reveals that she once had been in a relationship with Judge Burdett.
00:36:51
You can't do that. It was a short relationship. It was long over by the time Lamont's trial began, but it is still a humongous conflict of interest and one that one of the two parties should have definitely admitted to and then recused themselves from the case over.
00:37:11
another big omission josephine quinn nico's mom was also a witness to the murder she was basically
00:37:19
where nico was same day same time and during the investigation detective galuski interviewed her
00:37:25
and showed her the same photo array of the five men but josephine told him it's none of these men
00:37:31
at one point josephine even went down to the courthouse to see if her testimony might be useful
00:37:36
Tara Moorhead told her, no, it would not. But at the courthouse, when Josephine saw Lamont McIntyre for the first time,
00:37:44
she went and told Moorhead, you have the wrong guy. But Moorhead ignored her concerns, saying, quote, it's in the jury's hands now.
00:37:53
Yeah, after we gave them everything against him. Right. And also, this is a witness.
00:37:57
Like, they pick one witness over the other. Yeah, the one they want. It's dirty. It's just outright cheating all the way down.
00:38:05
Totally. And then there's Stacey Quinn, Josephine's daughter, Nico's sister. Stacey actually had the closest view of the murder. More than any other witness, she was the closest to the crime scene. She was never interviewed by police.
00:38:19
Cheryl Pilot will later write in a legal filing, quote, the failure of detectives to interview Stacey is inexplicable.
00:38:26
But it's actually no mystery why Stacey was left out. Officially, she was marked by detectives as being, quote, not available.
00:38:33
But as one of her family members noted in an affidavit, quote, most everyone in the family knew that Stacey Quinn had been having a sexual relationship
00:38:42
with Detective Gavlowski since the mid-80s when Stacey was 16 or 17 years old. Gavlowski would have been in his late 20s,
00:38:53
early 30s at the time. And in a position of power. Yes. Oh my God. But even still, Stacey tries to share what she knows.
00:39:01
Just two years after Lamont's conviction in 1996, Stacey testifies at a hearing where a judge weighs the facts
00:39:08
of whether or not Lamont received a fair trial. Stacey testifies that she's certain of Lamont's innocence.
00:39:15
But the judge at this hearing is, incredibly, Judge Burdett. Okay. So Judge Burdett is supposed to decide whether or not his own trial was okay.
00:39:26
Right, right, right, right. According to the Kansas City Star, Judge Burdett writes Stacey's testimony off.
00:39:32
He reportedly says, quote, she is a felon. She's a habitual drug user, end quote.
00:39:38
He ultimately refuses to give Lamont a new trial. So a decade later, it's 2016. Cheryl Pilot files a new motion to vacate Lamont's conviction. She includes all the affidavits her team has collected. And in response, an evidentiary hearing on Lamont's case takes place in October of 2017. At this point, Lamont McIntyre has been behind bars for over 20 years.
00:40:01
But at this hearing, there's a new judge presiding. God bless. He listens to witness after witness, including members of Donald Ewing and Daniel Quinn's families, all testifying that they believe that Lamont McIntyre is innocent.
00:40:16
Oh, my God. One day later, after 23 years behind bars, the judge vacates Lamont's conviction.
00:40:23
The now 41-year-old Lamont McIntyre is a free man. The first thing he says after 23 years behind bars is, quote, it's nice outside.
00:40:33
From 17 to 41. It's sickening. In prison for something you have literally nothing to do with.
00:40:40
So this awful story shows just how brutal our criminal justice system is and the reality of the many bad actors who populate it.
00:40:50
Cops who are themselves criminals, prosecutors who are hell bent on winning cases no matter what.
00:40:57
And all leaves the accused extremely vulnerable and their rights. And as Shell Pilot once said, quote,
00:41:05
other than the 20 minutes of taped interview from eyewitnesses, there was very little else in Lamont's case.
00:41:12
Someone can go to prison for the rest of their life because of a total of 20 taped minutes.
00:41:17
20 minutes and they never got a search warrant. They didn't find the weapon. There's no evidence.
00:41:22
And they didn't do the one step past a photo array of how about you look at these people in real life.
00:41:28
Totally. But I mean, all of that is we're arguing it like they had intention to be fair or to do anything.
00:41:35
Clearly, there was an agenda here. So for years, these bad actors who engineered Lamont's conviction face no consequences.
00:41:44
Detective Goluski remains a detective. Tara Moorhead is promoted to a federal prosecutor's job.
00:41:50
No, please. But Lamont McIntyre fight for freedom eventually brings them both to justice Yes So and it just happened a few months ago No In April of 2024 Oh my God The Kansas Supreme Court issues an order of disbarment against Tara Moorhead after she
00:42:07
surrenders her law license. She is no longer prosecuting cases. And according to KCUR's reporting, there are at least two different U.S. Department of
00:42:16
Justice investigations into her alleged misconduct. Damn. And as for Roger Golovsky, in 2021, Lamont McIntyre filed a lawsuit against the local government and police department over his wrongful conviction.
00:42:31
This suit included the initials of 70 women who claimed they were victimized by Golovsky while he was a Kansas City detective.
00:42:38
70 women. 70 women who are brave enough to come and put their initials on that. In 2022, the lawsuit settled for $12.5 million.
00:42:50
Damn. That same year, Golovsky was arrested and charged with six counts of deprivation of civil rights.
00:42:56
Yes. That's kind of a shocking turn. I was surprised when I heard that because it so, so rarely happens.
00:43:03
That's how egregiously insane. Lamont's lawsuit isn't the only case that's focused on the disgraced detective.
00:43:09
in 2023, five black women file a 138 page lawsuit accusing the county government of allowing
00:43:17
Golovsky and his fellow officers to, quote, kidnap, coerce, pressure, sexually assault
00:43:23
and rape black women in violation of clearly established constitutional rights, end quote.
00:43:30
One of the plaintiffs demanding justice in that case is none other than Nico Quinn.
00:43:34
Yeah. There's also a federal conspiracy case looking into Golubowski, which alleges that he was heavily involved in the local drug trade while being a Kansas City cop.
00:43:45
One of his co-defendants in that case is none other than Cecil Brooks, the drug dealer who claimed to have ordered the hit on Donald Ewing and Daniel Quinn.
00:43:55
So this guy might have even known about the hit and knew who even fucking did it.
