Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Music
All this and more belong to Charles J. Givens, the man who turned $800 into a $50 million empire. If you want to know how you too can realize your dreams, the next exciting hour could change your life as Charles J. Givens reveals a millionaire's secrets to wealth. Good evening, everybody. Charles J. Givens had one of those rags-to-riches stories.
He grew up poor in Decatur, Illinois in the 1950s. His father deserted the family when Charles was just 13. Next in line is head of the household. Charles took care of his alcoholic mother and younger brother. He got a job bagging groceries at the supermarket. It was tough to make ends meet.
Charles J. Givens says he wrote a suicide note at age 16 because he felt worthless. He felt like a loser. Like no matter how hard he worked, he'd never be able to afford to buy a house for $20,000. He'd never get ahead. There was no point in living anymore.
But then Charles J. Givens listened to a taped seminar from Glenn W. Turner, the self-improvement motivational speaking multi-level marketer that would later be charged with fraud and conspiracy along with his famed attorney F. Lee Bailey.
Thanks to that tape, Charles J. Givens realized that all he needed to do to turn his life around was adopt a positive mental attitude. He wrote out a list of dreams. Become one of the richest men in America, it read. Visit Antarctica. Own an airplane. The age of 18, I was bagging groceries for 85 cents an hour to support my mother and brother. My mother had cataracts and couldn't work.
But then I started learning about money. And over the next 20 years, I used what I learned to build a $200 million fortune. Givens moved to Nashville with $600 in his pocket. "I met some musicians," he told the Orlando Sentinel. "I said, 'I'm a record producer. I'll produce your record.' Then I went and learned how." Before long, Charles J. Givens owned a production company. That's how he made his first million, he says.
Then he lost it all when his uninsured recording studio burned to the ground. "I stood in the ashes," Givens told the newspaper. "I didn't throw up. I didn't cry. I listened to birds singing. I thought, 'If I can lose everything in one day and it doesn't ruin the day, I'm unstoppable.'" He most certainly was. Charles J. Givens made his second million in the stock market. He lost that too.
Soon after, he recouped his wealth but lost it all again, developing a yacht club in Sebastian, Florida. No big deal. Charles knew he could do it again, and he was right. Charles J. Givens acquired his fourth and final fortune by investing in businesses and real estate. Getting rich is easy when you're the master of money.
Today I own 46 companies including two banks, three radio stations, a television production company, one of Florida's largest real estate development companies. We build shopping centers, office buildings. But what I really love to do most is teach people about money. That's what gives me my sense of fulfillment.
Charles J. Givens wanted to share his wealth of knowledge, so he founded the Charles J. Givens Organization in 1975 to provide sound financial advice to the public so they too could experience a life of luxury. Charles J. Givens would tell you exactly how to do it, for a fee, of course. Interest in his information was insignificant until 1989.
That year Givens published his first book, Wealth Without Risk, which gained mainstream notoriety and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for months.
This newfound literary success coincided with a series of television infomercials where Charles J. Givens recounted his rise to prosperity and shared his hard-learned success strategies with the viewer. In my 20s, I made and lost a fortune three different times. But in time, I not only learned how to attract wealth, I learned how to hold on to it and even make it multiply. In other words, I learned to master money and so can you.
After paying $399 to join the Charles J. Givens organization, members received newsletters, workshops, and money management lessons on audio cassette and videotape. These fail-proof strategies included money-saving tips such as lowering your credit card's interest rate and learning to recognize bad investment advice. Givens also suggested reducing the withholding allowances on your paycheck and canceling credit life insurance, which he described as one of the biggest rip-offs in America.
While some may suggest that DeGiven's financial strategies were painfully obvious to even the most unsophisticated investor, that's not necessarily true. Here he is teaching billionaire Oprah Winfrey about rapidly depreciating assets. So how are we going to get around, Charles? I'm glad you asked. I love cars. You know, they're great things. However, the real secret is strategy. Buy a car that's two years old.
If this all seems like common sense, Charles J. Givens wouldn't disagree. Because it's that easy, he promised. Givens claimed you could become wealthy with nothing more than your own devices. I've learned through my experience that everything you and I need for our own success, our own happiness, for our own wealth, we already have. And it's contained in the six inches right between our ears.
Mine is more like 6.37 inches, but who's counting?
Today, Charles and Adina Givens bathe in a fountain of wealth that just continues to bubble. And the $150,000 worth of Rolls Royce and Stretch Lincoln that line this $2 million Orlando, Florida estate, they're all his. He doesn't worry about the electric bills that light up its 8,000 square feet of customized comfort and glamour, attended by a staff of six. Or the cozy candlelight dinners like this on his $50,000 antique dining room set. ♪♪
And this could all be yours. Money back. Guaranteed. If you don't save at least double the price of the program the first 60 days, we will refund your money. If you're unable to save double the price of the program, call the toll-free hotline. Master your money and start building more wealth than you ever dreamed possible. Order Money Master right now.
According to the Givens Organization, more than 1 million people all across the nation signed up. A few hundred thousand members were active at any given time. And according to the Givens Organization, many of them had been extremely successful using the money master techniques, like this guy, who reads a script worse than me.
Dear Mr. Givens, Here I was, 45 years old and drowning in a sea of debt with two kids and colleagues, more credit cards than money, and nothing put away for retirement. It seems impossible to believe that only three months after joining the Charles J. Givens organization, and after applying only a few of the strategies,
But not everybody was ready to proclaim Charles Givens as a gift from God. In the early 90s, the Givens organization became the target of dozens of lawsuits and investigations by government agencies.
Most complaints stemmed from dissatisfied customers who were unable to obtain a refund as guaranteed. That's because the given organization's conditional guarantee required members to prove that the money-saving strategies did not work as advertised. It was an impossible hurdle to clear. However, some former members had collected that proof by way of tragedy. Ron Beadle of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk uninsured motorist.
Months earlier, Ron had canceled the family's uninsured motorist insurance policy upon the advice of the Charles J. Givens organization, even though it only cost him around $8 a year. In his book, Givens lectures that uninsured motorist insurance is insurance that you do not need. He claims it's high-priced duplicate coverage that's already included in your existing life, disability, and health insurance. There's no need to waste your money.
So Ron Beadle didn't. And now, his underinsured widow, Sally, and their three children were left with a total of $55,000 to survive, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands of dollars they would have paid out under their pre-Givens policy.
Sally Beadle claimed that her family had suffered financial harm by following the money master's advice. She sued the Givens organization, and a jury found that Charles J. Givens had indeed made fraudulent and negligent misrepresentations. However, the company settled out of court before the trial concluded.
The Charles J. Givens organization also settled out of court with several other families who made the same mistake as the Beatles, and the company settled with tens of thousands of disgruntled customers as part of a class action lawsuit. As far as Charles Givens was concerned, all the legal fees and settlements were part of the cost of doing business, but those costs added up.
When Charles J. Givens died from prostate cancer in 1998 at the age of 57, the master of money had $2.8 million in traceable assets and he had $86 million in debt. Most of his property was seized and sold, but his creditors recouped very little in the end.
After the founder's death, the Charles J. Givens organization renamed itself to International Administrative Services. They're still in business, still based in Florida, still providing financial education lessons to the masses.
However, the real lesson here is the man himself. Charles J. Givens further proves that all it takes to strike gold is merely the appearance of confidence. Speak a mile a minute. Rarely stumble over each carefully rehearsed word. Then you too can get what you want. Even if you have to teeter the lines of buffoonery and brilliance, hyperbole and charisma, fact and fiction. Empty promises are just a means to an end after all.
Look at all those naive people, fresh meat, waiting to be exploited by a smooth-talking charlatan in a rented suit. Allow me, William J. McCorkle said to himself, an infomercial entrepreneur's promise of the good life lands him and his wife behind bars on this episode of Swindled.
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Everybody in this world has something that they want and desire. If you don't have a goal, you can never accomplish anything. You must have goals to be successful. You must have something to strive for. My first goal was to acquire a Mercedes Benz. That goal was the ultimate. I didn't think of anything else except for acquiring that Mercedes Benz, black with white interior. So I mentally pictured it.
myself as my goal. That Mercedes-Benz was everything that I wanted. I visually saw myself in that Mercedes-Benz because if you constantly see yourself with your goal, you're going to eventually ask yourself, what do I have to do to obtain that goal? And that's what I did. I kept asking myself, what do I have to do to get that Mercedes-Benz? I was willing to do whatever it took to get that car and to make it in life. I wanted to be successful. And to do that, I had to visualize my goals.
Before William Joseph McCorkle became a rich and successful real estate guru, he was just another poor busboy working at a country club in northwest Orlando while moonlighting as a mail stripper. He was getting by on meager tips and paychecks and whatever the leather-skinned retirees stuffed into his g-string on any given night. It could be worse, William recognized. Like that time his family was evicted from their home when he was a child,
William had already come a long way since then, but he dreamed it could be so much better. William McCorkle would be the first to admit that he wasn't the smartest or most talented person on earth. He was a D student in high school and reportedly failed his real estate exam four times before passing, but William's drive and determination set him apart. In 1984, at 18 years old, he opened his own real estate business and worked tirelessly to establish himself.
Eventually, William found a niche in the industry to make a living. He began buying foreclosed properties and flipping them for a profit, a practice that netted William McCorkle about $40,000 a year. Utterly middle class and average, but you would never know it. Not with the way William presented himself to everyone that crossed his path. When Chantel Watts met William McCorkle at a Florida nightclub in 1987, he bragged about his Porsche.
The 19-year-old England native had to admit she was rather impressed with the dark and handsome real estate man. William kind of reminded Chantel of her father. Chantel Watts was in Florida on a six-month unpaid nannying job for a family friend. It was supposed to be a temporary vacation. Chantel never expected to fall in love, but when her visa expired, William proposed, and the couple got married. Chantel was 21 years old. William was 23.
Those first few years of marriage were exciting, Chantel says. They would live in the various foreclosures that William was trying to sell. Sometimes they would move twice in one week. Sometimes they would have to sleep on floors. It wasn't always easy. The couple would often get into arguments about money. Other times William's extreme jealousy would push him over the edge.
But overall, Chantel remembers being happy. She spent her time publishing a real estate magazine, volunteering at animal shelters, and helping out with William's business where she could. Chantel admired her husband's inexhaustible drive for success, and eventually, the McCorkle's hard work started to pay off. Ow!
Hi, I'm William McCorkle. In 1992, William began producing and starring in a series of 30-minute television infomercials in which he claimed he could teach the viewers how to become, quote, filthy rich, just like him.
All they had to do was partner with him to purchase four closed properties. It was really quite simple. It's really quite simple if you remember that I have a three step system to profit. First, establish the current value of a property. Second, subtract all loans against the property and I'll show you how to add in all other costs involved such as attorney's fees and delinquent back payments as I do in my volumes. And third, merely subtract two from one to get three which is your profit if you sell.
Not only would he show you how to find the right properties to buy, but William J. McCorkle would also personally write a check to buy them. When the properties were sold, the profit would be split 50-50. There was no risk involved. Viewers just needed to purchase McCorkle's videotapes and his workbooks. Maybe attend a William J. McCorkle seminar or two. The initial package only cost $69. It was a small price to pay for the fortune that awaited.
That's what I'm about to teach you about. It's exciting, I'm telling you. This is an exciting, exciting opportunity to make tons of money. And I'm going to show you exactly what to do. And the best part is you've gotten the best partner that I know in the world. Your partner is me. By making you my partner and us doing deals together, that's what's going to do it all. That's what I want. I want you to become my partner.
By 1996, William McCorkle was signing up to 32,000 partners a month, many of whom were up-sowed to the most advanced packages for as much as $2,500, and most of whom were working-class people with financial troubles of their own, similar to those whose properties they were being incentivized to vulture.
Not William J. McCorkle's problem. Forget the properties. The company was generating almost a million and a half dollars every week from video sales and workbooks alone. Life was good.
You not only become an equal partner with Mr. McCorkle, but you also gain financially and you also get to improve your lifestyle at the same time. So I would encourage everyone to at least try Mr. McCorkle's system if you want to improve your lifestyle, your family, and have more family time. That's really the reason why we invested in it. So I would encourage everyone. The company grew exponentially. It expanded from 50 employees to nearly 400, seemingly overnight.
Chantel sold her magazine and started working for William full-time at Cashflow Systems Incorporated. Though her position was mostly administrative, she was president in name. William had filed for bankruptcy and ruined his credit a few years earlier, but Chantel's was still good, and she would sign anything handed to her.
William McCorkle also featured his wife in a second infomercial with the rest of his trophies. There were mansions and sports cars and boats and planes with his name on them. What a success this guy must be. And he was going to show you how you could be just as proud of yourself by simply attending government auctions.
Cars, boats, planes, jewelry, and more for pennies on the dollar at little advertised government auctions in your area. How William and Chantel personally invest in your success by letting you buy high-ticket items using their money. No program offered on TV and no other seminar taught in America gives you this proven money-making information.
This is the time for you to take action. I need you to pick up the phone and order my course. It's going to change your life. Now is the time for you to start getting out of the situation you're in right now so you have a little bit of money saved up. You've got a little nice house. You've got a nice car. I want you to drive exotic cars, have beautiful houses, and a lot of money to take a vacation whenever you want one.
Take it from me, I'm telling you, when you go to these government auctions, you'll find items for yourself you're going to love. And not only that, you're going to be able to sell these items and make a huge profit for you and me. And then we'll be able to vacation together if you want to. I look forward to personally talking to you soon because I'm going to be in your town. As soon as you find this deal, I'm going to be in your town. We're going to film it and I'm going to have dinner at your house. I can't wait to meet with you. And I want to thank you for watching this videotape and I'll talk to you later on.
Money is not the root of all evil. Not having money is, proclaimed a brochure for William J. McCorkle's seminar. He should know. He had been on both ends of the spectrum. But now William and Chantel were weekend vacationing in the Bahamas. They'd purchased a house with a pool. They were sitting ringside for a Mike Tyson prize fight, outfitted in designer clothes that fit remarkably, thanks to the strict advice from their personal trainers.
The McCorkles quite enjoyed the luxury, but in less than a year it all went wrong. Chantel McCorkle claims that the business grew too fast, they had to relocate to a new building, and it took a while to get the new phone system straightened out. Many unsatisfied customers were unable to obtain a refund, while others never received what they ordered. Complaints flooded into the news media and the Florida Attorney General.
The McCorkles were served a subpoena in August 1996. The couple was given three days to provide thousands of business and banking documents. William immediately hired OJ Dream Team defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, who had the subpoena quashed. Bailey also advised the McCorkles to set up a million-dollar escrow to honor future refunds for anyone who complained. That act of good faith, he said, would keep the state's attorney's office off their backs.
William bought Chantelle a horse and a Porsche as an apology for the recent scare. He reassured her that the company's troubles were a thing of the past and she believed him. But in reality, the McCorkle's problems were just beginning. Support for Swindled comes from Rocket Money.
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This is The Good Life. We invite you to join with us over the next few minutes and learn how you can become independently wealthy using a few well-tested proven techniques, which will put you on the road to achieving your financial independence. It takes little or no money, requires no credit, and anyone can do it in their spare time. Just a few hours a month. That's all it takes.
Chantel McCorkle awoke to a knock on the door on the morning of May 9th, 1997. When she opened it, FBI agents stormed through with guns drawn. "'How many people are in the house? Where are your weapons?' they yelled."
William was in the bathroom. Chantel's mother was in the kitchen. The federal agents rounded everybody up and sequestered them in the dining room. "What's happening?" Chantel's mother asked her daughter. Chantel didn't have a clue. But judging by the response of law enforcement, it seemed like someone had been murdered or something. Chantel counted at least 40 agents moving in and out of their house.
They'd search in seizure warrants for practically everything that wasn't nailed down. The cars, the jewelry, everything in the filing cabinets. Chantel asked about the necklace that belonged to her father, who had recently committed suicide. "You'll have to have your attorneys fight for it," she was told. The search of the McCorkle residence lasted more than 12 hours. Neither William or Chantel were arrested that night.
When the frenzy ended, they were left alone in their empty house. Black scuff marks all over the kitchen floor. At the end of the day, the McCorkles still did not know what the raid was all about. The agents told them that the details of the investigation were in a sealed master affidavit. They would find out soon enough. Get rich quick, Guru William J. McCorkle and his wife indicted. The 90 count indictment was filed in federal court late this afternoon.
