The Boasting Fraudster J. Nicholas Bryant – Act 1: Meet Mr. Bryant

Sit back and listen to a story about J. Nicholas Bryant, a one man tornado of fraud! This is eCrimeBytes.com S 2 Ep 3-1: The Boasting Fraudster J. Nicholas Bryant – Act 1: Meet Mr. Bryant.

Sources:

• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65652216/united-states-v-bryant/
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67146544/united-states-v-bryant/
• https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/26-year-old-fraudster-sentenced-14-years-prison-following-boasts-about-criminal
• https://www.databreaches.net/26-year-old-fraudster-sentenced-to-14-years-in-prison-following-boasts-about-criminal-conduct/
• https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/texas-grifter-j-nicholas-bryant-041102482.html (Photos)

Transcript:

00:00:10:00 – 00:00:18:00
Keith
Hey, welcome to eCrimeBytes Season two Episode three The Boasting Fraudster J. Nicholas Bryant.

00:00:18:00 – 00:00:45:11
Keith
And while I was making this research for this case, a new tagline came to me, which is eCrimeBytes, where we read the court documents so you don’t have to. And if you’re new to eCrimeBytes, this is just where we take a case that we find, we go through the court documents, we try to put the story together and present it to you as the facts are in the public record.

00:00:45:14 – 00:00:56:16
Keith
And with that, we get into the case details upfront to kind of give you a lay of the land on what’s coming at you. So I’m going to start with our first detail about this case. And it’s a technology.

00:00:56:16 – 00:01:04:17
Keith
So first, QuickBooks, QuickBooks, if you’ve ever done business as a business, you can use QuickBooks to

00:01:04:17 – 00:01:06:28
Keith
send people invoices and get paid on them.

00:01:06:28 – 00:01:08:03
Keith
Text messages

00:01:08:03 – 00:01:20:06
Keith
was another technology that doesn’t I don’t think needs any explaining but Veem V E E M which is just another type of QuickBooks application that you can

00:01:20:06 – 00:01:29:01
Keith
send invoices and get payment and so forth. And that’s a technology that Bryant exploited in this episode.

00:01:29:01 – 00:01:30:24
Seth
Okay, So the crime

00:01:30:24 – 00:01:37:04
Seth
this is good old fashioned fraud, but this time facilitated obviously, by computers and the internet.

00:01:37:04 – 00:01:49:18
Keith
Yeah. You’re going to find a lot of cases, pretty much almost any case out there nowadays. You can go to it and find some kind of computer aspect to it. So this particular fraud we picked was fraud that

00:01:49:18 – 00:01:56:22
Keith
without computers, the fraud wouldn’t have happened in this case, in my opinion. So the criminal, like I said earlier, his name was J.

00:01:56:22 – 00:02:05:06
Keith
Nicholas Bryant or Mr. Bryant, or to say, Bryant at the time of the crimes, he was 26.

00:02:05:06 – 00:02:14:00
Keith
And he’s from Texas and we’re not going to hold that against him. We’re going to hold a lot of stuff against him, but we’re not going to hold the whole thing of being from Texas against him.

00:02:14:02 – 00:02:16:25
Keith
And I as I was writing this research, I was trying to think

00:02:16:25 – 00:02:38:20
Keith
how could I describe J. Nicholas Bryant to someone who’s never met him and doesn’t know anything about him? That’s walking in this podcast. And I’m just going to say you’re going to meet a tornado of fraud. Like once this guy starts you, you’re going to struggle to keep up with him with how much fraud this guy accomplishes in a very short amount of time.

00:02:38:22 – 00:02:59:09
Seth
Who knows? He might even make our biggest shitbag list at the end of the season. We’ll see. So let’s talk about our victims here. We have several flight charter companies and we’ll get into that car dealerships, a homebuilder and various friends and acquaintances, etc., and we’ll get into those details throughout the case.

00:02:59:09 – 00:03:17:27
Keith
I did the research on this case, so I actually timed it well Seth this time, because I know you’re such a car buff that anytime we talked about cars, I tried to put it right in the microphone, right in your face that you can talk all you want about these cars because he spent all he spent more money than I’ve ever seen just on cars in this case.

