real life kelly campbell loomis fargo

She was a wife and mother with two children. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. His mobile home was nicely furnished, on eight acres with a stream in the back. Kelly was lying. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. 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. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". Michele received the best gift of the night. Loomis Armored Shreveport, LA, 1124 Forum Dr, Shreveport, LA, USA Shreveport, LA, USA Req #1990. Eric watched. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. "We had David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell tied together, and we had Steven Chambers and Eric Payne with unexplained wealth, but we didn't have a tie between them," Agent John Wydra said. ", "I wouldn't do it. At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. Thats one of my personality flaws. It affects everybody different. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. Was Queen Charlotte Black? I would call us friends. They ditched the Loomis van, then drove the cash-heavy Budget van to Steve's mobile home in Lincoln County, where his wife, Michele, waited with a calculator and rubber bands. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. Theres no management around. 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. They cursed. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie? Sweat soaked David's uniform. 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 real 'Masterminds' I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. Loomis has received $978,983.79, according to Sally Butcher, an assistant clerk in the federal courts of the Western District of North Carolina who specializes in criminal debt. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. "I" has one letter. Man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 years ago now a 'normal guy The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. He learned to parachute. But it wasnt. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. There it was, "The Heist." Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. An officer rang the doorbell. . Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. 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. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. "He said, 'Yeah, right,' and turned his head. He would pay McKinney $250,000, half upfront. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. By . Why fans love it. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. She will never get beyond the debt. Hes very articulate. 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. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - molecularrecipes.com Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? In real life: Mostly true. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. 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. I wanted to get as far away as I could. 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. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. But in November, money ran low. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. 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. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' . So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. He went deep-sea fishing. She didn't plan to move to Mexico. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. "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. 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. She just called me up on the phone and said, Hey, lets meet one day after work. And then, we were talking and she says, How do you feel about robbing Loomis Fargo? Ghantt tells me. He was also a former FBI informant who had tipped the bureau off to a planned robbery of a Loomis Fargo armored truck that never came to fruition. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. She could walk under the trees, with the chickens and goats and dogs that live around her mobile home. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. He figured Tammy wouldn't go for it, and though his marriage had been troubled, he wasn't certain he wanted to leave her. There had been no signs. The bigger the amount, however, the bigger the damages to victims that likely will never be repaid: Amy Paynes collection account was closed in 2020 with her having paid $53,000 of the $274,000 she owed. Channel 9 speaks with the man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 "I missed my family. 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. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. 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. He told Steve he hadn't been able to find David. The next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. "I was unhappy with my life. 1997 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items bought after Loomis, Fargo armored car facility heist by Steven Chambers, wife Michele, Kelly Jane Campbell & David Scott Ghanntt (Photo by Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images) That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. She could spend time with her children and parents. It was his goodbye. and "I'm rich!". They decorated their 6,000-square-foot stucco house with antiques, paintings and statues, including a six-foot wooden Indian that Michele had bought for $600. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Chambers did hire McKinney to kill Ghantt, but initially McKinney was making personal cash deliveries to Ghantt in Mexico on behalf of Chambers. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. There was in fact a basically similar conversation involving Chambers and Campbell that took place during a barbecue the Campbells were hosting. 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 hear her typing. But as he later recalled to the media, as soon as he stepped through those big-box doors, he realized he was flush with cash, and he didnt need to shop at Walmart ever again. But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. And then I could hear her laughing. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. 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. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. See all of the stories here. ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. Scott didn't want to, but then he remembered the hundred-grand payday. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. At 7:45, David had finished loading. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. Was that really what it was about? Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. Dependent care account. Ghantt and one other employee were the last to leave. He para-sailed, power-skied and scuba-dived. An Ohio police officer who shot and killed a Black man as he lay in bed in his home last summer is no longer on the force, Three Kansas City police officers who were shot while serving a search warrant have been released from the hospital, Officials say one passenger died when a business jet experienced severe turbulence, forcing a landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. At first, David Ghantt said, "I didn't take her seriously. One number is working in Campbells favor. Then another. Looking back at the Loomis heist - Gaston Gazette It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. Ghantt simply got ready for work one morning knowing it would be his last day on the job. In real life: False. 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. 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. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. . 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. ", "Even then . 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. Her husband gave her a brown teddy bear. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. No hard feelings. ". I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. Exciting. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. 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. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. Our Benefits. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. Turns out, most of the thieves and their accomplices have been about as effective coming up with their court-ordered restitution as they were hiding their original crimes. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. So I guess I have no regrets. 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. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. 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. Its in the ether. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. She also must . . . And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. Eric Payne got out of prison in 2006 for his role in the heist and has since paid $11,357 on his $292,000 debt. "Love" has four. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. 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. Question: You went to Mexico. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. 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. 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. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. 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. Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. Jim Gronquist, Campbells defense attorney during the Loomis case, says the financial penalties levied against his client and her co-defendants are grossly excessive and unjust, particularly since most of the stolen Loomis money was actually recovered. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. 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. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. Heist!: The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft - amazon.com When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. . His new life in Mexico had begun. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. 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. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. Question: You were a consultant? The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. 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. Besides her prison sentence . The only person not to plead guilty in the case, former Gastonia attorney Jeff Guller, ended up doing eight years for money laundering. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' 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. 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. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment.