The Athlete Whisperer: Ep.4, She is a Perfect Actor
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Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives.

Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the CINO Show. I'm your host, Cino McFarlane. I'm an addiction specialist. I'm a coach. I'm a translator. And I'm God's middleman. My job is to crack hearts and let the light in and help everyone shift the narrative. I want to help you wake up and I want to help you get free. Most importantly, I don't want you to feel alone. Listen to the CINO Show every Wednesday on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Previously on Queen of the Con. It is what it is. It's not nothing you can take back. Peggy Fulford scams millions of dollars from pro athletes like Dennis Rodman and Travis Best. You know, Travis was in the fucking Pacers and he was in movies and stuff. Yeah. And when Travis found out, he didn't tell anyone either. Because it's embarrassing.

NBA shooting guard Rashad McCants is actually kind of lucky by comparison. He only loses $200,000 to Peggy. It was my first rookie check. My first rookie check, I got a call from my agent saying, Peggy got us.

All this goes down in the early 2000s, and there's a lot of overlap. Peggy is actually scamming multiple pro athletes at the same time. And it turns out the biggest victim of all is Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams. How much total did Peggy take from Ricky? I think they said about $6 million. Do you think it was really more? I think that it was definitely more. ♪♪♪

I'm Jonathan Walton, and this is Queen of the Con, The Athlete Whisperer, Episode 4, She's a Perfect Actor. Ricky the deep back, first and goal of the two-yard line. In the early 2000s, NFL running back Ricky Williams is a bona fide superstar. A jaw-dropping, eye-popping kind of run by Ricky Williams.

Making touchdown after touchdown after touchdown for the Miami Dolphins. It is Williams, slips away from one, touchdown! Great spin move for Ricky Williams! And the end zone welcomes Ricky. But in 1999, before he makes it to Miami, Ricky's playing for the New Orleans Saints. I think everyone remembers Ricky Williams as a Heisman winner.

Guardian journalist and author of the book Family, Gangsters and Champions, Ramon Antonio Vargas. Ricky Williams was kind of the face of a very dark time in New Orleans sports history, just given how he came to kind of epitomize, like, you know, the Saints gave up a lot to acquire him. And then under the Mike Ditka era, which set all kinds of records of futility for the franchise. I also remember and recognize how important

of a role he played on the Saints team that won the franchise's first ever playoff game, which did not happen until the 2000 season. And it's while Ricky is living in New Orleans from 1999 to 2001 that he buys a flashy new condo with his multi-million dollar paycheck from the NFL when MTV Cribs suddenly wants to shoot a segment about his new digs. And he needed to...

furnished the whole place and everything like that. Ricky's lifelong friend, Chantel Cohen. And so a cousin of Peggy's worked in, I don't know if she was an interior designer or worked at the actual furniture store, but she came over, she helped out, she furnished a place and brought Peggy in to help her.

So it turns out this interior designer, a woman named Pamela, isn't actually a cousin of Peggy's at all, despite whatever story might have been told at the time. My name is Pamela Carey, and I am a longtime friend of Peggy Barad King or Fulford. Not sure what name she's going by now, but her maiden name was Barad King.

We are longtime friends. Our parents were friends, so I've known her for a long time. So Pamela is the woman Ricky Williams hires to decorate his condo for MTV Cribs, and Peggy is a childhood friend of Pamela's. But Pamela and Ricky already have a previous working relationship. I helped him with his house. Prior to the condo, I'd already did his entire house, and we were really close.

But what Pamela doesn't know is that Peggy had moved back to New Orleans from Atlanta after divorcing Dr. Forrest King and taking full control of the sports management company he founded, King Management. And Travis Best, the point guard for the Indiana Pacers, is her only client.

So Peggy is desperately looking for more professional athletes to get her hooks in. And the second she hears her childhood friend Pamela Carey got hired to decorate a new condo for NFL running back Ricky Williams. She just showed up and she made herself available. She said, oh, you need sheets. You need this. And she initially purchased some things for him.

