Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Hed be in contact. Why do we feel its so necessary to treat people like this, to say, OK, well just ruin the rest of your life because you made a bad decision., Punishment should not last a lifetime. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. Masterminds is an atrociously bad comedy, and absolutely everyone is to blame. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. There had been no signs. Things started to go south the night of the robbery. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. Things were spiraling fast. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? I ride motorcycles and fish -- normal guy, Ghantt told Counts. But it wasnt. 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. ", "Even then . The robbery was committed by Loomis vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell (a former Loomis co-worker), Steven Eugene Chambers (a one-time FBI informant), his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies, and four other co-conspirators. They hatched the idea half-jokingly, over a game of Uno, never dreaming they were about to make Bonnie and Clyde look like bottom feeders. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. Thomas Grant, who served three years in prison for bank larceny, paid off restitution of $70,000; brother Eric Grant paid all of his $26,000; as did David Craig, $40,000; and Dennis and Sandra Floyd; $27,000. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. Scott didn't want to, but then he remembered the hundred-grand payday. Probably very egotistical of me, I thought, Yeah, sure, I can beat them, theyre college smart and thats about it, Ghantt said. Well they were in some sense celebrities, Gronquist said. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. We got this guy named Bruno. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. . The money weighed as much as a compact car and he did it all by himself. If we work together, we can all have plenty of pie.. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. Inside the Mazda, Steve told Scott Grant to get out and help David. Loomis has received $978,983.79, according to Sally Butcher, an assistant clerk in the federal courts of the Western District of North Carolina who specializes in criminal debt. She was a wife and mother with two children. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. ". Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Scott, 26, had a larceny conviction as a teenager, but he'd since cleaned up his act and now had a steady job, a daughter and a girlfriend. Steve now needed a hit man. . Chambers promised to wire him money in Mexico until the investigation blew over and Ghantt could return to North Carolina. One of them tapped him on the back. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. That was the thing that sticks in my mind to this day., ALSO READ: Man released from jail, accused of robbing banks while wearing electronic monitor, police say. With the help of Aldo, a Mexican waiter he had befriended, David found a beach apartment in Cancun. The Chambers home is now gated, which means Channel 9 crews cant drive up to it like we used to. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. 145 Matches for Kelly Loomis. The FBI heard about the plot and agents knew they could no longer wait. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. . Kristen Wiig plays Kelly, who really wasn't that into David, but convinced him to take a fortune from Loomis Fargo in the fall of '97. He didnt even really question me. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. "Love" has four. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". With a cast like this, and Emily Spivey (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Up All Night) as part of the writing team, Masterminds shouldnt be nearly as obnoxious and dull as it is, but nothing ever clicks. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Informacin sobre tu dispositivo y conexin a Internet, como tu direccin IP, Actividad de navegacin y bsqueda al utilizar sitios web y aplicaciones de Yahoo. David Ghantt was just an average Joe with an average low-wage job. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. The modern company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armoured security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc. Their international network covers over 200 operating locations in the US and eleven western European countries. Since Ghantt was the supervisor, he sent his co-worker home first. But if you did, youll never forget it. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . All of the defendants are out of prison -- the longest sentence was 11 years. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. ". 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 . I dont know if Steve would have done it himself, but he definitely was capable of buying someone to do it for him and I think that was going to happen if we didnt step in and arrest Ghantt, Wydra said. You can seize property. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Theres less security. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. He goes, My name is Bruno. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. This month marked 25 years since one of the biggest armored car heists in U.S. history. It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997, 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 Holly, N.C. on Aug 16, 1999. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. In the following months, Steve persisted, even floating the notion of placing phony hand grenades on a Loomis truck to scare away the drivers, Kelly said. Name. Steve Chambers would keep the rest. So Im like, Can you get a move on with my money? After a couple of weeks passed, I get a phone call from Kelly: Okay, Brunos coming to you, blah, blah, blah. So I get a phone call from this guy, and I tell him where to meet me. Steve and Michele invited everyone back for a Christmas party, where they gave Michele's stepfather a special gift--the pickup truck he'd always wanted. I was just going to get the money into the van. 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. Jeffrey Guller, who at 81 is by far the oldest of the Loomis defendants, still owes almost $1.1 million on his original court debt of $1.14 million and will remain on the governments books for another four years. 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. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. The figures can be astounding. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what they'd talked about that day in the break room. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. Truth was, David wanted more than help leaving, he wanted company. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. It was late in 1996. The plan was to maintain a low profile and wait for things to cool off, allowing Ghantt to return to the states and collect his cut. But on Oct. 4, 1997, that no longer mattered and Ghantt took off with $17.3 million. Then we went on a mission to calculate exactly how much size-wise the money was, $11.3 million in $20 bills, and it weighed over 2,000 pounds, Wydra said. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. Scary. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. About six months before the Charlotte theft, on March 29, a total of $18.8 million was taken from Loomis, Fargo in Jacksonville, Fla., in what was believed to be the largest heist in U.S.. 0 Comments Get local news delivered to your inbox! I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. Exciting. . About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. It changes you. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. 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