Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, they thought they were giving to God. If you

can't trust the Baptist, who can you trust?

Instead, they were taken on faith. I didn't understand it. I didn't.

How could this happen? Thousands of investors out hundreds of millions in an

elaborate deception.

As the debt grew and grew, more and more people had to be lied to. It must have

been a nightmare.

And later, when the feds find a podiatrist bilking Medicare for more

million. Just glaring fraud. A doctor banks on his patients to lie for him.

doesn't. That was her mission, is to stand up. Then turns up dead. A 54 -year

-old woman is found murdered inside a church basement.

What, a doctor killed for cash?

For thousands in Arizona, the Southern Baptist Church is an oasis in the

Sin will kill us as Christians.

Where they find righteousness.

Or without falsehood and speak truthfully.

And joy.

You can invite Jesus into your life to forgive you of your sins.

It gave us an inner feeling of love and faith.

It's a calling that retired plant manager Bill Anderson and wife Pat hear

in life.

Three years after Pat is diagnosed with a life -threatening brain aneurysm, they

find peace and meaning in the church.

We were totally engrossed in the church. We were baptized.

Car salesman Robert Shaw also finds God during a crisis time.

At the time, I was mid -30s, got into drinking and such things as that.

I was having a lot of problems with myself.

And when we started going to church, it made my life a whole lot easier.

The Southern Baptist Church becomes the core of their lives. But their

unflinching faith will have a colossal cost.

Phoenix, 1982.

A devout and ambitious attorney named Bill Kratz takes over the Baptist

Foundation of Arizona.

a 34 -year -old nonprofit that raises funds for Baptist causes.

A lifelong Southern Baptist, Kratz has a vision.

He felt he had a calling to build this foundation into a

magnificent money machine for God and that one day would

create massive profits that would then go to Southern Baptist causes.

The plan was to do...

for the people that needed it the most. Low -income housing, senior citizen

housing, donations to food, a wide variety of both denominational

and non -denominational charitable activity.

Like its namesake mythical figure, Phoenix is rising.

Crott sees opportunities in Arizona real estate, raw land and commercial

property, and grows BFA's investment fund for the faithful.

Essentially, the way it worked was the church member would loan the foundation

money, and the foundation would then supposedly reinvest that money, and the

profits from the money that was reinvested would go to Southern Baptist

and the investor would earn a very high rate of interest.

The profit that we earn off the reinvestment of investors' dollars

further the Lord's work. When churchgoers hear of the BFA's investment

opportunities, they're enticed.

The salesmen and some of the people on their staff came into the

churches and gave talks on what the Baptist Foundation could do for you.

We were lucky to get 6 % or 7 % interest. They were paying 10%. The BFA

paying a lot of interest compared to what we could make in a CD or at

the bank.

But also, the money was supposedly used for Baptist causes.

And we felt good about that because we were not only building a retirement for

us, we were building the kingdom.

The foundation has offices in churches across the state.

Their Bible -quoting salesmen visit congregations, houses, and nursing

always preaching the same message. Do good while doing good by earning an

excellent rate of interest and benefiting Southern Baptist ministries

same time.

It's wise stewardship in action.

One word that was repeatedly used in the sales pitches was stewardship.

This was a trusted, almost sacred word, and it had a biblical root. So when you

use a biblical word, that makes the investment program all the more

Established by the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention, the foundation has a

of credibility.

So does Bill Kratz. He was revered. He was considered a

financial genius.

Bill Kratz was one.

if not the most important person in the Southern Baptist Convention.

When he walked into any church, he was greeted like you'd have thought the Pope

showed up. For investors, it's not just blind faith.

Sales material boasts that the BFA is always profitable.

Not one investor has ever lost a penny of their investment.

And they claim they have proof.

Each year, an independent audit is conducted by one of the leading

firms in the nation.

Every year from 1984 into the 90s, the foundation is given a clean bill of

health from a major accounting firm, Arthur Anderson.

In a pre -Enron era, that's a comfort.

This is not some 25 -cent company, you know. This is a big, big concern and

very, very prestigious.

We knew it was secure because it's a Southern Baptist.

But it also was audited by Arthur Anderson, and that really made it even

secure to us.

With all of that in mind, some 11 ,000 investors will take a leap of faith. We

wound up with total investments of close to $200 ,000.

I put everything, everything that I had, about $250 ,000.

A quarter of a million.

We had a senior in high school.

$60 ,000 set aside for her education. I thought the BFA was the safest place in

the world to put her school money.

It's now the mid -90s, and many investors think they are set for life.

don't know that all they've ever worked for will soon be gone.

It's time bomb.

It's time bomb.

Sometimes in the desert heat, there's a mirage. What appears to be true with a

closer look is just a trick of the eye.

Investors in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona think their futures are secure.

But like water on the sand, it's all an illusion.

It was simply a circular flow of money that was keeping all the balls in the

air.

By 1996, thousands of people nationwide have invested $340 million in the

Baptist Foundation of Arizona.

It's wise stewardship in action.

President Bill Crott boasts the BFA has never lost a dime. And annual audits by

accounting firm Arthur Anderson prove it. All seems fine.

We were living on the interest income from our investments, and it allowed us

do a whole lot of things.

Bill Kratz was a wizard with money.

Every year it got better and better and better, always positive, and everybody

gave him a lot of credit for being able to buy these pieces of land and turning

a profit with them every year.

But inside the Baptist Foundation's posh Phoenix headquarters, a few employees

are starting to have suspicions.

Attorney Kyle Tresh is a preacher's son, a devout young Baptist who in 1994

moved to Arizona from Tulsa just to work for the Baptist Foundation.

That seemed like a great way to take my professional skills and translate them

into something that did something good for other people.

The office morale was wonderful.

It seemed by all appearances to be an incredibly successful organization.

But once on the inside, Tresch uncovers a secret that will turn him from an

idealist into a whistleblower.

The picture they were painting was that every year the foundation was spinning

off, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of profit when that was not

It was being manufactured.

Economic dominoes may be tumbling in Arizona.

The real estate industry is in trouble.

When the Arizona real estate bubble burst back in the late 1980s and early

the Baptist Foundation's investments plummeted in value.

Tresh learns that rather than admit the losses, Bill Crott secretly concealed

them through sham sales to an off -book company, a bad bank called ALO.

Kresch and four staff accountants will later tell investigators that for years,

Kratz has been lying about profits to solicit funds and using investor dollars

to pay mounting debt.

Instead of stepping up in the early 90s and saying we've got a workout situation

here, he instead chose to hide the reality of the situation

and raise more money from the investing public in order to keep all the balls in

the air.

The BFA has become nothing more than a complex Ponzi scheme, a fraud that needs

an incessant stream of new investor dollars to pay off existing investors.

There needed to be constant money coming in to the foundation in order for it to

stay afloat because the assets weren't generating the profit.

It's a time bomb.

It's a time bomb.

In April 1996, Kresch and the accountants confront Kratz and his right

man, in -house counsel Tom Grabinski.

Kratz is adamant that it's a long -term investment strategy and the properties

held by ALO will eventually mature and make profits.

The question was never about whether it was going to work out in the end. In my

mind, the question was always about just disclosing the honest truth.

Kresch feels he has no choice but to quit.

In his resignation letter, he accuses Kratz and Grabinski of fraud.

It'll be a while before he and the accountants talk to the state, but the

fall from grace is set in motion.

In early 1998, the Phoenix New Times publishes an in -depth series that

the possibility that the Baptist Foundation is cooking the books.

The deals were way, way, way too complicated for...

a Christian foundation that was just doing the work of the Lord.

After a tip from a confidential source, investigative reporter Terry Green

Sterling spends six months poring through public records, piecing together

money trail.

They were telling investors they were in great financial shape when, in fact,

they were tanking abysmally.

BFA is quickly on the offensive.

In a letter to investors, Kratz writes, these are wonderful days of blessing.

But they have not come without attacks from Satan, our spiritual enemy.

Certainly if investors believed that I was Satan and they had every reason to

believe Arthur Anderson and they had every reason to believe Bill Kratz, who

sang hymns with them in church, certainly they would leave their money

it worked. I would take the newspaper into the pastor's office.

But the evidence in Sterling's articles amps up an investigation by the Attorney

General's Office and the Corporation Commission, who get Kyle Trash and the

accountants as key witnesses.

There was a significant, long -running securities and accounting fraud that had

been perpetrated on the public.

In August 1999,

The state of Arizona forces the Baptist Foundation to stop selling investments.