She made her way into his life. And at the time, I didn't think anything of it. I now realized that she was scouting him. Oh, yeah. She was scouting him, all right. And Pamela Carey, who Ricky and Chantel called Pam, was Peggy's only way in. And do you blame Pam for bringing Peggy into both your lives? I never blame anybody for someone else's...

the way that they act. Chantel Cohen again. I seriously don't think that Pam knew the depth of what Peggy was doing. So I wouldn't put any blame on Pam at all. Pam was going to help Ricky decorate. Yes. And then she drafted Peggy. And then Peggy just took over. What was her taste like? What kind of stuff did she get? I mean, like, I want to say like a modern...

fancy i don't even know the word to use for that mix but like super modern rich paintings like one of his blue dog paintings that is a big painting in new orleans 250k like come on yes exactly and every time i would look at that i'm like that is a quarter of a million dollars sitting on this wall right now so she got ricky to buy a painting for 250 000 yes yes oh my god yes

My dream is to have that kind of money one day. I know, me too, right? I don't know if I'd buy a painting. I definitely am not. I'm trying to buy like a plane or something. I don't know. I need something that I can use over and over again. So she had expensive tastes. Very expensive tastes. I wouldn't even know where to get a $250,000 painting. In the first quarter. Yeah. So she decked out Ricky's place. Decked it out, yes. And when MTV Cribs came and shot, they were impressed. Yes, very much so. So he must have felt...

grateful. She comes in, decorates. She's doing this for free. She's not asking for money. No, she didn't do it for money because that was her thing. Like, you need to save your money for generational wealth, blah, blah, blah, blah. So no, she didn't get paid for that now that I think about it. She seems like what the FBI calls a rescue merchant.

Ricky was in a bind. He needed this place decorated. She comes on the scene. I'll do it. She's got the style and glamour and she knows where to buy $250,000 paintings and make the place look like

a baller lives there you know for sure and that's what she wanted people to know like you are ricky williams you have to live like this high profile person and ricky is so opposite he doesn't care about money he doesn't care about what people think about him like he's just living his own life so it's like she was trying to make him bigger than what he wanted to be basically because you're ricky williams they traded a whole draft for you you know so she was just trying to

make him live up to that. But if you look at all of the people that she actually took money from, they all were in some type of bind are just like really to their selves, not like needed some type of nurturer, basically, you know, and she needed a mother to take care of a mom. And she just came in and she was the perfect person to do something like that.

And the thing about Peggy is she's a lot like my con artist from season one, the Irish heiress who lied in wait for years to rob me. You've been scamming us out of money this whole time. I have not. You have. Peggy is incredibly patient and literally puts in years of work and tells years of lies before she ever scams a single dollar from Ricky Williams. It's obvious now she was grooming him.

Walk me through how you and Ricky go from Peggy comes on the scene, decorates his place. He's grateful. She takes you all out. You guys become friends. How do you go from that to suddenly she's managing his money? How'd that happen?

It was such a long period of time from the time that we met Peggy to when she actually started working for Ricky because she didn't start working for Ricky till like five years in. We were more of growing as a family, getting close and things like that. I would babysit her kids.

She was one of the kids' godmothers. Like, you know, so we were all like a tight-knit group that hung out, dinners and things like that. And then after he retired the first time with the suspension and everything like that,

Yeah, so Ricky Williams got into some trouble with his use of marijuana when he played for the NFL. Again, our top story. Ricky Williams has lost his appeal to the NFL and has subsequently been suspended from football for one year for allegedly violating the league's substance abuse policy. The decision came...

And in 2004, Ricky Williams, at just 27 years old, retires, actually walks away from the NFL. He's sick of the marijuana controversy. He's sick of the brutal spotlight that comes with playing professional football.

Ricky Williams felt like he had no one protecting him from all that. And that is the opening Peggy needs to inject herself into his life and into his bank account after the break.

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down.

From unbelievable romantic betrayals... The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family... When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal...

This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio.

I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil,

They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition?

Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast There and Gone. It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident? Or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle.

Not for Richard. He's your son, and in your eyes, he's innocent. But in my eyes, he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There and Gone.

Welcome back to Queen of the Con. In 2004, NFL running back Ricky Williams retires from professional football. But a year later, in 2005, he changes his mind and goes back to playing for the Miami Dolphins.

