When a Stand Up Comic is a Serial Predator with Tammy Pescatelli

Summary

Juicy Crimes with Heather McDonald

Episode: When a Stand Up Comic is a Serial Predator with Tammy Pescatelli

Date: September 24, 2025
Host: Heather McDonald
Guest: Tammy Pescatelli

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode, Heather McDonald welcomes comedian and podcast host Tammy Pescatelli to discuss some of the juiciest and most disturbing true crime tales from the world of stand-up comedy and beyond. The main focus is the chilling case of Vince Champ, a once-beloved comic who led a secret life as a serial sexual predator. Tammy shares her personal proximity to the crimes, providing first-hand perspective from inside the stand-up circuit of the 1990s. The hosts also dive into other infamous cases – from the “Evil Genius” pizza bomber heist to high-profile fraud in the entertainment world, and the unique vulnerabilities of creatives in show business.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Stand-up Comedy in the 90s: The Comedy Condo Culture

• Comedy condos were shared living spaces for comics booked at clubs across the country, fostering camaraderie but also unique safety risks, especially for women.
• Tammy shares how she often traveled between Midwest gigs, sometimes overlapping with other acts in these condos—a detail later central to a criminal investigation.

“Comedy condos kind of ruled the day back then. Even some of the bigger names, you’d be shocked.” — Tammy Pescatelli (02:26)

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2. The Vince Champ Story: From Comedy Star to Serial Predator

a. Who Was Vince Champ?

• Winner of "Star Search" and popular in the college circuit, Vince Champ was charismatic and widely liked.
• He capitalized on the college market, often sneaking into comedy condos on off-nights under the radar.

b. Tammy’s Close Brush

• Tammy recounts her direct but unknowingly dangerous encounters with Champ, whom she shared comedy condos with in the late 1990s.
• On one occasion, Champ committed a sexual assault on a college campus after appearing for a gig, then returned to the condo where Tammy stayed—unbeknownst to her at the time.

“That night he did what he did to this woman. And then apparently he came back to the condo and I slept in the room next to him.” — Tammy Pescatelli (04:55)

c. Investigation and Tampering With Evidence

• Police, unaware of the stand-up circuit’s culture, initially mistook Tammy for Champ’s girlfriend or an accomplice.
• Champ cleverly used comedy condos instead of college-provided hotels to avoid being tracked.

d. Criminal Pattern and Capture

• He targeted young women in music facilities on college campuses, often using a knife and a disguised “white male” voice to mislead investigators.
• Breakthroughs came thanks to a pioneering female detective and the early use of DNA evidence.
• Champ was ultimately tied to over 30 violent sexual crimes across multiple states, convicted to decades behind bars.

“This woman, the detective, started looking—'Was there a comedian at the campus that night?'—and she started connecting the dots.” — Tammy Pescatelli (14:04)

e. Personal and Industry Fallout

• Tammy reflects on survivor’s guilt, PTSD, and the longstanding mistrust and caution she developed.
• The episode scrutinizes how the industry’s treatment of women and lack of safety standards left many vulnerable.

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3. Women’s Safety & Power Imbalance in Entertainment

• Discussion veers into the broader tradition of older men exploiting much younger women—using examples from Jerry Seinfeld’s then-infamous relationship.
• Tammy and Heather dissect shifting perspectives around power imbalance, grooming, and societal complicity in the 90s vs. now.

“We didn’t understand imbalance of power—well, we knew it, but we had no voice to speak to it.” — Tammy Pescatelli (28:39)

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4. Comedy Condos: Ongoing Risks & Anecdotes

• Both share harrowing close calls and wild stories from their early comedy lives, including unknown figures entering comedy condos at night due to unsecured keys and codes.

“Somebody that either had the key or the code...must have come in...Either way, whatever the intention was, my mind starts to go.” — Heather (36:10)

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5. “Evil Genius” Bank Heist Breakdown

• Tammy recounts living near the infamous Erie, PA, “pizza bomber” case, immortalized in the Netflix docuseries "Evil Genius."
• She knew Bill Rothstein, the eccentric, brilliant, and ultimately complicit witness, as a regular at her comedy shows.
• Delves into the web of co-conspirators, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong’s manipulations, and the bizarre overlaps between crime and comedy life.

“Bill used to come see me and speak to me in Italian and bring me loaves of bread. Well, Bill happens to call the police and tells the police, ‘I know who set up Brian, the pizza guy.’” — Tammy Pescatelli (46:01)

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6. Financial Crimes in the Entertainment Industry

• Discussion of how embezzlement and fraud frequently target artists, who often trust agents, managers, and even family with their finances.
• Personal stories: Alanis Morissette’s manager, Billy Joel’s brother-in-law, and Dane Cook’s brother—all cases where trusted insiders stole massive sums.

“It’s symbiotic—if I win, you win. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I can’t imagine.” — Tammy Pescatelli (56:52)

Notable Recent Scam:

• Tammy tells how she and others were caught up in a Ponzi-like scheme at the "Sherri Shepherd Show", eventually leading to the accountant’s suicide after stealing millions.

“Turns out he wasn’t paying the hairdresser, and he wasn’t paying the...he kind of Ponzi schemed...and then he killed himself.” — Tammy Pescatelli (60:34, condensed)

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7. Gendered Endings: Fraud, Shame, and Life After Scandal

• The panel discusses how, when fraud schemes unravel, men in particular often choose suicide as an escape from shame and legal consequences, while women tend to seek other solutions, sometimes even attracting new partners post-crime.
• They close with thoughts on why women (including infamous criminals) garner public interest and even marriage proposals in prison.

“If you are single and you’re lonely, commit a crime and go to jail and there’ll be someone who wants to date you...ask the Menendez brothers.” — Tammy Pescatelli (66:50)

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Memorable Quotes by Timestamp

• On Vince Champ’s deception and danger:

  “He would go to the music room...he had done 34 rapes." — Tammy (11:03, 11:41)

• On survivor's guilt and aftermath:

  “I was devastated that this poor woman saved my life...that rapey urge wouldn't have went anywhere if he hadn't found a victim there.” — Tammy (11:03-11:41)

• On the investigative breakthrough:

  “They were one of the very first cases that ever used DNA for this specific purpose.” — Tammy (13:42)

• On the culture of silence:

  “I was just super grateful to her to even indulge my call.” — Tammy (18:39)

• On the industry’s lack of transparency for women:

  “I found out...I had more credits and more specials...I was still only making 50 cents on the dollar.” — Tammy (22:11)

• On audience safety for female comics:

  “Comedy condos were really unsafe for women back then...even in a five star hotel room, I sleep with an iron next to my bed.” — Tammy (38:48)

• On the “Evil Genius” case:

  “And Bill used to come see me and speak in Italian...I know who set up Brian, the pizza guy…” — Tammy (46:00)

• On financial betrayal:

  “Dane let his brother be his accountant, and he stole his money…It’s the beauty of artists, they can go back out.” — Tammy (62:27)

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Notable Episode Timestamps

• 02:26 — Explaining the comedy condo ecosystem
• 04:53–11:41 — Tammy’s experience with Vince Champ; survivor’s guilt and industry insights
• 13:42 — The role of DNA evidence and the detective’s breakthrough
• 18:01 — Champ’s tactics and how his voice misled investigators
• 22:11 — Discussion on gender pay disparities in comedy
• 36:10–40:28 — Personal dangerous encounters and the risks for female comics in the condo system
• 42:20–53:04 — Evil Genius: pizza bomber heist, overlap with comedy world, local narratives
• 56:28 — Celebrities and manager fraud: Billy Joel, Margaret Cho, Alanis Morissette, Dane Cook
• 57:07–60:42 — Tammy’s check fraud story at Sherri Shepherd’s show
• 63:14–66:49 — Why men and women react differently to embarrassment and downfall via fraud

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Resources & Where to Find Tammy

• Podcast: The Cop and the Comedian
• Instagram: @TammyPescatelli
• Tour Dates: Check Pescatelli.com for live shows

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This episode is a must-listen for fans of true crime, stand-up comedy, and behind-the-scenes tales from the entertainment world—balancing dark revelations with dark humor, personal courage, and industry wisdom.

Transcript

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Sa.

[Laura]

Hello and welcome to Juicy Crimes. I have a very good friend of mine who also has a crime podcast, but you might remember her from the many times she's been on Juicy Scoop. We've been on the road together. The hilarious Tammy Pascatelli.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Hello, my beautiful friend.

[Laura]

And I'm so glad that you're here because I definitely want to talk about your. So you have a great podcast called the Cop and the Comedian.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And.

[Laura]

And one of your juicy crimes on your podcast, which I think is very juicy, that is standup related.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes.

[Laura]

Is about a male standup who is now doing a lot of time.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes.

[Laura]

Hopefully life for a very heinous crime. So let's get into it. Tell me a little bit about how you met this person. And.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Okay, so this is actually this story. Story was the onus for us doing the Cop and the comedian.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Because I was talking to my best friend about it. Oh, let me just start the story. The story is, is there was a. A very, very famous comedian in the late 90s, the winner of Star Search, a guy named Vincent Champ. Not Vincent V I N S O N Champ. He was an African American man, very good looking, super funny. And one of the things that he would talk about is that his voice didn't sound African American to whatever, you know, stereotypes were popular back then. And he was just a really, just really charming and funny. And everybody loved this guy. And he was killing it. He was traveling all over the country and he was playing all these huge colleges. Well, one of the things in Stand up, as you know, is, is that comedy condos kind of ruled the day back then. If you aren't a big, huge comedian, you don't get a hotel. There's a headliner and a feature act and an emcee. And we live in condos.

[Laura]

And so just to explain, it's like the club will oftentimes own another. A condo.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

That's right. An Airbnb thing nowadays. Right.

[Laura]

But they, like, own it. So, you know, you have the choice to, like, stay there, which is covered, but then you might be sharing the place with an opener with a, you know, or you're the feature or whatever. Or if you don't want to stay at the comedy condo, then they'll give you like, a small fee to, like, go to a hotel.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

They didn't do that for, for feature acts or, or MCs back. Okay, maybe headliners. And not even all the headliners back then in the 90s, you had to be huge to really stay in a hotel. Everybody stayed in the condos, even some of the. Some of the bigger names, you'd be shocked, like so. But we would show up and it was really kind of a neat commune, for lack of better term. For a week you hung out with these people. You had camaraderie. We did shows Tuesday through Sunday. And one of the things was, is that I was a Midwest, I'm from Cleveland. When I was on the road, I didn't always get to come back to Cleveland. Cause it was seven or eight hours. So you would stay in the condo the extra day Monday. And it's just an apartment. It wasn't anything fancy. You'd stay Monday, maybe go to the next place on Tuesday. Well, a lot of comedians could show up at the same place. And that was always kind of fun days off where you'd meet and you didn't even know if you were going to meet because there was only just the condo phone.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

You know what I mean? There was no Internet communication, so. And it's not up to me who stays. It's not my. My place. I'm lucky that I'm staying in a condo. I had played the Omaha Funny Bone and I was staying, staying there. And on Monday morning, I had nothing to do, was moving on to Des Moines. On Tuesday, the door opens and there's Vincent Champ. Vince Champ. Now I recognize him. He said, oh, I didn't know another comedian was saying. I said, well, yeah, I'm just staying today. I'm leaving tomorrow. He said, oh, well, I have a college to do tonight. I said, oh, okay. Well, I'm going to the gym. And I went to the gym. And then I came back and I did. I think he was there. I saw him one more time. I was leaving to go see a movie by myself. And he was going to his gig. He actually played a college in Lincoln, Nebraska. And while he was there that night, he performed a heinous crime on a woman. I don't know how we can say this.

[Laura]

We can say crimes.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

We can say, yeah, well, he raped a woman. One of the many times that he apparently had been doing this. But that night he did what he did to this woman. And then apparently he came back to the condo and I slept in the room next to him. Now, I don't know that I didn't see him. I didn't hear him. I was in bed. I didn't even hear a door slam. I got up the next morning and I left. So I won't. I don't know that this crime actually happened until months later. I see him again and another place called the Quad Cities. It's Moline, Illinois, Davenport, Iowa. And I'm playing the club and he's playing a college, and he shows up at the condo. What are the odds? But I'm leaving that day. That day, thank God. I was leaving, and I said, oh, well, nice to see you again. And I left. Cut to four months later. I'm on stage, and this comedy club owner comes to me and says, come here. He's waiting on the side of the stage, and I'm afraid now that he's. It's my act, because you know how they treated us like. They treated us as if we were like prop acts back then. And this is a guy who notoriously, would say to you, like, the first time I worked for me, said, do you want to be paid in cash or coke? And I was like, I like Pepsi. Like, I'm a good Catholic girl.

[Laura]

I don't know.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

These. Offer me drugs. I had no idea. And he. He later went on and did time himself.

[Laura]

He did? For what?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

For drugs?

[Laura]

For the comedy owner?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, yeah, for drugs.

[Laura]

And what year is this again?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

90, 96. 97. Around those times.

[Laura]

So you're like, mid-20s?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 26, 27. Still believing that you get what you put in, you know, that nice people are nice people and, you know, it's okay. Like, still hopeful. And, yeah, I said what? He said to me. He goes, cops are here to talk to you. Now, I thought it was a joke because Sopranos was huge at the time. People would always give me as an Italian, hey, the FBI wants to talk to you. Whatever, you know what I mean? Or something. I go, yeah, yeah. He goes, no, look. And there were, like, two people sitting at the bar, like, waiting for me. Like suits, right? I walked over and they said, we'd really like to talk to you. They flashed me their badges, and they were truly law enforcement. And they said, we'd like to talk to you. Would you mind sitting with us? And the guy said, well, the club is closing. Why don't you go with them? Which, by the way, now I know is one of the worst things that you should ever do. You should never leave and go with the cops to their place because now you're. You know. But I. I go, what do you mean?

[Laura]

Because then you're what?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, then you're vulnerable. Like, just if someone's going to interrogate you over something, ask you a couple questions, cop offers, they're your friends, okay, for the most part, as long as you haven't done anything wrong. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, but I didn't know what this was about.

[Laura]

Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I should have just sat in the office at the comedy club and spoke to them, not went by myself down to.

[Laura]

So you go in the back of the cop car?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

No, I drove myself, but I ended up in their building in their interrogation room or whatever.