We can't let the fraud continue, but we fully understood what the possible

ramifications were.

A Ponzi scheme will always collapse at some point in time. The only question is

when. Three months later, the Baptist Foundation crumbles in bankruptcy.

It owes its some 11 ,000 investors nearly $600 million.

The foundation's assets are estimated at about $250 million.

It just scared the heck out of all of us. I didn't understand it. I didn't,

could this happen? It made me feel really angry.

I'd worked hard for that money, so had my husband, and I was entitled to it.

The first thing we thought was, what are we going to do without this money? So

we both got jobs.

After their $200 ,000 vanishes, 70 -year -old Pat Anderson works as a caretaker.

Former plant manager Bill is a handyman who carves Uncle Sam lawn ornaments for

extra cash.

He couldn't sleep.

He would be going out in the garage and working half the night, trying to make

some money, just driving himself.

It's overwhelming.

I had two heart attacks two weeks apart.

He was working too hard and worrying too much.

Robert Shaw is worried about his daughter's tuition.

She's about to start college, and he's lost $250 ,000.

I didn't tell my wife about it for about two weeks, partly because I didn't know

how to tell her, and I was embarrassed.

I didn't tell my daughter. When we drove her down there to put her in school, I

didn't know if she was really going to stay or not. She would have been

devastated if they wouldn't have let her stay.

Shaw gets financing, but he has to sell his house and go back to work.

I went to one of the rental car places, and I washed cars for them.

I worked there about six months washing cars.

We had a lot of little side jobs. We just did dog walking. We did dog

Anything we could do and everything. I didn't envision my retirement as that at

all. The investors are left feeling betrayed and baffled.

I just couldn't imagine using the church if it had been.

Any other kind of investment, I wouldn't have felt so bad.

But it's not just the church that they trusted.

Each year, an independent audit is conducted by one of the leading

firms in the nation.

They'd also put their faith in the watchful eye of Arthur Anderson.

I'd like to take the next few minutes to share with you important information

about the secure investment products backed by the full faith and credit of

Baptist Foundation of Arizona.

The 1999 fall of the Baptist Foundation of Arizona looks a lot like the coming

collapse of Enron.

Accounting tricks, losses hidden in off -balance sheet companies, and one common

bad fellow, Arthur Anderson.

Investors had a right to rely upon the certified audit, and they did. And as a

result, they lost a lot of their investment.

I blame Arthur Anderson to a certain extent because they were giving them

a pass on something that they shouldn't have.

In January 2001, the state of Arizona sued the accounting firm for aiding and

abetting a securities fraud.

There were significant red flags that should have indicated to Anderson that

there was a problem that they should have followed up on. And instead of

following up on it effectively, they issued another clean opinion.

Among the many warning signs, a detailed road map given to Anderson by a former

BFA staff accountant in 1997.

and the 1998 New Times articles.

But even without those hints, one Phoenix area CPA says Anderson could

should have figured out the fraud.

In my opinion, had I been writing that audit letter, I would have said this is

company that probably is going to go bankrupt.

Back in January 1998, Dee Grebel began her own investigation into the BFA after

the call from a worried investor.

An individual called me.

and said, they want me to borrow money on my house, and you can use the

from the mortgage to invest in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona.

Buy more.

When going through Anderson's most recent audit, Grebel sees one of the

foundation's largest so -called assets, almost $70 million, is a collection of

notes receivable, IOUs, from a mysterious benefactor B.

She heads to the BFA and asks President Bill Krause.

Who's benefactor be?

And I remember Mr. Crott, the president, very calmly said, oh, that's ALO Inc.

ALO, BFA's bad bank.

Weaver wants to know if ALO is good for the IOUs, it's written. So she goes to

the Arizona Corporation Commission to get ALO's financial report, a public

record.

ALO has a negative net worth of more than $100 million.

That's when I fell out of my chair. This company was stone broke.

And that was the largest receivable that the Baptist Foundation had.

So the first asset I look is a complete, total, worthless investment.

Well, I go running down the hallway, tell a friend of mine, they're broke.

They are totally broke.

This whole thing's got to be a fraud.

Grebel calls Arthur Anderson not once, but three times with this message.

You must immediately withdraw your audit opinion on the Baptist Foundation of

Arizona. They're broke.

Give me a call.

She says her calls went unreturned. From the end of 1996 to BFA's collapse in

1999, the foundation raised almost $200 million from investors.

Arthur Anderson, had they done their job as we alleged in our complaint that

they did not do, the collapse would have happened a lot sooner.

Anderson said it, too, was a victim of a complex fraud by BFA senior management

and that other parties, including state regulators, failed to catch it as well.

Anderson never admits or denies wrongdoing.

But in 2002... Anderson has agreed to pay some $217 million, meanwhile, to

settle all pending litigation stemming from its audits of the Baptist

of Arizona.

That settlement, in part, helps investors recoup up to 70 % of losses.

Still, some victims can't rest until those at the Baptist Foundation are

to justice.

I wanted him to go to jail, and I would like to have been the one to turn the

key.

September 2005.

the start of the longest criminal trial in Arizona history.

Former BFA President William Kratz and General Counsel Thomas Grabinski face

charges of fraud, illegally conducting an enterprise, and theft.

But Kratz and Grabinski are not your typical swindlers.

They weren't out there buying fancy cars and living in fancy houses.

The state says pride, not profit, drove the defendants to defraud investors with

false claims of real estate earnings while burying loss after loss in phantom

companies and using investor funds to pay off debt.

Prosecutors contended Bill Kratz was a man who could not admit failure to his

church peers because his church life, his Christian life, was his whole life.

Not one investor has ever lost a penny of their investment.

I think within the community, they did not want to admit that they made bad

decisions, and cumulative, multiple bad decisions.

A small lie became a much bigger and much bigger lie.

For the state to say that BFA's financial statements were not accurate

preposterous. It is outrageous.

The defense blames the state for the collapse.

Lawyers for Kratz and Grabinski say, had BFA not been forced into bankruptcy in

1999, properties held by the foundation and its affiliates in time would have

made millions.

If BFA had not been shut down, no one would have lost a penny.

BFA would still be here. What had hoped would have happened, would have

happened. The hue and cry of the disgruntleds and the tabloid reports

evened. they would have evaporated.

From 1999 up through 2006,

the Phoenix real estate market has been one of the highest markets in the

country, and the assets that the Baptist Foundation and the other related

entities owned could have paid back every investor.

When BFA went bankrupt, those properties were liquidated at fire sale prices,

they claim.

The legs were cut out of the Baptist Foundation.

right at the beginning of the biggest real estate market increase in the

of the state of Arizona.

But that doesn't excuse deception, says the state.

It is irrelevant in terms of the criminal prosecution whether eventually

a sleeper that turned out to be pretty good in the fullness of time.

Every financial report has to be accurate as to the moment that that

report was made.

And in this case, there's no question that it was not.

After ten long months of testimony and more than one million pages of

documentary evidence, the jury finds William Kratz and Thomas Grabinski

of fraud and illegally conducting an enterprise.

They lied to the investors on how their money was being used.

But not guilty on 23 counts of theft.

I didn't think they were personally profiting from any kind of deals that

were doing.

So, therefore, no theft.

Kratz and Grabinski's conviction brings some of the closure that many victims

have been waiting for.

They made our lives a living hell for about 10 years, and I'd like

to return the favor.

But there's a schism among investors.

I do not believe Bill Kratz is the kind of man who would defraud anyone.

I have faith in Bill. I just cannot believe that he has a dishonest bone in

body. Kratz is now serving eight years in prison.

Grabinski, six.

They're both appealing.

Am I angry with Bill Kratz and Tom Grabinski? You bet.

I think they're getting a little bit of what they deserve. They'll get the rest

later. The collapse of the Baptist Foundation is an extreme example.

But crime in the name of God has become all too common.

We've had numerous cases here at the commission over the eight years that I

been here, and we're continuing to see it.

The old story goes, you live and learn. So it's a shame that you have to learn

it with your retirement money.

For many victims, getting taken on faith means losing a lot more than

money. I sure lost my faith in Southern Baptist, and I won't go back to a

Southern Baptist church, whether it's here or in Kentucky or Georgia or

wherever.

Now, every Sunday morning, Katie Moss is in a non -denominational church in

Scottsdale. Robert Shaw is still struggling with the sense of betrayal.

I want to get over this anger, and I want to get back into a Christian

relationship with God.

The Baptist Foundation took away a lot of our faith in the church.

I was a Christian for a long time.

