Heist Page 16
Scott’s involvement was viewed as more severe than his brother’s. Unlike Nathan, he had been part of the theft itself. Nathan, on the other hand, had received more stolen money. Steve Chambers told agents he had promised Scott $200,000 for his role, but Scott had received only about $26,000, in increments of $6,000 or $7,000.
“He’s remorseful about what transpired,” Scott’s lawyer, Keith Stroud, told the assembled press after the court hearing. “He wants to make the best of a bad situation.”
Near the end of the month, on March 30, three key defendants were allowed to leave jail. Kelly Campbell, Michele Chambers, and Eric Payne had appealed the original denials of bond, and now all could go home to spend quality time with their families before their sentencing dates. They would have to wear ankle bracelets that would electronically alert authorities if they left their homes except for work and church.
The prosecutor, David Keesler, had opposed their release, while acknowledging in court that more of the missing money had been found—a total of $14.4 million in all, meaning $2.6 million remained unaccounted for. But he maintained that the three might know the location of that missing cash and try to flee with it. He described what they had done, noting that Kelly, for example, had helped plan the heist and participated in the murder plot. He mentioned that Michele helped rent the van used to move the stolen money and later used some of the cash to buy her breast implants.
Michele’s lawyer, Andy Culler, objected, sensing an opportunity to set the record straight. Michele’s breasts had become a laughing matter in media accounts of the heist arrests, because the FBI had thought she used heist proceeds to purchase her implants, information that made its way into an affidavit viewed by reporters. Culler, the lawyer, told the judge that Michele had actually bought her implants before the heist.
Michele herself clarified the matter further a week later, when an Observer reporter named Chip Wilson trekked to her parents’ house to interview her.
“I do want to go on record to say I didn’t get breast implants with this money,” she told him, adding that she had paid for them in December 1996, ten months before the heist, and that she considered them a luxury. “It was something that I wanted to get,” she said. “It increased my bust size, but it didn’t decrease my brain size.”
• • •
David Ghantt’s lawyer thought that if Kelly Campbell was allowed out of jail on bond, David should be freed on bond as well. After all, Campbell had plotted to kill him, a more violent charge than anything Ghantt himself faced.
But on April 22, 1998, Judge Graham Mullen decided—reluctantly, he said—to keep Ghantt and Steve Chambers locked up. “I can’t get around the notion that this is a fellow that stayed gone for five months,” Mullen said. He added that he would also deny bond to Chambers, who, facing the most serious charges of anyone in the case, “clearly has the strongest motive of any of these defendants to flee.” The government simply didn’t believe Chambers’s contention that much of the missing $2.6 million had been stolen from him.
• • •
Trials were scheduled for October 1998, but most observers thought that few, if any, would be necessary. There was strong evidence against almost everyone arrested. On April 24, Calvin Hodge pleaded guilty to money laundering, becoming the third defendant in the case to enter a guilty plea.
• • •
Meanwhile, as the weeks passed, it became increasingly clear to the bureau that they had a strong case against Jeffrey Guller and some other people named in the main affidavit that was made public after the arrests.
Guller knew that he might be in trouble, but he also knew that too much cooperation with the FBI could facilitate federal charges against him, and that he could lose his license to practice law.
His steadfast denials of wrongdoing only made the agents more determined. On June 2, a new indictment, charging Jeffrey Guller with money laundering, was made public. The most damning charge stated that he accepted a “bagful of currency” at his law office from Steve Chambers, stored it there at Steve’s request, and took $10,000 for himself as a fee before returning it.
In court on the day of his arrest, Guller sat silently as his lawyer, Calvin Murphy, entered a not-guilty plea. Also in the courtroom were Kim and Michael Goodman, whose roles in helping the Chamberses convert $200,000 into a cashier’s check had led to new money-laundering charges against them.
A week later, on June 9, Eric Payne became the fourth defendant to plead guilty. He told the court he had no idea what he was getting into when he decided to help Steve Chambers. “I’d like to say I’m sorry to the government and my family and my children that I’ve hurt through this,” he said. “I’d like to put this all behind me and go on with my life.”
Like Payne, Michele Chambers had been free on bail since early April. She had taken a job waitressing at a Chili’s in Gastonia, where, despite all the recent publicity, few people recognized her, which suited her just fine. It also suited her that the FBI had not found the diamond ring, the Rolex, and the diamond tennis bracelet she had brazenly swiped just after she was arrested. She had since sold the Rolex to pay bills.
On August 3, she and Steve met in court for the first time since the arrests, becoming the next two people in the case to plead guilty. They sat next to each other at the defendants’ table, him in an orange jail uniform and her in a sleeveless magenta dress. They whispered to each other several times and swore to tell the truth on the same Bible.
Michele’s case was heard first. After she pleaded guilty to bank larceny and money laundering, the government dropped a charge of accessory after the fact. When it was her turn to address the court, she couldn’t read the statement she prepared through her tears, so her lawyer read it on her behalf: “First, I’d like to say that I know what happened was wrong and I accept responsibility for my actions, but I’d also like to say that all of the people that are involved need to admit that Steve and I didn’t do this thing alone. I am hoping that through my cooperation with this court and its affiliates, I can help to make certain that the truth finally does come out.”
