The Boasting Fraudster J. Nicholas Bryant

This is eCrimeBytes.com S 2 Ep 3-4: The Boasting Fraudster J. Nicholas Bryant – Act 4: The Sentencing Hearing! Go back to Act 1 for the background.

Sit back and listen to a story about J. Nicholas Bryant, a one man tornado of fraud!

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Transcript:

00:00:10:00 – 00:00:20:22
Keith
Hey, welcome back to eCrimeBytes. We’re talking about J. Nicholas Bryant this week, who in my opinion, is just a freaking tornado of a fraud.

00:00:20:24 – 00:00:22:18
Keith
And we’re finding out bits and pieces of just

00:00:22:18 – 00:00:33:01
Keith
these fraudulent things he would do, not just to private aviation companies, but to his own childhood friends, just to make bucks or to get free labor from people.

00:00:33:01 – 00:01:00:06
Keith
We talked about what is fraud consisted of an act one. We talked about his guilty plea in Act two and in Act three, we talked about him talking to The Daily Beast, which was legally not the smartest move because an act four now we’re talking about the sentencing hearing, which is this is where both sides try to make their case and either him getting a bunch of prison time, which would be the government’s position or not getting

00:01:00:06 – 00:01:32:00
Keith
any prison time, which would be J. Nicholas Bryant’s position. So we’re going to talk a little bit through this and give you more of the story in the context of these sides making their case. And this is kind of the theme of how I’m going to write these stories hopefully going forward in season two. I think it’s effective and in my opinion to show you both sides of the story, at least if nothing else, give you a try to give you the mindstate of somebody that would do a crime like this and what their defense would be.

00:01:32:01 – 00:01:35:15
Keith
So the very

00:01:35:15 – 00:01:49:04
Keith
first argument that the government makes that they want Bryant to suffer in prison for a while instead of, you know, just getting something simple as probation.

00:01:49:06 – 00:01:53:23
Keith
They talked about how much work he went.

00:01:53:23 – 00:02:20:00
Keith
He basically went above and beyond to try to convince these people of his fraudulent schemes. So, for instance, when they had these fictitious companies, there’s fake oil companies, for instance, he would create fake email addresses, he would create fake websites, he would create fake people. You know, he had, for instance, a foreman named Slade, a bookkeeper named Alison.

00:02:20:02 – 00:02:43:01
Keith
And he basically, with that whole package, was able to talk the talk of whatever scheme that he was doing at the time and convince his victims. We you know, we just heard from Hayden earlier in Act three of, you know, just how convincing it was because, you know, he went through training and everything and then later on found out he wasn’t actually working for Bryant.

00:02:43:01 – 00:02:44:08
Keith
Like Bryant said he was.

00:02:44:08 – 00:02:44:26
Keith
So

00:02:44:26 – 00:03:08:14
Keith
it wasn’t just as simple as going online and setting up a Web site. Okay. Because that was relatively easy for any much anybody to do in 2023, which is when we’re recording this, you can pretty much go to a lot of different sites out there… buy the domain, set up any type of website, have it look professional, have it look corporate.

00:03:08:17 – 00:03:33:10
Keith
That part in my my opinion is not hard. But when he’s convincing his friends to do oil well drilling, I’m thinking, okay, email addresses and websites, it’s not going that’s not going to cut it. Someone’s going to say, I want to go somewhere and see some oil drilling equipment. I want to go to some land. I want to see things that I’m spending money on.

00:03:33:10 – 00:04:09:07
Keith
Bryant went to the lengths to make that part believable, too. He would hire people to bring equipment, oil drilling type of equipment to these different sites that Bryant didn’t even own to pretend that he owned them and was drilling on them to convince his friends. So when you’re hearing the story of Seth and I saying, oh, you know, he got this victim and he got that victim, this is the reason why is because he went to great lengths to make his his scheme seem very believable.

00:04:09:07 – 00:04:25:06
Seth
Well, that’s important because it goes to there’s no it goes to minimizing any kind of defense he could have that he didn’t know what he was doing or that he didn’t mean it. It really just kind of diminishes any real mitigating efforts he might have offered.

00:04:25:08 – 00:04:31:22
Keith
Yeah. And he just it so believable. So when you listen to this and you go, oh, I wouldn’t have fallen for that.

00:04:31:22 – 00:05:00:27
Keith
it’d be much more believable had you been a victim at the time when you didn’t know this guy was swindling you because he he went to these lengths. I mean, I can’t think of is correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t think of an episode where we covered where the fraud, where somebody hired actual industrial equipment to be dropped off somewhere in order to fool people that they’re trying to, you know, swindle. You will later on!

00:05:00:27 – 00:05:27:12
Keith
I got an episode coming up, actually a weed episode coming up in a couple episodes that they did this. But I think this is our first one where the person went to such great physical lengths to get their scheme working that we hadn’t seen in other prior episodes. But anyways, I don’t want to go too much down that tangent, but because he was believable, he controlled the entire narrative and his victims just tended to believe him the whole time.

00:05:27:15 – 00:05:36:18
Keith
Now this this was a nugget that I left out earlier purposely to give you a later on in the case and I call rich people shit, Why don’t you tell us about it, Seth?

00:05:36:20 – 00:05:57:23
Seth
Let’s talk about some rich people shit. So the court documents tell us that in terms of these big shot outfitters, Mr. Bryant had indicated that he had agreed to shoot a $40,000 animal, and then he didn’t. It was unaware that it wasn’t because he changed his mind. It was because he got caught in the middle of it. And that was clarified in the response.

00:05:57:23 – 00:06:19:27
Seth
Quote, I did look at the big Shot Outfitters website. They do have some animals that are in the 40,000. They have an $80,000 water buffalo, I guess you can tell. So the representation, they don’t have an animal that’s $40,000. And the court said not a deer. And counsel said, well, they had deer up to $32,000. I mean, I’m just reading this.

00:06:19:27 – 00:06:27:14
Seth
I’m like, just so we’re clear, we’re talking about rich people who go and bid on killing large fucking animals. I don’t know, man.

00:06:27:14 – 00:06:33:17
Keith
That’s for about the cost of an average car. Yeah, I. And car.

00:06:33:20 – 00:06:58:05
Seth
I don’t know. It reminds me of that of that Jean-Claude Van Damme movie where, you know, the bad guys like to go find homeless vets and go hunt them down. It’s like. That’s pretty fucked up. And it’s worse for animals because they can’t defend themselves. I’ve always never liked the idea of people going like big game hunting. Like, Oh, great, you have a, you know, automatic laser sighted rifle and you’re going to kill an animal from a thousand yards away.

00:06:58:05 – 00:07:20:28
Seth
Really impressive. I’m not into that shit at all. Anyway, they talk about there’s a separate category by inch of the antler rack that’s left unspecified. So those are like $32,000. Maybe there are some deer that they’re I mean, they’re literally arguing over nuances of, you know, how do you designate which animals are worth $32,000 versus $40,000 to kill?

00:07:21:00 – 00:07:23:21
Seth
I can’t even.

00:07:23:23 – 00:07:58:11
Keith
Yeah. And as Seth said, this is Mr. Sloan, which is the counsel or the lawyer for Bryant that’s arguing this. So he’s basically saying, oh, there’s more. There’s animals cost more than $40,000. They go all the way up to $80,000 there. It’s kind of like he’s not even really helping helping his client’s case at this point, because it just like I said, this is more rich people shit where you’re just like, oh my God, it they go there and they spend that much money on shooting a probably a single bullet to bring down an animal for 40 to $80000.

00:07:58:11 – 00:08:12:08
Keith
Mind blowing. Yeah, but you go, Hey, aviation, shooting big game animal. What else did Bryant do? Well, here’s this one’s also in Seth’s wheelhouse. Let’s talk about stolen vehicles.

00:08:12:10 – 00:08:34:00
Seth
Well, killing animals is not in my wheelhouse, but cars are. So they’re talking about a specific truck. And they do say that it was something along the lines of, I guess, double counting. He took the truck off the first dealership, never intended to return it. That never entered his mind. Instead, he took it somewhere else and obtained cash and then never returned the cash.

00:08:34:03 – 00:08:51:07
Seth
So we don’t see that as double counting. So I guess the idea was he would buy a vehicle and sell a vehicle having never actually paid for the vehicle and pocketing the money. And I guess this becomes, isn’t it a semantic conversation of, well, did you steal something twice? Was it double counted? I don’t know. I think that’s a ridiculous argument either way.

00:08:51:07 – 00:09:14:11
Keith
Yeah. Obviously, the defense is saying we should only count the price of the vehicle and then the prosecution is going, wait a minute, he stole the vehicle, gave it to somebody else, pretending he sold it to the other person, took that money, too. So we should be able to count the price of the vehicle that he stole. And we should be able to count the money he took from the victim because everybody got screwed in that situation.

00:09:14:13 – 00:09:14:22
Keith
Yep.

00:09:14:22 – 00:09:31:24
Keith
And then so were to the sentencing hearing and we gave you a little snippet of the going back and forth between the attorneys and, you know, arguing for and against and some of these points. And now we get to the media portion of this segment, which is

00:09:31:24 – 00:09:35:22
Keith
Bryant talking to the media is now starting to bite him in the ass.

00:09:35:25 – 00:09:37:06
Keith
So they start

00:09:37:06 – 00:09:51:06
Keith
the lawyers start debating about when it was that Brian was saying that he was just as good or better than Frank Abagnale behind Catch Me If You Can movie.

00:09:51:06 – 00:09:54:23
Keith
And this kind of just opens up just a

00:09:54:23 – 00:10:10:06
Keith
a a ton of argument based upon Bryant talking to the media that if he would have just been quiet, none of this would have been in the court record and it probably wouldn’t affect his sentencing at all.

00:10:10:08 – 00:10:11:06
Keith
But we’re going to get into this.

00:10:11:06 – 00:10:19:22
Keith
So in the sentencing hearing, this is the point where the government says, Hey, we got something we want to play for you and we want to submit it into evidence.

00:10:19:22 – 00:10:27:20
Keith
And they go through the legal process and the court allows them to do that. And it’s a couple of jailhouse calls

00:10:27:20 – 00:10:31:12
Keith
with J. Nicholas Bryant and some friends and media and so forth.

00:10:31:12 – 00:10:41:06
Keith
There’s one particular call where they’re on the call and they basically, you know, he’s boasting about what it is that he’s doing. And everything.

00:10:41:06 – 00:11:03:03
Keith
And I’ve read basically this guy’s always boasting about all his money and his flights and all the cool shit that he does. And he’s basically boasting again, even from jail, about all the cool shit he did in his schemes. But they stop and they said, Hey, you know, the judge might be listening and he’s like, Yeah, yeah.

00:11:03:03 – 00:11:08:00
Keith
his friend says, I hope the judge doesn’t give you, you know, a longer sentence because of these phone calls.

00:11:08:02 – 00:11:15:17
Keith
And then Bryant says, Yeah, yeah, well, I do have to pay my price to society at some point, or, you know, I’m going to have to pay my debt.

00:11:15:17 – 00:11:30:25
Keith
And so, you know, that’s one of those things that you don’t want to pop up, I guess, as a defense counsel that the government steps in with. And you go, wow, he shouldn’t have been talking and, you know, admitting to these things and bragging about his schemes to his friends on a jailhouse call.

00:11:30:28 – 00:11:37:13
Keith
But trust me, it gets worse because he talked to the media right. So this

00:11:37:13 – 00:11:51:22
Keith
I’ll let you take Seth. This is where they they they talk about alcoholism, but they very quickly pivot to this oil well, whether or not this oil well was real. And I thought this is pretty interesting.

00:11:51:22 – 00:12:00:20
Seth
Yeah. I mean, so well, the court is kind of having, I guess, a back and forth with Bryant’s attorney. A counselor, Sloan responds like,

00:12:00:20 – 00:12:18:12
Seth
he’s trying to get rich by opening up an oil well. Now, that oil well was never open. So we don’t know if there was oil down there or not. That’s hilarious to me. Just pause that. That’s like saying, yeah, he stole from the candy store, but we don’t know that he wasn’t actually going to buy the whole candy store and own it anyway.

00:12:18:12 – 00:12:36:20
Seth
So it wasn’t really theft, right? I mean, it’s a ridiculous argument. So Sloan’s like. Yeah, I think he was. I he was hoping that the well would pay off and everybody would get rich. You know, he’s the private planes and luxury vacations or he’s always got his posse I like that he usde the word posse. He’s obviously trying to impress these people.

00:12:36:20 – 00:12:58:04
Seth
He’s posting things on social media. And I guess the prosecution says first, I don’t want it. I want to set the record straight on the oil well. Mr. Sloan spoke just moments ago that perhaps maybe I misunderstood him, but he understand that there was an oil well, Mr. Bryant wanted to work to reopen that. Well, this is absolutely false.

