All language subtitles for American Greed s10e09 Six Feet Plunder.eng

In this episode of American Greed, Brent
and Tyler Cassidy, two brothers from

St. Louis, are bringing a splash of
showbiz to the death biz, turning

into festival sites and turning
themselves into celebrities.

But few know that their secret backer is
their father, Doug, who is stealing

millions of dollars with a little
sleight of hand and age -old sales

Yeah, I think Hooters had similar hiring
requirements.

His scheme cost victims an astounding
$450 million, money Doug

generously shares with his wife and son.

In the spring of 2008 in Blue Springs,
Missouri, hundreds of people believe

have taken care of their last expense.

They have chosen their casket, flowers,
and music, and paid in advance for their

funeral, putting their money into the
hands of their local funeral home owner,

Marty Myers.

Yeah, that looks good, Liz. Very good.

The people signed the contract thinking
that their money was going in trust.

They were entrusting Marty Myers.

But Myers puts his trust in a man named
Doug Cassidy, who runs a multi -million

dollar funeral business and who promises
to keep the money safe.

And then Myers receives the worst
possible news.

The money is gone.

More than $450 million of prepaid
funeral money is missing.

I trusted them.

And they ran off with the money.

Marty Myers is on the hook for nearly $4
million of that missing money.

And now he is terrified.

Everything that I owned, everything I
did, they were on the line. My family

was going to lose everything.

And the question is, what did Doug
Cassidy do with all that money?

To find out, American Greed heads to
Buffalo, Missouri, a small town

that by all appearances is still rooted
in a bygone era.

It is where Doug Cassidy grows up on a
small farm.

By the time he's in high school, life
looks promising for Cassidy.

He's a star athlete and has a pretty
girlfriend named Rhonda.

Later, Doug and Rhonda marry, and they
get out of Buffalo as fast as they can.

After Cassidy gets a law degree, they
move to Springfield, Missouri, where, as

an up -and -coming young lawyer, he can
afford a big house.

He starts an investment club.

And that's when people get to know the
real Doug Cassidy.

He was the kind of guy that really
wanted everything, and he wanted it now.

His investors claim he lies and steals
their money. And eventually, Cassidy is

indicted on charges of conspiracy and
tax fraud.

He pleads guilty.

He was always a con man. He was always
looking for a fraud.

After serving six months at Marion,
Illinois Federal Penitentiary, Cassidy

disbarred lawyer looking for a new
future.

He sets his eyes on what is called the
debt care industry and takes over the

business that sells prepaid funeral
contracts.

Pay now, die later.

And the cost of the funeral is covered.

The company is called National
Prearranged Services, known as NPS.

And in that move, Cassidy steps into a
highly lucrative, growing business.

Somewhere between 25 and 28 percent of
all funerals conducted in the course

of a year are prearranged and pre
-funded funerals.

Cassidy sets up his headquarters outside
St. Louis in the suburban city of

Clayton and hires door -to -door
salesmen to sell what are called pre

contracts.

The salesmen tell customers that
prearranging a funeral is a selfless act

love, a way to avoid confusion and chaos
at the time of a death.

What is being exploited is grandma's
fear of death, grandma's fear.

of what her death will do to the family.

It's very, very easy to sell us a bill
of goods that says, you won't have to

think about it and everything will be
just fine.

Here, sign this.

And Cassidy's door -to -door salesmen
clean up selling the pre -needs.

We saw NPS almost like gypsies.

They would go into a town, they would
start writing pre -needs with consumers.

And they would go to the funeral home
and say, I have 50 pre -need contracts I

just wrote.

The funeral home is grateful to have a
lock on the future business.

And Cassidy makes a promise to take care
of the money.

In the early 1990s, I would get phone
calls from clients that we were serving

Missouri. And they would tell me that
they're doing business with this new

company called NPS.

And I'd ask a simple question, how is
the money invested?

and I would get the telephone equivalent
of a shrugged shoulder.

So I called up NPS, and I said I had
some questions about the company and how

they were investing the money, and I got
a very simple answer from the voice on

the phone.

It's none of your damn business.

But it is the state of Missouri's
business, and in 1992, the attorney

charges that national prearranged
services accounts are short millions of

dollars.

And suddenly, local reporters like Mike
Owens want to talk to Doug Cassidy.

We had been trying to interview him for
about three weeks.

He finally said, well, I'm going to
ambush the guy. I'm going to sneak up on

guy. We're going to do the interview and
be done with it.

Now retired, Owens watches his 1993
story and is amused by his encounter

Doug Cassidy.

We got a picture of him on a cell phone.
And, you know, cell phones were not

that common back in 1993.

They were expensive.

Surprisingly, Cassidy stops and tells
Owens the state is wrong about the NPS

accounts. They are not underfunded. I do
know, as a matter of fact, that they

are overfunded, not underfunded.

Cassidy also tells Owens that he is not
in charge of NPS.

He says he is a consultant.

When Owens asks why NPS owns Cassidy's
house, Cassidy has an unexpected answer.

We rent that house from NPS. And how
much is the rent?

You'd have to ask my accountant. I'm not
sure.

Before the interview ends, Owens brings
up one last topic, Cassidy's 1982

felony conviction.

That happened over 11 years ago, and
Mike, I'm not seeking publicity.

I'm a private person, and it really
disgusts me that you would use something

that happened 11 years ago to try to
hurt me personally. I have lived a very

upright life for the last 11 years, and
I'm proud of that.

But that conviction hangs over Cassidy
because it prevents him from working in

the insurance business, and that means
he cannot publicly run NPS.