On March 5th, 1998, William and Chantelle McCorkle were charged with 90 counts of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy.
After combing through more than 250 boxes of evidence, including computer files, videotapes, and telemarketing scripts, authorities alleged that McCorkle's 10 corporations defrauded their customers out of at least $28 million. The basis of the case is he made promises to people he knew he couldn't keep, Florida's Assistant Attorney General told the media.
According to federal prosecutors, McCorkle's whole act was fraudulent. The planes, yachts, and automobiles featured in his infomercials were rentals. None of the assets had been purchased at government auctions as he had claimed.
Also, the satisfied customers were paid actors. Thus, prosecutors alleged, The McCorkles had moved at least $7 million into offshore bank accounts in the past year and reported less than $10,000 on their taxes.
Chantel signed off on multiple transactions. Each one carried its own charge, which amounted to potentially decades in prison. The couple was also charged with using fraudulently obtained credit cards and using a false social security number. William was charged with several additional counts of mail fraud. Chantel was charged with making a false statement in court.
Three of McCorkle's top associates were caught up in the investigation as well. Brian Higgins, Herman Vinsky, and Sammy Smith allegedly prepared the scripts for upsells and hosted live seminars where they repeated the false statements and misrepresentations about William J. McCorkle's get-rich-quick system. All three men faced a single conspiracy charge.
The McCorkles were on vacation in Mexico when they received the news that they had been indicted. The couple flew back to Orlando and turned themselves in at the federal courthouse. They were released after paying a $3 million bond. From that point on, William and Chantel spent all of their time preparing to fight the charges. Defense attorney F. Lee Bailey continued to work with William, while Mark Horwitz represented Chantel. Their defense was based on the fact that William had issued almost 40,000 refunds on his own accord.
F. Lee Bailey suggested that most of the McCorkle's customers were satisfied, and some of those satisfied customers would testify to that fact. Chantel would be framed as an innocent bystander. At the trial, which began in September 1998, Bailey repeated the couple's claim that the business had simply grown too fast, and he denied that his clients had intentionally misled anybody. "It outran itself, and in some senses was out of control," Bailey told the jury in his opening statement.
William takes responsibility for the company and any mistakes that were made. He was managing a company with nearly 400 people, a huge amount of sales, and he simply could not keep up. On the other hand, the prosecution argued that William J. McCorkle was pushing a wealth-building program that had very little chance of working. He was a con man, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Byron said of McCorkle. He preyed on the viewer's greed and stashed millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts when he came under investigation.
"It's a case about the American Dream," Byron told the jury. "It's about marketing the American Dream. It's about packaging the American Dream. And it's about selling the American Dream." The government also called in witnesses who complained that the McCorkles had ripped them off. Many of the victims were elderly. Another was a mother whose paraplegic son ordered the program. None of them had been able to obtain a refund.
Actors and actresses also testified that they had been paid to read a script detailing their success. They were told to choose a fake name, they practiced their lines, and sometimes they were instructed to tell two different stories. You know what's so great about these government auctions? I attended a drug seizure sale, bought a 300SD Mercedes, paid $1,500 for it, a dealer offered me $10,000 for it, I turned him down.
Additionally, the prosecution alleged that William McCorkle defrauded his customers with artificial scarcity. The scripts obtained in the raid showed how the company's telemarketers would create an urgency to purchase by telling customers that only a limited number of slots were available in their state. That claim could not be further from the truth.
The McCorkles did not testify on their own behalf during the trial. Their defense team felt it would do more harm than good, especially since the refunds prior to the arrest proved that there was no intent to defraud. Still, best case scenario, everybody assumed that William might have to serve a little time. Chantel would most likely walk. After a nine-week trial, jury deliberations began.
On Wednesday, November 4th, 1998, Chantel McCorkle kissed her beloved cats for good luck and joined her husband and her mother and stepfather for breakfast at a cafe down the street from the courthouse. A verdict wasn't expected until Friday, so there was plenty of time to kill. For lunch, the couple walked to Burger King, then back to the lawyer's office where William braided Chantel's hair. But around 4 p.m. that afternoon, the call came in.