00:12:58:07 – 00:13:17:17
Seth
There was there may have been oil was in the property. It’s property that his uncle owned. Maybe they were working at one time. I don’t know the language in the oil and gas industry, but he did not intend to open an oil well. It was not his land. His uncle did not even know he was on the land or had told people that he would open a well on the land.

00:13:17:19 – 00:13:40:17
Seth
And the court’s like, Yeah, when Uncle finds out, Uncle said, What are you all doing here? And the plaintiff’s was like, write paragraph 19 and the PSR, which is a court document, the court’s like, Get out of here. And they’re like, Yes, Your Honor, I want to set that clear. This isn’t a situation where a businessman gets in a situation where he’s not able to complete the task,

00:13:41:06 – 00:13:46:02
Seth
he said. He never intended to open the oil well. He just wanted money to use as he pleased.

00:13:46:02 – 00:14:11:13
Keith
at this point, they’re talking about his comparison to Catch Me if You Can, and Frank Abagnale and Leonardo DiCaprio and they’re saying, Oh, he’s getting caught up in the moment. The defense is saying he’s getting caught up in the moment. They said The Daily Beast comes to him and wants to talk to him, which I guess is a real big social media company.

00:14:11:15 – 00:14:24:23
Keith
And they just here’s key, because you talked about this earlier, Seth. They said, which they did, that despite us telling him not to, meaning they told their client not to talk to this guy. This The Daily Beast.

00:14:24:23 – 00:14:33:04
Keith
And they want to say and I think was somebody who has obviously got insecurities and an ego problem. Getting him to boast, I don’t think was much of a challenge.

00:14:33:06 – 00:14:46:22
Keith
And so suddenly here’s his chance to be famous or notorious or whatever you want to call it, which is a big ego boost for him. He doesn’t make a nickel off of that. What The Daily Beast, what they drew in that story.

00:14:46:22 – 00:14:56:05
Keith
but she got him bragging. And I don’t think she particularly cared that she was adding fuel to his fire today at his sentencing hearing.

00:14:56:07 – 00:15:04:10
Keith
And I told him after the interview, you’re likely going to pay him months and years for giving that interview. And boy, does he hold on.

00:15:04:10 – 00:15:19:29
Keith
And but in interviews and in statements, he said he never said he didn’t do it. He came to this court and he said he did it. And he said he was guilty. And regards to arguments that we’ve made today, none of them are saying he did not commit these crimes.

00:15:19:29 – 00:15:21:20
Keith
And the court said, I agree.

00:15:21:20 – 00:15:37:18
Keith
And so they they can’t let that be right. So they got to talk about this Daily Beast article just a little more on the defense side. And you’re going to other people are going to talk about it here in a minute. But the defense is saying in regard to The Daily Beast interview, it’s like, okay, he’s a big boy.

00:15:37:21 – 00:16:02:15
Keith
He should have known better and it’s like there’s a certain poetic justice in the fact that she sort of misrepresented why she wanted to talk to him and then he fell for it, because that’s what he did to all his victims. Okay. I don’t know what was said, but I kind of feel like that’s a stretch, Seth, to say, like she somehow tricked him, that he was she wasn’t a news reporter.

00:16:02:15 – 00:16:05:23
Keith
That seems kind of farfetched, but maybe she did. Who knows?

00:16:05:23 – 00:16:25:27
Keith
And they go on to say, and I suppose everybody has reason to be outraged about the fact that he wants to be notorious or famous. But on the other hand, if he does make money from this, that’s a pretty good chance that a $1.25 million restitution that he stole might get paid back.

00:16:25:29 – 00:16:32:02
Keith
Yeah, this guy made over or he spent over 1.25 million that he has to pay back.

00:16:32:02 – 00:16:32:23
Keith
So

00:16:32:23 – 00:16:36:20
Keith
the other jailhouse call that we didn’t I told you about one of them. Here’s the second one.

00:16:36:20 – 00:16:50:02
Keith
He told his friend on this jailhouse call, again recorded, you know this is recorded. It tells you you are recorded when you call. And he says to his friend, we’re going to quote unquote, get paid for this shit.

00:16:50:04 – 00:16:57:27
Keith
And he asks his friend to send this article linked to Inside True Crime, which I guess is like a true crime program of some sort.

00:16:57:27 – 00:17:14:05
Keith
Oh, hey, they actually tell you in the court paperwork, I will tell you, it says, This is a website that is maintained by Matthew B Cox, who is a true crime writer. It’s a man who he reached out to himself in early August when he knew after he had received the target letter.

