real life kelly campbell loomis fargo

One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. 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. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. There had been no signs. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. Kelly told the FBI she had done drugs with David but denied knowing about the theft. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. Loomis Armored Shreveport, LA, 1124 Forum Dr, Shreveport, LA, USA Shreveport, LA, USA Req #1990. Kelly found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. Then another. A report by the General Accounting Office found that as of budget year 2016, $110 billion in restitution ordered by the federal courts was outstanding and that more than 90% of the amount had been classified as uncollectible.. 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. He kept looking over his shoulder. At 7:45, David had finished loading. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. Kelly, using David's cell phone, kept beeping him. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. She never really worried about the moral end of it--she was focused only on getting what she wanted out of life, what so many others seemed to have in this booming part of the South. Scary. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. 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. That day, FBI agents also would arrest Scott Grant and Eric Payne, who had spent his share of the money on a motorcycle and breast implants for his wife and two sisters. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter . Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. That was the most painful truth to come to. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. In real life: True. To say nothing of their art purchases like the aforementioned velvet Elvis portrait and a painting of a bulldog dressed as General George S. Patton. 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. ". 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. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . 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. . Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . Everybody seemed stunned. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. . Now two NC men face prison. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. They paid for all of it in cash. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. When McKinney realized Ghantt was wanted for the Loomis Fargo robbery, he backed off personally because he didnt want to be anywhere near a federal investigation. No regrets. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. But Ghantt, who served as an unpaid consultant to the movie and attended the big Los Angeles premiere earlier in the week, has no such reservations. You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. Steve led the planning. Its everything thats coming north.. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. 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. Steven Chambers [Misc. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. Hed be in contact. Ghantt fled to Mexico. On the evening of October 4, 1997, one man loaded $17.3 million in cash from the vaults of Loomis, Fargo & Co. into the back of a van. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. His new life in Mexico had begun. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. "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. Truth was, David wanted more than help leaving, he wanted company. In early September 1997, Kelly found herself chatting on the phone with a friend who still worked at Loomis, a 27-year-old man who, despite being married, had made no secret of the fact that he had a crush on her. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. 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 . They put up mauve wallpaper. His collection case closes in two years. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. Kelly's company. At that same time, Steve was growing sick of the calls to send more money to Ghantt, and was looking for a way to end that issue. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. 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. Then FBI agent Wydra watched Steve's wife, Michele, deposit about $8,000 at a Gaston County, N.C., bank. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. All I needed was a change of pace.". Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. . Then another. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. 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. 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. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. 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. Still, she wasn't happy. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. More agents waited outside to arrest them. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? Chambers, who still lives in Gaston County and operates a gym, declined to comment. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. Industry leading Training and Development. . "But I had to know.". . I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. 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. She didn't plan to move to Mexico. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. You can seize property. Things went from bad to worse when, in November, Michelle strolled into a bank with a briefcase filled with 200 grand and asked the manager, How much can I deposit without the bank reporting the transaction? When she showed the bank manager that she really had the money to invest, the cash was still bound in Loomis Fargo wrappers. When he finished, the van was filled with $17 million. Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. Were others involved? Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges.

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