PRETEND

This is the story of disgraced Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter.In order to understand Art Schlichter’s crimes, you first have to understand how his story ends. Anita Barney, heiress and widow of a former Wendy’s CEO, lost every single penny her husband left her. Art Schlichter and Anita BarneyHow did it happen? Art Schlichter gambled away her entire fortune. This episode was written and produced by Javier LeivaMusic by:Cylinder Eight by Chris ZabriskieCareless Morning, Bivly, Pxl Eventuat, Pxl Cray, Pxl Ultra by Blue Dot SessionsBittersweet, Pounded Piano by Podington BearNo More Trap by Audiobinger Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Warning, this episode may be disturbing for some listeners. It describes a shooting that resulted in the death of two people. While this story is not technically about a mass shooting, it has every characteristic of one. This is the story of Bryce Williams, the reporter who murdered Alison Parker and Adam Ward live on television. It turns out Bryce Williams is not his real name. Bryce Williams is just a pseudonym for his on air personality. The killer’s real name is Vester Flanagan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Karl comes from a long line of con men. He says both his grandfather and father were swindlers. It's only natural that Karl slipped into the family business.In today's episode, Karl talks about bribing corrupt company building managers. He says he sold them cheap light bulbs, trash can liners, and cleaning supplies at a premium price. In exchange for buying overpriced products, Karl would send these building managers gifts and cash. He made lots of money working as a B2B telemarketer. He eventually started his own company doing the same scheme. Karl admits that what he was doing was unethical, but surely it wasn't illegal. Finally, he got his answer when the FBI and the Postal Inspector's office showed with a subpoena.Jerri Williams, the FBI agent who busted him, says she could have locked him up right then and there—but she had bigger plans for Karl.----Special thanks to Jerri Williams for contributing her episode titled, "Karl LNU."This episode was written and produced by Javier Leiva and Jerri Williams.Subscribe to Pretend Radio:Apple Podcasts:tiny.cc/PretendApplePodcastGoogle Play:tiny.cc/PretendGooglePlay http://jerriwilliams.com/cooperating-witness-telemarketing-fraud/You can learn more about Jerri Williams at jerriwilliams.com---This episode includes promos from the following independent podcasts:-Maurer Glass Podcast-The Breakers Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Candis Cox and her husband Adam live in North Carolina. This is their love story. Their story is unremarkable in many ways. They met at a bar, went on a date, and eventually married after years of dating. What makes this story special is listening to them retell it. But love doesn’t come without sacrifice. This is a story about being your true self, even when the world is making you pretend to be someone else. The boy and the girl was written and produced by Javier Leiva and Wendy Gatlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last time, I spoke with a group of women who drink a bleach-type chemical that they claim cures everything from cancer to depression. I soon discovered that parents are forcefully giving bleach enemas to kids with autism. In this episode, I interview Kerri Rivera, the woman leading this movement, and find out why she thinks this chlorine dioxide treatment is the cure for autism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I stumbled upon a group of people who self-medicate with chlorine dioxide, a bleach like substance. They claim it cures everything from headaches, malaria, HIV, & cancer. In this episode, you'll hear from the man who discovered the "miracle cure" and from the people who take it. Thanks to Chris Cogswell w/ the Mad Scientist Podcast & Dr. Zuckerman with the TOXnow Podcast. toxnow.org/ themadscientistpodcast.com/ The Disgraceland Podcast disgracelandpod.libsyn.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mary Turner Thomas says she married a bigamist. She claims her husband, William Allen Jordan, was involved with 8 different women and fathered 13 kids. At one point, he had two wives, two fiances and a girlfriend on both sides of the Atlantic. William Allen Jordan and Mary Turner Thomson How in the world did Mary not know about these other relationships? How can one man pull off a con this big? It's easy to dismiss Mary as being naive. However, William Jordan was a skilled con man. Once you listen to how they met, and fell in love, it's easy to understand how he could steal her heart. Little did she know he will eventually steal much more than that. Mary says that William conned her out of £200,000. How did he do it? He led her to believe that he was a contractor for the CIA and terrorist were holding his family for ransom. As unbelievable as this sounds, he crafted