Serial Scammer Targets Hockey League Parents, Part 2

(MUSIC INTRO)

[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] Lindsey Wilkinson: He had about $20,000 on him, and he was on a flight to Vegas. This was his pattern that he would collect money, as much money as he could from victims and go right to Vegas and gamble it.

[00:00:14] Bob: He stole $12 million, and it all went into a slot machine?

[00:00:17] Justin Noble: I would say of the 12 or 13 million dollars that we found that he stole, he probably lost half that at a casino and probably spent it, the rest of it.

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[00:00:31] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. And this is part two of our story on Kota Youngblood. If you haven't heard part one yet, I'd invite you to go back one episode and listen to that first. When we left our story, a man named Kota Youngblood had persuaded dozens of neighbors in a small suburb of Austin, Texas, that his life is in danger, or in some cases, their lives are in danger, or their children's lives are in danger from a Mexican cartel with a debt to settle. And dozens of these neighbors have given him thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for protection. Other victims lent Kota money or invested in his weird collectibles business. He claimed to have a Babe Ruth bat and a dinosaur head among other things. It was all based on a house of lies, but Kota Youngblood is an amazingly adept liar. In one case he persuaded a man who was a well-paid tech company executive, that his whole family was in danger and that man, Lane, moved his entire family across the country, changed their names, and hid in a one-bedroom hotel room for a year. As we pick up the story, a victim named Eric has heard enough of these stories and gone to the FBI. And now, the Bureau wants to confirm all these crazy accusations Eric has made before more people get hurt. Here is FBI agent, Justin Noble.

[00:02:02] Justin Noble: Yeah, so after Eric left the office, me and Lindsey had a meeting about how crazy this story was, and I think we agreed that we needed to get Kota Youngblood on tape talking about this, otherwise nobody would believe it. If it just came from one victim, one wild story, it might not be believable, but if it comes from the subject's mouth, straight from Kota Youngblood's mouth, that's really good evidence, and it also takes the pressure off Eric as far as relaying that evidence in the future. So later that night after that first meeting, we contacted Eric and said, hey, lay the groundwork. If you do speak with Kota Youngblood, lay the groundwork that you potentially have another friend that would be willing to loan you money to give to Kota. And that's what he did over the weekend.

[00:02:42] Bob: That potential investor is really an FBI agent.

[00:02:48] Justin Noble: Um, we, we selected a FBI employee that fit the build very well. Eric was in the construction business, our undercover employee plays the part as a construction worker, construction business owner. In fact, he played the part as a concrete worker, somebody that lived off the grid, was dishonest, did not trust the government, and carried a lot of cash in a safe at his house, and so once Kota Youngblood heard that there was potentially a large amount of cash readily available to be provided to him, again, he eagerly met with our undercover.

[00:03:18] Bob: So they set up the meeting at a restaurant. Here's fellow FBI agent Lindsey Wilkinson.

[00:03:24] Lindsey Wilkinson: We've got agents, myself, and another agent inside. We have Agent Noble walking outside and videoing from that, from that moment. We have our undercover with our victim at the table kind of getting the information from Youngblood. And so what happens from there is we basically have recordings which verifies everything that Eric told us in his initial complaint. And then a lot of investigative work came from there.

[00:03:48] Bob: A lot of investigative work to run down all those crazy stories, talk to all those victims. First order of business, rescue Lane and his family from that self-imposed jail he's living in. Fortunately, he's not that hard to find, but he almost slips through their fingers.

[00:04:08] Justin Noble: One of our analysts here in the office located a vehicle that belonged to Lane in Florida, parked in an extended-stay hotel. We immediately contacted a, the local field office there and sent an agent to make contact with Lane. The agent tried to make contact, left a business card on Lane's car. When he returned a few hours later, Lane was packing up and getting ready to flee again out of fear that the FBI was somehow involved in this conspiracy with the cartel and that he was in danger.

[00:04:34] Bob: Lane was so deep in the lie that he assumed that FBI business card meant his cover was blown, and he had to escape.

[00:04:42] Justin Noble: We're very lucky to have found him that second time because had he fled Florida, who knows if we would have found him in time.

[00:04:49] Bob: Finding Lane alive is important because so many of the tales Kota Youngblood had used to manipulate others revolved around Lane's disappearance and alleged murder at the hands of a dangerous cartel. So after finding Lane, one of the first calls is to Lane's father. We heard about him in episode one. He owns a clock repair shop that is one of Kota's favorite hangouts, and he is just as convinced as Lane that the stories about the cartel are all real. He believes his own son is dead, and he's gone to many neighbors begging them for money, supposedly to give to the cartel so they won't sell his granddaughter into sex slavery. Agents Noble and Wilkinson pay a visit to Lane's father.

[00:05:33] Justin Noble: We were sitting on the back porch and we were trying to interview him, and he absolutely would not talk about Kota. He was not, he wasn't being not truthful, he just would refuse to cooperate with our questioning. He absolutely did not believe anything that we told him, and once we said that Lane was actually alive, he absolutely didn't believe us. And so we had to call Lane and put Lane on speaker phone so he could hear his son's voice. And it was only, again, it was only then that he would actually speak with us.

[00:06:01] Bob: But what was that like, how did he react?