00:43:59
Yes. Covering? covering and because there was a quote from Rosie McIntyre, Lamont's mother,
00:44:08
who said that she basically believed that if she had just kind of given in because Golovsky was after her so much,
00:44:17
she said she believes that if she had just given in, her son would have never gone to jail.
00:44:22
Like he was just picking someone and he was like... Retaliatory. Yeah. Oh, my God.
00:44:28
The most disturbing allegations from the suit claimed that Golovsky physically and sexually abused girls as young as 13 years old and along
00:44:36
with his co-defendants trafficked them to other men. Jesus. If convicted, he faces a maximum
00:44:42
sentence of life imprisonment. And one more PS just on the subject of bad actors in the system,
00:44:49
that first lawyer, Gary Long, he was disbarred a few years after Lamont's trial for violating
00:44:56
Kansas rules concerning competence. Good. He was eventually reinstated. Oh. Then suspended for not paying taxes.
00:45:03
Good. Then reinstated. Oh. Then disbarred again over misconduct in the 2010s. Good.
00:45:08
So that's how, how do you have that record? The guy that was already on probation for three charges.
00:45:15
Yeah. What in the living fuck is going on that that person continues to be a lawyer?
00:45:20
Absolutely. I hope they looked into every case he ever defended. Right. Because they should all be questioned.
00:45:25
Yes, for sure. And also, is this just a tool that that system uses to make sure that people don't have a good defense?
00:45:34
Right. Right? Of course. Yeah. Inherently unconstitutional. Officially, the murders of Donald Ewing and Daniel Quinn remain unsolved.
00:45:43
But Nico Quinn continues to seek justice for her cousins as well as for her sister, Stacey Quinn, who was murdered in 2000.
00:45:51
Nico's convinced that the man who was convicted of Stacey's murder was not responsible for her death.
00:45:59
Detective Roger Goluski is the police officer who investigated that murder. And Tara Moorhead is the one who prosecuted that case.
00:46:07
No way. Yeah. So in 2018, on the heels of Lamont's exoneration, Kansas passes a law that compensates wrongfully convicted men and women $65,000 for every year that they spend behind bars.
00:46:21
And for Lamont, who's served 23 years, that means he gets $1.5 million, which should be more money.
00:46:28
It was a huge chunk of his life. Lamont says readjusting to life outside of prison and the trauma of the whole experience is a complicated process.
00:46:35
process. In 2020, he tells a local reporter, quote, people see me on social media in the streets at
00:46:42
the store and feel like, okay, he's happy. He's smiling. That nightmare of his is over, right?
00:46:47
But I'm left with the side effects of it. I'm still putting together my life in that kind of
00:46:52
way, the emotional side. This brings a lot of peace of mind to me knowing I'm free like everyone
00:46:56
else. I can pass a background check. No one's looking at me and seeing the things that I was
00:47:01
imprisoned for. It feels so good to know that I have my life back. To be free, it's something I
00:47:06
can't put into words. End quote. Lamont McIntyre has created a nonprofit called Miracle of Innocence
00:47:13
with a man named Daryl Burton, who was also in prison for a murder he did not commit.
00:47:17
This group's mission is to, quote, free the innocent and provide care when they come home.
00:47:23
And we'll end this story with a quote from Lamont. He says, quote, I'm a guy who sees a fire and I
00:47:29
want to put it out. If it's too big for me to put out by myself, I kind of expect my community to
00:47:34
help me put it out. Wrongful convictions are way out of control. It started as a bushfire and it's
00:47:39
now spread. My whole thing is just trying to gain the right amount of awareness to change it.
00:47:46
Wow. And that's the story of the wrongful conviction of Lamont McIntyre. Oh my God.
00:47:53
So don't you think we should give $10,000 to Centurion? I was at the beginning of the story
00:47:59
Right there with you. Yeah. I mean, what incredible work they do. Just so you know, if you also want to give to Centurion, they are a secular nonprofit organization dedicated to freeing from prison those who have been wrongly convicted, are completely innocent and serving long imprisonment terms or death sentences.
00:48:17
You can go to Centurion.org to get more information or to make a donation yourself.
00:48:24
Hell yeah. I love that. Boom. That was amazing. Great job. Thank you. Unbelievable.
00:48:30
and yet so common in our country that it shouldn't be unbelievable to people like me.
00:48:35
That's right. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:48:46
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary,
00:48:54
massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science. and what happens when you wake up alone very far from earth.
00:49:02
I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat
00:49:06
and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent?
00:49:12
And I really thought about it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have
00:49:19
in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me,
00:49:27
and I left it on the mic. That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like,
00:49:32
oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Ear Say,
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boostmobile.com. Well, how about we go in a completely opposite direction? Let's do it.
00:50:49
That's our way. We'll make a U-turn. We're heading to Canada. Thank God. I love it there.
00:50:54
All right, so we're in Canada. Total different story here. Smells like maple syrup.
00:51:00
Are you fucking kidding me? Today's story is a heist story. What? Oh, really? It's the biggest heist in the history of Quebec.
00:51:10
How did you know that? I am Irish psychic. I don't know what more I have to do to prove it.
00:51:14
Taryn, it wasn't art. It wasn't diamonds. It wasn't money. It wasn't even drugs.
00:51:17
This is the story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist. What the fuck? All these years you've been trying to hide your paper from me.
00:51:29
I don't even need the fucking paper. I don't need the paper. You know the story I'm telling.
00:51:34
It's smell it. Ooh, a maple syrup heist. Irish psychic. I believe it. All right.
00:51:41
So obviously there's a lot of jokes to be made and no one was hurt in the story.
00:51:46
Oh, great. Great. So now we can feel free to. Go nuts. Yeah. Okay. But this is serious business.
00:51:51
If you've ever bought maple syrup, you know it's fucking expensive. Yes, it is. Right?
00:51:56
In my family, my mom, we were broke as fuck. There were a few things that we'd spend money on, but we would have pancakes for dinner a lot.
00:52:04
And she would always buy pure maple syrup. That was not allowed in our house to have artificial maple syrup ever.
00:52:11
Wow. And I still, to this day, can't eat fake maple syrup. It really is so good.
00:52:15
It's just, it's different, you know? My friend Jacob Tierney, who's a big fan of the show Georgia, I don't know if you've told him.
00:52:21
Best friends. He's from show business. But anyway, he came down to visit one time and brought me 100% real Canadian maple syrup.
00:52:29
And it was nutso how incredibly delicious. I didn't really know the difference. Oh, my God.
