real life kelly campbell loomis fargo

When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. Because surprise! Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. It affects everybody different. They ditched the Loomis van, then drove the cash-heavy Budget van to Steve's mobile home in Lincoln County, where his wife, Michele, waited with a calculator and rubber bands. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. There was, however, one problem with his plan. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. 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. I didn't think I had the guts. They heard Michele brag about her $43,000 ring. Then he and Campbell drove 90 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where Ghantt planned to purchase a ticket to Mexico so he could be out of the country before news of the robbery broke the next morning. ". He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. David trusted her. 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 youre like, Come on parachute. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997 Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Posted on . Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. Ghantt was never in Chamberss presence until he actually handed off the money to him. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. Scary. My love for my family is by far the most important thing in my life. In real life: False. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. 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. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. "I said, 'I don't want him killed.' Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. "I missed my family. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. The Columbia airport had no available flights. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. She was devastated, Diamant said. . The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. See all of the stories here. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. Inside the Mazda, Steve told Scott Grant to get out and help David. She declined to take a lie-detector test. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. And so, he told her, Google my name. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. Ghantt was working as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte in 1997, earning about $8 an hour and tired of his humdrum life. In Florida, a Loomis Fargo employee had pulled a gun on his coworkers and gotten away with $18 million, a move that FBI agents theorize Ghantt, Campbell and other employees all sat around talking about - and what they would do with that amount of money - for a while. 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. Military + Veterans. Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer Mountain. 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. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. Were others involved? To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. . No hard feelings. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she 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.". The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. But it didnt really hit me until later., On March 2nd, when the FBI agents walked up to Ghantt in Playa del Carmen and told him he was under arrest, Ghantt was relieved. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. . They put up mauve wallpaper. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. How Bridgerton restarted buzz about her ancestry. Charlotte hotel chef who serves with a smile recognized as outstanding ambassador, Eritrean, Ethiopian restaurant owner was a big brother and father to many in Charlotte, Home tours: This wired-up Weddington smart home has a pool big enough for the neighborhood. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. The FBI, in fact, obtained the evidence they needed to bring down the major players, including Chambers, after catching them talking about the murder plot on the telephone via wiretap. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. 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. 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. Will Vin Sant Leave You Jacked or Scammed? Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. Then, on a mid-September day, as he reviewed a credit card bill, David did some math. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. He didnt even really question me. 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 and happy. Why fans love it. Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. The plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. The figures can be astounding. Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer. I knew it was just a matter of time. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. Kelly was lying. Figure in Loomis Heist Gets Prison | AP News Michele received the best gift of the night. FBI agents recall surreal story of heist that inspired - WLOS But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. Reach our Customer Contact Center by calling 877.877.0560 from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM CT every day or by completing the provided form. . In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. Steven Chambers [Misc. Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. Our success depends on our team members, and that's why it's important for us to offer an employee benefits program that is not only extremely comprehensive but also one of the best in the industry. She could spend time with her children and parents. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. Her marriage--at which she was making another ambivalent effort after multiple separations--and even the jobs she'd been able to get with a diploma couldn't come close to providing the kind of life she dreamed about, the life she felt she deserved: a house in the country, a swimming pool, and enough cash so she didn't need to rely on men. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. "But I had to know.". Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. Kelly called David at. All were convicted. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer. 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. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. She also must . Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? 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. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. 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. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. His new life in Mexico had begun. The real 'Masterminds' 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. It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. And going to see the Mayan ruins. Then another. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. 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 . We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. She laughed for like 45 minutes. This time, David told McKinney the truth. As he and Kelly met in a field behind a shooting range to refine the plan, she allowed him to believe she was falling for him. 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. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. ". There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. He's a very likable person. Despite a mega-watt cast featuring Zach Galifianakis and a handful of some of Saturday Night Lives biggest current and former stars, Masterminds, the comedy about Loomis Fargo robbery completely tanked at the box office in its opening weekend, bowing in sixth place with just $6.6 million. Michelle Chambers received seven years and eight months, while Steve Chambers was handed an 11-year sentence. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. 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. This is the person I counted as my friend. kellis@gastongazette.com 0:04 0:57 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. Job Search - Career Portal - Dayforce HCM David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. He would pay McKinney $250,000, half upfront. Kelly's company. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? In Campbells case, Gronquist says his client was buried in court-ordered debt despite the fact that she took responsibility for what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors and the FBI. . No dry runs, no rehearsals. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Then another. He told Steve he hadn't been able to find David. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. Ghantt was already married when he took part in the heist, to a woman named Tammy who author Diamant described as very nice. It is true, however, that she had no idea about the plot and that he fled to Mexico without telling her. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. Mine did. . Loomis Fargo Heist of 1997 - History and Other Things You might as well go all the way now.". He gave the rest to Kelly. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. 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. Her case closes in 2025. David complained it wasn't enough. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. Before David left for the airport, he had handed Scott an eight-inch key ring. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. In real life: Mostly true. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. Ghantt went on to explain that he left for his flight to Mexico with about $25,000, and that two or three deliveries of extra money was made to him by the man Chambers would pay to kill him. . These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. They bought a BMW roadster. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Hes very articulate. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. 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. I loved it. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. 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.

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