Oh My Fraud

Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Greg: [00:00:00] March 31st, 1995, Corpus Christi, Texas police surround a red pickup in a Days Inn parking lot. Yolanda Saldivar sits inside, hysterical and holding a 38 caliber revolver to her head. 9.5 hours later, she's taken into custody for the murder of a woman she describes as her best friend. That best friend, Tejano pop superstar Selena Quintanilla. The murder occurred just three weeks after, and as a direct result of Selena confronting Yolanda for allegedly embezzling $30,000.

Earmark CPE: [00:00:46] If you'd like to earn CPE credit for listening to this episode, visit Earmark Cpcomm. Download the app, take a short quiz and get your CPE certificate. Continuing education has never been so easy. And now on to the episode.

Greg: [00:01:09] Hello and welcome to Oh My Fraud, a true crime podcast about fraud, not murder, except every now and then when it's a true crime podcast about fraud and murder. I'm Greg Kite.

Caleb: [00:01:22] And I'm Caleb Newquist.

Greg: [00:01:24] Caleb, before we get into our case for today, I just wanted to take a minute to read a listener review real quick.

Caleb: [00:01:33] Oh, I would love to hear a listener review. A nice, a nice listener review.

Greg: [00:01:39] Right, right. And this is one that's going to lift our spirits. Drayden Scott says, I stumbled upon this podcast by accident and I just love it. I only wish there were more episodes. They tackle each story with knowledge and education, but in a really fun, engaging manner. I wish my industry doled out in such an entertaining way. That's fantastic. He I don't know what industry he's in. I would like to think it's probably engineering.

Caleb: [00:02:04] I guess that's a possibility.

Greg: [00:02:06] It's my guess.

Caleb: [00:02:07] All right. Yeah, that's very cool. I'm not totally sure how you stumble upon this podcast, though, by accident, right? You know, were you searching for WTF with Marc Maron? Because it's a pretty easy one to find, but maybe it autocorrected you know wtf to OMF? I suppose it's possible.

Greg: [00:02:29] Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Those those keys aren't very close on the keyboard even.

Caleb: [00:02:33] Yeah. Is it a fat finger error. It might have been.

Greg: [00:02:35] A really fat. The fattest of fingers, fat finger error, but regardless, it doesn't matter. Drayden. Scott, we're so glad you found us. And whoever's listening to us right now, we're glad you found us too. And we're glad that for nice reviews, that's just a thing to be thankful for.

Caleb: [00:02:52] It is. And if you like. Oh, my fraud. Please take a minute to write us a review. Hey, it might help other people stumble upon it. Fat finger or no fat finger? Hopefully they will find it and they will enjoy it as well.

Greg: [00:03:08] Awesome. So getting into the case today, Caleb, today's case takes us deep into the world of music, specifically Tejano music, which is a genre that I was at best just barely aware of. And arguably the best Tejano music came from Selena Quintanilla, better known as just Selena. Selena was tragically murdered. That's why there's been movies made about her. That's why Netflix has a TV series about her. But at the heart of the story is a fraud. And the fraud has unfortunately been both downplayed and overlooked in the popular media. So if you're not familiar with the roots of Tejano music, it can be traced back as far as the 1930 and 1940s. It often has a dominant accordion instrumentation to it. And it kind of if you if you stop for a second and think about it, you go, oh, this actually does sound kind of like polka. And it's it's very when you look into the history of of Tejano music, it was very much influenced by polka. And then in 1981, Selena y Los Dinos and Los Dinos was her band, which was largely her family. But then as they they had to build out the band and it became more and more other people in a smaller her family. But her her band was always a big chunk family business. But Selena y Los Dinos began performing and touring and playing Tejano music. Interesting fact, Caleb. Tejano music is is almost exclusively sung in Spanish, but Selena and her brother and sister who were in the band with her are Mexican American, and they grew up speaking only English, so they had to learn Spanish to be able to perform Tejano music because that was that was the genre that their dad, who was their manager, was like, this is this is where we need to go to make to make our band successful. So she she learned Spanish to sing the songs.

Caleb: [00:05:18] Selena's popularity was meteoric. In 1986, at age 1515, she won Female Vocalist of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards. And for the next 11 years, she won either female Vocalist of the Year or female Entertainer of the Year almost always both in 1994. Jumping ahead a bit. But in 1994, at the age of 23, her live album won the Grammy for Best Mexican American Album.

Greg: [00:05:47] Selena's fan base was exploding, and with Selena's father's permission, Abraham.

Caleb: [00:05:54] Abraham is his name, is it not?

Greg: [00:05:56] It is. Yep. Abraham Quintanilla. So who actually fun fact he was in a band called Los Dinos when he was a younger man.

Caleb: [00:06:05] Oh.