00:52:35
When Vince and I, you know, Midwestern, him, got together, I was like, oh, I don't eat that.
00:52:40
I just like won't eat that. You won't eat that. Okay. Okay. Disagreements over how Canadians' national treasure, maple syrup, should be regulated have led to deep-seated rivalries and grudges within the industry.
00:52:52
Sure. Okay. The main sources I used for this story are an episode of the Netflix show, Dirty Money, which I highly recommend, and an article from Bloomberg Businessweek by Brendan Borrell.
00:53:04
So here we go. July 30th, 2012. An auditor for the Quebec maple syrup producers named Michel Graveau.
00:53:12
Michel Gravo. There's a lot of French, Quebec, and I can pronunciations, and I'll do my best.
00:53:17
Oui. So Michel reports to the Federation's storage facility in Saint-Louis-de-Blafort.
00:53:24
Saint-Louis-de-Blafort. In Quebec. In Quebec. I would really like to go to Quebec someday, so let's not totally piss them off.
00:53:31
It is beautiful. Yeah. It's really a cool place. Yeah, I would love to go there.
00:53:35
So maple syrup production in Quebec is highly regulated, and this is because maple syrup is fickle stuff.
00:53:42
And production can vary widely from year to year as the weather does. You know Quebec maple syrup producers often just called the Federation which is like already you know the Federation Federation like fucking red flag right there Guards against this by maintaining a strategic reserve of maple syrup saving up more in good harvest years and releasing more into the market on bad years basically to regulate the price like you would with oil
00:54:08
Yeah. You can't having that go up and down. Yeah. But if it did, that means on the up years, people like the independent producers could make a lot more money.
00:54:18
Oh, right. And this kind of regulates how much money they can actually make. Frustrating.
00:54:22
Frustrating for a lot of people. Yeah. And trees. Mostly trees. They just want their credit.
00:54:27
So yeah, it's comparative to OPEC, you know, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries,
00:54:33
which maintains, you know them, which maintains a strategic reserve of oil to control prices.
00:54:39
Except, so here's the thing, oil is currently worth about $73 a barrel. And they use the same system, barrels, and maple syrup.
00:54:46
But guess how much a barrel of maple syrup is worth right now? Is it way more? So 73 for oil.
00:54:54
It's way more for maple. Guess how much? 200? 1,800. Whoa. Oh, we're in the thousands.
00:55:00
We're in the thousands and it gets crazier. Okay. So the warehouse where they store these barrels is this huge space.
00:55:07
It's as big as an aircraft hangar and it's filled with about 16,000 barrels of fucking maple syrup.
00:55:13
Can I please just do one dive, you know, into a pool? I bet they have a pool and Christmas parties are amazing.
00:55:20
Do you remember that? I remember the video of the guy that went into the, Eddie Bauer has a main store in like Atlanta that has a huge, like a fish pond in it.
00:55:32
No. A huge fish pond in like two Christmases ago. I think a guy was maybe having a moment and he just went and got into that and was swimming around naked.
00:55:42
Ugh, just the fish poop. I mean. That's a virus waiting to happen. It was more pool than pond, but it makes me think of that, that secretly the maple syrup people would have like an Eddie Bauer style swimming area filled with maple syrup.
00:55:57
Which is way better. Yeah. Obviously. So the barrels are, so 16,000 barrels of maple syrup, they're all stacked up on each other.
00:56:05
It's like very orderly, but they're stacked and they're all painted the exact same shade of white.
00:56:09
So it's just white barrels as far as the eye can see. I'm picturing the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
00:56:14
I am not because I don't think I got that far. What? What? No, I just don't. I fell asleep.
00:56:19
Are you? I can't. It's one of the best movies ever made. Oh, Raiders of the... I was thinking of Star Wars.
00:56:26
Yes. No, I'm there with you now. No, you're right. You're right. It was Star Wars.
00:56:30
Did you see this? Did you ever see Star Wars? You know, the Star Wars episode Raiders of the Lost Ark.
00:56:39
There's some people that are getting really mad right now. Did you see recently?
00:56:43
There was a, not recently probably, but there was like a, if Darth Vader was one of the Gallagher brothers from Oasis.
00:56:49
It's just quotes he said. Like he's fighting too? No, like he's Darth Vader and he's like, all right, mate.
00:56:56
I've had bigger fights with my toenails before. Like Talia, Princess Leia. Okay, stop it.
00:57:03
So here's the barrels. The auditor wants to get some information off the top of a high barrel.
00:57:08
You know, he has to like. Check it. Check it, sure. So he steps up onto one of the barrels, grabs ahold of another, decline.
00:57:14
That's how they fucking do it. Seems like they should have a lot of insurance, but that's just how they do it.
00:57:18
They scale up like a wall of barrels. Yeah, I think it's like stacked one, two, one, two.
00:57:24
Like, so it's climbable. It's not like one on top of the other. It's like one layer.
00:57:29
And then in the middle of those layers is another layer. You know what I mean? So.
00:57:32
I'd love to get a visual on this. Come on, Alejandra. Yeah. Alejandra running in with a visual.
00:57:38
Got it in her hands. Maybe you can explain it better, Kim. Breaking news. Let's see.
00:57:42
There we go. Oh. Well, that's kind of how I was picturing it. This looks like, thank you, Alejandra.
00:57:47
This looks like a set piece from Austin Powers where it's like, here's where all the dynamite is held.
00:57:53
And of course it's going to all fall over. Yeah. Guys, these are the most generic looking white barrels.
00:57:58
There's not even like a, here's the thing you said, they have to climb up it and check on the top.
00:58:02
Why don't they put the sticker on the side? You know what? This is why you need to be in charge of the Maple Syrup Federation.
00:58:08
Ring, ring, Canada. What's this a boot? So he climbs up. Then the next barrel he grabs while he's like getting towards the top.
00:58:17
It should weigh more than 600 pounds, each of those barrels. Yeah. And be very stable.
00:58:22
He's done this a million times. But it teeters backwards and Michel nearly fucking falls.
00:58:28
Ooh la la, Michel. Michel almost eats it. He catches himself. The reason is because that barrel was empty.
00:58:34
It was supposed to be 600 pounds and he was supposed to be able to rely on it, but he doesn't.
00:58:38
Someone, a little mouse is tapping the back of the barrel. Michelle quickly realizes that it's not the only empty barrel.
