59. The Downfall (Marcus Schrenker)

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Speaker 4 This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 5 As state and county marine authorities continue their search for a missing swimmer here off Field 6 at Jones Beach, beachgoers are taking note and playing it safe.

Speaker 5 Officials believe 47-year-old Raymond Roth of Massapequa likely disappeared in an area not protected by lifeguards. Today's search is from the air and on the water.

Speaker 2 At 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 29th, 2012, Ivana Roth received a phone call that made her jaw hit the floor.

Speaker 2 Her 22-year-old stepson, Jonathan, said he had watched his father, Raymond, Ivana's husband, disappear into the Atlantic Ocean.

Speaker 2 Jonathan said he witnessed Raymond take off his shirt and shoes and empty out his pockets before walking into the water about chest high in preparation for his daily swim.

Speaker 2 A few minutes later, Jonathan said he looked up from his phone and his father was nowhere to be found, and there were no lifeguards on duty.

Speaker 2 By the time Jonathan called emergency services, Raymond Roth had been missing for more than 30 minutes. How could this be? Ivana wondered.
Raymond was a fantastic swimmer.

Speaker 2 It was highly unlikely that he would have just been swept away. On the other hand, Raymond was a 47-year-old overweight smoker.
Did he have a heart attack and drown? Ivana asked herself. Possibly.

Speaker 2 Or could it be something more sinister? Did Raymond kill himself?

Speaker 2 The search team spent the rest of Sunday evening and part of Monday and Tuesday looking for Raymond Roth all along the coast of Long Island and Jones Beach.

Speaker 2 There were helicopters, boats, a team of divers and lifeguards. The U.S.
Coast Guard also joined the hunt. But after two days there was still no trace of the missing swimmer.

Speaker 2 Both the authorities and his family presumed Raymond Roth was dead. But the truth, as everyone would soon discover, was much stranger.

Speaker 6 Our investigation started with what we believe was an actual drowning. and quite an extensive search went on.

Speaker 6 And then we came to realize that it wasn't that. And

Speaker 6 then the investigation went into what it really was and

Speaker 6 we realized it was a con.

Speaker 2 It was a con and Ivana Roth was the one who cracked the case.

Speaker 2 Just a few days after her husband had presumably drowned while planning his funeral, the widow said she was trying to print something from the family computer and stumbled across her stepson Jonathan's open email account.

Speaker 2 And in Jonathan's inbox were three emails from Raymond Roth, sent and received a few days before his disappearance. The subject line of the first email simply read, business.

Speaker 2 It was sent to Jonathan on Friday, July 27th at 10.09 a.m. It read, quote, There needs to be a way for me to find out how things are going.
Call me Sunday night at 8 p.m. at the resort.

Speaker 2 You cannot call from your phone. Go to a payphone or borrow your friend's phone.
You must call within 15 minutes of the determined call time in order to be sure I will be available.

Speaker 2 Raymond Roth followed up that email to his son with another nine minutes later. Part of it read, quote, I need to get to the bank for cash for the trip.

Speaker 2 About the jewelry we spoke of yesterday, you need to whisper in Aunt Jackie's ear about it then. Do not worry, she will get it.
Do not allow that asshole to give the house away.

Speaker 2 The third and final email from Raymond to Jonathan was sent one minute later. It says, you will need to help me get my car loaded.
Get your fucking ass out of bed, you lazy bastard.

Speaker 2 Ivana showed this suspicious chain of emails to Raymond's brother, who turned them over to the police.

Speaker 2 The next day, a self-described, embarrassed Ivana Roth held a press conference to reveal the truth about Raymond and Jonathan's plan, and to distance herself from whatever it was they had gotten themselves into.

Speaker 7 I was planning a funeral for him. I lost my husband

Speaker 7 all in a matter of hours. And then to find that he's alive, it's anger, it's sadness, it's the the public that went out to try to save a man that was not there and vacationing in Florida.

Speaker 7 I'm horrified that anybody or he can involve his father can involve his son in something so tragic that could ruin the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 Thanks to Ivana, authorities discovered that Raymond Roth was alive and well at a timeshare resort in Orlando, Florida.

Speaker 2 Ivana had also uncovered that during the week leading up to his disappearance, Raymond had emptied out the couple's bank accounts, put their house up for sale, and tripled his life insurance policy, which his son Jonathan tried to claim within 48 hours of the presumed drowning.

Speaker 2 Investigators already had their suspicions. The wallet Raymond had left on the beach did not contain his driver's license, and all of the data on Raymond's iPhone had been wiped clean.

Speaker 2 By the time Ivana exposed his plan to the media, Raymond Roth was already on his way back to Long Island. He had received word that his attempt at faking his own death had failed miserably.

Speaker 2 Raymond had also been made aware that Ivana was planning to go public with what she had found, so he began calling her and sending text messages.

Speaker 2 It didn't work out as I thought it would, Raymond wrote. I did it for you.
And be nice. Almost 15 years together.

Speaker 2 Actually, it was more like 12 years together, Ivana claimed. How could she forget? It had been a long, loveless marriage.
The two of them hadn't slept in the same room together in years.

Speaker 2 Ivana said Raymond had always been physically and verbally abusive towards her. He even broke her nose once.

Speaker 2 According to Ivana's lawyer, Raymond's prolonged abuse had turned his wife into a shell of a human being. And his intimidation did not end there.
Raymond was like that towards everybody.

Speaker 2 Just a week and a half before he vanished, Raymond Roth had been fired from his job as a telecommunications manager because he had threatened to kill his bosses after receiving a demotion.

Speaker 2 The police confiscated a gun from Raymond's home the following day. He's a horrible person.
He is an alcoholic. He's just an abuser in every which way, Lovana Roth told CBS2 News.

Speaker 2 Jonathan Roth told authorities that he was no exception. He and his father had butted heads on numerous occasions over the years.

Speaker 2 And when questioned, Jonathan admitted that the drowning was all a ruse, but he had no choice but to go along with it. His life was in danger.
Raymond Roth was an intimidating man.

Speaker 2 At least that's what he told investigators, as well as Dr. Phil.

Speaker 9 But the only reason why I told the truth then, Dr. Phil, was because I was in police custody.
I was in the safety and security of the police. So I had no more reason to fear my father.

Speaker 9 I had no other choice. I would have died otherwise.

Speaker 9 He would have killed me, Dr. Phil, if I didn't do what he was telling me.

Speaker 2 But Ivana Roth did not believe her stepson Saab's story. She told the New York Post, quote, 1000% Jonathan is lying.
He's scared. He's in major trouble.
He didn't foil the plan. He was involved in it.

Speaker 2 He's trying to stay out of jail.

Speaker 2 The investigators agreed. On August 6, 2012, Jonathan Roth was arrested and charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and falsely reporting an incident.

Speaker 2 The complaint against Jonathan states: the defendant at all times was fully aware that his father never walked into the water and had, in fact, driven off in his personal vehicle.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, his father, Raymond Roth, had returned to Long Island and was involuntarily committed to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

Speaker 2 Raymond's attorney Brian Davis said his clients, quote, irrational moves with the result of being hit by a car as a child. He is not an ogre, Davis assured.
He does have psychiatric issues.

Speaker 10 Authorities say that Jonathan Roth conspired with his father, Raymond Roth, to collect on a $50,000 life insurance policy.

Speaker 10 The elder Roth disappeared off Jones Beach last month, then turned up alive, and is now in a mental hospital. The father is expected to turn himself in to face charges on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 10 days later, on August 15th, 2012, Raymond Roth was picked up from the hospital by the police and was also charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and falsely reporting an incident.

Speaker 5 Who are you running from?

Speaker 13 Do you have anything to say to your family?

Speaker 14 What do you have to say to your son?

Speaker 14 Ray, now is the time to apologize.

Speaker 5 Is it for money issues?

Speaker 5 I'm sorry, Flush, Ray.

Speaker 9 Are you sorry?

Speaker 2 Raymond Roth pleaded not guilty and posted $100,000 bail. But he was rearrested less than 24 hours later for repeatedly calling Ivana, who had recently filed for divorce and a restraining order.

Speaker 2 it, one way or the other.

Speaker 2 So, one way or the other,

Speaker 2 we need to talk. Let me know what you'd like to do, and I will do it.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Raymond Roth's lawyer said that his client misunderstood the terms of the order of protection.

Speaker 2 Apparently, Raymond was aware that he was not allowed to visit the house, but did not think it applied to phone calls.

Speaker 2 Nabonna was worried that Raymond was out for revenge against her for ruining ruining his vacation.

Speaker 7 I'm actually in hiding,

Speaker 7 fearful that he'll come after me for revealing his plan.

Speaker 15 Ma'am, with all due respect, if you're in hiding, you're on broadcast television in the tri-state area.

Speaker 2 On March 21st, 2013, Raymond Roth took a plea bargain to avoid five years in prison.

Speaker 2 The elder Roth pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and agreed to serve 90 days in jail and five years on probation. He also agreed to repay almost $38,000 to the U.S.

Speaker 2 Coast Guard and the Nassau County Police for their search efforts.

Speaker 2 Raymond Roth told the judge that faking his own death was an attempt to escape a mountain of debt.

Speaker 2 It was a way for his family to profit even though he had left behind an improperly executed will and a misunderstood life insurance policy that would have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars less than expected.

Speaker 2 It was a mistake, Raymond Roth admitted, but he promised he would turn his his life around.

Speaker 2 Raymond told the judge that he had recently enrolled in culinary school and asked for his jail time to be delayed until he finished, which, surprisingly, the judge granted.

Speaker 2 Raymond Roth was free to go home.

Speaker 2 Later that night, just hours after pleading guilty to faking his own death, Raymond Roth was arrested again.

Speaker 16 He just pled guilty to faking his own death. Now, police said Raymond Roth is in more trouble, charged with posing as a police officer as he tried to get women into his van.

Speaker 2 A woman walking down Church Street in Freeport, minding her own business, told police that someone in a white van pulled up beside her and repeatedly instructed her to get into his vehicle.

Speaker 2 The woman said the man claimed he was a police officer and patted his waistband as if he were carrying a gun.

Speaker 2 The woman ducked into a check caching business to try and hide from her assailant, but he spotted her. and followed her in.
The employees of the business refused to open the security door for the man.

Speaker 2 In the surveillance footage, you can see Raymond Roth demanding them to open it.

Speaker 2 Roth had fled by the time the police arrived, but eventually was tracked down and charged with criminal impersonation and attempted unlawful imprisonment for which he pleaded guilty.

Speaker 2 The judge acquitted him of attempted kidnapping, even though he had attempted a similar stunt less than a week earlier. Raymond Roth showed up to the sentencing hearing wearing a chef's apron.

Speaker 2 He was sentenced to up to seven years in prison. Roth apologized for his actions.
He blamed his behavior on alcohol and bipolar medication.

Speaker 2 Never in my life did I think I would be here, Raymond told the judge. I have a lot of fences to mend.
My son is disgusted with me.

Speaker 2 Jonathan Roth had not spoken to his father since the drowning incident. In fact, no one had heard from Jonathan in several months.
He was a no-show at a sentencing hearing on September 24th, 2013.

Speaker 2 Three days later, a Bell Bonds company found him him hiding out in Grove Point, Ohio. And like father, like son, Jonathan was facing additional charges of violating a restraining order.

Speaker 2 He had called his ex-girlfriend more than 150 times since jumping on her car and banging his fist on her windshield.

Speaker 8 Jonathan, what happened, man? Why not admit? You had one more court date.

Speaker 10 And you didn't show up.

Speaker 5 What happened?

Speaker 17 You can run from the bail bond clean, but you can't hide, right, Jonathan?

Speaker 5 I never tried to run.

Speaker 12 You ran.

Speaker 8 You didn't try to run me.

Speaker 10 But why don't you show up for the court date?

Speaker 17 I didn't have money to get to New York.

Speaker 5 Did you call the courts?

Speaker 17 I spoke to my lawyer.

Speaker 8 You sorry for this, John?

Speaker 17 I am extremely sorry for this.

Speaker 2 On March 4th, 2014, Jonathan Roth was sentenced to one year in prison, the same prison where his father was locked up. The two reportedly reconciled behind bars and attended church meetings together.

Speaker 2 They're talking like father and son, Brayman's attorney told CBS2. They've patched things up.

Speaker 2 Perhaps they bonded over being accomplices in one of the most short-sighted, hair-brained attempts at pseudocide in the history of white-collar crime.

Speaker 2 Maybe in time the Roths will be able to share a beer and laugh about that time dad tried to fake kill himself for $50,000.

Speaker 2 Of course, that would require both parties to possess at least a modicum of self-awareness, which, by all accounts, did not appear very abundant in the Roth family's gene pool.

Speaker 2 Nor was it a trait shared by Marcus Schrinker, a money manager and a compulsive liar from Indiana who attempted a similar stunt a few years earlier.

Speaker 2 Just like Raymond Roth, when the going got tough, Marcus Schrinker chose to run away from his problems and start anew in Florida, naturally.

Speaker 2 But just like Raymond Roth, Marcus Schrinker's plan crashed and burned.

Speaker 2 With his financial crimes on the verge of being exposed, a desperate fraudster takes drastic measures to avoid prosecution. On this episode of Swindled,

Speaker 12 they bribed government officials

Speaker 12 to clear violations of decades state law.

Speaker 12 Dumping up the T-books and records to hide the banks.

Speaker 3 Support for swindled comes from Simply Safe. If you could actually stop someone from breaking into your home before they got inside, why wouldn't you want to? That's the idea behind Simply Safe.

Speaker 3 Real security that can stop a crime before it starts. Traditional systems wait until it's too late.
But Simply Safe's active guard outdoor protection is proactive.

Speaker 3 Their AI-powered cameras detect suspicious activity and real live agents step in.

Speaker 3 They actually talk to potential intruders while they're still outside, trigger sirens, flash spotlights, and let them know the police are on the way. It's wild to watch.

Speaker 3 I've used SimplySafe for years and I trust it to protect everything that matters to me even when I'm not home.

Speaker 3 It's reliable, simple, and honestly, kind of satisfying to know someone else is watching when I can't.

Speaker 3 Our listeners get exclusive early access to SimplySafe's Black Friday cell where you can save 60% on any new system. This is their biggest deal of the year.

