The Knife: Off Record – 108

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Welcome to The Knife Off Record.

I'm Hannah Smith.

I'm Patia Eaton.

Thanks so much for listening.

So, Hannah, the show's been out a little while now.

It's out.

It's out in the world.

We're recording this ahead of time.

So we logged some episodes.

Yeah.

And now we're at the point where it's out in the world.

People are listening to it.

How does that feel?

I think for me, this being my first time, not just behind the scenes, like I was on our last show sometimes when it would be appropriate for a producer to weigh in on a decision.

But like,

this is my first time being like fully present on the show in a more like forward way.

It's my name and your voice.

My voice.

Listening to the sound of your own voice is just, it takes time.

It takes so much time to get get used to that but no I mean I think I'm really proud of the episodes that we've already put out and what's to come but I think we both having talked about it feel like we should talk a little bit more about what it really means to center victims voices there is just so many opinions out in the world about how crime victims are supposed to be and supposed to act and supposed to understand their own stories.

And I just think like, we're not doing that.

If they're feeling like it's unfinished or they're feeling angry, like, hey, I'm good with it.

Like, feel angry.

You can feel angry.

The people that we speak with face really extreme adverse circumstances and come out on the other end of it, but sometimes it still hurts and it's imperfect.

It's also like, in many cases, that person is, you know, has to stay vigilant because it's not not over for them in different ways.

Like in our very first episode with Darun Henry, she was assaulted on a run in a park broad daylight in the morning and later found out she lives extremely close to Paul Youssef, the man who assaulted her.

Yeah.

And, you know, she actually reached out to me recently with an update and said that she was at her gym.

She's been going to this gym for three years, pretty much every day.

And she looked up and said she locked eyes with Paul Youssef.

He was at her gym working out.

That's like inconceivable.

You know, how scary would that be?

It's like the fear of seeing them.

And also just, I can only speculate about what that must feel like to see him just walk freely, living his life as if he didn't do that.

Yeah.

She said that she had a panic attack and informed the gym.

And according to her, she said the manager did nothing.

They have not removed him from the gym or anything.

So, you know, she's had to figure that out.

Does she go back to the gym or not?

But it's something that she's still living with.

And it's really disturbing.

Yeah.

When we spoke with Daroon, it was pretty evident to us that like she had worked really hard to overcome the fear that that situation instilled in her.

She lives within a walkable distance to this person.

And what?

She's supposed to just like wave to him?

Yeah.

It's just not her job.

She doesn't have to get over it.

She doesn't have to forgive anyone.

She doesn't have to rise from the ashes like a phoenix.

She could just be whoever she wants to be.

And I feel that way about all of the people that we interview, to be honest.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's what we're doing.

That's part of our mission statement and what we think is important and what we're bringing to the show.

And we really appreciate you listening.

Yeah, thank you so much.

So, Patia, you have a case that you wanted to tell me about today.

Yeah, well, it's actually a case that you and I spoke about a couple of years ago now.

Okay.

We were looking into a totally other case.

And so I spoke with a person named Tom Gibbons about that story.

Tom Gibbons, at the time that this happened, was the prosecuting attorney in Madison County.

And as I was wrapping up this call with Tom Gibbons, he brought up this totally other story that I should look into.

And as soon as he told me about it, I was like, yeah, this is, Hannah's going to love this.

I love when that happens, when someone's like, oh, do you know this other story?

And you're like, oh, that's great.

Like, I wouldn't have known to search for that.

It's so crazy.

So basically, this story begins in Edwardsville, Illinois, which is also in Madison County, which is why Tom Gibbons was familiar with it.

Now, Madison County is much closer to St.

Louis, Missouri than Chicago, Illinois.

It's kind of idyllic.

It's managed to maintain this quaint neighborhood feel.

There's a cute little main street with little cafes.

Residents say it has a bit of an artsy vibe.

But in 2009, something really strange happens.

The amount of burglaries in this quaint town skyrockets.

Like, happens for five years straight.

No one's caught.

No one knows who's doing it or why.

And it's seemingly out of nowhere.

So whoever's committing these burglaries, they don't know if it's one person, they don't know if it's multiple people, is breaking into people's homes and people's businesses.

And they're not targeting just one thing, like just money, just jewelry, just car parts.

It's like seemingly random.

Dozens of people are affected, dozens of businesses.

They're trying to figure out, is this organized crime?

Like they can't make sense of it.

And it's unsettling.

The whole community is feeling it.

Wait, what year is this?

So this is all taking place in 2009.

Like it begins in 2009 and continues for the next five years.

Because I'm just like, you would think that people would have security cameras or businesses would, but was this in 2009?

So like that wasn't really a thing yet?

This predates everyone having a doorball camera.

So some of these homes that were burglarized were burglarized more than once.

