Call Me Commander
Potomac Books Inc (Verlag)
978-1-64012-304-5 (ISBN)
When Lt. Commander Bobby Thompson surfaced in Tampa in 1998, it was as if he had fallen from the sky, providing no hint of his past life. Eleven years later, St. Petersburg Times investigative reporter Jeff Testerman visited the rundown duplex Thompson used as his home and the epicenter of his sixty-thousand-member charity, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. But something was amiss. Thompson’s charity’s addresses were just maildrops, his members nonexistent, and his past a black hole. Yet, somehow, the Commander had stood for photos with President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, and other political luminaries. The USNVA, it turned out, was a phony charity where Thompson used pricey telemarketers, savvy lawyers, and political allies to swindle tens of millions from well-meaning donors.
After Testerman’s story revealed that the nonprofit was a sham, the Commander went on the run. U.S. Marshals took up the hunt in 2011 and found themselves searching for an unnamed identity thief who they likened to a real-life Jason Bourne. When finally captured in 2012, Thompson was carrying multiple IDs and a key to a locker that held nearly $1 million in cash. But, who was he? Eventually, investigators discovered he was John Donald Cody, a Harvard Law School graduate and former U.S. Army intelligence officer who had been wanted since the 1980s on theft charges and for questioning in an espionage probe.
As Cody’s decades as a fugitive came to an end, he claimed his charity was run at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. After reporting on the story for CNBC’s American Greed in 2014, Daniel M. Freed dug into Cody’s backstory—uncovering new information about his intelligence background and the evolution of his con.
Watch a book trailer at callmecommander.net.
Jeff Testerman is an investigative reporter now retired from the St. Petersburg Times, where he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize five times. The newspaper’s investigation exposing the U.S. Navy Veterans charity scheme earned the Investigative Reporters and Editors top award for public service. Daniel M. Freed is a senior producer for CNBC’s white-collar crime documentary series American Greed. His television and print work has been aired or published by PBS, Current TV, Amazon Prime Video, and the Los Angeles Times.
Prologue
1. Secrets behind a Duplex Door
2. Real Substance
3. Surviving the Flood
4. Pulling on a Thread
5. The Paper’s Chase
6. When Pigs Fly
7. The Perfect Storm
8. Under the Radar
9. Homeless at the Helmsley
10. Under the Lightbulb
11. Jeopardy
12. To the Grave?
13. Trip to the Tribal Lands
14. The Independent
15. A Good Harbor
16. Celia’s Home for Wayward Boys
17. The Slowest Follow
18. Unit 646
19. Mr. X
20. Crème de la Crème
21. Fish Out of Water
22. Stealing Away
23. For My Country
24. Veterans Day
25. Fall on the Guillotine
26. The Dark Period
27. Tunneling to Freedom
Photographs
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 15.01.2021 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 10 photographs, 7 illustrations, index |
| Verlagsort | Dulles |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie | |
| Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-64012-304-0 / 1640123040 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-64012-304-5 / 9781640123045 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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