evidence to back up his claims. Listen to Mary Turner Thomas describe the tactics he used to con her and learn how he finally got caught. This story was originally reported by my friend Lanie Hobbs at the True Crime Fan Club. I highly recommend you check out their show.You can find Mary’s book titled The Bigamist on Amazon:https://amzn.to/3uI9OkSShe is also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheBigamistBook or at http://maryturnerthomson.com/book-inner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Pretender - Marc Ruskin FBI undercover agent Remember the name Marc Ruskin: because if you run into him, chances are he will introduce himself as Alex Perez, H. Marc Renard, or Sal Morelli – just a few of his FBI undercover personas. Marc Ruskin started his career as an assistant DA in Brooklyn and left it all behind to join the FBI Academy. It didn’t take him long to become an FBI undercover agent. His first big undercover case landed him in Wall Street busting up trading scams. That case went down in flames when a former colleague recognized his true identity and blew his cover. His next assignments proved to be much more dangerous. Marc embedded himself with mobsters, corrupt public officials, terrorists, and powerful drug dealers. Of course, we can’t cover his entire 27 year career here on this podcast. For that you’ll need to check out his new book titled “The Pretender.” It’s a great read. What we will do is talk about a few cases that were so intense, it had me grip the book so tight that I almost fused the pages together. Marc Ruskin’s next assignment was to bust up a fraudulent documents scheme in New York City. I'm not talking about fake IDs – there’s a difference. These fraudulent IDs are the real thing. If a police runs a fraudulent driver’s license, it actually checks out in their database. Marc told me terrorists, mob guys, fugitives were being arrested and had all kinds of real documents in their wallets under fake names. The FBI didn't have any leads. First, they had to find the source of these fraudulent documents. Marc says that some of these fraudulent driver’s licenses were selling for as much as a thousand dollars on the streets. It wasn’t until a tip from a twenty-something-year old man named John Sultan that led the FBI to a shabby travel agency in the Bronx called Holy Land Travel. The travel agency was a front led by Palestinian immigrant named Mahmoud Noubani.The Pretender Marc Ruskin FBI Undercover You can find The Pretender on Amazon.com or at your local bookstore. Also a special thanks out to St. Martin’s Press for letting me share Marc’s story with you.Buy the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3dRXbgl You can also follow Marc Ruskin on Twitter https://twitter.com/mhruskin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before Marc Ruskin was an undercover FBI agent, he was an assistant DA in Brooklyn. Why did he give up his career as a powerful attorney to join the FBI academy? Well, in order to prosecute criminals, you have to catch them first. It didn’t take long for Marc to become an undercover agent. For 27 years, he slipped into various different characters busting criminals ranging from drug dealers to Wall Street insiders. At one point, Marc was juggling three or four cases at a time – switching back and forth between identities. He wrote a book about his time at the FBI appropriately titled “The Pretender.” When I first discovered his book I immediately shot him a message. Luckily for me, he agreed to share some of his stories. In the late 80s and early 90s, San Juan Puerto Rico had one of the highest murder rates of any US city. Some of the violence can be blamed on the Machetero, a separatist group actively trying to make Puerto Rico and independent country. Marc: "So I had gone from being an attorney in New York where the biggest thing I had to worry about was a papercut. Now I was in the streets of San Juan Puerto Rico as a combatant to the Macheteros. We learned at one point that the Macheteros had a plot to assassinate an FBI agent. The problem was, we didn’t know who the FBI agent was." Listen to my interview with Marc Ruskin on part 1 of "The Pretender" on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find The Pretender on Amazon.com or at your local bookstore.Purchase Marc Ruskin's autobiography titled The Pretender:https://amzn.to/3dRXbglAlso, you can follow Marc Ruskin on Twitter http://twitter.com/mhruskin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sharon McConnell-Dickerson is preserving the Mississippi Delta blues with her own two hands. She's doing it by creating molds of some of the most influential blues musicians of our time. The lifecasts include a mask of Bobby “Blue” Bland, Little Milton from Memphis, “Honeyboy” Edwards from Chicago, and Pinetop Perkins from Clarksdale, just to name a few – almost 60 musicians total. http://mcconnelldickersonart.com/blues-lifecast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices