Snowball - Episode 3: The Coconut Wireless

Summary

Deep Cover Presents: Snowball

Episode 3: The Coconut Wireless

Release Date: November 17, 2025
Host: Ollie Wards (Pushkin Industries / ABC Unravel Podcast team)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ollie Wards continues his family’s investigation into Leslie Manookian, the enigmatic Californian con woman who destroyed their financial world. Episode 3, “The Coconut Wireless,” dives into Leslie’s time in Hawaii. With the help of police records, witness interviews, and former associates, Ollie reveals a pattern of manipulation and fraud perpetrated by Leslie across Maui’s close-knit community. As he uncovers various first-hand accounts and police reports, a clear picture of Leslie’s tactics and the damage she left behind emerges.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Leslie’s Arrival in Hawaii and Charming Persona

• Leslie’s backstory: Leslie told dramatic stories about being chased out of Hawaii by “murderous locals.” Multiple people remember her recounting situations where she had to flee for her life.
  • Quote: "There's something about some cash bar and she was like hiding under a table and these guys... she was trying to call her dad." ([03:44])
  • Leslie claimed locals “were going to kill me tonight, dad.” ([03:59])
• Family involvement: Ollie’s brother Greg, suspicious after his own dealings with Leslie, contacts the Hawaiian police for information, receiving a package of police reports validating some of Leslie’s fraudulent activities.
  • Quote (Greg): “Finally I had something that was real and genuine and could cast light on her character and what she was really about.” ([04:35])

2. The Breakwater Bar Scheme – Recruiting and Manipulation

• Pattern emerges: Leslie recruited people (mainly hospitality workers) to come to Maui and help open “the Breakwater,” a new bar/nightclub.
  • Multiple interviewees confirm Leslie drew them in with promises of partnership and profit:
    • “She wanted me to come to Hawaii with her and help her open this fucking bar.” – Former associate ([05:58], [09:25])
    • “We were like her little ducklings following behind her.”– Trinity ([11:44])
• The allure: Leslie’s charisma and entrepreneurial image convinced others to invest their labor, time, and often money, with little or no pay in return.
  • “She can make everything seem perfect.” – Trinity ([10:43])

3. The Short-Lived Success and Gradual Collapse of The Breakwater

• Initial optimism: The bar launches successfully with fanfare, long lines, and excitement (“people queuing around the block”). ([18:53])
• Operational issues: Key infrastructural problems appear, including health code violations (unfixed grease traps), unpaid utility bills leading to power cutoffs, and eviction from staff housing.
  • “We were buying bags of ice from the local shop and filling cool boxes full of beers. But Leslie was still trying to sell her little dreams.” – Will ([20:58])
• Mounting suspicion: As payments to staff and suppliers stopped, word spread rapidly through Maui’s “coconut wireless”—the local gossip network.
  • “This town is very small. We call it the coconut wireless. So everyone talks to everyone about everything.” – Trinity ([22:14])

4. Victim Testimonies and Allegations of Financial Crimes

• Direct victims: Several associates report stolen checks and credit card fraud.
  • Georges: “Leslie had already picked up my checkbook and went to town on it... fake checks sent out to the whole fucking city under my name.” ([23:24])
  • Scott: “She took my credit cards, went and charged all that money on them... all restaurant-related supplies.” ([25:35])
• Leslie defends: Leslie claimed her accusers consented to these transactions, but police initially sided with her until multiple allegations surfaced.
  • “She was so slick... the police told me that I was full of it. And she convinced them that I was lying.”– Scott ([26:17])

5. Police Investigations, Legal Inaction, and Bureaucratic Failures

• Police reports and background checks: Leslie’s criminal history (bad checks, burglary, suspended sentences) in California is documented.
  • “The cops had actually done a criminal history check on Lesley... seven months earlier, Lesley had ended up pleading guilty to burglary related to check fraud.” ([26:38])
• Missed justice: Police reports recommend prosecution for financial crimes in Maui, yet the cases never advance. The Maui prosecutor’s office claims it never received the reports, perhaps due to non-computerized records at the time.
  • Quote (Maui Police Chief Tivoli Faaumu): “How? What happened to the case? I can’t give you an answer to that.” ([31:10])

6. The Aftermath – Betrayal, Retaliation, and Psychological Impact

• Community anger: As reality sets in, associates and local workers suffer emotional, reputational, and financial blows—some retorting with violence.
  • Memorable moment: Trinity describes confronting Leslie and physically assaulting her after losing hope of payment, grabbing “every bit of money” out of Leslie’s bag ([40:24])
  • “The cop said, ‘Do yourself a favor. Get out of here right now.’” ([41:15])
• Devastation of David Parks: David, a respected local manager, invests his life savings ($25,000) and reputation, only to be left broke and humiliated.
  • “He was broke. She took every fucking thing he had.” ([44:46])
  • His police statement: “He had learned that Leslie is a really good talker and can make you believe things that are not true.” ([46:22])
  • After the collapse, David leaves Hawaii, dies soon after (reason unclear), marking a tragic ending for one of Leslie’s most significant victims.