00:03:18:01 – 00:03:22:28
Keith
I’m telling you, I’ll tell you that much up front. So why this case? Well,

00:03:22:28 – 00:03:42:18
Keith
the reason why I picked this case are two huge plot twists that I cannot begin to tell you what it’s about without spoiling it. So all I have to say is stay tuned all the way to the end. Because when you’re like, hey, this case is almost over and you want to go do something else, your attention drifts.

00:03:42:21 – 00:03:58:11
Keith
He’s going to do some stuff at the end. You’re going to go, Oh my God, why did he do that? Trust me, it’s mind blowing. And the other reason is I can’t believe this technique of fraud still works in 2021, which is the range of the crime here.

00:03:58:11 – 00:04:19:10
Keith
So this is relatively recent and you’re going to see how he did this scheme is not that complex once you figure it out. Now, something I want to give you upfront that we haven’t done before that I think will be helpful is I’m going to give you the names of the acts of this episode and the days we’re releasing them.

00:04:19:10 – 00:04:45:09
Keith
So you’re watching Act One right now. This is released on Monday and this is just called Meet J. Nicholas Bryant on Tuesday, which will be the next day of after this one comes out, there’ll be Act two. Bryant’s guilty plea. And I’m going to say, this guy’s a tornado of
fraud. There’s no spoilers there that he was caught. So he actually pleads guilty.

00:04:45:12 – 00:05:06:29
Keith
And then on Wednesday for Act three, we have Bryant talks to the media and you go, hold up. Didn’t you just say he pled guilty? Yes, I did. And then he talks to the media. And this is where the case gets really interesting, because on Thursday, Act four, we get to the sentencing hearing and you say, hold up.

00:05:06:29 – 00:05:25:14
Keith
Didn’t he talk to the media between the guilty plea and before a sentencing hearing? Yes. Yes, he did. And we have we have what he said. And it’s just so incredible that you’re going to want to you’re definitely going to want to listen to it. And then last day, which is Friday, is going to be act five. And this is sentencing.

00:05:25:14 – 00:05:32:04
Keith
This is after the hearing, after he made his case. What actually happened to him at the end of the day in this case.

00:05:32:04 – 00:05:41:22
Keith
So with that, let’s start act one Meet J. Nicholas Bryant, and I have some pictures here that I will put on your screen for you.

00:05:41:22 – 00:05:43:10
Keith
So you’re looking at J.

00:05:43:10 – 00:06:08:28
Keith
Nicholas Bryant on a private jet with a friend, and this came from Bryant’s Facebook. And you’re like, Wow, cool. He got to fly in a private jet once. Well, more than once, because there’s another picture from his Facebook with another private jet with a bunch of guys. It looks like popping champagne from a distance in front of a private jet.

00:06:09:00 – 00:06:20:03
Keith
I mean, literally the only thing missing from that picture, from this picture that I have on your screen right now is Lil Wayne somewhere in there? Lil Wayne’s missing.

00:06:20:03 – 00:06:27:24
Seth
I was going to say something about popping the Cris, but I didn’t want to come off like a total idiot. So. Yes, sure.

00:06:27:27 – 00:06:52:04
Keith
And then you go, Oh, my gosh, he’s in front of another private jet. Yes, he is. There he is. And just for the occasion, flip flops, man, that dress. This is how I dress when I go out that upsets my wife so much. And this guy, this guy gets away flying around on private jets dressed like this. I get bitched out when I leave the house, but he gets to fly around and private jets dress this way.

00:06:52:04 – 00:07:07:22
Keith
It’s unbelievable. So all these pictures that are on his Facebook and all these things, you know, they have been reported around the media and so forth, it’s just been interesting. But this one picture here, this is his friend, the sources, Hayden Eggemeyer, and I pulled this from

00:07:07:22 – 00:07:12:22
Keith
there was one news source that nobody else had this picture. And the reason why I pulled it is

00:07:12:22 – 00:07:21:07
Keith
We’re going to hear from Hayden later on in a quote about Mr. Bryant, which is kind of funny. Well,

00:07:21:07 – 00:07:23:10
Keith
not funny, but just

00:07:23:10 – 00:07:32:21
Keith
right now, you see him having fun in the picture. Later on, you’re going to see hear him not having fun when it comes to Mr. Bryant. That’s what I’m trying to say. Not necessarily funny.

