Heist Read online

  The jury took just four hours in the late afternoon on January 8, 1999, to send back its verdicts: guilty on all six counts, five of them for money laundering and one for conspiracy to commit money laundering.

  Selling Elvis

  Public fascination over the heist reached such heights that on February 20, 1999, about five thousand people crowded the Metrolina Expo flea market in Charlotte for the government’s auction of seized items believed to have been bought with heist loot. Federal auctions like this typically attract little public notice, but this one drew advance newspaper coverage, People magazine, and network TV crews.

  In the days leading up to it, callers across the country had phoned in asking about the velvet Elvis, by now a symbol of what made the heist narrative so funny to so many people. Without its infamous context, the Elvis was worth about thirty dollars, but the auctioneer expected it to bring as much as $1,000. Among other attention-grabbing items up for sale were a blue barrel that Steve Chambers used to store money, Michele’s BMW, a silver cigar holder engraved with Steve Chambers’s name, statues, paintings, and the six-foot wooden Indian.

  The steady hum of laughter in the auction space grew louder when Manny Fisher, the bespectacled, gray-haired auctioneer, announced that the blue barrel was up for bid. Like the velvet Elvis, it was worth maybe thirty dollars brand new but was clearly going to fetch more—perhaps $100, some speculated, or $150 if someone really wanted a souvenir.

  The bidding shot up to $500 in less than thirty seconds. It kept rising—$600, then $700. Even Fisher, who expected some antics today, couldn’t believe where it was going. Eight hundred dollars, then $900, then, finally, $1,050 from the owner of a Charlotte recycling company, who would proudly place it in her front office.

  The crowd cheered again when Fisher raised the velvet Elvis in his arms. Bids shot past $1,200, then $1,300, and it finally sold for $1,600 to Tom Shaw, the owner of the American Gun and Pawn Shop on South Boulevard, where it would hang for the publicity. Shaw even received a certificate of authenticity that the piece was a “seized asset from the $17 million Loomis Fargo robbery.”

  Most people at the auction spent lesser amounts on small statues, paintings, or knickknacks from Steve and Michele’s house, or on furniture seized from their store. The owner of a publicity company spent $32,000 on Michele’s BMW, about $1,500 less than it was worth, planning to donate it to a children’s charity he owned, which would then raffle it off. Eric Payne’s Harley-Davidson sold for $16,000.

  In all, the auction raised $360,000, all of it destined for Loomis Fargo and its insurance company, Lloyd’s of London. Two months earlier, Steve and Michele’s criminally acquired house had sold for $486,000 to a doctor, his wife, and their children. The companies remained about $2 million in the hole.

  • • •

  On January 20, 1999, Philip Noel Johnson was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for stealing $18.8 million from Loomis Fargo in Florida and holding up his colleagues at gunpoint twenty-two months earlier.

  The defendants in the North Carolina heist expected far less time behind bars, because they did not use, or threaten to use, weapons during the theft. Technically, they did not “rob” anybody, since the term “robbery” implies the use or threat of force. No one, therefore, was charged with robbery; instead, the defendants faced charges of bank larceny, which carried a maximum sentence of ten years, in addition to money laundering, which had a maximum sentence of twenty years. Their guilty pleas and—generally speaking—their insignificant prior criminal records would likely mean their prison sentences would be far shorter than the maximums.

  On February 23, 1999, six of the defendants walked into the federal courthouse on Trade Street to learn their punishments. Perusing a paper sentencing grid that used current and past convictions as a guide for each crime, Judge Graham Mullen sentenced Scott Grant to four years and seven months in prison and ordered him to pay $26,000 in restitution. The judge sentenced Eric Payne, who had spent much more heist money than Grant, to six and a half years in prison and ordered him to pay $292,000 in restitution. A portion of whatever money they made when freed would go to Loomis Fargo and its insurance company, until both were fully reimbursed.

  “Mr. Payne, I realize there’s probably no way on God’s green earth you can pay back $292,000,” Judge Mullen told him. “The law requires that I impose that.”