7. Leslie’s Escapes and Continuing Pattern

• Leaving Hawaii: Leslie dodges full legal consequences, possibly due to local bureaucratic mishaps. She leaves the island under mounting pressure and threats.
  • “She’s lucky she left.” – Trinity ([42:13])
• Recycling stories and fabricating evidence: Leslie allegedly sustained her schemes by shuffling money between victims, forging legal and financial documents, and spinning lies based on kernels of truth.
  • “It’s like a Rob Peter to pay Paul situation... a house made with IOUs written on bar napkins.”– Ollie ([31:22])

8. Family Reflection and Parental Involvement

• Leslie’s parents: Questions arise about whether her parents are complicit or just in denial about their daughter’s antics.
  • “They know exactly what she’s doing. They know all of it.” – Scott ([35:57])
  • Ollie’s dad: “That Lesley’s been, if you like, nurtured into continuing by her parents.” ([36:27])
  • Ollie’s mum: “It makes you feel really dumb and angry; makes me feel vindicated that we’re not dumb, that we were so powerfully used. The power that she has is amazing.” ([36:43], [36:50])

9. Setting Up for Next Episode: The Mystery of “Eric T. Weiss”

• Clues in Leslie’s old diary: Ollie finds entries referencing Leslie’s supposed lawyer Eric T. Weiss long before the events in New Zealand—suggesting Eric’s role in Leslie’s scams is longstanding, not fabricated on the fly. ([47:54])
• Next steps: Ollie prepares to travel to the US in pursuit of more answers and to uncover the real story behind Eric T. Weiss.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Leslie as sociopath: “She loves the sucking a person in... and just destroying that person. Those things never leave you... She’s a manipulative con artist that is like a serial killer. She loves what she’s doing.” — Interviewee ([46:22])
• “A lot of the time when you have nothing and somebody has something and they make it seem like such this beautiful painted picture, you try to believe in that.” – Trinity ([19:09])
• On Maui’s gossip network: “This town is very small. We call it the coconut wireless. So everyone talks to everyone about everything.” – Trinity ([22:14])
• On Leslie's pattern: “It’s like a Rob Peter to pay Paul situation. Or make that rob Scott to pay Georges... It’s like a house of cards, but even flimsier.” – Ollie ([31:22])
• After the brawl: “I looked at my uncle and I said, hey, man, she’s out there. I’m gonna go get her... I just punched her directly into her face... Her purse was filled with cash. So when I punched her, her purse flew. So her money was flying everywhere.” – Trinity ([40:24])
• On David Parks: “It was his life savings and his reputation that was being plundered.” – Will ([44:38])
• Ollie’s reflection: “It’s easier to tell a lie when it’s built on a truth. I’m learning that as I’m starting to understand Leslie’s world.” ([42:39])

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Key Timestamps

• 03:01 – Introduction to Leslie’s dramatic Hawaii backstory and police reports
• 05:54 – Multiple victims recognize Leslie as a “sociopath” and “con artist”
• 10:43 – New recruits describe being captivated by Leslie’s vision
• 18:53 – Launch of the Breakwater bar and its temporary success
• 21:27 – Utility cutoffs and the unraveling of the business
• 22:14 – The role of “the coconut wireless” in spreading the truth
• 23:24–26:38 – Victim accounts of check and credit card fraud, police reaction
• 31:10 – 31:22 – Discussion with Maui police chief, failure of prosecution
• 35:32 – Scott confronts Leslie’s parents
• 40:24 – Trinity attacks Leslie in public, leading to Leslie’s escape from Hawaii
• 44:09 – 46:22 – David Parks’ downfall and tragic aftermath
• 47:54 – Discovery of Eric T. Weiss mentioned in Leslie’s diary, set-up for next episode

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Tone and Atmosphere

Ollie’s tone blends incredulity, empathy, and dark humor, as he tries to both piece together the facts and reflect on the profound and lasting psychological impact Leslie has had on her victims—his own family included. The episode builds tension with first-person storytelling, striking interviews, and a sense of increasing urgency as Ollie uncovers ever-darker layers in Leslie’s methods.

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Episode Summary

Episode 3, “The Coconut Wireless,” sees Ollie Wards traveling back in time and across the Pacific to Maui, shining a light on Leslie Manookian’s pattern of scams, broken dreams, and manipulation. Survivors in Hawaii recount similar tales as those told by Ollie’s family in New Zealand—each story adding a piece to the puzzle of Leslie’s con artistry. Police records and statements confirm that Leslie orchestrated an elaborate scheme of business fraud, check and credit card theft, and manufactured drama that damaged reputations and livelihoods. The community’s response, eventual retribution, bureaucratic mishaps, and lasting trauma set the stage for the next chapter—Ollie’s search for the truth behind Leslie’s mysterious lawyer and the broader web of deception she spun.

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Next Episode Tease:
Ollie chases new leads on the enigmatic Eric T. Weiss—the lawyer who may hold the key to Leslie’s global web of scams. The investigation heads to the United States, as Ollie ramps up his efforts to settle scores and finally get answers.

Transcript

[Trinity]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Podcast Advertiser / Host]

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[Justin Richmond]

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[Ollie Wards]

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[Podcast Advertiser / Host]

Hey, it's Jake.

[Ollie Wards]

Before we get into this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can hear more ad free episodes from.