At this point, four years have gone by since Ricky first meets Peggy, and they've become really close. He knows she manages the finances for other professional athletes like Indiana Pacers point guard Travis Best, and now Peggy starts earnestly making the case to Ricky Williams for why she's the one who should be managing him, finances and all.

back is when she got in his ear of if you would have let me manage you back then we wouldn't be in this and blah blah blah and then that's how she ended up working for Ricky so it was like five years after we originally met her

There's something so Shakespearean about it, like Othello. Like she's the Iago, like whispering in his ear. - I've just seen that play in London two weeks ago. - Oh my God, how was it? How did they do it? - It was amazing. - It's amazing, right? - It was amazing, yes. - It's such a great story, but it's so based on, I see those situations again and again, where you have this evil MF-er who pretends to be nice and loved by everyone, whispering shit in Ricky Williams' ear, like, "If you'd have let me manage, this wouldn't have happened." You're like, blah, blah, blah.

So over the course of five years at this point, Peggy convinces Ricky and Chantel she's a Harvard grad who made millions of dollars on Wall Street. And now she's just helping professional athletes manage their money and more importantly, protect their money from all the ne'er-do-wells, all the circling vultures who are lining up to trick them out of it.

So in 2007, Ricky Williams hires Peggy to run his finances and kind of run his life. So how much was Peggy's salary for managing Ricky's money? No. She didn't want to sell? No. She didn't want to charge her. You're my brother. You already are in money situations because of football.

I want you to have generational wealth. That was her main thing that she used, generational wealth. That was her thing. That was her slogan. That was everything. So she didn't want to charge. She didn't charge these athletes. So she came off as a woman with so much money on her own. Yep. She's just almost like volunteering to help. Like you would volunteer to feed the homeless. You guys are my sons. I need to help you, basically. Because to your knowledge, at that point, she had no children. Yeah. Because everyone was her ex-husband's kid. Everyone. Yeah.

The first time she held Ricky's first son. This is my first time ever holding a baby. She said that? Yes. Literally. This is my first time holding a baby. So Peggy just comes across as this uber wealthy woman with no kids of her own and so much love to give. I just want to help the rich athletes. My buddy again, Evan Goldstein.

Early on she makes the case that athletes are always getting scammed. Let me help you grow. Oh my god How ironic huh? Yeah on the face it seems. Oh, well, that's dumb She's not charging you right who doesn't charge you but by then she's got their heartstrings She's this loving benevolent mother figure with all this money She's just doing this to help you because you know, she wants to help athletes. Yeah, it's like

you know those rich women that just like, you know, they do the charities. - They volunteer, yes. - That like, I just do it because I don't need the money. I just, this is what keeps me busy. This is what gives me, I like to help people. - Purpose, it gives her purpose. - Yeah. - Yeah, and we all yearn for a sense of purpose and they misread it thinking this is her sense of purpose. Well, meanwhile, she's robbing them all blind.

And like so many other con artists, Peggy really looks the part. And she appeared to be rich. Yeah, when Peggy walks into a room, she takes over the whole energy. Chantelle Cohen again. Like everybody turns to her. She knows how to work the room. She knows how to speak. She knows what you want to hear at the end of the day. So it was easy for her. Perfect example, we did a Hurricane Foundation thing, a fundraiser, I think.

I think it was like Honduras or somebody had a big hurricane back then. And we raised all this money through athletes and things. And she literally worked the whole room. Like she walked out of there with more clients, even though she had people raising money, but she walked out with more people because she worked the room. It's like Ricky was the quiet one.

You just go in there and talk. I'll go in there and be Ricky. You go in there and be Peggy. And so they had a dynamic duo. Everything was legit. Looking back, it's apparent to me now she's using Ricky to attract other people. Yeah, no, for sure. Because she's like, well, people think she's managing Ricky Williams money. She must be good. I want in on that. Yep.

And I had a moment where I actually worked for her as a personal assistant, but it only lasted for a month because I didn't get paid. She didn't pay you? She didn't pay me. I was really mad about that. Me and another friend of ours, we both worked at the same time and we were just like, okay, I'm so confused. Like, we're in your big mansion and we're not getting a paycheck. And I was like, this is not going to work for me, you know? And she's like, no, no,

I'll give you a check. And I'm like, it's not going to work for me. Like I rather us be friends than business partners. So I just left it at that. And we were still very cool after that. And that just speaks to how charming and charismatic she is that you can still be cool after that. Yeah.

