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hey it's your boy Mike The Situation Santino welcome to statute of limitations it's the ultimate lineup
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it's Cooks this is not my fault that I stole this car it's conman this is my
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chance I can be rich for life it's w to be King Pins we all made together $500,000 and queen pins it was basically
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a lounge of criminals these are stories of the non-violent lucky punks and Robin hoods
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that Dodge the law I could have gone to prison not jail prison because here's
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the situation baby it's only a matter of time before the statute of limitations
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is up and technically you might walk away Scot free but don't take her from me me guys I'm obviously no lawyer this
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is statute of limitations what's up guys I'm Mike situation stino were charging ahead with
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two people who waited long enough time to talk about their incredible crimes if you were in Iowa a few decades back you
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may have seen Bob you know the guy with the giant toothbrush who passed overhead
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and Pablo a man who stole from stores using his own checkbook all right this one comes from a guy in Iowa with a
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taste for Mischief the prank toothbrush hey y for stealing this guys it's a mouthful meet
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Bob my name is Bob and back in the80s I created the ultimate crime in stealing the Gentle Dental
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toothbrush CP is back in the ' 80s growing up was a great City kind of a really good workingman town a lot of uh
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industry there I love to fast motorcycles and fast cars everyone knew me as kind of an adrenaline junkie kind
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of one to always like to push the envelope outside the city was a lot of rural Farmland so it's kind of known for
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its agriculture a lot of corn fields I love to hot air balloon that was always a big thrill for me if someone says hey
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let's do it I was the first one in line I was ready to go I was wanted to be the
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lead dog and so there's always something to do on Cedar Rapids and when I say
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something do something mischievous drinking who didn't love to drink all of my friends and I would
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always get together whoever had the best Happy Hour in town kind of told some of
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the things we did for the week some of the things we were having planned for the weekend and what trouble we could
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get into we came out of our favorite bar one night and that time we saw a new dental office went in across the street
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called Gentle Dental and looked up and couldn't believe our eyes they had like
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a giant toothbrush above the door I mean it was massive from across the street and we're thinking how cool is that and
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so instantly I'm thinking in the back of my mind how cool is that to take each week we'd go by and I'd walk
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out of that place and I'm like kind of mesmerized with it every time I saw this
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toothbrush it was like calling me to just take me and I think I must have you a couple of my friends said hey what are
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you planning you got that look in your eye and I said well you know that toothbrush would beat any road sign in
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my garage I think that would be a great souvenir as we're sitting there talking
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about that shooting some pool throwing back some shots like we normally do back on a Friday night we all thought man
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this is our next big act so the general dental office on First Avenue which was one of the main
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thorough fares in Cedar raid was a converted house twostory into a Beautiful dental office surrounded by
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bushes with a giant toothbrush right there so as I'm kind of going in there and doing some Recon during the day I I
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knew one time you know I could get by with maybe not uh being noticed the second time I knew it was going to take
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a little more planning I'm going to have to kind of go in and scope out the inside kind of see how the laid out is
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so I went in there and acting like I wanted to be a new patient what some of the requirements are but I'm really
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there kind of scoping out the inside seeing by chance if there's anything hooked on the inside of the building
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that's holding that toothbrush up there I noticed it was sitting on a post that kind of maneuvered over to an L
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bracket and it was wired to both so I knew I'd have to cut it free from the post and at that point cut it free from
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the L bracket I was going to need some wire cutters and I was thinking maybe more like bolt cutters cuz I I couldn't
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tell what gauge the wire was it was way above the anything that I could reach so
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I knew it was going to take at least a step ladder of some sort and that's when
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I knew this is more than a onep person job I need calling a couple of my friends that I knew I could trust I
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could keep a secret so as we're planning this out I have a bar napkin and I'm writing
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everything down step by step pickup truck big tarp bolt cutters everything that we need for this Caper I knew I had
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to keep this kind of really low on the radar you know it took me a few weeks to kind of see the traffic flow at night
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what was going on being one of the busiest streets in Cedar Rapids and right across from one of the busiest
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bars was going to create a challenge I'm thinking okay I'm kind of a little nervous I'm like are these guys
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going to show up I'm like I don't know I've never done anything this big before
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are we doing the right thing and sure enough once they showed up I'm like okay
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there's no turning back now it's on at that time we were all kind of in hot air
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ballooning so you know our plan was get the toothbrush get it loaded up in the pickup and then take it to a place
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around 6:00 in the morning for our usual morning launch put it in the hot a balloon bring the balloon down we pack