00:07:32:21 – 00:08:02:20
Keith
So with those pictures out of the way, now you kind of get a little mental picture of what’s going on. And you got a guy that likes to flash some wealth and definitely likes to fly on private aviation. So what Seth said up front, victims were private charter companies for aviation. It’s these companies where you go rent a jet and it costs you tens of thousands of dollars to go from point A to point B, not even back to point A, I’m talking just point A to point B, So keep that in mind.

00:08:02:20 – 00:08:24:09
Keith
So I’m going to take you to November 18th, 2021. And again, I put this picture of this flashy high roller that likes to take private jets. Well, Bryant negotiated with a company named Sales Hangar flight Ops for one of these private jet flights to somewhere

00:08:24:09 – 00:08:56:26
Keith
He went in and said, hey, I’m interested in buying an airplane just like this. And that sounds like every like movie where the con man right. An airplane just like this. What do you say I pay you to take me for a ride in this thing and okay, you have to put your self in the mindset of November of 2021, which is I think COVID vaccines had just come out in that time frame.

00:08:56:26 – 00:09:15:18
Keith
So people were pretty cooped up. A lot of industries were really, really hurting for money. So anybody walking in and saying, I’m going to pay you to fly me somewhere is probably like, Oh, thank God we have some business to do during this difficult period in the industry.

00:09:15:18 – 00:09:40:13
Keith
So the flight that Bryant wants this company to fly him on to check out this plane that he’s going to buy because he has so much money, it departs Lubbock, Texas, and lands in Houston, Texas, with a final destination of Miami and then a return flight from Miami to Houston with a final destination in Lubbock.

00:09:40:16 – 00:10:10:01
Keith
Okay, so there’s a couple destinations in here. Keep that in mind because it’s going to be a little bit important, not overly important, but it’ll come up later on. Now, to do this, you’re like, wow, I wonder how much that flying is. Well, the flights leaving Lubbock. So basically the outgoing flights that cost $33,000, which to the layperson like myself, you go, Holy shit, that’s a lot of money.

00:10:10:01 – 00:10:10:10
Keith
But

00:10:10:10 – 00:10:34:07
Keith
I’ve also I have experience as a pilot and I know the aviation industry and actually $33,000 isn’t all that much for private chartered flights. So it kind of depends on which side of the coin you’re looking at this at. Now, here’s another part where I went, Holy shit, an extra $5,000 was added to that to cover just the alcohol, beverage, alcoholic beverage beverages.

00:10:34:09 – 00:10:41:29
Keith
So either, you know, people must just wild go wild on these charter flights. Yeah. Can we talk about this?

00:10:41:29 – 00:11:05:29
Seth
I don’t that doesn’t jive with me. So you’re more familiar with the aviation industry than I am. But I’ll buy the 30 grand or so 33 grand to fly. And I get that the aviation, maybe they make money that way, but $5,000 for booze on a private jets. And they couldn’t have been more than, what, 5 to 10 people on the jet, even assuming 200 hours of booze a person Come on.

00:11:06:01 – 00:11:21:26
Seth
And then on top of that, the the the the limo, which is usually, I don’t know, $200 these days at the high end. So, I mean, maybe this is what it cost, but that doesn’t I don’t know, man. If the cheapskate in me is not not kosher with that.

00:11:21:28 – 00:11:34:05
Keith
The $5,000 and I talked about the alcoholic beverage, but there’s also the limousine transportation and whatever remained to be a quote unquote, tip per Bryant. So

00:11:34:05 – 00:11:48:25
Keith
yeah, it’s a lot, but I imagine two people that can spend 30 plus thousand dollars on a one way flight somewhere, $5,000 is probably not that much. I don’t know. So at the end of the day, the total is $38,000.

00:11:48:25 – 00:11:51:29
Keith
Okay. Keep that number in your mind as a listener here.

00:11:51:29 – 00:12:12:00
Keith
That’s just one way. Okay. That’s just going to Miami. So you can imagine coming back, you’re going to have another similar charge. So the whole round trip for this thing is $76,000 for a round trip. Unbelievable. So

00:12:12:00 – 00:12:13:14
Keith
all the negotiations

00:12:13:14 – 00:12:15:13
Keith
was done over a couple of different meetings.