[Laura]

I still don't know what it's about.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I don't know what it's about.

[Laura]

Okay.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So finally I get in, and I'm nervous, like, I don't know what it's about. And they said, your boyfriend. They literally just go. Like, this guy pushes back and he goes, your boyfriend is a rapist. And I was like, what? He goes, he's a rapist, and you know it, and you're sick. And I was like. And then I was dating a guy who was a horrible guy. He cheated on. Like, I knew he was cheating on me. I had that sick, twisted feeling. And I found out later he was cheating on me, But I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't catch him because I was on the road, you know, so I could. And I thought. Oh. And I started to just hysterically cry. I go, I thought he was cheating on me, but I didn't know he was a rapist. But it truly. I was thinking my boyfriend. Then they shoved the picture of Vince Champ at me. I said, wait, that's not my boyfriend. And they were like, what? Sure, it's not. I go, it's not my boyfriend. They're like, well, why would you stay with him in Omaha? And why would you stay? And why were you at the condo and the quads? And I was like, what? That's. This is comedy. Like, we stay in these places. This is what we do. So they had no idea that that was the way that the comedy circuit worked, that you got kind of on a circuit that you went around that. That, that. But Vince apparently did not have permission to be staying in the condos that.

[Laura]

Night because it was earlier than his gig started.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, he wasn't supposed to be. He was at the colleges. The colleges should have put him up. But he was so smart, because if he had, the college usually would put you up at a hotel. Yeah, he didn't want anybody to track him. So he knew that the comedy condos were borderline flop houses on some of those off days. So he went there so they couldn't trace him. So I actually, after a couple hours, and they had to confirm it with one of the bookers. A woman named Sarah Nye who not only started my comedy career, I used to book all the improvs, but she literally feel like she saved me that night from. He had, he had done something to that woman. He had raped that woman. And he was a violent rapist with a knife. So then from that point on.

[Laura]

You mean like held a knife to her throat?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes. He would do these things. He'd go to the music room while they were playing the piano at the school or whatever. And at the, at the college he would do a show and then he would sneak over to the music whatever the places that they, you know, and he. While they were busy and their backs were turned, he would sneak in the other thing about him.

[Laura]

And then what? Wait till one girl was left, the last one closing.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

He would find somebody. There was always someone in a conservatory waiting. I mean this is. He got three or four of them like that waiting. Wow. Yeah. And this is two part because for number one, not to make it about me, but I was devastated that this poor woman saved my life because they told me at the time that he would have killed me because those feelings, those urges that those people have don't go away. And you were right there. And he would have had to kill.

[Laura]

You because if you had known.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, no, if he would have raped, he would have come to me. If she, she was the sacrifice basically that saved my life. Because that rapey urge wouldn't have went anywhere if he wouldn't have found a victim there. He had one in the condo waiting. So I was hysterical for a number of years and silent and didn't then became like this crazy tough person carrying weapons, looking for, you know, taking Krav Maga and really going crazy to protect myself. They ended up putting. Because of. Partially because of the interview that I did and explaining it and then some amazing detective work back then because they didn't have. They communicated with. With fax machines, these different police detectives and put this story together that he had done 34 rapes. They interrogated him because he lived out in Los Angeles. He had a 17 year old girlfriend.

[Laura]

And how old was he at the time?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

34 or 36. He had beat her up and her parents called the police.

[Laura]

The girlfriend.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

The girlfriend. She was actually the underage girlfriend. And then it. He got into the police station in the system and they were able to find him through that. But they let him out walk out of the police station the first time they spoke to him. And he went on a cruise.

[Laura]

Did you stand up on the cruise?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Entertained on the cruise. And when they're put. Then they start putting this whole case together, and they can't find him because he's out for whatever extended. You got to remember. Remember how you couldn't communicate very well in the late 90s. So all these things. So they finally. He got off the cruise in New Jersey somewhere, and they picked him up. And then he was convicted. And he's serving like.

[Laura]

So they had DNA.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

They were one of the very first cases that ever used DNA for this specific purpose.

[Laura]

So had he not attacked his girlfriend and been arrested, if he had a complete clean record and they had his DNA from the victims, then they wouldn't have been able to find him. Yes, because if you're not in the system, especially back then.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, and also this one fabulous detective out of Wisconsin, this woman who, like, you have to look at the dynamic of this. This was a female detective in the late 90s who put this together of all of these places. Once we got the condo story, then she started looking, okay, was there a comedian at the campus that night? Was there a comedy club around? And she started putting all the dots, connecting the dots. And then that's what put that together and then circling around. Sometimes he'd be at one campus, and you know how colleges sometimes are next to each other. He'd go to another. He did the same thing the night that I wasn't staying with him. But in the Quad Cities, he attended attempted to rape one woman at one campus. He failed. He went and got another one. I mean, it just was a cluster of this guy just going so far and really being just a heinous, heinous human being. Now, when they convicted him, his convictions were not. They. They did a really good thing. They did not make them consecutively. Now, we see that a lot. Someone gets convicted of a crime, they. They do their. Their sentences consecutively. So they really don't end up doing that much time. They did not put it that way. Each state, Iowa, convicted him, Wisconsin convicted him, and he did 17 years in one. And so this guy is supposed to not get out at all. He did come up from parole because he was like a model. A model.

[Laura]

I wonder if he's, like, teaching, like, improv and comedy classes there.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Teaching. He's not teaching stand up. He's teaching public speaking to these guys. He got his degree. He's fooling everybody. But his first time up for parole, the woman. And this is how it all comes full circle for me. The woman that he actually assaulted and pulled the crime on in Lincoln Nebraska did an article. She talked to a reporter and a first person perspective about what happened to her to keep him in. And somehow it's come up on my, you know, he's on my Google search because I want to know if this guy comes out because I'm sure he's not happy with me.

[Laura]

Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And literally I found her name and I called her because usually they don't give the names. All those years and we're talking about the difference between 1998 and 2000 and I think 14. I reached out to her and I said, you saved my life. Like you don't. I'm so sorry that you went through all that. And she went through a lot. She said she couldn't sleep.

[Laura]

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[Tammy Pescatelli]

He would come up from behind. He'd hold, he'd tell them that he had a knife. Sometimes he actually, they actually felt the knife, sometimes they didn't. He would come up behind, from behind. He affected a white male voice for the time. I mean these are tricky topics to talk about now, but we're talking about, this is how you can go to the testimony. It's literally this is what they said. And they were looking for a white male in all of the other assaults and rapes and she was the one who actually saw a little piece of his wrist to be able to tell that he was definitely a darker skinned man.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So she, she said that she had to sleep, her father had to sleep. At her house for the next six years. It took her six years for her to be able to sleep well. And I mean, I was just super grateful to her to even indulge my call.

[Laura]

But I also. Right when it happened, she went right to the police.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And all of them did. But they couldn't connect it.

[Laura]

Right?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

All of them did. They all reported it. That was the. Also the saving grace.

[Laura]

So they understood that there was a similarity between these crimes.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes. This is. I mean, this woman, I tell you, I wish I ran a studio. I wish I had the money to buy rights to this woman. The detectives story. But she really went through. And there had been the assault in Wisconsin. And she was like, huh, this is weird. On a college campus. Let me see if there's been any other thing in the local college campus. And you know, if you know anything about geography, they all, all those midwesty states sit on top of each other.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And that's what he did. He just cultivated that whole little area.

