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- [00:02]
Karen Kilgariff
This is exactly right.
- [00:06]
Georgia Hardstark
Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch limited time.
- [00:26]
Patia Eaton
50% off regular price for new customers.
- [00:28]
Georgia Hardstark
Upfront payment required. $45 for three months, $90 for six.
- [00:30]
Patia Eaton
Month or $180 for plan taxes and fees.
- [00:33]
Georgia Hardstark
Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy.
- [00:35]
Patia Eaton
See terms.
- [00:36]
DJ Hester Prynne
When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on Biggie? You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable.
- [00:42]
Georgia Hardstark
Because I want to get confident.
- [00:43]
DJ Hester Prynne
This is DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist. 12 months, 12 areas of your life, money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple P, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:07]
Georgia Hardstark
Back in 2016, we said, let's do a podcast.
- [01:10]
Karen Kilgariff
Little did we know it would last 10 years. I mean, but here's the thing. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult. Call your dad. This is terrible. You guys, stay sexy.
- [01:20]
Georgia Hardstark
Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
- [01:22]
DJ Hester Prynne
A cookie?
- [01:26]
Karen Kilgariff
My favorite Murder turns 10 this month. Join us for new episodes every Thursday on the Exactly Right network.
- [01:31]
Georgia Hardstark
Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Goodbye.
- [01:37]
Hannah Smith
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:43]
Patia Eaton
The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the Knife or Exactly Right Media.
- [01:51]
Georgia Hardstark
The amount spent on catering, additional concert tickets, suites, everything, all together, that was over a million dollars of zoo's money just for these men and their personal entertainment.
- [02:18]
Patia Eaton
Welcome to the Knife. I'm Patia Eaton.
- [02:21]
Hannah Smith
And I'm Hannah Smith. And today we have a really interesting story involving a zoo.
- [02:26]
Patia Eaton
A scandal at the zoo. How wild.
- [02:30]
Hannah Smith
Yeah. You found this article that you then sent to me, and maybe we should start with you kind of explaining what was in the article.
- [02:38]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, well, I'm always looking for a scandal story. And when I kind of saw that there was a fraud unfolding at the Columbus Zoo, I was like, okay, I need to know more. And so it was actually in an article from a local Newspaper in Ohio called the Columbus Dispatch, and it was written back in 2021. And in the article, essentially what was said was that a tip had come into the paper where someone had reported that these high ranking zoo executives were misusing houses that were owned by the.
- [03:14]
Hannah Smith
Zoo, which is just like, what are we talking about? Houses owned by a zoo?
- [03:19]
Patia Eaton
I know. I was like, why does the zoo need all these houses?
- [03:21]
Hannah Smith
What are they doing with them?
- [03:23]
Patia Eaton
What are they doing with them? What, how does this work? I did a little research and basically zoos are. They're nonprofit entities and nonprofit organizations. And oftentimes if someone dies and wants to leave their assets to the zoo, that might include a property like a house. And the zoo can then own those homes and use them to some way benefit the zoo, whether it's like charging market rent to raise funds for the zoo or maybe housing a donor or someone who's working on the zoo. But this article was saying that a tip came in that these zoo executives were actually just using the houses to like give the people that they love free rent, which.
- [04:05]
Georgia Hardstark
Right.
- [04:06]
Patia Eaton
Not allowed.
- [04:07]
Hannah Smith
Yeah, not allowed. Not like the most scandalous accusation, but spoiler alert, it doesn't end there.
- [04:15]
Patia Eaton
It doesn't end there. We would never do that.
- [04:17]
Hannah Smith
But it basically launches an investigation, a deeper investigation, because there's like, first of all, we don't know who, who's sent this tip in at this time, but it's like, okay, what's going on? Is there something to this, this local.
- [04:30]
Patia Eaton
Newspaper that reports on this? You know, they, they publish the article and the article ends up with the Ohio auditors. So the state of Ohio has its own auditor's office and investigations unit. And so we're talking to Marissa Gibson today, who works for the auditor's office. She is an investigator, Investigations unit investigator. And she was a part of unraveling the entirety of this fraud, which, you know, includes a pretty epic fall from grace for the people behind Gets Bananas. Wild, Exotic, Untamed, Untamed.
- [05:14]
Hannah Smith
And you know, Marissa gave us some stats that didn't end up in the episode, but I want to just mention them here because I think it's kind of good context as we go through this interview. These are annual salaries of other zoo staff at the Columbus zoo from like 2015 to 2020 on average. So, you know, you have a lot of positions at the zoo. There's also a lot of hourly workers. You think about, like, there's cafes and there's delivery people, but animal nutrition assistants, we're getting between 44,000 and 51,000 a year head zookeepers, the range is 63 to 65,000. Non head zookeepers, approximately 60K. And then warehouse workers, 45K to 47K. Reasonable salaries for Columbus, Ohio. But it's not like people are getting wealthy.
- [06:03]
Patia Eaton
Right. They are making, you know, a livable wage, but not much more than that. Yeah.
- [06:08]
Hannah Smith
So let's get into the interview. As a note, no animals were harmed in this story.
- [06:17]
Patia Eaton
Thank you, Marissa, for joining us today.
- [06:20]
Georgia Hardstark
Thanks for having me.
- [06:21]
Patia Eaton
So this article from the Columbus Dispatch makes its way to your office. The zoo executives have been misusing properties owned by the zoo. And Franklin county residents are interested. Where does it go from there?
- [06:36]
Georgia Hardstark
So we start making inquiries because what we want to know is whether or not any of these levy dollars were misappropriated. So, you know, my partner on the case, who is Matt Klapik, he was the forensic auditor assigned to this from my unit. So he starts looking at all of the levy dollars, and what we find is that, yes, the zoo is receiving these payments. And the specific levy language says that these funds are for animal care and for daily operation of the zoo. So he's looking at those, and everything appears to be okay as far as how that particular money is spent. But the problem is that the zoo was commingling these into general accounts. So now all of the money of the zoo is now commingled your taxpayer dollars and the rest of your revenue. So that opens up everything as free reign for us to look into all finances of the zoo.
- [07:29]
Hannah Smith
Okay, I see. So basically, that initial look into their finances showed that funds were being moved around, but in ways that maybe didn't make a lot of sense. Money was commingling at that point. You didn't know if that was intentionally criminal or maybe like poor internal organization. But regardless, it didn't matter because it allowed you legally to have access to everything. All of the bank accounts associated with the zoo.
- [07:58]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah, so now we have access to everything. And the zoo has many, many, many bank accounts. So it's not as if they just have one. And we're looking in that one account. So if you think about everything that goes into running a zoo, you have not only your payroll, but then you have all of your vendors that the zoo pays. You know, they have to pay for the feed of the animals. So they have produce vendors. The zoo has restaurants on site. They hold weddings there. It's a big venue for big events, you know, corporate events. There are so many different things that go into the daily operating of the zoo.
