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And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. . 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. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. Then he and Campbell drove 90 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where Ghantt planned to purchase a ticket to Mexico so he could be out of the country before news of the robbery broke the next morning. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. "For the first year, they're all over you. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. 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. Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. Visit us at Loomis.us. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. . In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. As soon as you put that first bag of stolen money in that van, theres no going back. You're an idiot.'". 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. Kelly was lying. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. I hope everyone has moved on. He had an endearing smile, a beautiful wife and two children. Before David left for the airport, he had handed Scott an eight-inch key ring. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home. Going south, nobody really looks at what youre shipping. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 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. An officer rang the doorbell. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. Or that it was an inheritance. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. "Think of how many women would have stood by. This time, David told McKinney the truth. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. I wish them all a happy life and that's about it. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. That time in prison was actually good for me. 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. In real life: Yes and no. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. And then I could hear her laughing. 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. 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. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. In real life: True. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. The Columbia airport had no available flights. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. Its kind of like that. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. Kelly's company. I didn't think I had the guts. There had been no signs. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. Ghantt:I hate to say it, but I had six years of sitting in a box to think about my life. Its in the ether. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. Just head on out. And so, he did. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. 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. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. He's a very likable person. But in November, money ran low. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. Then another. He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. "I thought he was goofing around.". Thomas Grant, who served three years in prison for bank larceny, paid off restitution of $70,000; brother Eric Grant paid all of his $26,000; as did David Craig, $40,000; and Dennis and Sandra Floyd; $27,000. The figures can be astounding. But because David's relationship with his Loomis bosses had been rocky, he says, he doesn't feel sorry about what he did to the company. 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. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. He said every year he files his taxes and the IRS takes all of his tax return. "He was in tears. Kelly found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. This is the person I counted as my friend. ", "Even then . Chambers, who still lives in Gaston County and operates a gym, declined to comment. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. Its really just a matter of timing, more than anything. And she says, How much do you think wed get out of there? I said, Ten to 15 million. But I didnt really know.. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. They were the butt of a national joke. Our success depends on our team members, and that's why it's important for us to offer an employee benefits program that is not only extremely comprehensive but also one of the best in the industry. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? He couldn't talk.". He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. (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. Things went from bad to worse when, in November, Michelle strolled into a bank with a briefcase filled with 200 grand and asked the manager, How much can I deposit without the bank reporting the transaction? When she showed the bank manager that she really had the money to invest, the cash was still bound in Loomis Fargo wrappers. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. "I missed my family. Besides her prison sentence . About 200 keys dangled from it. 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. It was the first Saturday in October. In early November, Steve lured the real Mike McKinney, an ex-Marine, to North Carolina from his Illinois home. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. ". 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. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. He goes, My name is Bruno. Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. David complained it wasn't enough. Ghantt ultimately agreed to the plan, largely, due to a mountain of credit-card debt and in hopes of changing his life for the better. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. Ultimately, though, the heist wasnt Ghantts idea, which meant he didnt decide who else was involved. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. 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. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. In real life: False. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. 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. 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. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. Where was Ghantt? They paid for all of it in cash. Ghantt fled to Mexico. Yes, happy. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. 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. Thats one of my personality flaws. She laughed for like 45 minutes. "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. They hatched the idea half-jokingly, over a game of Uno, never dreaming they were about to make Bonnie and Clyde look like bottom feeders. She came from a blue-collar background, a high school dropout who had grown tired of working in a mill and gotten an equivalency diploma. Then another. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. No hard feelings. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. Steve tried keys on a side door. Kelly drove David to the airport. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. 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. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. 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. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. I didnt pick the heist team. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. I studied up on the FBI. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. Its everything thats coming north.. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. I would call us friends. Why fans love it. 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. They cursed. Now two NC men face prison. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. I hear her typing. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house.
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