He Was Destroyed By Pokemon // The Anthony Curcio Scandal

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Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast 8 min 1 speaker 5 chapters transcribed 1 month ago
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How did Anthony Curcio go from high school star to struggling athlete after his ACL tear?

Ray William Johnson 0:00
So this guy was the perfect criminal. So how did Pokemon literally ruin his career? Now the guy's name is Anthony, and Anthony's about 19 when this story starts, and he's living in Monroe, Washington. And Anthony is the town golden boy, captain of the football team and the basketball team. He's broken school records. He's the homecoming hero dating the popular cheerleader. Then he gets himself a partial scholarship to play football at the University of Idaho. So he starts playing for them. My point is, Anthony is a guy who wins. But then one day during his sophomore year, he suddenly can't win anymore. Because he's at practice running a punt return, and boom, he tears his ACL. And because of that, he's put on Vicodin for the pain.
Ray William Johnson 0:48
And the Vicodin works really well. In fact, it works so well that he wants to take them all the time. And eventually, he gets addicted. And he gets so addicted that when his prescription runs out, to get another prescription, he intentionally injures his own foot. And this addiction lasts for years. Sometimes he takes up to 30 pills a day.

How did opioid addiction escalate and impact Curcio’s personal and professional life?

Ray William Johnson 1:12
And eventually he also starts taking Valium and doing cocaine and he starts drinking heavily. The guy's a mess. Now, obviously, due to his injury, his football career never worked out. So he ends up getting his real estate license and he starts making pretty good money flipping houses. But unfortunately, he spends all of that on his pill addiction. But then it's 2008 and he's around 28 years old now. and the housing market crashes. And suddenly, Anthony is broke. No income, and his bank account goes all the way down to $20, and he has to start doing landscaping work for his parents' company just to get by. But see, Anthony, he has a wife and kids and landscaping isn't paying enough money to support his family and his drug habit.
Ray William Johnson 2:01
But then one day he's out on one of his landscaping jobs outside the federal courthouse. And there he sees this armored truck making a delivery. And that is when he gets an idea. If he can rob an armored truck, then he'll have more than enough money to pay his bills and fund his drug habit. So Anthony starts mapping out this heist he wants to pull off. And he becomes obsessed with planning this thing out. He stakes out and watches armored trucks making deliveries to this specific Bank of America in Monroe. He also practices a lot.

What triggered Curcio to plan an armored truck heist and how did he scout the target?

Ray William Johnson 2:37
Like he starts doing dry runs at the bank, stashing a wig and a mask at a dumpster nearby so that he can grab his disguise. And he rehearses the whole thing and he like ditches the gear again without anyone noticing. In fact, he practices so much that one time a local homeless man near the bank sees him grab the wig and mask. Anyway, Anthony plans and he practices for an entire year before he feels like he's ready. Then finally, a few days before the heist, he makes his last move. He places a fake ad on Craigslist. The ad is for workers for a city cleanup job paying $28.50 an hour. And Anthony tells everyone who responds to the ad to show up at the bank on the day of the cleaning job wearing a very specific outfit.
Ray William Johnson 3:25
A yellow safety vest, a blue shirt, and a painter's mask. Then the day of the heist arrives and 12 or so guys from the Craigslist ad show up to the parking lot of the bank wearing exactly what he told them. And Anthony is dressed like them as well. Plus, he's wearing a wig and a fake mustache. So these poor day laborers are now unknowingly decoys. And as Anthony and all these guys are milling about in the parking lot, an armored truck pulls up outside the bank and a guard steps out with the bags of money because he's making a scheduled delivery. But before the guard can deliver anything, boom, Anthony pulls out a can of bear mace and he sprays him in the face. Then he grabs two bags of cash containing about $400,000 and he runs away.
Ray William Johnson 4:13
And as he's running away, he rips off his disguise and he tosses it. So now he's in a totally different outfit. And he runs to this nearby creek because he knows police will be all over the streets. So he gets to this creek and he jumps into an inner tube that he had set up there.

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