Burning Teslas With Michael A. Gonzalez – Act 1: Drugs And Guns

Join me to hear the story of Michael A. Gonzalez, a serial Tesla thief. Why did he burn a Tesla? Well you’re going to have to join me to hear that and all about his drugs, guns, and baby mama drama. This is eCrimeBytes Season 2 Episode 15 Act 1: Burning Teslas With Michael A. Gonzalez – Act 1: Drugs And Guns.

Sources:

• https://www.justice.gov/usao-vt/pr/michael-gonzalez-indicted-stealing-five-tesla-vehicles-worth-over-600000-including-tesla
• https://www.justice.gov/usao-vt/pr/michael-gonzalez-sentenced-48-months-prison-possessing-and-selling-stolen-teslas
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/60317673/united-states-v-gonzalez/
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16878947/united-states-v-gonzalez/
• https://electrek.co/2023/10/12/man-who-swindled-5-free-cars-tesla-gets-4-years-sentence/ (Photo)
• https://www.vtcng.com/otherpapersbvt/news/police_blotter/former-south-burlington-man-jailed-in-case-of-five-stolen-teslas/article_6b73d4b6-0b56-11ec-8139-6379c4935b73.html (Photo)
• https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-wework-documentary-explores-a-decade-of-delusion (Photo)
• https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/7/20953930/wework-adam-neumann-severance-laid-off-employees-layoffs-buyout-unicorn-ipo (Photo)

Transcript:

00:00:10:01 – 00:00:39:22
Keith
Hey ya crazy bastards! Welcome to eCrimeBytes Season two Episode 15 Burning Teslas with Michael A. Gonzalez. Now, listen, when I first heard the research on this, I found this guy’s mug shot, and I’ll just pop it on the screen right now for you. When I was doing the research and I saw this guy’s face immediately, immediately my mind went to the second most hated Neumann on Earth.

00:00:39:27 – 00:01:02:09
Keith
And I’ll pop a picture of him up right now. And that’s Adam Neumann of WeWork. And I thought they just look so incredibly similar that I just couldn’t stop thinking of Adam Neumann this whole time. And here’s another picture of Adam Neumann having kind of a crazy face and doing some air quotes and, you know, I skimmed over it and I said, the second most hated Neumann ever.

00:01:02:13 – 00:01:25:57
Keith
And you’re wondering who’s the most hated Neumann? Well, you got to think back to Seinfeld, right? Newman All right. So when I looked at Michael Gonzalez’s mug shot that I got on screen right now for you, is is this Gonzales or is this. Neumann? You can’t even tell, right? I mean, they’re basically the same person. All right. So why why this case?

00:01:26:04 – 00:01:46:51
Keith
Why did I pick this case? This case is incredibly unique. There’s no other analog like this out there for electronic crime that I’ve seen. And so it was so unique that I had to make an episode for it. The technology here is not going to be that hard. You don’t have to bend your mind too hard to imagine what’s going on.

00:01:46:55 – 00:02:25:24
Keith
First of all, if you’ve seen our Season two episode three, we talked about J. Nicholas Bryant using these bank transfers and ACH transfers. Exact same thing here. So ACH transfers, that’s the technology that’s used behind the crime. The crime itself. Now I’ll just say the main crime itself. Stolen vehicles. There’s a lot of other crimes. I’m not going to spoil some here, but there’s a lot of other crimes that get intermingled with the main crime of stolen vehicles that you’re going to hear about, just because it’s important to the case that just makes this case off the wall.

00:02:25:28 – 00:02:42:39
Keith
The criminal here, like I told you, is Michael A. Gonzalez. Just a little bit of background. He is 29 years old. So not you know, he’s not like a middle aged man or anything. So he’s pretty young. And you can imagine when he gets sentenced and stuff at the end here, he’s going to have considerable amount of life afterwards to hopefully do good with it.

00:02:42:39 – 00:03:05:21
Keith
The victims. All right. So the victim was basically a victim and it’s Tesla motors. So if you’re not familiar with Tesla, they’re a car manufacturer that makes electronic vehicles. And they’re very popular here in the U.S. And I read that they’re decently popular in other countries. If you’re from another country and you haven’t heard of this, just, you know, do a little bit of research.

00:03:05:21 – 00:03:10:43
Keith
It’s a popular car manufacturer here in the U.S. So that’s why I think it was picked on in this case by Michael Gonzales.