- [08:30]
Hannah Smith
So as you start the investigation and you start going through the accounts. Who are the main people at the zoo that you start to focus on?
- [08:40]
Georgia Hardstark
So what had been determined by the zoo's internal investigation is that, generally speaking, we were looking at four executives here. So the four executives were people at the top. So that would be the CEO, Tom Stahl, the cfo, who was Greg Bell, the director of marketing, who is Pete Fingerhut, and then the director of purchasing, which is Tracey Murnane. Very soon, they became aware that we were investigating and that this was going to be criminal. This was not going to just be a civil investigation that was done by their employer. So very, very quickly, all of our suspects retained defense counsel. And not only did they retain defense counsel, they retained, like, the premier attorneys of central Ohio. So the names that you see in the news, like the ones that handled the big cases. So to me, this is just a sign that we're going to find something. There's something going on here.
- [09:34]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, you don't want to pay those big attorney fees for nothing.
- [09:39]
Georgia Hardstark
It's just experience talking in that case. But, yes, that. That was a pretty good clue to us that there is something here for sure.
- [09:46]
Patia Eaton
Innocent until proven guilty. But it doesn't look good.
- [09:50]
Georgia Hardstark
It did not look good. No. So what we like to do, and this is not just our unit, but typically law enforcement in general, when you're doing a criminal investigation that involves multiple suspects, is that we like to start with who is perceived to be, you know, the smallest fish, who looks like they have the least amount of criminal liability here. And I like to do that because that's almost always who is going to talk to you. You know, they're going to give you the most information on the others. So in this case, that was determined to be Tracey Murnane, who was the former director of purchasing at the zoo. So we're not looking now just at zoo expenses. You know, we. We have an open criminal investigation now. So we have, as a law enforcement unit, we have subpoena authority. So we start looking at his personal bank records and what we noted in his personal bank records. Of course, we're expecting to see payroll from the zoo, as we should. But something else that we found that far exceeded his payroll from the zoo were a series of checks from a local classic car company called Arena Motor Sales. And I think altogether we identified around $475,000 of payments from this classic car dealership. And we're thinking, this is weird, you know, why is this classic car company paying the zoo's Director of purchasing. And it was several checks a month that were being deposited into his personal bank account. And because this is a two year investigation that we're trying to cram into a, you know, one hour podcast, I'm going to just get to like the CliffsNotes version of Tracy's story.
- [11:22]
Patia Eaton
Okay.
- [11:22]
Georgia Hardstark
Since he's not our big fish. But what it turned out that he was doing is that he was purchasing vehicles himself and he wanted to sell them to the zoo. And he's solely in charge of, as the director of purchasing, he's in charge of buying everything for the zoo. But he wanted to find a way that he could make some extra money, so he was buying these vehicles. He knows that he cannot sell vehicles that are owned by him to the zoo because that's violating his code of ethics. So what he did is he had all of these vehicles quickly titled to Arena Motor Sales, and then Arena Motor Sales would, on paper, sell these vehicles to the zoo. So the zoo would pay Arena Motor Sales, and then arena would immediately cut a check to Tracy Monain. So Tracy is essentially selling vehicles to the zoo, but not on paper. He's using a strawman as the seller. They also had a little side hustle going on that did involve classic cars and the classic cars. It was a mix of those vehicles and then the vehicles that he sold to the zoo that totaled that 576 car thousand and some odd cents.
- [12:23]
Patia Eaton
And, you know, what was his yearly salary? I assume it changed a bit over the years, but what was the ballpark salary for Tracy?
- [12:32]
Georgia Hardstark
So he was definitely the lowest paid of our executives, and he was making around 120,000 a year at the time, shortly before he separated from employment. Just for comparison, Tom Stolf was making just under 500,000 a year as the CEO, and then Greg Bell, our CFO, he was making just under 400,000 per year.
- [12:53]
Patia Eaton
That's a lot of money.
- [12:55]
Georgia Hardstark
Yes, and I think that's really important for people to know because these are not people who were financially strapped at all. These are big salaries for the Midwest for a medium cost of living city.
- [13:10]
Patia Eaton
So, okay, does Tracy end up telling you anything about the others, or is he, you know, staying quiet?
- [13:17]
Georgia Hardstark
No, he did. He was very forthcoming with information about the others. He was not as forthcoming with information that would implicate himself because they never are. But he would say just enough, and then we would have to push back and say, actually, that's not quite true. Let me show you this.
- [13:32]
Patia Eaton
What does he tell you?
- [13:33]
Georgia Hardstark
So he does give us some information, a Lot of it was just him solidifying what we already believed and him confirming that this is indeed the way it went. But he did get a lot of good information that he was willing to share on the other three. And that would be our CEO, CFO and our director of marketing. He wasn't in their clique by any means. The clique was Pete Fingerhut, Greg Bell and Tom Stolf. As we started to interview current and former employees from the zoo, I mean, for this case, we interviewed over 125 people, as I recall. And the zoo employees had some choice nicknames for these three individually. Tom Stolf was known by the employees there as the King because he did what he wanted and got what he wanted. And then Greg Bell, our cfo, he was referred to as Big Daddy by zoo employees. Yeah. And then our director of marketing, Pete Fingerhut, his nickname was the Ticketmaster, for reasons that will become clear as we continue to go here.
- [14:35]
Patia Eaton
Wow. So we've got the King, Big Daddy and the Ticketmaster.
- [14:39]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. So the zoo employees collectively, we heard some different names for them. It was the good old Boys Club. Amongst the people under them, they were not held in high esteem.
- [14:50]
Patia Eaton
Let's just say that like these zoo employees, they're not shocked when you come to them and say something's going on.
- [14:57]
Georgia Hardstark
The general consensus was that these men were very entitled and they did what they want and they felt that they were above the law. That turned out to not be the case. But yeah, and I know we're jumping ahead a little bit, but I can say that the majority of people that we talk to who are the former and current zoo employees, these are wonderful people who are there for the animals. You know, they're there for the right reasons. And they felt extremely betrayed by what happened, by their leadership. They were betrayed by this. They were angry.
- [15:28]
Hannah Smith
Yeah. I really want to get into what comes to light that would make zoo employees so angry, as you just said. But also, you know, I think I want to remind listeners here that, you know, a lot of the zoo employees are making a very modest, I mean, a good wage, but. But a modest wage. And there's also a lot of hourly employees. Not all of them, of course, but there's this huge range of job at the zoo.
