welcome back to the national security hour my good friend stephen keller whose wonderful book pay to play i just got and tell everybody there stephen about what happened in pay to play how did you you know give us this first-hand account of of what happened and how you were trying to help people who are vulnerable and older and how it backfired what happened to you

Yeah.

So when I was 27 years old, I created a industry that's alive and well today.

And you probably see ads on TV for people that are advertising that people can sell their life insurance policies that are 65 years or older.

It's called the life settlement industry.

And I created that.

And it got quite big real quick back in the day.

Oh, yeah, it's

Is the LA Times right in that assessment? And would you mind just briefly telling us about your legal backstory?

Yeah, so let's step back.

When I was 27 years old, I created this life settlement market and the product.

And that's the ability for somebody that's 65 years or older to sell a life insurance policy and get a discount of the face amount for cash.

And then we would take it over and pay the premium and we would collect the death proceeds when the person demised.

And so the insurance companies didn't like that.

At the time, I didn't realize I disrupted the entire life insurance market, but that's what happened because their business model was such that they want you to pay premiums for 10 to 15 years and then make it so onerous or raise the premiums up to where you no longer want it.

So do you mind just explaining to us what is pay to play and how did it affect your case?

So did you get out of the country?

Yeah.

So, you know, we went to trial and did not go well.

And I had some unusual things happen during the middle of my trial.

One thing that happened that was just chilling was the sight of a giant motor brigade that was the Attorney General at the time, John Ashcroft.

He got out, talked to my judge, came back to his motor brigade and took off.

And after that, I knew there was no due process for me anymore.

How did they finally catch you?

And I'm just going to set the stage for it because I can just picture it's so mundane and all of a sudden... you think you're free and clear of this corruption machine that incarcerated you and it caught up to you talk about it

yeah so we were in panama and i was actually working with an attorney there his father was a judge in panama And I was like the business guru for this guy.

So people would come in and propose deals for him to look at or investments and whatever.

So I would figure it out what's real, what's good, what's bad, what's fraud.

So, you know, this guy took us in and.

had to set up an apartment.

He had kids our kids age, so he would take us with him on trips or weekend outings or whatever.

Why tell the story now?