[Podcast Advertiser / Host]

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[Ollie Wards]

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[Ollie Wards]

Let's get into it. This episode contains occasional course language the first thing about Leslie Mnookian that caught my brother's attention was her American accent. The second thing my Americanophile brother was attracted to was Leslie's wild story about why she left Hawaii. Some bad people in Hawaii were trying to attack her, you know, cause they'd frauded her and were trying to do bad stuff to her and her mum and dad sent her to Europe to escape them. According to Leslie, she had been run off the island by murderous locals. A lot of people heard different versions of this story. I remember her saying something about she had to curl up in a dark bathroom. There was something about some cash bar and she was like hiding under a table and these guys like somewhere and she was trying to call her dad. You got on the wrong side of the local mafia. She witnessed she might have got beaten up, murder or she got home invaded.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

In her house or something like that.

[Ollie Wards]

They're going to kill me tonight dad.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Basically being taken by these criminals.

[Ollie Wards]

Got on this chartered airplane, parents had.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

To pay for a private jet to come get her before the mafia killed her.

[Ollie Wards]

So this story about Hawaii. After everything that happened to my brother Greg, he started to think about how it might be a fat yarn. He wanted to know what really happened, so he figured he'd write to the Hawaiian police and ask if they knew anything. Greg might have been watching a bit Too much Hawaii 5o or Magnum PI when he wrote this letter because he's dialled up the drama. I find myself in a murky world of con artists and swindlers. We are battling them and I will find out the truth. Any information, advice, maybe a point in the right direction would be invaluable. Normally cops don't go giving out details to letter writing busybodies like you can't just write a letter to the police asking them to hand over documents because you're curious about someone's past. But maybe whoever got that letter was moved by Greg's quest for justice. Because whoever read Greg's letter sent back a thick manila envelope. What Greg found in that envelope was relief. Finally I had something that was real and genuine and could cast light on her character and what she was really about. Inside the envelope were copies of police reports, including detectives Notes and witness statements. The reports suggested that Greg wasn't alone. He wasn't the only person who had been burnt by Leslie Mnookian. I'm Ollie Wards and this is Snowball. Does the name Leslie Mnookian mean anything to you?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Oh, you bet. Never forget her.

[Ollie Wards]

She's a sociopath.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She wanted me to come to Hawaii with her and help her open this fucking bar.

[Trinity]

Oh, it's the cool spot because it was one of the biggest ven here on Maui.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

It just started getting shadier and shadier. He was broke. She took every fucking thing he had.

[Trinity]

I just kept telling her, you know, f off, screw you. This is your karma. And I just kept grabbing every bit of money I could.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She's a manipulative con artist. She loves what she's doing. She just loves it.

[Ollie Wards]

By writing to the Hawaiian State Police, Greg was able to get back this fat manila folder that I've got in my hand. It contained these couple of reports that I'm looking at now which show there was at least two people pissed off enough to file police complaints against Leslie. And there's detective notes, witness accounts. It's pretty detailed. Under the suspect is listed Leslie Ruth Manookian, adult white female citizen, 34 years old, height five' seven, weight 116 pounds, so that's about 50 kgs. Brown eyes, brown hair, fair complexion, unemployed. And no local address. There's allegations in here of check fraud. Lots of tantalizing intel. This one is filed by a guy called Georgia Hurdi. And so I've just googled him and I found a picture of him on a modeling site. He's got shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes, surfy looking kind of guy. And the only other thing I can find about him is a pretty empty LinkedIn account. And it says that he works at a hostel in Santa Catarina, Brazil. I'm pretty nervous about getting in touch. All of this stuff in Hawaii happened back in the early 2000s. I don't even know if he'll remember Leslie. Plus, it's kind of hard to explain who I am and what I'm doing too. But I've got to give him a buzz to find out what he remembers. Georges Hurdy, por favorite. No, no habla Portuguese.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Yeah, I speak Portuguese. I speak in English.

[Ollie Wards]

Oh, you speak English. Yeah. I'm looking for Georges Hurdy, please. Okay, wait a minute.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Please.

[Ollie Wards]

Hello, Georges?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Yes.

[Ollie Wards]

Yes, my name's Ollie Wards and I'm just wondering, are you the same Georges that used to live in Hawaii in about 2004?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

You used to go There a lot.

[Ollie Wards]

So I've had trouble getting.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

What's this about?

[Ollie Wards]

I'm just wondering if you. If the name Leslie Manookian means anything to you.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Oh, the scammer.

[Ollie Wards]

I'm kind of glad to hear him say that. The scammer. I'm on to something. Georges says he met Leslie in Oceanside, California.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Leslie was a very charming, like, she, you know, had a way to kind of get into your good side, like saying nice things about me, like what a good looking man I was. And she had the hots for me and this and that and the other. And we kind of started dating and that was the whole thing that she wanted me to come to Hawaii with her and help her open this fucking bar.

[Ollie Wards]

Georges story already sounds familiar. It starts out with Lesley hooking up with a guy, and next thing he's involved in the grand opening of a hospitality business. Georges wasn't the only person Lesley recruited for her Hawaiian plan. Leslie was working at a restaurant in California and became friends with some of the others who worked there.