- [15:53]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, I mean, the Columbus Zoo is a non profit organization. It's great for the Columbus economy and draws a ton of visitors. But at the end of the day, the goal of the zoo is not for profit. On their website, it actually says that their mission is to become one of the most impactful wildlife conservation institutions globally. They talk about the importance of conservation and education, as you pointed out. And that's, you know, I'm sure how most of these zoo employees actually feel.
- [16:23]
Hannah Smith
So as you started to comb through the spending of these three top dogs, you know, with these nicknames, King, Big Daddy, and Ticketmaster, what did you find?
- [16:35]
Georgia Hardstark
All of the credit card purchases were analyzed, all the credit cards that were held by these zoo executives to see what they spent their money on. And what we found there was just a series of personal purchases to enhance their own lives and their own entertainment. I'll just give you a sampling. So Tom Stoll, for instance, he spent money on World Series tickets for his family. I think those tickets alone are maybe just under $10,000. And then, you know, they can't have just the crab seats. They have to have the good seats. They have to have private catering. Pete Fingerhut, who is our Ticketmaster, he went on multiple personal trips that he used the zoo's credit card to pay for anything that he wanted. And of course, you know what they were doing. You know, like any bureaucracy, zoo has credit card forms that you have to submit, you know, your receipt and what it is that you were doing and why you were doing it. And they would just falsify, I mean, period. Pete Fingerhut, you know, he would manipulate invoices. And this is something that he finally did admit to in an interview where his counsel was present, but he would just wipe things out on invoices, do a little photoshopping, make it say something else, and submit it to the Zeus finance office. But the way that they were able to get away with this is that again, we're talking about the people at the very top. So they're just signing each other's credit card slips and then nobody says anything.
- [18:02]
Patia Eaton
Right. Because it's like, oh, I'm going to go up against the CEO on this credit card slip, or I'm just going to keep my job and that will be someone else's problem, which is, I mean, a totally, I think, reasonable take if you're just making an honest living.
- [18:15]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. So the people that work in the zoo's accounts payable or accounts receivable office, like when a slip is signed off on by the CFO of the zoo, these people are not going to question it because that is their boss. That is the ultimate boss of everything financial at the zoo.
- [18:32]
DJ Hester Prynne
When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on Biggie? You put on Biggie when you feel.
- [18:36]
Georgia Hardstark
Uncomfortable, because I want to get Confident.
- [18:38]
DJ Hester Prynne
This is DJ Hester Prynne's music and is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist that asks one simple question. Who do you want to be? And what's the song that can take you there? Music changes what you feel, and what you feel changes what you do, right? That moment where a song shifts something inside you, that's where transformation starts. This year, I'm talking to experts across every area of life, like personal finance icon Genech, New York Times journalist David Gellis, relationship legend Dan Savage, human connection teacher Mark Groves, and the man who shaped my ear more than anyone, Questlove. They'll bring the strategies. I'll pair them with the right records, and we'll teach you how to use the music to make change stick. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [19:33]
Karen Kilgariff
You can accomplish a lot in a decade.
- [19:35]
Georgia Hardstark
You could earn a bachelor's degree and a master's degree back to back.
- [19:38]
Karen Kilgariff
You could compete in two separate consecutive Olympic Games.
- [19:41]
Georgia Hardstark
Well, we made my favorite murder.
- [19:43]
Karen Kilgariff
It's been 10 years of true crime, 10 years of conversation, and 100 years of swearing. Here's the thing, everyone, politeness.
- [19:51]
Georgia Hardstark
Go yourself as a. When someone sneezes. From now on, we have something for everyone. Everyone.
- [19:57]
Karen Kilgariff
Advice, support, and a safe space for your feelings. This is terrible. Triflers need not apply. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult. Call your dad.
- [20:07]
Georgia Hardstark
Don't worry, it gets worse.
- [20:09]
Karen Kilgariff
Toxic masculinity ruins the party again. I said, dad, what the hell?
- [20:14]
Georgia Hardstark
What are we.
- [20:14]
Karen Kilgariff
What are we gonna do? And he goes, I don't. What the hell? I don't know. We're gonna sally fourth. We're gonna sally forth. You guys stay sexy.
- [20:22]
Georgia Hardstark
Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? A cookie? Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.
- [20:34]
Karen Kilgariff
If well being means grounded in your space, start with the easiest. Switch the air around you. Pura is a premium smart diffuser that makes home fragrance effortless.
- [20:44]
DJ Hester Prynne
Control it from your phone, set it.
- [20:46]
Karen Kilgariff
To match your day, and breathe out the chaos. For a limited time, get a free Pura plus home diffuser when you subscribe to your favorite fragrances for 12 months. This is restoration, not reinvention. Grab your free diffuser@pura.com.
- [21:09]
Georgia Hardstark
The zoo also had. I'm going to Call this a barter account system. That's the best way to really say it. Ohio has this, and these are maybe nationwide as well. But there are these barter networks that companies can join, and essentially, you have to put something of value out onto this barter market, and then other businesses do the same. So the zoo's item of value were admission tickets for the zoo or for Zoombizi Bay, which is their water park, and then also rounds of golf at Safari Golf, which is the course that they own and operate. So the barter network is something that our forensic auditors examined as well. And what we found is that these executives were using those barter dollars, again, just to enrich their own life. We had the CEO who was using barter dollars to purchase limousines for his daughter's prom. We had Tracy Bernane, who was using barter dollars to get a party bus for his son's wedding. We had Tom Stolf, the CEO who was using the barter dollars to take his family on spring break trips. Some of these were really egregious. We had Tom Stolf, who was buying luxury watches for himself with these dollars. Greg Bell purchased an antique safe for his son. They got tickets to Hamilton, tickets to Les Mis. Anything that you can imagine that would make your life fun and interesting. That's what they were doing.
- [22:32]
Karen Kilgariff
Wow.
- [22:32]
Patia Eaton
And I don't know if this would have come up in your guys investigation, but did you ever find any correspondence between either this clique of executives or them and their families where it's like, ooh, we really shouldn't be doing this, or kind of alluding to like, that others knew what they were doing or that they knew how bad it was.
- [22:55]
Georgia Hardstark
Oh, yeah. In fact, that, honestly, that is what made this case so beautiful, is that we were given full access to the zoo executive's emails.
- [23:04]
Patia Eaton
Love that.
- [23:05]
Georgia Hardstark
Not only their emails, but also, you know, their outlook calendars and all of their contacts. We were able to view all of their communications between themselves and also.
- [23:16]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [23:16]
Georgia Hardstark
Between them and their family members and them and other people. And it became a blueprint of watching these people facilitate the fraud and how they were going to cover it up. I mean, they discussed everything over email as if nobody would ever see it. So little did they know. Those are going to be some of our best pieces of evidence. It was absolutely amazing. In fact, one of my favorite emails is. And we'll talk about this later, when we talk about tickets that they were purchasing, but one of my favorite emails in this entire case is when our cfo, CEO and Director of marketing. So the King, Big Daddy and Ticketmaster, they're all talking to each other over email and they're talking about suites that they have purchased at the Schronstein center for an upcoming concert, which of course was totally paid for by the zoo. And one of them says to the other, we are so spoiled. And then another chimes in as a reply, yes, we are, we are spoiled. Something to that effect. But it was just so egregious and awful and tone deaf. Because yes, you're committing fraud. You are using the zoo's money to pay for something that no one else at the zoo knows about and that you are fraudulently listing on invoices. The total loss associated with the barter network was, it was around $70,000 of funds that were spent on this network that were supposed to be spent to better the zoo and for the zoo's day to day operations. But it ended up being tickets and vacations, watches, you know, again, anything to make their lives fun.
- [24:53]
Patia Eaton
Okay, so they've spent all this money on like concert tickets and suites and catering and vacations. What else were they buying?
- [25:03]
Georgia Hardstark
So going back to the, the self importance, I'll move on to another scheme that they had and that was that involved memberships at some very prestigious country clubs here in central Ohio. So these guys, they got some memberships at some country clubs that are here in Delaware county, which is the suburb of Columbus, the suburban area where the zoo itself is actually located. So they got these country club memberships and what we were able to do is we subpoenaed all of the receipt details from these three different country clubs and we got to see what they bought. So the way that it works at the country club is you have a membership and you don't pay cash for anything. You charge it to your account and you get a bill at the end of the month. Well, that bill was associated with credit cards that belong to the Columbus Zoo and not to our people here. So every single month it was just being billed back to the zoo. The people in the zoo's finance office, they don't know what's being purchased because they're not seeing the individual receipt details. It's just a statement at the end of the month that comes.
- [26:08]
Patia Eaton
Were they making any sort of attempt on these like credit card statements, like this lunch was to discuss animals, anything like that?
- [26:17]
Georgia Hardstark
Yes. And it was all BS and all nonsense. And this was one of the things that was really great about having access to their emails and having access to their outlook calendar is that you know, they would put on their credit card usage form that had to be turned into finance. I'll just give you one example. So this one particular. And this happened all the time. There are a hundred examples, but I'm just going to choose one. So this was a baseball game in a suite that Greg Bell took his family to for his grandson's birthday. And not only, you know, did the zoo have to pay for the suite, of course, but they also had to pay for the private catering, the food and the booze that was all used on zoo's credit card. But so Greg Bell, rcfo, he has to turn in his usage form and he has to put. What was the purpose of this particular event and the one that was for his grandson's birthday? He wrote, meeting with Columbus Minority Business Council. So this is what it was. Over and over and over, fraudulently listing meetings with different people that never occurred. A lot of the entertainment type of things said meeting with board member, meeting with donor meeting. And it was all lies. It was them taking their friends and family out and spending the zoo's money. Like I said, we were reviewing all of the individual receipts and what we found is that it wasn't even just our suspects. It was their spouses and their kids that were going into the country clubs and just buying what they wanted and billing it to their account. We saw private boxing classes that were taken by Pete's wife, personal training by Tom, Tom's wife and Pete's wife. Just cocktail hour at the country club. And all of this was going back to the zoo.
- [28:02]
Patia Eaton
As you were going through this, like forensic accounting, did you ever discover how this all started? I have to imagine at some point, the three of these guys, Tom, Greg, Pete, they make this decision to start committing fraud as a team, since it was truly, or at least it sounds like a team effort.
- [28:20]
Georgia Hardstark
So Garth Brooks came to Columbus. And I want to say this is like 2000 and I don't know, 11.
- [28:27]
Patia Eaton
Or 12, like the Garth Brooks.
- [28:29]
Georgia Hardstark
The Garth Brooks. And these guys decided they wanted to go. They were like, we gotta go to this.
- [28:36]
Patia Eaton
I totally relate.
- [28:38]
Georgia Hardstark
I would want to. Yeah. And apparently, you know, the state of Ohio related too, because Garth did three nights in a row and all three were sold out. So these guys, you know, they consider themselves royalty at this point. So they're not going to just get tickets, right? They want the best tickets. So they start talking to a rep over at the Schottenstein center here in Columbus, one of the two big concert event venues, and they're like, how much would it be for a suite? So they're talking to the rep, and we uncover an email, essentially, where the conversation is this between our three guys. They're like, huh, yeah, let's get a suite. Like, let's do this. And as I just explained, Garth was in town for three nights. We have an email where Ticketmaster Pete Fingerhut reaches out to Tom Stolf and says, hey, do you want to go twice? Like you want to go two nights in a row? And Tom says, yeah, I'd go again. So that's what they decide to do. So they decide that they're going to rent a suite for the Garth concert, and that was to the tune of $8,000 just for two nights in the suite. Now, that's just for the cost of the suite. That doesn't even include your. Your catering, which, of course, if you're going to go sit in the suite, you know, you're going to live it up. You're not bringing your own water bottle with you.
- [29:59]
Patia Eaton
You're not going to be, like, completely sober and, like, bring your own snacks, like my mom when I was 8, to the movie theater or something.
- [30:08]
Georgia Hardstark
You're going to go and party, right? They didn't bring in their own purses like that? No. So they're getting private catering. This is expensive, right? So, I mean, of all of the different concerts that we uncovered that they went to, I mean, these catering bills are between like 1500 and $2000 once you fill them with your friends and family and you guys all are drinking alcohol and ordering whatever you want. But anyway, so this is how it starts.
- [30:32]
DJ Hester Prynne
When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on Biggie? You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable.
- [30:38]
Georgia Hardstark
I want to get confident.
- [30:39]
DJ Hester Prynne
This is D. Hester Prynne's Music Is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist that asks one simple question. Who do you want to be? And what's the song that can take you there? Music changes what you feel, and what you feel changes what you do, right? That moment where a song shifts something inside you, that's where transformation starts. This year, I'm talking to experts across every area of life, like personal finance, iconic Gene Chatsky, New York Times journalist David Gellis, relationship legend Dan Savage, human connection, teacher Mark Groves, and the man who shaped my ear more than anyone, Questlove. They'll bring the strategies. I'll pair them with the right records and will teach you how to use the music to make change stick. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy. For your entire year, listen to DJ Hester Prinz. Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [31:33]
Karen Kilgariff
You can accomplish a lot in a decade.
- [31:36]
Georgia Hardstark
You could earn a bachelor's degree and a master's degree back to back.
- [31:39]
Karen Kilgariff
You could compete in two separate consecutive Olympic games.
- [31:42]
Georgia Hardstark
Well, we made my favorite murder.
- [31:43]
Karen Kilgariff
I spent 10 years of true crime, 10 years of conversation, and 100 years of swearing.