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up and take off so they're again all amped ready to go all primed and here he
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comes and Billy rolls up up and I'm was hoping he's had his dad's pickup well he
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doesn't he rolls up in his small little car and I'm like what are you doing with
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this small car you knew what we needed and he was saying hey he couldn't get it
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this is all he could get and I knew at that point plans have changed now we have to figure a new way to make this
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thing fit cuz it's almost bigger than the car itself we kind of come rolling
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around the corner of the dental office and at that point I have a little step ladder we throw it down have the bull
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Cutters I jump up on the step ladder clip it off the post the first time and and then as we take the little step lat
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over to the other one realizing the angle at this there's no way I can even reach it Billy you're going to have to
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boost me I need some help we can't reach this thing and I kind of BRAC myself
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against the house and he's a little shaky so our other friend quickly comes in helps me boost knowing that we have
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to get this done quick and as we're doing it's still kind of shaky up there
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but I get up there and as I clip that thing that toothbrush comes swinging down and caught Billy in the rips I
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can't even hold on anymore so it basically takes us all out so the truth bu crashed to the ground around didn't
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even realize it hit Billy cuz everything happened so fast and this dental office
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like I said is a converted two-story house in the middle of a residential neighborhood on a busy thoroughfare so
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immediately a couple of lights come on and we're like oh crap what do we do now
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and at that point we're just picking this thing up you know and he's just
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complaining that a you know toothbrush hit him and we're trying to carry this
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thing out of there as fast as we can so as we loaded this toothbrush up realizing it's way bigger than the
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vehicle we had and it's sticking out we didn't know what to do so we covering
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this thing the best we can and this is probably now about oh 5 5:15 in the morning we knew our first few rows we
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had to drive down was First Avenue which is our busy intersection so we were on that for just a for a few blocks until
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we could get onto the back roads and then we knew it was a much safer and cleaner
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getaway so as we're going down the back roads all of a sudden the car has engine
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problems and I'm thinking no way are you kidding me right here and we're getting
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close to where we have to be for our hot air balloon launch we limp this thing along as far as we can until we couldn't
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go any further and we knew we were still pretty close so at that point we had to
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take the toothbrush out and leg it the rest of the way okay so as we show up to the field
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to get ready to launch this balloon they look at just like what are you doing with that toothbrush I said hey we have
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a new passenger it wants to take a ride with you so at that point we put the toothbrush in the balloon and off we
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go we're just kind of sailing just a beautiful morning just floating just effortlessly having the toothbrush TST
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us pilot and I are just laughing thinking oh my God what a great story this is going to be and I'm kind of
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telling him how we pulled this off and talking about that he's wanted me to tell him every detail how this
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happened and so we're really not paying attention and next thing you know off
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one of these small country roads we kind of look in front of us and realize some
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power lines coming up he's trying to what we call burn which is to get heat into the balloon to raise it quick
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enough but realizing we're not going to do it in time and we see these wires we
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know we're going to clip them dude if you're headed for some power lines with a giant toothbrush does
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that mean you're about to have a big electric toothbrush sounds like a risky
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situation now we all know he lived otherwise he wouldn't be here to tell the story but it was close we've got the
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shocking conclusion of Bob's Story coming up next on statute of limitations welcome back guys to statute
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of limitations where our boy Bob just stole a giant toothbrush and he's making
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his getaway in a hot air balloon of all things he's headed straight for some
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power lines this definitely not a good situation he's about to have a brush with death literally just watch
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this he's trying to what we call burn which is to get heat into the balloon to
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raise it quick enough but realizing we're not going to to do it in time and we see these wires we know we're going
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to clip them we're bracing to hit these wires so the bottom of the basket catches these
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wires going through and if you've ever seen power lines you just snap there's
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just a huge electrical charge that goes through it so you can just see some of the Sparks going through and at that
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time we knew we got to get this balloon down quick not only do we crash with some power lines but I have a stolen
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toothbrush with me on top of it and then the pilot says to me I'm not going to
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jail for this so let's get this thing packed up and out of here the chase crew
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comes up immediately after we set the balloon down we knew we had to get that out of there quickly so we load that
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envelope up into the big bag we have and then we load the bask up in the back of
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the trailer and we're out of there in under 10 minutes so after we get home and I have