[Trinity]

She and I became friends, so she would invite me over to her house in San Diego in Oceanside. And she had a beautiful home. She had a lot of toys with the dune buggies and, you know, beautiful yard with the pond and, you know, she was my manager at the restaurant that I was working at.

[Ollie Wards]

Trinity found that her ambitions matched up with Leslie's.

[Trinity]

She and I had the same ideas of entrepreneurship, of wanting to fulfill opening up a restaurant, bar night lifestyle. It was kind of like friendship instantaneously because she kind of had that aura where she's a very smooth speaking person, where she can make everything seem perfect.

[Ollie Wards]

Trinity looks like someone who would be at home at the beach, sun, dyed hair, straight talking vibe. She had spent lots of time in Hawaii and had always wanted to go back there. So she had an idea for Leslie.

[Trinity]

She wanted to do it within Oceanside. And I kept telling her, no, there's, you know, there's too many restaurants here. You're gonna be such a small fish in this big pond, you know. And so I kept telling her that I have lived in Maui prior to and that I had a lot of connections here in Hawaii. And one day she said, okay, let's go, let's do it. And so I said, okay, let's do it, let's go.

[Ollie Wards]

Trinity wasn't the only person ready to follow Leslie out to the islands.

[Trinity]

We were like her little ducklings following behind her.

[Ollie Wards]

Georgia and a couple of others jumped.

[Trinity]

On the bandwagon and all the stories that she had, you know, put into our heads as to what we were going to be doing.

[Ollie Wards]

They headed to Maui, the second biggest of the Hawaiian islands. They ended up in a place called Lahaina. There's heaps of tourists. If you've been to Maui, you probably went to Lahaina. With its still blue water protected by a reef. The main street is called Front street with restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. Amongst those was an old bar that had been closed. It looked like the perfect spot to open a new business.

[Trinity]

It's like a 10,000 square foot venue and I have a lot of connections, so I started making phone calls, got in there, we got the lease on the building. Being a bartender for 19 years, I had a wonderful connection with the liquor commission, so I was able to get the liquor license instated as well. I was creating network of people for her to be welcomed here in Maui.

[Ollie Wards]

More and more people were drawn into Lesley's Hawaiian vision. One of them was a British backpacker called Will. He was in his early 30s and looking to set himself up in the island life. He's a northerner with long hair and a laid back attitude.

[Will]

When I met Leslie, she had all these fantastic ideas of what was going to happen and it seemed to fall so into line with the things that I wanted to do as well. I thought I'd really fallen on my feet. I mean, everyone was saying the same thing. It all hinged on Leslie's word of things. And it was all sewn together by dreams really.

[Ollie Wards]

It sounds like Leslie has always been someone that can work out what people want and talk to that. A dream reflector. Lesley rented a house in a nice neighbourhood for some of the people working for her to live in. There were lots of bedrooms and a separate cottage out back.

[Will]

There was no furniture in there. It had been explained to me that Leslie was waiting for a shipping container or something to arrive that had all the furniture for the house. The girls were all really nice and they were all raring to go with the club idea.

[Podcast Advertiser / Host]

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[Justin Richmond]

Is Justin Richmond, host of Broken Record. I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps someone who loves holiday music or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase. Maybe it's Donny Hathaway. Maybe it's Mariah Carey that just flips a switch and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping. It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection. Sharing a song, sharing a story, sharing a caramel brulee latte. Because this season and every season together is the best place to be. Come together over your holiday favorites and at Starbucks.

[Ollie Wards]

This is Tim Harford from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. How will they survive? The true story of a family's fight for survival, hosted by Becky Milligan. This is Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts on promises of getting paid. Once the bar took off, Leslie's squad got to work. They had a lot to do.

[Will]

It had been closed up for a long time. I think rats had been the only thing in and out of the place. It needed a hell of a Lot of work doing to it. It had sort of grass roof, type of boots that were just black with dust of many years. It was a filthy mess.

[Ollie Wards]

Leslie's Brazilian boyfriend, Georgia, was redoing the bar's interior.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

We had to pull out a lot of trash out of there, repaint everything, and basically start from scratch. And she had a whole bunch of people working for her, painters, people that would do, like, you know, woodwork or whatever just to get the place ready to go.

[Ollie Wards]

Another of Lesley's recruits was Lahaina local Leanne.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She told us that, you know, she had all this funding and then that she needed our help. What I remember is busting my butt for hours day after day for her. You know, she would pay me, like, $100, $200 every now and again.

[Will]

Leslie was almost like a little celebrity in Lahaina, so everyone was sort of bowing at her feet kind of thing, and we were enjoying it. Everyone was very helpful with some elbow.

[Ollie Wards]

Grease from all sorts of people. Lesley's bar started looking pretty good. She named it the Breakwater. It almost looked like the dream was coming true.

[Trinity]

Oh, that's pretty awesome. There was a front bar with tables, and then also an outdoor seating area. And then as you walk towards the back, you have more of the nightclub where you can actually close off the doors from the front side so that you can have the full nightclub aspect.

[Will]

The club opened, and we were doing really well. There was a lot of interest from the locals, people queuing around the block a couple of times to get in. On opening night, it was really, really busy. There were local bands. It was packed, and it was a really good atmosphere.