She also apologized to Loomis Fargo, its insurance company, her children, the other defendants’ children, and the friends and families of the people involved. She thanked God and her family for supporting her and professed her love for Steve: “I want to just tell you I love you and I’ll be here for you. Thank you for loving me through all of the bad times in my life. You’ve always been here for me and helped me to be strong, and I know that one day God will bring us back together.”
Steve, who looked like he had lost fifty pounds since his arrest, probably because of the food in jail, was less verbal and answered quietly when the judge talked to him. He pleaded guilty to bank larceny, accessory to bank larceny, conspiracy to murder-for-hire, and thirteen counts of money laundering. In return, the government dropped three counts of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Outside the courthouse, Chris Fialko, Steve’s attorney, told reporters that the remaining defendants in the case “need to understand that if they choose to go to trial, Steve will testify against them.”
Chambers’s cooperation may have had the desired effect. By the end of the week, six more defendants followed suit. Robert Chambers, Mary Chambers, Amy Payne, Dennis Floyd, John Hodge, and David Craig all signed agreements in which they pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering.
The two remaining big fish—Kelly Campbell and David Ghantt—joined the list late in the summer.
At a court hearing on September 3, Kelly pleaded guilty to bank larceny and money laundering. She agreed to testify in related trials if asked by prosecutors, who in return dropped a charge of accessory after the fact. After the plea, her lawyer, James Gronquist, blamed his client’s involvement in the heist on the “magnetic personality” of Steve Chambers.
A week later, on September 11, the man who made it all happen pleaded gu
ilty to bank larceny and two counts of money laundering. “I regret that I got entangled in circumstances that led to pain to my wife and to my family,” David Ghantt told the judge, as his parents and wife watched him.
• • •
Meanwhile, in Colorado, the Calloways seemed on the verge of criminal success.
During the summer of 1998, Jody’s mother, Kathy Grigg, traveled from North Carolina to Littleton to visit her son. Kathy was upset about the arrests of her daughter Amy and son-in-law Nathan; the couple had married in April 1998, the month after their arrests. While talking with Jody about it in Colorado, Kathy noticed he seemed worried about something himself.
His revelation flabbergasted Kathy. He asked his mother if he should return the money.
“It’s too late,” Kathy said. “You should just keep it now.”
Jody would soon give his mother $28,000. A month later, he told his woodworking partner, Joseph Hamilton, about the real source of the $50,000 he had given him earlier in the year. Jody had driven the two of them in his Chevy Tahoe to a storage facility, picked up a large black box, and returned to his home in Littleton. Opening the box, he showed Hamilton over $1 million worth of ones, fives, tens, and twenties. At first, he had said it came from repairing air compressors back in North Carolina. When Hamilton doubted him, Jody admitted he’d stolen it. Now he wanted Hamilton to help him convert it to new bills.
“I don’t want to be involved with this,” Joseph said.
“You’re already involved,” Jody responded. “The fifty grand I gave you? That’s Loomis Fargo money. The money orders we’ve purchased? That was Loomis Fargo money. Whether you want to be involved or not, you’re involved.”
A week later, Jody unleashed his sinister side on a visit to Hamilton in the woodworking shop. “Have you thought about what we talked about?” he asked.
Joseph said he didn’t want to be involved.
“If you think about saying anything to anybody about any of this,” Jody quickly responded, “your family and yourself are dead.”
• • •
A new defendant appeared on November 3 and pleaded guilty the same day she was charged. It was Sally Stowe Abernathy, who had sold the house at 503 Stuart Ridge to Steve and Michele for $635,000. She was charged with not filing the IRS paperwork that is required whenever a business receives more than $10,000 in cash, which had happened when Steve and Michele paid her approximately $40,000 for interior design work in their new home.
By early November 1998, eighteen of the twenty-one defendants had pleaded guilty. And prosecutors expected Michael and Kim Goodman to become the nineteenth and twentieth.
But the twenty-first defendant, Jeffrey Guller, seemed headed to trial. Guller hoped that he could beat the case and therefore maintain his legal practice. He stood to face more time than some of the people who’d actually stolen the money, who, by pleading guilty, had qualified for reduced sentences. He understood that’s how the system worked but felt he hadn’t done anything criminal and was determined to continue practicing law.
Guller’s situation was the talk of Gaston County’s legal community. His colleagues in Gastonia didn’t know if he was guilty or not, but they weren’t surprised he wouldn’t accept a plea. Guller had a courthouse reputation for feistiness, a blunt speaking style, and a steely face that could hold its own in a mobster movie. His previous battles with the law and the state bar association had wounded him but never knocked him out.