00:58:46
He counts about 30 of them. Shit. So they're like, oh my God. So right at the bat, that's about how much worth of maple syrup that's unaccounted for.
00:58:54
Money wise? Well, if we're saying $1,800 per, per what though? Barrel. Per barrel.
00:59:02
That's right. it's 5400 i'll ask you more in the future but okay i don't this is like real math and you know we
00:59:08
know that's not what we do here how insulting what no i'm just saying like i'm not asking you to
00:59:13
i could have done it multiply 1800 by 30 could you no i don't even understand what the question
00:59:19
is actually i was baffled i wasn't even sure what i was guessing i was like was i wrong this
00:59:24
whole eight and a half years so you want me to guess tablespoons of maple syrup right now because
00:59:29
I can do it. So he counts 30. That's about $54,000 worth of maple syrup that's unaccounted for.
00:59:36
Shit. That's a fucking lot. Yes. Michelle reports the empty barrels and returns to the warehouse in early August with the officials from the Federation.
00:59:44
They confirm the empty barrels, but then they look more closely at some of the full barrels.
00:59:49
And they notice that some of the barrels are leaving rings of rust on the floor.
00:59:54
And this shouldn happen with maple syrup for whatever chemistry reason I can even fucking begin to Are high school students replacing half the maple syrup with water all the maple syrup with water what in the barrel
01:00:05
oh shit and it creates condensation and so all this shit so they realize that thousands of
01:00:12
barrels have been filled with water oh my god yeah oh that is wait they made a documentary about this
01:00:18
or a movie it's a show called dirty money yeah it's just like an episode of the show because this
01:00:23
right there as an opening scene. Well, I've got info for that on you. Okay, great. For you
01:00:27
in the future. In your future, I see it. Okay. So in total, 9,560 barrels worth of maple syrup have been siphoned
01:00:37
away and stolen. That's so time-consuming. It makes me want to take a nap. It's so like,
01:00:44
who is the person with the poker face that's so good that he's just like... But he has maple syrup
01:00:49
smeared across his face and he's like, nothing, nothing. Little kids follow him everywhere.
01:00:55
He's just dripping out of his pockets maple syrup. And you're like, Michelle, what's happening?
01:00:59
Michelle, qu'est-ce que c'est? So that's more than half the entire strategic reserve, or more than 5% of that year's entire
01:01:09
maple syrup production in Quebec. And this actually makes the theft among the largest agricultural crimes ever.
01:01:17
What are the other agricultures? I don't know. That's for next week and the week after.
01:01:21
What was the butter heist? Cows. Lots of cows. There's got to be some sort of cheese crime that we need to hear about.
01:01:28
Cheese crime. The authorities estimate the amount of stolen maple syrup to be worth about this much in Canadian dollars.
01:01:35
Or do you want to do it in U.S. dollars? I can't do it in Canadian. Okay. So actually, sorry, I won't do it in Canadian.
01:01:42
But to do it. So U.S. dollars. We're a little less than Canadian value-wise, right?
01:01:47
Now this is more. Okay. It's all over the place. It's similar. It's not. It's more.
01:01:52
I don't know. But I'll just do a whirlwind guess. Is it like, well, 1,000 and then 10,000?
01:02:02
Remember, it's almost 10,000 barrels. Are we up in the neighborhood of like $400,000?
01:02:09
No, not even close. I don't know why I made that noise. It's disappointing when you find out I can't do math at all.
01:02:17
$24 million U.S. dollars worth of fucking maple goddamn syrup. Jesus Christ. Yeah.
01:02:27
You know when you go to like the almost fancy cafes and they're like, it's a dollar extra for real maple syrup.
01:02:33
Like that. Think of how many of those little cute little like tin. Plastic things.
01:02:39
Pours they give you. Oh, like a little guy like that. Yeah. It's a lot. It's so much.
01:02:43
Yeah. Okay. So let's go back and talk about maple syrup, your favorite subject. If you have a bottle of.
01:02:49
Let's do it. Let's do the math based on how like pancakes. How many pancakes would be affected?
01:02:54
Oh, my God. Five in a stack? Cleps. Cleps. Okay. If you have a bottle of maple syrup at your house, the real kind, not the maple-flavored pancake syrup that's all high fructose corn syrup, there's a very good chance it came from Quebec.
01:03:07
Maple syrup has been harvested in North America for centuries by indigenous people.
01:03:12
A tree is tapped and the sap is collected. The sap is then boiled down. The water slowly evaporates and all that's left is a thick, sweet syrup, maple syrup.
01:03:19
Oh, yeah. If you keep boiling it until all the water is gone, you get maple sugar.
01:03:24
Some of the very first Europeans to wind up in North America are French settlers in what is now Quebec, and they learn how to make maple syrup from the First Nations people.
01:03:34
Like all props. Maple syrup is now totally central to Canadian culture, as you clearly demonstrated at the beginning of this.
01:03:42
And particularly to Quebeca, to Quebecians, to... How do you fucking say that? Quebecois.
01:03:48
Quebecois. to Quebecois culture. Quebecois. To Quebecian culture? Quebecian. Quebecian.
01:03:55
Maple syrup can only be harvested at certain times of the year, and the harvesting is like a whole event, which sounds amazing.
01:04:01
Quebec produces between 70% and 80% of the world's maple syrup and the majority of Canada's maple syrup,
01:04:07
and three-quarters of the maple syrup produced in Canada goes directly to the United States.
01:04:12
So we're actually, like, dependent on them. We're mainlining them for sure. Just like their Kit Kats.
01:04:17
Right. While most agricultural products from North America have become highly corporate and industrialized, maple syrup is still produced by a network of smaller producers.
01:04:26
It's like the people that you'd meet in, you know. Farmer's market? Yeah. Yeah. Like the farmer's market, like off the grid, the like, you know, they're wearing Crocs.
01:04:36
Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey there. Are you a Quebecois maple syrup farmer and you need some little dangly things for your Crocs?
01:04:45
Crocs? What if the croc was the official shoe of a maple syrup harvester? Yeah, and overalls too.
01:04:52
And so in Quebec, those producers, though, are unhappy. A lot of them are unhappy to have to play by the Federation's rules.
01:04:59
So they're regulated. It's like socialism, essentially. Yeah. So because maple syrup production is so central to the Quebecois identity,
01:05:07
maple syrup producers in Quebec are deeply divided on the role of the Federation.