Speaker 3 There will never be a better time to get real security for your home. Go to simplysafe.com slash swindled.
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Speaker 8 We had what's called a unlimited routine.

Speaker 8 And basically it's a very high-G routine that has a lot of gyroscopic recession maneuvers in it. People will look at my routine, they'll go, how can an airplane possibly do that?

Speaker 2 There goes Marcus Shrinker, flying around in a stunt plane at a local air show in Indianapolis. He used to tell people he had served as a jet pilot in the Air Force during Desert Storm.

Speaker 2 In reality, Marcus had been a male cheerleader at Purdue University. Just one of the many lies he pathologically repeated.
Marcus couldn't help himself. That's just the kind of person he was.

Speaker 2 But up to that point in his life, dishonesty had worked to his advantage. By 2008, at only 38 years old, there was no denying that Marcus Shrinker was quite accomplished.

Speaker 2 You could tell by his Armani suits and his expensive watch, and his $4 million 10,000 square foot home near the Geist Reservoir, where he lived with his wife Michelle and their three children.

Speaker 2 Shrinker also maintained a collection of luxury automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, vintage wines, and other toys that he loved to show off.

Speaker 2 The Shrinkers Shrinkers would throw extravagant parties for everyone in the neighborhood, complete with fireworks and trampolines on the water. Life was but a dream.

Speaker 2 The first time I met the family, I thought, these are the most beautiful people I have ever seen.

Speaker 2 That's how a neighbor who clearly had never left Indiana described the Shrinkers to the New York Times.

Speaker 2 Though it was true that the couple were turning heads in their little neck of the woods, local Lexus dealership even asked its favorite customers Marcus and Michelle Shrinker to pose for a promotional photo shoot as if they were the king and queen of Cocktail Cove.

Speaker 2 Appearances were everything.

Speaker 2 Marcus Schrinker owed this opulent lifestyle to his thriving financial advising and investment company that he had founded soon after graduating college.

Speaker 19 Hi, I'm Marcus Shrinker, President and Senior Advisor at Heritage Wealth Management.

Speaker 2 Heritage Wealth Management was a run-of-the-mill financial consulting business in which Shrinker received a small flat fee based on the success of the investments he made on his clients' behalf.

Speaker 2 In other words, Marcus only made money if his clients made money. And in the early days of the company, nobody was making anything.

Speaker 2 Schrinker was even forced to declare bankruptcy on more than one occasion. But Marcus Schrinker's fortune would change post-9-11, 2001.

Speaker 2 The terrorist attacks on American soil, combined with the volatile cost of jet fuel, left the airline industry reeling.

Speaker 2 As a result, in September 2005, Delta Airlines reorganized and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, forcing thousands of Delta pilots into an early retirement, dozens of whom had become clients of Heritage Wealth Management as a result of colleague referrals, persuaded in part by the owner's mutual interest in aviation.

Speaker 12 Woo! Give Marcus Schrinker a hand!

Speaker 8 I'll tell you what, I couldn't have done that.

Speaker 2 Marcus Schrinker was more than happy to help the Delta pilots invest their seven-figure severance payouts. He even moved his family to Atlanta temporarily to be closer to the action.

Speaker 2 By the end of 2005, Heritage Wealth Management was reportedly managing the wealth of over 500 clients, totaling more than $6 million.

Speaker 2 But instead of being constantly driven to get maximum returns for the lowest amount of risk, like the company's website promised, Marcus Schrinker was secretly purchasing insurance annuities with the investor's money to maximize his own profits.

Speaker 2 While annuities are about as low risk as an investment can be, they are usually long-term in order to provide a steady stream of income during one's retirement and not usually meant to be routinely bought and sold or churned.

Speaker 2 But that's how Marcus Schrinker was using them. He was transferring his clients' money between annuity accounts and collecting up to 20% in commissions for every move.

Speaker 2 Making money was the name of the game, and Marcus Schrinker had certainly found a way to succeed. But it was at the expense of the people who had entrusted him the most.

Speaker 2 Every time Schrinker removed funds from one annuity and put them into another, the client was hit with an exorbitant surrender fee, similar to the penalty incurred by prematurely withdrawing funds from a 401k.

Speaker 2 Shrinker forged his client's signatures to make it all happen.

Speaker 2 For some of those clients, the surrender fees exceeded $60,000. For those investors who noticed, the money manager assured that it was simply taxes withheld on all the money he had made for them.

Speaker 2 Other clients inquired as to why their savings were being locked into annuities for 15 to 20 years, considering some of them were already 80-plus years old.

Speaker 2 Marcus Schrinker did not offer many acceptable answers. It was just lie after lie after lie.

Speaker 2 So in the summer of 2007, seven of his clients, consisting mostly of former Delta pilots, who had lost a combined quarter of a million dollars in annuity surrender fees, contacted the Indiana Department of Insurance to report the suspected fraud.