He was known also for his love of sailing and nature photography, as well as for cursing more than your average southern gentleman attorney. Sometimes, when a prosecutor would refuse to let a Guller client plead guilty to a reduced charge, meaning the case was bound for trial, Guller would whip a golf tee from his shirt pocket, hold it in front of the prosecutor’s face, and say in a challenging tone, “Tee that motherfucker up! Tee it up!”
He would demonstrate this tack to fellow defense attorneys in the courthouse hallway, sticking his arms out like he was gripping a golf club, staring at the ground in front of him, and yelling, “Tee that motherfucker up! Tee it up!”
Of course, when teed up, the federal government can be a foe to be reckoned with. In early November, shortly before the Goodmans would plead guilty, prosecutors applied more pressure to them and to Guller by adding counts that weren’t related to any newfound wrongdoing. The defense lawyers complained, to no avail, that the new indictments were unfair intimidation tactics designed to pressure their clients to plead guilty. The Goodmans would eventually do so. Guller, on the other hand, continued preparing for his trial, which was less than two months away.
A Revealing Trial
The trial of Jeff Guller began January 4, 1999, and was a landmark event in the Loomis case for three reasons. It would be the first time a defendant would test the strength of the government’s evidence. It would be the first time Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell would speak publicly about their experiences. And it would allow the first up-close look at how a defendant had handled Steve Chambers’s offer of cash in return for storing heist money—an offer he made to a dozen people in various ways. The others had all pleaded guilty and therefore didn’t have to testify.
Among the government witnesses would be Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell. Up until now, Chambers’s portrayals in the media had been built mostly through bizarre passages from FBI affidavits and photographs in jail uniforms. The same was true for Campbell. But as government witnesses in Guller’s trial, they would be on display as never before, speaking of their misadventures in public for the first time.
Steve was the government’s first witness. After giving a brief description of his own crimes, and pinning the ideas for the theft and murder plot on Kelly, he told the jurors that Guller had first represented him on a larceny charge, and that he occasionally asked Guller for advice on loan-sharking.
He recounted bringing two bags containing $433,000 in cash to Guller’s office in the weeks after the heist, for a down payment on his house. Guller, he testified, had suggested he use checks instead. But Steve kept the bags at Guller’s office when he left that day, testifying that he retrieved them in early December 1997, and that Guller had taken out $10,000 at Steve’s suggestion. When Guller saw the cash, he was “nonchalant,” Steve said.
“Why did you leave it with him for that period?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Whisler.
“I had fourteen million dollars,” Steve said. “I was looking for somewhere to hide it, so I didn’t have a problem with leaving that much with Mr. Guller, as I figured it was a safe place to hide and get rid of a half-million dollars.”
Steve also testified about his other post-heist business ventures, which he said he’d discussed with Guller.
“Why were you interested in buying a furniture store at this time?” the prosecutor asked.
“Me and Mr. Guller had talked about it, as far as would it be good to have a business to run the money through,” Steve told the jury. “That way, it wouldn’t attract too much attention, as far as cash deposits going into bank accounts.”
“Let’s be specific,” Whisler said. “Who made these statements? Did you make these statements? Or did he make these statements about the purpose of having a business?”
“I’d asked him as far as, ‘Would it be better to have a business to run cash money through?’ And ultimately, he said, ‘Yes, of course.’ That way…we could put the money into the bank accounts in cash form, and there wouldn’t be a lot of questions asked. As far as him coming out and saying, ‘You need to go out and buy a business,’ no, he did not say that.”
Steve discussed the potential deal to buy Crickets. He said he told Guller that he planned to pay the current owner $450,000, some $200,000 of which would be in cash. The paperwork would show the deal being worth only $250,000. He testified that they discussed setting up a corporation that would oversee the house, the furniture business, a
nd the nightclub, and that Michele would be president and Guller would be vice president. Steve wouldn’t be listed as an officer due to his felony conviction, which would prevent the club from securing a liquor license. That was why he wanted the pardon and why he discussed with Guller the possibility of paying someone connected in the state capital as much as $250,000 to get it. He had viewed this as a potential bribe, Steve said.
The gist of his testimony was that although he never mentioned the money’s origin to Guller, it should’ve been obvious. At the very least, Steve made it clear to his attorney that he was trying to skirt the law, and Guller indicated a willingness to advise him. The unconsummated deals over the bribe and nightclub didn’t relate directly to the substance of Guller’s money-laundering charges, but Judge William Osteen told jurors they could decide from the facts whether there were indications that Guller knew Steve’s money was dirty.
To devastating effect, the government also played tapes of conversations between Guller and Steve. The jury heard Guller say he would draw up an agreement reflecting Steve’s desire to keep a $20,000 deal with Mike Staley “under the table.”
Guller had two of Charlotte’s best-known lawyers on his side—Harold Bender, who had defended televangelist Jim Bakker in a famous trial on fraud charges in 1989, and Calvin Murphy. During the cross-examination, Murphy tried to discredit Steve Chambers as a witness, attempting to show the jury he was a terrible human being and a lying schemer who was smart enough to con others, including Guller, into believing him.