And so then there was this added question of, am I being targeted?

Yeah.

And like by who and why?

Just this like total question mark.

And another place was a business that had been targeted multiple times.

And that was a local hair salon called Reality Salon and Spa, which was owned by a woman named Cynthia Vin Patton.

The salon had an alarm system, which somehow the person breaking in had not been triggering.

It was so strange for the salon owner because at a certain point, you have to question, like, is it someone on the inside?

Is it an employee?

Someone who might know the alarm code is what I would think.

Yeah.

How is this happening?

How?

And they're taking money from the cash register.

Okay.

So she reaches out to local authorities, makes them aware that this is happening.

And eventually she just installs her own security system with a camera pointed at the register.

And this ends up being the break in the case.

And so a few days before Christmas in 2014, Cynthia gets a notification of activity on her security camera.

It's not an employee, but it is someone that that she's seen before.

I just think the process and the journey is so delicious.

That's where all the good stuff is.

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It's scary putting yourself out there, especially when it's something you really care about and something that you hope is your passion in life and you want people to like it.

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So I watched the footage, and it's actually like kind of confusing to watch because in walks in the dark closed salon, a police officer.

Okay.

He's in uniform.

He's shining a flashlight around.

Oh, okay.

So I'm thinking he's about to bust whoever is doing this.

this.

Yeah.

Like, oh, he must be right on their tail.

No.

He walks over to the cash register.

He opens it up and he takes the money and he leaves.

He's the one.

He's the one.

And this

makes so much sense.

Right.

It's just like this person

just has no fear of getting caught.

Did he know the alarm code?

I don't know how he got in, and I don't know why the alarm wasn't triggered before because it feels like if you're an alarm system, you have one job.

You have one job.

Literally one job.

Yeah.

Of course, Cynthia recognizes him because she has, like I said, called the authorities before to report burglaries.

And who has shown up but Brian Barker, an officer with the Edwardsville Police Department.

In this moment, she's like, okay, I could call the Edwardsville police, but he works there.

That's him.

That's him.

So who do you even call?

Who do you call?

She must have really had a lot of trust because she does end up calling.

And, you know, she has to be the person to say, I think it's one of your own, but I do have it on camera.

And so, kudos to the Edwardsville police.

They quickly review the footage and they arrest Brian Barker.

So that is like the smoking gun.

They know who it is.

They find out that Brian Barker is an 18-year veteran of the police department.

And Edwardsville realizes, okay, there's a little bit of a conflict of interest here.

We're going to turn the case over to the Madison County Sheriff's Sheriff's Department.

So why is a police officer stealing cash from a local salon in the middle of the night?

It's like, are you really hard up for money?

Like, what's going on?

Because we know that other things have been burglarized that weren't money.

It's just, they were having trouble.

Like, is this the guy that really could be doing

everything?

Yeah.

What's the scope of this?

What's the scope of this and why?

So according to court records from Madison County, Barker was charged on December 23rd, 2014.

That was actually on the same day that Cynthia saw him on the security footage.

Now, there was a warrant issued for his arrest, and that warrant was also returned a few days later on December 26th.

So it ends up that he is the person behind all of these seemingly random burglaries.

Some of the people whose homes he broke into were neighbors, so he probably knew their schedules.

There's a search warrant.

They go and they look at his house.

So Tom Gibbons Gibbons describes the basement of Brian Barker's home as something like a sort of super center.

They found everything from stolen guns, mufflers, power tools, guitars, and of course, cash.

So he has like a full-on store.

He could have like an eBay shop for people who maybe are up to no good.

But he's just keeping all of it?

He's just keeping it.

I think he did end up making a few like sales on Craigslist, but it was weird because it wasn't the motivation.

So what was the motivation?

Like, why are you just storing all of these random objects?

It turns out that Barker ends up accepting a plea deal.

He knows there's so much evidence against him.

He accepts the plea deal and he's sentenced.

And as part of this process, he has sessions with a psychologist to kind of understand, is this person okay?

So Brian Barker was born on May 5th, 1973.

He had an older sister, Deanna.

And this psychologist said that Barker told him Deanna was abusive and also encouraged him to steal at a very young age, like five or six years old.

Yeah.

And so he developed this sort of like affinity for stealing.

It gave him an adrenaline rush.

It's a tragic story.

You know, it's still his older sister.

And so that's a complex situation.

Deanna later married and became Deanna Howland, and she was also deeply troubled.

She suffered from addiction and actually went missing in the 1980s.

So, you know, many decades before

these crimes took place.

It's horrible.

She was in her 20s when she went missing.

Decades go by, no answer as to what happened.

And then in 2004, a torso is discovered at a rest stop in Warren County, Illinois.

In 2016, those remains were identified as being Deanna's.

The DNA evidence collected also led them to a man named Mike Clarty, who was charged with her murder.

Clarty admitted to the murder when he was questioned about it.

He had no prior criminal record.

This was in 2016?

Yeah, so Deanna had been missing since the 80s.

Wow.

And so this was after all of the stuff took place with Brian Barker and the burglary.

Yeah.

So Barker has this really tragic story, you know, not to excuse his crimes, but

he was abused at a young age, loses his sister to a violent crime, but for many years before that, actually doesn't have any idea what happened to her.

And he's arrested in 2014.

And so then two years after that arrest, as he's going through all of these criminal proceedings and figuring out, you know, plea deal and sentencing, his sister's remains are identified.

And this tragic story of what happened to her is unfolding.

He's a police officer, and that puts you in a position of power.

It was an abuse of power, no question.

But it just made me think, you know, you you read about like a police officer breaking into people's homes and sort of abusing their training and their uniform.

And underneath it all, it was quite sad.

And it's sad for the victim.

Cynthia Vinpatten, she closed her salon, moved to a location where she felt safer.

It was a jarring situation for the whole community.

But yeah, doing this deep dive into it, it just kept unfolding.

It was like, oh, this is so complicated for this person.

It's just terrible.

So complicated.

Yeah, it's interesting to think about what he told the psychologist and that he was sort of aware of this urge to steal things from a young age.

So yeah, it just makes me wonder if that was on his mind when he became a police officer or if he was trying to be better.

But, you know, at some point, he clearly gave in to that.

And yeah, it's a total abuse of power.

Yeah, the psychologist met with him dozens of times to try to sort some of this out and actually ended up diagnosing Brian Barker with persistent depression and obsessive compulsive disorder and kleptomania.

So, I mean, he had a lot going on himself.

And how long was he in prison?

He's still there.

So, at his sentencing, Judge Richard Tognarelli said, if you can't call the police, who can you call?

And that is just such a valid point.

I think if you can't call your local authorities when you feel unsafe because you know at least one of them has broken into your place of business or your home, that's terrifying.

Brian Barker was sentenced to 40 years.

Oh, wow.

It's a huge sentence.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

I mean, kind of astonishing.

Like we've obviously explored many different crimes where there were lesser sentences for violent crimes.

And, you know, I should mention Brian Barker was also ended up being convicted of an arson that took place in November of 2013.

So Oh, wow.

Yeah, there was a lot happening.

Was that someone's home or business?

It was a business.

And I don't know if anyone was there at the time.

I don't think that they were, but very scary.

That is very scary.

Someone easily could have died in that fire.

I feel like that takes it to a whole different level.

Yeah.

Not that breaking into someone's business or home is not terrifying enough.

It's so invasive.

Right.

It's such an abuse of power.

And I wonder if that's why he got that bigger sentence for quote unquote nonviolent crime.

Because like, yeah, you can't be betraying your community's trust.

Like you have signed up for a job that you're going to uphold the law and then you're breaking it secretly.

It's not good.

Right.

And if you start a fire, you're not in control.

No.

What happened to all the stuff in the basement?

I think I remember Tom Gibbons saying that they had to like rent storage units because their evidence room really could not even handle the volume of stuff.

It went that deep.

It sounds like his psychologist said a compulsion.

Like he's keeping these treasures

or something.

Yeah.

I wish I had photos.

I'm curious if it was like super well organized.

Just a wild story.

I don't know.

Anytime I hear like 40 year sentence, it's a whole life, but he did have a very complicated story.

And I think doesn't excuse what he did, but it definitely gives you, I think, more understanding of how someone's life goes a certain way.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for telling me that story.

Yeah, I know.

It's been like a couple of years, I think, since we had talked about it.

So in researching this Brian Barker story, I was able to refer back to my call with Tom Gibbons.

I also read an article in the Belleville News Democrat, Fox 2 News Now, Security Garage, and NeighborhoodScout.com, which can tell you local crime rates.

You know, there's these stories that we hear about and are, you know, want to figure out how to tell.

And then sometimes it doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen.

And then we find a way to tell it eventually.

This is another one of those stories that I have for you today.

It's one that I have like, had a note about on my desktop for probably like two years now.

It's not even in the spreadsheet.

It's probably in multiple spreadsheets.

Yes, Sarah.

Because I've made calls about it and ultimately it just like was not something that people wanted to talk about.

But it kind of broke a couple years ago and it's the Doc Gallagher story.

William Neil Gallagher, aka Dot Gallagher.

He was a radio host, a financial advisor, a former pastor in Texas and has been called the Bernie Madoff of North Texas.

You don't want that title?

No.

There's been some articles about it and even some podcasts, but I really, I think that there's so many details in this story that I want to dive into.

And this story feels incredibly relevant to so much right now.

There's a great Bloomberg article about it.