[Laura]

What's crazy is that right around that same time, I remember I had this agent and they're like, you know, you should go to this. It was for the Northwest, like naca. Naca. And it was. Yeah, so that area to go to this like festival or whatever, and you're gonna do your standup and then these buyers from all the schools will book you.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes. And national association of Collegiate Activities.

[Laura]

Right. Okay, So I only got a couple people a couple bites. I really didn't get like a ton. Cause I don't know, it just wasn't that I. It wasn't that good. And also I think that I was thinking, like, your act has to apply to the college. It has to be very like college kid life stories. Which really isn't the case. You just have to be funny, you know, like, you just have to be funny. And even when I got older, they laughed the hardest at like my mom's stuff. They didn't, you know, because they're young. And the people that go to that stuff are a little probably younger on the scale because they've got nothing to do. And they're like, oh, there's a comedian tonight. You know. But just like when I've spoken in colleges and stuff, they're kind of like, it's not a great audience.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Right.

[Laura]

They're young, they're like. They don't know what they're doing. They're like awkward, whatever. So I, you know, so that. What I'm saying is he must have gone through that channel for the Midwest.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

He stood there you do the. At those performances where they. Where you're performing to be bought by all these programmers. Because every college has a student activities fee built in. Right. To their.

[Laura]

To them, and they have to spend the money. So if you can do colleges, at least it was in our day, it's very profitable.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I loved them. They worked out really well for me.

[Laura]

And he had a great thing going, like, because he would do the college and then the club. That's like, very smart.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And he won. I think it was $250,000 for the late 90s or for the Star Search show. Star Search. Even if it was 100, I can't remember. I can't remember what he won. So he made that, and he was making money each night. He committed these crimes. That's the other thing that just twisted my. Because as women, we have fought so hard to be paid equally in comedy. And it's really. I'm telling you, back then, there was no. It was a huge disparity. I didn't know how bad it was. I had no idea until recently how bad it was until the pandemic when I actually started talking with some of the guys and finally said, well, what do you make? Because they don't tell us. So they can keep us down. Not just women, but, like, it's not open. Yeah, your fees are not an open. Because there's such a sliding scale. Right, Right. But I found out that when I did, I did had more credits and more specials, more of this than most of the guys. I was still only making 50 cents on the dollar. So the fact that this guy was going. Getting paid a huge dollar amount to perform at a college, then assaulting a female, it was just. He just had a complete hatred. And if you listen to his act, he had a complete disregard for law enforcement. He was basically taunting people. I'm telling you, it's a movie. It's a movie that we should produce. Maybe we could produce this. This is our Lifetime movie. But literally, he was taunting law enforcement. He was using the same voice that he used. That was one of his biggest downfalls is the few women that were musical, whether I. One was a professor, one was a student, one. They had amazing ears, so they could hear his voice. So the tone of his voice. They had to identify in court. And they used his standup when he would make that character of a white man that he. And they were like, that's it. That's the voice. And they identified him by that voice, you know, long before they ever got to court.

[Laura]

Do you Know if he had, like, a proper defense attorney that tried to say that he was innocent or was it a plea deal? Do you know any of that?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, there's no plea deals. I know that. I don't know. I'm sure he had a defense attorney, but, I mean, he was nailed. He literally went from one state to the next state to the next state. And they. And they went through the court cases.

[Laura]

And did they ever find out, like. Or did you. Like, when was the first time, like, where does that. You know, I always feel like that is, you know, a gateway. You know, when you follow these type of horrible men, it starts out, you know, maybe they're peeping Toms. Then they sneak in the house and, like, steal the underwear.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

Then they start, you know, assaulting the women. Then it leads to kidnapping or murder or whatever. And so here he got a younger girl. Like, I'm just so curious about that. Like, what. When did he realize, oh, I could do this if I. Because he put a thing over his face. Right, Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, everywhere. To be honest, Laura, my partner on the show and actually the real police officer, really did some digging trying to figure out. And he had no criminal record from before. Nothing. And I on the other end, like, I'm more the social person on our podcast. So I was digging to see if I could figure out anything with his family.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And here was the weird thing. He has family. Early on it, like, you could find that there was a father, a mother, and a brother and a sister, but nothing. And the funny part about that is they weren't even around when he won the money. So. And you know how that goes. Like celebrity and fame and money brings relatives out of the woodwork. Like you have. If you have $5 on television, there's a relative somewhere trying to get 15. Like, so he literally. We couldn't find anything on him. So maybe they knew, like me. You know, sometimes the families know more than, I don't know, that they knew that he went to this level, but maybe he did weirdo stuff and it was like weirdo events. And we want to. The father was like a military guy. They had moved around. There was no. Really. No one kept tabs on this guy. I mean, the fact that he was dating a 17 year old, it sounds horrific. Nowadays, I think the people look the other way because at the same time, Jerry Seinfeld was dating Shoshana and going to her prom. So. So I don't know. I mean, we.

[Laura]

That I noticed, has been being brought up a lot more in on TikTok and whatnot. And it's crazy. It is crazy that that happened. That he. Not only was he dating a girl that he met. Allegedly is how they met. It's not alleged that they were dating, you know, allegedly. It was, oh, they dated when she turned 18. Okay. But the story that got out there was that she was a senior in high school when they met. Like he met her on a park bench or something. That's what I remember. And then they started dating. And it was not a secret that he had an 18 year old girlfriend when he was 38 while doing Seinfeld.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

Like, she was on the red carpets with him and going. And she really was, you know, so pretty. Unique name, gorgeous, big boobs, big fluffy hair.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Designer of underwear. Right. Didn't she do lingerie?

[Laura]

Yeah, but I think back then people were like, well, she's over 18, so who cares? Like, we weren't sophisticated enough to go, Whoa, 17, 18, 20. This is too young to. Why is a man that's 20 years older than you interested in you when he is like the star of a show? Like, he knows what he's doing and the grooming and everything.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

We also left it to her family be like, well, not my daughter, but I mean, if that's what you want to do, like, you know what I mean? I think that's kind of where we were more autonomous in the family unit. Whereas.

[Laura]

And I don't even know if the roles were reversed. If I was like, if my parents were like fans of his comedy and I was 18 at the time and I was like, mom, you'll never believe who I met last night. And he asked me out and I'm like a freshman at USC or something. I think they would have been like, this is so exciting. I don't think they would have been like, my brother. Absolutely not. This is wrong. Cause I mean, because of that, she had a great, you know, I mean, it seemed to be that she got to be a designer. She got all to meet all these people. I don't know where she is today.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

We didn't understand imbalance of power. Right.

[Laura]

That's what I'm saying.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

We really didn't even. You have to think back to the time we knew it. I think we knew it. That's why this generation, our generation of women, we felt it was wrong. We understood the imbalance of power. We just had no voice to speak to it. And I think.

[Laura]

But I mean, I remember like being dating an older guy and you, you know, they always tell you, you're so mature. You're so bright for your age. And to a young, to a young woman, that is pretty. You love to hear that you're not just pretty.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

You love to hear that you're mature, that you're smart, that you could hang, that you have great conversation. So it's like that is a way that they kind of get you.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, they don't see you.

