April 3, 2024 • 35 mins
In Episode 2 – Rolling the Dice, Ray is thriving after starting a new life down in Miami. He traded in his construction uniform for white suits and Alexander McQueens. How did he happen upon this turn of fate? It starts with a new get-rich-quick scheme that turns into a full-blown business. From Venmo to a rental car business called Miami Exotics, it seems like Ray’s life as a career criminal is taking off. And it came with its perks. Ray was renting exotic cars to some of the biggest rappers and athletes in the world. Ray and his partners were at clubs every night and living in the fast lane. However, a few months later, Ray finds himself at a major crossroads in Vegas. 30 Xanex, countless bottles of booze and down $500,000 dollars, Ray found himself in uncharted waters.
If you would like to reach out to the Creating a Con team, please email us at creatingaconpod@gmail.com
To get an inside look into Ray Trapani, Centra Tech and all the characters in the podcast, check out Bitconned, exclusively on Netflix… available to stream now.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, please call the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-GAMBLER.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm in Vegas, like walking around the casino broke at
this point, hoping a slot machine has like extra credits
in it, or like chips are on the floor. The
whole casino just all you smell at that hour is
just loose cigarettes, just sitting around. I stumbled into the
(00:21):
elevator ready to just say fuck it. Couldn't remember what
FLOORA was, so I found that on my key, pressed
the fifteenth floor, and all I can hear was ding
ding ding doors open. Walked down the hallway to my room.
(00:51):
The room kind of looked like any other nice Vegas
casino room. Shower off to the left, in the bathroom,
one big bed. I had my little Louis bag with
all my pills in it, just poured them all over
the bed. I remember just looking outside into the Vegas
(01:12):
strip and just shutting the blinds popped like thirties onex
at once. Just swallowed it down, turned off the lights,
and just kind of laid there until the brain just
started fading away.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I'm Johnny be Good and this is creating a con
Episode two, Rolling the Dice. In the beginning of twenty fourteen,
Ray needed a fresh start. The idea of Centritech wasn't
(02:21):
even on his radar, but it was on the horizon.
Ray just couldn't see it yet. When Ray moved down
to Florida, his friends and family thought he had a
job lined up, set up by his high school friend Bert.
But Ray had other ideas. He wasn't taking some job
at insurance or mortgages like his mom thought. These jobs
(02:42):
were for suckers. Once Ray was in the Sunshine State
with Bert, the two of them uncovered a new get
rich quick scheme. Mara remembers when she first heard Ray
was moving down to Miami.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I got a text from Ray and he was like,
I'm moving down to Florida, moving in with I mean,
I love it. But Bert has never been legitimate and
same with Ray. So that move to Miami with Burt
was the recipe for disaster with Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It was just never enough. Ray always wanted something bigger,
something that paid quicker, and of course he stumbled upon
it fucking around on his iPhone.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
The first week I'm down there in Florida, I was
just smoking a blunt and I was playing around with
the mo app. I tried to send him three thousand
dollars to a friend from a bank account that had
no money in it. On my side, it bounced and
then charged me thirty five dollars, and then on his decide,
it went through and it just stayed in his account.
All that happens is my Vemo gets banned and he's
(03:42):
still active. Everything's fine. He got three thousand dollars. We
split it, like we can really make something out of this.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
If you're scratching your head like I am, Here's what happened.
Ray sent three thousand dollars to a friend through Venma,
but Ray didn't have three grand to send. The transfer
goes through Vemo fronts the cash and the recipient keeps
the three thousand dollars. The only thing that happens Ray's
burner Vemo account gets frozen, so Ray starts another account.
(04:11):
Vemo never even came after the money. They're probably embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Anytime I see flaws and something like this, I have
to export. I cannot help myself. We just replicated this
process over and over and over from every single person
I can find to do this.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So typical Ray. He gets an idea to turn this
Vemo glitch into a business venture.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I create an Instagram account with this is based a
bunch of pictures of money and bullshit that people strive
to get. One day and you just get people direct messaging,
you broke college kids, whoever it may be, and they
would just send me three thousand dollars. Their account would
just get banned and I give them a thousand dollars.
Vemo just gets fucked out of everything.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
We get scared.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I'll get scared. By the time this was up and running,
within about six weeks, seven weeks, I was clearing six.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Figures and eventually even that wasn't enough.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
After a while, wouldn't even pay them. Like the last
probably like fifty people I did it with. It's like,
fuck it. I just got greedy in a way.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So Vemo started requiring social Security numbers for anyone trying
to send more than like five hundred bucks. Yeah, that
was because of people like Ray.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Once the social security thing comes about with Vemo, we're like,
all right, they're catching on. They're trying to slow us down,
and it worked. It was much harder to get an
average person to give you their social so the money's
not flowing as it was. But we made a couple
of pennies.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And if you're curious, just how many pennies, Probably.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
About quarter million, three hundred thousand over five six months.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's a nice chunk of change. Ray would never get
in trouble for this scheme, but after his arrest in
twenty seventeen, he'd come clean about it to authorities. We'll
get into that more later in this podcast. Here's the part.
Even today, Ray still feels like this scheme, Well, it
wasn't on him.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
This is Venmo's fault. This isn't really our fault. Vemo
took this loss and kind of just took it because
you know, I helped improve their security system. For sure.
Vemo should definitely thank me. At the end of the day.
You're welcome Venmo.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Ray had a new realization Tech was where the money
was at. It was easy to exploit with minimal risk.
Look at how things ended with Venmo. There were no repercussions.
Security came second to a lot of these startups, lessons
and values that Ray would call upon when he would
eventually start Center Tech. But for right now, this sudden
windfall was all Ray needed to start fresh. Ray found
(06:43):
a new home at a new beach, South Beach. He
traded in his ugly orange safety vest for white suits
and Alexander McQueen's.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I went from working construction hating my life to just
every day making nine grand, ten grand, twelve granted, just
living like maniac. I was going out every single night,
going on different days with like random girls. I had
so much money at my disposal that trying to show
up as much as possible. I would go out to
dinner with a girl and bill would be like three
(07:13):
hundred dollars. I would just pull out my stack of
fifty thousand and take my couple hundred dollars off to
pay for like a small bill.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
What a flashy fuck.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Every single day we would go shopping every type of shoe,
all the clothes you can think of, and buy a Rolex.
You're going to the strip club me and Bird's favorite
trip club, but it's called Booby Trap. It was like
a little hole in the wall strip club. I used to,
you know, just about every week once or twice, have
like a little orgy, as many hookers as possible, and
(07:43):
just kind of enjoying life doing drugs at the same time,
as much drugs as you possibly put.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
In your body. South Beach, I do the same shit.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Once the Vemo hustles started slowing down a little bit.