00:17:14:05 – 00:17:42:05
Keith
And the target letter means he knew he was under investigation. It’s a legal process thing. So he knew he was under investigation and then he went and talked to Inside True Crime after. And the prosecutor goes on to say, I think that just shows an absolute lack of remorse and acceptance with just the gravity of his crimes. The number of victims who suffered and the way the ways in which they suffered.

00:17:42:05 – 00:17:47:07
Keith
So you’re still you’re going, oh, my God, this guy’s digging himself a hole. Well, yep.

00:17:47:07 – 00:17:55:20
Keith
even after being transferred to the Bailey County Jail, I believe that might have happened in January. This is the prosecutor saying this.

00:17:55:20 – 00:18:06:21
Keith
I’m not sure He contacted a Texas Monthly journalist, the journalist who wrote The Daily Beast article to just let them know, hey, I’m being held over here now.

00:18:06:24 – 00:18:28:04
Keith
Let’s continue this conversation. So they’re saying it’s not accidental that he went and did this media interview. He knew what he was doing and in fact, he knew what he was doing so much that he said, hey, when I was transferred from one facility to the other, he updated them and said, This is where I’m at now, in case you want to talk to me.

00:18:28:04 – 00:18:39:27
Keith
So they go on to say that he did this even after after pleading guilty to this crime, which is mind blowing. It is absolutely mind blowing. You don’t see this very often. And he did it

00:18:39:27 – 00:18:47:01
Keith
and he didn’t go in there and just say, I accept. It’s not like he printed an article and said, I’m terribly sorry I did all this stuff.

00:18:47:04 – 00:18:49:24
Keith
He basically was boasting the whole time in this article.

00:18:49:24 – 00:19:00:16
Keith
And so at the end, Bryant’s allowed to give a statement, and it’s a pretty short statement in my opinion, and I’m just going to let Seth read it here, I think word for word, because it’s so short.

00:19:00:18 – 00:19:19:05
Seth
So Bryant states, quote, I would like to sincerely and humbly apologize to all my victims and my family. For years, I watched their confusion at the chaos drugs and alcohol caused in my life. The seriousness of my actions had zero impressions on my drug and alcohol induced mind.

00:19:19:05 – 00:19:25:05
Seth
These last 15 months I’ve been incarcerated have shown me how devastating my choices have been on my life and others.

00:19:25:08 – 00:19:50:22
Seth
I have failed as a father and a son. I’ve wrecked every relationship I’ve had burned, every bridge I’ve crossed. I hurt so many people trying to become someone I’m not. I was a greedy unremorseful monster, hurting everybody in my path, 100% responsible for my actions that have led me to this courtroom today. I’m ready to make ready to pay my debt and restitution to society and my victims and come out of my sentence a better man and father.

00:19:50:24 – 00:19:58:00
Seth
Thank you for giving me the chance to change my life. Thank you for my family, for supporting me.

00:19:58:02 – 00:20:11:01
Keith
So at this point in the legal process, you can imagine the defense has given their argument of why he should get little amount of imprisonment. The government has made the exact opposite argument

00:20:11:01 – 00:20:21:29
Keith
and the judge has got to figure out what his sentencing is. And we’re going to pause here on Act four and make you come back for the actual sentencing in Act five, because the judge has got some shit to say.

00:20:21:29 – 00:20:44:13
Keith
And it’s important and we’re going to read it to you. So if you liked anything in this act four, please, if you’re on Apple Podcasts, leave us a five star review there. And that’s about half of our audio listeners. According to the statistics that Podbean tells me, if you’re on our video site, if you’re on, say, YouTube, give us a like give us a subscribe.

00:20:44:13 – 00:21:06:02
Keith
If you’re on any app, you should be able to subscribe or follow us. And that way you’ll know about these new episodes and acts that we come out with. And if you’re on any other social media platform that I didn’t mention, I’m sorry, but just fuck off… no again, I’m just kidding. I’m kidding. I try to make us as accessible as possible on every platform that I can without pulling my hair out.

00:21:06:03 – 00:21:26:16
Keith
So if you’re on something like Instagram or LinkedIn or something like that, Facebook to watch us, please subscribe and continue watching us there. Like us, Whatever the positive action is on that platform, please do it because it helps us out and we will see you back tomorrow with Act five, which is going to be J. Nicholas Bryant’s sentencing.

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The Boasting Fraudster J. Nicholas Bryant – Act 4: The Sentencing Hearing

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