  “I made a bad mistake,” Payne said. “And Lord knows, I would take it back.”

  The longest sentence of the day, eleven years and three months, went to Mike McKinney. The shortest went to Sandra Floyd, Dennis Floyd, and Calvin Hodge, each of whom received three years of probation. In addition, Hodge was sentenced to spend four months under house arrest and to perform one hundred hours of community service.

  Michele Chambers came to court to watch her parents’ sentencing. She knew they wouldn’t have been there if not for her, and she cried and hugged her sister when Mullen announced probation instead of prison for the Floyds, who held each other’s hands as the judge spoke. Brian Whisler, the prosecutor, told the judge the Floyds had been the most forthcoming of all the defendants in the case.

  The next day, two more defendants—John Hodge and David Craig—each received two years of probation on their money-laundering convictions. Hodge’s lawyer, James Gray, cracked up the courtroom when he revealed that his client had actually declared the $14,200 paid to him by Chambers as income on his tax return. After the court hearing, Hodge told the Charlotte Observer he considered it a “service” to buy the checks for Chambers.

  “I didn’t have any reason to doubt that it [was] legitimate money,” he said. “Nowadays, you never know who has $100,000 or $150,000 available.”

  Regrets

  The search continued for the missing $2.6 million.

  Loomis’ insurance company, Lloyd’s of London, wasn’t relying on the FBI to find it. It had hired an investigative firm called Amsec International, whose investigator, Joel Bartow, interviewed defendants about the whereabouts of the money. Bartow’s job could be dirty. Sometimes, he drove outside the homes of Michele Chambers and the Floyds, placed their roadside garbage bags in his trunk, and drove elsewhere to examine them. He tried the same tactic outside the home of Robert and Mary Chambers, but every time he approached their home in his car they came to the window and his cover was blown. He discovered paperwork indicating Michele Chambers had rented a storage facility that the FBI didn’t know about, but all it contained were a few inexpensive household goods.

  During his interviews, he encountered Dennis Floyd, who, when pressed, mentioned that his stepdaughter Michele had some jewelry hidden in the house. Shortly thereafter, the FBI recovered the $43,000 diamond ring, after Bartow and Floyd persuaded Michele that returning it was in everybody’s interest. When Michele handed it to John Wydra at the FBI’s Charlotte headquarters, the agent asked without missing a beat, “Where’s the Rolex?” She answered that she had sold it, but she also returned the diamond tennis bracelet.

  On March 9, 1999, the government asked a judge to revoke Michele’s bond and return her to jail until her trial. Not only had she concealed the ring, but she also was accused of violating several other conditions of her bond, including associating with someone involved in unlawful conduct—a new boyfriend who had an altercation with police, for which Michele was present.

  Her lawyer, Andy Culler, argued that Michele shouldn’t be penalized for her boyfriend’s behavior, but he didn’t strongly contest the government’s request. Judge Horn returned Michele to jail on March 11. At the hearing, Culler asked the judge to ensure that, while in jail, she received medication for back pain, anxiety, and depression.

  • • •

  Meanwhile, the sentencings continued. On March 29, Steve’s parents, convicted of money laundering for renting safe-deposit boxes, learned that they would stay out of prison but be confined to their home for five months. After this hous
e arrest, they each would be on probation for two years and seven months. It was a more severe sentence than that given to Michele’s parents, who each got off with just probation.

  “They don’t deserve prison,” said David Phillips, the lawyer for Steve’s parents. “They still love their son, even though their son got them in trouble.”

  On April 27, Amy Grant—formerly Amy Grigg, before her marriage to Nathan about a year earlier—was sentenced to eighteen months in prison, with the option of shortening it to six months if she served it in a prison boot camp. The judge, scheduled to sentence Nathan Grant two days later, agreed to stagger their sentences so that one of them could always be living with their children; they had welcomed their second child into the world a month earlier.