- [31:49]
Georgia Hardstark
Here's the thing, everyone.
- [31:51]
Karen Kilgariff
Politeness.
- [31:52]
Georgia Hardstark
Go yourself is the day when someone sneezes. From now on, we. We have something for everyone.
- [31:58]
Karen Kilgariff
Advice, support, and a safe space for your feelings. This is terrible. Triflers need not apply. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult. Call your dad.
- [32:08]
Georgia Hardstark
Don't worry, it gets worse.
- [32:09]
Karen Kilgariff
Toxic masculinity ruins the party again. I said, dad, what the hell? What are we. What are we gonna do? And he goes, I don't. What the hell? I don't know. We're gonna sally fourth.
- [32:20]
Georgia Hardstark
Sally.
- [32:20]
Karen Kilgariff
We're gonna sally fourth. You guys, guys, stay sexy.
- [32:23]
Georgia Hardstark
Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? A cookie? Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. So they're in these suites at the Garth concert and they're like, okay, we've had a taste of what true exclusivity is and we want that. So we found an email. Pete emails Greg. And what it is that he's emailing is essentially, it's a packet of materials of how much it costs to have a season suite at the Schottenstein Center. How much will it cost for us to have a suite for everything? Essentially? So it says, hey, how can we convince Tom to do this? And they're talking about it back and forth. Well, anyways, Tom agrees because he's like, heck yeah. I mean, he's the king. He wants to be in on this. So they devised this plan and this is where this was. Step one of what was determined to be the biggest fraud at the zoo was these sweet agreements, not only at the Schottenstein center, but also at Nationwide arena where the Blue Jackets play. So how it started was this. They originally just did it at the shot and they got OSU season tickets and then also all of these other concerts and. And that alone just for use of the suite. That three year contract was over $200,000. That's just for the suite for the sporting events. If you want to go to concerts, that costs extra as well. And then if you Want your catering that costs extra as well. So they did that. However, how they filled out their credit card usage form and their check request form for the zoo, again, was all just nonsense. Again, they had it say advertisement Ohio State University. So they were sending it to the Zeus finance office as if they had entered into a contract for the zoo to be essentially one of the sponsors at the Schottenstein center that they were going to have, you know, banners and huge things on the inside advertising the Columbus Zoo.
- [34:28]
Patia Eaton
So they just were leaving out the fact that this was a suite. They were just saying it's being paid to this stadium.
- [34:35]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [34:35]
Georgia Hardstark
Because all of the payments were to the Ohio State University. So no one in finance knew the difference. And again, you know, you have your people at the top signing off on these forms. There's never going to be any questions.
- [34:45]
Patia Eaton
Yeah.
- [34:46]
Georgia Hardstark
And then, you know, they continue to do this for the next eight, nine years. And they just bought bigger suite packages every single year. You know, at the Columbus Blue Jackets games, which are played at Nationwide Arena. You know, they started small back in 2010 and started with just a small season ticket package. Well, they got greedier and greedier as the years went on. And then at the very end, they had a full season in the suite. They also had a full season in the loge, which is another premier seating area. And then they also had glass seats, which are considered the best seats at a hockey game, you know, right behind the penalty box. The amount of fraud that was perpetuated with these was just unbelievable. For every single night that you're there and you're getting this private catering that's all being billed to a credit card, which again, were held by the Zoom. Every time you have that expense, you have to fill it out on your form of what it is. Why was I there? And every single thing was a lie. It was all a lie. Everything was entertaining this particular donor, entertaining this board member. And, you know, we went and talked to all these people. None of them had ever been to any suite with these people, which is.
- [35:53]
Patia Eaton
Actually so surprising to me because it's like, well, you've already paid for this suite. Like, if you are trying to make it look like a valid expense, you've already paid for it. Would it really kill you to like invite some of your donors one night?
- [36:07]
Georgia Hardstark
No. But it was never for anyone else. It was, it was for them from the very beginning. It was for them and their family and their friends. There was never any type of legitimate zoo business being conducted in any of these form after form Just nothing but lies. And there were actually a couple of times where they almost were caught. So one time, the Schottenstein center delivered or had shipped to the zoo like, a month's worth of parking passes for sweet holders. So the zoo got to have all these special parking, because when you have a suite, you know you get the best parking. Well, they delivered all the parking passes to the zoo, and the zoo's mailroom just assumed that these were for the zoo's philanthropy department, because they figured if anyone was going to be doing any type of entertaining at these venues, it's probably the people whose. Whose job it is is to find donors for the zoo. So all of these parking passes got routed to the zoo's philanthropy department. Well, the philanthropy department was like, I don't have any idea what these are. We don't have tickets to any of these events. We're not aware of any of this. So what they do is the zoo's philanthropy department emails Pete Fingerhut and Greg Bell and said, does anybody know what these are for? So then we find a series of emails where Pete immediately emails Greg and says, go down there and get those parking and say that they're for Tom. Say that they're for Tom. So he freaks out. And then what we see next is Pete emailing both concert venues and saying, you know, just because the mailroom messes things up all the time, from now on, I'm going to go ahead and just request that you send all tickets and parking to this address. And it was his home. Okay. So, you know, he knew that he was very close to being caught. Very, very close. Wow. Yeah. I wanted to give you some numbers of how this shook out. So just for Ohio State University, the money that they spent there on suites and also for catering, that was around $350,000. But that was nowhere close to the amount of money that was spent at Nationwide arena with the Columbus Blue Jackets. When we totaled that up, the amount spent on catering at Nationwide arena, additional concert tickets, suites, everything, all together, that was over a million dollars of zoo's money just for these men and their personal entertainment.
- [38:22]
Patia Eaton
A million dollars.
- [38:23]
Georgia Hardstark
No zoo business of any kind being conducted there? None.
- [38:26]
Patia Eaton
Wow, that's so much money. I mean, they had to know that once they got up into, like, the seven figures. Not that it's ever okay, but you don't want to get caught. Like, that's really, really bad. Because a million dollars, that's newsworthy, which it ends up being.
- [38:42]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah.
- [38:43]
Patia Eaton
So at this point, they all know they're under investigation, They've all retained attorneys. We spoke about Tracy and your conversations with him. Tell me about your conversations with the other three and how things progressed once you were like, yeah, I have a great case, and I'm ready to talk to them.
- [38:59]
Georgia Hardstark
So the second attorney that we reached out to, after speaking to Traci, we were confident to go to the cfo, to Greg Bell next. And we did. We sat down with he and his attorney, I think, a total of four times, where, again, we did the same thing. We laid out our case and showed them what we already knew. And, you know, it went a lot like it did with Tracy, where Greg, he was definitely eager to say what he knew about Pete and Tom, who we had not spoken with yet. He was very grateful because, you know, again, you know, people want the best deal for themselves. Everybody knows that. They're looking at prison in this instance because of the amount of money and because of the type of crimes here in Ohio that they could be charged under, which is essentially a racketeering type of situation, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. That's what it's called here, at least, which is a RICO case, which is a lot of times, like, what gangs are charged under. It's organized crime is what it was.