When we return, a doctor gets busted in a million -dollar scam.

We believe, just based upon our interviews, that not a single surgery

performed. One patient refuses to cover for the doctor. She told him, you should

have thought about that before you did this. This is wrong.

Then turns of death.

A suspect is charged and connected with the killing of a church secretary. Next

on American Greed, a doctor turns to murder.

Chicago, the town where Midwestern charm meets big city green.

It's where Dr. Ronald Mikos puts down his roots.

He was Dr.

Ronald Mikos, and podiatry was very important to him.

Mikos runs a lucrative podiatry practice with a long list of patients, most of

them elderly.

Dr. Mikos came to your home, is that correct?

Oh, yes.

Would you sometimes give him a sandwich and a cup of tea?

House calls are routine business for this doctor with the sterling bedside

manner. He would come to their houses, they would put out cookies or give him

sandwiches, and they trusted him.

But beneath the charisma lies a con artist, a doctor playing the system,

off with more than a million dollars.

In 1998, Dr. Michaels pops up on the radar screen of investigator Pete Tyler.

After the patient complains he is charged for a tendon surgery, Mikos

performed. A beneficiary sent us an explanation of benefits, informing us

they did not receive a service.

His suspicions heightened.

Tyler digs in and examines billing records for more than 100 of Mikos'

I found that Dr. Mikos was billing for several surgeries on a patient at a

separate date when, in fact, it would be almost impossible.

Dozens of Micos' patients have bills for multiple foot surgeries, often several

within a month.

One patient's bills alone total $90 ,000.

It seems impossible, and it looks like fraud.

He kept on doing the same thing. He kept on billing for surgeries when they

weren't rendered.

Tyler turns it over to Health and Human Services.

Agent Rene Reyes follows Micos' money trail.

He was averaging well over $250 ,000 a year, and in one year he had made well

over $400 ,000 a year. He was the highest paid podiatrist in the state.

So that, of course, was a huge flag for us.

In fact, Medicare paid Michaels more than $1 .7 million over seven years.

Reyes looks closer and sees other curiosities.

Typically, patients see the podiatrist a few times a year.

Michaels sees his patients monthly and all those surgeries.

One patient had more than 350.

Ideally, patients would have one, maybe two operations on their feet in a

lifetime. Dr. Donald Aronson, a Chicago area podiatrist, is brought in to look

at Mikos' billing.

He would send a bill to Medicare for a particular surgical procedure, and then

week later send a similar bill to Medicare for another procedure, say

the next toe, and then a week later, the toe next to it. And this would continue

for months. But at no time was there a bona fide patient record.

There would be no records of any medications, prescriptions, just glaring

Tyler writes Michaels, suspending Medicare payments until each case is

Michaels calls Tyler.

He's very upset, you know, irate, you know, saying, you know, how could you do

this to me?

Health and Human Services enlists the help of the FBI, and the patient profile

emerges.

The patients that Dr.

Michaels preyed upon were very elderly, and they were very sick. They did not

have much family in the area.

Still, it's unusually hard to get witnesses to talk about Dr. Michaels,

investigators discover why Michaels befriends them.

It was a true friendship that he had with them, and as a result, they didn't

want to do anything to harm that relationship.

Unlike these patients, many face terminal cancer, making it hard for them

come to testify. Others have dementia, which reduces their credibility as

witnesses. In fact, nearly half of Michaels' patients die of natural causes

before the investigation even starts.

We did tape depositions of many patients because we were concerned that many of

them who were great witnesses now, maybe a year down the road, would not be

available. Would he ever give you a shot?

No, no shots.

Would he ever do an incision into your toes?

Only the toenails.

Just the toenails?

Yes, only.

Would you ever get any stitches from any of the work that he did?

No. From patient to patient.

The stories are similar.

Did the defendant perform over 100 surgeries on your feet?

Surgery? Yes. No.

Did the defendant perform any surgeries on your feet? No. We believe, just based

upon our interviews, that not a single surgery was ever performed.

Investigators learn Michaels is telling his patients he's been set up by the

feds and urges them not to cooperate.

In fact, Michaels hands out scripts offering responses to investigators.

He described in the scripts that he made very tiny incisions, which is why

authorities wouldn't see scars from all of these surgeries.

The script reads, if they get too specific, you can tell them you do not

remember. Tell them he is a good doctor and that you are very satisfied and you

have no complaints.