[Trinity]

It was a cool spot because it was one of the biggest venues here on Maui. It was the newest thing happening, and it was great. A lot of the time when you have nothing and somebody has something and they make it seem like such this beautiful painted picture, you try to believe in that.

[Ollie Wards]

This story about Hawaii. It makes me think about the Dragonfly Cafe in New Zealand and everyone who helped Leslie open it. Greg, Simon, my parents. It's like the same story, just on a different island. Because just as the dreamy picture Leslie paints starts to become a reality, things begin to fall apart.

[Will]

There was a chef that she'd chosen to take over the kitchen work, and he was a really nice guy. He was putting everything in. He made some really nice hamburgers as samples that had been given out at the bar, and he got good ideas, but the fridges were filled with these hamburgers, but they were never able to be Sold because of the grease trap never getting emptied.

[Ollie Wards]

I don't know what a grease trap is, but it sounds gross and it needed emptying. Apparently it needed an expensive refit too, to get a liquor license. Leslie told the liquor board the grease trap had been upgraded, but Will reckons that was never done.

[Will]

That was the health code violation that stopped the kitchen from ever opening up.

[Ollie Wards]

So after a pretty good start at the bar, the breakwater became a shambles. Will says their electricity got cut off.

[Will]

There were anti mosquito candles on the tables instead of any lighting. People were starting to wonder what was going on.

[Ollie Wards]

Without air conditioning, the bar was baking hot too.

[Will]

We were buying bags of ice from the local shop and filling cool boxes full of beers. But Leslie was still trying to sell her little dreams.

[Ollie Wards]

I'm starting to recognise pieces of this story. Leslie once told me that electricity got cut off at the breakwater because she got on the wrong side of the bouncer who had a cousin in the power company. So the power did get cut off, but Will and Trinity think it was for a more obvious reason.

[Trinity]

At this point, she hadn't paid her electric bill, so from my understanding, she was running her electricity off of a generator. Literally.

[Ollie Wards]

Around this time, Leslie and her workers were all evicted from the house they lived in. Will suspected that Leslie wasn't paying the rent.

[Will]

We got evicted on New Year's Eve and I had to move into the club. So I was in the offices at the back. I'd put a bed in there and a fridge and what have you. While Leslie was in a pool house she'd rented at the side of her big house.

[Ollie Wards]

People had been working on the project in return for free rent, little bits of cash and promises that they'd be sorted when the breakwater took off. But now they started to realise they might never see the money they were owed. Word spread quickly that things were broken at the breakwater.

[Trinity]

This town is very small. We call it the coconut wireless. So everyone talks to everyone about everything. So it's very easy to find out what people are doing when you're not even within the same area as them.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Slowly but surely, people were dropping. Things started getting really shady at one point because every time we tried to ask her for money, she didn't have it. And I still have bills to pay. I have children to feed.

[Ollie Wards]

Eventually, Leanne did manage to get some of her wages out of Lesley, which was more than most.

[Trinity]

I was never paid a dollar. I was able to live, I guess you can say rent free for a month, but if that is restitution for everything that I did to get her to have this 10,000 square foot venue, to get the chef in line for her to get the music in line, for her to get the sign person involved for her liquor license. I did it all. But no, I was never paid one penny. Not one.

[Ollie Wards]

And people weren't just saying they didn't get paid. There were also allegations of stolen checks and credit cards. Lesley's surfy boyfriend, Georges, had been living with her. Then he went home to Brazil on holiday.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

And shortly after, I realized that she had already picked up my checkbook and went to town on it. You know, literally, she had like, fake checks sent out to the whole fucking city under my name. I couldn't believe I was actually pretty much sucked into that whole thing. It's like a movie.

[Ollie Wards]

Georgia went to the police and told them that Lesley had written out nine checks totaling over $13,000 from his account.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

And she was just like, oh, I'm gonna pay you back. My father's gonna pay you. It's like, I don't believe one single word you say to me anymore, you know, after what you've done. And apparently she just kept on a roll.

[Ollie Wards]

From this other police report I've got from Hawaii, it does look like Leslie might have been on a roll. This second report is filed by a guy called Scott. Scott's police report says that Lesley needed a place to crash and so he offered her a room at his. The report also says they were intimate. But only a few days later, Scott noticed some strange charges on his credit card. Scott's a sort of wily looking entrepreneur guy. He's got gray hair, and in the one photo I can find of him online, he's rocking a checkered vest. I managed to get his phone number through a furniture company he owns in Washington state.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Hello?

[Ollie Wards]

Yeah, g'.

[Will]

Day.

[Ollie Wards]

Is that Scott?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Yeah.

[Ollie Wards]

Oh, that's great. Okay, Scott, look, this might be a little bit of a strange call, so please just hang in there for a moment. But I'm just wondering if you used to live in. In Hawaii in around 2004?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Yeah. Huh.

[Ollie Wards]

Does the name Leslie Manookian mean anything to you?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Oh, you bet. Never forget her.

[Ollie Wards]

It's not good that Leslie might have scammed more people, but I'm glad I'm on the right trail. I'm kind of relieved to find someone else. And even though this all happened like 15 years ago, Scott remembers everything straight away.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She took my credit cards, went and charged all that money on them, and then I got called by the credit card Company on a charge. And I said no, I didn't make that charge. You know, I knew it was her because it was all restaurant related supplies and different things to open that restaurant. But I mean, she was stealing. But when I contacted the police, she was so slick.