[Laura]

And nothing bad, I mean, in her defense and his, you know, nothing bad happened. She just, she moved on and they broke up. And then, and then when he met his current wife. That's also a juicy story. She had a what I recall she.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Had a big wedding just a month before. Right.

[Laura]

Or so like two weeks before, like literally had a big wedding, came home from her honeymoon, met him at the gym and hit it off and left her husband of like a month to date him. But then again, in both of their defense, they've been together 25 years.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah. Not a crime at all.

[Laura]

They have three grown kids.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Wonderful.

[Laura]

Maybe it was real love and maybe she did go, maybe she didn't ever want to walk down the aisle with the first husband. But it was a big Jewish wedding and a whole big thing and they're in New York City. And then when she met him, it just was too much and she's like, well, I'm not going. You know, I'm going to do what.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I want to do. Yeah, but it's funny. So that's. Yeah, we just didn't understand about like. So when we say that Vince was with a 17 year old, it just was more the norm of the time.

[Laura]

Was he. You said, was it out here? He was living in la.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

He was living. Yeah.

[Laura]

So his base was la.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Burbank.

[Laura]

Really Trying to make it okay.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Burbank, Riverside in Burbank.

[Laura]

Yeah. Probably going out on pilot auditions and everything else.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah. Living life, treating. See, the thing is, when people say. How was your interaction with him at the condo? He was really kind of rude to me. He was very dismissive of me. But I didn't take it that he was arrogant and maybe trying to hold things or didn't like women. I took it that he didn't like female comics because I had been treated so poorly by so many in the industry. So I just took it like, oh, he thinks I'm just gonna.

[Laura]

Chicks aren't funny.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah. I'm like a magician. I'm gonna. Or whatever it is that I am. I'm a prop act. So.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So I just, I was so used to being treated poorly. I Didn't think that. How dismissive he was, which thank God he was, because. And I. Thank God I didn't care. There have been times in my life when people have been dismissive of me and I was like, please like me. Let's find. I'll find it. Let's find common ground. I'm a great person. You got to know me. Thank God I was a little bit more strong. You know, If I'd have met him at 17, 18, maybe I'd have been that way. But by 26, 27, well, the only.

[Laura]

Time that something really weird like that happened to me, I never did the condo, the comedy condos, because I didn't really start going on the road until I was already, like, an established name.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Right.

[Laura]

So I however, like, except for, like, one week in Vegas where I stayed at Harrah's and did that improv, and, like, I didn't really do, like, a lot of, like, long gigs like that.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

But when you're in la, you were in la.

[Laura]

But when we talk about it, I'm like, wow, yeah, you would have really gotten good if you're doing Tuesday to Sunday. Like, that's a lot of success.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Three shows on a Saturday.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I mean. And like, for someone like me, it's so weird because you started where most people end. I started in open mic Cleveland, in you work your way up to be a regular, to be an emcee, house emcee. Then somebody wants to take you on the road. So you're an emcee all over the country at these, you know, these comedy clubs, gig after gig after gig. And you don't go home for months at a time, really, because you can't financially afford it because they don't pay you much.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

You know, and then you work your way up, and then you're a feature, because now you got a half hour, so make a little bit more so you feel like, oh, I'm really balling. And then I didn't move to Los Angeles till I was already an established headliner. So it's just so much, just a different thing.

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[Tammy Pescatelli]

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[Laura]

My crazy condo story is I never, I never really stayed at the condos. I stayed at the ones, the one in Denver, beautiful condo owned by Wendy. That was the only one that I would.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

We love Wendy.

[Laura]

And so but then they said, oh, they redid the condo at La Jolla Comedy Store. And it's like right on the beach. And I had a opener coming with me. Her name's Christine Letterman. And I was like, oh cool, let's do that. I don't want to pay for a hotel. We have two rooms, kitchen in between, living room. Great. And we were doing a couple nights, like a full weekend. So anyway, the last night of it, I said good night to her. She was going to have to leave early in the morning because she had to fly back to Denver. And I was just like laying on my bed and the door was like, like I'm laying on my stomach and the door to my room, you know, is to the. Opens up to the living room area and then right is the front door. And I heard like the front door shut. And I was like, that's weird. And I saw like a light go on. And then, and I remember going, something told me like, God, it's nothing. Don't say anything. Don't say anything. And I was like, I should probably call out to Christine. Like, what is she doing? Like, why she wouldn't like, put her suitcase outside? Like, why, even if she was putting her bag in the living room, why was she, like, shutting the main front door? Which, that's what it sounds like, but I told myself, oh, it just must have been her door or whatever. And I go to bed and the next morning she's gone. And she. As I'm driving home from San Diego, she calls me and she's now home, and she goes, did you, like, go out the front door in the middle of the night or something? And I'm like, oh, my God, no, that wasn't you. You didn't. After we said goodnight, I. I go, did you ever go outside of your room? And she said, no. And I go, neither did I. I go. So we start talking and we realize that somebody that either had the key or the code or whatever, you know, they're supposed to change the code every week, but maybe they didn't because, you know, oh, this is the code to get in the condo like you would in Airbnb. Somebody must have come in and either they needed to crash there, maybe they didn't realize we were staying there, or maybe they came for something far more sinister. I don't know. I don't know. But I was like, oh, my God. So then I started thinking, what if. Like, what if I heard something? And I'm like, what are you doing? And I opened the door and saw the guy. And we think it could have been this guy that was kind of flirty with her.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Oh, my.

[Laura]

That said, what are you doing after? Because there's open mics that you can go to after. And she's. And you can go with me. And he was like a waiter that was also trying to do stand or doing stand up. And I'm like, do you think it was him? Or is it somebody that works there that needed a place to crash, saw our bags and things and then was like, oh, yeah, they're here. And then left. Either way, whatever the intention was, my mind starts to go and I'm like, oh, my God. What if one of us was like, what the fuck are you doing? And then the guy, who's obviously not obviously, but what if he wasn't right in the brain and instead of being like, oh, my God, don't tell anybody I didn't know anyone was staying here, I'm leaving, or whatever, what if he panicked and then. Yeah, and panics and then tries to kill you, and then I'm like, what if you had heard what was going on? Like, what would you. Then we talked about it. Then we're like, what would you have done if you heard a struggle or something? Would you have the wherewithal to like kind of like the Idaho murderers? Would you have the wherewithal to stay quiet in your room or go out the window or like what?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I don't know. I think that there's never a right answer. I've learned that from Laura who Police officer of all those years. There's never a right answer. You have to figure out what is worth. I'm a fighter. I will always fight. Um, I think ever since that night, for me it really changed my perspective. I'm always looking for an exit, a weapon. Even in a hotel room. Even in the five star hotel room. I sleep with an iron next to my bed. So if someone comes, I can at least grab it and hit them. All you need to do is try to create space. That's what you need to do. You don't need. You don't have to take someone down. You just have to try to create as much possible space. But sometimes you can't. Sometimes you just have to figure out what works. I think the condos were really unsafe for women back then. They were unsafe for guys quite frankly to. I don't know that they faced the same problems that we faced. But there were a lot of condos that I went to that they didn't have keys that, that literally they would announce on stage, oh, the comics are staying at the, you know, at the, the downtown apartments and you know, the be. So then everybody would know that the comics are gonna be gone from 7 till 10 o'. Clock. So you can go in also. Some of the comics go in and what. And you could go in and rob them, wait for them, whatever, break in, do whatever. Some of the comics I stayed with, quite frankly. There's a famous story of. I love my sweet Mitch Hedberg. He was a great guy, but also known as a well known drug addict. And Mitch would. I'd go on the road with Mitch quite a bit. He was super to me and like a, like a brother when he was clear and. But he was known to. He had a community. People would stay with him and, and you know, I'm straight laced, whatever.