The McCorkles walked to the federal courthouse, hand in hand, in the pouring rain. The couple sat petrified as they waited for the jury to enter the room. Nobody made eye contact with the defendants. Chantel asked William, Is the jury looking at you? I don't know, William replied, too afraid to peek. Then came the verdicts. William went first. The word guilty endlessly repeated. Chantel buried her head into her husband's chest.
Halfway through the jury's reading of the charges, William McCorkle's arms fell to his sides and he slumped in his chair. His body started shaking uncontrollably, like he was having a seizure, while making a guttural noise that Chantel said she can't even begin to describe. The bailiffs helped William out of the courtroom into a waiting ambulance. Chantel McCorkle stood alone as her verdicts were read aloud, guilty, guilty, guilty, 69 times.
Chantel's mother erupted from the back of the room. "Nothing but bastards in this country," she screamed while being escorted out. "You don't know what you've done to her." Chantel McCorkle sobbed uncontrollably with her head on the table in front of her. The judge warned her that she would be removed from the courtroom if she could not control herself. The jury then finished reading William's counts without him present.
William McCorkle was found guilty of 81 counts of fraud and money laundering. Brian Higgins and Herman Vinsky were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Sammy Smith was acquitted.
The prosecution asked for the convicted to be held in custody since Chantel was from England and could pose a flight risk. The judge obliged. Chantel McCorkle handed her wedding ring and pearl earrings to her lawyer. The court marshals handcuffed her wrist and led her through the door to a holding cell where she collapsed against the wall and started crying. I hate the government, she lamented.
Do you want to be stuck in your present job for the rest of your life? I don't think so. In order to get out of your present situation, in order to stop living from paycheck to paycheck, you have to think on a bigger scale. Picture what you want and where you want to be. That's one key to becoming successful. Don't just be satisfied with life right now. Picture your goals and eventually they will become yours. Chantel McCorkle was transported to the Seminole County Jail to await sentencing, which was scheduled for January 1999.
She was stripped, hosed down and sprayed with a lice treatment. Chantel said she kept throwing up because she was so terrified. She was taken to an 8x8 suicide watch cell, handed a blanket covered in dried menstrual blood, and told to sleep naked on the cold floor. But even as she struggled to adjust to her new surroundings, Chantel couldn't help but think of William. Was he even alive?
Yes, she would find out eventually from their lawyers Bailey and Horwitz. William was alive. It was a stress-induced illness, they told her. He was released from the hospital the following day. The couple was finally reacquainted two months later, pale and tired in matching orange jumpsuits. They stood in front of the judge in a scene far removed from the glamorous infomercials in which they had starred. William J. McCorkle was stoic as the judge delivered their fates. Chantel cried.
The associates, Brian Higgins and Herman Vinsky, were sentenced to five years in prison, two years of probation, and a $2,000 fine. As for William and Chantel, this case is troubling, the judge said. The defendants are young. They have no prior records. This is a very stiff sentence, and it gives me great pause. But the judge had no choice being bound to mandatory sentencing guidelines and all. Those multiple charges of money laundering really added up.
32-year-old William Joseph McCorkle and 30-year-old Chantelle Watts McCorkle were each sentenced to 24 years in prison. The jury also voted to strip them of virtually everything they owned. 23 bank accounts, 8 pieces of real estate, multiple luxury cars and more worth approximately $10.6 million. Funny enough, many of the physical assets that had been seized were sold in government auctions. Maybe this McCorkle guy was onto something.
Regardless, the penalty was undeniably harsh. 24 years and more than $10 million. Was the federal government choosing to make an example out of William and Chantel? Some in the media believe that to be the case. In the past, similar slimy infomercial gurus like Charles J. Givens had settled civil complaints but never served any time. Those days were over, apparently.
William and Chantelle McCorkle were taken separately to a maximum security prison. Chantelle wrote that she slept in a bunk bed in a room with 22 other women, one of which had decapitated her parents with a steak knife. It was unfair, Chantelle thought. That woman was serving less than half as much time. The days passed, each one the same as the last. Breakfast at 6.30, followed by cleaning work, followed by lunch, then exercise.