Greg: [00:06:06] Which is where the name Los Dinos came from. And his band had had a little bit of success. They recorded some albums and they got some local airtime on the radio. But once he started having a family, the pressures of family made him step away from his dream. But then he gave it new birth with his children and with their talent that they were showing as young kids.

Caleb: [00:06:31] Fabulous.

Greg: [00:06:32] So with Abraham Quintanilla's permission superfan Yolanda Saldivar started the Selena Fan Club in 1991. And again, it's it's some of the some of the accounts of the story are pieced together from different sources that I was able to find the the sense I got was that somehow Yolanda just got the family's phone number and kind of pestered them until they were like, Fine, start a fan club. And that was Yolanda's introduction to the Selena The Factory.

Caleb: [00:07:12] That kind of isn't that how all fan clubs start? Well, the most annoying fan is the one who ends up running the fan club.

Greg: [00:07:20] Oh, I've got to assume if anyone was famous enough to wear a fan club started spontaneously. Whoever's running that fan club has got to be just a piece of work. Like.

Caleb: [00:07:36] Yeah, like like, for example, I do not want to meet the person who's going to run the Oh, my Ford fan club. I don't want to meet that person. Yeah, you just start the club. Just start the club. But you can't use our likeness without our permission. And we're going to take our cut. Okay, but just start the fucking club. You don't have to talk to us.

Greg: [00:07:55] Which is impossible because. Well, and that's. And I think that's really. We'll just.

Caleb: [00:07:59] Tell you where to send the money.

Greg: [00:08:01] With Yolanda. Part of the reason why she was a super fan is that she desperately wanted to meet Selena and to be a friend to Selena. And and interestingly enough, by running the fan club and she ran it successfully by running the fan club, she was able to do exactly that. She met Selena and she she, like I said, because of her success with the fan club, she and Selena were were pals. Because of that. Yolanda was a interestingly enough, Yolanda lived in San Antonio, Texas, which is just about two hours northwest of Corpus Christi, which is Selena's hometown. And that was kind of the base of her operations.

Caleb: [00:08:45] And May may may I just say, yes, that has been established on prior episodes. And this is a little bit of a sidebar. So apologies to those of you who like a linear storyline.

Greg: [00:09:00] Relax. We're getting there.

Caleb: [00:09:02] Yeah. Yeah. Fucking keep your pants on. It has been established, and I will. It is. I feel it incumbent upon myself to disclose that our Texas geography is for shit on this show.

Greg: [00:09:14] It's pretty bad to the point. So I checked and double checked what I just said before I put.

Caleb: [00:09:20] It on, so I don't know for a fact. Off the top of my head that San Antonio is two hours northwest of Corpus Christi. So please, if you feel so moved, just double check Craig's homework. Okay. That's all. Yeah.

Greg: [00:09:35] Do that and then start a fan club for us. So.

Caleb: [00:09:39] Uh, back to the story.

Greg: [00:09:41] Yeah. So, Yolanda helming the Selena fan club, she grew it from nothing to 1300 members by 1993. And the fan club was apparently set up as a nonprofit, too. So people people would pay money to be members of the fan club. They'd get some swag for that, and the profits were donated to various charities. Selena wasn't just an incredible musician, which needs to be pointed out. Selena also loved clothing and she designed a lot of the clothes that she and Los Dinos would wear on stage as an ambitious up and coming cultural icon. She had a dream that she wanted to start her own clothing line and along with that, her own boutique clothing stores. And her dream was realized in January. In January of 1994, when Selena Et-cetera was opened in Corpus Christi, which was exactly that. It was a boutique clothing store. They also had you know, obviously they sold Selena's music and they sold memorabilia and like concert stuff at the store as well. So.

Caleb: [00:10:55] May I. Yes. So if I understand it, right, the boutiques were like Selena themed and they sold Selena merchandise. Do I have that right?

Greg: [00:11:04] Yes, but. But, but. Well, here's the thing. So she partnered with fashion designer Martin Gomez. Okay. So basically, she would she she would have these sketches of of clothing. And again, even before that, like the clothing that she designed for the band to wear, she would make it like either either she would she would buy something and then she would embellish it to be exactly what she wanted or even she would make. She would just make the clothes herself from scratch. So when she teamed up with Martin Gomez, they were making so so you could go in and you could buy like a jacket. That was that. If it was not exactly. It was very similar to something you saw Selena wearing on stage. It didn't say Selena y Los Dinos across it. It was just very nice clothing that that you could go, oh my gosh, these clothes were made by the person whose music I also love. So it was, it was really. And there's, there's other I mean, I'm sure you're aware there's other celebrities who have branched off into different merchandise. Oh, yeah. And and interestingly enough, Jennifer Lopez, who played Selena in the movie Selena has kind of there's a lot of people have pointed out the similarities between what Jennifer Lopez has done and what Selena wanted to do because Jennifer Lopez has her own line of clothing. She's got a whole she's got a whole industry of Jennifer Lopez not and not not merch in the sense that like you'd think of concert but like merch in terms of all sorts of products that are. Jennifer Lopez products. Yeah. Brand Yeah, a brand Now her clothing line like it was called Martin Gomez exclusively for Selena and that was the clothing line that was sold in her boutiques, along with, like I said, her music and her memorabilia, but interestingly enough, her boutiques, because she insisted on it, her boutiques even had a full service beauty salon inside there. So you could you could have a like makeover day. I'm going to go get my hair done, my nails done, and a whole new set of clothes. And it's all Selena.