- [39:53]
Patia Eaton
Yeah.
- [39:53]
Georgia Hardstark
So, you know, they have the best defense counsel, so their clients have been prepped for what they could be facing here. So everybody wants a good deal, which.
- [40:01]
Patia Eaton
Is what, by the way, decades in prison.
- [40:04]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. Yeah, it can be, most certainly. And the amount of theft, you know, when this was all said and done, we can talk about the numbers that were our final calculations, but, yeah, this was felony one theft in Ohio. It doesn't get any more serious when it comes to a financial crime. It was a big deal. So Greg's who we sat down with next? For the most part, yeah. He admitted to everything that we laid out. There was not a whole lot of pushback. He knew what was coming for him, and he did. He gave good information on Pete and also on Tomorrow. So that's who we sat down with next.
- [40:34]
Patia Eaton
I guess I'm curious if Greg, because his son was also, to a smaller extent, involved. I'm just putting myself in his shoes in this moment. I'm like, what do I have to tell you to get my son off the hook here?
- [40:49]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [40:49]
Georgia Hardstark
And really not just his son. It was also. His daughter had also been an employee of the zoo. And, you know, back to those emails. But something that was just really unbelievable in this case is that we really got to see a lot about the family dynamics of the Bells and the entitlement of his children. He has three children. And we reviewed emails where his children were basically sending him their list of demands of, this is what we want. We want to go to this concert. And his daughter Jillian, who was a zoo employee, at one point, she would email him multiple times and say, here's my wish list. And it would honestly be a long list of everything that she was expecting to have tickets to.
- [41:34]
Patia Eaton
So it seems like she knew that was coming from the zoo.
- [41:37]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah.
- [41:38]
Patia Eaton
Not from her dad's bank account.
- [41:40]
Georgia Hardstark
You know, it's hard to say where she. Yeah, I don't know who she thought was paying for it, But I only bring that up because there was some unbelievable entitlement coming from these children. And, you know, they said, jump. And he said, how high? Like, truly, if they wanted it, they got it. Wow.
- [41:59]
Patia Eaton
Are they able to at this stage in the process, like, negotiate, like, hey, I'm gonna tell you, but you gotta let my kid off the hook here.
- [42:08]
Georgia Hardstark
There was a little bit of negotiation like that when it came to the spouses of, hey, you know, we're gonna do this if this doesn't happen. There was a little bit of that, but. But his son Grant was an employee of the zoo, so him not being charged was never going to be an option. Because he was an employee. He had that responsibility to the zoo as his employer, and he chose to use the zoo's credit card. I know we haven't talked about Grant a lot, but, you know, he used the Zeus credit card to take his family on vacation. And then he did the same thing as everyone else. Just falsified the invoice. Falsified. Made up some nonsense reason of what he was doing there, and it was all lies.
- [42:47]
Patia Eaton
Yeah. And would it be fair? I mean, I'm speculating, but, like, I'm assuming if my dad is a higher up at the zoo, was his dad, like, you can kind of get away with this. Was there that conversation happening that made Grant feel like he could do that?
- [43:01]
Georgia Hardstark
Absolutely. Okay. They discussed exactly what he was going to do. Right. Over email.
- [43:05]
Patia Eaton
Wow.
- [43:05]
Georgia Hardstark
It was plain as day. His dad absolutely facilitated the fraud.
- [43:09]
Patia Eaton
Communicating a fraud over the workplace email that you're defrauding is unhinged to me. Never in my life.
- [43:18]
Georgia Hardstark
You would be shocked what people do on devices. You know, I'm sure it didn't start out this way. I'm sure it started out with being very careful, but they were able to perpetuate this fraud for a decade without being caught. We see the same thing. No matter what the investigation is. People start careful and then they just get complacent because they haven't been caught. They become greedier, their fraud becomes bigger, they start stealing more money. That's just the way it goes. They become untouchable. After a while, they feel untouchable.
- [43:49]
Patia Eaton
And so I guess getting back into your conversations with Greg, where did that sort of lead you?
- [43:55]
Georgia Hardstark
Greg, for the most part, confirmed what we already knew, and he even admitted to some things that we didn't know that were things that we would have had no way of knowing because, you know, a lot of things as well that involve fraud that there won't be any records of whatsoever. So we. There would be no way of us to even know that it exists.
- [44:14]
Patia Eaton
Like what?
- [44:15]
Georgia Hardstark
Things that involved cash transactions, which I can't really say a whole lot about because he wasn't charged for these because there was no way of coming up with like a cumulative number of things. But he knew where he was going. He knew that prison was going to happen. So he absolutely did flip on his co conspirators.
- [44:33]
Patia Eaton
Yeah.
- [44:34]
Georgia Hardstark
After Greg, it got a little bit trickier because neither Pete nor Tom wanted to talk. I'm not sure exactly. I think that they felt untouchable. I really do. I think that they felt that nothing was actually going to happen to them because nothing ever had actually happened to them. But it turns out they were wrong.
- [44:56]
Patia Eaton
Well, because if you have the emails, I'm assuming their defense attorneys have the emails.
- [45:01]
Karen Kilgariff
No.
- [45:02]
Patia Eaton
Oh, they don't. It doesn't work like that.
- [45:04]
Georgia Hardstark
No. So they don't get any of those things until the case is actually charged in court and then they receive them from discovery. Oh, so they don't know what we know at that point.
- [45:13]
Patia Eaton
I see. Okay. So only if they decide to take it to court is when they get that stuff.
- [45:20]
Georgia Hardstark
So we did have a session with Pete and his attorney at the very beginning where we sat down and he lied the entire time. I mean, there wasn't a single thing that came out of his mouth that was factual. He, I think, quickly realized that that was a bad move. He ended up getting a different defense attorney who is absolutely top notch, and she made him realize that this is not something that is disappearing and it's time to sit down and talk to us. And by the time he did that, you know, he, he had realized and finally come to the conclusion that he was very likely going to prison. And then he finally did decide to come clean on some things. He did lie to the End about others, one of which involved some bribes. He was charged with cash bribes paid by a vendor, a zoo vendor. He lied. And I absolutely am confident that he continued to lie. Wow.
- [46:18]
Karen Kilgariff
Okay.
- [46:19]
Patia Eaton
And so Pete tells you a little bit of the truth, a lot of stuff that's not true. And then I assume you move on to Tom. Did he ever agree to speak with you?