Many had signed these affidavits swearing that he had, in fact, performed

unbelievable number of surgeries on their feet.

As investigators pour through the files, they discover another patient, 54 -year

-old Joyce Brannon.

On September 26, 2001, they pay a visit to the former intensive care unit nurse

who lives in the basement of a church on Chicago's north side where she works as

a caretaker.

She was very honest and very kind. She cared about telling the truth. She

to do what was right.

Unlike many of Michaels' patients, Brannon is mentally alert.

We had explained to her about the foot surgeries, and I remember she had raised

her hand and she said, Honey, I know what a foot surgery is. I'm a former ICU

nurse. There was over 70 foot surgeries that were billed, and she said she knew

that not a single one of them was done.

Meanwhile, Michaels' lawyers requested interview with the feds to clear up this

billing issue.

He denied having done anything wrong.

He explained that he had, in fact, performed these procedures.

We knew he was lying to us.

Investigators aren't buying a word of Michaels' story.

With Joyce Brannan on their side, their case is coming together.

She was going to be one of the best witnesses that we had.

But four days before Brannan is set to testify before the grand jury, their

witness turns up dead.

Joyce Brandon's body was found in the Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Is Michaels desperate enough to graduate from medical fraud to murder?

Find out when American Greed returns.

For more information and special web exclusives, log on to americangreed

.com.

A 54 -year -old woman is found murdered inside a church basement in the

Edgewater community. The victim, the caretaker of that church.

On the Monday before the grand jury is set to hear the case of Dr.

Ronald Mikos, Assistant U .S. Attorney Sean Berkowitz receives a call from the

Chicago Police Department.

They told me that they had found Ms. Brannon dead in her apartment.

To get into Joyce Brannon's...

living space, there's a number of right and left -hand turns that an individual

has to make before they're actually able to get into the living quarters.

The way that the Chicago Police Department found her was in a sitting

facing the windows.

She had her right arm pinned behind her back, like so.

Joyce Brannon was shot in the back and head six times with a .22, once point

-blank, just hours after attending services upstairs.

Our beloved departed sister, Joyce Brennan. We had a service.

We had a big church service.

I just remember it as an extremely painful day.

Berkowitz and his team are stunned.

The fact that this was three days before she was scheduled to testify,

certainly, at least for a prosecutor, raised a red flag that we ought to look

into it.

Team works furiously on two tracks.

There was still work to be done to prepare the white -collar case, but now

had a murder case on our hands.

The team makes a rare move for a health care fraud case.

They look into the suspect's weapons history.

He did not have a record, but he had been arrested with firearms, and so that

set off at least some more warning bells.

They look further into Michaels the man, once a prominent doctor with a

comfortable life.

He did have a prescription drug problem that was kind of persistent throughout

our investigation.

Towards the very end, he also resorted to alcohol.

After a divorce, Michaels has children with various girlfriends.

Without Medicare, his cash flow dries up. He writes in a letter, I have lost

income, the Lincolnwood house, my dog, I've gotten fat, my alcoholism and

depression have reared their ugly heads.

I am at the lowest and weakest point that I have ever been at in my life. I

become worthless to people in particular and society in general.

With no income to pay rent, he is forced to live in his car.

It's a fall from grace for the doctor who had billed more than $1 .7 million

over seven years.

He would get, you know, large, huge sums of money from Medicare, sometimes a $60

,000, $70 ,000, $80 ,000 check, and that would have been completely withdrawn

within five to seven days.

Some of his money is sent to an 80 -year -old man named Charles Labosco.

Charles Labosco was an elderly gentleman who had a daughter who was also on

Medicare. On closer look, they see Labosco is Michaels' patient.

And his bills show he's had more surgeries than anyone else, a shocking

fact.

Investigators wonder, is Labosco in for a percentage of the action?

With ample suspicions, the feds tap Michaels' cell phone.

After days of working with little sleep, Berkowitz dials a number on a message

pad on his desk.

I inadvertently called Mr.

Labosco, and as soon as he asked me who it was on the phone, he told me who he

was, and I told him that I inadvertently dialed his number and hung up.

Almost immediately, the wiretap picks up a chilling call from Lebosco.

American Greed obtained access to the tape.

There's a very nervous call between the

two about the fact that I continue to look into these issues and so forth.

