Dave Portnoy · Leonardo DiCaprio · Smokey and the Bandit
A short and sweet issue for the holiday
the true crime that's worth your time
It’s Veterans Day in the U.S., so we’re keeping it brief today. If this is a holiday you recognize, we hope today is a good and gratifying one. — EB
As expected, Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy is responding quite aggressively to the allegations of sexual abuse raised against him last week. It’s understandable if you don’t immediately know what I’m talking about, as loads of various accusations have been leveled against Portnoy over the years. (Many of which he has acknowledged with glee!) I’ll direct you to Sarah’s coverage of the latest claims against the millionaire website owner/awful person to catch up. Hope you have a strong stomach!
Hi, welcome back, looks like you took a shower? Understandable.
OK, so after the Insider report that detailed Portnoy’s alleged sexual violence and bullying published, Portnoy went reliably batshit, “waging an all-out war on Insider, writer Julia Black, global editor in chief Nicholas Carlson, company CEO and co-founder Henry Blodget and even Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate that purchased the online publication in 2015,” writes Jeremy Barr for the Washington Post. RIP your mentions, Jeremy Barr!
As Sarah predicted earlier this week, Portnoy appears to be rallying his 2.7 million-strong following — many of whom refer to this internet bro as El Presidente because their daddies didn’t love them or their shorts are worrisomely empty or for a slew of other horrible reasons that fuel gun sales and fraternity membership — against these reporters and journalists. Snip:
“It’s ironic you have Henry Blodget … who defrauded everyday workers out of their life savings now trying to defame me,” Portnoy wrote over the weekend. On Monday, Portnoy posted a video in which he pantomimed hitting Blodget in the head with a mallet and vowed that “your head is going to be on my spike. … I’m coming for his throat, and anybody who stands by him’s throat.” (Blodget was not involved in the assigning, reporting or editing of the Portnoy story, a company source said.)
The stock price of Penn National Gaming, which owns 36 percent of Barstool, took a dive on Thursday after Insider’s publication of the story, hurt also by a weak third-quarter earnings report. That drop prompted Portnoy to allege that Insider’s story amounted to an attempt at “insider trading,” though he admitted that he has no proof of it. While the stock rebounded slightly on Friday, by the end of the trading day on Monday it still remains down 19 percent from its price before the Insider story published.
He also appeared alongside Tucker Carlson in an attempt to defend himself, Vanity Fair reports. A look at Portnoy’s Twitter feed demonstrates that he hasn’t stopped spinning since (except for a brief suspension instituted by the platform) with a “press conference” that is ongoing as I type this that promises to “expose” the story.
It’s interesting to note that for its part, Barstool says publicly that “we take this matter seriously and are monitoring it closely.” As of this morning, however, the company’s twitter account continued to amplify Portnoy’s claims and threats, which suggests it doesn’t take the matter as seriously as it claims. — EB
From teen heartthrob to Jim Jones: the Leonardo DiCaprio story. That’s the tweet I might have used to promote this report from Deadline, which says the one time King of the World is “in final talks to star as the 1970s religious cult leader who was behind the Jonestown mass suicide on November 18, 1978 that took more than 900 lives.”
I don’t know that there is much else to say about this tragedy, so I’m curious why Jim Jones (as the project is known) is in the works at all, let alone with a script from Scott Rosenberg (Venom) that MGM reportedly bought in a “seven-figure deal.” (Get it if you can, Rosenberg! But I won’t claim I understand it.)
I’m also curious about what attracted DiCaprio to Jones, whose crimes likely stymie any attempts to bring multiple dimensions to the role. (“Sympathetic portrayal” and “Jim Jones” are tough to imagine in the same sentence.) It’s true, Jones charmed San Francisco politicians and members of his church, but illustrating that likability is a tough sell. Why do you think he’s interested in the gig? — EB
By the time I’m done writing this, I’ll bet there’ll be a deal in place to adapt this story. “One-time owner of Bay Area solar company sentenced to 30 years in prison for billion-dollar Ponzi scheme,” reads the Bay Area News Group headline, while the SF Chronicle went for “How one California couple used a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme to buy property, a NASCAR sponsorship and 148 luxury cars.”
You can sense the desire to pack as much detail into those headlines, but they barely even scratch the surface of this wild yarn about 50-year-old Jeff Carpoff, the owner of a California solar company who first pleaded guilty to his role in the region’s biggest Ponzi scheme back in January 2020 (just in case you thought that the wheels of justice operate at the same speed for everyone). Here’s a snip from the BANG report:
“This fraud had no greater purpose than the gluttonous and thoughtless accumulation of wealth,” two assistant U.S. attorneys wrote in a sentencing memo. “(Jeff) Carpoff hoarded over 150 collector automobiles and other high end vehicles. He bought properties in Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, the Caribbean, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and paid for a subscription private jet service. He threw money at people and excelled at buying people’s loyalty when committing criminal acts.”
One example, prosecutors say, was using a “burner phone” to instruct an employee to travel to an Nevada warehouse and destroy evidence, including 1,000 vehicle-identification-number stickers on solar panel units.
Jeff Carpoff used money generated in his scheme to buy with his wife the Martinez Clippers, a now-defunct independent professional baseball team that played in 2019, authorities said. He also bought a sponsorship with a NASCAR race car team and a 1978 Pontiac Firebird previously owned by actor Burt Reynolds of “Smokey and the Bandit” fame, authorities said.
Here’s how the scheme worked, per the Chron:
The Carpoffs coordinated a massive Ponzi scheme in which they paid off old investors with funds provided by new investors, federal prosecutors said. They lured investors by promising them large federal tax credits for the solar devices in return and lied to them by falsifying financial statements and creating fake lease contracts to make it appear as though demand for the devices were booming.
Eventually the Carpoffs lost so much money that they stopped building the machines, but continued to sell about 17,000 generators, which did not exist, to investors by swapping the vehicle identification number stickers on them.
“Jeff Carpoff orchestrated the largest criminal fraud scheme in the history of the Eastern District of California,” Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert said in a statement. “He claimed to be an innovator in alternative energy, but he was really just stealing money from investors and costing the American taxpayer hundreds of millions in tax credits.”
So, obviously, this will end up as a movie some time soon. Now I’m going to show you a photo of Jeff and his wife Paulette, who also admitted to her part in the crime. I want you to tell me who you’d cast as the couple, but here are the rules: no fat suits, and Jeff can’t be played by DiCaprio. — EB
Friday on Best Evidence: Frat crimes!
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