I'm looking for my next thing to do, and I'm
living with Bird at the time. Talking about business ideas,
and Bert's whole background is in the car.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Business makes sense. After all, Bert was a car salesman.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I told him I had this idea to start a
rental car business.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We're like, all right, so let's start Miami Exotics.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They would name in Miami Exotics, very creative.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
We created a website, miamixotics dot com. We bought the domain,
which is actually like a tough domain to get. Miami
Exotics could be like a porn website. It could be
a car rental place.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It sounds like a porn site to me. Here was
the plan, Ray and Bert. We're going to take the
profits from the Venmo scheme and invest it into cars,
lots of cars, expensive cars. Ray breaks it down.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So you take a loan for one hundred and twenty
grand on an Esta Martin. An Aston Martin rents out
for six hundred a day. The monthly payment on an
est Martin's roughly eighteen hundred. That takes three days to
pay that back, plus another day or so to pay
the insurance and whatnot. So you have four days of
paying this car note and twenty six days roughly of profit.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
That'd be like fifteen grand a month on just one car.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So the plan would be buy a car rented out
for three months and make you know, whatever the profit
is depending on the car, and then sell that car
for almost the same amount that you bought the car.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And they had more than one car in their fleet.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
The thing is with Miami Exotics, there's not really that
much of an exploitation. We were trying to run a
legitimate business.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
For this business to work, they needed to scale and
scale quickly.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
We knew we were gonna need car loans. Car loans
is gonna be the toughest part because all our credit
was already shot. I have cash, but I need co
signings to get loans. Who can I reach? I can
probably ask my family. Let's see what they say. My
grandfather was will in a co sign whatever loan. He
has perfect credit and he's a millionaire. Once he had
agreed to co sign a loan from me, everybody in
(09:56):
my family kind of just fell online.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
These loans, they weren't insignificant. We're talking about lines of
credit for hundreds of thousands of dollars down the line.
This borrowed money would impact Centertech, the company Ray would
eventually build. But Burt and Ray were focused on the now.
They had an idea, but they needed the financing. Ray
(10:23):
had just moved down to Miami. He decided to start
a luxury car rental business with his high school friend Bert.
They'd call it Miami Exotics. They had the business set up,
but they needed one more partner to get this idea
off the ground.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We needed someone that knew what they were doing in
regards to getting cars. This is where Sam Sharma comes
into play.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Sam Sharma, he has a few names that you'll hear,
Sam Sharma, Sowerby, he goes by all of them. He's
another one of our Lawrence High classmates. I wasn't friends
with him, neither was Ray. Bert explains.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Yet, first Ray didn't want to bring Sorbia in.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
We know the type of person he is, and he
said that there's going to be problems.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
There was never a lot of trust between me and
Sorby ever, because back in the day when me and
Sorby were in high school together, I never liked Sorbie
and he never liked me.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Sorby was a very nerdy, smart kid, and Ray kind
of would, you know, pick on him a brillian.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You know, we always had like this beef. I never
fought him or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I remember one time we were playing a game called Silo,
which is like a dice game, and they were playing
for money and Sorby rolled and he won.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Sorbie had rolled trip fives, and they really highly unlikely
to beat that.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Rageous grabbed the money and said, you know, I'm keeping
it and walk away.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I robbed him for like one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It was Burt that developed more of a friendship with
Sorby after high school. They even worked together at a
few car dealerships in New York. Sorby knew the business,
and Bert knew they needed him if they wanted to succeed.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
We're just like, he's very smart, and we knew that
he was capable.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
And he would figure out a way to do it
better than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I was very open to just being like, let bygones
be bygones, and let's make this business work. Like I
had a lot riding on this because I had all
my loans for my family. Burt knew the car business,
but he's not as sharp as Sam Sharma was in
regards to getting financing on cars, so Bird reaches out
to Sam Sharma. He always had the connections to the
(12:29):
banks and knew how to write up the loans to
get basically a maxim amount of money. He's currently working
at Lexus as the head of finance in New York,
and he actually was in the midst of getting fired
for doing ghost loans.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Ghost loans these are fraudulent loans where the borrower uses
fake information on a loan application to secure an asset.
In Sam's case, he used someone that just died and
his next door neighbor, a priest for shit's sake.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
A lot of times he'd even do it through his
own name.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
The bank would approve the auto loan and send you
a check. You would just cash it instead of taking
it to the dealership, take the money and never get
the car.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
That was one of Sorbery's biggest hustles before he joined
us down in Miami.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You could avoid the bank for about a year, but
then they'd come after you.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
That's when Sorbi would take out another ghost loan through
a different person's name and basically just borrow from Peter
to pay Paul, and.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
He'd just keep riding that cycle. Some great a ponzi shit.
Sam was not a legitimate character with no job. Sam
got on a plane he was in I.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Had one conference call with him and I'm like, yeah,
come down. He came to the apartment and I was
out on the balcony smoking a cigarette. Bert went and
got the door. He came out on the balcony, dapped
me up, and the first thing he said was you
got that thousand. And I was glad that he broke
the ice, but I was still just like, no shot.
(13:54):
It would never have been my choice to be like
a car rental place or anything like that. But Bird
had known about the car business. We had known about
the car business, and those are gonna be my business partners.
I was like, let's right.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Same went right to work. He started building the fleet.
A week later, we get event leave You. A couple
of days after there, we got a Maserati. So like,
the cars are starting to roll in, and so is
the money. We're renting out cars on the regular. We
partnered with another rental company to go MVP.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
We get a beautiful showroom, those white floors all glass
windows around the sides, and we had all this dope
art on the wall, very pop art mixed in with
like cartoons and money. You'd see like Daffy Duck with
a money gun type of art. We had every car
(14:40):
in They're all different, colorful, beautiful cars, McLaren's. I remember
we had a green McLaren and orange McLaren, every color
of Lamborghini, Rolls royces Ferraris. Yeah, probably about thirty cars
at this point between the two of us.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
The business was super successful. We had a lot of
things that we were looking to do.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I mean, the sky was a.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Woman with things looking up. They decided to go in
on a place together.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That's when we got like a beautiful apartment in Boca,
as beautiful as his apartment as you can get.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Ray wasn't really known for his modesty. He enjoyed the
finer things in life. Mara remembers learning about Ray's South
Beach esthetic, especially when he'd show off his new apartment.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It was a three bedroom, marble floors, huge balcony. Every
time Ray would go out and buy like furniture or artwork,
he would have to FaceTime and show me, what do you.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Think of this?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
What do you think of this. It's like super excited
about the artwork. He bought like ten pieces that he
still has, like a few of them actually, but it
was beautiful. It was all like brand new.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
We had like an office in our apartment, plus we
had an office in the showroom. Our day to day
is we'd wake up, we'd go to the showroom. We'd
meet with clients all day, phone calls all day, phone
calls all day. And then you have like the porters,
you have the mechanic, you have the guy taking the cash.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Had offices, a staff, it was a whole operation.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
The clientele that we were renting too, A lot of
them were rappers, European like millionaires and billionaires that come
here for the winter.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
He's not exaggerating. They rented to some of the biggest names.
We had, everybody renting from us. Every celebrity you can
think of, DJ Khalid, Floy Mayweather, also of different athletes
that are coming to play in Miami or visit Miami. Rich, billionaire,
fucking assholes. Just about every rapper there is rent cars
(16:35):
mostly rappers, scammers, drug dealers. That's your main market. And
then you'd get the once in a blue the rich
business guy that just fucking tries to wheezl you down
on your price, so they're scammers. Rappers and drug dealers
pay you full price every time. If it was like
our first time meeting any sort of rapper, we'd want
to be there. We'd bring a photographer take the pictures
of us, like giving them the keys, you know, sitting
(16:57):
on the car type of thing, those type of dumb pictures.
And the job it had its perks.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Our lives are great. We would all go to Miami
dopping games, have our own box and it's speak. We
were going to courtside.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Miami heat games, dinners, wherever we wanted, spending any amount
we wanted.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
We had an amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Life that was like a celebrity in every room I
walked into Ray.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
He never lacked confidence.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It was very easy to impress people because you're able
to just take out any car you want. Any day
at a club, I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna
come pull up in like a Rolls Royce. The next
day I'm in like Lambeau. So at the height of
Miami Exotics, we probably had roughly thirty cars any given time,
and there was always new cars coming in and old
cards going out that would be bored or sold.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
We were killing it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
When they clocked out of Miami Exotics, that's when they
finally got to enjoy the fruit of their labor. They
were chasing that work hard, play hard persona, and they
caught it.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
It would start off at Live on Sunday, and then
we would go to another club, Mokai on Monday. We
would go to a local club in Boca on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, we go back to Live on Thursday, go
to Live on Friday, go to Live Saturday, go to Live.
We were basically celebrities at least five nights a week.
I mean we're there so often that real celebrities would
(18:19):
walk in and we would get better treatment than them.
They would just take care of us, walk right in,
cut the line, special tables. They would give us extra liquor,
whatever we want. We've met everyone, every NBA player, every rapper,
Little Wayne Blake, Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Young Thug, Steve Bomber,
(18:40):
the Millionaire was there one night, Drake, many of times,
DJ Khaled Diddy.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
We've seen everyone in the world.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Ray Sorby and Bert were working through the inner circles
of Miami's elite and this lifestyle, well, they kept it
going for a minute or two.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Over a year. I'm not exactly sure. I mean, at
this time, I'm on so many x annas that you know,
time is all blended together. My whole life is blended
together in one big match with.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
The party lifestyle and the money came the inevitable relapse.
Miami Exotics had a good run, but eventually those high
school resentments started to resurface.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Looking back on it, our business never really had a
shot because our relationships never had the ability to get
to a level where they needed to be because of
all our fucked up childhood issues. And that's when the
situation started Againsticky was Bert got a girlfriend, she moved in,
and Sorby got a girlfriend. Sorby moves in his girl,
(19:39):
and he's like super insecure when she moves in.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Three kids from New York all moved into one apartment
in South Beach. They have access to hundreds of thousands
of dollars, going to clubs every night, throwing some girlfriends,
some drunken nights, and some high school beef. That's a
lot of drama. MTV's made millions off this concept.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
It was always like a competition. At that point. Once
Sorbia and Bert start beefing each other, I'm kind of
in the middle and I just want everything to be calm,
cool and collective, and this business is doing well, I'm like,
why is everything going left? Like this is so frustrating
at these two can't just get along, Like what are
we ten years old? We have a chance to have
like a successful business.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
As their relationships were falling apart, Race started to notice
that Miami Exotics books weren't adding up.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
We're making profit, but somehow we're spending way more than
that every month between personal expenses. It's like the most
excessive amount of spending that you can imagine. At this point.
One time I had seen Bert swiped a card for
about ten thousand dollars in dog bullshit, like like a
little French bulldog. It was frustrating because what is it even?
(20:46):
Just personal spending out of nowhere? Like I would check
the bank and there would be a check written for
thirty thousand, and I'd be like, what is this for?
And then just money just started missing everywhere, like in
every bank account. Realistically, I'm the one that's getting fucked
This money is all my money, like obviously business profits
that could be split between the three of us, but
there is no business profits because there was always excessive spending.
(21:08):
This is all debt that's going against my family, my
grandfather's house, and then car loans are all through my
family members. So I'm feeling this and to me, it's like,
are they doing this intentionally? Just completely trying to rob
me blind?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That's Ray's perspective. Here's what Burt Feldman remembers.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
We were thinking that Ray was stealing money from our company.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
And then I caught Sorby stealing.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Money and then he called me, I think that day
or the next day, and he has to borrow money,
and I was like, why do you need to borrow money?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And when that.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Happened, Sorby went crazy. He was very smart, very tech savvy.
He walked into all the accounts, blocked everyone out.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
That's all Ray needed for him. It was a declaration
of war. He'd burn it all down just to win.
Ray is thinking Burt and Sorbi are stealing money, and
Bird is thinking Ray and Sorvi are stealing money. It's
a full on shit show. Trust was gone.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Burt swears that isn't the case, and it was all Sam.
I still to this day don't really believe that. I
kind of always believe that they knew they were fucking me.
After months and months of this going, I'm like three
four hundred thousand dollars in debt.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
There was a lot of arguing, a lot of fighting.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
I think everyone was overusing the credit cards and capital
that we had.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Raygeus at that point did it more than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I was so sick and tired. And this is after
months of trying to get this business put back together.
Every month it's like always the same fucking story. Such
an excessive amount of money as being spent between three people.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
They were broke. The business wouldn't be able to continue
to operate, and Ray he fell back into a corner.
The debt in his family's name would have to be
paid back somehow. Ray needed a plan, and he needed
one fast. After a major fallout between the three business partners,
(23:05):
my best friend Ray needed to find a way to
get Miami Exotic solving again. After each partner went round
after round putting the blame on one another, Ray snapped
and came up with a plan to solve all their
financial problems, the world.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
She's a poker. That was my sick, manic thought process.
I'm going to try this and I'm going to win
ten million dollars and I'm just going to make everything right.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
The World Series of Poker. He bets on himself. I
said it was a plan, not a smart plan. We
had probably like one hundred thousand left. I was like,
fuck it, I'm taking this last hundred thousand. I'm going
to Vegas and I'm making this last attempt to pay
all my debts back.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
If I win, I win. If I lose, I'm going
to kill myself.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Make his money back, or die. Those were the stakes.
This is all news to me. Ray and I had
been out of touch at this point. I had no
idea it had come to that. So apparently my best
friend jumped on a plane with a one hundred k
and cash, leaving his life up to chance.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I just balanced. I just didn't even go back to
the house and just dipped. So like I was down
in Vegas, just like I'm like, fuck these guys.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
Ray was on a lot of drugs and he went
crazy at Vegas. We didn't even know he was there.
I think he was there for three or four days,
and we had absolutely no idea.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That feeling of walking into Vegas, you know, like your
first time with real cash, having one hundred thousand on
you and going to play in the words as poker.
It's an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Ray was on the ground was twenty four hours until
the tournament of his life began.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
I had one hundred thousand in my backpack, and I'm
always feeling my backpack almost like carrying it on my side,
just so I can just keep tapping it right and
just make sure those chunks are there, because I never
walked around with this much money on me. I take
the Uber to my hotel, get into my room, check in,
kind of, just do my regular shower change. I'm going
(24:58):
to go walk the strip, see what's going on on,
do my regular tourist thing, just walk around and fucking
people watch. After I walk the strip, I'm asking other
poker players what's their routines, you know, trying to figure
out what would be the best way to keep my
mind clear. On the other hand, making sure my drug
regimen was perfect. I took a few zangs. I didn't
(25:20):
want to feel too zannied out, took the box in
and just mapped out how I was going to do it.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The morning of, after getting settled in, Ray enters himself
into the World Series of Poker. The Main Event attracts
thousands of poker players from all over the globe. The
buying ten thousand, the prize pool that year sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Million, So you get to the real it's like a
super electric feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
It is that time of year.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
The World Series of Poker made of it.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
His back made events. Baby, the Main Event. Come on,
everybody there in their head, they're gonna win ten million dollars.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Dreams are dealt every day at the World Series of Poker.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Playing That word is poker has been with dream. I've
been playing poker since I'm probably like ten years old.