The puzzle starts coming together.

Plenty of paperwork connects Michaels to the fraud.

But tying him to Joyce Brannan's murder remains the missing piece.

We had no eyewitnesses to the murder.

There was no murder weapon at the scene.

Nobody in the world had any motive to kill Joyce Brandon except for Ron Mykos.

Investigators need to know more about this devoted church caretaker to

understand why Mykos would kill her.

She was born and raised a Lutheran.

She knew that her purpose in the world was to take care of people.

A week before the grand jury, Brandon tells her friend that Dr. Mykos called

and asked her not to testify.

And he said, I have family at home.

Don't you care what happens to me? And she told him, you should have thought

about that before you did this. This is wrong.

Michaels' Palm Pilot records reveal he's carefully following the entire

investigation. He notes which patients have been contacted, when, and by whom.

And the detail is what stood out to us.

And by that I mean he would write down, a description, physical description of

the agents who came, how they identified themselves, and the questions that they

asked. Then he would rate the interview, and by the interview going well, what

he meant was the patient did not talk to us. If the patient did cooperate with

us, he wrote down in his palm pilot that the interview went poorly.

The feds are just as thorough investigating him to make sure there's

bring him down on fraud and murder.

In Chicago, the feds have enough evidence to bring in Dr. Ronald Michaels

million -dollar fraud scheme.

Still, they struggle to find the murder weapon proving he killed his patient,

Joyce Brannan. In the white -collar case, Michaels' telephone records point

storage facility.

Investigators get a search warrant.

We found a whole cache of firearms and ammunition in the storage locker.

But not a .22.

They do, however, find other items of interest.

We also found a receipt sheet from the Skokie Police Department.

This receipt details all the guns Michaels owns, including a .22.

The call to the suburban police department adds a new wrinkle.

Three weeks before Brannon's murder, a domestic squabble brought the cops to

Michaels' girlfriend's apartment.

She told us that he was throwing guns.

in her storage unit in the basement of the apartment building, and she didn't

feel safe to have him there and wanted him removed.

But O 'Brien ran a check on Michaels' firearms license.

It was expired.

He confiscated Michaels' cache of 11 weapons, including a .22 caliber

Michaels renewed his license, and on January 24th, just three days before

Brannan's murder, he brought the guns, including the .22, back home.

And that's what we believe was the murder weapon.

The feds get a warrant to search Michael's car.

And we found several pieces of evidence that became significant in our trial. We

found a note in Ronald Michael's car.

It was a handwritten note that contained the name of the church where Joyce

Brandon lived and also information about the Sunday services and hours that the

church would have people present and Joyce Brandon was killed.

We found in his car a shell casing for a .22 caliber

bullet. We also found a partially used box of .22 caliber ammunition that was

consistent in physical characteristics with the bullets that were used to kill

Ms. Brannon. And with that, the case is made. June 6, 2002, Michael is charged

with murder.

A suspect is charged and connected with the killing of a church secretary, and

at this hour, federal authorities have an Evanston doctor in custody.

On April 19, 2005, Mikos' trial begins.

The prosecution lays out the numbers proving the fraud and builds a murder

based on circumstantial evidence that puts Mikos at the murder scene and the

and the ammunition in his hands.

On May 5, 2005, Mikos is convicted.

He is sentenced to six and a half years in prison for the Medicare fraud.

And for the murder of Joyce Brannan, his sentence, death.

Michaels now sits on death row in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

An appeal of his sentence is pending.

Charles Labosco, who was never a suspect in the murder, pleads guilty to one

count of health care fraud for receiving kickbacks.

He cooperates with authorities and does not receive jail time.

He dies one year after Michaels' trial.

This case started as a relatively routine white -collar case.

But by murdering Joyce Brandon, Dr. Michaels committed a crime that strikes

the core of the justice system. She was willing to do her job as a citizen.

That was her mission, is to stand up.

She went out representing everything she believed in, representing this church,

doing no harm, only trying to do good.

And I can't help but think she's a hero.

In an upcoming episode of American Greed, he was a master jewel thief.

I could make a million dollars one night and start looking for another one the

next day. Bill Mason had a lust for diamonds.

I loved the thrill of it, and I got addicted to it. Now he's gone straight,

he wants to help you avoid being ripped off. Next time on American Greed.