And how does she not pay? Like when paycheck time came, there was no paycheck. It was no paycheck. And you asked her, hey, where's our money at? To the point to where my friend wrote her a letter, like what's going on, you know? And I can't even remember how she responded because obviously it wasn't too mean because I still was her friend after that. So I don't remember how she responded, but I just remember we still talk about it that we never got paid by her. Wow. Yeah.

That's so strange though, but it really speaks to her power. She's a manipulator. So it's like she can wrong you and then still be your friend. You still feel you don't hate her. I mean, that's the ultimate power of any professional con artist working today.

At no point did Ricky Williams say to Travis, "Hey, is she doing a good job for you?" No.

So how much control did Ricky Williams give Peggy of his finances? All the control. She basically said that she wanted to put him on a monthly allowance because Ricky would like to spend money on random things, computer stuff, camera stuff. At that time, he was in photography, so he would spend thousands of dollars and

gadgets and things like that. So she kept saying, I need to put you on a monthly allowance. And so he basically signed over everything to her to where she was able to get his play in check, put it in the bank account and then disperse his allowance and then pay for all the bills, child support, blah, blah, blah, all things like that. So he he gave her a lot of control, basically all the control.

coming back to the mother thing, like she put him on an allowance, like something your parents do. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And do you know, I mean, you grew up with Ricky. Is he close to his mother? Was he needing a mother type of relationship? They were back and forth. They're,

awesome today. But yes, back then they were back and forth. So I could see why he fell into something like that as a mother person. But yeah, because there's like a hole at that point where he needed some kind of mother figure or he didn't have a mother figure. So when one appears, it's like slips right in. Yeah, it fits. Yeah. And Ricky Williams' wife, Kristen, is also taken in by Peggy's kind and loving scammy smokescreen.

Peggy had endeared herself to Ricky in a motherly sort of way. Peggy was just so part of our family and ingrained in our lives.

When I had our first child, she even brought me home from the hospital. She just makes you feel like you're the only thing in the world that matters. She infiltrated my life. She became my best friend. In her exact words, I was the sister that she never had.

Ricky's wife, Kristen, is also good friends with Ricky's childhood friend, Chantel Cohen, at first. But then all of a sudden, a palpable animosity develops. So when Ricky got drafted to New Orleans, he happened to get hurt. And so I came to visit him and ended up living with him throughout his whole career. So when Ricky got traded, we were all like, okay, you're going to go to Miami. We'll stay here in New Orleans.

Well, Peggy originally said Kristen didn't even want me to stay in the house anymore. It was a house and then there was a guest house in the back that I slept in. So I had like my mini apartment back there, you know, kitchen, everything was in there. Like I was set in the back, didn't need to come in the house. Like it was whatever. And she kept saying to me, Kristen doesn't even want you still here. I'm like, what? Like, how does that even work? She doesn't even pay the rent here. Like this is not her house.

You know, so it was that. And that wasn't true. That was so far from the truth, Kristen said. And then when Kristen ended up moving to Miami, Peggy said, Kristen doesn't even want you to move to Miami. She doesn't even want you in their lives anymore. I'm like, what the hell did I do?

Is she just mad at my friendship with Ricky? And so she played off of that. Like, you're way too close to Ricky and she's trying to be his wife. And, you know, just all this. Yes, it was all these things she would say. And then vice versa to Kristen. Oh, Chantel doesn't even like you. She doesn't even think Ricky should be with you. Like, oh, yes, it was just so much drama. But there's no way Peggy can predict what's about to happen after the break.

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down.

From unbelievable romantic betrayals. The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal. This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me.

Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters.

But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to.

Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition?

Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions.

Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast, There and Gone.

It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident? Or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son, and in your eyes, he's innocent.

But in my eyes, he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Queen of the Con. Peggy successfully separates Chantel Cohen from Ricky Williams' wife, Kristen.

Peggy said, oh, Chantel doesn't even like you. She doesn't even think Ricky should be with you. Like, oh, yes. It was just so much drama that she always created. And with us having that conversation of just going back is like we should have knew from our energy that that was not it. Like actions speak louder than words. Like I never was rude to you in person. Maybe towards the end of me, like really believing now that you don't like me, but like.