Speaker 2 In January 2008, the department filed a complaint against Schrinker after an investigation yielded that he was acting as a financial manager with an expired license.

Speaker 2 By this time, Marcus Schrinker and family had returned to Indiana where he had expanded his business.

Speaker 2 He launched another wealth management company in addition to Heritage and also created an insurance service company to complete the trifecta. Schrinker named his empire the Icon Group.
Icon.

Speaker 2 Is that foreshadowing?

Speaker 2 Nah, probably just a lack of self-awareness. But Shrinker's slogan for Heritage Wealth Management most definitely qualifies.

Speaker 19 Your investments are your parachute.

Speaker 2 Your investments are your parachutes, he says. But Marcus Shrinker was in free fall.

Speaker 2 By the end of 2008, that realization was setting in.

Speaker 2 A Kansas-based company sued Heritage Wealth in an attempt to recoup $1.4 million in losses it had incurred after Shrinker failed to reimburse commissions for insurance policies that never materialized.

Speaker 2 Another judgment against him from a different company for more than half a million dollars soon followed.

Speaker 2 Shrinker was also being sued for $12 million in Alabama by a man who claimed Marcus sold him a damaged aircraft. The losses were piling up, and so were the fraud investigations.

Speaker 2 Marcus Schrinker had moved on from churning insurance annuities for obvious reasons to to convincing clients, including his aunt, to invest in a European currency fund that did not exist.

Speaker 2 Marcus blew the million and a half dollars in this supposed Euro fund on personal expenses, and he used an online investment tool to fabricate every number, every chart, and every document to make it look legit.

Speaker 2 One of Schrinker's employees reported the scheme to authorities after the boss man openly admitted that it was fake. Unbeknownst to Schrinker, an additional investigation was underway.

Speaker 2 I have personally lost all hope, Marcus Schrinker wrote to his attorney in December 2008. I don't think there is a good person left in this world.
It needs to be known that I am financially insolvent.

Speaker 2 I am intending on filing bankruptcy in 2009 should my financial conditions continue to deteriorate.

Speaker 2 Everything in Marcus Schrinker's life continued to deteriorate.

Speaker 2 On December 30th, 2008, Michelle Schrinker filed for divorce after catching Marcus red-handed, moving his girlfriend into a condo down the street from the family home.

Speaker 2 The next day, Shrinker's home and businesses were raided by the Indiana Department of Securities.

Speaker 2 Agents seized $6,000 in cash, his passport, titles to the vehicles, six computers, and multiple boxes of incriminating documentation.

Speaker 2 Michelle Shrinker and their six-year-old daughter were home when the authorities rushed in. Marcus Shrinker was celebrating New Year's Eve with his girlfriend on a beach in Florida.

Speaker 2 A few days later, Marcus Shrinker returned to Indiana, where a failed marriage and a slew of legal entanglements awaited him. Then on January 4th, 2009, the stepfather who helped raise him died.

Speaker 2 Marcus spent the next week drowning his sorrows in alcohol and OxyContin while pondering his next move.

Speaker 2 On January 10th, 2009, Marcus Schrinker traveled to a self-storage facility in Harpersville, Alabama.

Speaker 2 He was driving a brown pickup truck that pulled a trailer carrying his beloved red Yamaha motorcycle.

Speaker 2 Shrinker told the owners of the facility that his bike had broken down on the way to Florida and that he just needed to store it for a couple of days.

Speaker 20 He said, I'm just going to store my motorcycle

Speaker 20 until Monday and I'll be back to get it on Monday.

Speaker 2 Marcus used his half-brother's name and identification to secure the unit and paid for it in cash. He unloaded the motorcycle, locked the door behind him, and drove back to Indianapolis the same day.

Speaker 2 And with that, the first step was complete in Marcus Schrinker's plan to make all of his problems disappear.

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Speaker 2 On Sunday, January 11th, 2009, Marcus Schrinker told his friends and family that later that evening, he would be flying his single-engine airplane solo to Destin, Florida to visit his father.

Speaker 2 Surveillance video of the Anderson, Indiana airfield, where Schrinker's plane was parked, show him doing doughnuts on his truck on the runway.

Speaker 2 People really do manage their stress in different ways, and Marcus Schrinker had every reason to be stressed. He never intended to visit his father.
That was a lie.

Speaker 2 Marcus Shrinker intended to fake his own death.

Speaker 2 His plane took off at 6:45 p.m., headed south towards Florida, and all was normal for an hour and a half. The expert pilot seemed to have everything under control.

Speaker 2 Then at 8.23 p.m., while the aircraft was 35 miles southwest of and thousands of feet above Birmingham, Alabama, air traffic controllers received a distress call from Marcus Shrinker.

Speaker 2 He told them that the windshield of his airplane was cracking. Go ahead and descend and we'll try to work it out for you.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, sir.

