Once in a lifetime, Murdaugh verdict sends a Lowcountry message: No one is above the law | Opinion, Charlotte Waffle House found with live roach, unclean equipment during health inspection. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. More than half of the amount came from the seizure of a luxury home purchased by husband-and-wife defendants during their post-heist spending spree. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. 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. So I was glad it was over. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. He's a very likable person. Kelly called David at Loomis; he told her he'd be ready for them with the cash at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Alone in the building, David was trying to finish loading cash from the vault into an unmarked white Ford Econoline van belonging to Loomis. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP), Police: Officer Who Shot Black Man Retired 'In Bad Standing', 3 Kansas City Officers Who Were Shot Released From Hospital, 1 Killed When Business Jet Encounters Severe Turbulence. Her case closes in 2025. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. 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. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - hankyboy.com . I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. Posted on . He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. Then another. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. kellis@gastongazette.com 0:04 0:57 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. They put up mauve wallpaper. All were convicted. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. David Ghantt, who pulled off the Loomis, Fargo & Co. vault robbery in 1997 and was sentenced to seven years in prison for the crime, served as a consultant for the film (in theaters Friday). Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. It was the first Saturday in October. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. . And going to see the Mayan ruins. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. His collection case closes in two years. He didnt even really question me. Instead of lobster, the man who stole $17 million survived on home-cooked pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches. Industry leading Training and Development. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. And youre like, Come on parachute. And robbing a truck was dangerous. Campbell was another employee at Loomis Fargo and she and Ghantt quickly struck up a relationship, one that Campbell denies was ever romantic though FBI evidence says otherwise, and one that continued after she left the company. "I was unhappy with my life. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. I knew it was just a matter of time. Besides her prison sentence . But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. ", "Even then . October was "a blast," he said. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. Agents found out where Ghantt was living because Chambers had put out a hit on him, foolishly believing Ghantt was the only person the FBI had fingered for the crime. I missed my wife. Once I start something, Im going to the end., As for how he felt in the moment, he says, Imagine me and you went on an airplane. . After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. ". Question: Are you happy that Wilkesboro-nativeZach Galifianakis plays you in the movie? In a word, "Teamwork. It was his goodbye. Ultimately, though, the heist wasnt Ghantts idea, which meant he didnt decide who else was involved. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. . He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. I don't blame him.". Heist!: The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft - amazon.com ". Careers. Question: You were a consultant? He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. 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. 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. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. Contact Us | Loomis US And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. Seven Charged In $17M Heist - CBS News Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. He was an old friend from East Gaston High School, tough and sure of himself. Loomis - Home He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. He gave the rest to Kelly. The true crime behind Asheville-based Galifianakis film This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. She will never get beyond the debt. You're an idiot.'". Is he telling the truth? Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. 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,. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. Ghantt:I hate to say it, but I had six years of sitting in a box to think about my life. I mentioned it to Kelly. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. "He said, 'Yeah, right,' and turned his head. Just head on out. And so, he did. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. Despite a mega-watt cast featuring Zach Galifianakis and a handful of some of Saturday Night Lives biggest current and former stars, Masterminds, the comedy about Loomis Fargo robbery completely tanked at the box office in its opening weekend, bowing in sixth place with just $6.6 million. Dependent care account. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. Agents began picking up signs that David definitely had help: The abandoned Loomis van with $3.3 million in small bills still inside, and phone records showing that somebody beeped him while he stole the money, using David's own cell phone. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. 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. He has no contact with any of those convicted with him in the crime, including his former wife, and doesn't plan to see the movie, he said. 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. She could spend time with her children and parents. Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. . By March, Steve Chambers decided he needed to do something more drastic about Ghantt, making plans to send a hitman to Mexico to silence him for good. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. I wanted to get as far away as I could. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". 27 febrero, 2023 . It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. He didn't want to abandon his parents. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. Kelly's company. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. Job Search - Career Portal - Dayforce HCM A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. "I thought he was goofing around.". I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer. The plan was to split the money three ways: Chambers, Campbell and Ghantt would each walk away with what Ghantt estimated to be $5 million a piece the kind of money that changes lives forever. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie? The cash was covered with dog food. You can seize property. 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. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. I hope everyone has moved on. All I needed was a change of pace.". The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. 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. 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.. She laughed for like 45 minutes. Then another. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. Man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 years ago now a 'normal guy 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. One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. 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. Not Ghantt. I loved it. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Truth was, David wanted more than help leaving, he wanted company. 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. DUMB & - The Washington Post Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? In real life: False. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. The name she gave the pup is apropos. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. 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. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. Michelle Chambers received seven years and eight months, while Steve Chambers was handed an 11-year sentence. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. Steve tried keys on a side door. The real story behind the second largest bank heist in history, which real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - phnxathletica.com In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. "I missed my family. One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items 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. Eric watched. So I guess I have no regrets. The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. Jeffrey Guller, who at 81 is by far the oldest of the Loomis defendants, still owes almost $1.1 million on his original court debt of $1.14 million and will remain on the governments books for another four years. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ A woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored car company Loomis, Fargo & Co. was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. It affects everybody different. 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. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Theres less security. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. 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. Some of that money is just gone. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. . I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. He couldn't talk.". She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. . The money was heavy. Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. She could visit friends. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. But it didnt really hit me until later., On March 2nd, when the FBI agents walked up to Ghantt in Playa del Carmen and told him he was under arrest, Ghantt was relieved.
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