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this toothbrush and it's new happy home which is my garage loving this thing
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thinking oh man this is going to be a great at parties to show all my friends man it was fantastic and then later that
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next day not thinking you know there's going to be a lot of press surrounding
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this we think okay it's kind of just kind of a fun crime not a big deal well
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it's on the news it's in the newspapers it's all over that someone stole the
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toothbrush and I'm thinking holy crap what's going to happen now so I called
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all my friends and said hey this is all over the thing more than we expected you
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need to keep this thing completely quiet and not talk about this at all I immediately put it up in the attic in my
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garage and cover it up up there because I don't want anyone to get in my garage
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by accident and see this toothbrush so as days went on and still the press is all over this toothbrush
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story now there's a reward for it and it was for a couple thousand I mean so I'm
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thinking how much is this toothbrush really worth everyone's looking for this
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toothbrush people already know I'm a troublemaker I'm thinking I got to get
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rid of this thing and so I'm kind of a nervous selly now thinking where am I
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going to ditch this thing how am I going to get rid of it what's going to happen
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I could trust the balloon people but my two friends that help me with the heist one of them man he just loved to brag so
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anything that he can make himself sound better he loved especially to the girls and at the bar so I'm thinking I got to
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cut this guy off because he could ruin it for all of us so we had to sit him down one night and say Billy you cannot
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say a word of this so we talked about this thing and got a plan to get rid of this
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toothbrush I did some quick Recon over the next couple of days thinking okay where are we going to dump this
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toothbrush that someone's going to find it and yet we can leave it and no one's
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going to see us leave it so my friend show up to help me get this thing out of my garage he brings his dad's pickup
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this time which that definitely f toothbrush so much better we load this thing into the pickup cover it back up
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early morning we drive to this parking lot that I have all set up ready to go carry this thing out of there lug it
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through the parking lot and set it down and we just jump back in the truck that the next morning when people showed up
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for work they're definitely going to see this toothbrush and at that point the
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toothbrush has returned and I'm off the hook still a little nervous but we're
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already hearing on the radio and people talking that the toothbrush has been found and everyone's happy and we're
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thinking to ourselves thank goodness and within days it was mounted back over the
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the dental office where we took it from and we're thinking no harm no foul but
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what a great story so with years gone by now the dental office is no longer there
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and my friends and I haven't talked about it since matter of fact they don't
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even know I'm here thanks to the statue of limitations I can talk about this now
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it's time to let people know who really pulled the great toothbrush Caper that
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was me now if you ask me if you steal a giant toothbrush you're just begging for
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a cavity search now that may be a good situation or a bad situation depending on who you are but in the end Bob was
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able to avoid the law long enough to make a clean getaway and share his story with us now as we're about to see back
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in the good old days it was a whole lot easier to commit fraud especially writing bad checks here's a story of a
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guy who is willing to take that that chance meet Pablo hi my name is Pablo and the story I'm going to tell you is
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about fraud and Larsen that I committed way back in my 20s when I was young and stupid but now the statute of
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limitations is up so I can tell it to you here's what happened now I live in Los Angeles it
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was the late '70s was the Christmas season shopping and exchanging money in stores was much more casual before every
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everything was scanned and they had scanner things on the doors of all the stores and all that people they used
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checks they Ed cash or they used a department store credit card so a friend of mine named Joey decided that we could
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get all of this stuff just by going into these stores and passing checks CU we called a bunch of these
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stores and we got prices on a lot of the items that we wanted so we started filling out the checks one by one
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$200 here $300 for something else almost a complete checkbook folder of my checks my name signed by Joey
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technically turning them into forgeries that way we could go to each store and very quickly just hand the
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check to the clerk saying oh yes we called ahead and we had the item reserved right here could you just pick
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it up for us and we'll be on our way they didn't ask any questions because
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they were too busy it was the Christmas season but then Joey comes up with this wild idea he thought why don't we take
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this somewhere else where we could get even more we could maybe go to a spa or we could maybe go to a nice dinner or
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something so we decided to go to Vegas and we'll really have a great time so
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that's that's exactly what we did we had all of these stores marked and a route
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to go through the city stereo equipment camera equipment jewelry all different kinds of stores mostly department stores