[Ollie Wards]

Leslie said Scott gave her permission to use his credit card and to buy things for the Breakwater. She says Scott wanted a relationship, but when she turned him down, he started making accusations. Scott says that's all lies.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

The police, they told me that I was full of it. And she convinced them that I was lying. I couldn't believe it. And so a few more days passed by. Somebody else called the police and told them that she had done something to them similar. So then they believed me.

[Ollie Wards]

The cops had actually done a criminal history check on Lesley. And this background check must have fired the cops up because it showed that Lesley had form. They found out Leslie had been arrested for stuff like writing bad checks in San Diego, California. Only seven months earlier. Lesley had ended up pleading guilty to burglary related to check fraud. She was even on a three year suspended sentence from that when all this went down in Hawaii. And that wasn't all Leslie left behind in California. In a newspaper archive, I found some ads notifying Leslie she was being sued. I tracked down the guy who sued her. The reason I'm calling is just because I'm interested in your run in with.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Leslie Minookian, the Leslie Leslie thing.

[Ollie Wards]

It turns out this guy Mike Templin is the guy with the dune buggies and the nice place where Leslie was living before she went to Hawaii. And like a lot of people who have hooked up with Leslie, he's got a story. Is now an alright time to have a chat?

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Ollie Wards]

Okay.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

I just don't like to relive it.

[Ollie Wards]

Yeah, sorry to drag you back through.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

As you can imagine, yeah, Mike's a.

[Ollie Wards]

Tour guide and he's walking around an amusement park while we talk.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

We did live together in Oceanside. That's when she was hiding my mail, you know, like my credit card statements and saying that she was paying for them while meanwhile she was just racking up everything she could on my credit cards. After I found some receipts with my credit card numbers on them, you know, with her signature, you know, bottles of Champagne, you know, $200 dinners. She would take a limousine to a nail salon and spend $500 at a nail salon on my credit cards without me knowing. Never authorized once to use anything. Zero.

[Ollie Wards]

Sounds like a lot of cash on nail salons. Must have been some sweet mani pedis. Mike says Hawaii was Leslie's escape plan.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Yeah, she literally packed up and went and she I'll pay you back. Don't worry. I'll start this restaurant and send you a bag of money. I'm like, oh, my God. So, yeah, she was gone.

[Ollie Wards]

I've got copies of the documents from Mike's court case against Lesley. They show while Lesley was in Hawaii, she kept promising to pay Mike back. In his statement to the court, Mike says he believed she'd pay him back because he loved her. Lesley kept sending him checks that bounced or were from a closed account. Then she sent Mike a receipt showing she had transferred him 31 grand. Lizzley added a handwritten note to the transfer receipt. Mike Merry xness.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

I've thrown in an extra $6,000. Buy yourself something nice. This is from my trust fund and.

[Ollie Wards]

Could take up to eight working days. Bit cheeky. Buy yourself something nice. But the money never arrived. That receipt turned out to be fake. It's another one where the numbers trail off on an angle. Maybe they have Twinkin photocopiers in Hawaii too. Lesley didn't show up or respond to the court and they ruled in favour of Mike. She was ordered to pay him more than $65,000. But even though debt collectors were assigned to the case, Mike says he's never seen a cent.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

I would love to see her rot in hell.

[Ollie Wards]

So by the time Lesley was setting up the breakwater in Hawaii, she was on a suspended sentence and she was about to be sued for racking up tens of thousands of dollars on someone else's credit card. With that kind of stuff going on, why didn't the cops just arrest Lesley? At the bottom of the police reports filed in Hawaii, it says referred to the prosecutor's office for review and prosecution. So it seems like the police were keen to lay charges, but neither of these police reports went anywhere. I tried to get to the bottom of what happened and it seems like maybe it was a bureaucratic stuff up. The Maui Prosecutor's office say they never got the reports from the police. So then I spoke to the top cop who should know what happened.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

My name is Tivoli Faaumu and I am the chief of police for the Maui County Police Department here in Hawaii. I'm not sure what happened, but now we Everything is computerized, so it's automatic. But back then it was not computerized. A copy goes to our records section and then another copy goes to the prosecutor's office. How? What happened to the case? I can't give you an answer to that.

[Ollie Wards]

Whatever happened, the Hawaiian police didn't arrest Lesley and they didn't prosecute her. So at least those police reports have told me a lot about what happened. And after reading them heaps of times on their own, I realised that putting them together like jigsaw pieces reveals a picture of how Lesley briefly kept afloat in Hawaii. It looks like this is how things worked. It's like a Rob Peter to pay Paul situation or make that rob Scott to pay Georges. According to the police reports, Leslie had some money stolen from Scott transferred to Georges, but some of Georges money was allegedly stolen to pay other people back. It goes around in circles. It's like a house of cards, but even flimsier. A house made with IOUs written on Barnett.

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[Ollie Wards]

This is Tim Harford from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. How will they survive? The true story of a family's fight for survival, hosted by Becky Milligan. This is Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. As it all went down, Scott actually went into investigator mode himself. And he had another interesting thing to tell me. Scott had tracked down Lesley's parents, Betty and Andrew, and told them what he thought was going on.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

I don't know what the hell their deal is because I got ahold of them and told them what their daughter was doing and they went, I don't believe you.

[Ollie Wards]

Throughout this whole thing, I've been wondering how much of Lesley's antics Betty and Andrew really knows. So it seems that they knew about some of these allegations from Hawaii, but maybe Lesley was lying to them too. In any case, Scott is angry at Betty and Andrew as well.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

They know exactly what she's doing. They know all of it. You know, I don't know how much a part they are of it, but they know exactly what this girl's doing.

[Ollie Wards]

Hearing about Leslie's parents reminded me that I should give my own mum and dad an update. They've always wondered whether other people have had similar experiences with Lesley, so I called them and told them about all the stories I've been hearing and I asked dad what he thought about Lesley's parents potentially being aware of this stuff.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

I just feel the same, basically, that Lesley's been, if you like, nurtured into continuing by her parents. They obviously not necessarily agree with what she does, but they sort of do by not condemning it.

[Ollie Wards]

I asked Mum how she felt knowing that there were other victims out there.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

Sickened, but also a bit vindicated that we're not as dumb as we thought we were because other people have said, oh no, we would have known. When I met her, I knew she was no good. I knew it when I met her. And I said, well, why don't you tell us? I knew I knew. And it makes you feel really dumb and angry, makes me feel vindicated that we're not dumb, that we were so powerfully used. The power that she has is amazing.

[Ollie Wards]

It turns out there was one more report from the Hawaiian police. Lesley went to them to file a report of her own. The police wrote down her account of a break in at her house. This report says upon her return to her residence at about 2100 hours, she observed everything in her room thrown about the door was open and removed from her jewelry box. A 2.5 carat diamond ring valued at $20,000. White guest watch valued at about $200. And also a 0.5 carat diamond earring. Also observed a knife was put in one of the pillowcases on her bed. Nothing further to add. Who knows how much of this is true? I mean, the police were report says there was no evidence associated with this case. And they never got hold of any receipts showing that Leslie actually owned this expensive stuff she said was stolen. By the time she got to London, Leslie was telling a story about men with knives entering her house while she hid under the bed. There is one element of Leslie's story about Hawaii that does hold up though. When Leslie told the story, she always said that she fled the island for fearing for her life. And from the people I've been talking to, it turns out that's kind of right. By the time the breakwater folded, Leanne says people were out to get Leslie.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She definitely made a lot of enemies that wanted the money that they were promised. But especially like where I'm from in Lahaina, it is a close knit community. And I'll say, you know, honestly, she's burned so many people that even people that weren't directly affected monetarily by her. I was to the point where I probably, you know, wanted to punch her in the face. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to.

[Ollie Wards]

Leanne isn't the only person who felt that way. Trinity, the beachy, sporty looking Hawaiian who helped Lesley set up the Breakwater. Well, she definitely did.

[Trinity]

I mean, this island, you know, we're all very aloha made people here, I'd say 90% of us. And you do unto others as you want done to yourself. So if someone's working their butt off and they have bills to pay and you're not paying them. What are they gonna do? They're gonna do something to you.

[Ollie Wards]

The story she told me next kind of shocked me. It starts late one night in Lahaina. Trinity says she was having a night out. Her and her uncle and her boyfriend went to see a punk band play. Lahaina is a small place, so they weren't that far from the Breakwater. After the band finished, Trinity and her cross Drew climbed into a cab to leave. But just as she was getting into the cab, she saw Leslie coming out of the Breakwater.

[Trinity]

I looked over at the bar and I seen her coming out, and I said, oh, hang on a minute, mister. And he said, what? The cab driver said, you need to stop the cab. I looked at my uncle and I said, hey, man, she's out there. I'm gonna go get her. And he said, what? I said, are you ready? He said, okay. So I jumped out of the cab. I ran directly towards her, and I just punched her directly into her face. She had grabbed all of the COVID charge money from the front door, and so her purse was filled with cash. So when I punched her, her purse flew. So her money was flying everywhere. Kept telling her, you know, f off. Screw you. This is your karma, blah, blah, blah. And I just kept grabbing every bit of money I could.

[Ollie Wards]

The brawl got bigger as Trinity's uncle started fighting with someone in Leslie's crowd.

[Trinity]

One of the cops pulled up, and he's one of our local cops, and he said, trinity, what have you done? And I said, I know you've heard about all of the things she's been doing at this point. He looked at me and he said, oh, I know. He said, do yourself a favor. Get out of here right now. I said, okay. So I jumped in the cab and we took off. Next morning, I showed up at her door, pounding on her door. But from what the neighbor told me that she had been packing stuff and trying to leave, and by that day, she was completely off of the island.

[Ollie Wards]

And for Leanne, that local from Lahaina, she reckons Lesley probably wouldn't care about who she hurt anyway.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She is as fake as they come. And she has no heart for anyone or no concern for anyone. And honestly, her level of care is zero for anyone else outside of herself.