We played a lot of poker as kids. Well, Ray
would I'd sit upstairs with his mom, Carrie. She used
to give me ten dollars to gamble. She didn't want
me to be left out, so I'd go downstairs and
lose after one hand. She was basically giving me money
that would end up and raise hands. I think my
(26:26):
biggest ability to be good at poker as being like emotionless.
You know, when you're making a big bluff. You need
to be able to stay composed in the heat of
the moment. I lived more for the bluff than I
did for the win. So then when I finally playing
in the World Series of Poker, I got there early,
so I was just kind of waiting for the table
(26:47):
to fill out Day one. You know that it's saturated
with shitty players like Ray and here comes big time
professional poker player. Most people in the poker world know
his name, Michael the Grinder ms RIII. Seated right across
from me. I used to watch him on TV all
the time. He's kind of like a guy Poker Club,
(27:10):
just has like that New York tough guy feel to him.
But he's pretty stoic at the same time. But I
want to beat this guy pretty bad. You're kind of
trying to get some sort of look from him, like
a head nod after a good hand. You just want
to feel fulfilled and noticed by a pro on his level.
(27:32):
Throughout the first few hours, we go back and forth.
I want a couple of hands against him. He wins
a couple of hands against me, but I'm just trying
to get it to a point where he's going all
in and I'm busting him. So this one hand he
instantly goes all in, and I knew something was off
because he just was just trying to push me out.
(27:52):
He was playing too strong. I call him, and he
just MUCKs his cards and walks off. At that moment,
I just felt like I was on cloud nine, felt
like a high in its own rate. I ranked in
the chips.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Ray was playing against the best of the best, and
he was winning. Day one ended and Ray's mountain of
chips were secure. As his plan was starting to solidify,
He woke up at his morning cocktail of Xanax and seboxing,
threw on his hoodie and shades, and rode down the
elevator back to the poker table.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
They give you your bag of chips, you go sit down.
My table was all the way in the back corner
of the room. Even just sitting in the back corner
of the room felt depressing, you know, away from all
the cameras, All the shitty players are gone. At this point,
all the players seemed to be more locked in, more focused,
and I just couldn't get anything really going.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
That mountain of chips was starting to dwindle.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
The day just starts getting worse and worse and worse
here and there. I would just try to throw in
a little bluff, pick up some chips, but nothing really
ever got going.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Ray could feel his dreams slipping away from him, and
he got desperate.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
After a few more bad beats, they moved me to
a new table. I was trying to get something going
on his next hand.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Ray decides to bluff and bluff big.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I go all and hoping and just take it down
there he calls right away, and there it goes. There's
my tournament. I was out after the first few hours
of day two. I got up, took my headphones off,
just walked off into the abyss.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Ray's dream at making it all back at the World
Series of Poker was over. His master plan a failure.
But Ray wasn't done yet.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I'm like, God, so I'm down ten grand, Like, what's
the next and how am I gonna win five hundred
grand now to payoff all this debt.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Back in Florida, Burt and Sam were scrambling. They're trying
to figure out where their business partner went off to
with the last of Miami Exotics working capital.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
He was taking credit lines out.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
He was gambling.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I'm sure doing drugs and hookers and other things.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I'm like turning my phone off because my two friends
are calling me. You know, as much as I cared
about them, fuck them. Like I had a very clear
mind going into Vegas. It was just like fuck these
guys and turned off my phone. So I'm like, I'm
just gonna go play Baccaret. Baker is like a game
I learned while I was there. I'm like, fuck it,
(30:42):
like this is the game, because this is what they're
telling me. This is the best odds in the casino.
Got to play it, but straight luck. At the end
of the day, the.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Odds and backrat are essentially a coin flip. The house
and the player each have around a fifty percent shot
of winning the hand. To recoup the Miami Exotic losses,
Ray would have to directly guess the coin flip fifty
straight times. Ray was playing a dangerous game. He's going
a cocktail of Xanax, subs, Weed, and Booze, entranced in
(31:11):
high stakes hands with the last of his company and
families money.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I've always gambled, but this is like the biggest gambling
I had done up until this point in my life.
I'm sitting at a back red table, playing about five
ten thousand dollars hands with about eighty to one hundred thousand.
I'm winning, I'm losing, And there was no chance, really
unless I went on some crazy run that'd ever make
(31:36):
back five hundred thousand to pay off all this debt.
But I'm like, fuck it, no matter what happens, Like
it's either God tent that I make all this money
back and I just make all this shit right. But
I end up losing all my money.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And that was it. There was no card left to play.
Ray can only imagine what his grandfather would think. My
whole life, it was always living up to my grandfather.
I never wanted to disappoint him. I always want to
make him feel very proud of me. But like I
would have rather been dead than go talk to my grandfather.
He had nowhere else to turn. The house of cards had.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Fallen like broke at this point, literally I lost all
my family's money. I actually walked the casino and I'm
like hoping, like a slot machine is like extra credits
in it, or like chips are on the floor. I'm like,
you know, maybe it would be godsend, Like I'll find
a chip or something. So I just went up to
the room, popped like thirty zanex at once, just swallowed
(32:36):
it down, and I just kept taking like as many
some boxes as I could put it in my mouth,
taking more xanax, eating it, and I just like I
lay on the bed.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
My best friend planned on dying. We were all in
the dark. Then raised whacked out mine. There was nothing
left to live for. He had failed, his chances of
running a legitimate business gone. When I first heard the story,
I had mixed emotion. I was doing my own thing
back in New York. As far as I knew, Ray
(33:06):
was doing well. To think he felt so alone kind
of stung, but he'd never admit what's happening to me? Anyways,
If he had made all that money back, maybe things
would have gone differently. But that night in that hotel room,
Ray cash into one of his nine lives. Despite taking
a shit ton of drugs. Much to his own surprise,
(33:28):
he lived. He woke up that next day in real trouble.
He'd have to face family, friends, and his business partners.
He would need a new plan, and that plan, well,
that would be the biggest count of his life. That's
on the next episode of Creating a Con. To get
(33:54):
an inside look into Centritech, Ray Trepani and all the
characters you've been listening to, check out out Bigcon exclusively
on Netflix, available to stream now. If you would like
to reach out to the Creating a Con team, email
us at Creating a Con at gmail dot com. That's
Creating a CEO n at gmail dot com. We appreciate
(34:15):
your support. One way to support our show is by
subscribing to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and don't forget
to rate and review Creating a Con. Five star reviews
go a long way. A big thank you to those
who are listening. Also be sure to check us out
and follow us on Instagram at Glass Podcasts. Creating a
Con is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
(34:38):
Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
is hosted and produced by me Johnny B. Good, with
executive producers and Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning.
Written and produced by Ben Fetterman and Todd Gans, additional
writing by Matt Delvecchio. Operations and production support by Christin Melchiori.