That's what she's telling Christian, you're saying. Yes.

Well, we moved from New Orleans to Miami. She's like, Kristen doesn't want you to move and I don't think you should and blah, blah, blah. And then she would come back and say, well, Ricky loves you so much and he wants you to move there so you should. So it was like she played us so much to where we disliked each other.

She was playing us so bad to not talk to each other, you know? Like, maybe not to compare stories or whatever her angle was, she succeeded in doing it. You hit it on the nose. It was not to compare stories. Yes. And this is what con artists do. Yes. Mine did this too. They separate you. She was telling you Kristen was saying shit about you. Yep. And then she's telling Kristen you were saying shit about her. So you don't like Kristen. She doesn't like you and you guys aren't talking. Yep. And she wins. Yeah, she definitely won.

And as is often the way in these tales, it's an official letter from Uncle Sam that shows up in Ricky Williams' mailbox that changes everything. It was the IRS that blew the whistle, essentially. They sent this, you're being audited notice. You owe us money. And that's when Ricky Williams thought, wait a minute, Peggy's handling my money. This doesn't make any sense. Yep.

And what happened after that? Once that happened, then they called around and they found out that it actually was not paid. And so they called her and she goes, what? That's a mistake. I pay all your taxes, blah, blah, blah. And they were like, OK. But also around that same time, Ricky Williams and his wife, Kristen, start having financial trouble, which just doesn't make any sense to them.

So, Kristen was already on the fence of Peggy anyways towards the end of their relationship. Like, okay, something's going on, but I don't know. Like, how come our car got repoed? How come I went to the grocery store, my car got declined? And how come one of the baby's moms is saying that...

So Kristen was already kind of just going through her head. But every time I would tell Kristen to talk to Peggy, it was like Peggy said, let's go to dinner. Let me take you shopping. So, you know, it just took Kristen off of that. So Kristen was like, OK, we need to go down the rabbit hole of figuring out what it was. Ricky, on the other hand, was, guys, she said that she paid for it. Let's let it play out and let's see how it goes. And then once it started getting real serious, I was like, Ricky, you have to wake up like now.

no, she's playing us. Ricky didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe it. He did not want to believe it because that's someone that he literally took in and like, he loved, loved, loved her, you know? And like I said, that was one of his kids' God's mom, you know? So it's like... She's family. She's family. Why would family do that?

So at this point, Peggy does what Peggy always does when the jig's up. She ghosts Ricky Williams and his wife Kristen, and she ghosts Chantel Cohen, too. She just stops responding to phone calls and emails and text messages. Because Kristen kept trying to call her, text her. She even told me to call and text her. And I feel like at one point Peggy hit me back and said, I'm getting you guys the money back.

and went ghost. Never heard from her again? Never heard from her again. Isn't that crazy? Yes. She can be such a fixture in all your lives for literally years. Years. And then the money's missing, you never hear from her again. Yeah. It's 2013 now. Ricky Williams and his wife Kristen are living in Texas. At this point, Ricky's retired from the NFL and he's coaching football at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio.

The couple has a beautiful home in Austin, and in their minds, they're living off the interest from the millions and millions and millions of dollars that Peggy's supposedly been investing for them for the past six years. But no matter how many times Ricky and Kristen call and text Peggy trying to get answers about their finances, she just doesn't respond.

So December of 2013, I am moving from Vegas to Miami. So we do a road trip, me and my now husband and another friend of ours. We drive through Austin.

And once we stop in Austin, Ricky says to me, are you driving through New Orleans on the way to Miami? And I was like, of course, you know, I am. And he goes, take me to New Orleans. I want to talk to Peggy. I'm like, absolutely not. Like at this point, I'm still in rage and I don't know what I would do to her if she was in front of me. And I kept saying, no, I'm not doing that. Like, you got to do that on your own time. And he's like, telly. That's what they call me, too. So he's like, telly. I just telly Chantel Chantel. Yeah, I get it. I get it. An example like that.