I also listen to AARP has a podcast.

I'm familiar.

The Perfect Scam.

Scam.

Yeah.

Which is interestingly co-hosted by Frank Abignale.

Didn't you realize?

Sometimes he pops on there to kind of weigh in on scams.

And then there was also a very short interview with an investigator on a podcast that's coming from the Texas Department of Insurance that I listened to.

You're finding all the deep podcasts.

I was like, interesting that the Texas Department of Insurance has a podcast, but it was, I thought it was well done.

Like someone went to their boss and they were like, we can do something with this.

Yeah.

Like this file cabinet is ripe for storytelling.

There's so many stories.

So let's get them out there.

So basically, I'll just start kind of at the top with Doc Gallagher is what I'll call him.

Again, his name is William Neil Gallagher.

He's this like big personality Texan, wears cowboy boots, like was a former preacher.

So is always kind of quoting the Bible and really like agreeable person, well-liked, charismatic, everything you would kind of expect from someone who is turns out to be scamming people.

But even though he seemed so Texan, he's actually, he was born in New York City.

At some point in his childhood, his dad left the family.

So it was him, his mom, and his brother.

They moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts.

He did have a stepdad who it seems like he didn't really get along with that well.

And his family really struggled financially.

They were on welfare for a period of time, which sort of feels like it may have affected him and his goals for the future as far as like making money.

He went to college.

He actually got a lot of education.

He graduated in 1963 from Rhode Island College and then decided to join the Peace Corps.

He taught English in northern Thailand in the 60s.

Okay.

And it's in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand that he meets this Christian missionary and they start talking about the Bible.

It seems like very influential on him and he gets really interested in Christianity and starts reading the Bible.

When he comes back to the U.S., he goes to Brown Trail School of Preaching in Texas, and then he decides to get a master's degree in religion and philosophy.

This is back when education was what, like $2?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll get him, you get a master's degree, I get a master's degree.

Everybody.

He gets married to a dental hygienist named Gail,

and he's a preacher in Bedford, Texas.

Then he decides he wants to get more education.

He actually gets a PhD in philosophy.

So he is a doctor.

This whole time, though, he's becoming more and more politically conservative.

He grew up as a Democrat, but sort of like looks down on people who are supported financially by the government.

Strange, because

his family was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then like as deeply steeped in academia that he's been, he becomes very critical of academia as well.

He thinks it's too liberal.

He's not able to get a teaching position after getting this PhD.

And so he's preaching.

And then he's really inspired by the culture in Texas, though.

Like he's like, there's this entrepreneurial kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Texan, cowboy kind of thing.

As soon as he moves to Texas, it's when he starts like wearing cowboy boots and looking the part and loves it.

Loves Texas.

And listen, I had a period of my childhood where I only wore white fringe cowboy boots.

Yeah.

What was the inspiration behind that?

I was obsessed with horses.

I wore horse girl.

Everyone else.

It's finally come out on the fourth.

4-H kid.

Yeah.

But I feel like for you, it was like more legitimate because you actually were riding horses.

And this guy, he's what?

All hat, no cattle.

That's right.

Is that

a saying?

Yes.

I love it.

I'll hat and no cattle.

That's Doc Gallagher.

So he worked for a time for the American Family Association, which they're a fundamentalist Christian nonprofit.

They've been pretty influential in promoting morality and media specifically.

They lead like boycotts and protests of anything that they deem to be like not Christian family values.

They've been very vocally against pornography, abortion.

They're very anti-LGBTQ.

So it seems like this environment also continues to affect his philosophies, his outlook.

He published a book called How to Stop the Porno Plague: A Simple, Straightforward Action Plan that Can Work in Your Community.

Okay.

It's just like a simple, straightforward action plan.

It just, it seems ridiculous.

I have to like tell you right now, it is so simple.

It is so straightforward.

It's like, if I don't tell you in the title, how will you know?

How will you know?

Yeah.

So I actually did not read that book.

I just, I got to come.

You didn't read it.

Okay.

But he did publish that book.

It's also interesting to note that the AFA, the American Family Association, was in the radio station business as well.

They had a couple hundred radio stations across 33 states.

And Doc Gallagher will end up going on the radio a lot.

So I was curious when I read that, if that was sort of like the beginning of his interest in radio shows, but I don't know for sure if that's true.

I do know when he published his book, he did a lot of like radio interviews and talked on the radio, promoting the book.

And it seems like he was really good at it.

Like he really took to the radio.

He's, he just had that personality for it.

He and his wife have multiple children, including one adopted son.

They move to Memphis and he becomes a securities broker.

And then eventually back to Texas, the Fort Worth area.

He gets a job with A.G.

Edwards, which eventually becomes part of Wells Fargo.

And he's a securities broker.

