1997 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items bought after Loomis, Fargo armored car facility heist by Steven Chambers, wife Michele, Kelly Jane Campbell & David Scott Ghanntt (Photo by Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images) Looking for Kelly Loomis? Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. In a word, "Teamwork. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Geres Ass Gerbil. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. The van door opened. In Florida, a Loomis Fargo employee had pulled a gun on his coworkers and gotten away with $18 million, a move that FBI agents theorize Ghantt, Campbell and other employees all sat around talking about - and what they would do with that amount of money - for a while. They put up mauve wallpaper. Then another. He didnt even really question me. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. When he was done, the man drove off to a nearby printing press, where the money was distributed into private vehicles amongst a handful of people. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. In real life: False. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. Kelly would only discover later that leading up to the heist, Steve had been writing bad checks, $17,000 worth, for which he would later be convicted. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter . She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. I'd probably change jobs. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. I didn't think I had the guts. The money was heavy. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. Ghantt and one other employee were the last to leave. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' No regrets. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. I didnt pick the heist team. Kelly was lying. The only person not to plead guilty in the case, former Gastonia attorney Jeff Guller, ended up doing eight years for money laundering. She was a wife and mother with two children. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. Steve led the planning. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. She declined to take a lie-detector test. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. He kept looking over his shoulder. But in November, money ran low. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. Kelly drove David to the airport. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. And I knew that by that time, Id be in Cancun no matter what. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. I loved it. The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was the $17.3 million cash robbery of the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis Fargo & Company on the evening of October 4, 1997, by armored car driver and vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. ". At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. Its everything thats coming north.. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount. In the wee hours of the morning, Chambers and the Erics drove back to the town of Vale, North Carolina, and holed up in a double-wide trailer while counting their cash. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP), Police: Officer Who Shot Black Man Retired 'In Bad Standing', 3 Kansas City Officers Who Were Shot Released From Hospital, 1 Killed When Business Jet Encounters Severe Turbulence. . That's the kind of movie they wanted to make. Kelly called David at Loomis; he told her he'd be ready for them with the cash at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Alone in the building, David was trying to finish loading cash from the vault into an unmarked white Ford Econoline van belonging to Loomis. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. The bigger the amount, however, the bigger the damages to victims that likely will never be repaid: Amy Paynes collection account was closed in 2020 with her having paid $53,000 of the $274,000 she owed. . Once in a lifetime, Murdaugh verdict sends a Lowcountry message: No one is above the law | Opinion, Charlotte Waffle House found with live roach, unclean equipment during health inspection. But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. He has no contact with any of those convicted with him in the crime, including his former wife, and doesn't plan to see the movie, he said. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. That October, the Chamberses' bank accounts ballooned. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Michele received the best gift of the night. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. I said, It comes down to picking the right day, and the right time of the month, and all that good stuff. I even told her, It wouldnt be all that difficult. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. They stocked a wine cellar. Scary. Then another. That time in prison was actually good for me. But he tried to keep his face averted, so David wouldn't be able to ID him. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. By March, Steve Chambers decided he needed to do something more drastic about Ghantt, making plans to send a hitman to Mexico to silence him for good. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. His new life in Mexico had begun. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. Agents began picking up signs that David definitely had help: The abandoned Loomis van with $3.3 million in small bills still inside, and phone records showing that somebody beeped him while he stole the money, using David's own cell phone. Jim Gronquist, Campbells defense attorney during the Loomis case, says the financial penalties levied against his client and her co-defendants are grossly excessive and unjust, particularly since most of the stolen Loomis money was actually recovered. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. Eric watched. I was burned out and just didn't know it. She came from a blue-collar background, a high school dropout who had grown tired of working in a mill and gotten an equivalency diploma. He didn't want to abandon his parents. Visit us at Loomis.us. The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. and "I love money!" "He was in tears. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. "We had David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell tied together, and we had Steven Chambers and Eric Payne with unexplained wealth, but we didn't have a tie between them," Agent John Wydra said. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. You've violated that trust. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? My love for my family is by far the most important thing in my life. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. Its a yes: Clover teen shakes off nerves to earn American Idol golden ticket, Mail carrier cant believe his eyes after seeing NC lottery win. He gave the rest to Kelly. She was devastated, Diamant said. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? You have to remember that it's Hollywood and they'll take what was a minor event and they'll blow it up and make it as funny as they can.". Her case closes in 2025. Its in the ether. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. As for his new wife, when the two just started dating, he was nervous about letting her know about his past, but he wanted to be honest. You're an idiot.'". At that same time, Steve was growing sick of the calls to send more money to Ghantt, and was looking for a way to end that issue.
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