And so he's like, I just need to talk to her face to face because I just want to hear what she has to say. And I'm like, I'm not taking you. Cut to, I ended up taking him. And so I take him to New Orleans. Once we pull up to her place, he's like, don't get out the car. So he does not let me get out the car. He makes me sit in the car for like 45 minutes while he goes in.

Whatever they talk about, he comes back out. She comes walking behind them. And I'm like telling my husband, Matt, I know she's not walking up to the car. I know she's not walking up. Cut to you. She's like at my window. And I'm like, I'm not rolling it down. And Matt's like, just roll it down. I'm like, I'm not rolling it down. And she's like banging on the window. And so I finally roll it down. She's like bawling, crying. She's like, I hope you don't believe this. Like, I would never do this to Ricky. And she's like saying all this stuff. And I'm just like, I don't believe you.

And what did Ricky get from her? He got from her that she put his money in stocks and bonds. Like his money is spread out. And I'm like, go get it then. Go get something. Show me the money. So in his mind, he's thinking, okay, let's give her time. It'll come. I'm like, yo, we're done. Like you're not seeing any of this money. Like I don't even know what you're thinking in your head to think that this money's coming back.

It's not, but that's how good of a person he is. Like, I'm still looking at you like, I know you care about me, so you're going to give me my money back. No, she's not. You know, like, no, she is a perfect actor. Yeah. Period. Yeah. And she played us so bad. She's not playing me anymore. She's still playing you. This is ridiculous. And he believes her explanation that the money's in stocks and bonds somewhere. Yeah.

But Ricky's wife, Kristen, doesn't believe Peggy anymore, and she starts digging. Peggy claimed to be a Harvard-educated attorney. I called the Florida Bar Association, the Georgia Bar Association, the Louisiana Bar, anybody that I could think of, any place that she had lived. I just started going down a checklist, and no one knew her.

We started looking at every place that all of our money and all of our investments are. We have accounts there, but don't really have the money in them anymore. I am sorry Mrs. Williams, I'm showing a zero balance in that account.

There are really no words to describe waking up to find out that you don't have one dollar in your checking account, much less the millions of dollars Ricky had earned in the past few years. We realized that we're paying for Peggy's lavish lifestyle, the Bentley, Rolls Royce, the Range Rovers, all of her homes. I was actually with her when she spent $800 on her hair extensions.

I'm standing beside her as she's paying for it with a credit card that is actually linked to our account. And what Kristen gets Ricky to do to Peggy and how everything goes down after that will blow your freaking mind. I shouted out loud when I saw that. I literally said, I said, no fucking way is what I said. Next time on Queen of the Con.

Plaintiffs Ricky and Kristen Williams, collectively plaintiffs, filed this verified complaint and application for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. It's time to pay the piper, but Peggy appears to be getting away. The crazy thing about the FBI is they did not want to arrest her with all the information me and Kristen gave them.

If you're enjoying Queen of the Con, leave us a five-star review. Reviews help other listeners find us. And by all means, click that share button and send Queen of the Con to anyone you think might be into it. Queen of the Con, The Athlete Whisperer, is a production of AYR Media and iHeart Media, hosted by me, Jonathan Walton, executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions, and Elisa Rosen for AYR Media.

Consulting Producer Evan Goldstein Consulting Producer Trace Sheehan Written by Jonathan Walton Sound Design by Zach Hirsch Edited and Mixed by Zach Hirsch Audio Engineer Justin Longerbeam Audio Engineer Chris Desmond Studio Engineer Graham Gibson Mastered by Justin Longerbeam Legal Counsel for AYR Media Gianni Douglas Executive Producer for iHeartMedia Maya Howard

Voice acting by Darnell Baldwin, Tyree Saxton Jr., Courtney Hetrick, Milan Faxis, Jorge Farragut, David Teitelbaum, Tarina Pouncey, Kim Gagne, Stuart Chait, Teresa Prindle. ♪

Statements from press reports, public interviews, and from court records were dramatized verbatim on this season of Queen of the Con. BET's American Gangster Trap Queens, TNT's Rich and Shameless, CNBC's American Greed, The Guardian, Sports Illustrated, The Times' Picayune, The Opportunist Podcast, Victim Interviews, and countless court records were the sources used on this season of Queen of the Con.

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