00:03:10:43 – 00:03:23:34
Keith
So with that, this week, I have four parts for you. So the first act, act one is today, and this one is called Drugs and Guns. Yeah. And it already starts out with a great, great topic, right?

00:03:23:34 – 00:03:46:04
Keith
Drugs and guns. And then tomorrow, Tuesday, the act is actually starts out with a question is “that worked?” And you’ll find figure out why by the end of this act because we’ll kind of answer that question on Wednesday which is act three. This one is called Baby Mama Drama. And you’ll think, how does that have to do with electronic crime?

00:03:46:04 – 00:03:55:26
Keith
And it kind of doesn’t, but it kind of does. So I had to talk about it in here. And then the concluding act on Thursday, which is Act four, that’s going to be his punishment.

00:03:55:26 – 00:04:01:39
Keith
Okay. So with that, let me just go ahead and get into Act One drugs and guns, and I’m going to start out with a bang.

00:04:01:48 – 00:04:02:16
Keith
All right.

00:04:02:16 – 00:04:10:19
Keith
August 1st, 2018, we’ve got Michael Gonzales. He’s the focus of our story here.

00:04:10:19 – 00:04:28:04
Keith
I found a document that said late summer, early fall officers removed a firearm from the defendant’s possession because of his use of controlled substances. Okay. Drugs and guns, they don’t mix. Now,

00:04:28:04 – 00:04:35:18
Keith
later on in October, Gonzales went and applied for a gun. Like another gun.

00:04:35:23 – 00:04:58:55
Keith
And so there was this background check that happens when he applied for it. And they said, hey, wait, hold on a second. User of controlled substances, no way. And you’re thinking, hey, how does this have to do with electronic crime? Well, technically it doesn’t yet, but this plays a huge role in the rest of this case because this is a common theme with Michael Gonzales.

00:04:59:00 – 00:05:12:20
Keith
So I had to tell you the very first incident upfront, because it just starts out it starts out where Michael Gonzales is already on the radar of police. All right. He’s not the police don’t have to look too far to find their defendant in this case. They’ve already got him.

00:05:12:20 – 00:05:16:30
Keith
So for you to understand the crime here, I unfortunately have to explain a little bit of background.

00:05:16:30 – 00:05:40:57
Keith
Hopefully, it’s not going to be too much for you. Now, Tesla, if you were to go and buy a car from Tesla, you have basically two options. Option A is you go to a store and you say, I want this model and you kind of complete it like you usually do with a normal car or option B is you go to a website and you go through and you pick your stuff on it and then you get your price and you say, Hey, I want to buy this thing.

00:05:41:11 – 00:05:54:33
Keith
So either way, you have two ways of choosing to buy a car. Either way you choose, you still have to make a down payment. Now, the down payment for these Tesla cars is $2,500 American.

00:05:54:33 – 00:06:03:07
Keith
This is typically paid by credit card or debit card or pretty much any way you can pay anything. I think PayPal’s even used in this case.

00:06:03:07 – 00:06:21:05
Keith
So if we’re going through that, the process of buying a car for a normal person, we started out with that, chose my car, I got my price, I pay my a down payment. Now I’m sitting there and I’m waiting, right. I’m waiting for my car to arrive. Tesla says, Hey, buddy, your car is in. We need to settle the money that you owe us.

00:06:21:09 – 00:06:43:29
Keith
And usually at this point, most people would go out to a bank and they would say, Hey, I need to borrow, say, $50,000 to finance this Tesla. And the bank kind of owns the car with you until you make all your payments and you pay it off and then you own the Tesla. Traditionally, that’s how a lot of people buy cars.

00:06:43:34 – 00:07:05:18
Keith
There are other ways you can buy cars. You can do a wire transfer, you can do an automated clearinghouse transfer or an ACH transfer for the remaining balance. And that’s for people that may not want to finance their car. They just want to pay it out. Just let’s say they had $50,000 in their bank account. They just wanted to pay it out of their bank account to the dealership and take the car.

00:07:05:18 – 00:07:27:34
Keith
Now, this is key. This is key to the whole case here. When you pay in full, Tesla will give you this piece of paper. This piece of paper is called the Manufacturer Certificate of Origin. And what this paper allows you to do is take that Tesla and register it, title it. Or if you don’t want it anymore, you can resell it.

00:07:27:34 – 00:07:30:56
Keith
You basically can do anything you want with it because it says that you own it.

00:07:30:56 – 00:07:32:58
Keith
This is key into this case.