- [46:31]
Georgia Hardstark
No. Wow. Never sat down with us. And that turned out to not. That didn't end well for him because he, you know, if you want to talk about. We didn't talk about all the schemes and I don't know that we need to, but we can talk about final dollar amounts of the theft and what ended up happening to these people. But ultimately, you know, Tom, he got the longest sentence and that does sometimes happen if you are, if you're the last to fall.
- [46:57]
Patia Eaton
Do you know how many years he was facing and how many he was sentenced to?
- [47:03]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. So the total fraud, the full theft amount combined for everyone was $2.3 million and some change. That's what it shook out to be. And just to give you an idea of some numbers, we had over 125 interviews that we conducted. There were over 100 subpoenas that were issued. We reviewed thousands of emails. We conducted a total of 15 proffer sessions and it was a two plus year investigation. So finally, when we were done, there was a special grand jury that was convened in Delaware County. It was a three day grand jury where the grand jurors heard nothing but testimony on the Columbus Zoo. So typically when a grand jury is held, the grand jurors hear multiple cases about different things throughout their service time as grand jurors. Well, this was different. This was three days of testimony only on the zoo. So this returned a 90 count indictment against everybody collectively. That was the number 90 counts. And Tom Stolf was indicted on 36 counts. He ended up pleading guilty to 15 of those, you know, with a negotiated plea. And he was sentenced to seven years in prison. And he has a job in prison. And his prison job is a porter, which is basically a janitor. He's a custodian in prison.
- [48:21]
Patia Eaton
Wow.
- [48:22]
Georgia Hardstark
And then we have Greg Bell, he was indicted on 14 counts and he pled guilty to all 14. He was sentenced to three years in prison. He's also a jail custodian. So Pete Fingerhut, he ended up being by far the most egregious of all. I mean, they were, they were all terrible, their conduct was all terrible, but his was by far the most egregious. Just with the amount of fraud that he committed and the amount of invoices that he photoshopped and manipulated and just. It was insane. So he ended up pleading guilty to 17 of those counts. He was sentenced to five years in prison. He's also a custodian in jail. So these people have certainly fallen.
- [49:05]
Patia Eaton
Wow.
- [49:05]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [49:06]
Georgia Hardstark
And then the others, Tracy and Grant, it was just county jail time because they weren't quite as involved.
- [49:12]
Patia Eaton
I know that there were some changes that this resulted in with sort of the way the board oversees the zoo. Can you speak to any of that?
- [49:21]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. So the zoo has a new CEO. His name is Tom Schmid. And everything that we have learned is that he's an outstanding leader and that the employees of the zoo are very happy to have him there. I know that the board has been condensed. It was a huge board because, again, I mean, the Columbus Zoological association, which handles all four of the businesses that we discussed, is a huge undertaking. So they had a large board of directors, and they've really scaled down on that. And I think that the reason for doing that is just so there could be better communication and easier to have oversight and everyone talking amongst each other more. So I know that there have been really positive changes at the zoo. And something that people ask us a lot when we present on this case is, you know, did any of the animals go without because of the amount of money that was being embezzled? And the answer, I'm happy to report the answer to that is no. Like, all of the animals were so well cared for because they're being cared for by, you know, the people that matter and the great employees of the Columbus Zoo. So nothing ever happened to any of the animals. But what did happen is that, you know, the zoo morale was they really took a hit when these guys were in charge, and everyone knew that something was going on, but nobody really knew what it was. But they felt helpless to do anything. But there's one thing that I think that you would love to know about this case.
- [50:48]
Patia Eaton
Yeah.
- [50:48]
Georgia Hardstark
This is always something that people ask us. They always ask, well, who was it that tipped off the Columbus Dispatch who gave them this information? And you're not going to believe the answer to this. So one of these zoo executives was actually let go during COVID citing financial concerns. So he was not even an employee at the time. When this investigation kicked off, he had already been gone for about eight months. Well, this person was very, very upset and very salty over the fact that they had been let go. And that was Pete Fingerhut.
- [51:26]
Patia Eaton
No, Pete.
- [51:27]
Georgia Hardstark
Pete Fingerhut. Yes.
- [51:29]
Patia Eaton
Pete tipped off the financial crime that he was a part of.
- [51:34]
Georgia Hardstark
Yes.
- [51:35]
Patia Eaton
Okay.
- [51:36]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. So he actually is the tipster. We found this out that he is the tipster to the Columbus Dispatch and he told the Dispatch about, you know, all of these things that are going on at the zoo that are being done by Tom St. And Greg Bell. I do not know what that man was thinking.
- [51:53]
Patia Eaton
He's like, no way. This will get back to me. Impossible.
- [51:57]
Georgia Hardstark
Like I said, he ended up by far being the most egregious. His conduct was by far the most egregious. But again, I think that he was just so used to being able to talk his way out of anything that he didn't think that we were going to uncover that he was a huge part of this scheme and this fraud. But anyways, yeah, so he. He did admit during one of our sessions that he indeed was the tipster. And he certainly regrets doing that, I can tell you that much.
- [52:27]
Patia Eaton
Oh, my gosh.
- [52:28]
Georgia Hardstark
Here's the thing. I don't know that this ever would have come to the surface had he not tipped off the Dispatch. He told on himself is what happened here.
- [52:37]
Patia Eaton
Wow, that is unbelievable. It's like, okay, yeah, I'm glad he did that. But it is mind blowing because it's like you think that they're going to go down without bringing you down with them. There's no situation where that happens.
- [52:51]
Georgia Hardstark
I could not reconcile that in my own brain of the. Of him thinking that he is going to launch an investigation and somehow think that whoever is in charge of doing the investigation is not going to learn that he was a party to it. I just. I don't know. I don't know what was in his brain.
- [53:12]
Patia Eaton
That's wild.
- [53:18]
Hannah Smith
What an episode. Never did I think that I would hear such a story of fraud taking place at a zoo.
- [53:24]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, it's the most unlikely setting. But the way that Marissa laid it all out, I thought was like, so fascinating, you know, to think that people could be getting away with something for 10 years, a decade, 10 years, and.
- [53:38]
Hannah Smith
Probably would have continued to get away with it for who knows how long.
- [53:42]
Patia Eaton
If not for Pete.
- [53:44]
Hannah Smith
Can you believe that? That was such a shock to me when she said he was the whistleblower.
- [53:50]
Patia Eaton
Oh, my gosh, same. And I'm also just thinking, like, if I'm a fraudster, I'm not gonna piss off my fellow fraudster that knows all about it. I would protect that man's job.
- [54:03]
Hannah Smith
But you would think that they would probably be like, okay, he might be upset, but there's no way he's gonna turn himself in for fraud.