Caleb: [00:13:22] Selena's dad, Slash manager, was a businessman. He had opened his own restaurant. He managed the band. He started his own record company in studio. But when Selena's empire expanded into retail, he couldn't really help. He was. He was obviously, he was busy. And it seems like there's a lot going on. Yeah, there was. He was just.

Greg: [00:13:45] There was a lot of hustle in the Quintanilla family.

Caleb: [00:13:47] Hustling going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which kudos. But yeah, there's only so much you can do, right? Right. So Selena's recording and touring schedule precluded her from running the boutiques herself, naturally, right?

Greg: [00:14:04] She also being spread too thin, right?

Caleb: [00:14:07] Busy on the road, Whatever she needed, someone she knew and trusted to run these businesses. So she turned to Yolanda. In the fall of 1994, Yolanda became the manager of the boutiques. Yes. Boutiques, plural. Shortly after opening the store in Corpus Christi, a second location opened in San Antonio and plans were quickly underway to start a third in Monterrey, Mexico.

Greg: [00:14:33] And it felt like and again, this it's hard to it was hard to do some of the research for this case because because I watched if I if it wasn't already clearly stated, I watched the movie and the Netflix series on Selena. So some of the stuff that that's portrayed in the in in those TV shows and movies, I couldn't back it up with any of the other research that I did. But but at least from the from the TV show specifically, it sounded like it was one of those hiring decisions where it's like Selena was trying to run him herself and just couldn't do it effectively. And so they were like it was almost like, okay, this isn't working. Do we know anybody that we think could do it? And somebody was like, maybe Yolanda, she's done a good job with the fan club and they're like, Cool, Call her, see if she'll do it. And they call. And she was like, Yes, I can do it and you're hired. So again, if that I don't know if that's if that's just fiction to make a good TV, to make good TV or if that's really how it happened. But also, again, like we said before, it was pretty clear that through her role, at least with the fan club, it was more than, like you said, just a just there's some weirdo who's running the fan club and I don't know who she is and I don't want to know who she is. There was there was an actual relationship that developed. So, so which obviously was, I'm sure, instrumental in them landing on her even if they didn't vet her skills as being able to manage a retail store thoroughly. Caleb Totally taking a left turn from that. Oh, I.

Caleb: [00:16:14] Love a left turn.

Greg: [00:16:16] What was your what was the first concert you ever went to and was it perhaps Tejano pop superstar Selena Quintanilla in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1994?

Caleb: [00:16:26] No, it was not. Uh, I'm going to leave out an air show that I went to when I was like 6 or 7 when Lee Greenwood showed up to sing God Bless the USA. So I'm not going to count that. Is that all right? It was an air show. It wasn't a concert. It was an air show.

Greg: [00:16:42] Okay, okay. I'll let that one slide. But that's still a pretty damn good story.

Caleb: [00:16:47] I mean, I was very young. Anyway, the first concert I remember going to was with my parents when I was probably like 9 or 10, a little bit older than this Lee Greenwood experience. And we saw Travis Tritt at the Nebraska State Fair.

Greg: [00:17:01] Oh, that's that's like country on country.

Caleb: [00:17:04] Very much so. Yeah. In the in those days, the Nebraska State Fair was in Lincoln. It's not in Lincoln anymore, but they held the concert at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. That's where they play the basketball games. So he did the show and then he came back for the encore and he was drinking a Bud Light. And the audience went nuts. And my dad, who was not a drinker at the time, thought that was in poor taste.

Greg: [00:17:28] The a country singer drinking a beer on stage.

Caleb: [00:17:32] Yeah. Travis Tritt. No.

Greg: [00:17:34] Yeah. Yeah, he was. And I and I bet you you would probably not have tasted alcohol to this day had it not been for the bad influence of Travis Tritt.

Caleb: [00:17:44] Yeah, I should blame it on Travis Tritt, shouldn't I? That seems like a pretty logical thing to do. He's deserving of the blame.

Greg: [00:17:50] I think so.

Caleb: [00:17:52] What about you, Greg? What about you? Was it did you did you see was it Nirvana? Was it Sonic Youth? Oh, you're in the Northwest. You grew up in the northwest. There must have been music everywhere.