01:05:12
The group has become more and more powerful since its origins in the 1950s, and now all sales of maple syrup from Quebec must go through them.
01:05:22
Which, like, I can understand why some people would be super pissed off about it, why some people would be supportive of it.
01:05:28
But it's really divided, and both sides are really passionate. Yeah. The idea that they're trying to self-preserve by basically uniting and then keeping out, like, commercial industry or whatever is a great idea.
01:05:41
But then it's like it usually always comes from within. Yeah. The money the money funnels through the Federation.
01:05:48
So if there is overage, it's not going to these producers. They getting the same amount of money every time for their maple syrup Yeah You know what I mean Like they can make more money off it So like it it just really regulated yeah and so actually the group has been described as a legal cartel like we talking like mafia at this point like a true federation exactly yeah and it controls how much
01:06:12
maple syrup can be sold in a given year wow so like they hold on to the excess so basically there's
01:06:19
like a secret uprising where they're like yes you're not the only ones yeah and it does keep
01:06:25
the prices stable right so like some people would have lost a ton of money and maybe not been able
01:06:29
to carry on with this job if that hadn't been in place although they would have had a lot of money
01:06:35
from the like the good years so who the fuck knows yeah so people who produce maple syrup
01:06:39
though generally don't do it as their only source of income because it's so seasonal i was gonna say
01:06:44
People probably don't do it for the money. Well, they would probably if they could make more money off of it.
01:06:50
Yeah, if they could control it. Some producers are happy with this system. The Federation insulates everyone against the factors they can't control, like weather and international competition.
01:06:59
Others feel like it's a monopoly and that it introduces many opportunities for corruption to enter the system.
01:07:04
Always. Always. Always. And that it stops independent producers from generating as much profit as they can from their trees.
01:07:10
So this has led to a black market, of course. Of maple syrup? Of maple syrup. There is a maple syrup black market.
01:07:20
Yes. And it's fueled by the producers who feel the Federation is unfairly regulating the sap in their own trees.
01:07:27
I feel like this would make more sense for some reason to me in Ireland. Like if they had Irish accents, it'd be like more charming somehow.
01:07:36
Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, that's your fucking family farm.
01:07:40
You could do whatever the fuck you want with your family farm. Yeah. Rise up. Although I think if you went to Quebec, you would get it.
01:07:48
Because it is very different. Yeah. It's, you know, I believe they're the ones that wanted to secede from the rest of Canada.
01:07:55
There's a real independent, you know, they're very different there and very much their own culture and their own kind of thing.
01:08:03
Well, I'd love to get to know it intimately within the next year for the rest of my life.
01:08:07
So I'm trying really hard not to piss them off. Okay, good idea. Let's not do anything.
01:08:11
And let's also do everything we can to get them as a city to invite us and put us up at a really nice hotel.
01:08:18
Yeah. For the rest of our lives. Eat waffles and then taste maple syrup. I don't want to be here anymore.
01:08:24
Oh, I see. You're trying to escape. Yes. Got it. Can I have a visa? Okay. Producers who sell on the black market will sell to a person known.
01:08:33
They're called barrel rollers. Basically a fence for black market maple syrup. Wow.
01:08:38
Uh-huh. And it's led to a longstanding bitter tension between the Federation and its supporters and anti-Federation producers.
01:08:46
Doesn't that sound like an Irish thing? Well, yes. But really quick, I was going to say, so you are in the market for some black market maple syrup.
01:08:56
Where are you meeting that fence? In the forest? Online. Oh, to pick up their actual product?
01:09:03
Wouldn't the forest be the worst place to meet? Because that's where the, that's the source?
01:09:07
I think it's already barreled. Oh, so maybe you just go down to like a dress as a longshoreman and go down to like the.
01:09:14
Yeah. What's that one place we love? Oh, Cracker Barrel. We go down to the Buc-ee's.
01:09:17
The Buc-ee's parking lot. Or Cracker Barrel. Buc-ee's parking lot. They offload some fucking black market maple syrup.
01:09:23
Got it. You know, I have a Buc-ee's bathing suit right now. What? Yeah. It's got Buc-ee's shit all over it.
01:09:28
Where'd you get it? My friend Crystal got it for me in Texas. Buc-ee girl summer.
01:09:34
Nice. Okay. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Okay. So in Dirty Money, a regional federation leader says that in 2000, when the federation was introducing more regulations, which nobody fucking liked, he was tapping maple trees and looked up to see an unusual amount of smoke coming from his sugar shack.
01:09:52
And it turns out that it was a fire. And this was the first in a string of fires, all which targeted federation leaderships.
01:10:00
So shit started to get ugly between the two. It was a revolt. Yeah, exactly. And of course, this theft that happened, we're back here, is serious and it could have actual widespread economic impacts, which is adorable.
01:10:13
When the news comes out, one headline, it's also funny, you know, people can't take it fucking seriously, even though it's a ton of money.
01:10:18
When the news comes out, one headline reads, quote, maple syrup heist puts industry in a sticky spot, which I appreciate.
01:10:26
They just got to. Yeah. It does sound silly at first because it's maple syrup, but this is the biggest heist in Quebec history.
01:10:33
Oh, wow. Like, period. They do have art there. Take some art, friends. It's way less messy.
01:10:42
They're like, nope, that's not what we care about here. About 250 people are assigned to the investigation.
01:10:49
Oh, shit. That's a humongous task force. That's a big task force. We have murderers, people.
01:10:55
The warehouse has no security cameras and only one dedicated security guard. He only comes by to check once a day.
01:11:01
He keeps licking his fingers. Part of the reason for this is that it's a temporary facility that the Federation is renting while it builds its own storage facility, which will have better security.
01:11:12
So in the meantime, it's like not secure. They're building that facility under the Denver airport.
01:11:17
Oh, my God. Very secret. And there's just fucking bears. Like bears are the security guards prowling brown bears.
01:11:24
Yep. Do it. You did a swipe. I saw your swipe. I was going to do a thing, but then I wanted to ask, do bears like maple syrup?
01:11:30
Or they're like, it's no honey. Am I thinking of? Yeah. You know what? I'm thinking of Winnie the Pooh.
01:11:35
That's not the same thing. No. So fairly quickly, they winnow down the potential suspects to a smaller group.
01:11:42
Given the volume of syrup that's been stolen, investigators believe whoever did this would
01:11:46
need to know the maple syrup industry. Obviously, it's a very small world. The people who don't like the Federation have not been quiet about it, which is kind of dumb.