00:12:15:13 – 00:12:35:22
Keith
One is text messages. So there you have your cell phones and your electronic devices to make it eCrimeBytes. But you also had old fashioned telephone calls between Bryant in Texas and company representatives in Arkansas, which is a, you know, a different state, which is important for a federal charge like this.

00:12:35:22 – 00:12:45:14
Keith
So at the end of the negotiations for the cost of this trip, the airline wants to get paid.

00:12:45:20 – 00:13:02:06
Keith
Right. So they said give us a credit card so we could put this whole flight business on there and we can get you off to Miami and back. Sir. And he said, well, hold on a second, I got another way of doing this. And he says,

00:13:02:06 – 00:13:11:07
Keith
You’re going to send me an invoice and I’m going to send you a payment through QuickBooks Payments, which is an online payment platform, right?

00:13:11:07 – 00:13:11:27
Keith
So

00:13:11:27 – 00:13:40:28
Keith
at some point they’re done negotiating. And Bryant says a text message, which and I’ll read it to you, quote unquote, says, Send me that email so I can have my secretary pay ya buddy. And then minutes later, Bryant then sent a message that said she’s paying it now. And the sales representative asked Bryant to formally confirm the payment so he could start organizing the flights as any sane business owner should.

00:13:41:02 – 00:13:47:27
Keith
Right. You want to make sure the money’s going to be in the account and the check is not going to bounce, so to speak. Here.

00:13:47:27 – 00:13:52:11
Keith
So he says, you know, he responded with a text message, says paid

00:13:52:13 – 00:13:57:14
Keith
I want to make it clear Bryant didn’t have the money to pay for this. He’s not making flights going.

00:13:57:17 – 00:14:14:22
Keith
I’ll have $38,000 coming in for one way at some point, and then I’ll have another $38,000 coming in and another point where I can just kind of like pay it off before it becomes an issue. He knows he’s never going to be able to pay this. And you’ll see later on, the ball just starts rolling from here.

00:14:14:22 – 00:14:40:15
Seth
So later that day, Bryant fakes the payment. So the court documents tell us that Bryant knew how to manipulate the QuickBooks payment platform to trick the charter company into believing that he paid the invoice. He asked the charter company to send invoice to him for the outgoing flights via QuickBooks Payments. Right. So there’s a direct connectivity so that the the charter company can upload the document directly to QuickBooks.

00:14:40:17 – 00:15:02:13
Seth
Bryant than initiated payment through the platform. Right. So on paper he got paid. They got paid and it resulted in an automated message to both parties confirming payment and indicating that the transfer of funds would occur thereafter. And then the company representative, of course, via QuickBooks received and relied upon the message stamp the first invoice is paid and scheduled the flights and transportation.

00:15:02:13 – 00:15:15:16
Seth
So no money actually transpired here. But according to QuickBooks, it did so assuming that I guess is a bit of, I guess, a leap of faith Jones, where you’re dealing with, you know, another party on an invoice that of course they’re going to pay you.

00:15:15:16 – 00:15:21:04
Keith
It’s kind of like back in the day when someone would write you a paper check and you’re kind of like, Well, I have a check in hand,

00:15:21:04 – 00:15:35:14
Keith
might not be valid, but I have a check in hand. And that’s where we’re at in the financial process at this point. But I think there’s more reliance on the fact that, oh, it’s going to be paid because in the system it just says it was paid.

00:15:35:14 – 00:15:45:06
Keith
That’s just that’s literally what they how they describe it. So. Seth read it is it looked like it was paid or payment was already initiated.

00:15:45:09 – 00:16:08:09
Seth
Yeah. And just so we’re clear, it’s really illegal. I mean, that is prima facie fraud, right? There’s no like that he meant to pay it or, you know, in his mind he absolutely believed that there was a transfer of funds. Right. I mean, that’s this is fraud. And frankly, as Jones said, kind of like, wow, that’s fake. That was really easy.