00:07:32:58 – 00:07:47:24
Keith
Now, let me walk you through what Michael Gonzales did with Tesla, number one. And you say Tesla number one. Yes, we have five Teslas he did this to. So stick with me because every Tesla, it gets a little crazier.

00:07:47:29 – 00:07:52:02
Keith
So this is Tesla number one. And I kind of think this might be the Tesla that

00:07:52:02 – 00:08:06:28
Keith
I think he was buying this possibly for himself and sort of figured out the scheme worked. And I think that because this model of Tesla is lower end compared to the other models of Tesla that you’ll see later on that are far more expensive.

00:08:06:28 – 00:08:15:49
Keith
So I think maybe he either started out small to see if it worked or either bought one for himself and said, Holy shit, this worked, and then kind of went nuts.

00:08:15:49 – 00:08:29:34
Keith
So with Tesla number one, it was a 2018 model three, and in September 12th of 2018, Gonzales agreed to a price of $58,200 with Tesla to buy this.

00:08:29:38 – 00:08:56:21
Keith
So to deliver the car because Tesla says, Where do you want it when we make it and it’s ready for you. He gave addresses in Burlington and Underhill, Vermont, and he gave a copy of his Vermont driver’s license. And if you’re not familiar with the U.S., because we do have a quarter of our listeners outside of the U.S., Vermont’s up there in the northeastern corridor of the U.S. And I realize I’m kind of pointing on the video here, and it’s kind of flip flopped probably.

00:08:56:26 – 00:09:00:14
Keith
And I probably just pointed over to Washington on the video. So just ignore that part.

00:09:00:14 – 00:09:27:46
Keith
So they agreed on a price. Gonzales says I’m willing to pay my down payment, $2,500. He pays with his TD Bank account, his personal TD Bank account. Now he owes approximately $56,000 on it. So then in late October or early November, Gonzales tries to pay the remaining balance that $56,000 ish.

00:09:27:46 – 00:09:28:47
Keith
It’s actually a little less.

00:09:28:47 – 00:09:46:31
Keith
He does it by initiating an ACH transfer from his TD Bank account. Same bank account he just paid the $2,500 to. Now this is key. His bank account did not have the money. So, you know, if your bank account doesn’t have the money, you write someone to check. That check is going to bounce.

00:09:46:36 – 00:10:09:27
Keith
Same thing happens in the ACH world. That’s going to bounce, but it takes a lot longer for it to bounce. So October 30th of 2018 Tesla delivered the car. Not only did it deliver the car, it gave Gonzales the manufacturer certificate of origin. So now Gonzales can title it or resell it.

00:10:09:27 – 00:10:13:13
Keith
So and this part blows my mind. Why does it take so long?

00:10:13:13 – 00:10:22:02
Keith
But early November TD Bank rejected the ACH transfers to Tesla for insufficient funds because he didn’t have it in his account.

00:10:22:02 – 00:10:31:11
Keith
His account only range from 2000 to $10000, but he’s trying to pay a $50,000 car tab with it. So it’s obviously it’s going to bounce

00:10:31:11 – 00:10:43:03
Keith
On December 31st of 2018, so the same year Gonzalez sold this Tesla to a used car dealership for $42,500.

00:10:43:08 – 00:11:06:49
Keith
When he sold it, he provided the manufacturer certificate of origin because Tesla gave it to him, even though he hadn’t fully paid. And then it’s not like Gonzales had that money and said, I’m sorry, Tesla, and gave the remaining money to Tesla. No he just kept it. So Gonzalez never paid Tesla and still owes the remaining nearly $56,000 on that car.

00:11:06:49 – 00:11:36:10
Keith
Mind blowing. Right? So I got to pause here because we’re at the end of Act One, because I’m pretty sure this is where Gonzalez figured out, Holy shit, that worked. And that’s the title of our next act “that worked?” So if there’s anything in this act that you liked, please like subscribe, thumbs up, follow. Because in the next act, this whole scheme that Michael Gonzales has ratchets up and there’s going to be some fires involved.

00:11:36:15 – 00:11:41:22
Keith
And I’m going to show you pictures of it. And it’s a crazy, crazy story.

00:11:41:22 – 00:12:02:37
Keith
So if you haven’t visited our website, please do. It’s eCrimeBytes , bytes spelled the computer way, b y as in yellow milk t e s dot com. And with that I do hope to see you back tomorrow when Michael A. Gonzalez ratchets up and starts burning Teslas for money.

00:12:02:42 – 00:12:04:08
Keith
Hope to see you there. Thanks.