Greg: [00:18:05] Yeah. No, there wasn't. Not for me. Not for a nerdy suburban, uh, Greg.

Caleb: [00:18:13] Mountlake Terrace, Washington.

Greg: [00:18:14] Greg Exactly. Yeah, we, my, mine. It was not a super grunge concert, which would have been cool, but my first concert definitely beats Travis Tritt's silver Bullet tour. Wait, did you. My first tour.

Caleb: [00:18:30] It was.

Greg: [00:18:32] Travis Tritt's. Oh, no, no. I just assumed because the Bud Light at the end, it had to have been the Silver Bullet tour.

Caleb: [00:18:38] You're mixing up your macro beers. Greg. Am I.

Greg: [00:18:41] Okay? Well, that that's how. Okay, well, well, maybe you're maybe you're maybe you're remembering it wrong. Um, so my first concert. Check this out was Prince Purple Rain tour at the Tacoma Dome in 1985. Oh, nice. And I. Yeah, and I like to kind of line up my, you know, my first concert against other people's. And I think I, you know, in head to head battles I usually will win.

Caleb: [00:19:09] I'd say you probably win.

Greg: [00:19:11] So yeah, so my my dad took me and my brother to the Tacoma Dome. We had really, you know, it was nosebleed seats. And and I will say this, when Prince touched his guitar like a phallus until it sprayed water on the crowd, my dad didn't say anything about it being in poor taste. So we had different experiences at our first concerts, clearly. Okay, next question. Are there any any genres of music or artists that you just can't handle? Like. Like, like the. Absolutely. Just great against your soul?

Caleb: [00:19:46] Yeah, I don't I have I have pretty low tolerance for pop music.

Greg: [00:19:50] Yeah.

Caleb: [00:19:50] Yeah. Like if Ryan Seacrest is on a first name basis with somebody, then I'm probably not interested.

Greg: [00:19:57] Dude, not me. I'm a sucker for pop music, like, so much. I absolutely am.

Caleb: [00:20:03] Yeah. So, like, I mean, there's exceptions. Like, I mean, like, I like Rihanna. I like Adele. Lady Gaga. Yeah, but, like, I have no idea why anyone likes Justin Bieber or Ed Sheeran. Like, no, no idea. It just I'm like.

Greg: [00:20:19] Well, I'm. I'm with you. Adele's a goddess, so.

Caleb: [00:20:22] Yeah, she's.

Greg: [00:20:23] Wonderful. Um, okay, so in terms of bands that you just can't handle for me. Absolutely. Neil Diamond, Billy Joel. Uh, I. I can't. I cannot do them. Josh Groban's also in there, but for different reasons. I have, I have walked out of stores because Neil Diamond has come on over their sound system. And I have a theory that I can't handle him because I because come into America, I think got stuck in my head for the entire year that that came out. I just couldn't his his songs are like earworms and there's something else that just something there that I just can't handle. Josh wrote.

Caleb: [00:21:00] Pop songs. He could write pop songs. So what's the Josh Groban thing? Like, what's that about?

Greg: [00:21:05] I don't like his demeanor.

Caleb: [00:21:07] He is very kind of sanctimonious.

Greg: [00:21:10] Yeah, he's yeah, there's definitely a it just seems the, the opera, the operatic tone in his voice feels like he's being condescending to me. I don't know why. Like to me specifically like he's going, you are beneath.

Caleb: [00:21:26] Are you intimidated, Greg? Are you intimidated by his talent? No.

Greg: [00:21:29] No, I'm not. I feel insulted by it. I feel like he's personally just through the the timber of his voice. Yeah. That he's personally saying that I'm not as good as him and that that pisses me off.

Caleb: [00:21:43] Josh Groban, you can't be the only person having this experience, though.

Greg: [00:21:46] And then he has these perfectly relatable cameos in the office and I go, But I hate you, so I can't. Like, I have this like how I'm laughing at your joke, but I hate you as a musician. So but just since I'm sure he listens to the podcast, Josh Groban, meet me in the alley. I'm going to kick your ass. So everything's moving along. They've got a they've got a successful fan club. They've got these these fledgling boutiques that are that are doing quite well. But then in January 1995, Selena's dad, Abraham Quintanilla, started hearing some complaints from some fan club members. And the account in Texas Monthly says this Several fans had complained that they had sent in their $22 but had never received the promised T-shirt, CD picture or biography. I do. Just a quick aside. It's a demonstration of the inflationary time that we're in right now. That $22 in 1995 would get you a t shirt and a CD and a picture and a biography. Seems like nowadays you'd at most for 22 bucks maybe get one of those four things.

Caleb: [00:23:08] And be a lousy t shirt too.

