I Beg Your Pardon part 3
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03/24/26
•36m
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You know that little bottle of 5-Hour Energy sitting on the counter of almost every gas station in America? Someone was faking it. Millions of bottles, mixed by hand in a filthy warehouse by day laborers with no training, no sanitation licenses, and no recipe. Just plastic barrels, canoe paddles, and industrial chemicals that may not have been approved for human consumption.
In this episode, you meet Geoffrey Potter, an anti-counterfeiting attorney at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler who only takes cases where the fake product can kill you. Think of him as a private prosecutor with powers most people don't even know a private attorney can have. He helped bring down one of the most sophisticated food counterfeiting operations in US history.
You'll also learn what happened after the convictions. How a woman with no obvious connection to the President of the United States managed to secure not one, but two acts of presidential clemency. And how, just 42 days after walking out of prison, she was already running a $59 million scheme in the background.
This is the story of Adriana Camberos — a woman who was convicted twice, freed twice, and is still out there. This series is called I Beg Your Pardon for a reason.
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Previous Episode
I Beg Your Pardon part 2
March 17
•40m
Twelve days. That’s how long David Gentile spent in federal prison for a $1.8 billion fraud that wiped out the retirement savings of 17,000 people.
On Thanksgiving 2025, President Trump signed a one-page clemency grant, commuting Gentile’s seven-year sentence to time served and erasing a $15 million restitution order in the process.
In this episode, we talk to one of those 17,000 victims, CarolAnn Tutera, a 70-year-old still working because she can’t afford not to. We also talk to securities fraud attorney Adam Gana and Ponzi Playbook co-host Neal McTighe about how the scheme worked, what the pardon means, and what it says about the current climate for white collar crime.
CarolAnn Tutera
GPB Capital investor and CEO of Tutera Medical
Adam Gana
Securities fraud attorney, Gana LLP
Neal McTighe
Co-host, Ponzi Playbook podcast
The Conviction and Sentencing
DOJ Press Release
The Blueprint of the Fraud
SEC Civil Complaint
The White House Response
Forbes Breaking News — search: “Karoline Leavitt Asked About Trump’s Commutation Of Private Equity CEO’s Fraud Sentence”
00:00 CarolAnn’s Story
04:06 David Gentile’s Promise
04:38 I Beg Your Pardon
07:02 How a Ponzi Scheme Works
14:21 The Smoking Gun Emails
15:47 CarolAnn’s $400K
16:42 The Takedown
18:38 The Verdict
19:22 The Pardon
20:06 The White House Response
23:12 Restitution Wiped Out
29:51 The Pay-to-Play Pattern
33:41 The Perfect Storm
GuestsResourcesChapters36:44 Ponzi Playbook Returns
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Next Episode
Introducing Season Seven of Nobody Should Believe Me. Andrea revisits the case of Maya Kowalski—the story at the center of the Netflix film Take Care of Maya–and the family’s high-profile lawsuit against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. What became widely framed as a story about “medical kidnapping” began when hospital staff reported suspected medical child abuse after Maya arrived with a history of extreme ketamine treatments.
How did a case of horrific abuse become a story about evil doctors kidnapping children?
Listen to Season 7 on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3l3MDM959yf6f4fEbw4Dmz?si=6dba402bffa8435b
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