Chantelle ate dinner at 5:30, lights out at 11. She read books and learned Spanish in the spare moments just to pass the time. "Some nights I wake up terrified," she wrote in the journal, staring at the gray stone prison wall, not knowing for a moment where I am. Then the reality hits me. It's been nearly two years since I was jailed, and I still can't believe what has happened to me. If I serve my full sentence, I will be 53 when I get out. Any hopes of having children will have gone.
Hope was hard to find, but it did surface. Motions for a new trial had been filed based on new evidence uncovered by two private investigators. In post-trial interviews for a book, one of the jurors admitted that he knew that the couple was guilty from the first day of the trial. His mother-in-law had purchased the McCorkle's program and had never made a dime.
Another affidavit claimed that a court bailiff told the jury that they would not have any trouble convicting the McCorkles if they knew what he knew, as if he were privy to evidence that would not be introduced at the trial. The McCorkles' attorneys argued that it was blatant tampering, and there were also questions regarding paid witnesses, but ultimately the motions for a new trial were denied 22 years left to go. Chantel couldn't help but feel betrayed. Why hadn't William just cut a plea deal in the beginning and taken the fall?
Why would he let her, the love of his life, get caught up in his crimes? She wouldn't have done the same to him. Chantel was guilty of naivety. She was guilty of being in love and supporting her partner through all his endeavors, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, and this was the thing she got. William had always been the jealous type, though. Perhaps this was his final act of control. He'd rather let his beloved wife rot away in prison than move on without him.
"It's so hard," Chantel wrote in 2001. "I miss my family and the simple things like having a bath, going to the fridge and calling people on the phone. I'm in the process of divorcing William. He should have never let me take the blame. I knew nothing about his business yet. Not once did he or his attorneys tell the court that. I am so hurt by this because I did love him. I feel so alone. But I believe that someone will realize I shouldn't be here and I will be freed."
That thought keeps me going. The McCorkles divorce was finalized in 2001. Chantel served William with the papers. "The marriage is irretrievably broken," they read. William returned the documents with biblical scripture written all over them. Several more years went by, but Chantel Watts had not been forgotten. The barbaric sentence she had received caused outrage in her homeland.
Members of the British House of Parliament urged the American judicial system to hear Chantelle's appeal and to transfer her to the UK, where she would have received a suspended sentence for the exact same crimes. Instead, Chantelle's applications to transfer to a British prison were denied multiple times. However, in 2006, after more than six years behind bars, both Chantelle and William received some good news. Their sentences were reduced to 18 years from 24.
It had been discovered that their original sentences had been miscalculated because the couple had not supervised five or more people in their money laundering scheme. Chantelle was surprised with more good news three years later, in May 2009. The US government had finally approved her request to transfer to the UK. "When I was told this wonderful news by my attorneys, words escaped me, but the tears of complete happiness came forth abundantly," she wrote.
I'm still waking up each morning and pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. The reality is I will soon be seeing my loved ones again after so many years of separation and will be meeting all of my new nieces and nephews, which thrills me." Chantelle Watts was flown to London on September 30th, 2009. She was handed over to British authorities who escorted her to a low security prison. In February 2010, she was transferred again to an open prison in East Sutton Park.
In June of that year, after serving 11 years and 8 months, Chantel was released for good. At 42 years old, Chantel Watts said her long overdue freedom took some getting used to. She was 29 when she went to prison. The world had left her behind. She told the Daily Mirror, quote,
Now everyone texts and most people use tiny iPods holding 5,000 songs. Films are DVDs rather than videos. And the TV shows I liked have gone out of fashion or I'm years behind. And there's so much choice in the shops. I went to Tesco the other day and was shocked how much stuff is there. "It's taken me a while to get used to handling money again," Chantel continued. "I embarrassed myself in a shop because I didn't know what a two pound coin was. I'd never seen one before."
A few days later my mom treated me to a nice haircut but when I saw the price I couldn't help thinking it would have only cost two bags of rice in prison." Then Chantelle laughed and added, "Now I'm free. I just want to be happy. I want to laugh every day and to live each day to the absolute fullest. I want to do things freely for the rest of my life." Chantelle Watts is currently a personal trainer in the UK.
William J. McCorkle was released from prison in 2014. His current whereabouts are unknown. The end. If you have any questions, my staff and I are here for you. I look forward to talking to you. I want to thank you for watching this video and have a great day.
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