[Laura]

Did he stay from that. From the people they met at the comedy club or. He'd bring people along, they just kind.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Of show up and they're. I don't know whether they meant to meet him there. He met him, he knew him. But like they're. Because of the guy on the couch because of the drug yeah, there was always like a guy on the couch in that, like, in like. You know how there's always some like high person, but like you and he. One night they had a kind of a party and I was like, okay, I'm gonna stay. And I was really lucky cause I had made friends with one of the waitresses. So I was like, can I come stay at your apartment? And I stayed because they had a big party and there were girls and strippers and stripper at the house is a hooker and whatever. And not for Mitch, but the people that were with him. And I came back and my entire suitcase was gone. Everything. Not just like a shirt or two, my entire suitcase. And I was devastated. And he was such a kind hearted person. He gave me like a hundred dollars, which was like a thousand back then, to me to go buy some clothes. But the very next night, this guy shows up and he had on. I had this really cute T shirt from a cheer camp that I had taken in college. And it said. It said, whatever, cheer camp, whatever. And this guy had on. And I go, that's unbelievable. How he. That's my shirt. He stole my. And that's my cheer shirt. And he goes, that is unbelievable. He goes, I can't believe he went to cheerleading camp.

[Laura]

And then you weren't gonna ask for it back.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, no, I don't want.

[Laura]

Oh, my God. Okay. Crazy. All right, we also. I also want to talk about. This is a. This is a crime that you may remember. It was very publicized. It was a Netflix doc, very well received doc called Evil Genius.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes.

[Laura]

The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist. And this is to remind you guys, this was where this guy had a bomb collar and he was just a pizza delivery man. And it was like, you need to give me this money. Otherwise, what was the.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So the story is this happened in 2004. And full disclosure, before we get started, started the weirdest thing for me, I now live 40 minutes and go to this. These exact places on a regular basis where this crime happened. But at the time in 2004, I was living out here in Los Angeles. And what happened was, is there was a gentleman named Brian who was a pizza delivery driver. He literally was working at this pizzeria. He got a phone call. He didn't thank the guy who owned the pizzeria, didn't understand it and handed the phone to Brian. Completely happenstance. He takes the phone, they gets the order, goes to deliver it. And it's an address that he's never Seen before. And it turns out it's like in this field by a radio tower, and there are people there, and there's a car. Now he says, this is what Brian had said.

[Laura]

The pizza guy?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes, the pizza guy. That four African American men jumped him, put the collar on him, and said, it's a bomb. Go rob this bank. And when you're done with that, you have to go get another clue at McDonald's that'll tell you how to take the collar off, and then we'll. We'll get in touch with you and get the money from you. So he goes to the bank, he asks for $200,000, whatever. It's like an exorbitant amount of money. Lady only has $8,700 on her that she can get him to tell her he gets it. She clearly alerts that she's getting robbed by bank, and he's, like, taking his time. Meanwhile, they handed him also a cane that had a gun in it. So, like, it's like this long cane, and it has a gun like a. It looks like some kind of prop from a 1930s film. He walks out in the parking lot with his $8,700. And they said he seemed kind of like he was cool. He wasn't panicked or whatever. And the cops are there, and they're surrounding him, and he's like, this is a bomb. I can't. This is a bomb. And they're like, sit down. And, you know, he goes, no, I gotta go to McDonald's. Which is. If you look at the street, McDonald's is about, I don't even know, like, point two miles away. It's two shopping centers over. He's like, I gotta go over there. My other clue so I can get this bomb off. And he starts freaking out. They then realize that it has to be true, that it's a bomb, but they're not letting him go to McDonald's. And no one goes over to investigate the McDonald's clue, as far as I know. So he's just.

[Laura]

And they don't want to be too.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Close, so they're surrounding right him with cars. And he's sitting in the ground in the parking lot at Eyeglass World. And sure enough, boom. The bomb explodes, and Brian dies. And it's like, it's this crazy, crazy story. So they're trying to figure out, wait a second, who did this to this guy? Is this true? And it goes unsolved for a long time. And then one day, this guy, his name was William Rothstein. Now, right? I Knew him as Bill.

[Laura]

Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Because Bill was a huge comedy fan. And Bill used to come to the comedy club. It's now called Keller's Comedy and Mag or Mad Magic and Keller's Magic and Comedy. Which I'll be there December 5th. But Bill used to come to the club when it was called Juniors. And Bill was a massive man, six five, huge, grizzly Adams long beard, would wear overalls like Rob from Love island with just like a tank top. But he was a genius. Everybody kept saying that this guy Bill was a genius. He was like this weirdo professor who didn't work anymore, hoarder, but spoke five languages and would come see. He loved comedy. He would come see me and speak to me in Italian and bring me loaves of bread. Well, Bill happens to call the police and tells the police, I know who set up Brian, the pizza guy. Pizza guy? The pizza bomber. It was this woman, Mark. What's her name? Marjorie.

[Laura]

Her name is. Hold on. It said who did. Wait, hold on, let me just. Wait, hold on. Let me just see where it was real life. People in the middle were, okay, evil genius. Where Brian Wells, the pizza delivery man who died from the collarbone, and his alleged mastermind, Marjorie Del Armstrong.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, I know who was behind the whole pizza bomber thing. It's this woman named Marjorie. We used to date years ago, but right now I have her ex boyfriend in my freezer because she killed him. And this whole thing just starts to unravel. And apparently Marjorie had this. This just crazy life of these men would follow her and do everything for her. And she felt like she had been left out of her father's will. So she hired this one guy to go try to kill her father. And that didn't happen. And then she killed. That was the boyfriend that killed. Not by this time. Okay, no, she wasn't. But apparently she did something to these men. She had. You know, you ever see those women that you're like, oh my God, they just have this something about them. And she was a brilliant evil genius. She was brilliant and so was Bill. And she and Bill stayed in touch for evil crimes. She realized that her father wasn't going to leave her money and she couldn't kill him to get the money. So she figured she needed a patsy to rob a bank for her. She thought robbing a bank would be a smart way, but she clearly can't rob a bank.

[Laura]

So then Marjorie and Bill the comedy fan came up with the scheme to just get some random pizza guy to rob the bank.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Now Bill came up supposedly with the idea to make the bomb. But Bill dies of cancer. So we don't know. Like he says, yeah, I made it, but I didn't put it on him. That was all Marjorie. That was all. I didn't know she was doing that. I. I know she wanted rob a bank, but then he dies. So then they start looking at her current boyfriend. And Marjorie's current boyfriend frequented a prostitute who free. Whose other client was this guy, the pizza delivery guy. And she said, the prostitute says that Marjorie current boyfriend said, we need a patsy. We need a guy who will do this for us. Who can you think of who will be. Who would do this for us? Who's slow in the head, but maybe would like. And I don't mean like a. Like, I don't mean to a disability.