[00:06:04] Justin Noble: He was completely relieved. I think he had been holding on that what Kota had told him was truthful. I mean he had given away his life savings. He had introduced Kota to his best friends, his, his lifelong friends and convinced them to give, in many cases, their life savings. And then to find out with a simple phone call that it was all a lie, I think he was relieved that it was finally over.

[00:06:30] Bob: I mean did he cry? Did he scream?

[00:06:32] Justin Noble: He didn't scream, but um, he definitely was emotional. I don't think he would cry. I don't think ... I take that back. There was a moment where he did go tell his wife and did have a moment where they got very emotional together once they realize that it was a complete fraud that they had been involved in.

[00:06:47] Bob: And, and then their son is alive.

[00:06:50] Justin Noble: And their son is alive. And so there was a, this combination of anger and joy at the same time.

[00:06:57] Bob: Well what an unbelievable mixture of feelings. My God.

[00:07:01] Justin Noble: Yeah. It, it was, it was pretty unbelievable.

[00:07:04] Bob: And as these grand lies are exposed, the rest of Kota's web of lies collapses like a house of cards.

[00:07:12] Lindsey Wilkinson: And if you could imagine, this was perfectly coordinated, because as you know at the same time Lane fled town and hadn't been seen for 10 months. They just know that they left in the middle of the night, so you know, Kota orchestrated this incredibly complex situation to, to take money from them and make them believe that it was true.

[00:07:31] Bob: He was almost like a puppeteer telling a story.

[00:07:34] Lindsey Wilkinson: Yeah. I, I think that's really well said.

[00:07:37] Bob: Soon after, the FBI visit a couple we're calling Jamie and Sean. They live just down the block from the clock shop and at this point, they've given more than $1 million to Kota, most of it because they thought Lane’s children were at risk of kidnapping, of being sold into sex trafficking.

[00:07:56] Jamie: It was uh like early afternoon and they rang the doorbell, and I got up and answered it and Sean was thinking, who is she letting in the house? And they had just showed their badges and explained who they were.

[00:08:17] Bob: Here's how the agents remember that first meeting with Jamie and Sean.

[00:08:21] Lindsey Wilkinson: I remember when we went to their house, they said, "I hear what you're saying, but we have lost so much money. To believe it would be very difficult. So if you come back Friday and if we haven't received our money by then, then we can talk."

[00:08:35] Bob: And so when the money doesn't come by Friday, Sean and Jamie agree to talk with Agent Wilkinson and Noble.

[00:08:43] Jamie: They were very good, very patient. They couldn't have sent us two better agents. And they just talked very quietly with us, answered our questions. And the first question I asked was, "Are the girls okay?" And they assured me that they were and I said, "Are they with their parents?" Because we had heard that our friend's son was killed, that Kota's explanation was that they are dead. And so I said, "They're alive?" And he said, "Yes, and the girls had been with them the entire time." So that made me feel good that the family wasn't separated. At least they were with their children because they still had a terrible life at this point, because they lived in fear the entire time.

[00:09:38] Bob: Meanwhile, the two FBI agents keep digging, keep talking to victims and then they have another big break. We learned in episode one that Kota was a hockey dad, and he had told other hockey parents that his oldest son had also been killed by the cartel. In particular, he had told Eric Perardi, the first victim, to go to the FBI.

[00:10:00] Lindsey Wilkinson: Kota's son played hockey with Eric's son, and that Eric was the hockey coach. So they were very friendly. They knew each other very well, and at one point, Eric is told that Kota's son is murdered. And you know as law enforcement, part of solving this case was finding out what happened to all these victims that were supposedly murdered and haven't been heard from. And uh, one big break in the case is when that same analyst who found Lane, was able to find Kota's son alive and well out in California. And again, we sent a agent in California out who went and found the son, told him who he was and, you know, asked the simple question, "Have you been murdered?" "No." "It's nice to see you alive." And, and it was really just wonderful to find out that that was a lie and that uh this young man hadn't been murdered as Kota had been telling everyone and collecting money for.

[00:10:55] Bob: Who kills people off as part of a scam? That...

[00:10:59] Lindsey Wilkinson: And their own son off. It, it's even worse than that. It's his own son he said was murdered, and people were giving money to take care of that. And this was someone that Eric had known, had trained, and it was a terrible for Eric to hear, and Eric was personally very affected by it he would say. And at one point Eric testified that the younger son, you know, came over hugging and crying to him, you know what he believed to be the loss of his big brother.

[00:11:24] Bob: As the FBI continues to interview victims, they get to Ricky and Rebecca Kumar, two other hockey parents who we also met in the first episode. They had given Kota more than $200,000. When we left their part of the story, Kota had called Ricky and frantically urged him not to speak to Eric claiming Eric was involved with sex trafficking. Kota obviously was feeling the heat. Ricky relays the message to his wife not to speak to Eric, but she does anyway. Eric asks her to speak with the FBI, but Rebecca just isn't sure who to trust. But she does have an ace in the whole.

[00:12:01] Rebecca Kumar: And so fortunately for me, I have a friend who's Secret Service, um and he works out of the FBI, he's now retired, but he was an FBI agent, and I just reached out to my friend who happened to be another fellow hockey dad, and our kids went to elementary and high school together, but I reached out to this guy, and I was like, "Hey, I've never reached out to you before for anything professional related, but can you just tell me if Justin Noble is an FBI agent in your office." Because I wasn't calling anyone that I didn't think was legit. And the response from my friend was, "He is an agent. You should call him." 'Cause he already knew, like at this point the FBI's already been investigating Kota. Well now to myself I'm thinking, holy crap, this is real. Like there's something legit with this guy being crooked and now the FBI's involved? Like this just feels like a, a TV show at this point.

[00:12:53] Bob: Rebecca talks with Ricky first.

[00:12:55] Ricky Kumar: Yeah, I remember exactly what, what happened. And I was, I was driving back from Dallas from a business trip and um, I was telling Bec, I said, "Hey look, you got to, you got to stop talking to Eric, you know, stuff coming out of his mouth was lies, you know." And, and not knowing that, that I'd been played. I think that same trip Bec said, "Hey, you know," she said that she talked to our Secret Service friend, and that's when lightbulb triggered in my head. I was like, ah, I have been taken. So and candidly at, at that time, I didn't want to believe it, Bob.

[00:13:29] Bob: And when Rebecca does talk with the FBI, she's got questions for them too.

[00:13:34] Rebecca Kumar: Kota, like I said, was an imposing figure. He talked about all this hand-to-hand combat training, how he was, how he could kill somebody, like kind of by staring at him, you know. You, you felt he was a master at violence. And so my first question was, with Agent Noble was, "Is he dangerous?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Is he a violent person?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Are we in danger in any way?" And he said, "No." And the comfort that I received from talking to this, this person who let me know, we were victims. This is not something we did; we didn't start this. That was the most, I'm a crier, so if I start crying, I'm sorry.

[00:14:20] Bob: Take your time.

[00:14:20] Rebecca Kumar: It just made us feel that we weren't stupid and, and we just, we were wronged. And but it also that we were safe from this guy and his supposedly business partners that we did not have to fear retaliation, you know, kind of thing.

[00:14:38] Bob: Rebecca and Ricky ask a second question soon after that first one. Is Kota's eldest son okay? The FBI assures them that he is, that they found him alive in California. But as these kinds of questions persist, the agents realize this case is so unusual for white collar crime, they had better ask fast.

[00:14:58] Lindsey Wilkinson: The urgency was really that every day that passed was another day that Youngblood was defrauding someone. What we said is everyone that Youngblood meets is someone that he makes a target and try to victimize. You were either a victim or an attempted victim, so it was really important that we moved really quickly to get him off the street and to stop further financial loss.

[00:15:17] Bob: But they want to preserve as much of that stolen money as they can in the hopes that at least some of the money can be returned to victims. So they have an idea. Kota Youngblood, for all his schemes, for all his elaborate stories has a big weakness for slot machines. So they decide to nab him on his way to Vegas with a wad of cash -- other people's cash. Matt Harding, the Assistant US Attorney on the case, signs the arrest warrant barely two months after Eric Perardi walked into that FBI office.

[00:15:51] Matt Harding: Well they wanted to get him at the airport before he would, he was able to go to Las Vegas and spend more victim money. We were hoping to arrest him with a substantial portion of victim money.

[00:16:01] Bob: Both Agents Wilkinson and Noble are at the airport for the takedown.

[00:16:06] Lindsey Wilkinson: The scene is basically that we are at the Austin Bergstrom Airport, and we knew which flight he was on. We knew where he'd be flying out of, and so myself and a couple of the airport liaison officers were around as well as our supervisory special agent was there. And I had spotted Kota. He's pretty identifiable. We saw him going into a bookstore, so he had gone into one of the bookstores in the airport and I approached him from behind, and said, "Kota Youngblood?" And he turned around. And I said, "I'm Special Agent Lindsey Wilkinson with the FBI, and I have a warrant for your arrest. Please put your hands behind your back." And you know in a very public airport. It, it is a difficult balance to not make a, make a scene, and do it safely, both for the officers and those around us. But it was a very uh, peaceful arrest.

[00:16:56] Bob: He didn't resist? Did he say, you've got the wrong person, this is all a misunderstanding?

[00:17:00] Lindsey Wilkinson: He did not.

[00:17:02] Bob: And also, when you arrested him, he had some cash with him. But my understanding is he basically was out of money. Is that true?

[00:17:07] Lindsey Wilkinson: Yes, he had about $20,000 on him, and like we said, he was on a flight to Vegas. This was his pattern that he would collect money, as much money as he could from victims and go right to Vegas and gamble it. But he didn't have any other sources of income. So everything he spent in life was from victims that he stole from.

[00:17:24] Bob: But Justin, he stole $12 million, and it all went into a slot machine?

[00:17:27] Justin Noble: He did spend a lot of money on his lifestyle. I would say of the 12 or 13 million dollars that we found that he stole, he probably lost half that at a casino and probably spent it, the rest of it.

[00:17:38] Bob: It's hard to imagine spending $12 million, although I suppose if you like gambling, you can.

[00:17:42] Matt Harding: Yeah, we had video, extensive video footage of him sitting down at a video poker machine, slot machine, and you know at 5 in the morning and playing for hours and hours and hours, sort of mechanically just throwing away victim money.

[00:17:55] Bob: Kota, believe it or not, is declared indigent and is appointed a public defender. At his first court hearing, Kota cuts a very different figure than the boasting ex-military man with the oversized stories.