And he starts to kind of just like build up his business and his notoriety in the area.

He claims that he studied under Zig Ziglar, who was a famous salesman, author, and motivational speaker who has like a ton of books.

Zig Ziggler.

Zig Ziggler.

So this is the 90s.

And William Neil Gallagher, he founded Gallagher Financial Group, and he starts going on local Christian radio stations.

There's four stations that he has shows on regularly.

I'm pretty sure these are paid programs that he's paying for.

And he comes up with the name for himself, Doc Gallagher.

He's the money doctor.

We love a nickname that you gave yourself.

Yeah.

I know.

The confidence.

And I mean, he is a doctor, technically.

He has a doctor.

He's a duck for sure.

He's a doc.

And so he starts promoting his business on the radio.

And some of his old radio shows are on SoundCloud that you can go listen to if anyone is inclined.

People have said that it was a lot of promotion.

Like he would give financial advice and he would talk to different financial people, but mostly it was just to promote himself and his business and to try to get more clients.

But his education, his background is in, you know, religion and philosophy.

Yeah.

Copy.

Just wanted to make sure I was.

tracking that.

Religion and philosophy.

That is correct.

Yeah.

That's important to note because it's not like he has an MBA.

It's not like he has a degree in finance.

No.

Let's be clear.

But his whole approach is like Christian investing.

So he's sort of like, let Jesus determine your financial investments.

I don't really understand how that tracks necessarily, but it was clear that he was going after a very specific demographic of people who were politically conservative, who were really religious, really Christian.

You know, it still is today, but it was becoming such a big deal in the US.

There was like a moral panic, right?

And so his whole thing was like, invest with me, and it'll be like a moral investment.

Like, I'm going to invest your money in ways that God would approve of.

And if you're a deeply religious person, like, that would resonate with you.

Yeah.

I mean, you wouldn't want someone with a shared value system.

Yes.

And so this was a huge selling point, actually.

And it really seemed to work.

Like, he really understood the people and the culture that he was living in and was really good at getting people to trust him and like him.

But then he hit some trouble in 1999.

He was reprimanded by the Texas State Securities Board for allegedly falsifying records and representing himself as an investment advisor.

They opened an investigation into him and essentially like they charged him $25,000 fine and he had to give up his broker's license in 2001.

You don't want that.

No.

How many people, do you know like how much money was invested into his company at this time?

At this point, I'm not sure, but he ends up selling his brokerage firm for an undisclosed amount of money.

And he then switches focus to non-securities investments.

And he's still advertising on the radio.

At this point, one of his sons is working with him.

And his son basically said,

this was a huge blow for him.

Mainly because it was important for him to have this really good reputation.

He wanted to be very successful and seen as very successful.

So this was embarrassing for him.

And I should also say his son was never charged with any wrongdoing.

Okay.

But he was working with his father, but it kind of seems like he didn't really know what was going on.

It seems like this is a pretty big turning point.

So he starts a new fund, a DGI fund, and it's focused on annuities, which I didn't really know what that was.

Yeah, can you please tell me?

So I had to look it up.

An annuity is a contract that's issued and distributed by an insurance company and bought by individuals.

So it's different than life insurance, which gets paid out after someone dies.

This is the insurance company pays out a fixed or variable income stream to the purchaser beginning right away or sometime in the future.

So essentially what he was trying to do was get people, his clients, to roll over their 401ks into annuities, which is something that people do sometimes.

Whether or not you think it's a smart idea, debatable.

I don't know.

I'm no expert.

I barely understand it right now.

Yeah, me too.

This is his kind of new approach and he's, he's still doing well.

You know, there was multiple people who were interviewed who were his clients and they described him, as I've said, as being someone who is like really trustworthy.

Before someone would invest, he spent a lot of time with them personally.

He would come to their home.

He would talk to them all about his plan for their future.

He used words like guarantee.

He promised like 5%

interest growth with your money every year.

And, you know, it's a little bit of a red flag to use words like guarantee and promise when it comes to that because it's like, you never know what's going to happen.

And this is the part that's like really heartbreaking, but the majority of his clients that he was targeting are people who are retirement age, 65 plus, who have built up these 401ks

over their whole working careers

and are interested in investing their money so that it continues to grow as they're retired for their future and also for the future of their children.

So, this is like a message that's really appealing to them.

Yeah, I want my whole life savings that I've worked for to be safe and to continue to accrue money.

You know, it's just so sick that these are the people that he's targeting.

Yeah, I mean, that's at a time when I think most people are slowing down.

Like, you're earning less, but you've worked so hard.

Yeah.

So, one little tidbit that was mentioned that I just feel like is so telling of his personality is multiple people said he would like enter a room very like loudly, declaring like Bible verses.

Like, what this one person was like, he would just like walk in your house and say, This is the day the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it, which is a quote from the Bible that Christian people would know.