[Laura]

Just like simpleton. Like a simple word.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, great word. And needs the money, but won't try to grab all the money. Won't try to bribe us afterwards.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So the prostitute says, what about this pizza delivery guy I know, Brian. Allegedly. This is all allegedly, because then the second boyfriend dies of cancer. Okay, so he's not able to testify against Marjorie. But apparently Brian, supposedly the pizza man. Yes, the guy who died. So now we're not three people. We are dead. The pizza delivery guy died, blew up. Bill dies of cancer after he dimes my Marjorie. And now Marjorie's second boyfriend dies of cancer. Okay, I mean, these are real things. But they say that Brian was allegedly telling people. Oh, yeah, I know them. We hang out all the time. We're doing this. This is a story we made up. I'm going to help them, Rob. But he did not know that it was a real bomb. He was so simple that they told.

[Laura]

The pizza guy didn't know.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yes. The pizza guy did not know that there were people because he was gonna.

[Laura]

Act like a victim. But he was really in on it.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

He supposedly. We never really find out the answer because everybody who is part of the story, with exception of Marjorie, dies of cancer. Marjorie gets time because of the dead guy in Bill's freezer.

[Laura]

And why was her boyfriend in. Why was her ex boyfriend in her other ex boyfriend's freezer?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

She tried to say he committed suicide. That was one of her.

[Laura]

Yeah. Why wouldn't you just say he committed suicide?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, but who's gonna. I mean, that's.

[Laura]

And how do you. Yeah, I guess he was big enough that he could pick up a body and put it in a freezer.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, but even if you could, like, you don't wrap yourself recently.

[Laura]

We were At Costco. And my son said, oh, my God, mom, this is like a freezer for a body.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

That's hysterical.

[Laura]

And I really had never really seen one. I had really never seen one except in a movie, you know, And I understand, Understand people have those big freezers, like, for gaming or whatever you.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I have. We always.

[Laura]

But I've seen it on Sister Wives. Like, you buy one big fucking cow or you save all the meat, or. I don't know. But, like, you know, I've never seen it out here in California except at this Costco. And I was like, oh, my God, you're right. Like, your whole body could fit in there.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Well, so. And now Marjorie's doing time, but it's just putting the story together is so bizarre because there was never.

[Laura]

So wait, when did the guy. The guy was coming to see the comedy stuff, and you knew him.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

And so he was going to the clubs after this thing went down, and.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

The guy's head blew up before, after, during.

[Laura]

And then what made him then go tell the police?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Actually, I guess he got mad at Marjorie. I think he thought that he was going to get back together with her. And it turns out that she went out and got a new boyfriend who actually was also seeing a prostitute at the same time. So he was gonna get back at her and he was gonna tell on her. So that's the problem with this story is the only person left to really tell the truth is Marjorie, and she is an evil genius.

[Laura]

Yeah, Yeah, I remember that story how it was like, you think when you're watching that doc, you think it's something else. Now this is kind of interesting because this is like a Hollywood money story. I had recently on my Juicy Scoop show, a guy that was the financial manager for Alanis Morissette and everything and stole money because he was a gambling addict, but also dealt with drugs, but was like, living this up other life of being like this straight lace, manager of musicians and, you know, doing T ball and all this stuff, but just got wrapped up in this world and stole money from her. And this does happen. Recently there was another agent, actually, Chris Franjola. There was a couple people that were at this agency recently. They looked into him. He's stealing money and not paying people, you know, like kind of like a Billy Joel. Tom, what's the Billy Joel?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Oh, did you see the Billy Joel?

[Laura]

No, I have to watch that. But was it.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So apparently his first wife was his manager. But then as they separate and they. She's like, I don't want to be Your manager anymore. I don't want to be your wife anymore. I can't do this. And she tries to set him up with real managers. And he says to her, I want your brother. She's like, even she said, my brother, like, he's not. Well, I guess the brother Billy's already established. He's already passed the stranger. He's past glass houses. So he's got tons of money. He just really needs an incoming call taker, basically. Right. He's not. You got attorneys to negotiate contracts. You got. So he's really needed the guy that would set up the tours and stuff. And then the tour manager does the day to day, so needed the guy to take the calls. Well, apparently 20 years later or whatever, 15 years later, he's married to Christie Brinkley. And he goes to do. He goes to buy. They would go these places and someone would come up to them and they drove down the coast and they go, oh, don't you own a house over there? He goes, no, I don't. I don't know. That's funny. That's funny. You guys think that I. And. And then they went to the next place and. Oh, my God, don't you. You bought that house. You bought the old place, Plum's house. And she was like, I just thought that was weird. Why does everybody think we own a house on the eastern seaboard? Apparently this guy, the manager, the financial manager. Yeah. But also former brother in law was stealing all of Billy Joel's money and buying these houses. And so when Billy went to buy something, but Billy didn't believe it. He was like, no, I trust him. He went to buy something and he couldn't buy anything. There was something. Whatever it was, it was something little like a. You know what I mean? It's like a car or something. Something for him that was little, you know, for the rest of us, I'm like, well, whatever.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And he realized his, his credit was bad. And it's like, wait, I mean, I'm. I'm 12 albums deep into this.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Billy Joel. I'm Christie Brinkley. Billy Joel.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And he had sold like a lot of money. A lot. They never really say how much, but they say, you know, probably more than half. Like Billy. That's when he started going back out on the road hard and touring, because he was like, he couldn't. That's all he knew how to do is just tour and make it back up.

[Laura]

I mean, that's. It happened to Margaret Cho.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Laura]

Yeah. In her first book she shared about that. She. Or maybe it wasn't in her book. Maybe she told me, but she definitely had a manager. And she just kept doing all these gigs, all these gigs. And the manager was like. Bought a house in Malibu and was like. And, you know, because when you're a creative person, you are, like, good. Yeah, I don't want to worry about all that stuff.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

But you trust, too.

[Laura]

It's like, trust.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, it's symbiotic. If I win, you win. That's how it's supposed to be. I can't imagine.

[Laura]

So now comes to a story that happened with you recently, working at Sherri Shepherd's TV show as a writer. Can you tell what happened there?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, Well, I mean, it happened to a. It's happened before to other people. You don't get a check. You write. You don't get a check. And that's okay. It's not your friend's fault. That's the head of the show. It's a corporation. People are corporations. So my manager calls the accounting department. The accounting department guy named Michael says, oh, we were. We were on vacation. There was a little glitch. We'll get. We'll get out the check. Now we're getting paid every two weeks. So two weeks go by, the next. Oh, my gosh, we sent your check out, but we got it back. Now I live in a small town, and there's. There's two streets by my name. Like, you know what I mean? Like the name. I live on a street that has. There's another exact same street that has the same name. So I'm like, it was like, here in la, there was Rodeo and Rodeo. Remember that? So I'm like, okay, that could have. So now we're a month in, and then the next two weeks go by and there's not another check. And he's like, oh, we're having a banking glitch. Now my manager's talking to the accounting. Who else are you supposed to talk to at this point? And then by. It was two months in, I called the executive producer of the show was a friend, because I didn't want to bother Sherry with it. She is just. She's an amazing person. And I knew she would take it to heart, which she ultimately did, and she made sure that made it right. But I said to the executive producer, I said, I want you to know I'm not getting paid. And she was like, what? And I said, yeah, for two months. She goes, two months? And everybody says, why don't you Tell me. But the thing is, is you don't want to stop the flow of it.