(35:01):
Additional production support Trey Morgan. Our iHeart Team is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Sound editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
Consulting producer Nathaniel Popper. Creating a CON's theme composed by
Oliver Bains. Music library provided by MiB Music. Thank you
(35:21):
for subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus exclusively on Apple.
We hope you enjoyed this ad free presentation of Creating
a con the story of bitcom. Continue binging the rest
of the series one hundred percent ad free, and stay
tuned for early access to bonus episodes and additional content
exclusively for subscribers. And for more podcasts from iHeart and
(35:42):
Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
I'm in Vegas, like walking around the casino broke at
this point, hoping a slot machine has like extra credits
in it, or like chips are on the floor. The
whole casino just all you smell at that hour is
just loose cigarettes, just sitting around. I stumbled into the
(00:21):
elevator ready to just say fuck it. Couldn't remember what
FLOORA was, so I found that on my key, pressed
the fifteenth floor, and all I can hear was ding
ding ding doors open. Walked down the hallway to my room.
(00:51):
The room kind of looked like any other nice Vegas
casino room. Shower off to the left, in the bathroom,
one big bed. I had my little Louis bag with
all my pills in it, just poured them all over
the bed. I remember just looking outside into the Vegas
(01:12):
strip and just shutting the blinds popped like thirties onex
at once. Just swallowed it down, turned off the lights,
and just kind of laid there until the brain just
started fading away.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I'm Johnny be Good and this is creating a con
Episode two, Rolling the Dice. In the beginning of twenty fourteen,
Ray needed a fresh start. The idea of Centritech wasn't
(02:21):
even on his radar, but it was on the horizon.
Ray just couldn't see it yet. When Ray moved down
to Florida, his friends and family thought he had a
job lined up, set up by his high school friend Bert.
But Ray had other ideas. He wasn't taking some job
at insurance or mortgages like his mom thought. These jobs
(02:42):
were for suckers. Once Ray was in the Sunshine State
with Bert, the two of them uncovered a new get
rich quick scheme. Mara remembers when she first heard Ray
was moving down to Miami.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I got a text from Ray and he was like,
I'm moving down to Florida, moving in with I mean,
I love it. But Bert has never been legitimate and
same with Ray. So that move to Miami with Burt
was the recipe for disaster with Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It was just never enough. Ray always wanted something bigger,
something that paid quicker, and of course he stumbled upon
it fucking around on his iPhone.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
The first week I'm down there in Florida, I was
just smoking a blunt and I was playing around with
the mo app. I tried to send him three thousand
dollars to a friend from a bank account that had
no money in it. On my side, it bounced and
then charged me thirty five dollars, and then on his decide,
it went through and it just stayed in his account.
All that happens is my Vemo gets banned and he's
(03:42):
still active. Everything's fine. He got three thousand dollars. We
split it, like we can really make something out of this.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
If you're scratching your head like I am, Here's what happened.
Ray sent three thousand dollars to a friend through Venma,
but Ray didn't have three grand to send. The transfer
goes through Vemo fronts the cash and the recipient keeps
the three thousand dollars. The only thing that happens Ray's
burner Vemo account gets frozen, so Ray starts another account.
(04:11):
Vemo never even came after the money. They're probably embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Anytime I see flaws and something like this, I have
to export. I cannot help myself. We just replicated this
process over and over and over from every single person
I can find to do this.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So typical Ray. He gets an idea to turn this
Vemo glitch into a business venture.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I create an Instagram account with this is based a
bunch of pictures of money and bullshit that people strive
to get. One day and you just get people direct messaging,
you broke college kids, whoever it may be, and they
would just send me three thousand dollars. Their account would
just get banned and I give them a thousand dollars.
Vemo just gets fucked out of everything.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
We get scared.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I'll get scared. By the time this was up and running,
within about six weeks, seven weeks, I was clearing six.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Figures and eventually even that wasn't enough.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
After a while, wouldn't even pay them. Like the last
probably like fifty people I did it with. It's like,
fuck it. I just got greedy in a way.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So Vemo started requiring social Security numbers for anyone trying
to send more than like five hundred bucks. Yeah, that
was because of people like Ray.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Once the social security thing comes about with Vemo, we're like,
all right, they're catching on. They're trying to slow us down,
and it worked. It was much harder to get an
average person to give you their social so the money's
not flowing as it was. But we made a couple
of pennies.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And if you're curious, just how many pennies, Probably.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
About quarter million, three hundred thousand over five six months.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's a nice chunk of change. Ray would never get
in trouble for this scheme, but after his arrest in
twenty seventeen, he'd come clean about it to authorities. We'll
get into that more later in this podcast. Here's the part.
Even today, Ray still feels like this scheme, Well, it
wasn't on him.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
This is Venmo's fault. This isn't really our fault. Vemo
took this loss and kind of just took it because
you know, I helped improve their security system. For sure.
Vemo should definitely thank me. At the end of the day.
You're welcome Venmo.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Ray had a new realization Tech was where the money
was at. It was easy to exploit with minimal risk.
Look at how things ended with Venmo. There were no repercussions.
Security came second to a lot of these startups, lessons
and values that Ray would call upon when he would
eventually start Center Tech. But for right now, this sudden
windfall was all Ray needed to start fresh. Ray found
(06:43):
a new home at a new beach, South Beach. He
traded in his ugly orange safety vest for white suits
and Alexander McQueen's.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I went from working construction hating my life to just
every day making nine grand, ten grand, twelve granted, just
living like maniac. I was going out every single night,
going on different days with like random girls. I had
so much money at my disposal that trying to show
up as much as possible. I would go out to
dinner with a girl and bill would be like three
(07:13):
hundred dollars. I would just pull out my stack of
fifty thousand and take my couple hundred dollars off to
pay for like a small bill.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
What a flashy fuck.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Every single day we would go shopping every type of shoe,
all the clothes you can think of, and buy a Rolex.
You're going to the strip club me and Bird's favorite
trip club, but it's called Booby Trap. It was like
a little hole in the wall strip club. I used to,
you know, just about every week once or twice, have
like a little orgy, as many hookers as possible, and
(07:43):
just kind of enjoying life doing drugs at the same time,
as much drugs as you possibly put.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
In your body. South Beach, I do the same shit.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Once the Vemo hustles started slowing down a little bit.
I'm looking for my next thing to do, and I'm
living with Bird at the time. Talking about business ideas,
and Bert's whole background is in the car.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Business makes sense. After all, Bert was a car salesman.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I told him I had this idea to start a
rental car business.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We're like, all right, so let's start Miami Exotics.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They would name in Miami Exotics, very creative.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
We created a website, miamixotics dot com. We bought the domain,
which is actually like a tough domain to get. Miami
Exotics could be like a porn website. It could be
a car rental place.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It sounds like a porn site to me. Here was
the plan, Ray and Bert. We're going to take the
profits from the Venmo scheme and invest it into cars,
lots of cars, expensive cars. Ray breaks it down.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So you take a loan for one hundred and twenty
grand on an Esta Martin. An Aston Martin rents out
for six hundred a day. The monthly payment on an
est Martin's roughly eighteen hundred. That takes three days to
pay that back, plus another day or so to pay
the insurance and whatnot. So you have four days of
paying this car note and twenty six days roughly of profit.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
That'd be like fifteen grand a month on just one car.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So the plan would be buy a car rented out
for three months and make you know, whatever the profit
is depending on the car, and then sell that car
for almost the same amount that you bought the car.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And they had more than one car in their fleet.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
The thing is with Miami Exotics, there's not really that
much of an exploitation. We were trying to run a
legitimate business.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
For this business to work, they needed to scale and
scale quickly.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
We knew we were gonna need car loans. Car loans
is gonna be the toughest part because all our credit
was already shot. I have cash, but I need co
signings to get loans. Who can I reach? I can
probably ask my family. Let's see what they say. My
grandfather was will in a co sign whatever loan. He
has perfect credit and he's a millionaire. Once he had
agreed to co sign a loan from me, everybody in
(09:56):
my family kind of just fell online.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
These loans, they weren't insignificant. We're talking about lines of
credit for hundreds of thousands of dollars down the line.
