Ray William Johnson

And he and his goons also start telling people that they're investing in some apartment complex in Miami, and that's a whole other scam.

But they grift people into investing in that too, until they've pulled in about $8 million total.

And of course, Ellie doesn't use this money to buy shares of Facebook or Miami Apartments.

No, no.

He uses it to pay his kid's religious school tuition.

He gets his home out of foreclosure.

He uses a huge portion of it to pay his lawyers who are representing him in his trial for his first $200 million Ponzi scheme.

But anyway, pretty quickly, one of his investors gets suspicious and...

They report him to the feds.

And so, bam, he gets arrested again.

And in 2015, he finally goes to trial for these crimes and he gets sentenced to 24 years in prison.

But Ellie, he's not going to let a little thing like prison stop him because about eight years go by and it's now 2021 and the dude is still in prison.

And I'm not entirely sure if he has personal connections or if he somehow pays someone off in the presidential administration.

But Donald Trump, who is finishing up his first term as president, decides to grant Ellie clemency.

Which reduces his sentence to time served.

And so Ellie is immediately released from prison.

And so now he's a free man and he gets to do whatever he wants with his life.

And a few months go by.

And I guess he just can't help himself and he's like, you know, I should probably go do some more scamming.

And so he gets to work on a completely new con.