[Trinity]

You get what you give. I don't care whether you're in Hawaii, you're in California, you're in New Zealand, or wherever. You get what you give. And this place will welcome you, but it will also throw you and drown you as fast as you make yourself apparent to be who you are. And that's what she did. She's lucky she left.

[Ollie Wards]

So there were parts of Leslie's story about Hawaii that were kind of true. It's easier to tell a lie when it's built on a truth. I'm learning that as I'm starting to understand Lesley's world. But that doesn't make Leslie's lies any less damaging, especially as I'm hearing from the people who have been hurt by those lies along the way, people that remind me of my brother Greg. If there's a Greg in this story, it's a local restaurant manager named David Parks. He didn't marry Leslie. In fact, as far as I can tell, they weren't ever involved with each other romantically. But in the collapse of the Breakwater, David lost out more than anyone.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

So she hooked up with David pretty much as a con artist.

[Ollie Wards]

David was a friend of Scott's.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She went ahead and found all of his dreams and strengths and weaknesses and talked him into quitting his job and investing all of his money with her to open up this bar.

[Ollie Wards]

David quit his job managing another restaurant for the promise of bigger things at the breakwater, he invested $25,000 in Leslie's business. David got to work immediately alongside the others, including Will.

[Will]

Everyone liked him. He was a very jauntile guy, very humble guy, very honest guy. And I think that's one of the main things that Leslie was able to trade on is Dave's reputation as being an honest, trustworthy fella.

[Ollie Wards]

As things started to go bad at the Breakwater, Dave and Will tried to keep each other's spirits up.

[Will]

As time was going on, it became more and more apparent that Leslie was just lying to everybody. Just behind had been the whole time. Myself and Dave used to lay down the beach in the daytimes, talking everything through and laughing, in a way at how much bullshit we would put up with.

[Ollie Wards]

But Will says that laughter was a sad kind of laughter.

[Will]

For Dave, it was devastating. It was his life savings and his reputation that was being plundered.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

He was broke. She took every fucking thing he had. Okay, he was flat broke. But more than anything, he was so humiliated. We all told him that he was gonna get screwed.

[Ollie Wards]

You know, I really wanted to talk to David. I've been asking everyone what happened to him. People have told me David was totally cut up and his reputation was ruined. So he left Hawaii. He went to live with his mum. Then one day, Scott called me back with some news.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

He'd found out Dave did pass away. The people that I talked to don't know what it was. My friend that knew him but hasn't seen him for quite some time said that it was a sudden thing or something but he didn't know what the situation was. But the bottom line that he was gone.

[Ollie Wards]

So I'm just looking at the statement that David made for the police. Now that I know he's no longer alive, it seems like this is the only thing I'll ever hear from him. It's a statement he made as part of Scott's case. He was a witness and it's recorded in here that he stated he has known Manookian for only a few months and regrets ever going into business with her. And I've read this witness statement from David so many times. But it's really this last line that gets me. It says stated he had learned that Lesley is a really good talker and can make you believe things that are not true.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

She loves the sucking a person in like your brother or me or David and just destroying that person. Those things never leave you, you know, they never leave you. She's a manipulative con artist that is like a serial killer. She loves what she's doing. She just loves.

[Ollie Wards]

Maybe she does love it. I really just don't know at this point. Maybe it's all just sport for her. But on the other hand, maybe she's just deluded. Maybe she believes that these crazy schemes are going to work out and everyone's going to get paid back and everything's going to be okay. I just feel like I have no idea what's going on inside of her head. I'm not sure where Lesley went next, but a year later she turns up traveling happily around Europe doing the tourist thing. I know where she went. Not through her emails, but by reading Lesley's old style paper diary. She left it in New Zealand. The diary has notes like walking tour of Prague, flight numbers and albums she likes like outkast speaker box. Leslie's handwriting is scribbled and often sideways on the pages. But the most interesting entry is right at the start.

[Interviewees / Witnesses]

May 3, New York.

[Ollie Wards]

Eric met George Clooney, Julia Roberts, private jet from Dallas. Sounds like old mate Eric T. Weiss, Esquire, the lawyer who Leslie said represented her. And this was written well before any of us had met Leslie. So this Eric character has been around for a while and she was just writing random strange stuff about him in her own diary as she travelled. Why would Leslie have made a note to herself about Eric if he didn't exist? I don't know. But it was on these travels that Lesley ended up in London, where she met my brother Greg. And Eric T. Weiss would eventually become a fully fledged character in this story, convincing enough to fool Kiwibank into approving a $1.5 million loan. This mysterious Eric guy might just be the strangest part of this story. He might also be the key to unlocking Lesley's world. So next episode, we're going to get well acquainted with Leslie's lawyer to the stars. Can you believe this jerk Eric T. Weiss as your lawyer, I'm starting to.

[Podcast Advertiser / Host]

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[Ollie Wards]

And it's time for me to go to the United States. I'm going to go and find answers. All right. Touchdown usa. I'm going to go and find Leslie. What are we getting ourselves into? What? We got a muscle car? It looks like a stingray on wheels. That's next time on Snowball. I have to say, you've made a pretty unusual choice of snacks, bro. I mean, like, who gets banana chips and beef jerky, man? I was. I wanted to stay away from sugar. SA.

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[Ollie Wards]

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[Trinity]

This is an iHeart podcast.