Keith Simmons was furious. Under no uncertain terms, he warned me never to do it again: “I’m a good Christian man and I value my reputation. There’s just no need for that kind of filth, Scott. Play ball with me, and I promise, you’ll have a job for life — but if you peddle that trash one more time, you’re history. I’m not gonna warn you again.”
My misdeed? To hype the second-ever pro MMA fight card in Tennessee history — which was held in the 20,000-seat Thompson-Boling Arena at the University of Tennessee on April 25, 2009 — I released a media statement with fighter quotes. Ovince Saint Preux, who later headlined UFC events, was an ex-Volunteer football player who was competing against Ombey “Kryptonite” Mobley — a Floridian who had spent time in prison.
At the time, Ovince was a little-known fighter. So was Mobley.
It was an obvious angle: Florida and Tennessee are bitter SEC rivals, yet the two fighters were (mostly) no-names. So, to hype up the fight card, I attributed a trash-talking quote to Mobley, about how he used to “pass around those Tennessee boys like a pack of smokes” while incarcerated. (With permission from the promoter, of course.) Didn’t think too much of it, because the whole point was to anger the Knoxville faithful, get media coverage, and drive interest in the event. Mobley ate it up, even punting a plush doll of Smokey, the UT mascot, on his way to the cage.
But it offended Simmons deeply.
Shortly thereafter, Simmons was sent to prison for 50 years — convicted of running one of the biggest, costliest Ponzi schemes that North Carolina had ever seen. When he was arrested, among the items found in his possession was a book on how to be a fugitive: How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found.
Yet he never attempted to run away.
According to North Carolina Business, Simmons “committed what investigators call the biggest financial fraud in Tar Heel history.”
I still don’t know what he was thinking. It makes no sense, because there’s no version of this story where Simmons would’ve succeeded. It was a scheme without a viable exit plan.
He lost his family, his freedom, his reputation, and his future — just to live like a king for a year or two.
The backstory is, I had a relationship with a Tampa-based MMA organization called Xtreme Fighting Championship (XFC). Jack Glasure, my ex-PR mentor, was an executive with a firm called French / West / Vaughan (FWV), the largest independent PR agency in the southeast. Based out of North Carolina, FWV knew lots of folks in the financial world.
One day, Jack called me and told me he had a rich, successful client who wanted to spend seven figures on an MMA organization. And it just so happened that XFC was actively looking for a financial partner.
Within a few weeks, Keith Simmons flew down to Tampa — via private jet, of course — met with me and the promoter, and quickly became the new owner.
He bought me, too: The MMA organization said they’d only sell if I came with the deal. So, it was arranged that Simmons wouldn’t just pay for XFC; he’d also pay FWV for my PR services, and then FWV would pay me — so technically, XFC would be a client of FWV.
(Which was fine with me: As long as SOMEONE is paying me, I’m not too picky!)
Most of the time, clients pay their PR fees on a monthly basis. Simmons was different: He paid my entire yearly salary all at once. Simply wrote the check, stuffed it in my shirt pocket, and told me to get to work.
For the first few months, everything was great. According to the promoter, Simmons was the perfect financial partner, because his checks always cleared and (just as importantly) he didn’t meddle in the business. He was simply a huge fan of the sport and loved being around fighters. On the weekend of an XFC fight card, he’d fly down (always by private jet) with a dozen or so of his employees. We’d all go out for dinner the night before, have a fantastic meal, and Simmons always paid for everything. He was socially awkward, but in a pleasant way.
I honestly liked the guy a lot.
Every now and then, I’d hear unusual rumblings: Simmons’ female companions seemed… very statuesque. (We heard through the pipeline that he paid for their boob jobs.) But, whatever: It wasn’t any of my business.
I focused on my work and didn’t pay attention to the extracurriculars.
About 10 months later, Keith Simmons and Jack Glasure had a falling out. (Can’t remember what it was over.) Simmons told me he’ll never pay FWV a dime again, so I should quit — and then he’d hire me on his own.
But alas, that’s not how PR agencies operate: I was contractually prohibited from “stealing” FWV’s clients.
So Simmons came up with a novel solution:
“Scott, any chance your wife writes press releases exactly like you do? ‘Cause as long as the work stays the same, I’ll happily pay Johanna Pinsker the same amount I’m paying Scott Pinsker! She’s not working for FWV, you know!”
That was the only unethical thing he ever proposed to me. Everything else wasn’t just by the book; it was clean, Christian, wholesome, and profanity-free, a la the “pack of smokes” debacle.
Then XFC stopped receiving funds. Checks were delayed. Simmons told us he had a new investor coming in, and everything was tied up with paperwork — but not to worry, because everything was fine.
“Trust me, guys!”
But for 400 of Simmons’ “investors,” things weren’t fine. They lost everything in a $40 million Ponzi scheme. And 100 of them were 75 years old or over.
As North Carolina Business reported:
Many of [Simmons’] victims were devastated. One, who had begun working at an orphanage as a teen and accumulated about $1 million in life savings, lost it all. But not all had invested money with him. His wife, who investigators, friends and family say was, willfully or not, unaware of his criminal activities, divorced him and remarried last year.
[…]
To stall investors, Simmons invented a white knight — a German financier named Klaus Bruner, who would provide $125 million in “liquidity” to meet payout demands. He manufactured other excuses, telling investors that various government agencies were holding up their money. When financial advisers demanded answers, he falsified a JP Morgan Chase document to show he had $77 million. The real figure was $77,000.
Before his sentencing, Simmons didn’t exactly beg for mercy or show much contrition.
“I’m not sure if any of the supposed victims are here, but I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize to those folks for the traumatic experience,” [Simmons] said, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with his hands clasped behind his back. After apologizing to the court for taking up its time, Simmons concluded: “There’s nothing I can say I feel will sway the court.”
After Simmons was sentenced to 50 years, the FBI released the following statement:
“What makes this case particularly troubling is that from the beginning, this defendant had no intention of investing a single dime of the victims’ money,” said U.S. Attorney Tompkins. “Simmons made slick presentations to his victims about lucrative investment returns that were filled with lies and deceit. Simmons was a con artist who pocketed people’s savings to finance his own lavish lifestyle and went to great lengths to cover up his crimes. The impact of Simmons’ fraud has been devastating to his victims, who trusted him with their hard-earned money. I want to caution potential investors before they turn over their life’s investments to pay close attention to sales pitches that promise large returns on investments. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Keith Simmons preyed on the elderly and the vulnerable, swindling his victims out of millions of dollars. This case is a stark reminder to the con artists who run these schemes that they will face lengthy prison sentences, and it is a lesson to investors to be cautious and to question promises of large payoffs,” said Chris Briese, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Charlotte.
He lived like a king for a couple of years. In return, his wife divorced him, his family abandoned him, he lost his freedom and all his money, and he will almost certainly die behind bars. As far as Faustian bargains go, that’s a very poor payoff.
I wonder if he thinks it was worth it — and if he ever smiles in prison, reminiscing over his days as a jet-setting bigshot. No, it didn’t last long, but he did taste the sweet life. That’s something most of us will never experience.
Maybe, in his mind, it was all worthwhile.
And I wonder if he ever thinks about me when there’s a pack of smokes.