[00:18:10] Matt Harding: All I had known of him up to that point was really largely the undercover, we had audio of the undercover meeting, and we had just sort of interviewed some victims and had a sense from them of his character. And so he certainly portrayed himself in public and to his victims as sort of a larger-than-life alpha male, you know, in charge of every situation, you know, totally relaxed and calm and just totally in command of everything. And so yeah, it was different to see him in court in shackles, clearly not in control of the situation. And so it was a stark contrast to what I was expecting.

[00:18:44] Bob: But not a boasting, Delta Force retiree, right?

[00:18:48] Matt Harding: Exactly. Exactly. I, it's, he didn't strike as the sort who uh, you know, would actually be hunting bin Laden in Tora Bora as he claimed he was.

[00:18:57] Bob: At the hearing, Agent Wilkinson lays out the case against him. This audio comes courtesy of the Austin American Statesmen YouTube account; you'll also hear Judge Mark Lane's voice.

[00:19:09] (CLIP): Can you tell us in more detail now what exactly the story that Mr. Perardi was told that led him to give money to Mr. Youngblood?

            So Mr. Perardi and Mr. Youngblood had known each other for about six years, uh their sons played hockey together, and uh Mr. Perardi, at some point, Mr. Perardi's son was on a trip, and he gets a call from one of his friends saying, "Mr. Youngblood needs to speak with you immediately. There's a situation going on with your family." And shortly after that, Mr. Youngblood and Mr. Perardi connect back in Austin, Texas, and that's when Mr. Youngblood makes representation to Mr. Perardi that Mr. Perardi's in grave danger from the cartel because of his ex-wife had been affiliated with the cartel, had taken out a hit on his family because she was the beneficiary of an insurance policy for Mr. Perardi, and as a result of that, he needed protection and that Mr. Youngblood could provide that protection to him.

            Okay, so Mr. Youngblood tells Mr. Perardi in essence your family's uh in danger because your ex-wife was running with a drug cartel. I can protect you. Why would Mr. Youngblood be in a position to stop the drug cartel from killing Mr. Perardi?

            Mr. Youngblood claimed to be prior military, special forces. He said he had direct information from government sources.

[00:20:33] Bob: The judge is flabbergasted by the case and orders Kota kept in custody.

[00:20:39] (CLIP CONTINUES) Based on the evidence that I have heard, Mr. Youngblood, you have an elaborate history of not telling the truth. After hearing the testimony, all I can say is wow. The number of lies, the depth of those lies is beyond anything I have ever heard and I've been around a long time. Absolutely incredible.

[00:20:59] Bob: Kota's kids are at his initial court appearance, and that's where Rebecca's mind and heart really are at the time.

[00:21:06] Rebecca Kumar: So when I saw the boys in the detainment hearing, I went up to our victim protection communications person with the FBI and I went up to her and I said, "Can I, can I hug the boys?" Because I wanted to show him I was glad he was alive, and, and hugged...

[00:21:21] Bob: Did she let you?

[00:21:21] Rebecca Kumar: They did. And I got to talk to him for a few minutes and give him hugs and was just like, you know, this is not your fault. And uh, yeah, that was very surreal.

[00:21:30] Bob: I mean of all the things that this man is, is accused of and has done, telling one of your children that his sibling is dead is so far beyond the pale in my head. I don't, I just don't know how to process it.

[00:21:43] Ricky Kumar: Yeah.

[00:21:44] Rebecca Kumar: There's no words.

[00:21:46] Bob: Kota pleads not guilty and is detained without bail in a quick hearing. The prosecution, however, well researching and untangling Kota's intricate web of lies, there's nothing quick about that. Here's just one example of the kind of lies Kota has been living.

[00:22:03] Matt Harding: And we interviewed his wife, and she told us at some point they go out to visit this man who is, in fact, Kota Youngblood's father, biological father, but Kota Youngblood has told his wife, this is sort of like a guy that helped raise me, who I kind of consider like a father, but he's not related to me. And so when they're leaving, Mr. Youngblood's wife says, "Look, I feel really close to you. Is it okay if, you know, I know he's not, you're not really his father, but is it okay if I call you dad?" And he was like, "What are you talking about? I, in fact, am his father." But that's, that's an aside. He stole $20,000...

[00:22:36] Bob: Oh my God! He was arrogant enough to have them encounter each other and think it would work out?

[00:22:41] Matt Harding: Yeah, well and then, but I'm sure he had some story, like someone misunderstood something, or you know, I call him Dad or he considers himself my father. I don't know, but he always had a story, he always had an answer. But yeah, he stole $20,000, or he ran up $20,000 of credit card debt, uh, in high school on his father's credit card and then never paid it back. And then when he was, that was when he was, like I said, in high school. When he was older, he tried to get money from his father because he claimed, I want to get this right, I think he claimed that the Russian mafia was going to like cut the, either had or was going to cut off one of his fingers if he didn't get a bunch of money, and his father, well aware of what his son was like at that point, was like, that's nonsense. I'm not going to give you any money. But that's, yeah, I mean that was probably the earliest thing that we heard about, but it's, when we asked his father, "Are you surprised to learn that your son has been arrested for fraud?" He said, "Not at all."

[00:23:31] Bob: In the end, investigators identify 45 victims and 10 more attempted victims.

[00:23:39] Lindsey Wilkinson: We think there are many more out there that we may not be aware of.

[00:23:42] Bob: Yeah, that has to be the case, right? My God. 45 victims. Yeah, I mean it strikes me it would take a year just to interview all of them. Did you get to them all?