[Laura]

Right? Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

You don't want to make it a problem.

[Laura]

And you believed in. There was a little. There was a hang up. And it's not like you're, you know, gonna be homeless, but. Yeah. You want your money.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, I. You assume that it's not the Fire Festival.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

You know what I mean? You assume you're gonna get paid. And so. And I don't want to make it. My friend Sherry had enough on her plate. She was busy. She was working. She's trying. She's managing 150 people and, and. And her son. And so I said, I. I just didn't want to make a big deal of it. But this is getting weird. Michael's. Now I know you know, I'm no dummy. Now he's glad. Handling us. Well, they do some investigation and internally, then the production company gets into it and the bigwigs go, wait a second. Turns out he wasn't paying the hairdresser and he wasn't paying the. And he kind of Ponzi schemed. People who were, who were contract players, people who would invoice, he would pay this one this time and this one the next time, and then switch it around. And everybody, it seems when they started digging in, they'd have like a two to three month period where they didn't get paid and then they'd get all their money, but then someone else wouldn't get it.

[Laura]

Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So the production company says to them, hey, Michael, let's have. We need to see your books right now. This is ridiculous. And he said, listen, it's a Friday. It's the afternoon. There is not a problem. We've had a lot of banking issues. We've had a lot of just misplaced issues. Granted, I've made some mistakes, but let me. It's not the way it seems. Let me just get everything together and how about Monday? We'll get a full report and he doesn't come into work on Monday. And no one's thinking anything. I mean, whatever.

[Laura]

But he does.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

No call, no show. And then somebody, I don't know if it was that afternoon or the next day, they do a wellness check. And he killed himself.

[Laura]

He ended his life.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

But he had stolen more than like $4.3 million from this production company. Not Sherry personally, but this whole production company that has other productions that wasn't just her show, possibly.

[Laura]

Do they ever know what he spent it on? That's what I'm always like. Where did the money go? Like, with the guy that I interviewed, it was gambling. It was gambling and coke. Maybe it wasn't, like, buying another house or, like, you know, I always wonder about that too, with Mazoff.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

I mean, he did live Madoff. He did live a fancy, you know, a fancy life. But that story is so crazy. He was, like, never investing anything.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

It's so weird how these people do this kind. Look at Dane Cook. What a Survivor story. All this money, right? All of this money. And literally, you know, I don't know all the details, but his brother is his accountant. Like, you want to employ your family, so you want to say, hey, if I win, you win. Like, that's. That's the mentality. That's what good people do. You want to bring it in? Celine Dion gave each of her brothers and sisters a million dollars so they could all be millionaires. You know, there's nothing worse than being at. In Vegas or at a. At a gambling casino and you've lost everything and your friend is winning, and you're like, oh, my God, what about me? You're supposed to split and give it to them and go, let's all be happy and get stuff done. But Dane let his brother be his accountant, and he stole his money. And then. Then what happens? I mean, people just. That's a beauty of comedy. It's a beauty of artists. They can go back out. They still. They don't lose their talent. You can't really steal their. Well, people do still take talent, by the way.

[Laura]

Yeah, I got.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Okay, but anyway, different story.

[Laura]

You can steal jokes, but you can all. But the good news is, is that you can always.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

You can always write new jokes.

[Laura]

You always have new stories. You always have new things happening for you.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, but it's. It's just a really sad thing. There's so much underlying crime in what goes on to be creative.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

And who knew that it would go literally. I mean, look what we've covered today from Vince Champ and his. The most prolific serial rapist that ever has ever been on television. And he was so beloved. Like, he was so beloved, he had the world by the tail. To the fact that they take money from, you know, good people like Dane Cook and Sherri Shepherd. Not from them. Well, Dane's personally, but Sherry from her production company.

[Laura]

Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So the things you can't control, and.

[Laura]

That'S also a thing that men will when the gig is up. They do end their life more than, like, you don't really hear about women that if women do A financial crime. It doesn't seem like they go the route of ending their life the way oftentimes men do. Like, they weren't depressed. They were just stuck in a criminal thing. And then they're just like, well, if I'm. This is just all too embarrassing and shameful and whatever. There was recently a story about this pretty influencer, and her husband was in this whole financial nightmare, but she was still an influencer, having a place in a penthouse in Manhattan and the house in the Hamptons and posting about her lovely life and fancy things and everything. And he ended his life. And the articles were so much about her.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

Like, oh, my God, she. You know, if she wasn't all about the money, maybe he wouldn't have felt like he had to steal to keep her in the lifestyle. And maybe he wouldn't have to. Maybe he wouldn't have felt that he had to end his life because the lifestyle would have ended.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah. Isn't that what they said about.

[Laura]

Why is it her fault?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Beverly Hills. The Beverly Hills housewife whose husband killed.

[Laura]

Himself, Armstrong, Taylor Armstrong, was they. He was abusive to her. They were divorced, but it was. He was in a financial mess.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah.

[Laura]

But, you know, it was. It was. I think, you know, Yes, I do think part of the financial mess was of being in a bad place. And then also that your whole image is about money and all of that, and you don't want people to know the truth, that you weren't talented in financial investing. You were a fraud. You did lie.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better, and poor doesn't change who you are.

[Laura]

Right.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

So, you know, it's nice to be medium right now. I get bills paid, you know, But I think that women don't tend to kill themselves in those financial things simply because they might find someone else that believes them.

[Laura]

Yeah.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

There's always. There's a level of a man who's just like, come on, darlin'. Who can't think, like my father. Here's a perfect example. My father was an amazing man, but I am a tough girl. I wasn't a crier. My brother's first wife of many cried all the time. That's how she manipulated, with crying and tears. So he would do anything. Oh, okay, Whatever. So I think sometimes women roll the dice. When you have that scam gene, you're like, well, there might be someone else left to scam. There might be someone else that we can try to. That woman we spoke about, Marjorie, she's getting marriage offers in prison.

[Laura]

I'm sure.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

I mean, that's the dating show people should have, not when they get out. How about what's going on on the inside?

[Laura]

They do. There is that show.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

There is one.

[Laura]

There is. I used to get really into it, but then I just felt they were getting too gross.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

It's all gross. I sit there and I love after lockup. That's what I'm. That's after lockup. I'm talking about what's going on inside.

[Laura]

Oh, yeah, You.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Who cares about what happens afterwards? They're doing it. If you are single and you're lonely, commit a crime and go to jail and there'll be someone who wants to date you, that's where you will find the love of your life. Because ask the Menendez brother. Ask everybody.

[Laura]

Yes. Well, I'm so glad you came out and you're here, and we got to do this in person. I love you. And your podcast is called the Cop and the Comedian. And you also are performing live. You always are on tour. So where can people follow you and find you?

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Pescatelli.com. just go to my Insta. That'd be great. It'd be nice to have. And your Insta is Tammy Pescatelli. That'd be awesome. I'd like to have just even a little bit of. I'm not even an influencer. I'm just like the flu right now. The flu.

[Laura]

Thank you so much.

[Tammy Pescatelli]

Thank you.