. "I said, 'I don't want him killed.' Kelly was lying. One number is working in Campbells favor. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. Its kind of like that. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." Question: Should people go see this movie? Twelve hours later, at 6 that evening, Eric Payne drove a rented Budget van to his workplace, a graphics company on Performance Road in western Mecklenburg County called Reynolds & Reynolds, which was closed for the night and had a secluded parking lot where they intended to transfer the cash. It will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? The figures can be astounding. "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. Ghantt was working a late shift, and just after 6:30 p.m., his coworkers were packing up and heading for home. The case resurfaced in the federal courts on Thursday, Sept. 1, when the U.S. Attorneys Office in Charlotte posted a public reminder in the case file of Loomis defendant Kelly Campbell that she had fallen behind in her restitution. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. They sweated, though the night was cool. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter and happy. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. That's the kind of movie they wanted to make. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. In real life: False. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. David complained it wasn't enough. Exciting. When I call Ghantt to discuss his involvement in the Loomis Fargo heist, he confesses that hes feeling a bit tired from a day of honest labor. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. There were times when I drank really heavily.". Some of the biggest numbers remaining on the Loomis collection board, as is the case with Campbell, belong to those who played the biggest role in the crime: David Ghantt, the Loomis employee who loaded all that money 2,800 pounds in all into the back of a company van before escaping to Mexico, has paid just under $50,000 of the $3.81 million he was assessed. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. This time, David told McKinney the truth. Two days after theyd robbed the Loomis Fargo truck the very same day the police found the abandoned van in the woods Steve and Michelle Chambers walked into a bank and deposited their cut of the stolen money into their account. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. I hear her typing. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. . Its in the ether. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. He didn't want to abandon his parents. In early September 1997, Kelly found herself chatting on the phone with a friend who still worked at Loomis, a 27-year-old man who, despite being married, had made no secret of the fact that he had a crush on her. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. In real life: False. Twice a week over the next 12 months, we will take you back to the winter of sheep cloning and the summer of Con Air. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Kelly, using David's cell phone, kept beeping him. . Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. "I" has one letter. I studied up on the FBI. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. She declined to take a lie-detector test. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? He couldn't even bear to stick around for the final tally--though when he left he didn't forget to take $6,000, the first cut of his expected $100,000 share. Charlotte hotel chef who serves with a smile recognized as outstanding ambassador, Eritrean, Ethiopian restaurant owner was a big brother and father to many in Charlotte, Home tours: This wired-up Weddington smart home has a pool big enough for the neighborhood. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. Campbell, a former Loomis employee and one of the original masterminds of the caper, has paid off less than $21,000 of the $4,701,694.18 she was docked. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' It was late in 1996. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. In real life: Yes and no. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. Its everything thats coming north.. In real life: True. Then another. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. "He said, 'Yeah, right,' and turned his head. Military + Veterans. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. And then I could hear her laughing. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. Ghantt went on to explain that he rarely even looks at his debt statement to the government, but believes the IRS says he still owes them $3.8 million. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. Ghantt went on to explain that he left for his flight to Mexico with about $25,000, and that two or three deliveries of extra money was made to him by the man Chambers would pay to kill him. So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. and "I love money!" Besides her prison sentence . And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. . As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. So I guess I have no regrets. In the following months, Steve persisted, even floating the notion of placing phony hand grenades on a Loomis truck to scare away the drivers, Kelly said. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. Thats one of my personality flaws. I said, Listen, You all need to get your shit together, or Im just going to walk over here to the government building and tell them who the fuck I am. That lit a little fire under her ass, for a bit.. They soon realized David had stolen more money than would fit in their 55-gallon barrels. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. A few of the Loomis restitution cases have already been closed either because the amount was paid in full or because the 20-year clock wound down. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Why fans love it. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. There had been no signs. But McKinney never stopped trying to kill Ghantt although, initally, McKinney thought Chambers had paid for the hit over a drug deal gone bad, Diamant said. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. In real life: False. At that same time, Steve was growing sick of the calls to send more money to Ghantt, and was looking for a way to end that issue. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . Few who were living in the area at the time can forget the "Velvet Elvis" painting Chambers had hanging in his mansion or the tales of cosmetic surgery, BMW convertibles and other signs of excess. Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. At one point, the hoodlum shows up and Ghantt is wearing a Jerome Bettis Pittsburgh Steelers jersey; the hoodlums favorite team is the Steelers, and he caves and tells Ghantt that McKinney wants him dead. He told Steve he hadn't been able to find David. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. Dental plans . . Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. He gave the rest to Kelly. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. The cash was covered with dog food. Her marriage--at which she was making another ambivalent effort after multiple separations--and even the jobs she'd been able to get with a diploma couldn't come close to providing the kind of life she dreamed about, the life she felt she deserved: a house in the country, a swimming pool, and enough cash so she didn't need to rely on men. We need to set up some way for me to get my money. She said, We got it all worked out. He appeared happily matched with his high-spirited wife, Michele, and the two children from her first marriage. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. Then, on a mid-September day, as he reviewed a credit card bill, David did some math. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. Health savings account and flexible spending account. Husband and wife Steven and Michelle Chambers, whose conspicuous consumption of a luxury home, a BMW convertible, breast implants and a $600 wooden Indian, among other purchases, helped the FBI solve the crime, were assessed $3.81 million and $4.8 million, respectively. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Geres Ass Gerbil. I was burned out and just didn't know it. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. Scott was so nervous, he said, that he couldn't help. Not Ghantt. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. The cart held about $2 million, and the thief made multiple trips. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? That day, FBI agents also would arrest Scott Grant and Eric Payne, who had spent his share of the money on a motorcycle and breast implants for his wife and two sisters. About 200 keys dangled from it. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. Reach our Customer Contact Center by calling 877.877.0560 from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM CT every day or by completing the provided form. Did you get paid? Heres your money. Then he turns around and leaves., The problem was, it was nowhere near the amount Ghantt had expected: Im looking at it, and theres maybe $8,000. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. Scott, 26, had a larceny conviction as a teenager, but he'd since cleaned up his act and now had a steady job, a daughter and a girlfriend. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. At first, David Ghantt said, "I didn't take her seriously. "I was trying to figure out a way to [leave my husband] and take care of my kids without having to depend on him or any other man," Kelly said. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. You can garnish wages. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. You have to remember that it's Hollywood and they'll take what was a minor event and they'll blow it up and make it as funny as they can.". Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. Though he never found the right moment to carry out the hit, McKinney did find time to make a friend--a shady character named Robert, to whom he revealed more than was prudent. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, who had been friends on and off since growing up together in the mid-1980s, were at a cookout, playing cards and drinking Budweiser at Steve's Lincoln County, N.C., mobile home, Kelly recalled. She also must . Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. Now that Kelly believes she has found Jesus, she has become more analytical about her past. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. . A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. Chambers did hire McKinney to kill Ghantt, but initially McKinney was making personal cash deliveries to Ghantt in Mexico on behalf of Chambers. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. The next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. "But I had to know.". Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. He went deep-sea fishing. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. Updated: 11:31 AM EDT October 4, 2022 CHARLOTTE, N.C. Tuesday is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, where a bank worker, with the help of two accomplices,. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. Why do we feel its so necessary to treat people like this, to say, OK, well just ruin the rest of your life because you made a bad decision., Punishment should not last a lifetime. The van door opened. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Kelly drove David to the airport. In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. Given the presence of the surveillance tapes and a gun belonging to Ghantt, they started with Ghantts phone and pager records and discovered a pattern they attributed to an accomplice. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. Theres less security. shes now Miss USA. In real life: Mostly true. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 millionliterally more than one ton of cash. Campbell and her husband had always been just scraping by, however in the weeks following the robbery, the two seemed to have more money than they've ever had. ". He couldn't talk.". On October 5, 1997, FBI agents gathered at the Loomis, Fargo & Co. warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, to watch a security videotape of a man loading stacks of cash into a pushcart and wheeling them from the vault. Ghantt simply got ready for work one morning knowing it would be his last day on the job. Her case closes in 2025. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. In real life: True. Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. And I was thinking about just showing up there. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. "I was thinking, 'They aren't paying me enough,' " McKinney recalled. In a word, "Teamwork. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. In Campbells case, Gronquist says his client was buried in court-ordered debt despite the fact that she took responsibility for what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors and the FBI. In real life: False. A report by the General Accounting Office found that as of budget year 2016, $110 billion in restitution ordered by the federal courts was outstanding and that more than 90% of the amount had been classified as uncollectible.. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount Holly, N.C. on Aug 16, 1999. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". As for his new wife, when the two just started dating, he was nervous about letting her know about his past, but he wanted to be honest. That week, the FBI designated the theft its 142nd "major case," putting it on a list--begun in the 1970s--that includes such other infamous crimes as the World Trade Center bombing. But after a year, they'll cut it down to two agents. The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. Where was Ghantt? I missed my wife. ", "Even then . On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. It changes you. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. That was the most painful truth to come to. . "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. He worked fueling airplanes, driving a forklift, and in 1994 he got a job as a vault superintendent at Loomis. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. If you were one of the much-smaller-than-expected group of people who caught Masterminds at the theater this weekend, and are looking for a fact-check of the events depicted on screen, here are some of the highlights of our chat with Diamant. Ghantt was apprehended in Mexico and returned to the United States in custody. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. Ghantt was already married when he took part in the heist, to a woman named Tammy who author Diamant described as very nice. It is true, however, that she had no idea about the plot and that he fled to Mexico without telling her. She could visit friends. He goes, My name is Bruno. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. Campbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantt's feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. He learned to parachute. They heard Michele brag about her $43,000 ring. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. Everybody seemed stunned. They cursed. Starting Pay Rate: $15.50 per hour Shift: Monday - Friday from 1:00pm to 9:00pm Job Description As a Coin Processor, you work with your team to maintain inventory in our cash vaults for our Loomis customers. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Thats nearly $11 million less than former Kings Mountain resident David Ghantt (played by Galifianakis in the film) helped steal from the vault where he worked in Charlotte back in October 1997. Him and I still talk every now and then. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. Except the person he offered $150,000 to mule $2.5 million down to Ghantt in Mexico turned him down and instead went to the FBI. Was Queen Charlotte Black? "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. October was "a blast," he said. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. Steve told me to tell [David] whatever was necessary to keep him happy.". Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist.
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