- [54:10]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, he turned himself in without even, I think, giving it much thought. I mean, I have to imagine that's charitable of me. I hope that he didn't give it much thought and that's how he reached that decision. You know, he ended up doing time.
- [54:25]
Hannah Smith
Yeah. You think about what attracts someone to work at a zoo, and it's usually like, love of animals and a desire to be part of conservation efforts. Yeah. It just sounds like the people working at the zoo were pretty happy when the good old boys club was kicked out.
- [54:42]
Patia Eaton
And honestly, like, if you've ever worked in a toxic work environment or even just in like an unpleasant work environment, it's almost always you can attribute that to the people at the top.
- [54:52]
Hannah Smith
Yeah, they set the tone.
- [54:54]
Patia Eaton
They set the tone. And if you're a full time employee, you spend a lot of your life at work. And it's no small thing when someone has to, like, go in and do pretty serious labor for not a lot of money and watch these, like, high flying, well paid already executives just getting away with fraud and to know that it had been happening for so long.
- [55:17]
Hannah Smith
And acting like they're untouchable and as if the zoo's money is their money. I mean, what a toxic environment.
- [55:23]
Patia Eaton
Yeah. I mean, $2.3 million is so much like. Imagine if that had gone to, like, bonuses. Probably would have been life changing for people for sure.
- [55:32]
Hannah Smith
I'm glad that they were caught.
- [55:34]
Patia Eaton
Me too. And so Tom Stolf, the king was his nickname. He was the CEO. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay over $300,000 in restitution. He was fined another $10,000. He pleaded guilty to several counts of tampering with records and theft by deception, corrupt activity, telecommunications fraud. I mean, a pretty long list.
- [56:04]
Hannah Smith
And my favorite part of this press release that we're referencing here from Ohio auditor.gov, under this part, it says in their sentencing memorandum to the court, prosecutors wrote that Stolf was a toxic leader who, quote, allowed the Animal House atmosphere to infect the Columbus Zoo.
- [56:22]
Patia Eaton
I also love that.
- [56:23]
Georgia Hardstark
Love that they threw that pun in there.
- [56:25]
Patia Eaton
Yeah. In all of my, like, research after this interview and before I was on Reddit and someone had commented, there was a little thread when the scandal broke and someone had commented that in the 90s, their mom worked in the office at the zoo. And this person had memories of like, the baby cheetahs or baby leopards, I don't know. Some baby big cats running around the office, just like playing. I mean, clearly a free for all for a long time.
- [56:52]
Hannah Smith
That was the 90s. I mean, it sounds pretty cute, but probably not great for the animal, I would imagine.
- [56:58]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, probably not. And so former director of purchasing Tracey Murnane also pleaded guilty to felony counts of grand theft, among other things. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail, fined $5,000 and paid close to 100,000 in restitution.
- [57:16]
Hannah Smith
So then we have the. The CFO, Greg Bell, who went by the nickname that I can barely get out of my mouth, Big Daddy.
- [57:24]
Patia Eaton
Big Daddy.
- [57:26]
Hannah Smith
He was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $500,000 in restitution. And he pleaded guilty to 12 counts, including tampering with records, conspiracy to engage in a pattern of corrupt activity, and aggravated theft, which are all felonies.
- [57:43]
Patia Eaton
Yeah. And his son Grant, a former purchasing agent, he committed the sort of the least of the crimes, but, you know, was still definitely a part of this. He pleaded guilty to one count of theft and had to pay close to $10,000 in restitution and audit costs and had to complete 40 hours of community service. Yeah, and then there was our whistleblower, Pete the Ticketmaster.
- [58:10]
Hannah Smith
Ticketmaster. Why was he called Ticketmaster? Is that because he was getting the tickets to the games?
- [58:16]
Patia Eaton
Yeah, he was like the guy to go to for that. Yeah. And so Pete the whistleblower was sentenced to five years. He pleaded guilty to aggravated theft, felony counts of tampering with records, telecommunications fraud, conspiracy. I mean, I don't know what he was thinking. He must have been so mad that day that he called the newspaper. If you're gonna go after someone, you gotta make sure your closet is clean. Like, if you've got some skeletons, don't go pissing people off.
- [58:48]
Hannah Smith
I know. Like, I wonder if it was worth it to him to get, you know, Tom and Greg in trouble, but himself as well. Like, was it worth it?
- [58:58]
Patia Eaton
I was hoping that it was. She was like, I'll do five years to see these guys go down. No problem. They all faced some serious consequences. And it was a great case for the prosecution because of all of their faulty record keeping.
- [59:13]
Hannah Smith
And it sounds like the Columbus Zoo has made a lot of changes since then and is really attempting to put some measures in place to avoid something like this happening in the future. So we can only hope that that works and that the funds go to the animals and to the hard working staff.
- [59:29]
Patia Eaton
Totally. And the prosecution also did consider charging some members of the board that were supposed to be overseeing these executives more closely, but ultimately they decided that they hadn't done anything criminal. And the board, I think, now has less members and is far more involved in overseeing the zoo's executive team. So that's a good thing.
- [59:53]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [59:53]
Patia Eaton
Yeah. So glad Marissa was able to speak with us.
- [59:56]
Hannah Smith
Yeah, that was a really interesting episode.
- [59:58]
Patia Eaton
Thanks for listening.
- [59:59]
Hannah Smith
We'll be back next week.
- [60:02]
Patia Eaton
If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is thenifexactlyrightmedia.com or you can follow us on Instagram, henifpodcast or blueskynife. Podcast.
- [60:12]
Hannah Smith
This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.
- [60:17]
Patia Eaton
And me, Pasha Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breyfogle and Alexa Samarosi.
- [60:21]
Hannah Smith
This episode was mixed by Tom Bregel.
- [60:24]
Patia Eaton
Our associate producer is Christine Chamberlain.
- [60:26]
Hannah Smith
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
- [60:28]
Patia Eaton
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
- [60:30]
Hannah Smith
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
- [60:42]
DJ Hester Prynne
When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on?
- [60:45]
Georgia Hardstark
Biggie.
- [60:46]
DJ Hester Prynne
You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable.
- [60:47]
Georgia Hardstark
Because I want to get confident.
- [60:48]
DJ Hester Prynne
This is DJ Hester Prince. Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist. 12 months, 12 areas of your life. Money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [61:12]
Georgia Hardstark
Back in 2016, we said, let's do a podcast.
- [61:15]
Karen Kilgariff
Little did we know it would last 10 years. I mean, but here's the thing. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult. Call your dad. This is terrible. Keep going, you guys. Stay sexy.
- [61:26]
Georgia Hardstark
Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? A cookie?
- [61:31]
Karen Kilgariff
My favorite Murder turns 10 this month. Join us for new episodes every Thursday on the Exactly Right network.
- [61:37]
Georgia Hardstark
Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.