00:16:08:09 – 00:16:37:21
Seth
So the same transaction sequence occurred the following day for the $38,000 for the return flight, the charter company received the payment notification via QuickBooks and scheduled the flights accordingly. And again, all along, Bryant knew the system would send payment confirmation to the charter company and that because payment process took several days, the charter company wouldn’t actually received notification of a canceled payment for either invoice until he was well after his return flights or the flights have concluded.

00:16:37:23 – 00:16:49:27
Seth
So, in short, according to the court documents, again, Bryant knew he did not have money in his bank accounts to cover even the transportation or gratuity or the booze as promised, much less the flights themselves.

00:16:49:27 – 00:17:10:05
Seth
Okay. So now let’s go forward Three days, right? It was the 18th was when the transaction occurred on QuickBooks. Now we’re on November 21st of 21. The quote check now bounces. So three days later, according to the documents, while Bryant was in Miami, the charter flight company received notification from QuickBooks payment that Bryant’s payment for the first invoice failed.

00:17:10:08 – 00:17:46:22
Seth
So Bryant, of course, had promised to pay both invoices with a bank wire transfer. He did send multiple text messages that day from Miami and then from Houston. Assuring the company with each text that the invoices would be paid. The charter flight company ultimately grounded the airplane in Dallas the 23rd of November, and Brian continued sending text messages assuring the company that he would make payment and that same day he sees communications and refused to answer text messages or phone calls from the charter company and shockingly never actually paid the $76,000 that he owed to the charter flight company.

00:17:46:25 – 00:18:00:04
Keith
And grounding in Dallas is not Lubbock, which is why I was explaining those cities to you earlier. So he’s not all the way back home yet when this is discovered.

00:18:00:06 – 00:18:29:07
Seth
Right. So it turns out there are 50 more victims here. Our court documents indicate that Bryant admitted and agreed that he defrauded at least 50 unsuspecting individual victims through similar means. Further admits and agrees that he used sophisticated means in furtherance of the offense in count one. And we’ll get into the counts later and in furtherance of other fraud schemes he used online payment platforms, including things like Veem and QuickBooks payments, to convince his victims that payment was forthcoming.

00:18:29:07 – 00:18:37:29
Seth
He manipulated the processes to make it appear that he made payments while knowing all along that his payments would never fund and that the victims would never receive payment.

00:18:37:29 – 00:18:41:08
Keith
So why did people believe, Bryant? You’re you’re going

00:18:41:08 – 00:18:57:17
Keith
this guy is able to walk in and somehow move large sums of money that he doesn’t have and somehow get big tangible services and things out of what he’s doing fraudulently?

00:18:57:17 – 00:19:08:09
Keith
Well, from everything that I’ve read in the research is he played the part and that’s what made people believe it.

00:19:08:11 – 00:19:10:09
Keith
So, for instance, when

00:19:10:09 – 00:19:28:18
Keith
he had oil and gas investors that he was trying to trick, he knew it was more of a face to face handshake, see the land, look at some oil equipment type of deal and

00:19:28:18 – 00:19:49:18
Keith
that’s what he exploited. So he would go to the lengths of, you know, registering a domain name of a company. If he talked about a company that was involved with a particular deal, he set up fake identities of people that he would say worked in particular companies.

00:19:49:20 – 00:19:52:19
Keith
A part of these deals, he would,

00:19:52:19 – 00:20:21:08
Keith
you know, use fictitious persons with. They’d have, you know, fake telephone numbers and email addresses that he would set up under those names. So what I’m trying to tell you is I’m just I’m just scratching the surface of the iceberg here when I’m giving you these examples is he put a lot of work into his fraud in order to make it look believable, in order to trick the people that he’s getting the money from.

00:20:21:11 – 00:20:41:13
Keith
And you’re going to see from each little quote and snippet we give you from his friends and the people that became his victims. You’re going to see this kind of plays out where it’s kind of like he was my friend. So I trusted him. Right. And the whole time as the impartial observer, we’re all going no don’t do it, don’t do it.

00:20:41:13 – 00:20:54:07
Keith
But you’ll see. So keep this in mind that he put all this extra work into it to trick these victims. And many, many, many victims fell for it.

00:20:54:07 – 00:20:54:24
Keith
So

00:20:54:24 – 00:21:06:17
Keith
and I didn’t give you the dollar amount. So in the oil well instance, when he tricked the oil well investors and I believe we’re going to talk a little more about them later, he tricked them out of $150,000.