[00:23:50] Lindsey Wilkinson: We, we did get to them all, Agent Noble and I did get to interview each of these victims, spoke with them personally, but it did take a lot of work on our part.

[00:23:59] Bob: With 45 victims of this years long lie, Kota Youngblood stole much more than that estimated $12.6 million. He also left behind a trail of hurt and relationship damage that, well it's going to take a long time to repair. Lane’s father ran that clock repair shop which was a bit of a social club. He had gone around town to many friends begging for financial help after he thought his own son had been murdered, all in the interest of saving his grandkids. That ruined a lot of relationships.

[00:24:31] Bob: Um, well let me ask you this question then, what is your relationship like now with your friend who worked on the clocks? Are you still going there?

[00:24:37] Sean: Uh, no, that pretty much stopped during COVID, but has completely ceased now. It was really a long-term relationship with our friends that really became family is what they were considered. So of course we would do anything for them, and that's what we did. But uh, in order to save the granddaughter, save our friends, and save our, our friendship, we put everything in, on the line for them.

[00:25:09] Bob: And you must have felt hurt by that, right?

[00:25:12] Sean: Well, yes, unfortunately it did not save the friendship. We are still friendly with them on occasion, but it's a pretty rare occasion compared to the uh, the relationship that we had before. So it's nothing like that. And so we, we lost everything, not, not just the, the money and the, the tears over all the, all the issues that we ran into, all the scary scenarios and trying to save our friends and our friendship but we, we can't even uh, we didn't even succeed in saving our friendship.

[00:25:51] Bob: Exploiting friend groups, trading off their trust, and also pitting families against each other, that was Kota's operandi, a really important part of this story.

[00:26:02] Lindsey Wilkinson: They were people who trusted each other. They were people with long relationships, with loving relationships, and the reason he was able to exploit them is because they trusted their friends, which was a terrible thing to see. I think most of them were trying to do the right thing, to help each other out, to protect a, a friend's loved one or someone else, and he really exploited that for his own gain, and then when, and took that money and put it straight into a Las Vegas slot machine. It, it's a terrible thing.

[00:26:32] Bob: And the hurt, well it spread so deep. Recall from episode one that Kota had that charming ability to say just the right thing to young athletes to build their confidence. Now Ricky and Rebecca have to tell their children he was a liar. Recall their son was best friends with one of Kota's son.

[00:26:51] Rebecca Kumar: Yeah, I mean they both started kind of crying a little bit, and our younger one definitely at the time was so scared. He's like, are we in danger? Is he going to kill us? Like it was just all this stuff. And Ricky and I tried to be very vague about what had happened, like we're not, we just said, hey guys, you know, these supposedly friends have kind of done bad things and have taken some money from us and we're dealing with the FBI and you know you're okay, you're safe. And we were driving from Texas to Florida, we were going on a little vacation. So we had a lot of time in the car. And...

[00:27:23] Bob: That's probably good, yeah.

[00:27:24] Rebecca Kumar: So we had a lot of time, and so we said everything out of his mouth is a lie. That's what triggered our younger one to say, "Does that mean I suck at hockey?"

[00:27:32] Bob: Man.

[00:27:33] Rebecca Kumar: And we said, "No, Buddy, he's just, he didn't like about that, but he lied about everything else." (chuckles) You know, I laugh now, but it's not funny. I'm, I'm laughing out of, you know...

[00:27:43] Bob: That's all you can do.

[00:27:44] Rebecca Kumar: Out of, yeah, what else are you going to do?

[00:27:46] Bob: To no one's surprise, at least no one on the prosecution side, Kota Youngblood decides to take his case all the way to trial. He wants to tell his stories to a jury.

[00:27:59] Lindsey Wilkinson: And his version of events is long and winding and fabricated. And it made all the sense in the world to us that he would, he would try to go to trial and testify.

[00:28:11] Bob: But also, Sean offers powerful testimony at the trial.

[00:28:16] Matt Harding: Every time you call a witness at trial, you know, there's always a chance the jury's not going to like them for some reason or another. That was never a concern. With him, you know, he's sort of everybody's grandfather. You know when you, you hear about he's sort of dedicated his life to helping other people, and you can see it, again, that, that story is emblematic of that, right, and this is a guy who, when a friend needs help, he doesn't say, gosh, this is really a lot of money. He says, okay, let's make this happen. And that sort of was, and I think that every single person on the jury liked him and felt terrible for what Mr. Youngblood had done to him.

[00:28:47] Bob: In April 2024, a jury convicts Kota Youngblood of four counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.

[00:28:56] Bob: What was it like to obtain a guilty verdict in this situation? How did that feel?

[00:29:00] Lindsey Wilkinson: It was very rewarding I think mostly so because we knew that the victims were counting on us to put Kota in jail and keep him from victimizing other people. So I think one of the most rewarding parts of it was honestly the hugs and the claps on the back from the victims thanking us for our work and thanking us for helping them. That was truly, it's just a part of my career I'll never forget.

[00:29:25] Bob: And prosecutor Matt Harding, for the first time in his career, asks for a stiffer sentence than even federal guidelines call for. They petition the court to put the 52-year-old convict behind bars for 40 years.