01:11:54
They were all like protesting and shit. Yeah. Like you should have been like in the background being quiet because they know your fucking
01:11:59
name now. Well, but that also makes them like a good scapegoat. Right. Right. So there's this group of people who the Federation knows to have ties to the black market, though many of them would never think about stealing a vast quantity of syrup that doesn't belong to them because they're Canadian.
01:12:15
And so they're trustworthy. They're just like, everyone's really nice. So almost right from the start, the Federation suspects a man named Richard Valliere.
01:12:24
Richard Valliere? There's an umlaut. No, there's not. What's the thing called? Accent aigu.
01:12:31
Accent grave. It's V-A-L-L-I-E with a thing on top. R-E-S. Give me that. Oh, yeah, that's an accent.
01:12:39
Either, I can't remember which direction. I really love taking French in high school.
01:12:44
I did it a couple times. I'm proud of you. Richard Valliere. Richard Valliere. There you go.
01:12:49
He's the barrel roller, so he's one of the black market buyers in Quebec. He's like one of the best known.
01:12:56
He would be played, if you saw him, he'd be played actually by a Gallagher brother from Oasis who ate a lot of syrup.
01:13:04
Okay. That's what he looks like. One of the beefier Gallagher brothers. Yeah. So his family has produced maple syrup for generations, and he's one of those producers who does not want the Federation in his business.
01:13:14
He has taken this to more of an extreme in the past, moving syrup through unofficial channels at higher volume than anyone else.
01:13:22
So clearly they're like, hey, Richard. We know this is your, yeah. Your sticky fingerprints are all over this.
01:13:30
Your sticky finger, you love this crime. You keep going back for more. When investigators examine the warehouse, they find footprints, fingerprints, and scratches on the barrels.
01:13:40
The Federation always uses one specific forklift to move the barrels around because it doesn't leave any marks.
01:13:44
But the investigators find that the empty and doctored barrels have dents on the side from a different forklift.
01:13:49
So this leads them to believe that the barrels were taken to a different location, siphoned, then brought back and replaced.
01:13:57
And this turns out to be their break. They narrow down the type of forklift. What the fuck?
01:14:01
Like that's great detective work, right? Well, that's Quebecois for you. Quebecois.
01:14:07
Quebecois. That is great. They narrow down the type of forklift that would have left those dents.
01:14:12
So brilliant. And they go around to businesses that rent out heavy machinery and see if they carry that type of forklift.
01:14:18
Like that's fucking, you know. Then they look at the names of the people who rented those.
01:14:24
And one of them is a person they're aware of having ties to the maple syrup black market, though it's not Richard.
01:14:30
No. When authorities question him, this man claims to have transported barrels of syrup.
01:14:34
But he says he had no idea they were stolen. So he's like, yeah, I did that. But, oh.
01:14:40
And this doesn't really jive with his name being on the forklift rental records.
01:14:44
But they get the idea that he's just one of a group that conspired to do this. It's unclear how much he really knows, but he does appear to be the connection point between Richard Valliere and another man.
01:14:57
So he's the middleman between Richard Valliere and another man named Avic Caron.
01:15:02
Avic Caron. Avic Caron, who owns the rented warehouse where the Federation is storing the syrup, where they're like doing it temporarily.
01:15:10
Yeah. He owns that fucking place. Oh, it's an inside job. It might be an inside job.
01:15:14
He is played, in my mind, by a Wilson brother. Oh, okay. Who ate a lot of syrup.
01:15:20
Yes. Here's the thing. Up there is very far north. Yeah. No reason to be skinny up there.
01:15:26
Absolutely not. It's not appealing. Insulation. It benefits no one. It turns out Avik has a bit of a checkered past and some possible ties to our friend organized crime.
01:15:39
Oh, yeah. Okay. It also seems like stealing the syrup might have been his idea to begin with.
01:15:45
And then he asks his truck driver acquaintance to introduce him to this poor guy, Richard, who was like, all right, whatever that sounds like in Canadian.
01:15:56
Investigators eventually figure out that the three men met at a truck stop in 2011.
01:16:01
And shortly after the meeting, the thefts began. So it was like these three main dudes.
01:16:04
Here's the thing, though. I think it started before that. Eveke and some of the other growers, tappers, whatever you call them, super drunk in a bar one night.
01:16:14
Oh, yeah. Complaining. Yeah. Pissing. Like fucking Irish people. Stop bringing us into this.
01:16:21
We didn't do this one. Okay, sorry. But doesn't that sound like, you know what we should do?
01:16:25
That just sounds like a drunk idea. You know it would be great. You know it would really fuck them over.
01:16:29
And if we met at a Buc-ee's and we fucking all came together. There's a circle around the word Buc-ee's.
01:16:35
You're just really trying to get Buc-ee's in there. I really am. So investigators learned that the group led by Avik and Richard started out by making hundreds of dummy barrels.
01:16:45
They painted the same shade of white, fake labels. Basically, they took the real barrels.
01:16:50
They replaced them with the dummy barrels. Then the real barrels were taken truckload at a time.
01:16:55
They were siphoned and then brought back and switched out. You get it. Richard oversaw the sale of the stolen maple syrup, mostly to a licensed maple syrup exporter, a.k.a. like maybe a barreler based in New Brunswick named Etienne Saint-Pierre.
01:17:13
Etienne Saint-Pierre. Who looks like Michael Caine if he ate a lot of syrup. However he also has zaddy vibes which begs the question is he a sugar daddy Oh get it Because of maple syrup Oh sugar daddy Sugar daddy You know what I saying Yeah Is he single
01:17:30
Yeah. He's got those vibes. Like there's something like you'd go to like really fancy parties with him.
01:17:35
Hell yeah. So he's discovering that he might be one of the minds behind. Is that what you're saying?
01:17:39
He's the person who's like willing to take this maple syrup that isn't sent from the Federation.
01:17:46
You know what I mean? And like, I think a lot of people who are buyers in the U.S. would be like, it's not from the Federation.
01:17:51
I know this is like. There's something going on. Yeah. But he was like, I'll take it.
01:17:54
Yeah. And he had a history of working with the producers in Quebec who wanted to circumvent the Federation.
01:17:59
So he was like their guy. So it does result in fines when he does stuff like that to the producers.
01:18:05
But he's in the U.S. So it's not actually illegal for him to do that. Right. Technically.