00:21:06:19 – 00:21:21:13
Keith
So we’re not talking $5,000 here, $10,000 there. We’re talking very large chunks of change that he’s getting from people, but he is putting all the work into it. So tell us about some of the vehicles that he owns, Seth.

00:21:21:16 – 00:21:43:14
Seth
So as a car guy, I certainly appreciate this. So Bryant had admitted that through his fraudulent schemes, he acquired or attempted to acquire extensive expensive vehicles, including a number of vehicles with a combined estimated value of over half a million dollars. He successfully acquired five of the vehicles before the victims discovered his fraudulent scheme.

00:21:43:14 – 00:22:11:11
Keith
Yeah, and you go, What does that mean? He would steal vehicles, some of these these high end vehicles, through his fraudulent scheme. It’s not like he stole money and then paid for the vehicles legitimately. He actually used his schemes to get some of the vehicles, too, which is mind boggling. Right? I mean, it’s like if anything wasn’t nailed down, it seemed like this guy was trying to steal it.

00:22:11:13 – 00:22:36:15
Keith
Like, for instance, his home, he was able to convince a builder to build a home with a pool and a workshop. So the builder had invested a substantial amount of work and labor into this house for Bryant for a payment of approximately $1 million. Just it’s $20,000 shy of it’s $1,000,000 it’s a million house.

00:22:36:15 – 00:22:39:06
Keith
He tricked the builder for $1,000,000. Like.

00:22:39:08 – 00:23:02:01
Seth
You know, it’s almost like this could be like a show that I would watch. And I don’t mean that shitty Joe millionaire dating show from 20 years ago, but like, hey, you know, can the average person just get like, crazy expensive things thrown his or her way just by bullshitting? And, you know, I seen people like, you know, check into hotels without a credit card.

00:23:02:04 – 00:23:21:07
Seth
I’ve seen crazy things. So, you know, I guess I’m not totally shocked by it. But, you know, you know, when you’re dealing with 30 and $40,000 chunks of money, which is in some regards people’s entire income, it is quite baffling. And I always want to tip my hat to the guy because clearly he pulled this off. Well, but at some point, like, did he think he wasn’t going to get caught?

00:23:21:10 – 00:23:35:26
Seth
Like, I mean, you know, you’ve had somebody offer, you know, a piece of pack of gum or something. You know, it may not justify hiring a lawyer for that and chasing after somebody. But when you get $1,000,000 house and flights and cars, it’s it’s quite fascinating, quite frankly.

00:23:35:26 – 00:23:42:22
Seth
So, yeah, let’s get into some more detail here. The court documents indicate that there were other charter flight victims.

00:23:42:22 – 00:23:50:09
Seth
Right. We said there was more than one. Apparently, this happened. Keith, how many times did you think this happened with the charter flights?

00:23:50:11 – 00:23:52:22
Keith
At least 17, right?

00:23:52:22 – 00:24:26:01
Seth
Like at some point you’re like, holy shit, I pulled that off and I screwed another company over for $70,000. You do that once. Holy shit. Right? You do that twice. I’m a bad ass. Once you get to 17, it’s almost like it’s not even that interesting anymore. Right? So at least 17 charter flight entities by using fraudulent means to convince of entities to fly him and his friends to various destinations in the United States, Nine of the entities fell victim, but in nearly every instance, Bryant demanded limo service transportation and that the planes were stocked with vodka.

00:24:26:01 – 00:24:26:14
Seth
Yeah.

00:24:26:14 – 00:24:29:18
Keith
Oh, yeah, he continues on. He was

00:24:29:18 – 00:24:53:09
Keith
remember, he seemed to, like, spend time in Miami. Well, in Miami, he spent a half day sailing on a 90 foot yacht for he and his friends. I imagine that wasn’t cheap. He demanded a steak dinner, champagne and vodka during the sail. So I imagine that’s not cheap, considering just the limo ride and liquor expenses $5,000 earlier, I imagine.

00:24:53:11 – 00:24:57:07
Keith
And that is probably in that range for a yacht as well.