This borrowed money would impact Centertech, the company Ray would
eventually build. But Burt and Ray were focused on the now.
They had an idea, but they needed the financing. Ray
(10:23):
had just moved down to Miami. He decided to start
a luxury car rental business with his high school friend Bert.
They'd call it Miami Exotics. They had the business set up,
but they needed one more partner to get this idea
off the ground.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We needed someone that knew what they were doing in
regards to getting cars. This is where Sam Sharma comes
into play.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Sam Sharma, he has a few names that you'll hear,
Sam Sharma, Sowerby, he goes by all of them. He's
another one of our Lawrence High classmates. I wasn't friends
with him, neither was Ray. Bert explains.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Yet, first Ray didn't want to bring Sorbia in.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
We know the type of person he is, and he
said that there's going to be problems.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
There was never a lot of trust between me and
Sorby ever, because back in the day when me and
Sorby were in high school together, I never liked Sorbie
and he never liked me.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Sorby was a very nerdy, smart kid, and Ray kind
of would, you know, pick on him a brillian.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You know, we always had like this beef. I never
fought him or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I remember one time we were playing a game called Silo,
which is like a dice game, and they were playing
for money and Sorby rolled and he won.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Sorbie had rolled trip fives, and they really highly unlikely
to beat that.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Rageous grabbed the money and said, you know, I'm keeping
it and walk away.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I robbed him for like one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It was Burt that developed more of a friendship with
Sorby after high school. They even worked together at a
few car dealerships in New York. Sorby knew the business,
and Bert knew they needed him if they wanted to succeed.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
We're just like, he's very smart, and we knew that
he was capable.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
And he would figure out a way to do it
better than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I was very open to just being like, let bygones
be bygones, and let's make this business work. Like I
had a lot riding on this because I had all
my loans for my family. Burt knew the car business,
but he's not as sharp as Sam Sharma was in
regards to getting financing on cars, so Bird reaches out
to Sam Sharma. He always had the connections to the
(12:29):
banks and knew how to write up the loans to
get basically a maxim amount of money. He's currently working
at Lexus as the head of finance in New York,
and he actually was in the midst of getting fired
for doing ghost loans.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Ghost loans these are fraudulent loans where the borrower uses
fake information on a loan application to secure an asset.
In Sam's case, he used someone that just died and
his next door neighbor, a priest for shit's sake.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
A lot of times he'd even do it through his
own name.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
The bank would approve the auto loan and send you
a check. You would just cash it instead of taking
it to the dealership, take the money and never get
the car.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
That was one of Sorbery's biggest hustles before he joined
us down in Miami.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You could avoid the bank for about a year, but
then they'd come after you.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
That's when Sorbi would take out another ghost loan through
a different person's name and basically just borrow from Peter
to pay Paul, and.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
He'd just keep riding that cycle. Some great a ponzi shit.
Sam was not a legitimate character with no job. Sam
got on a plane he was in I.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Had one conference call with him and I'm like, yeah,
come down. He came to the apartment and I was
out on the balcony smoking a cigarette. Bert went and
got the door. He came out on the balcony, dapped
me up, and the first thing he said was you
got that thousand. And I was glad that he broke
the ice, but I was still just like, no shot.
(13:54):
It would never have been my choice to be like
a car rental place or anything like that. But Bird
had known about the car business. We had known about
the car business, and those are gonna be my business partners.
I was like, let's right.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Same went right to work. He started building the fleet.
A week later, we get event leave You. A couple
of days after there, we got a Maserati. So like,
the cars are starting to roll in, and so is
the money. We're renting out cars on the regular. We
partnered with another rental company to go MVP.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
We get a beautiful showroom, those white floors all glass
windows around the sides, and we had all this dope
art on the wall, very pop art mixed in with
like cartoons and money. You'd see like Daffy Duck with
a money gun type of art. We had every car
(14:40):
in They're all different, colorful, beautiful cars, McLaren's. I remember
we had a green McLaren and orange McLaren, every color
of Lamborghini, Rolls royces Ferraris. Yeah, probably about thirty cars
at this point between the two of us.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
The business was super successful. We had a lot of
things that we were looking to do.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I mean, the sky was a.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Woman with things looking up. They decided to go in
on a place together.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That's when we got like a beautiful apartment in Boca,
as beautiful as his apartment as you can get.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Ray wasn't really known for his modesty. He enjoyed the
finer things in life. Mara remembers learning about Ray's South
Beach esthetic, especially when he'd show off his new apartment.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It was a three bedroom, marble floors, huge balcony. Every
time Ray would go out and buy like furniture or artwork,
he would have to FaceTime and show me, what do you.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Think of this?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
What do you think of this. It's like super excited
about the artwork. He bought like ten pieces that he
still has, like a few of them actually, but it
was beautiful. It was all like brand new.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
We had like an office in our apartment, plus we
had an office in the showroom. Our day to day
is we'd wake up, we'd go to the showroom. We'd
meet with clients all day, phone calls all day, phone
calls all day. And then you have like the porters,
you have the mechanic, you have the guy taking the cash.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Had offices, a staff, it was a whole operation.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
The clientele that we were renting too, A lot of
them were rappers, European like millionaires and billionaires that come
here for the winter.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
He's not exaggerating. They rented to some of the biggest names.
We had, everybody renting from us. Every celebrity you can
think of, DJ Khalid, Floy Mayweather, also of different athletes
that are coming to play in Miami or visit Miami. Rich, billionaire,
fucking assholes. Just about every rapper there is rent cars
(16:35):
mostly rappers, scammers, drug dealers. That's your main market. And
then you'd get the once in a blue the rich
business guy that just fucking tries to wheezl you down
on your price, so they're scammers. Rappers and drug dealers
pay you full price every time. If it was like
our first time meeting any sort of rapper, we'd want
to be there. We'd bring a photographer take the pictures
of us, like giving them the keys, you know, sitting
(16:57):
on the car type of thing, those type of dumb pictures.
And the job it had its perks.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Our lives are great. We would all go to Miami
dopping games, have our own box and it's speak. We
were going to courtside.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Miami heat games, dinners, wherever we wanted, spending any amount
we wanted.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
We had an amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Life that was like a celebrity in every room I
walked into Ray.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
He never lacked confidence.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It was very easy to impress people because you're able
to just take out any car you want. Any day
at a club, I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna
come pull up in like a Rolls Royce. The next
day I'm in like Lambeau. So at the height of
Miami Exotics, we probably had roughly thirty cars any given time,
and there was always new cars coming in and old
cards going out that would be bored or sold.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
We were killing it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
When they clocked out of Miami Exotics, that's when they
finally got to enjoy the fruit of their labor. They
were chasing that work hard, play hard persona, and they
caught it.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
It would start off at Live on Sunday, and then
we would go to another club, Mokai on Monday. We
would go to a local club in Boca on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, we go back to Live on Thursday, go
to Live on Friday, go to Live Saturday, go to Live.
