Ridiculous Crime

In 1971, Muhammad Ali fights Smokin' Joe Frazier in The Fight of the Century. The huge media event is the perfect distraction for a group of Catholic hippie antiwar activists to stage a break-in at an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania. This story has everything –– J. Edgar Hoover, Deep Throat, and the Washington Post, all show up in this tale that predates Watergate. Not bad for some amateur break-in artists!

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Conning your way into ownership of a professional sports team is one thing, but playing two countries off each other for phony mineral rights is the pinnacle of scamming. Russell King did them both! Hooray! 

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A Bosnian boy with a poet's soul grows up to a pioneer of parkour in Paris. Up there on the rooftops of the City of Lights, he turns to crime. He has a taste for jewels and fine art... and suction cups. That's why they call him: The Spiderman of Paris.

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Eugene Bullard would not let America diminish him. So he left to find a place that would let him live free — and found freedom in the skies.

On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a movie!” Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.

VERY SPECIAL CREDITS
Hosted by Zaron Burnett, Dana Schwartz, and Jason English
Special Thanks to Zaron's Pops
Written by Zaron Burnett
Produced by Josh Fisher
Story Editors are Marisa Brown and Ryan Murdock
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs and Josh Fisher
Additional Editing by Emily Marinoff
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Voice Actors are Jonathan Washington and Chris Childs
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Research and Fact Checking by Zaron Burnett and Austin Thompson
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying Very Special Episodes, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. You can reach us at veryspecialepisodes@gmail.com. 

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Who's up for some silliness? We got us a crazy, high-end, hard boiled casino Down Under that just can't seem to avoid trouble. But when a dude takes the place for multiple millions, they aren't so tough after all. With a special appearance by Ridiculous Crime barkeep Rascal Jack! 

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Ireland's world famous Russborough House belonged to Lord Alfred and Lady Clementine –– two 'violently wealthy' British aristocrats with the families to match. Their palatial manor home seemed to attract crime and intrigue. There was the British heiress turned IRA radical who busted in for a robbery. And her success inspired two IRA-adjacent gangsters –– The General and the Viper –– to see what they could pull in art heists of their own. 

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Owing people millions is a big deal, unless you have hundreds of millions and can pay it off. And if you don't and can't, then you just have to act like you can and will. But you can't. And won't. So you don't and…well, you get it.

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Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are the Insane Clown Posse. Their fans call themselves the Juggalos and Juggalettes. Each year they hold their annual Gathering of the Juggalos. It is a bazar of fairground games, hip-hop, horrorcore rap, oil wrestling, fight clubs... but also family. Get comfortable, crack open a Faygo and... "Whoop Whoop!"

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He was the GOAT of early mass communication. And he was also the GOAT of medical quackery. John R. Brinkley duped thousands and made millions, but nothing gold can stay. Especially when it involves goat testicles.

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He was a man with a dream –– and that dream was to fly. His brother shared this dream. Trouble was they weren't the Wright Brothers, they were Crazy Mike and High Flyin' Ryan. The brothers challenged gravity, the law and common sense... until the FBI stepped in. 

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You know what they say, all dogs go to heaven. And apparently some dogs go to jail. Elizabeth lets the dogs out with tails (get it?) of mischief, larceny, and dogfoolery. 

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There is no one way to break into the entertainment industry, there's just the way you do it. Country music. legend Kris Kristofferson used a stolen helicopter to impress Johnny Cash. The rest is music history. ...And the story is ridiculous!

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Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s heavyweight title fight is considered one of the greatest sporting events of all time. What’s less well known is that five weeks earlier in the very same stadium, James Brown headlined an epic, three-day long, pre-fight music festival. Rumble braids together both boxing and music history for a compelling account of Muhammad Ali’s growth into both The People’s Champ and the GOAT. For his first title fight, he takes on the “bad man” Sonny Liston.

REFERENCE BOOKS:

Ali: The Greatest, My Own Storyby Muhammad Ali

Ali: A Lifeby Jonathan Eig

Rumble In the Jungle by Lewis Erenberg

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You gotta love a flashy Italian bank burglar in 1980s London with a penchant for Ferraris. In a bold and zesty tunneling vault robbery, Valerio Viccei stole a bunch of cash, gems, and coke. And then the Flying Squad showed up. This ride? It's wild. 

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Possibly our most-requested subject. And if there's one thing you can about Ridiculous Crime...we do it for the People. So here it is...the strange but true story of Colton Harris Moore, AKA The Barefoot Bandit. Amateur pilot, well-practiced plane thief, and dog lover. 

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Think of this like an early Perpie award. Zaron and Elizabeth are out on assignment and will return with a new episode on Tuesday. Today we're featuring an episode you chose as one of the best of all time, and an episode we still reference all the time in HQ.

Get drunk? Check. Steal a plane? Check. Fly it back to the bar you'd been partying in earlier? Check. Tommy "Fitz" Fitzpatrick had only a few steps in his plan to become a legend. How he executed that plan and took it to new heights makes him the poster boy for mid-century ridiculousness. 

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America selects them, Casey Kasem counts em down. Zaron and Elizabeth are out on assignment for one more week. Today we're featuring another of the Rude Dude chosen best ever Ridiculous Crime episodes, and this one is a real crackerjack.

2 Texas colleges. 
1 two-hundred pound owl. 
Mix in 1200 cadets and their bull sergeants versus a team of football players and tracks stars, stir in as many trains, trucks, and cars as can be found, and garnish with two private dicks, one named Snowball.

That’s called a TAMU over Rice.

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You choose it, we play it. While Zaron and Elizabeth leave Producer Dave all by himself in the studio, we're featuring your picks for the best ever Ridiculous Crime episodes.

Being named Bum Farto is ridiculous. Selling drugs is a crime. Being named Bum Farto and selling drugs in front of a fire station? Now THAT'S a ridiculous crime. 

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You choose it, we play it. While Zaron and Elizabeth are out on assignment, we're featuring your picks for the best ever Ridiculous Crime episodes.

You need money. You know the Sinatra family. Obviously, the only thing to do is kidnap the adult son of Old Blue Eyes and ask for a ransom. But not too much, just enough. You don’t want to seem greedy. In this classic episode, learn about one man’s bumbling crusade to raise money for his family and raise the ire of America’s most mobbed-up crooner. 

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Military service is valuable, so much so that goofballs try to steal it, or at least the valor that accompanies such a sacrifice. Join us on a journey of fake medals, phony uniforms, and ninjas. There are ninjas. 

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Graceland is not just a Paul Simon album, turns out it was also the home of Elvis Presley. Who knew?! Turns out crimers and scammers –– they knew! Because once the King was gone, the scammers came to steal his Graceland. But there's so much more going down in that world famous mansion. E and Z take you behind the gates... of Graceland. Where we all will be received.

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Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Amy Bock conned the rich for shiggles and then gave it all away to random strangers. A fascinating character, she conned throughout her life, over and over. And her masterpiece? You won't bocking believe the audacity.

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David Bloom made a name for himself in the '80s New York art world. That ended badly. So he moved west –– to a new cultural hotspot also ripe with suckers. Folks who'd believe he was a finance bro long enough for him to fleece the sheep. Again, things ended badly.

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This guy. He pulled off great cons and even better prison escapes. He got tossed in solitary for life, but now walks free. Jim Carrey played him in a movie. I mean, this guy. You simply can't keep him down.

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What good is an ice cream cone without the ice cream? What's an elaborate mating ritual without the dirty deed? What's a con without a payoff? Producer Dave dives deep into the life of 1940s LA man about town Charles Edwards, who created a lot of sizzle but somehow never managed to turn it in to a steak dinner.

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What is supposed to be a luxurious, tropical escape on the high seas can sometimes devolve into a floating barge of drunken tussles at the midnight pizza buffet. Choose your cruise wisely, or you could wind up bruised and battered and also starring in a Ridiculous Crime episode.

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Colonial America, and England in the time of the Puritans... not exactly the time or places you'd expect to find a footloose and fancy-free beggar hopping and skipping back and forth across the Atlantic. His secret? Begging, borrowing and stealing. Also, the kindness of others. A shipwreck? A flooded farm? A burned down farmhouse? These weren't calamaties to the King of the Beggars, no, quite the opposite, those were stages for him to debut a new character and then let charity find him. 

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It's pretty brazen to pose as a super secret spy guy in order to hustle up some phony government contracts. You have to convince folks that you are a man of mystery, an agent operating at the most clandestine levels of power. But when your targets are members of the government intelligence community themselves? Patriots and lovers of liberty, hear us when we say that's just plain ridiculous.  

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Just a few years after Watergate, the halls of power of Washington DC were again stained with fresh scandal. A busload of sitting US congressmen were caught up in an FBI sting operation, one run by a career, small-time criminal, a swindler and scammer. The operation is most memorable for the FBI's two fake sheiks used for their undercover busts. But when the FBI's callin' the tune, sometimes all you can do is get down and sheik your booty.

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The game show Press Your Luck was an 80s fan favorite. And the biggest fan? Michael Larson. He studied the show for weeks, finding the weaknesses and plotting his attack. Heading out to Hollywood, he took his chance at stardom. And he didn't just make it onto the show, he made it into the history books. 

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Maybe you’re looking to get back at someone. Maybe that fine root structure is standing in the way of your upcoming financial boon. Or maybe you don’t like the cut of that tree’s xylem and phloem. Whatever the reason and whatever the chosen method, approaching a tree with murderous intent is just plain ridiculous. And it’s way, way out of bounds.

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Sometimes the best way to make money is to literally make money. William Chaloner, a total dirtbag, made his living minting phony coins and framing his co-conspirators for all manner of crimes. That was until a genius stepped in and brought his whole operation down, just like an apple falling from a tree.

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For two long years, President Richard Nixon tried to cover-up a break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Nixon's Cold War spy buddies had engineered a plan to embarrass the Democrats but then when they got caught, Nixon had to mastermind a cover-up that would eventually bring down his presidency. And somehow, Howard Hughes makes an appearance! Why? Because this insane story of US history has a little of everything!

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Don't you hate it when you learn to restore masterworks of art, but then you kind of mess one up, and then you just paint a new one and call it old, but then it's full of anachronisms, and then everyone loves it, but then you don't get any credit for your phony work? Don't you hate that? Lothar Malskat did. He hated it.

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He was a famous lawman of the disappearing west, a Prohibition agent who dressed like a Wild West cowboy. The newspapermen loved him, the locals adored him, the bootleggers and moonshiners feared him. He was a bigger-than-life hero who seemed to be from a different, simpler era. But James "Two Gun" Hart also had a big secret. And when the truth finally emerged, the cowboy hero was revealed to be a far more complicated man. 

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It turns out we do read the emails. Unless Ex-intern Braxton accidentally deletes them all. Join us for cool listener stories, little shorty crimes, and gripping updates. *hits send*

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The Ridiculous crews, both History and Crime, rejoin forces to once again play everyone’s favorite guessing game: 20 Questions. There were questions. There were answers. There were jokes about dogs in sunglasses! Join the gang for some puzzling good fun!

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We lament the behavior of the youth of today, but what about the youngsters of yesteryear? Friends, they were just as bad. Between the Gold Rush and the Great Quake, kids in San Francisco stole purses, toys, and guns. Yes, guns. Kids those days…

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What are the rules for undercover cops? Well, as we learn from stories about cops shooting cops, an activist who falls in love with an undercover cop, a headless Care Bear with an undercover cop inside who busts a drug queen, and the two precincts of undercover cops who brawled... there are none! This week, it's mayhem and chaos with undercover cops! 

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Pokémon! The cards, the games, the Go, the cartoons, the…theft? Oh yeah, when collectibles get pricey, criminals come out of the woodwork, even the Yakuza. These cards are big money these days, and some people will do anything to steal 'em all. 

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From the anarchist ice cream truck to contraband peddling ice cream purveyors in school zones to the slowest police chase you've heard –– it's a full menu chock-a-block with ice cream based crimes.

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It's hard when you feel like a royal, but you're just a commoner like the rest of us. You know what? Live your truth. Live your truth, Helga, and get that money. Soak 'em, sister!

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He's the man who invented the gun that bears his name. He's also the man who ran a truly surprising second business. But the biggest surprise is how Gaston Glock once faced down an assassin –– without a gun.

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A bar fight and a stint on the lam transformed Samuel Clemens into Mark Twain — and changed the course of American literature. Settle in for Mark Twain's origin story.  

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Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Zaron Burnett
Produced by Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design: Jonathan Washington and Josh Fisher
Mixing and Mastering: Baheed Frazier
Story Editor: Marisa Brown
Research and Fact-Checking: Austin Thompson and Zaron Burnett
Voice Actors: Frank Nemec, Zack Nemec, Elizabeth Dutton, and Jonathan Washington
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer: Jason English

Special thanks to Bob Hirst from the Mark Twain Archive at UC Berkeley, and Joseph Amster from Emperor Norton's Fantastic San Francisco Time Machine.

Want to email the show? We'd love to hear from you. You can reach us at veryspecialepisodes@gmail.com. 

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In our ongoing effort to get sponsored by Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, we present to you the tale of one man, one woman, one goat's blood altar, one private jet, one armored car, one parade, and millions of dollars all in concert to create a ridiculous crime buffet.

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A man, a plan, a bright yellow innertube. Tony Curcio made his name as the Craigslist Bank Robber after he used the site to devastating effect to hire temp workers. And then, years later, he needed a new name after he dipped into the criminal underworld of black market Pokémon.

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Rare books are, obviously, valuable. And that means people want to steal them, often in ridiculous ways. Sometimes in huge quantities, sometimes over huge amounts of time. This is the tale of three big book heists that are almost as irritating as Elizabeth's pronunciations of just about everything.

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On June 4, 1974... all hell broke loose in Cleveland. You see the Stroh's Beer Co. parked a few of its trucks at the ballpark for a cheap beer promotion –– that culminated in a full-scale riot. Things got so bad Billy Martin had to lead an armed charge!

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India's greatest con artist, Natwarlal, never met a load of cargo he couldn't scam his way into possessing. His many arrests, convictions, and escapes captivated a nation. Especially when he sold the Taj Mahal…thrice!

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During Prohibition, the gangsters and the outlaw folk hero bank robbers agreed on one thing: you need a good mechanic. Enter Joe Bergl. The preferred mechanic of the underworld. He was the favorite car guy of "Bottles" Capone, brother of Scarface. And also he was the favorite wrench turner for Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly. Buckle up, Rude Dudes! It's about to get... fast and ridiculous!

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If we say casino heist, you probably think Ocean's 11, 12, 13... Maybe Ocean's 8... Or the original Sinatra Rat Pack version. Look, we all do. This week, Elizabeth has got way more real life stories of international casino heists and robberies –– it's a Vegas buffet of crime!

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The radio and theater phenom, Orson Welles, was the real life Max Fisher from Rushmore. He has early success after success, and then goes off to Hollywood to makes his first film –– Citizen Kane. However, the great man the film is based on goes to war against Orson Welles to crush the filmmaker and bury his film before it's ever released. Hearst uses means, both legal and illegal, to destroy the young genius. Why?! It all comes down to one word: Rosebud.

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The fictional character Raffles established the public's notion of a gentleman thief. But what of the ladies? Josephine O'Dare and Amélie Condemine took the Raffles playbook and blazed their way through European society, lightening wallets and lifting gems. Whether they only made 72 cents on the dollar compared to male thieves remains unknown. 

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Nic Cage is a mixed bag of nuts. But Patricia Arquette is also no slouch when it comes to being, um, unique. Now imagine the two of them together –– young and in love. Well, you don't have to because it already happened! Zaron has the goods on the Love Quest that she sent him on to prove his. And things, of course, get criminally ridiculous!

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Charles Ponzi didn't invent the Ponzi scheme. No, two women pioneered the con on both sides of the Atlantic decades before Ponzi struck. Remember folks, if returns on your investments seem too good to be true, they totally are.

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In 2015, a convention descended on the Seattle–Tacoma Airport Hilton Hotel. The 3-day gathering of Furries was meant to be a fun place to let your fur down... but some let the fur go too low. Public nudity, diaper fights, drugs, booze, cops, firefighters, ambulances, emergency plumbers –– this story has everything. And then some! 

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When a teenage astronomy fan is gifted a piece of the moon by NASA, he’s inadvertently pulled into the seedy underground moonrock trade. But don’t worry. With help from H. Ross Perot, NASA secret agents are on the case.

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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story every week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a movie!” Follow Zaron, Dana, and Jason down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.

Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Jake Rossen
Produced, Edited and Sound Designed by Josh Fisher
Additional Editing by John Washington
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Story Editing by Marisa Brown
Research and Fact-Checking by Marisa Brown, Austin Thompson, and Jake Rossen
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English

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A guy born in Italy moves to France and says he's the heir to the throne in Constantinople, then he heads to the United States to peddle fake titles. You know what that is? Ridiculous. 

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Paratrooper Jeff Manchester used his skills to burgle Corporate America as The Roofman. First, he'd focused on McDonalds and other fast food. Then, like a criminal butterfly, he morphed into a Toys 'R' Us Man who built a secret apartment in an open store –– it was the ultimate inside job. 

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Jack Shepherd was a petty, pretty thief. He wasn't very good at it, so he got caught a lot. And he escaped a lot. Just like Henry More Smith. He, too, couldn't stop stealing and couldn't stop freeing himself from prison life. These guys prove that you can't keep a good (well, at least non-violent) man down.

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He is an icon of midcentury America. He's cherubic. He's beloved. He's starred in Hollywood movies. And he's often stolen as a prank, but sometimes things turn darker –– but they always stay ridiculous.

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If you have psychic powers, you should see a scam coming a mile away. Not so for Maria Duval. The French psychic only wanted to use her powers for good, but three shady dealers used her name to create one of the world’s longest-running cons. Just because a letter has a coffee stain on it doesn't mean it's real. 

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For many folks, beauty pageants feel like part of a bygone era of 'big hair, don't care' femininity. But Zaron is here to set you straight on that score. Beauty pageants are still very much a thing... and they've got crime a-plenty! Allegations of bribery and hijinks! And also, Steve Harvey! So you know it's bound to get loose. This week it's a bubbly bevy of beauty pageant scandals!

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Elizabeth may not watch tv, but that doesn't stop her from regaling Zaron with tales of television signal hijacking. From porn to zombies to aliens to more porn, no broadcast is safe.

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In the early '90s, the Chicagoland area was home to a bank robber known for wearing very specific masks –– masks of former US presidents. Notably, he wasn't inspired by the classic bank-robbing surfers film, and Point Break wasn't inspired by him, it was all just a...ridiculous crime.

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With debt mounting and no relief in sight, John Darwin figured his only option was to fake his own death. One sunken kayak and a complicit spouse later, he found himself in Panama with no clothes on. But that didn't last. Nothing ridiculous ever does. 

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Musicians get arrested... a lot. These singers, songwriters and superstars were busted in some of the dumbest, weirdest, silliest ways possible. Johnny Cash. Amy Winehouse. Ol' Dirty Bastard. Bob Dylan. Frank Zappa. All of them got popped for some... ridiculous crimes.

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As if the whole cryptocurrency thing wasn't ridiculous enough, enter Heather Morgan aka Razzlekhan. An entrepreneur and amateur rapper, she and her husband, Dutch, lived large. The source? Hacked bitcoin. Can't get enough of these clowns and their techno criming? Fear not, there are plenty of film and tv adaptations in the works. The grift lives on. 

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"Have you seen this man? Single, lonely, grouchy, rumpled and very possibly. the richest thief who ever lived..." so wrote the Washington Post in 1997 after one man ripped off his employer, the Loomis–Fargo armored car company. Phil Johnson stole 21 cubic feet of cash –– and he had a plan to get away with it. But a man's ego is a helluva thing!

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What do hairdressing and bank heists have in common? Precision...and a man named William Smarto. A clever bank burglar, Smarto managed to pull of a bank job almost as big as Dolly Parton's wig budget.

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His hero was DB Cooper. So he imitated his skyjacking ransom down to the letter. Only Martin McNally had never used a parachute before he became a skyjacker. And he never expected someone to play the hero with a '71 Cadillac Eldorado.

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As Orson Welles would say, "Ah, the French." Here, in a lead up to the French Revolution, we consider the tale of one randy Cardinal, one social climbing almost-noble, one doomed queen, and one hideous diamond necklace. C'est ridicule (especially Elizabeth butchering all French pronunciation)!

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Meet Antoine Yates, the man who raised a tiger in a fifth-floor public housing apartment in Harlem. Until, one day, the tiger remembered that it was a tiger. But Antoine didn't just live with a tiger, he also had a lion and a full-grown alligator. Naturally, this one is both wild...and ridiculous!

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Aaron Tonken was celebrity obsessed from a young age, so naturally he made his way to Hollywood. He also made his way into the good graces and wallets of many entertainment icons. With phony or plain chaotic charity galas, Tonken fleeced the rich and famous in one whirlwind fever dream of a conning career.

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An ultra-wealthy British son of a Royal Naval officer partnered with a Danish master of disguise to become major players in the international drug-smuggling scene. And they would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those pesky... Welsh lobstermen and farmers' daughters.

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With a love of robbing banks and the love of a good woman, Forrest Tucker pulled off heists with no violence involved. Plenty of arrests ensued, but so did plenty of prison escapes. He was a man with a life so extraordinary, Robert Redford played him in a movie...that put Zaron to sleep.

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At the end of the 19th century, two outlaws made names for themselves around the world, but over time both have been forgotten. This week, we resurrect the tales of these outlaw folk heroes. Lady outlaws.

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He ran for sheriff, saying he'd take on the mob. Instead, he lined his pockets with their cash. He ran for Congress, saying he'd fight for working Americans. Instead, he had people work for him for free. All the while, James Traficant made a name for himself with his denim suits and a hideous hairpiece. In the words of ol' Jimbo himself, beam me up!

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Imagine a horse. Now imagine if that horse could read your mind. And imagine you paid for this experience. You would be in good company –– even the President of the USA listened to the prophecies of Lady Wonder, the psychic horse. Of course, it was all a long con. 

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Getting a degree is tough work. Or at least it should be. There are some out there, though, who want to get or give a college diploma the easy way: hot off the presses, no questions asked. From fake high school diplomas to phony medical degrees, come browse the college catalog of bogus academic achievement.

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Known locally as the Robin Hood of the Great White North, Ken Leishman was a gentlemen thief who pulled off the greatest Canadian gold heist ever. But he really made his name and criminal fame when he took to the skies and became... The Flying Bandit.

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What do Fats Waller and Jimi Hendrix have in common –– other than both being brilliant musicians who changed the course of American music? The answer is: they were both kidnapped... by the mafia! But it's cool, it's cool... who would ever wanna hurt them?

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The Ridiculous crews, both History and Crime, join forces to play everyone’s favorite guessing game: 20 Questions. There were questions. There were answers. There were half court shots at the buzzer. Join the gang for some puzzling good fun!

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Like MLK and Biggie Smalls, Marianne Andle also had a dream. Her dream? That one day she could become Irish. After that plan failed and Marianne had to flee Northern Ireland with the cops hot on her trail, and after a quick name change and return to the US, she found a new dream. That new dream? Conning the semi-rich and gullible of Los Angeles, California, by posing as an Irish heiress. 

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The president’s wife. Hers is an interesting position, Really just window dressing. Or not. Almost criminal in nature, Trusting the stars to Guide foreign policy is Overly woo-woo. Astrology ran the White House in the 80s and This is the story.

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Money (or the appearance of it) attracts money. Lord Edward Ormus Sharrington Davenport knew this and capitalized on it. With posh mansions, lavish parties, and celebrity pals, Edward Davenport used the appearance of wealth to gain actual wealth by amassing other people's money. Welcome to the lifestyles of the rich and famous...and felonious.

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Like Lenny Kravitz, sometimes you want to get away. That was Agatha Christie in 1926. Why did the most famous mystery novelist in the world want to disappear? Hint: her husband. But there's so much more. And it all gets... ridiculous!

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Competition is human nature. And sometimes crime is, too. And sometimes these two come together to give us total ridiculousness. Fat bear ballot box stuffing, cheating Irish dancers, crooked fishermen — this episode has it all. And then some!

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They say a person's wedding day is one of the most magical and memorable days of one's life. Now imagine if you used that extra-special day to pull off... an epic crime. Get ready for tales of wedding bandits!

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A crack team of seasoned bank burglars strikes in a tony enclave in Southern California. A tale as old as time. Only they are from Ohio. And the money in the vault might belong to Richard Nixon. And that money may have been extorted from Jimmy Hoffa. And Jimmy Hoffa may have hired this crack team of seasoned bank burglars to steal his money back. There's a lot to get your head around on this one. 

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You know the car from Back to the Future. But John DeLorean was so much more than his stainless steel car. He was also the father of the "Muscle Car Era." He was a maverick, an egotist, and very much a man of his times. DeLorean risked it all to build his eponymous car, and he did so powered by shady coke deals and briefcases of cash. 

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A burglar hits fancy estates and steals just one thing: silver. Silver salt and pepper shakers. Silver serving spoons. Silver everything. Blane Nordahl was sneaky, he was bold, and eventually, he was caught. And all that silver? Who knows and, frankly, who cares.

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Sometimes you just need to get away. For a Chinese dissident that meant making a daring escape on a jet ski. For a former cyclist turned "ocean jogger," it meant building himself a human-powered hamster wheel so he could run across the sea. In both cases, these men's choices were crimes, but their methods were... ridiculous!

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Ah, the late 1990s. Gritty realism ruled the day in film, music, and literature. And wunderkind JT Leroy took the book world by storm. A kid who survived the streets and HIV, he became the literary darling of the indie set. JT Leroy touched hearts and minds across the globe. Except JT Leroy wasn't all that he seemed. In fact, he wasn't anything he seemed.

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It was 2009, a different time to say the least. The stars of the era known as Young Hollywood were the targets of a ring of break-in burglars, working the Hollywood Hills. Guns, jewelry, designer handbags, artwork, and "jeans made to fit my body" were stolen from the stars. What band of professional thieves had set up shop in LA? Turns out, it was local teens, AKA the Bling Ring.

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It's award season, Rude Dudes! We gather now for the 2nd year of the Perpies, a chance to recognize the best capers, heists, and cons from the last year. And listen, sister, they do not disappoint. With categories like Best Drug Crime, Best Rivalry, and Best Song, you know you are in for a real thrill ride. See you on the red carpet!

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Join Elizabeth and Zaron as they enjoy a sampler plate of some of the most ridiculous crimes to go down over the last calendar year. 2023 certainly offered up a full buffet of ridiculous crimes. Enjoy!

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You sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap. You con Al Capone. You destabilize the American dollar. You get a sheriff arrested for counterfeiting. You end up at Alcatraz. You are Victor Lustig and you are one smooth criminal.

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He was a small town martial arts instructor and local musician. Kevin Curtis was living the dream. Then everything went sideways. One day, he woke up, he had an arch-rival, he was furiously fighting to expose an alleged organ harvesting scandal, and someone had framed him as a presidential assassin. It was a lot to deal with for a simple Elvis impersonator from Tupelo, Mississippi.

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