FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount Holly, N.C. on Aug 16, 1999. At 7:45, David had finished loading. Its in the ether. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Ghantt:I hate to say it, but I had six years of sitting in a box to think about my life. From Mexico, David usually spoke with Kelly on the phone once a week, paying with calling cards. Thats nearly $11 million less than former Kings Mountain resident David Ghantt (played by Galifianakis in the film) helped steal from the vault where he worked in Charlotte back in October 1997. . They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. But after a year, they'll cut it down to two agents. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. Kelly would only discover later that leading up to the heist, Steve had been writing bad checks, $17,000 worth, for which he would later be convicted. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. You have to remember that it's Hollywood and they'll take what was a minor event and they'll blow it up and make it as funny as they can.". Ghantt was working a late shift, and just after 6:30 p.m., his coworkers were packing up and heading for home. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. 27 febrero, 2023 . Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. Some of the biggest numbers remaining on the Loomis collection board, as is the case with Campbell, belong to those who played the biggest role in the crime: David Ghantt, the Loomis employee who loaded all that money 2,800 pounds in all into the back of a company van before escaping to Mexico, has paid just under $50,000 of the $3.81 million he was assessed. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. Heres your money. Then he turns around and leaves., The problem was, it was nowhere near the amount Ghantt had expected: Im looking at it, and theres maybe $8,000. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. No regrets. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. Dependent care account. Question: You were a consultant? Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. When Ghantt was on the plane home from Mexico with the FBI, he admitted to the agents that while Campbell had been integral to why hed done it and that he did indeed have a crush on her it was never his true motivation. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. . I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. "I missed my family. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. In real life: False. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. Given his position at the bank, hed be the one to pull off the robbery, and he intended to be ready. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. Kelly was lying. Looking for Kelly Loomis? In real life: False. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. Kelly called David at Loomis; he told her he'd be ready for them with the cash at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Alone in the building, David was trying to finish loading cash from the vault into an unmarked white Ford Econoline van belonging to Loomis. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, who had been friends on and off since growing up together in the mid-1980s, were at a cookout, playing cards and drinking Budweiser at Steve's Lincoln County, N.C., mobile home, Kelly recalled. On Oct. 7, 1997, two FBI agents arrived at Kelly Campbell's home after two Loomis employees had told agents she and David had once dated. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. You can seize property. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. I hear her typing. Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer. All were convicted. That was the most painful truth to come to. I said, It comes down to picking the right day, and the right time of the month, and all that good stuff. I even told her, It wouldnt be all that difficult. He was also a former FBI informant who had tipped the bureau off to a planned robbery of a Loomis Fargo armored truck that never came to fruition. I didnt pick the heist team. Why fans love it. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4,. Now he offered to pay him to carry cash to David--Steve said he was a friend hiding out after a bad drug deal, McKinney recalled. By . Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. Health savings account and flexible spending account. In real life: Mostly true. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). Scary. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. Starting Pay Rate: $15.50 per hour Shift: Monday - Friday from 1:00pm to 9:00pm Job Description As a Coin Processor, you work with your team to maintain inventory in our cash vaults for our Loomis customers. David thought about it. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." Jeffrey Guller, who at 81 is by far the oldest of the Loomis defendants, still owes almost $1.1 million on his original court debt of $1.14 million and will remain on the governments books for another four years. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". So Im like, Can you get a move on with my money? After a couple of weeks passed, I get a phone call from Kelly: Okay, Brunos coming to you, blah, blah, blah. So I get a phone call from this guy, and I tell him where to meet me. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. . In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. Jim Gronquist, Campbells defense attorney during the Loomis case, says the financial penalties levied against his client and her co-defendants are grossly excessive and unjust, particularly since most of the stolen Loomis money was actually recovered. Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? If you were one of the much-smaller-than-expected group of people who caught Masterminds at the theater this weekend, and are looking for a fact-check of the events depicted on screen, here are some of the highlights of our chat with Diamant. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. I would call us friends. This real-life crime is the core of "Untitled Armored Car Project," which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. Still, she wasn't happy. Cool, I say. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. Theres no management around. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. It's about the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery also known as the "hillbillly heist" the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. The case resurfaced in the federal courts on Thursday, Sept. 1, when the U.S. Attorneys Office in Charlotte posted a public reminder in the case file of Loomis defendant Kelly Campbell that she had fallen behind in her restitution. It was the first Saturday in October. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. Its a yes: Clover teen shakes off nerves to earn American Idol golden ticket, Mail carrier cant believe his eyes after seeing NC lottery win. . Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. It was late in 1996. In March 1997, after Loomis Fargo & Company has been robbed of $18.8 million in Jacksonville by company security guard Philip Noel Johnson, Steve Eugene Chambers and Kelly Campbell, a former employee of Loomis, decides to rob the company. and "I love money!" Ghantt was working as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte in 1997, earning about $8 an hour and tired of his humdrum life. The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was the $17.3 million cash robbery of the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis Fargo & Company on the evening of October 4, 1997, by armored car driver and vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. David trusted her. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. More than half of the amount came from the seizure of a luxury home purchased by husband-and-wife defendants during their post-heist spending spree. First, they loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels into a rental van. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. David didn't even know Steve's name. So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. Steven Chambers [Misc. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. Or that it was an inheritance. A few of the Loomis restitution cases have already been closed either because the amount was paid in full or because the 20-year clock wound down. David complained it wasn't enough. He went deep-sea fishing. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. . I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. Though he never found the right moment to carry out the hit, McKinney did find time to make a friend--a shady character named Robert, to whom he revealed more than was prudent. His name was Corey. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. She declined to take a lie-detector test. In real life: False. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. You're an idiot.'". Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. The figures can be astounding. Kelly called David at. Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer Mountain. ". The plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. They bought a BMW roadster. ". Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. One of them tapped him on the back. He would pay McKinney $250,000, half upfront. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward after the theft. He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. It was his goodbye. But it was the rural, Southern backgrounds of many of the key players, along with the many botched twists and bungled turns, that led the media to dub it the hillbilly heist.. At the party, Steve invited Michele's stepfather, truck driver Dennis Floyd, to the basement to play pool. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. Few who were living in the area at the time can forget the "Velvet Elvis" painting Chambers had hanging in his mansion or the tales of cosmetic surgery, BMW convertibles and other signs of excess. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. Before long, the tales of high living by Chambers and his now former wife, Michelle, led the thieves to be labeled either the "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" or "The gang that couldn't steal straight." A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. They stocked a wine cellar. I studied up on the FBI. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Chambers, now 32, didn't grant an interview for this article, but last year, in response to written questions, he said the biggest lesson he learned was: "Family is more important and valuable than money. With the help of Aldo, a Mexican waiter he had befriended, David found a beach apartment in Cancun. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. I hope everyone has moved on. "Think of how many women would have stood by. Two more defendants in the $17 million Loomis Fargo & Co. robbery last year have agreed to plead guilty, and a third person entered a formal plea in court. Because surprise! They put up mauve wallpaper. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. The bigger the amount, however, the bigger the damages to victims that likely will never be repaid: Amy Paynes collection account was closed in 2020 with her having paid $53,000 of the $274,000 she owed. That was great. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. David Ghantt, who pulled off the Loomis, Fargo & Co. vault robbery in 1997 and was sentenced to seven years in prison for the crime, served as a consultant for the film (in theaters Friday). After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. . . Then, on a mid-September day, as he reviewed a credit card bill, David did some math. In real life: False. . Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? Question: You went to Mexico. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. shaka wear graphic tees is candy digital publicly traded ellen lawson wife of ted lawson real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist 25 Feb/23 (No Ratings Yet) The Chambers, however, didnt fit in with the other members of the gated community. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. She could walk under the trees, with the chickens and goats and dogs that live around her mobile home. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". Charlotte hotel chef who serves with a smile recognized as outstanding ambassador, Eritrean, Ethiopian restaurant owner was a big brother and father to many in Charlotte, Home tours: This wired-up Weddington smart home has a pool big enough for the neighborhood. Ghantt simply got ready for work one morning knowing it would be his last day on the job. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . The FBI, in fact, obtained the evidence they needed to bring down the major players, including Chambers, after catching them talking about the murder plot on the telephone via wiretap. "I was trying to figure out a way to [leave my husband] and take care of my kids without having to depend on him or any other man," Kelly said. Its really just a matter of timing, more than anything. And she says, How much do you think wed get out of there? I said, Ten to 15 million. But I didnt really know.. "For the first year, they're all over you. . About 200 keys dangled from it. Her husband gave her a brown teddy bear. Im a very deliberate person. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Geres Ass Gerbil. "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. The name she gave the pup is apropos. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. Did you get paid? In the wee hours of the morning, Chambers and the Erics drove back to the town of Vale, North Carolina, and holed up in a double-wide trailer while counting their cash. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. In the following months, Steve persisted, even floating the notion of placing phony hand grenades on a Loomis truck to scare away the drivers, Kelly said. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. Thats one of my personality flaws. I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. Campbell, a former Loomis employee and one of the original masterminds of the caper, has paid off less than $21,000 of the $4,701,694.18 she was docked. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. All I needed was a change of pace.". Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. Reach our Customer Contact Center by calling 877.877.0560 from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM CT every day or by completing the provided form. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. Ghantt didn't actually meet Chambers until the night of the heist, though, according to Diamant, who would go on to write a book about it.The . Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. Question: Are you happy that Wilkesboro-nativeZach Galifianakis plays you in the movie? While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. She could visit friends. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. In Campbells case, Gronquist says his client was buried in court-ordered debt despite the fact that she took responsibility for what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors and the FBI. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. Hes well thought-out. The next week, they heard Steve plan to send Mike McKinney to Mexico to kill David Ghantt. As for his new wife, when the two just started dating, he was nervous about letting her know about his past, but he wanted to be honest. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. Were others involved? Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. That time in prison was actually good for me. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. Before David left for the airport, he had handed Scott an eight-inch key ring. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. In real life: Yes and no. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' Is he telling the truth? Our success depends on our team members, and that's why it's important for us to offer an employee benefits program that is not only extremely comprehensive but also one of the best in the industry. This meant a bump in pay, up to $8.15 an hour. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. . Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. Turns out, most of the thieves and their accomplices have been about as effective coming up with their court-ordered restitution as they were hiding their original crimes. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. . The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. What made her do it? When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. We need to set up some way for me to get my money. She said, We got it all worked out. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] Michele received the best gift of the night. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. But the idea of all that money pulled at her.

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