00:24:57:07 – 00:25:15:10
Keith
In all these schemes, victims never receive payment. So I’m going to tell you from here on out, I can’t think of a scheme where he actually paid anything on it. So just keep that in mind as we keep saying these. Yeah. So this one blew my mind.

00:25:15:14 – 00:25:40:26
Keith
This little foot. This was a footnote, but I thought this poor fucking guy. All right. And I don’t say that about Nick. Nick Bryant here. I’m talking about the guy he defrauded, which was while he was in Miami. The driver he has somehow Bryant convinced this guy to pay for expensive hotel rooms for them.

00:25:40:26 – 00:25:48:13
Keith
So he defrauded the limo driver personally, as well as all these other fraud schemes that we’re talking about.

00:25:48:18 – 00:26:25:15
Keith
I told you this guy was a tornado, Seth. And everybody everybody was left without payment. So you go to the end of the day and you say, wow, that was a whole bunch of shenanigans he was up to. How much would that cost? Well, when they total up, they said it was in excess of 1.5 million. So you have one dude who figured out this trick of being able to cancel a payment that he never started in QuickBooks and Veem and then just went on a spree until he was caught.

00:26:25:18 – 00:26:28:29
Keith
Right. I mean, a very, very quick elaborate, elaborate spree.

00:26:29:05 – 00:26:52:09
Seth
And what’s interesting, what’s interesting to me about this, Jones, is as opposed to some of the other cases we’ve seen, where like there is a loss of funds, but it was more like, you know, it was a tax refund for fraudulent filing. So it was really more like the money just had to shift from the government. Right. You know, you know, to to that individual or a theft of crypto, which, you know, it’s not tangible money.

00:26:52:09 – 00:27:17:15
Seth
Right. Except in in the Zhong case where it was where they had it, they had the actual chips. But here like this was like $70,000 an airline. This is actual physical vehicles. This is a physical home being built. And so it’s real tangible stuff that was defrauded. It wasn’t all kind of virtual currency or, you know, services rendered without actual, you know, a tangible element to it.

00:27:17:17 – 00:27:26:16
Seth
This was real physical stuff. So this is, you know, in some regards a very unique and our two seasons of e-crimes we have looked at.

00:27:26:18 – 00:27:29:10
Keith
And in the court paperwork that I researched,

00:27:29:10 – 00:27:53:05
Keith
it was very evident like they went through and talked about the aviation company being so excited because they had a finally a big paying contract of $76,000 when business went through the floor because of COVID and everybody was celebrating until they realized they just got stiffed. And oh, by the way, you know who’s going to pay all that gas jet?

00:27:53:10 – 00:28:25:24
Keith
You know, people salary, all this stuff that is involved with just moving jets from one spot to another, liquor, limousines, all that stuff. So, yeah, it’s it’s pretty incredible. And I’m going to pause here because we’re at the end of Act one, which that was just meet J. Nicholas Bryant and now we’re going to end up going into Act two, which is Bryant’s guilty plea because you knew you knew there was no this guy could not last long living from spree to spree like this.

00:28:25:24 – 00:28:49:11
Keith
You knew he could not last long before A either somebody found him and hurt him severely or B, the law caught up with him. And fortunately, the law caught up with him. And our act two is going to be him pleading him plead guilty. But in that process, we get to learn a whole bunch of stuff that we wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

00:28:49:13 – 00:28:53:29
Seth
Yeah, cue up Candle in the Wind. Maybe we’ll have to put that on the soundtrack here.

00:28:54:02 – 00:29:20:27
Keith
So with that, if you enjoyed any of this, please, if you’re on Apple Podcasts, just drop us a five star review there that lets other Apple podcasters find us. If you’re on YouTube, give us like give us a subscribe. If you’re on any of the other platforms, they usually have some kind of like if you are listening to this on audio, please subscribe on that podcasting app as well, because then you’ll know when we release these.

00:29:20:27 – 00:29:23:12
Keith
And like I gave you the rundown at the beginning,

00:29:23:12 – 00:29:39:05
Keith
we’re breaking this down over a week. So this is Monday that we release it. Tomorrow is going to be Act two, which is Tuesday, and that’s going to be the guilty plea. And we hope to see you there. Thanks. Bye.

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