01:18:10
Still, the Federation has in its past sent him threatening letters telling him to stop buying Quebec maple syrup directly from sellers.
01:18:16
They're just like trying to like, you know, shake a fist in his maple syrup face.
01:18:21
One of the times this happened, his second in command faxed him a handwritten response that said, quote, fuck you, gang of a-holes.
01:18:29
Ha ha. We will keep buying maple syrup forever. End quote. And that's when Karen fell in love.
01:18:37
Because first of all, didn't you say he faxed that? He faxed it. What a badass. Yeah.
01:18:43
What a punk rocker that's just like, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. It's all like smeared.
01:18:51
Oh, that's a printer. But in this case, the syrup is stolen, so it is illegal. Although Etienne maintains that he has no idea where this, he didn't know it was stolen.
01:19:01
After buying it from Richard, he then sold the syrup to buyers in the U.S., Germany, and Japan.
01:19:07
There's just a guy standing there with an IHOP shirt on that's just like, I'll take 20 gallons.
01:19:12
Exactly. I mean, I would buy it. They did this for over a year from August 2011 until the discovery in August 2012 from text messages from their burner phones.
01:19:22
It appears the group knew that the audit was about to happen, like they knew they were about to get caught.
01:19:27
In one text, the investigators uncover it's unclear from whom. Some suggest turning the lights down low in the warehouse to avoid the rust stains showing from the water.
01:19:37
Smart. And the forklift marks and empty barrels being detected. So they're like, what do we do?
01:19:41
And they're literally gaslighting these people. Yes. They go in there and just throw a red kerchief over the top like you do in college when you have this ugly lamp.
01:19:51
Nothing. Don't worry about this over here. Red kerchief. Prosecutors eventually charge 22 different people they say were involved in the operation.
01:20:00
But those three guys and the truck driver who testifies and gets immunity are the main players.
01:20:05
So 22 different people and really only four people it comes down to. Yeah. Pretty much everyone involved says they played a role in the selling of syrup outside the rules of the Federation, but they deny knowing that it was stolen.
01:20:17
That's it. Deny, deny, deny. Yeah, got to. Authorities visit Etienne, and he tells them about 700 to 800 barrels of the maple syrup in his storehouse came from Richard.
01:20:29
But again, he claims not to have known they were stolen from the Federation, but still the entire operation is shut down, which is like, come on.
01:20:36
I'm just wondering how you get into the maple syrup trade where you as an individual, as Etienne, has his own storehouse of 600 barrels.
01:20:46
You're not tapping and you're not eating. And you're the middle man. You're certainly not the fucking Federation.
01:20:50
You're certainly not. So who are you with your 600 barrels? A fair amount, which actually came from legitimate sources in Canada, is seized.
01:20:58
So goodbye to that sugar daddy business. Yeah, because those investigators are like, I guess we have to take all this maple syrup for ourselves.
01:21:06
You can't like taste one and taste the other and be like, that's from this side and that's from this side because they're all the same.
01:21:12
In the end, it's Etienne Saint-Pérez, Évec Caron, and Richard Valliere who are prosecuted and to a lesser extent Richard's father who was found guilty of possession of stolen goods.
01:21:24
Oh. Because he was like, give me a barrel while we're at it. I know. I wonder if he's like, that guy just was like, hey, dad, I have to put some stuff in your garage for a while.
01:21:32
That would suck. Your kids are just leaving shit at your house constantly. Yeah.
01:21:36
Does your dad do the thing where, like, my mom keeps bringing me, like, boxes of things she saved of, like, stuff that I don't want of my childhood?
01:21:43
Oh, you don't what? You don't want it? No. It's embarrassing. That's literally my dream.
01:21:49
My mom used to be like, the second my sister and I moved out, she's like, you better come and get this stuff you left in your room.
01:21:55
I'm like, it's an office no one uses. Could I have a shelf? And the answer was flatly no.
01:22:01
Did she throw it away? Yeah. Do you want mine? You can have my report cards. You're welcome to them and badly written stories.
01:22:08
I want school pictures with super fucked up bangs. That's what I'm looking for. Aw.
01:22:14
They're out there in a thrift store somewhere and some Instagram influencer who's into found property is going to be like, does anyone know who this is?
01:22:21
Who is this? I found her home family album. We used to actually do that when we'd go to thrift stores, find pictures of people in frames.
01:22:28
Yeah. And we'd be like, I got to take this one. She's so sad. I have a couple from estate sales where it's like, I love her.
01:22:32
There was one I loved, but like there was a matching one that was her sister that wasn't as cool.
01:22:36
So I was like, I can't separate them. That's right. So I have both sisters displayed in my house.
01:22:42
Nice. Etienne is found guilty of possession of stolen goods with intent to traffic It maple syrup people not cocaine Trafficking maple syrup Trafficking maple You just making waffle eaters everywhere happy
01:22:55
Are you the hero of the prison yard or the fucking like bottom of the barrel? Hey.
01:23:01
Hey. Or do you work in the kitchen? Hey. Hey. Hey. He's sentenced in 2016 to two years of house arrest, nevermind, and fined a little over
01:23:11
a million Canadian dollars. With currency conversion and inflation, that works out to be about the same.
01:23:17
Oh. One million in 2024 US dollars. Avic pleads guilty and is sentenced to five years in prison
01:23:24
and fined $1.2 million. Richard is found guilty of theft, fraud, and receiving stolen goods and is sentenced in 2017
01:23:31
to eight years in jail. Shit. And fined $9.4 million Canadian and probably US dollars.
01:23:38
I mean, that's where this story gets serious. It's like, it's all fun and games until they actually prosecute these people.
01:23:45
And then it's like, it's big money. Yeah, it's big money. It's big against the law.
01:23:50
It's like, that's their, don't mess with that. No. Anti-Federation producers are still quite sympathetic to this poor Richard guy.
01:23:58
One says, quote, I think he got carried away. End quote. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did.
01:24:04
That night at the bar, just. Hey, we should do. At the time of the heist, maple syrup producers worried that the market will be flooded with black market syrup and that this will lower the price, causing instability in the world of maple syrup production.
01:24:20
In the end, it doesn't happen. The Federation has moved its global strategic maple syrup reserve, don't call it anything else, to three new facilities.
01:24:28
The Globe and Mail reports that one of the new warehouses, quote, is protected by a security system said to rival that of a commercial bank, which means much more is going on than the motion detectors and electronic access panels you can see with the naked eye.