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cuz they had such a variety of stuff I mean at the sporting goods store I bought cleats and things for my nephews
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and I don't like sports I wasn't going to use any of this crap and Joey was even grabbing stuff
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off the racks as we would leave with no scanners no beeps no problem and then we thought wait a minute something
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happens down the road and the cops want to know where we were then we've got to
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prove that we were only in La I remembered that a friend of mine was throwing a party that night 4 and 1 half
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hours back to LA to go to this party we let our friends see us we say hi to everybody we were there for maybe an
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hour or so then we got back in the car and drove all the way back to Vegas so we could continue our little shopping
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spree and then Monday after that weekend I took my ID and I tossed it make sure that it was not in my possession I
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called the police I called the bank my wallet was stolen somebody must have used it my checkbook was stolen and that
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was it and in case they were going to come and ask us about it or have to go with in and make a report in in person
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we thought okay we got to figure out that we were mugged how are we mugged we were beaten up somebody beat us up so we
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thought okay I got to hit you and Joey's got to hit me make it look like we were
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mug so I was about to hit Joey I pulled my arm back and I thought wait a minute is this
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going to hurt man it's one thing to hit to Department stor is and it's another
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thing to go and hit your boy damn was it the one two-piece I don't know let's
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take a swing at part two of Pablo's crime on statute of limitations next we're back guys with more statute
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of limitations our boy Pablo and his accomplice have been writing bad checks left and right now they need an alibi so
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they don't get popped at least by the police we thought okay we we got to figure out that we were mugged how are
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we mugged we were beaten up somebody beat us up so we thought okay make it look like we were mugged so I pulled my
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arm back and then he said no wait wait wait wait let's not let's not let's just
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leave it at a phone call only you know dumb guys in their 20s would think that beating each other up would prove
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anything this wasn't cool anymore I didn't feel like a badass I felt like a
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criminal and I just had this knot in my stomach all the time what if I get caught what if we get caught what's
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going to happen why in God's name did I try to pull something off like this but
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I had the perfect Alibi I started getting letters from all these stores because the checks were bouncing back
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from the bank after I closed my account and I started getting phone calls one store had me go into one of their
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offices and sign a form I had to sign it 20 times my name my signature 20 times to make sure that the signatures on the
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checks were forgeries then the real anxiety and fear started and I would go to sleep at night
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and sometimes wake up in a cold sweat Imagining the cops at the door ready to drag me off to jail I was just walking
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on eggshells wondering why the hell did I do this even though he had this great Alibi everything was coming at me joy
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was gone I felt like I was suffering all the punishment for this I was getting the letters and the calls from the
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stores you know I was the one who had to talk to the police and the bank and it was only the
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beginning I don't consider myself a religious person but I do believe in karma things started happening that made
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me think we weren't going to get caught by the police but some Force out there
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was going to take care of us within the first year or so things started disappearing the stuff that we
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had stolen something would break or something would go missing or I'd leave something somewhere except for a camera
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this really really cool camera and over the 12 or so years after we committed this crime it ended up that I was mugged
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four times in this town my hometown Karma that was the force behind it things like when I I was at an ATM
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one night took out 20 bucks stuck it in my pocket went back to my car and there was another car parked behind me and
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these three guys jump out of the car point a gun in my face and demand my briefcase or the time that I was just
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getting in my car and this car pulls up beside me asking for directions and the passenger guy jumps out starts pounding
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on my window until he kicks it in glass shatters everywhere he slipped and fell and I took off I mean insane stuff but
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karma so would I ever do something like this again act like a stupid kid who thought
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he was a badass it was enough I learned my lesson I wouldn't even consider something like that again even if I knew
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I could get away with it you know there's a statute of limitations with the legal system but the universe has no
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such thing they say that if you deserve it the universe will actually serve it eventually in this particular situation
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Karma was served and that's our show folks I'm Mike The Situation Santino
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reminding you don't do the crime if you can't hide for a crazy long time also
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being found guilty or feeling guilty are two different things especially if you got a Catholic mother like myself trust
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me be sure to check out some more stories of everyday folks confessing some crazy crimes
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later this program is for entertainment purposes only and it is not legal advice
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the statute of limitations are complicated and depend on many factors if you need advice you should seek legal
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counsel from a competent attorney in your [Music] jurisdiction [Music] yeah [Music]