Speaker 2 Moments later, he radioed in again, letting them know that it had completely imploded, sending shards of glass into the back of his neck. I'm bleeding profusely, Shrinker alerted.

Speaker 2 Two Air Force F-15 jets were dispatched to analyze the situation.

Speaker 2 They quickly located Schrinker's plane in mid-flight and deployed flares to illuminate the cockpit that was shrouded in the darkness of night. It was empty, and the door was open.

Speaker 2 The abandoned airplane continued course towards the Gulf of Mexico on autopilot.

Speaker 2 The jets followed the airplane for another two hours and 200 miles until it crashed in the Florida panhandle near the Blackwater River in East Milton, about 50 yards from a residential area.

Speaker 2 The plane rolled through the swampland and landed on its roof with the propeller cutting into an oak tree. A Jayhawk helicopter belonging to the U.S.

Speaker 2 Coast Guard located the downed plane and sent rescue swimmers to inspect the crash. The windshield was intact.
There was no blood in the cockpit, and the pilot was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 2 However, what authorities did find inside of Marcus Schrinker's plane was curious.

Speaker 2 There was a United States Atlas and a national campground directory, both of which had the Florida and Alabama pages torn out.

Speaker 2 There were also handwritten notes that read, among other things, windshield is cracking, doors open, bleeding very bad.

Speaker 2 Sergeant Scott Haynes of the Santa Rosa, Florida Sheriff's Office told ABC News, quote, it started unraveling very quickly that we were dealing with something a lot more than just a plane that had crashed.

Speaker 2 At 2.30 a.m., A man wet below the knees approached a private residence in Childersburg, Alabama, more than 200 miles away from the site of the crash, carrying what appeared to be night vision pilots' goggles.

Speaker 2 The man told the resident of the house that he had been in a canoeing accident and asked for a ride into town.

Speaker 2 He was taken to a convenience store in nearby Harpersville, where he approached a police officer sitting in his car.

Speaker 2 The man said he wanted to meet some friends at a motel and asked if he could hitch a ride. The cop agreed and asked for identification.

Speaker 2 The man handed him an Indiana driver's license with the name Marcus Shrinker.

Speaker 2 Hop on in, the officer said, or something like that.

Speaker 2 To be fair, that Harpersville police officer, nor anyone else for that matter, had learned the name of the missing pilot from the plane crash that happened a few hours earlier, a few hundred miles away.

Speaker 2 It wasn't until that Harpersville police officer returned to the station that he heard the news.

Speaker 2 A gaggle of patrol cars returned to the motel motel in the early morning hours to apprehend Marcus Shrinker, but he had already fled.

Speaker 2 Surveillance video shows him checking in under a false name, paying with cash, putting on a black beanie, and running into the woods. Shrinker never opened the door to his room.

Speaker 2 For maybe the first time in his life, Marcus Shrinker had kept a promise. He had returned to the storage facility on Monday to retrieve his motorcycle.
just like he had said he would.

Speaker 2 It was unbelievable what he had just pulled off.

Speaker 2 Marcus had opened the door to his airplane mid-flight, parachuted safely to the ground, and returned for his getaway vehicle while the evidence and his old life of deceit and debt plunged to the bottom of the gulf.

Speaker 2 Marcus Shrinker was sure that they would never find his body. They would never find him.
He'd be long gone, baby.

Speaker 2 His ex-wife and kids would get a fat life insurance payout and probably a new dad eventually, while Marcus would go on to live his new life guilt-free in beautiful sunny Florida, everybody's happy.

Speaker 21 Minute Made Zero Sugar tastes so amazing. You've just got to say great taste and zero sugar.
And Minute Made Zero Sugar sells itself.

Speaker 21 Great

Speaker 21 taste. Zero Sugar sells itself.

Speaker 22 So right now, what we believe is after he made this fraudulent emergency call, he set the plane into an autopilot mode and parachuted out of the plane.

Speaker 22 When we got to the crash site, there was no one present in the plane. We did not find any blood in the plane, and the door was open.

Speaker 2 Less than 24 hours after the plane crash, authorities were already hot on Marcus Schrinker's trail. They knew about the motorcycle that found his wet clothes in the dumpster at the storage facility.

Speaker 2 The owners of the units were able to describe the man and his bike to a T.

Speaker 2 And judging by the travel guides with the missing pages that were found in the aircraft, detectives had a good idea where their fugitive planned to go.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, Marcus Schrinker was checking in at a campground in Quincy, Florida. He rented a campsite for one night where he could pitch a tent.

Speaker 2 He used cash to purchase firewood and a six-pack of Bud Light lime, and then he asked for the campground's Wi-Fi password.

Speaker 2 Once inside of his tent, Shrinker logged onto the laptop he had stashed with his motorcycle. The breaking news they waited for him must have crushed his spirit.

Speaker 2 The airplane must have ran out of fuel before it reached the Gulf, Shrinker realized. Now authorities knew that he was on the run.
Shrinker realized that he was now the subject of an act of manhunt.

Speaker 2 All of his personal and business assets were frozen. Faking his own death had completely backfired.
Time for Plan B.

Speaker 2 It's at this point that Marcus Shrinker chose to email an old friend and neighbor named Tom Britt.

Speaker 2 In a 300-word letter, Shrinker says the crash was all a misunderstanding and that he was too, quote, embarrassed and scared of returning home.

Speaker 2 I embarrassed my family for the last time, Schrinker wrote. By the time you read this, I will be gone.

Speaker 11 Mark

Speaker 11 sent an email to me tonight around 7.18 Eastern Standard Time through a Google account.

Speaker 11 The email is essentially wanting to set the record straight.

Speaker 11 And at the end of the email, he says by the time you read this I will have taken my own life.

Speaker 11 The email

Speaker 11 gives his description of what happened in that plane, why he bailed out.

Speaker 11 It describes why the business dealings went south the way they did and why the warrant was issued.

Speaker 11 And it also, lastly, talks about how great his wife, Michelle, is and how much stress he's put her through.

Speaker 11 He has a lot of remorse for that.

Speaker 2 Tom Britt wasn't surprised by his friend's recent troubles. He had heard about Marcus's threatening behavior and business dealings and neighborly disputes.

Speaker 2 There were rumors about substance abuse issues and bold-faced lies.

Speaker 2 Other acquaintances have alleged that Shrinker lacked any semblance of a sense of humor, and his latest actions fell in line with the predictable unpredictability of a complete narcissist.

Speaker 2 He has almost two personalities, Tom Britt told the Indianapolis Star. There was the one that I knew, which was the family man.

Speaker 2 There was another guy that I didn't know, the one you heard the stories about. People would be fearful of having business dealings with him because of previous dealings or stories they had heard.

Speaker 2 Tom Britt immediately turned the email over to investigators, who were able to trace the general location from which it was sent.

Speaker 2 Law enforcement agencies in Florida decided to phone campgrounds in the area to ask if there had been any unusual visitors in the past day. They hit on the first number they dialed.

Speaker 2 Troy and Carolyn Hastings owned the KOA campground in Quincy.

Speaker 2 They told the local sheriff who called that, as a matter of fact, there was a camper who arrived the day before on a motorcycle that was acting strange.

Speaker 2 He was supposed to leave on Tuesday morning, but he never left, Troy told them. He never got out of his tent, even to use the bathroom.

Speaker 2 Troy says he asked Shrinker through the closed flaps of his tent if he was okay.

Speaker 2 Shrinker replied that he was and that he planned to spend another night and would come by the office later to pay, but he never did. At 10 p.m.

Speaker 2 that night, January 13th, 2009, about 20 patrol officers swarmed the place.

Speaker 2 Carolyn Hastings told the Pensacola News Journal that the investigators didn't even get the photo all the way unfolded before she recognized the man.

Speaker 2 She claimed it was the most exciting thing that had happened at their Chattahoochee campground since that time a random cow wandered through and tried to drink out of their swimming pool.

Speaker 23 An Indiana businessman and pilot who investigators believe tried to fake his own death in a plane crash has been found in northern Florida.

Speaker 23 Authorities say 38-year-old Marcus Schrinker is alive and is in custody in the town of Quincy.

Speaker 2 The police shouted verbal commands to Marcus Schrinker as they approached his tent. Schrinker complied and stuck his hands through the unzipped opening to show that he was unarmed.

Speaker 2 The cops noticed blood pouring out of Marcus's left wrist.

Speaker 2 He was sort of semi-conscious, Assistant Deputy Chief U.S. Marshal Frank Cumento told ABC News.
He didn't say much. He was trying to mutter some words to us.

Speaker 2 Authorities said that Marcus Schrinker had lost so much blood that he would not have survived another hour. He was in and out of consciousness, muttering the word die in between labored breaths.

Speaker 2 Marcus Schrinker was flown to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital for emergency medical treatment. The paramedics saved his life.

Speaker 2 His apprehension brings to an end one of the more inventive escape attempts I have ever seen, said John F. Clark, director of the United States Marshals Service.

Speaker 2 Just as important is the fact that once our people found Shrinker and realized what bad shape he was in, they were every bit as determined to save his life as they were to track him down.

Speaker 2 At the fugitive's campsite, authorities found more than $2,000 cash, spare clothes and toiletries, a cell phone, the knife Shrinker used to slit his wrist and a laptop with the history of internet searches on how to jump from an airplane and open a parachute.

Speaker 2 It was a fascinating story that soon began to receive the media attention that it deserved.

Speaker 14 Have you been seeing this story about this crazy guy, this Marcus Shrinkman, this

Speaker 14 financial analyst slash criminal who faked his own death and yesterday got caught in Florida? Here's today's New York Post. Picture of Shrinker right there.