01:24:47
The windows have handles but do not open. Alarms will go off if anyone enters the building outside business hours, even employees.
01:24:55
Cameras are everywhere. It is not quite Fort Knox, but it is a variable citadel of sap, end quote.
01:25:02
Hell yes. Can I tell you something that happened recently? Sure. So we are setting our alarms at night now, you know, and Mo is a fucking just bad cat,
01:25:09
and he knocked a full glass jar of honey onto the floor in the kitchen, and our glass break sensors alarm went off.
01:25:18
Oh. So we know that works. Similar, right? Yes. So, like, very similar. Thank you, Mo.
01:25:25
Good job. You tested it out. Good boy. I like the idea that they basically have three locations now.
01:25:31
Because if you can get into one, that doesn't mean you can get into the other. Don't put it all in one spot. Are you crazy?
01:25:36
No. In 2013, it was announced that a Seth Gordon-directed dramedy about the heist signed on Jason Segel, he's super tall, as the lead.
01:25:49
But there haven't been any updates since then. But that was when you were talking about, like, this is writing itself.
01:25:54
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it did. Yes, it did actually. It maybe did or it got dismissed or like nobody followed through.
01:25:59
Right. Or maybe the Federation shut it down. Holy shit, it goes all the way. They won't have anyone do anything.
01:26:08
So $10,000 right now, Karen. To the GoFundMe to make that movie. And that is the story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist.
01:26:20
I feel like it's not so, I feel like unresolved feelings. Yeah. What did you want?
01:26:26
I wanted to know that the maple syrup would be safe. I also wanted to believe in the Federation, but I don't believe in the Federation.
01:26:34
I think I'm on the side of the black market revolters. Sure. Only because sometimes it's like they've decided they've got all these barrels.
01:26:45
And they're like, now they're like little... Puppet masters. Little gremlins over their gold where they don't want anyone to touch it.
01:26:52
And then it's just like, is this what's best? Or is it just like trying to hold on to your maple syrup gold?
01:26:58
Like what if Exactly Right Media wanted to get into the maple syrup business for two fucking hard years and make a shit ton of money and turn around and get the fuck out?
01:27:05
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. And like leave it. Let's do it. And it blaze of glory.
01:27:08
We can't because the Federation is there. Oh. You know what I'm saying? Fuck. So it's still going to be like whatever dollars a gallon.
01:27:13
What are we supposed to do then? I don't know. I don't know. This podcast thing isn't working out great.
01:27:18
We've got to get into a different condiment. What about mustard? Is there a mustard?
01:27:23
Mustard. That's what it is. That's the ticket. Mustard. Mustard. That was delightful.
01:27:31
Thank you. I didn't know we had more maple syrup stories to tell, and we do. It turns out, I mean, it's an endless array of stories to tell.
01:27:39
The only thing that would have made that story better, because it was really great,
01:27:42
was if there was a way you could fold in like a corn dog element to it. Oh. Something.
01:27:49
Corn dogs. There's just no way. I know. I mean, I guess you could dip. I bet at the maple syrup festival that we should
01:27:56
go to whenever in Quebec this year, there's gotta be one. We should go. Well, you know what it is. Go up there when they tap. Get it at the source.
01:28:06
Just like open your mouth and fucking turn the dial. Yeah or like I do it like cherry picking where you like fine I I pick it yourself I do it I turn the tap or whatever They can let tourists from America tap There a maple syrup festival You know it
01:28:20
And I bet there's a corn dog with like bits of maple syrup throughout the corn. Yes.
01:28:24
Batter. Yes. And if there isn't, then Exactly Right Media. For a man's copyright.
01:28:30
It's our idea. It's our idea. That's right. Go to exactlyrightmedia.com. Dot gov.
01:28:36
For more info. And type in the Federation and fill out your application to join.
01:28:42
Ooh, yeah. All right. Shall we? Well, we shall. We shall get out. We're going to get out by reading you guys, what are you even doing right now?
01:28:51
Which is our new ending of like you telling us what you're doing while listening to this podcast, which we love.
01:28:56
We've gotten some great answers. God, can you imagine if somewhere, somewhere in those replies, there's someone saying, I am tapping maple syrup as we speak.
01:29:06
We need comments on our Instagram and TikTok. Yes, we have them both of the maple syrup people.
01:29:12
And are you for or against the Federation? Let us know. Fight about it. We have nothing to do with it.
01:29:17
Don't come at us. That'll be our big distraction before the 2024 election. Quebec, we'll see you soon.
01:29:25
Okay. Hashtag, what are you even doing right now? This is from our Instagram. This is from Cinder Eric.
01:29:33
Cinder Eric. After dragging my feet all week, your podcast was the neural engagement.
01:29:38
I needed to go through my closet and decide what I was donating and what I was bringing across the country with me this summer when I moved to New Mexico to pursue an MFA in dramatic writing.
01:29:49
Wow. Yeah. Wow. I know. Get it. Get it, Cindereric. Get your life, Cindereric. I say that now because I landed on the mini set.
01:29:58
Go get your life. Well, this is an Instagram message from Felicia Combs, who has a little blue checkmark.
01:30:06
And it says, hashtag, what are you even doing right now? I'm unpacking and doing loads of laundry from traveling to cover tropical storm Alberto.
01:30:13
I work for the Weather Channel and I stand in storms on TV. I've listened to you two for years and you're my comfort podcast.
01:30:20
I'm always listening as I'm getting ready to go stand in blizzards, hurricanes, et cetera, et cetera.
01:30:25
I love it when you have weather included in your stories. there's a whole group of weatherinos out there.
01:30:31
I love it. Really? Yes. It's those people you see on those things and they're being blown away by the thing.
01:30:38
Oh, that's amazing. Weatherinos. I've actually, there's been a couple weather forecasters.
01:30:44
I'm sure there's a name that I should be saying and I don't know it, like massage therapists.
01:30:48
Yeah. Weather people. Wait, wait, I know what it is. Meteorologists. Goddammit. You got it.
01:30:53
I've seen them talking on social media before. Oh, thanks, guys. You're so smart.
01:31:00
Well, we just stood in a storm. That was this podcast, didn't we? It's a fiery, fiery beast.
01:31:07
And we counted down in five, four, three, two, and stay sexy. And don't get murdered.
01:31:13
Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:31:25
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.
01:31:30
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Allie Elkin.
01:31:38
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritemurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.
01:31:46
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