Well, and it's like, regardless of how religious you are, just entering a room loudly, it just,

I mean, it's like, is this a nervous habit?

What's happening here?

Someone who enters a room talking is such a specific kind of thing.

I'm going to go ahead and say that's a huge red flag.

Yeah.

I mean, like, there's already people in the room.

They might be talking about something else, but someone entering a room talking, like, clearly doesn't care about what's happening in that room.

And they're like, I'm here.

I'm the center of attention.

You got to pay attention to me.

It's just like taking up so much space.

Yeah.

But I do think it's kind of like how if you're going to get surgery, I feel like, okay, like my mom had surgery a few years back.

And I remember her surgeon was kind of like this same type of person, so confident, so sort of extremely self-assured.

He was sort of like, I'm the best in the state.

And I was like, great.

I love to hear this.

And I don't even care if he was being truthful at that time or not.

It was like, there's a certain type of situation where someone being like so overly confident can feel really reassuring.

And I think that in this situation, probably that's how people felt that they were like, look, this is my money.

This is like something that I want someone who like really knows what they're doing to handle.

Yeah, that's a great point.

You definitely don't want a surgeon who's like, I feel good about it.

I feel good about it.

I think we're good.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, you don't.

No.

You don't want to hear that.

You don't want to hear any hesitation, actually.

I don't even like when the pilot comes out after the flight and says bye to you.

I'm like, I don't want to think about you at all.

Like they, you know, they step out of their

office or good

office or cockpit where they fly the plane.

Weird saying the word cockpit, honestly.

Like they step out and say wave goodbye to you.

And I'm just like, I just want to think of a robot.

Oh, interesting.

I don't want to think of a human up there at all.

Like, what if you're just having, you know, an awful day?

No, thanks.

I don't even, I can't even say that.

Yeah.

I feel like opposite in a way where when they step out there, I'm looking at them like, oh, look, they're a normal person and they were able to fly this plane.

And that makes me feel a little safer.

Think of normal people.

No.

We could go off and do a whole other podcast about flying and I'm going to be on a flight tomorrow.

Oh, God.

You're going to be great.

I hear a robot is going to be flying it.

Perfect.

Okay.

So he's doing great.

He's getting a lot of clients.

He goes on to publish later on two more books.

He publishes a book called The Money Doctor's Guide to Taking Care of Yourself When No One Else Will in 2005.

And then later on in 2016, he publishes Jesus Christ Money Master, four eternal truths that deliver personal power and profit.

And that's all about putting your financial future in Jesus' hands.

Part of his messaging when he does these radio programs is that he's like railing against big financial institutions.

So it's kind of tying into that mindset of like, Wall Street is bad.

Big cities are bad.

They're like these liberal elites.

And he sort of spins his backstory because he's from New York City.

He has a PhD.

He's like, I've been to the dark side.

I've seen what it's like.

And I have, you know, I've changed my mind.

I've come around and I'm here for you now.

These big financial institutions are not going to take care of your money, but I will.

So you should divest from them and just like entrust me with your money.

I mean, it's a romantic idea.

It's like, if you're in a small town, a small community, and you meet someone who goes to the same church as you or has the same belief system as you do, and you see their energy in a room and you're like, yeah, like I want to be able to call up the guy handling my money and know him.

Oh, 100%, as opposed to some big corporation.

And so I think there's something really appealing about that.

And Doc Gallagher was portraying that he was that way.

He also loved a good photo op.

You know, he would often send his investors emails that were sort of like updates about their investments, but they would also include like photos of him volunteering at a shelter or like a photo with Joel Austein.

Former clients say that he didn't pressure them too hard to invest.

It was kind of a long game.

Like he would start off by giving them good financial advice and then build their trust and then eventually convince them to invest like their whole savings with him.

There was one couple that talked about rolling over their 401k.

And then after a while, while, you know, he, through talking to them, realized that they also had this separate amount of money that was an inheritance that they had gotten.

And he then starts working on them to like give him that money.

And they looked into it and they were like, well, actually going to get a pretty big fee if we take this money out.

It's going to cost us like $13,000.

So I think we'll keep it in there.

And then he came in with the hard pitch and was like, you're going to end up making so much money with me that that 13K will be like meaningless.

Like you're going to make so much more money.

So they did.

Oh no.

Turned it all over.

So, okay, we're going back to this Texas Department of Insurance podcast.

They interviewed Steve Richardson, who was an investigator for the Texas Department of Insurance in 2015.

He got a call from someone at Alliance Insurance.

Someone at Alliance had flagged something that was happening with one of their clients.

One of their clients had an annuity fund with them, and Doc Gallagher was her financial advisor.

This client actually had Alzheimer's, and so so her son was her power of attorney.