Speaker 14 Apparently, it is the cover shot from last month's modern assh magazine.

Speaker 14 This guy Shrinker was being investigated for, and here's where it gets weird, financial crime.

Speaker 2 The media and the public began to scrutinize Michelle Schrinker's involvement in her husband's financial schemes because Michelle Schrinker once held a prominent position at Heritage Wealth Management.

Speaker 19 I'm Michelle Schrinker, Chief Financial Officer of Heritage Wealth Management.

Speaker 2 Chief Financial Officer. An incredibly lofty title for someone who claimed to do nothing but pay bills and run payroll.

Speaker 2 But Michelle Schrinker and her lawyer insisted that it was nothing more than a glorified title given to her by Marcus strictly for appearances.

Speaker 2 And now Michelle claimed she and her three children were relying on the generosity of others because she no longer had access to the family's assets.

Speaker 2 Michelle is not guilty of anything other than trusting her husband of 13 years, her lawyer said.

Speaker 2 How much did you know, how aware were you, of the severity of the financial problems?

Speaker 13 I had limited duties there. All I did was help my husband out.

Speaker 13 I payrolled and I did paid bills. That's all I did.

Speaker 18 You were a bookkeeper?

Speaker 13 I was a bookkeeper, but it wasn't what he wanted it for the image, for the marketing.

Speaker 2 Even though Hamilton County prosecutors declined to file charges against Michelle Schrinker, her husband, Marcus, who was sitting in an Indiana jail waiting for his day in court, denied his wife's innocence in the financial frauds and spoke to her during a jailhouse interview with a local news station.

Speaker 2 Quote, you were the chief financial officer. You were my wife.
You were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. You were living the good life.

Speaker 2 And all of a sudden, you're saying, I didn't know anything about it.

Speaker 2 Marcus also alleged that Michelle knew about his plan to fake his own death and said she even helped arrange the scheme.

Speaker 2 There is no validity to anything this man has to say, Michelle told WTHR-TV in response.

Speaker 2 In a later interview, Marcus Schrinker completely changed his story and told Good Morning America that the plane crash was the result of an actual accident.

Speaker 2 He said that in order for somebody to fake their own death, they would have to establish a new identity and have a well-funded bank account, a place to live. Quote, and I did nothing like that.

Speaker 2 In that Good Good Morning America interview, Schrinker also alleged that the cut on his wrist was from the accident and not a suicide attempt. Nor did he commit any financial fraud.

Speaker 2 What happened is the market imploded. We all know that.
And our losses were genuine, he said.

Speaker 2 This is Marcus Schrinker's attorney, Thomas Keith.

Speaker 17 We have documentation indicating, you know,

Speaker 17 stress,

Speaker 17 maybe verge of a nervous breakdown type of conduct that led to it. It's not an excuse, but it led to the conduct and I think he just wanted to get away.

Speaker 2 In June 2009, Marcus Schrinker pleaded guilty to federal charges of willfully destroying an aircraft and for making a phony distress call that caused the U.S.

Speaker 2 Coast Guard to attempt to save lives when no help was needed. The following month, he was sentenced to 51 months in prison.

Speaker 2 and was required to pay $34,000 in restitution to the Coast Guard and $871,000 in restitution to the lien holder of the airplane.

Speaker 13 Well, a guilty plea today from the man who made national headlines by allowing his plane to crash near a Milton neighborhood, Marcus Schrinker now faces more than 20 years in prison.

Speaker 2 A year later, in August 2010, Marcus Schrinker pleaded guilty to five state charges of securities fraud, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which were to run consecutively with his federal sentence.

Speaker 2 All of Marcus's assets were sold off at auction to repay the $20 million in civil claims against him. Most of the annuity churning victims were repaid in full.

Speaker 2 The Eurofund investors, among others, were not as lucky.

Speaker 2 I allowed greed to take my soul, Marcus Schrinker told the judge, though in private he remained unapologetic.

Speaker 2 Marcus maintains that his investment business was a victim of the stock market crash, like many others, and that those who lost money investing with him understood the risk they were taking, or at least they should have.

Speaker 2 Marcus Schrinker was released from prison in September 2015. According to recent reports, he now resides in Florida, naturally.

Speaker 2 Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka Deformer, aka the Kink of Cocktail Cove.

Speaker 2 For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at SwindledPodcast. Or you can send us a postcard at P.O.

Speaker 2 Box6044, Austin, Texas, 78762. But please, no packages.
We do not trust you.

Speaker 2 Swindled is a completely independent production, which means no network, no investors, no bosses, no shadowy moneymen, no stunt pilots. And we plan to keep it that way.
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Speaker 2 My name is Sarah Thomas from Wasilla, Alaska.

Speaker 24 My name is Kathleen from Long Island. My name is Georgina Shields from Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.

Speaker 2 And I am a concerned citizen.

Speaker 14 Citizen.

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