We were basically celebrities at least five nights a week.
I mean we're there so often that real celebrities would
(18:19):
walk in and we would get better treatment than them.
They would just take care of us, walk right in,
cut the line, special tables. They would give us extra liquor,
whatever we want. We've met everyone, every NBA player, every rapper,
Little Wayne Blake, Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Young Thug, Steve Bomber,
(18:40):
the Millionaire was there one night, Drake, many of times,
DJ Khaled Diddy.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
We've seen everyone in the world.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Ray Sorby and Bert were working through the inner circles
of Miami's elite and this lifestyle, well, they kept it
going for a minute or two.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Over a year. I'm not exactly sure. I mean, at
this time, I'm on so many x annas that you know,
time is all blended together. My whole life is blended
together in one big match with.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
The party lifestyle and the money came the inevitable relapse.
Miami Exotics had a good run, but eventually those high
school resentments started to resurface.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Looking back on it, our business never really had a
shot because our relationships never had the ability to get
to a level where they needed to be because of
all our fucked up childhood issues. And that's when the
situation started Againsticky was Bert got a girlfriend, she moved in,
and Sorby got a girlfriend. Sorby moves in his girl,
(19:39):
and he's like super insecure when she moves in.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Three kids from New York all moved into one apartment
in South Beach. They have access to hundreds of thousands
of dollars, going to clubs every night, throwing some girlfriends,
some drunken nights, and some high school beef. That's a
lot of drama. MTV's made millions off this concept.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
It was always like a competition. At that point. Once
Sorbia and Bert start beefing each other, I'm kind of
in the middle and I just want everything to be calm,
cool and collective, and this business is doing well, I'm like,
why is everything going left? Like this is so frustrating
at these two can't just get along, Like what are
we ten years old? We have a chance to have
like a successful business.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
As their relationships were falling apart, Race started to notice
that Miami Exotics books weren't adding up.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
We're making profit, but somehow we're spending way more than
that every month between personal expenses. It's like the most
excessive amount of spending that you can imagine. At this point.
One time I had seen Bert swiped a card for
about ten thousand dollars in dog bullshit, like like a
little French bulldog. It was frustrating because what is it even?
(20:46):
Just personal spending out of nowhere? Like I would check
the bank and there would be a check written for
thirty thousand, and I'd be like, what is this for?
And then just money just started missing everywhere, like in
every bank account. Realistically, I'm the one that's getting fucked
This money is all my money, like obviously business profits
that could be split between the three of us, but
there is no business profits because there was always excessive spending.
(21:08):
This is all debt that's going against my family, my
grandfather's house, and then car loans are all through my
family members. So I'm feeling this and to me, it's like,
are they doing this intentionally? Just completely trying to rob
me blind?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That's Ray's perspective. Here's what Burt Feldman remembers.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
We were thinking that Ray was stealing money from our company.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
And then I caught Sorby stealing.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Money and then he called me, I think that day
or the next day, and he has to borrow money,
and I was like, why do you need to borrow money?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And when that.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Happened, Sorby went crazy. He was very smart, very tech savvy.
He walked into all the accounts, blocked everyone out.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
That's all Ray needed for him. It was a declaration
of war. He'd burn it all down just to win.
Ray is thinking Burt and Sorbi are stealing money, and
Bird is thinking Ray and Sorvi are stealing money. It's
a full on shit show. Trust was gone.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Burt swears that isn't the case, and it was all Sam.
I still to this day don't really believe that. I
kind of always believe that they knew they were fucking me.
After months and months of this going, I'm like three
four hundred thousand dollars in debt.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
There was a lot of arguing, a lot of fighting.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
I think everyone was overusing the credit cards and capital
that we had.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Raygeus at that point did it more than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I was so sick and tired. And this is after
months of trying to get this business put back together.
Every month it's like always the same fucking story. Such
an excessive amount of money as being spent between three people.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
They were broke. The business wouldn't be able to continue
to operate, and Ray he fell back into a corner.
The debt in his family's name would have to be
paid back somehow. Ray needed a plan, and he needed
one fast. After a major fallout between the three business partners,
(23:05):
my best friend Ray needed to find a way to
get Miami Exotic solving again. After each partner went round
after round putting the blame on one another, Ray snapped
and came up with a plan to solve all their
financial problems, the world.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
She's a poker. That was my sick, manic thought process.
I'm going to try this and I'm going to win
ten million dollars and I'm just going to make everything right.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
The World Series of Poker. He bets on himself. I
said it was a plan, not a smart plan. We
had probably like one hundred thousand left. I was like,
fuck it, I'm taking this last hundred thousand. I'm going
to Vegas and I'm making this last attempt to pay
all my debts back.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
If I win, I win. If I lose, I'm going
to kill myself.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Make his money back, or die. Those were the stakes.
This is all news to me. Ray and I had
been out of touch at this point. I had no
idea it had come to that. So apparently my best
friend jumped on a plane with a one hundred k
and cash, leaving his life up to chance.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I just balanced. I just didn't even go back to
the house and just dipped. So like I was down
in Vegas, just like I'm like, fuck these guys.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
Ray was on a lot of drugs and he went
crazy at Vegas. We didn't even know he was there.
I think he was there for three or four days,
and we had absolutely no idea.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That feeling of walking into Vegas, you know, like your
first time with real cash, having one hundred thousand on
you and going to play in the words as poker.
It's an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Ray was on the ground was twenty four hours until
the tournament of his life began.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
I had one hundred thousand in my backpack, and I'm
always feeling my backpack almost like carrying it on my side,
just so I can just keep tapping it right and
just make sure those chunks are there, because I never
walked around with this much money on me. I take
the Uber to my hotel, get into my room, check in,
kind of, just do my regular shower change. I'm going
(24:58):
to go walk the strip, see what's going on on,
do my regular tourist thing, just walk around and fucking
people watch. After I walk the strip, I'm asking other
poker players what's their routines, you know, trying to figure
out what would be the best way to keep my
mind clear. On the other hand, making sure my drug
regimen was perfect. I took a few zangs. I didn't
(25:20):
want to feel too zannied out, took the box in
and just mapped out how I was going to do it.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The morning of, after getting settled in, Ray enters himself
into the World Series of Poker. The Main Event attracts
thousands of poker players from all over the globe. The
buying ten thousand, the prize pool that year sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Million, So you get to the real it's like a
super electric feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
It is that time of year.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
The World Series of Poker made of it.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
His back made events. Baby, the Main Event. Come on,
everybody there in their head, they're gonna win ten million dollars.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Dreams are dealt every day at the World Series of Poker.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Playing That word is poker has been with dream. I've
been playing poker since I'm probably like ten years old.