But they started seeing these requests come through to withdraw money from this annuity account.

And this person working at Alliance was like, this is strange.

So she called up this woman's son, who was this power of attorney and asked, did you make these withdrawals?

Because each of them would come with like a pretty large fee.

And he was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

No, don't do the withdrawal.

Oh, no.

So then she was like denied the request, but then the requests kept coming through and they were coming from Doc Gallagher.

He was trying to pull money out of this woman's account.

So instead of alerting Doc Gallagher, she called up the Texas Department of Insurance and spoke to their investigator, Steve Richardson.

Steve started to investigate this.

He subpoenaed Gallagher's bank accounts and he starts just like taking a look to see what's going on.

And he said that fairly quickly, he was like, this looks like a Ponzi scheme.

I see money coming out of his client's accounts into his account.

I don't see that money being invested.

And then I see some money being paid back to these clients.

Just enough to be like, look, I'm giving you money.

Yeah, monthly dividend payments.

And he was giving his clients those monthly dividend payments, right?

They weren't actually dividend payments.

Right.

And then he was sending his clients monthly reports about how their investments were doing that were like doctored.

Dr.

Gallagher was doctored.

I was waiting for one of us to say that.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

So Steve Richardson talks about how he starts this investigation.

And he said it was quite difficult to get any traction because as he was interviewing Doc Gallagher's clients, none of them thought anything was wrong.

So he was interviewing them, asking them, what's going on with your investments?

And all of them were like, no, it's great.

It's great.

He's doing a really good job.

I'm getting my monthly dividends.

Like, we don't have any problems.

I think you're wrong.

There's nothing going on here.

So like he's having a hard time getting any traction with this investigation because none of the quote unquote victims, I mean, they are victims, but they're like, no, like, what are you talking about?

They also have a personal relationship relationship with this person.

And so if you were to like say, actually, let's talk about it.

You might think you're throwing someone under the bus.

Like, well, I can just call him and figure it out.

Yeah, totally.

And who's this guy, this random guy who's investigating?

Yeah.

Cut to 2017.

So that's two years later.

This couple named James and Carol Herman, they had invested almost $700,000 with Doc Gallagher into his DGI fund.

But then in 2017, Carol, who was a nurse, she had an injury that made it hard for her to keep working.

So they contacted Doc Gallagher and they asked him to double their monthly withdrawals because they needed that money.

He just like flat out refused.

And then he started to kind of avoid them.

She grew concerned.

So she tried to withdraw $100,000 and he would not let her.

She said every time that she would call him and ask, he would sort of make an excuse and then he would send her flowers or candy or a fruit basket.

So eventually James and Carol go to him in person, basically corner him and strong arm him basically to giving them $100,000 of their money back.

And then they immediately go after they leave his office, they go to the Hearst police and make a report.

So it's the Hearst Police who eventually contacts Steve Richardson in 2017 because he sees that he had already kind of started an investigation and he confirms that I think we have more evidence that this is happening.

So they coordinate with the Security and Exchange Commission in Texas and basically it all unravels.

And by 2019, they had gathered overwhelming evidence of fraud.

The SEC filed a complaint that accused Gallagher of misappropriating almost $20 million

from a variety of investors.

This number is 60 investors, and I don't know if that was the final number, but it all came crashing down.

You know, he pled guilty.

He had two different charges.

He had a charge in Dallas that was for securities fraud, and he received a 25-year sentence in state prison for that.

And then there was a second charge, and he pled guilty to that.

Well, it was for fraud and theft, and that was in Tarrant County, Texas.

And that judge, he kind of like put himself at the mercy of the judge to say whatever, you know, sentence he thought would be appropriate.

That judge came down really hard on him and gave him three concurrent life sentences.

Wow.

And I think probably because these are people's life savings.

Yeah.

Like they cannot just like go have another half of their career.

And a lot of the victims were able to speak and like talk about their stories.

And it's just so sad because they talked about having to sell their homes, you know, in their 70s and having to like move in with their kids and be financially dependent on them.

Like it's so sad.

It's so horrible, especially when a lot of them had been very financially responsible their whole lives.

I found another source that said the amount of money he took was about $24 million.

And some of it was recovered, but like the majority of it was not.

An investigator did a forensic accounting and was trying to locate the money, but he said that there was just a lot of really strange choices and dubious investments that he had put money into, like apparently a fraudulent gold mining business, as well as investing in a company called Hover Inc Biotechnologies, which was like supposedly a hovercraft business.

So he was taking his clients' money and then then making bad investment decisions that he thought would benefit him.

I don't know what he thought.

He was making like ridiculous investment choices.

Wow.

And then the Bloomberg article talked about the appearance that some of the money went through a woman named Debbie Carter.

So Gail, Gallagher's wife, did end up divorcing him because it came out that, well, I mean, he was arrested for this, but also he had been having an affair with Debbie Carter.

She was a former securities broker and she had worked with Dot Gallagher back at A.G.

Edwards in the 90s and then later worked for him.

Then she had been at Daystar Television Network, which is a Christian channel that also is really big into the prosperity gospel.

So the idea that if you are right with God, you will be making money.

And so it seems like she was somehow involved as well, but still ultimately the search for all of the money was unsuccessful.

So I actually spoke with this woman on the phone.

I'll call her Martha.

She was really kind.

She was one of his victims.

She lives in Texas.

She's lived in her home for over 50 years.

She's 81.

And this was so devastating to her.

She said her memory is not what it used to be.

So she didn't want to do an interview.

But she talked about how she's not over it at all.

Like she said that she was a single mom because her husband left her.

She's been divorced for 33 years.

She really struggled.

She had to work multiple jobs to stay afloat and to like keep her home.

And then at some point, she unexpectedly received some inheritance from an aunt and uncle that she had who didn't have children.

And that was about $300,000.

To her, this was huge.

This was like the biggest break that she'd had in her life.

And she was really responsible with it.

She had some of it in her bank and then she had it invested in different locations.

But at some point, you know, around her retirement, she became convinced that it was a good idea to have it all in one location.

And so she asked around in her town and she had multiple people recommend her to Doc Gallagher.

She had people at her church as well as at a retirement home that she was involved with.

And these were, again, people from her community that she trusted.

And that's all we have, right?

Because like most of us are not experts in this kind of thing.

I feel like I've tried to educate myself on how to like, invest.

And even with so much information at our fingertips now, it's still confusing.

And so she's in a little town and this is a windfall and she's just going to people she trusts for advice yeah and she wants this to set her up for the rest of her life as well as be something for her daughter and she said that she got regular statements from him and she got her regular monthly payments and she had no idea that anything was wrong she was just out about in town one day and someone was like did you hear about dot gallagher

And she was just like, you know, her stomach dropped.

And this is how she heard about it.

And she said that she basically lost everything.

She said that they had been able to get the victims like some small payouts, but because there were so many victims, the amount you got back was just very small.

So she said she lost over $500,000, like her entire savings, which just kind of makes you feel sick to your stomach.

Yeah, I mean, a single parent, too, just everything she had already been through.

And then you put your trust in someone, just horrible.

And like, thinking about Doc Gallagher and how he paid Martha these monthly statements.

It's like he had a whole system going of deceiving people to be able to keep track of that.

That just shows so much thought into what you're doing.

It's not like, oh, it just got away from me.

It's like every single month, you're sitting down at your computer and typing up these lies and sending them out and deceiving people.

It's like, that's more than just, you know, you got in over your head.

Yeah.

It's hard to understand how he justified that in his own mind.

But so what can you really do?

I think like you can look up people's licenses online now.

So like the fact that he had his license revoked in 2001 would have been information that was available online, but I don't know that the demographic of people he was scamming maybe would know how to look that up.

But that is something to think about now for people who have financial advisors and who are trusting people with their investments is that you can look up their license status online.

I do have a recommendation.

I'm on episode two of the telepathy tapes.

Yeah.

So this is a podcast that a lot of people are talking about for good reason.

It's super like unique subject matter.

The podcast goes into how nonverbal people diagnosed with autism are communicating possibly through telepathy.

And it's, I think, a really unique exploration of like consciousness.

And I'm I'm enjoying it.

I have listened to almost all of the first season.

Of the telepathy.

Yes.

Okay.

So you're ahead of me.

But no, I think it's such a good recommendation.

I actually don't have a recommendation today.

So I'll just second your recommendation.

I've never actually heard a podcast like this before in my whole life.

I'll say that.

Yeah, same.

It's like pretty mind-blowing.

I was reading about it on Reddit, actually, because I was like, what are people saying about this?

And it's very mixed.

It's very controversial.

There's there's definitely people who are like this is not real oh yeah i mean i can imagine yeah i need to like look into this reddit thread yeah but i sort of feel like it is i mean there's a lot that i think is dismissed in a child when they are non-speaking that we shouldn't be doing that because we really don't know that's such a good point It's like, I don't want to say too much about it because you don't want to give it away, but it is really interesting.

It's definitely worth a listen.

I think that's a great recommendation.

Yeah, we were recommended by a friend of ours and I don't think I would have ever clicked on it.

Yeah.

But I'm glad to be listening.

It's not true crime.

If you've, you know, had

to check out the telepathy tapes.

Well, that's our episode for today, and we will be back with you next week.

Thanks for listening.

If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it.

Our email is theknife at exactlyrightmedia.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at theKnife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

This has been an exactly right production.

Hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Tayshia Eaton.

Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexa Samorosi.

This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.