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Today's reading is entirely crime, fraud, and the remarkable things people convince themselves they can get away with.
A New York photographer ran an elaborate multi-victim rental scam from his Chelsea loft, collecting deposits from dozens of strangers until two separate couples arrived on the same day to move into the same apartment. (2013)
A North Carolina woman promised free drug rehab to desperate people and delivered unpaid 16-hour workdays at elder care homes, exotic animals, and screaming therapy sessions while four state agencies looked away. (2018)
A beloved small-town Kansas banker wired $47 million of his neighbors' money to overseas crypto scammers after a stranger named Bella found him on social media, destroying a community institution his town had built from scratch.
A trove of emails revealed how the New Orleans Saints' communications team lobbied newspaper editors, coached the city's archbishop, and may have helped shape which accused clergy names made it onto a public abuser list.
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The New Yorker
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Tad Friend
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A Manhattan photographer named Michael Tammaro spent years renting his Chelsea loft to multiple tenants simultaneously, collecting deposits and first-months' rent from dozens of people who never got to move in. He cycled through an elaborate set of delays and fabricated tragedies including a father's recurring death, a mother's stroke, and a fall from scaffolding at the London Olympics. By the time police caught up with him, 45 victims had lost at least $192,000 combined. The scam only unraveled when two separate couples arrived to move in on the same day.
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Reveal
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Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter
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Jennifer Warren promised free drug rehabilitation to people with nowhere else to turn, many of them sent by courts as an alternative to prison. Once they arrived at her North Carolina program, Recovery Connections Community, she put them to work 16 hours a day at adult care homes for the elderly, keeping their wages for herself. She used their food stamps, siphoned donated goods meant for participants, and spent program funds on exotic animals while clients ate ramen. At least seven workers were accused of assaulting patients. Four state agencies repeatedly ignored complaints until journalists asked why.
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The New York Times
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David Yaffe-Bellany
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Shan Hanes was a trusted pillar of Elkhart, Kansas, a part-time preacher who ran the town's beloved community bank for years. Starting in late 2022, he was drawn into a pig-butchering scam by strangers he met online, ultimately wiring $47.1 million of Heartland Tri-State Bank's money to overseas crypto accounts before the scheme collapsed. Shareholders lost retirement savings. The bank shuttered. A federal judge sentenced Hanes to nearly 25 years in prison. He told the court he believed until the very end that he was involved in a legitimate deal.
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The Guardian
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Ramon Antonio Vargas and David Hammer
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More than 300 emails show that senior executives from the NFL's New Orleans Saints and NBA's Pelicans ran a sustained influence campaign to protect the city's Catholic archdiocese during its clergy sex abuse crisis. The teams' communications chief drafted talking points for the archbishop, lobbied newspaper editors to soften their coverage, and coordinated a radio interview using questions the church had pre-submitted. One email states that a call with the local district attorney "allowed us to take certain people off" the abuser list, a claim all parties deny. The archdiocese later filed for bankruptcy with more than 500 abuse claims pending.
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