[00:29:41] Matt Harding: You know here's why a 40-year sentence is appropriate here, you know, deterrents. You know this, this is a person who's going to reoffend, and people like him need to see that there's going to be serious punishments. We went through every single factor essentially and talked about why a, an enhanced sentence would be appropriate. We also included a lot of facts that the judge didn't get to hear at trial and the jury never got to hear at trial, of course, because there's lots of very strict rules of evidence about what can and cannot be put in front of the jury during the guilt/innocence portion of a trial, because although Mr. Youngblood did all sorts of terrible things throughout his life, we don't want the jury to convict him because he was a bad guy when he was 25. We want them to convict him because he committed this crime. But when it comes to sentencing, you can, the judge is allowed to consider, and is in fact required to consider, a much broader range of conduct. And so we brought in a lot of facts to the judge he never heard before about all the other frauds and all the other bad conduct that Mr. Youngblood had engaged in throughout his entire life starting when he was in high school and going all the way through present, well, at least when he was arrested.

[00:30:46] Bob: The prosecution also brings in Jamie to tell her story at the sentencing hearing.

[00:30:51] Matt Harding: When she testified at sentencing, it was also extremely powerful, because she, as I'm sure you've gotten the sense, she's sort of a no-nonsense lady. She's sort of like salt of the earth, tough as nails lady, but she also broke down sort of on the stand, and you can see like, no matter how strong you are, no matter what sort of how brave a face you put on these things, I mean these are real people who are having like their lives up-ended, and, and she confronted Mr. Youngblood a little bit uh during her testimony because like I said, he was shaking his head, no as though the victims were lying and things like that. And she said, like, "Don't shake your head," like, "You know what you did." Which I think was good for the judge to see and good for, honestly for the victims to see that, and, and maybe good for him to hear, you know, and sort of like you can put on this act, but nobody's buying it anymore.

[00:31:36] Bob: What was it like testifying you know at the sentencing? What was it like telling your story there?

[00:31:40] Jamie: It was, it was pressure. It was emotional. Looking at him was you just wanted to reach across and strangle him for what he did to everybody. I kept looking from the witness stand at Sean and at the other friends that now we have got from this, the other victims, and it was just raw. That's the only word I can use is raw. And I got out what I needed to say, and that, you know, is the first time. It's something I don't ever want to do again.

[00:32:19] Bob: Do, do you remember just a phrase or two or something that you got out that you really needed to say?

[00:32:24] Jamie: Well I suggested for his sentencing to the judge, I looked at him and I said, "I hope for a long sentence so that he can never do this again. And I hope that I wish that you could tattoo L-I-A-R across his lips so that everybody that saw his lips moving would know that he's lying."

[00:32:49] Bob: And after that emotional plea, well Kota gets to have his say too, and he, well he still says that he's innocent. And judges don't take kindly to that.

[00:33:01] Justin Noble: Yeah, I think when it came to sentencing day, I don't think the judge had made up his mind exactly how much time he was going to give Kota Youngblood. But when Kota stood up and pointed at the victims and said that he was the victim, and that they had victimized, I think it left no choice for the judge.

[00:33:17] Bob: Kota Youngblood is eventually escorted out of the courtroom because he won't stop talking. And after he leaves, the judge sentences him to the full 40 years.

[00:33:28] Matt Harding: Um, it was very, very satisfying and, and I don't, you know it's, it's weird to say that. You know I don't generally relish anybody going to prison. Almost every single case is just sad, it's not, you know, there's no high fiving afterwards. But in this case, because I felt that and I still feel that Mr. Youngblood is, is sort of a predator and a sociopath and, and if given the opportunity, will do this again, I felt very gratified that I was able to help these victims get some sense of closure, and protect the public against future crimes of Mr. Youngblood and there aren't, you kind of, as you alluded to at the beginning, there aren't too many cases in your career necessarily that are, that are this impactful, and this is one I think I'll remember forever. And it's just one of those cases where at the end of the day, in addition to all of the terrible things that, that we believe Mr. Youngblood, you know did and represented, the most important one in some ways was protecting the public, you know. And I really don't think, I have said it before and I'll say it again, you know the day Mr. Youngblood gets out of prison, he's going to be scamming someone, and honestly, he'll probably be scamming people while he's in prison. But the best we can do is try to incapacitate him and sort of limit that damage as, as best we can. And so that's why we ask for that.

[00:34:40] Bob: And he's going to be in prison until he's 92, I believe, right?

[00:34:43] Matt Harding: Well, there are, there are credits that can be given, so he probably won't serve the full 40. He'll probably serve 20 something or maybe, maybe up to 30, but and it could, it could be all the way up to 40 depending on his conduct in prison. But there, there are substantial opportunities for sentencing reductions.

[00:34:58] Bob: I'll put a note in my calendar.

[00:35:01] Matt Harding: (chuckles)

[00:35:02] Bob: Kota Youngblood needs to be kept off the streets everyone in this story has told me because his ability to manipulate people is incredibly powerful and dangerous.

