Mine did. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. . It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. He learned to parachute. Ghantt:It's a comedy. ". Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. 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. The robbery was committed by Loomis vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell (a former Loomis co-worker), Steven Eugene Chambers (a one-time FBI informant), his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies, and four other co-conspirators. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. He didnt even really question me. 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. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. First, they loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels into a rental van. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. I was burned out and just didn't know it. But as he later recalled to the media, as soon as he stepped through those big-box doors, he realized he was flush with cash, and he didnt need to shop at Walmart ever again. All were convicted. Campbell and her husband had always been just scraping by, however in the weeks following the robbery, the two seemed to have more money than they've ever had. They bought a BMW roadster. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. Just head on out. And so, he did. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. In real life: False. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. He gave the rest to Kelly. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? Kelly had recently left a job driving an armored-car for Loomis, Fargo & Co. "He's the one who brought it up first," said Kelly, a year after her arrest. 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.. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. She just called me up on the phone and said, Hey, lets meet one day after work. And then, we were talking and she says, How do you feel about robbing Loomis Fargo? Ghantt tells me. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Ghantt was never in Chamberss presence until he actually handed off the money to him. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. . No dry runs, no rehearsals. How Bridgerton restarted buzz about her ancestry. I said, Listen, You all need to get your shit together, or Im just going to walk over here to the government building and tell them who the fuck I am. That lit a little fire under her ass, for a bit.. And so, he told her, Google my name. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. In real life: True. Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. 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. There was in fact a basically similar conversation involving Chambers and Campbell that took place during a barbecue the Campbells were hosting. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. 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. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). Hed be in contact. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' They hatched the idea half-jokingly, over a game of Uno, never dreaming they were about to make Bonnie and Clyde look like bottom feeders. Ghantt ultimately agreed to the plan, largely, due to a mountain of credit-card debt and in hopes of changing his life for the better. Cool, I say. Dependent care account. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ A woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored car company Loomis, Fargo & Co. was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist (No Ratings Yet) . Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. Is he telling the truth? Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. 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. "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. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. The theft at the time the second-largest cash robbery in U.S. history has been the brunt of mocking movies and books, mostly on how the thieves, who had little money to begin with, could not control their spending habits once they did. Ghantt was in fact hiding out in Mexico using McKinneys I.D., which had been sold to Chambers months earlier. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. 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. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. They cursed. It was his goodbye. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. His name was Corey. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Question: You were a consultant? Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. But in November, money ran low. Twelve hours later, at 6 that evening, Eric Payne drove a rented Budget van to his workplace, a graphics company on Performance Road in western Mecklenburg County called Reynolds & Reynolds, which was closed for the night and had a secluded parking lot where they intended to transfer the cash. Then Steve pushed Scott inside, and he began throwing plastic-wrapped bundles of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds to Eric and Steve, who placed them in three blue 55-gallon barrels. Exciting. She could visit friends. "He was in tears. In real life: False. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. 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. This real-life crime is the core of "Untitled Armored Car Project," which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig. 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. . He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. But because David's relationship with his Loomis bosses had been rocky, he says, he doesn't feel sorry about what he did to the company. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. When he finished, the van was filled with $17 million. Explain? Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. 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. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. . 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. ". Everybody seemed stunned. That time in prison was actually good for me. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. At the time of the real robbery, Chambers was facing criminal charges hed written 30K worth of bad checks and was facing jail time for it. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. That week, the FBI designated the theft its 142nd "major case," putting it on a list--begun in the 1970s--that includes such other infamous crimes as the World Trade Center bombing. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. He flew in an ultra-light plane. An Ohio police officer who shot and killed a Black man as he lay in bed in his home last summer is no longer on the force, Three Kansas City police officers who were shot while serving a search warrant have been released from the hospital, Officials say one passenger died when a business jet experienced severe turbulence, forcing a landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. . The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. One number is working in Campbells favor. Steve and Michele invited everyone back for a Christmas party, where they gave Michele's stepfather a special gift--the pickup truck he'd always wanted. 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 hear her typing. I learned something that was valuable at the time: Most criminals never leave a 250, maybe 300-mile circle from their home base. So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? ". They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. Kelly was lying. Except the person he offered $150,000 to mule $2.5 million down to Ghantt in Mexico turned him down and instead went to the FBI. I thought, Okay, if I get out of that bubble because the cops depend on that, even the feds my chances to get away go way up.. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. Based on a true story, the premise itself is fascinating, which makes Masterminds all the more a waste. At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. Ghantt was working a late shift, and just after 6:30 p.m., his coworkers were packing up and heading for home. So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. 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. Once I start something, Im going to the end., As for how he felt in the moment, he says, Imagine me and you went on an airplane. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. 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). >> 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,. Our Benefits. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. Or that it was an inheritance. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. 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. . Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. . A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. But McKinney never stopped trying to kill Ghantt although, initally, McKinney thought Chambers had paid for the hit over a drug deal gone bad, Diamant said. "You" has three. "We had David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell tied together, and we had Steven Chambers and Eric Payne with unexplained wealth, but we didn't have a tie between them," Agent John Wydra said. 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.". He was an old friend from East Gaston High School, tough and sure of himself. Thats one of my personality flaws. Then another. Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. 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. October was "a blast," he said. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' At one point, the hoodlum shows up and Ghantt is wearing a Jerome Bettis Pittsburgh Steelers jersey; the hoodlums favorite team is the Steelers, and he caves and tells Ghantt that McKinney wants him dead. David thought about it. Careers. 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) He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". Scary. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million.