  • • •

  In 1976, a few months after French master thief Albert Spaggiari led the $8 million bank theft in Nice and treated his associates to an elegant meal in the vault, he was captured. Every Thursday for several weeks, he was questioned in a second-floor room in the courthouse. On March 10, 1977, after complaining of a toothache and walking toward the window, he jumped out. Shocked investigators and guards ran to the window just in time to see the former paratrooper land easily on a car roof and hop on the back of a waiting motorcycle, which drove him away. He was not seen in person again until his death in 1989—when his body was delivered to his mother’s house—though he is believed to have sent money to the owner of the car whose roof he damaged on the jump.

  David Ghantt and Steve Chambers, led into court in prison garb and shackles, attempted no such theatrics at their sentencing hearings on April 29, 1999. Steve read an apology from a piece of paper. “I wish I could take back that October night, but I can’t,” he said. “I don’t know if I can get over the hurt I’ve caused my children from being greedy… I lost sight of what’s important in life, which are hugs and kisses from my kids.”

  Before testifying for the government at Guller’s trial, Steve was slotted to receive a sentence of fifteen to nineteen years. But the prosecutor now recommended a lesser sentence, eleven years and three months. “We believe his testimony was helpful to secure the government conviction of Mr. Guller at the trial,” Brian Whisler told the judge.

  Steve Chambers thought he deserved an even lighter sentence, given that he also had confessed right after his arrests. Chris Fialko, his lawyer, pushed for seven and a half years. But Judge Mullen sided with the prosecutor, opting for the same sentence given to Mike McKinney, and also ordered that Steve pay $3.8 million in restitution.

  Next up for the judge’s consideration was David Ghantt. The judge smiled as Ghantt stood up and stuck out his chest, as if concerned to display proper posture. “Your Honor, if I could undo what I did, I would,” David said. “I see how I hurt my wife and my family. I’m sorry for what I did. I was stuck in a go-nowhere job… I was unhappy with my life. I worked a lot of hours. It’s no excuse for what I did. I’m sorry.”

  Mullen sentenced David to seven and a half years in prison and the payment of $3.8 million in restitution. It was no surprise he received less time than Steve, who had much more control of the stolen money after the theft and who, after all, had plotted to kill him.

  Nobody expected that David Ghantt, Kelly Campbell, or Steve Chambers would ever pay off their restitution. They would be lucky if more of the missing money was found, or if the others were somehow able to pay it off. If that happened, they wouldn’t be liable for it anymore. But it seemed likely they would be writing restitution checks for the rest of their lives.

  During the same court session in which Ghantt and Chambers were sentenced, Judge Mullen sentenced Nathan Grant to three years and one month in prison and Amy Payne to a year of work release plus two years of probation. Each would also pay restitution.

  • • •

  In June and September, two people were sentenced who, in retrospect, could have received lesser penalties had they made different decisions after their arrests. Jeff Guller received eight years in prison, and it wasn’t lost on him that this was a heavier punishment than that given to the man who actually stole the money.

  “I will survive, and I will be back,” Guller said in court. “And I will be a citizen of this country that works hard and…accomplishes something.” He said he rued the day Steve Chambers first came into his office. “I’m not a money launderer,” Guller said. “Nor would I ever conspire with a thief like him.”

  In the summer of 1999, the North Carolina State Bar would disbar Guller, to nobody’s surprise.

  Also to nobody’s surprise, given her recent bond revocation, Michele Chambers was sentenced in September to seven years and eight months in prison—the fourth-most-severe sentence in the case, after her husband’s, Mike McKinney’s, and Guller’s. She was also ordered to pay $4.8 million in restitution. Judge Mullen recommended that while imprisoned she receive mental-health treatment.

  The sentence was a compromise. The government wanted nine years, and Michele’s lawyer suggested seven years and three months. Andy Culler told the judge his client had had a difficult personal life due to her parents’ divorce, a teenage pregnancy, and various medical conditions. But Brian Whisler told the court her personal history was irrelevant here.

  “There are many people with those factors who don’t resort to crime,” he said.

  • • •

  The last main defendant to be sentenced, Kelly Campbell, received five years and ten months. She was ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution.

  Kelly wept in court and apologized, saying she had come to realize that religion and family were more important than money. “I’d gotten too far away from the Lord, and He had to do something to wake me up,” she told the judge.

  Mullen seemed moved. “It’s always refreshing to the court to hear someone fess up and take their medicine.” He ordered that her sentence not begin until January 2000, so she could spend Christmas at home with her children—under house arrest.

  Out West

  The New Year brought little change to the case. Each of the twenty-one defendants had already been convicted and sentenced. John Wydra and other FBI agents had mostly moved on to other cases, relegating the Loomis heist to almost a hobby status. Though about $1.5 million in Loomis cash remained missing, the case was largely solved, from the agency’s perspective.

  That said, Wydra still hoped to find the missing money. He had secured a list of names of everyone who had opened accounts at Lincoln Self Storage, the place where Steve Chambers said the money had disappeared. Among the names on it was Jennifer Calloway, and a records search revealed she had once shared an address with Nathan and Amy Grant, both of whom had admitted hiding Steve’s stolen money in a different locker at Lincoln Self Storage. But the normal course of new cases coming their way left Wydra and the other agents little time to investigate the match.

  Of course, the victim companies—Loomis Fargo and its insurance company, Lloyd’s of London—desperately wanted the money found. Lloyd’s was still paying Amsec International to try to find it. The people at Amsec figured the FBI now had higher crime-fighting priorities, so they increased their own efforts.

  Robert Osborne Jr., of Amsec, interviewed Michele and Steve Chambers in prison, separately, to check their credibility on the Lincoln Self Storage theft. Both mentioned Nathan Grant as having helped them stash the missing money.

  Osborne wanted to travel to Beckley, West Virginia, to talk to both Grant brothers, who were imprisoned there. He struggled to gain access because he wasn’t a law-enforcement officer, but the FBI helped arrange his clearance.

  Before Osborne had a chance to talk with the Grants, he learned exciting news from a prison official there. Months earlier, another inmate had mentioned that one of the Grant boys had been bragging that he had money waiting for him when he left prison—money from the heist. The inmate thought that sharing the information would win him time off his sentenc
e. But until Osborne’s trip, nobody passed it on.

  Two weeks later, Nathan Grant told Osborne that his wife’s half brother, Jody Calloway, supposedly had the missing money. For more information, Osborne needed to talk to Amy Grant and her mother, Kathy Grigg.

  On August 23, Osborne and another Amsec employee, Jamie Waters, arrived at Amy and Kathy’s home in Maiden, North Carolina. Only Amy was there, as her mother was at a doctor’s appointment. But Amy told them she knew about the missing cash. Her mother had told her, during the summer of 1998, that her half brother Jody Calloway had it. Her mother knew more about it than Amy, but Amy was able to provide a few details of her own that helped implicate Jody.

  Amy said the amount of cash that she and Nathan had hidden for Steve Chambers scared her so much that she’d told Jody she was storing money for the mob. She let him know it was at Lincoln Self Storage, in case anything happened to her. She suspected that a receipt from the storage facility lying around her home might have led the Calloways to the locker. If the investigators wanted more, they needed to speak to her mother, who Amy had to pick up at the doctor’s.

  That evening, after Kathy Grigg arrived home, she provided essential details. Jody and Jennifer Calloway had lived with the Grants a while back, but they’d moved from North Carolina to Colorado a few months after the heist. Jody had taken the stolen money from the storage locker and had admitted this to her. She said that Jody had even asked her, his mother, if he should return the money, and that she had told him to keep it. She also said he had given her $28,000 in cash when he visited her months later in North Carolina. Kathy felt bad, like she was betraying him now, and she told the investigators she hoped her cooperation would count in his favor. Both women gave written statements.