[00:35:14] Lindsey Wilkinson: Yes, in fact, one kind of funnier moment for Agent Noble and I is when we had arrested Kota, Agent Noble was driving the vehicle, I was in the backseat with Kota who was handcuffed, and Kota turns to me and says, "I remember you. I'd remember those eyes anywhere. I, we flew on a flight together four years ago." And in my mind, I said, my God, did I fly on a flight with Kota, you know, before this case began? And I believed him for a second until he starts talking a little bit more, and he said, "You were an agent out in this office," and because of the details he gave, it couldn't be true. And I reminded myself, this man is a, a perpetual liar. But what I found even in that moment is that it's the way he speaks, he speaks with authority, he, if he's wrong about a detail it's like a fortune teller where he just says, my mistake, it was this. And he, and he changes his narrative to fit and to coerce you and to make you believe a situation. And we saw that time and time again with victims that he would learn something about them and they didn't realize that they had told him that fact or that he could have learned it from someone else and, and that's why he seemed like he was so connected and connected with the NSA and the CIA.

[00:36:21] Justin Noble: Kota Youngblood was a master storyteller. In addition to that, he had a photographic memory, so he could weave one day's story to the next day's story and tie it into something that he told you a year before, and make it all seem believable. He's a highly intelligent person, once in a lifetime con man that you just try to avoid your entire life.

[00:36:41] Matt Harding: I find that a lot of criminals, a lot of defendants that we come across, they're not evil, they're not necessarily bad people. They're often people who are in bad situations or who make bad choices or who have, you know, sort of flawed judgment kind of chronically. But it's rare that you see somebody malicious, and I would say, I don't know that I can probably count on one hand the number of folks who'd I put in the same category as Mr. Youngblood. In terms of him being a master manipulator, that ties in, in a sense that I don't think he had any conscience whatsoever about saying and doing whatever he had to do or say to convince a person that he was on their side. And you know, you can see from, from some of the victim sort of testimonials or their testimony at trial he really had sort of a lot of the characteristics of, of like an abuser, in like a mental abuse or emotional abuse, where it's sort of like sometimes he's your friend, if you cross him, he's very, he'll be very, you know, sort of mean to you, but then he'll come back and be friendly as long as you're, you're sort of doing what he wants. He, you know, he consistently would, would, his technique really largely was to develop trust over time, you know and he'd foster this trust in a lot of ways, you know and he called a lot of the victims, oh you're like a brother to me, you're like a father to me, you're like a grandfather to me. He really would play on those emotions, and then once he had really one or two or three really good people kind of very much believing him, well then he used those people to get other people to believe in him, and it became this sort of chain reaction that kind of spiraled out of control.

[00:38:12] Bob: It does strike me that one of his techniques was to set people against each other.

[00:38:16] Matt Harding: That's absolutely right. He, he would isolate people and say, he'd sort of set up a scenario where he himself was the only savior that they could rely upon. You can't call the police because they're corrupt. You can't go to your brother because he's in with the cartel. You can't go to your father because he's in with the cartel. You know he would do that to; and we saw it over and over and over again, his, his technique of isolating people, making them feel extreme fear, and then sort of portraying himself as the only possible uh, savior of these folks.

[00:38:45] Bob: But again, also starting fights among family members even.

[00:38:48] Matt Harding: Oh yeah.

[00:38:49] Bob: Another thing that I think is worth exploring for a moment that I thought was really interesting is, he wouldn't ask these people or start with a story himself, but he, he wormed his way into friendships and then used those friendships and rode along the back of those trust relationships in order to persuade people to invest or to send money to, for protection or whatnot.

[00:39:07] Matt Harding: Yeah, I mean that, that really was crucial to his scheme and, and the technique that he has used time and time again. And one great example of that is that he used this clock club and he knew a bunch of older folks, people largely with, you know, some means, and once he had convinced that he was pro antiques dealer and had all these sort of international connections based on his prior military and government service, he really infiltrated the clock association and managed to get a lot of money from folks who otherwise probably never would have given him the time of day. They had instant credibility because they were, they were trading on 20 years of friendship that those folks had with him, and that was not an isolated thing. That was pretty common for him.

[00:39:49] Bob: So how are Kota's victims now? Well Kota stole more than $1 million from Sean and Jamie. They even took out a reverse mortgage on their home.

[00:40:00] Sean: We're in terrible shape. We're devastated. We can't trust anybody. We can't tell our relatives what has happened because it's one, too embarrassing but more importantly, it would change our relationship where they would feel sorry for us and want to help us. And we're going to be okay only because we have retirement income that is coming in. Uh we're renting the home that we used to own scot-free. We had no payments on the home. We had paid it off before we retired. So uh yeah, we're, after all the tears and the uh, experience of what Kota has done to us where I personally have risked everything of my family for someone else's family and lost everything, I will never recover from it.

[00:40:52] Jamie: And we acquired this money the old-fashioned way. We've sold houses, we bought houses when we moved, and we put all that money in so that we could have a very nice home and one that we could have sold. Well we can't sell that anymore because we don't own it. So you can't tell her, yeah, this is what you do to make money, only to have somebody steal it from you. I just wish I had my husband back. You know it hurts to see him still feel so guilty. And you know I want to just; I, I want to move on which is why I want to do these podcasts or you know documentaries or whatever has to be done because people need to know you still wake up the next day. You can choose to wallow in it, or you can choose to, you know, move forward. And I'm preferring to move forward whereas my partner is still not sleeping, not, you know, just dwelling on it. And it does us no good. Uh, we're in the end of our lives, you know we're in our 70s, and we thought we would have a financial future. We don't have it now. And that's it. I mean you know you, what, what are you going to do? You pick it up and you move forward.

[00:42:20] Bob: That's a really powerful message. Sean, what do you want people to learn from hearing your story?