Greg: [00:23:10] It would be so around this same time things started going wrong at the boutique. Martin Gomez resigned his position as Selena's designer, citing Yolanda's toxic behavior as his reason. Some of the fashion models that they used for the clothing line didn't get paid for their work. And there were also problems just with payroll for the regular employees. So Selena's dad was like, this is again, a businessman. He's he's run multiple ventures. And even though he didn't feel like he had the capacity or maybe even the background to run the retail stuff, he is he can run businesses and he goes, that's absolutely not okay. And he was convinced that Yolanda, who is in charge of the boutiques and in charge of the fan club, had taken the money inappropriately from both of those things. But interestingly enough, Selena trusted Yolanda like to the full and and she would consistently and loyally defend Yolanda and just go, no, there must be some mistake. There must be some explanation for this. There's no way that Yolanda would do that to us.

Caleb: [00:24:23] On March 9th, 1995, Selena's dad, her sister Suzette, who was also a drummer in Los Dinos, and Selena, confronted Yolanda, who denied all wrongdoing.

Greg: [00:24:33] Of course, of course.

Caleb: [00:24:34] Was deflected.

Greg: [00:24:35] Because, yeah, what she's not going to be like, Yeah, I've been stealing from you this whole time, bitch. That's not. That's not real fan club president behavior.

Caleb: [00:24:47] Yeah, I feel like the president. Like, I would never know. I mean, that that's how it's going to go, right? Right. And that would never. Selena Yeah.

Greg: [00:24:55] Which is exactly what it was. And it was, it was even, I mean, and again, I'm probably being swayed by the movies and TV shows, but it seemed like it was very, very like, like there was sort of some pleading like, how could you think I did this? I yeah, no way. I, I am your friend. I, I would never do anything like that. There must have been some, you know, some other explanation for this.

Caleb: [00:25:19] As, as it says right here. She tried. Yolanda tried to put the blame on to Martin Gomez. Yeah. Yeah. And Abraham demanded that Yolanda prove her innocence because, you know, we're not in a court of law here, so you're guilty until proven innocent. Right?

Greg: [00:25:39] And and it makes sense if there's with all these complaints and all these very practical things and Yolanda is at the helm, that's what. Yes. That's just natural, where it's like, hey, either either tell me where the mistakes were or you're in charge. You're in charge. You got to explain this somehow.

Caleb: [00:25:55] Yeah. You're the prime suspect, lady. Exactly. Yeah. So Abraham demanded that Yolanda prove her innocence. And by the end of the meeting, Yolanda was relieved of all her duties pertaining to the Quintanillas and their various businesses. As Selena and her father looked closer into the situation, they were unable to find bank statements and other critical business documents.

Greg: [00:26:19] And keep in mind, I mean, again, we're talking like mid 90s. So this is yeah, this is before the ubiquity of I'll just look it up online. I'll go I'll go to my bank portal and download all the bank statements. Right.

Caleb: [00:26:34] When they confronted Yolanda about the missing documents, she claimed to have them in her possession. And although she repeatedly said that she would cooperate by returning the documents, she also repeatedly failed to deliver the documents.

Greg: [00:26:50] Just like an innocent person would do.

Caleb: [00:26:52] That's not good. That's not good. No.

Greg: [00:26:56] Not at all. I mean, again, it's just, you know, there's suspicion. There's prove your innocence and then there's promises that are never followed through on. So, Yolanda, you're digging yourself into a hole here.

Caleb: [00:27:09] This is not how an innocent person behaves.

Greg: [00:27:11] It's not at all. Did did we mention that Yolanda was obsessed with Selena?

Caleb: [00:27:17] Did we think it may have come up? Yeah.

Greg: [00:27:20] And and and this was something that I was able to substantiate. They they did a great job portraying it in the in the, you know, the pop culture places where you can learn about Selena. But also in actual the news accounts too is that Yolanda was like it was over the top her obsession with because because you go okay she's president of the fan club so she's got to be very into Selena. No, Yolandas home was like plastered with Selena pictures and cutouts and photos like entire not not like framed, but just like, you know, like ripped out of a magazine and taped to the wall. Like, entire, entire gigantic walls were just that. A former roommate of Yolanda's described it as a shrine and that roommate was so creeped out by Yolanda and by her behavior that she could only take it for two weeks and then bounced out of that living situation. Um, Yolanda's life and her identity revolved around Selena. And again, obviously her identity was fan club president. It was manager of Selena's boutiques, but it also was just her. This friendship with Selena was so incredibly important to Yolanda, and at this point, it's obvious that that was being taken away from her because of her alleged embezzlement of the money from the Quintanilla empire. And on March 13th, 1995, Yolanda bought a 38 caliber pistol. Funny things about the account is she bought it and then she returned it. And then she bought it again, which.

Caleb: [00:29:14] In Texas.

Greg: [00:29:15] 30th.

Caleb: [00:29:16] Which in Texas, for what it's worth, totally fine. Do it as much as you like. It's a.

Greg: [00:29:21] Tuesday.

Caleb: [00:29:22] That's a Texas. That's just. That's an afternoon.

Greg: [00:29:25] Yep, yep. Do you have this with a pink handle? No. Okay, then I'll just get it again.

Caleb: [00:29:32] I'll just. Can I have it? Can I just have it back? I have the receipt.

Greg: [00:29:35] Right. We'll just. It's okay. On March 30th, Yolanda had just returned from a trip to Monterrey, and Selena met with her to finally retrieve all the missing paper bank statements and other business documents that Yolanda still had. And at the meeting, Yolanda told Selena that she had been raped while she was in Mexico. So Selena, again, just demonstrating that Selena was a friend. Even in the midst of all this business bullshit, Selena's like, Oh, that's horrible. And and in an effort to help, Yolanda took her to a doctor to be examined. And at the at the clinic or wherever they were at, the results came back and it was like, no, it's it's inconclusive that anything happened to Yolanda. And so after that, Yolanda confessed to Selena that she hadn't actually been raped. So Selena's just like beyond any last shred of patience with Yolanda. So she returned to the Days Inn Motel where Yolanda was staying in Corpus Christi. So obviously tensions were sky high because Selena had been repeatedly lied to by her trusted friend and not just her trusted friend, but her trusted friend who she had defended like vehemently to her family, where her family's going, this lady's bad news. And Selena's like going, No, no, she couldn't have done that stuff.

Greg: [00:31:08] And now it's just becoming crystal clear to. Selena this like, yeah, this lady is toxic bad news. And she's been lying and stealing from me. And so Yolanda's from Yolanda's perspective, her world was being taken away from her. And so this whole confrontation about these documents that ended up taking him to the doctors because of, you know, claims of being raped and now they're back trying to get the documents again. And this confrontation just completely exploded. And Yolanda pulled the revolver out of her purse and they were in a in a pickup truck. And Yolanda pulled the revolver out of her purse. Selena started to run away and Yolanda shot her in the back. While Selena was running away, Yolanda screamed, You bitch. As she shot her, Selena dragged herself into the lobby of the motel and her last words that she said, they were like, Who did this to you? And she said it was Yolanda. Paramedics arrived three minutes later, which seems like a world record. But shortly after arriving at the hospital, Selena died from blood loss and cardiac arrest. Yolanda stayed in the pickup truck, had a 9.5 hour standoff with officers before she was taken into custody.

Caleb: [00:32:36] Yolanda was convicted of murder in October 1995 and sentenced to life in prison. She is serving her sentence in Mountain View maximum security prison in Gatesville, Texas, halfway between Austin and Fort Worth. And that's less than two hours west of Corsicana. For the oh, my fried archivists out there. At the time of this recording, Yolanda will be eligible for parole in two years. She was never charged with fraud or embezzlement. So, Greg, did we learn anything?

Greg: [00:33:14] Uh, I think that this case is a very, very interesting story. Not just because it's one of the few that we get to do that has murder, but. But there's a lot of interesting details in this case that that that my mind has been kind of mulling over since doing the research for this one thing. And I guess a couple of things that I think Caleb would be good for us to just talk about explicitly is why she didn't get charged with fraud or embezzlement in this case. Um, one of the things that I found and it was a little difficult to even find this, but there, it looked as though from my research that there was like a preliminary hearing where her family testified about Yolanda's embezzlement. But then it never really went anywhere from that. I don't I didn't find anything other than just a brief account about an initial. Yeah, an initial hearing. That makes sense to me because we're only talking about $30,000. One thing I did find is another just data point that I found was that the boutiques earned the Quintanilla family. $5 million is what it was stated. I hated that data point, though, because in none of the things, there was multiple places where I found them saying that the boutiques earned $5 million. But it never said like in what time frame? It wasn't like they earned $5 million a year, that that was their annual revenue. It never said from when they opened in 1994 to and just Epilog Point, those boutiques were closed in 2009 finally. So they had a they had a very long life after Selena passed away, but maybe it was $5 million over that whole time. But then if you look at that, you go, okay, that's you know what, 15 years and $5 million over 15 years isn't a real amazing business. Not a great.

Caleb: [00:35:19] Business.

Greg: [00:35:19] But but I.

Caleb: [00:35:20] Guess a fine business.

Greg: [00:35:22] A business. It's okay. It's a good side hustle. But. But regardless, you can say they $30,000 was stolen from a venture that earned in some period of time $5 Million and you go, okay, 30,000 would have been nice. But it's not a life or death issue for that venture and definitely not for the Quintanilla empire overall, because the the boutiques were just a small part and maybe even and again, this is my speculation, possibly the smallest part of the Quintanilla empire. But then you also look at this where it's like, okay, if she's going if they're going to pursue embezzlement with Yolanda, the only reason why they'd want to pursue that is if they could get the money back. And it does not know where. Does it sound like Yolanda invested the $30,000 that she stole in gold bars that they could go get. It was the money was just gone. And, you know, and it's pretty easy to do a cost benefit analysis of how much is it going to cost us to pay our lawyers to go after someone who probably doesn't have any kind of net worth to speak of at all? And then you go, oh, yeah, it's not it's it's not their period. Right? And then and then top that off with if you're just wanting justice to be served, she's got life in prison so you can kind of go, okay, the, the, the whole murderer side of it, you know, kind of covers both bases. And if we just want to see someone punished.

Caleb: [00:36:59] Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right, Greg. Good.

Greg: [00:37:03] Um, what, Uh, our producer before we got on this, our producer, uh, mentioned that his thought was that the, uh, whoever the the DA would be in the case like this would probably also go. We got her on murder. We're not going to invest the resources to get her for this. This, you know, chump change, embezzlement. What's your thought about that?

Caleb: [00:37:27] I mean, when you think about when you think about all the cases, when when you think about all the like, big corporate fraud cases that aren't prosecuted, it's because it's like, well, these are hard to prosecute. We're not sure juries can understand it, which is like, you know what they can understand? They can understand murder. So this is what we're going to do. Yeah. Like and forget the money.

Greg: [00:37:49] Right? That's a But you also just touched on something else that I do think needs to be clarified. Like maybe just a glaring question in people's mind is like, how how did she steal the money? And again, we typically look at cases that have been prosecuted on this podcast so that we can, you know, because in the course of going through the court system, all that stuff is brought to light in terms of how they did what they did with this case. Super easy, even though she wasn't even even though we don't we don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt that, you know, we don't have firsthand accounts that this is what happened. But what we do know is that Yolanda, as the manager of the boutique, had signing authority on the checking account for the boutiques. So and same with the the fan club is she was in charge of the fan club so she could write fan club checks. And so there there's a very wide open door of opportunity for how Yolanda did this and just writing checks to herself or to her friends or to close family. And that's how she could have taken the money very easily. And I don't think there's any question that it was done in any way that was more sophisticated than just, oh, I can sign these checks. Okay, Then this check goes to me for.

Caleb: [00:39:11] 3000 to the order of moi.

Greg: [00:39:14] Yep, exactly. Now, another when we're talking about what? What did we learn from this? The other thing is that and this is really more of like, what? What do you what what is a real takeaway from this case? Small businesses need to stop trusting people and especially especially celebrities need to stop trusting people because certainly Yolanda.

Caleb: [00:39:40] Or close friends. Right.

Greg: [00:39:41] But right but but think about that because we've done we've done webinars together where we looked at Dane Cook and Dane Cook got a bunch of money stolen from him by his manager, who was also his half brother. So there's that. We. Kevin Hart was he got stolen. He got, I think it was an assistant of his, stole a bunch of money from him and he found out his assistant, his.

Caleb: [00:40:09] Friend was his assistant, like a friend or a relative.

Greg: [00:40:13] His assistant was probably shouldn't have had the ability to. Well, I think that was it. I think for convenience sake, I don't know about the relationship. So to answer your question, I don't know that. But regardless if the whole thing is that small businesses and celebrities need to stop trusting people, if you have an assistant and you go, you know, it just be easier if you had this credit card, that's a bad idea. If you're if you're not reconciling the the credit card statement at the end of the month, just giving somebody a credit card, it shouldn't be what you do. There needs to be more controls. There needs to be internal controls, like we talk about almost every episode. And that's what's nonexistent in small businesses. Fun fact. Even Billy Joel, he had $90 million. We're talking 30,000 with Selena. Billy Joel had $90 million stolen from him by his manager, who also just so happened to be his brother in law. So just because people are related by blood or marriage does not mean that they are people that you can trust. And I would even say, arguably you maybe should trust them less if we're talking about pop culture stuff. Caleb I just recently watched the biopic of Whitney Houston, and Whitney Houston's dad was her manager. And for as much as you can trust the biopic, he did not manage her finances well at all and definitely lined his pockets more than he should have with her earnings. So all that said, do not trust anyone family, least of all. If you're starting a business, just tell family members to go straight to. L before working for you.

Caleb: [00:42:01] That's good advice.

Greg: [00:42:03] Yeah. Caleb. What are the things that you learned from this one?

Caleb: [00:42:07] I mean, all of this is very, very good. I think the only thing that I would just like to go on record to say is that small businesses and which, you know, sometimes when you're a celebrity or an entertainer, I should say, when you're an entertainer, you are the small business, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So for those types of folks or small business owners of any stripe, just stay highly suspicious of people via elaborate and tedious controls around your business. I mean, I don't know, Greg, you work at a small business and you might tell me that I'm wrong because they aren't practical and like they're annoying and tedious, but like, if you don't want people to steal from you, follow them to the letter, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Greg: [00:42:49] No, absolutely. Well, and that's the thing. I like what you said about how the entertainers are the business and, and I think the common denominator. Well, if it's very similar. So I work for a group of medical office buildings, so I have a lot of doctors that I have a front row seat to how their business operates. And the weird thing about doctors, because doctors are also it almost every doctor has a story of some employee stealing from them. It seems ubiquitous in the in the medical profession. But again, the reason why is because you think the doctor's the main boss, the head honcho. But the problem is they're actually the worker because they're the one who has to go take out the spleen. And so because of that, they don't have the time and they generally don't have the expertise to run the business side of stuff. So they have to outsource that to someone else. And then there goes the control, the direct oversight that they would have business or sorry, entertainers and athletes to the same the same exact thing where it's like you are the person who is producing the product for this business, not just that you're the business, you're the you're the factory is what you are. And so you don't have the time and the same thing. You don't have the time, don't necessarily have the expertise. And so finding a trustworthy person to run the business is has to be a huge priority for you. Or like you said, just be. Well, I guess that's the thing. If you're if you because you're your suggestion was set up elaborate and tedious internal controls. But that implies that you know how to set up elaborate and tedious internal controls. And I don't think that there's that kind of a understanding of business. With your rank and file celebrity slash athlete.

Caleb: [00:44:40] Right. And whether you're talking about Selena or like a situation like Selena's or you're talking about a small business. Yeah, you I guess if you think about it from the entertainment perspective, that's why most of these folks who aren't who aren't necessarily savvy with money, that's why they hire business managers. But of course, there are countless stories of celebrities also being ripped off by their business.

Greg: [00:45:07] By their business.

Caleb: [00:45:08] Managers. So. Exactly.

Greg: [00:45:10] Exactly right. So, well.

Caleb: [00:45:13] The exposure is always there, I think, for if you're if it's a small business, like if you're just thinking about your your your garden variety small business, I think that that's a little bit more difficult, right, where you have to like talk to a CPA or somebody and be like, Hey, I'm worried about fraud because I'm paranoid. And or I heard a podcast and they suggested it. Yeah. And the CPA will probably tell you it's like, Well, here are some things you can do. And you've we've talked about countless examples over the episodes where sometimes it's something as simple as an approved vendor list, right? Yeah, like something like that where you're just like, if they're not on this list, we don't pay them anything. Right. And, and like, and most people don't think about that kind of stuff. So yeah, I don't know it talking to someone, either hiring someone or having someone advise you on how to protect yourself is generally a good thing to do.

Greg: [00:46:07] I think that's brilliant. Is being having an awareness that you could get screwed and going to a professional and saying, Hey, one of my big concerns is I need help to not to get screwed. Can you help me with that? Right. And that's a great place to that's a great place to start, right? I love that.

Caleb: [00:46:26] Absolutely.

Greg: [00:46:27] All right. That's it for this episode. Remember, if someone has even one picture of you up in their house, don't hire that person.

Caleb: [00:46:37] That's good advice. Also, remember, Prince is way cooler than Travis Tritt.

Greg: [00:46:44] And don't you forget it, Caleb Newquist.

Caleb: [00:46:46] I certainly will not.

Greg: [00:46:48] If you want to drop us a line, please do. And send like an email is a great way to drop us a line. And we've got an email address. It's oh, my fraud@earmark.com. Caleb, where can people find you? Out there in internet land.

Caleb: [00:47:05] I'm on Twitter at Newquist and LinkedIn. My full name backslash. Caleb Newquist. Greg, how can people get a hold of you?

Greg: [00:47:14] Well, if you're Josh Groban, you can meet me outside because I'm going to kick your ass. Anyone else can get a hold of me on Twitter at Greg Kite. I'm on Twitter. Less and less now. Same LinkedIn slash Greg Kite. Yeah. Elon Musk just ruined everything.

Caleb: [00:47:36] I would argue if I could. Oh, my fraud is written by Greg Kite and myself. Our producer is Zach Franc. If you like the show, leave a review. It helps people stumble across this podcast.

Greg: [00:47:50] And we might read it on the podcast and we.

Caleb: [00:47:52] Might read it on the podcast. Maybe a dramatic reading. Yeah. Subscribe on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify. Wherever you listen to podcasts, any podcast platform. It's on there. You can find it is you will if you're an accountant, listen on earmark. That's another place to get podcasts. And then you can get CPE.

Greg: [00:48:12] Yep. So easy.

Caleb: [00:48:14] So easy. Join us next time for more average swindlers and scams from stories that will make you say, Oh my. Oh, my.

Greg: [00:48:21] Fraud.