We played a lot of poker as kids. Well, Ray
would I'd sit upstairs with his mom, Carrie. She used
to give me ten dollars to gamble. She didn't want
me to be left out, so I'd go downstairs and
lose after one hand. She was basically giving me money
that would end up and raise hands. I think my
(26:26):
biggest ability to be good at poker as being like emotionless.
You know, when you're making a big bluff. You need
to be able to stay composed in the heat of
the moment. I lived more for the bluff than I
did for the win. So then when I finally playing
in the World Series of Poker, I got there early,
so I was just kind of waiting for the table
(26:47):
to fill out Day one. You know that it's saturated
with shitty players like Ray and here comes big time
professional poker player. Most people in the poker world know
his name, Michael the Grinder ms RIII. Seated right across
from me. I used to watch him on TV all
the time. He's kind of like a guy Poker Club,
(27:10):
just has like that New York tough guy feel to him.
But he's pretty stoic at the same time. But I
want to beat this guy pretty bad. You're kind of
trying to get some sort of look from him, like
a head nod after a good hand. You just want
to feel fulfilled and noticed by a pro on his level.
(27:32):
Throughout the first few hours, we go back and forth.
I want a couple of hands against him. He wins
a couple of hands against me, but I'm just trying
to get it to a point where he's going all
in and I'm busting him. So this one hand he
instantly goes all in, and I knew something was off
because he just was just trying to push me out.
(27:52):
He was playing too strong. I call him, and he
just MUCKs his cards and walks off. At that moment,
I just felt like I was on cloud nine, felt
like a high in its own rate. I ranked in
the chips.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Ray was playing against the best of the best, and
he was winning. Day one ended and Ray's mountain of
chips were secure. As his plan was starting to solidify,
He woke up at his morning cocktail of Xanax and seboxing,
threw on his hoodie and shades, and rode down the
elevator back to the poker table.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
They give you your bag of chips, you go sit down.
My table was all the way in the back corner
of the room. Even just sitting in the back corner
of the room felt depressing, you know, away from all
the cameras, All the shitty players are gone. At this point,
all the players seemed to be more locked in, more focused,
and I just couldn't get anything really going.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
That mountain of chips was starting to dwindle.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
The day just starts getting worse and worse and worse
here and there. I would just try to throw in
a little bluff, pick up some chips, but nothing really
ever got going.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Ray could feel his dreams slipping away from him, and
he got desperate.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
After a few more bad beats, they moved me to
a new table. I was trying to get something going
on his next hand.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Ray decides to bluff and bluff big.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I go all and hoping and just take it down
there he calls right away, and there it goes. There's
my tournament. I was out after the first few hours
of day two. I got up, took my headphones off,
just walked off into the abyss.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Ray's dream at making it all back at the World
Series of Poker was over. His master plan a failure.
But Ray wasn't done yet.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I'm like, God, so I'm down ten grand, Like, what's
the next and how am I gonna win five hundred
grand now to payoff all this debt.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Back in Florida, Burt and Sam were scrambling. They're trying
to figure out where their business partner went off to
with the last of Miami Exotics working capital.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
He was taking credit lines out.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
He was gambling.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I'm sure doing drugs and hookers and other things.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I'm like turning my phone off because my two friends
are calling me. You know, as much as I cared
about them, fuck them. Like I had a very clear
mind going into Vegas. It was just like fuck these
guys and turned off my phone. So I'm like, I'm
just gonna go play Baccaret. Baker is like a game
I learned while I was there. I'm like, fuck it,
(30:42):
like this is the game, because this is what they're
telling me. This is the best odds in the casino.
Got to play it, but straight luck. At the end
of the day, the.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Odds and backrat are essentially a coin flip. The house
and the player each have around a fifty percent shot
of winning the hand. To recoup the Miami Exotic losses,
Ray would have to directly guess the coin flip fifty
straight times. Ray was playing a dangerous game. He's going
a cocktail of Xanax, subs, Weed, and Booze, entranced in
(31:11):
high stakes hands with the last of his company and
families money.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I've always gambled, but this is like the biggest gambling
I had done up until this point in my life.
I'm sitting at a back red table, playing about five
ten thousand dollars hands with about eighty to one hundred thousand.
I'm winning, I'm losing, And there was no chance, really
unless I went on some crazy run that'd ever make
(31:36):
back five hundred thousand to pay off all this debt.
But I'm like, fuck it, no matter what happens, Like
it's either God tent that I make all this money
back and I just make all this shit right. But
I end up losing all my money.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And that was it. There was no card left to play.
Ray can only imagine what his grandfather would think. My
whole life, it was always living up to my grandfather.
I never wanted to disappoint him. I always want to
make him feel very proud of me. But like I
would have rather been dead than go talk to my grandfather.
He had nowhere else to turn. The house of cards had.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Fallen like broke at this point, literally I lost all
my family's money. I actually walked the casino and I'm
like hoping, like a slot machine is like extra credits
in it, or like chips are on the floor. I'm like,
you know, maybe it would be godsend, Like I'll find
a chip or something. So I just went up to
the room, popped like thirty zanex at once, just swallowed
(32:36):
it down, and I just kept taking like as many
some boxes as I could put it in my mouth,
taking more xanax, eating it, and I just like I
lay on the bed.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
My best friend planned on dying. We were all in
the dark. Then raised whacked out mine. There was nothing
left to live for. He had failed, his chances of
running a legitimate business gone. When I first heard the story,
I had mixed emotion. I was doing my own thing
back in New York. As far as I knew, Ray
(33:06):
was doing well. To think he felt so alone kind
of stung, but he'd never admit what's happening to me? Anyways,
If he had made all that money back, maybe things
would have gone differently. But that night in that hotel room,
Ray cash into one of his nine lives. Despite taking
a shit ton of drugs. Much to his own surprise,
(33:28):
he lived. He woke up that next day in real trouble.
He'd have to face family, friends, and his business partners.
He would need a new plan, and that plan, well,
that would be the biggest count of his life. That's
on the next episode of Creating a Con. To get
(33:54):
an inside look into Centritech, Ray Trepani and all the
characters you've been listening to, check out out Bigcon exclusively
on Netflix, available to stream now. If you would like
to reach out to the Creating a Con team, email
us at Creating a Con at gmail dot com. That's
Creating a CEO n at gmail dot com. We appreciate
(34:15):
your support. One way to support our show is by
subscribing to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and don't forget
to rate and review Creating a Con. Five star reviews
go a long way. A big thank you to those
who are listening. Also be sure to check us out
and follow us on Instagram at Glass Podcasts. Creating a
Con is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
(34:38):
Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
is hosted and produced by me Johnny B. Good, with
executive producers and Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning.
Written and produced by Ben Fetterman and Todd Gans, additional
writing by Matt Delvecchio. Operations and production support by Christin Melchiori.
(35:01):
Additional production support Trey Morgan. Our iHeart Team is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Sound editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
Consulting producer Nathaniel Popper. Creating a CON's theme composed by
Oliver Bains. Music library provided by MiB Music. Thank you
(35:21):
for subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus exclusively on Apple.
We hope you enjoyed this ad free presentation of Creating
a con the story of bitcom. Continue binging the rest
of the series one hundred percent ad free, and stay
tuned for early access to bonus episodes and additional content
exclusively for subscribers. And for more podcasts from iHeart and
(35:42):
Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Jonny B. Good
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.