[00:42:25] Sean: It's, it's hard to try and uh, put a recommendation around this story. It's not, certainly not something you see on, on television or you read about. This is quite unique, and it's based on friendship and trust with people that you know because uh, our friend was heavily hypnotized on what Kota was, the stories that he came up with, the issues, trying to get the money, the uh, the things that were happening to Kota where you would almost feel sorry for him and his situation, but it would ultimately come back that he would need more money for one thing or another. It was never the same story and by the time you questioned things, our friend would defend Kota and have a counter story to support Kota. And that was a problem we ran into even though we questioned many times what was going on and things that did not make sense, we were told that everything's okay, and we're still going to get our money back. And that's why...

[00:43:36] Bob: And he always had an answer, right?

[00:43:37] Sean: Yeah, always had a response between Kota or our friend, that would not allow us or not give us the ability to go to the authorities to raise the question about Kota.

[00:43:52] Jamie: If you get a hair on the back of your head that starts standing up or you have any part of a doubt on this, get past the embarrassment because it will only cost you more and go to the FBI. You can't dig on the computer enough; they can, and they will find out if it's a scam or not, and you'd better do it earlier than to lose everything.

[00:44:18] Bob: So what is it that you want people to learn from what happened to you, Ricky?

[00:44:20] Ricky Kumar: You know tru--, trust means everything to me, right? And uh, this person broke my trust, and uh, it made me look twice, think twice, and distance myself from some folks that might want to get close to me. You know there's always lingering thoughts in my head, it's like, can I, can I trust this person, right? I, I just want people to be cautious when somebody is, I guess, trying to get close to you. That's one. The second thing is that um, just be aware that there's a lot of bad people out there. And not to say that there's not a lot of good people out there as well. There are a lot of good people out there. My experience, this one, make me think twice about getting close to uh, you know, to someone that I don't have any good background. Bec has that intuition and I should have listened to her. I didn't. It almost broke our marriage.

[00:45:14] Rebecca Kumar: I think the biggest thing people need to learn in situations like this is that a) you are not, I guess, the idiot in this situation. Because it is a lot of self-doubt that comes into it. And it's just, it's knowing that I guess I equate it to, and of course we all know Kota gambled every penny away in the casinos, but if you didn't know that, well he did. But we, I like to go to casinos every now and then. We go to Vegas like once every 8 years or something like that, and I take what I can afford to lose. I never go into any situation with an intent to win. Something like that, because it is a gamble. So I would say if you honestly can't afford to not, if you, you give away what you can afford to lose. So if someone comes up to you and says, "Hey, I need $500. Do you have $500 that you're willing to just give away?" Don't expect it back. Pause, think a minute, and uh if you can't afford it, then definitely don't do it, and just say, I'm sorry, and move on.

[00:46:07] Bob: You know, I really like what you said there. I hadn't heard it put that way before, but it makes sense to me. Don't lend money to anyone, period, is like a rule, but obviously then exceptions arise in life. So if a friend asks you for money, don't lend it, just give it to them.

[00:46:20] Rebecca Harding: Yes, just give it to them. You just, how, how much do you need? I can gift you this money, and that's it.

[00:46:26] Bob: Justin, what do you hope people will learn from this?

[00:46:28] Justin Noble: I think the biggest learning point is this could happen to somebody that you care about, somebody very close to you; your son, your parents, your brother, your sister. And so when you see a change in a pattern of somebody you care about, and there's somebody new in their life, you need to ask questions. You need to really dig in and find out what this other person is doing in, in your family's life.

[00:46:50] Matt Harding: Yeah, I mean this is, this is a, it is unusual in the sense that this is a person who really did develop trust over time. This is not sort of the, the scam artist who, who tries to fast-talk you in one afternoon or, you know, calls you and says your grandson's in jail, I need money for bail. The lesson to be learned here is ask questions, do research, and don't let somebody sort of bully you into not doing those things, especially if they're claiming to be your friend. And the last thing I would say is don't let yourself get isolated. Do rely on your friends and family. These are folks who have your best interest at heart for the most part. And so, and anybody who's trying to isolate you from your support structure, probably does not have your best interest at heart. They're probably doing it for a, for an ulterior motive which is to make sure that you rely on that person and that person alone. And so if you see somebody trying to do that to you, then that should set off some red flags.

[00:47:39] Bob: You know, but on the other hand, what screams at me about this story is how this person essentially uh, this, this strikes me as like a movie about a small town that's gone crazy. Like he took a community and really sort of rifled his way through it by taking advantage of people's friends and family relationships.

[00:47:55] Matt Harding: Now that, that is absolutely true, which is another reason that Mr. Youngblood's sort of technique is so dangerous and so susceptible of repetition is like we talked about a couple of times, who thinks that somebody that they've known for 7 years, your sons play hockey together, your social friends, who thinks that's the person who's going to defraud you? You know and this is a person who's giving every image to the world of being quite successful. This would be a, a difficult fraud to detect, you know. Yes, Mr. Youngblood told some fantastic stories, but he also, you know, ingratiated himself with these people over so much time and, and like you said, traded on those other relationships that it seemed plausible. You know they were sort of living in a, a world that had been created by and curated by Mr. Youngblood.

[00:48:41] Bob: Living in a world that Kota Youngblood created from his own vivid imagination. Fortunately, that world is now locked away in prison. For decades. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:49:10] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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