It means that he needs to call the shots
from the background.

And he puts his 23 -year -old son,
Brent, out in front.

This whole situation, we're right,
they're wrong, we represent the

Brent takes on a prominent role at an
incredibly young age, almost fresh out

college, and ends up, in later stages,
becomes the face, the public face of

Doug is not even an owner of NPS.

The business is owned by a trust that
benefits his wife, Rhonda, and his two

sons, Brent and Tyler.

But everyone at NPS knows who's in
charge.

It's all Doug.

All Doug all the time. He's directing
the whole show as he has all along.

You know, he can say that he's got a
president and a vice president and this

kid's running this. He was the
mastermind.

Eventually, Cassidy answers the state of
Missouri's complaint by agreeing to

keep customers' funeral money safe in a
bank trust account.

But as anyone who saw his interview
knows, Doug Cassidy can be slippery with

truth.

We rent that house.

Next on American Greed.

Brent Cassidy developed a new sales
team.

We'd see a booth filled with 10 girls
dressed with a subtle form of

By 1997, in small towns across Missouri,
salespeople for national prearranged

services have sold tens of thousands of
funeral contracts.

NPS appears to be thriving.

They have full -page ads in every
funeral home magazine.

They're at every major convention.

And front and center at NPS is Brent
Cassidy.

now the president of the company.

I know the questions always ask, what
makes your company unique?

And as the company thinks about how to
expand, Brent comes up with the idea to

hire a new sales team, mainly women,
mostly young and attractive.

Yeah, I think NPS and Hooters both had
similar hiring requirements.

They become known as the NPS girls, real
standouts in a male -dominated

industry. If you attended a convention
that they were exhibiting at and you'd

see a booth filled with 10 girls
dressed, not provocatively, but dressed

a subtle form of sensuality. It was, I
think, an embarrassment to the

rest of the vendors.

But sexy sells.

And the NPS girls will not sell to
grandma in her kitchen.

They will sell directly to funeral home
directors, who will then sell NPS

-backed pre -need funeral contracts to
their customers.

It's the funeral directors who have
access to the consumers.

It's the funeral directors who, you
know, may have buried three generations

the Collins family, right?

And that's why the NPS girls head out to
small rural towns across the Midwest.

When you go through these towns, you're
going to find a gas station, a church, a

diner. A funeral home and good people.
And the good people ran these funeral

homes. And these were people that built
a family name within that community.

And that's all they had.

In Mount Vernon, Illinois, that family
name is Huey.

Carmen Huey Dykeman took over the Huey
Funeral Home when her father died.

And she runs the business just as he
did.

We're there for people.

you know, one of the worst and hardest
times of their life.

And, you know, we meet them at the door
when they've just lost the most

important person.

We have tears. We have, you know, hugs.

Many of the families Huey serves are
people who have eked out a living from

farms nearby, like Farrell Payne, whose
parents were farmers.

They are people for whom watching every
nickel It's just a part of our heritage

that you pay your bills.

If you don't have what you want, you
save for it.

And now his parents have enough money
saved to prepay their funeral.

They knew it was expensive, but they
also knew that the cost would be on

family if they didn't do it.

They wanted to have control of what
happened to them.

Is that real wood here?

That is solid poplar.

This is really pretty here.

When everything is added up, the funeral
for Payne's mother, Nellie, will cost

$7 ,389.

The concrete grave liner is $690.

What Payne is actually buying on behalf
of his mother is a life insurance

policy.

When she dies, the cash benefit will
cover the cost of her funeral.

Huey sends Nellie Payne's money to NPS.

I just figured that a policy was bought
for the person with those funds,

and it was growing and just right there
for when they needed it.

But what Huey doesn't know is that the
company that issues the policy, Lincoln

Memorial Life Insurance, is owned by a
trust held by Rhonda, Brent, and Tyler

Cassidy and run by Doug Cassidy.

And it is actually more than a life
insurance company.

It's a fraud factory.

Inside Lincoln Memorial, in assembly
line fashion, are data clerks with

of whiteout altering insurance
applications.

Here is Nellie Payne's application.

The policy is paid in full.

That's why it says SP.

Single pay.

But here's the application after it gets
the Doug Cassidy white -out treatment.

Now Nellie is on a monthly pay plan,
payable over 60 months, five years.

And remember that Nellie paid $7 ,389.

But here that number is gone, and the
amount paid is just one month's premium,

mere $293 .35.

With this simple trick, Cassidy can
pocket $7 ,000 of Nellie Payne's money.

And if regulators raise questions, there
is an application on file that looks

entirely legit.

There was people in St. Louis and people
in Austin, Texas, doing that every day

for seven, eight, nine years. And that
is how they did Illinois business.

Insurance applications.

were systematically and regularly whited
out so they could steal the insurance

premiums.

Making the con even more cunning is that
the people who are hired to white out

the contracts are told they are merely
correcting an error made in the field.

These were people who didn't have the
best education, and this was the best

that they ever had. So they went ahead
and did that. They were unwitting

participants in a very major fraud.

But with the white -out trick, a Ponzi
scheme is born.

Because to keep an insurance policy
active, Cassidy now has to make monthly

payments on each of the policies he
alters.

And the only way to fund that is to get
new business.

Next, does the Cassidy family have an
endless supply of money?

All you cared about was that the next
time you used your American Express

it would be accepted and you'd be
allowed to keep charging.

As the 1990s come to an end, it's clear
the Cassidy family has come a long way

from Buffalo, Missouri.

Doug and Rhonda own a picture -perfect
house in a wealthy suburb of St. Louis.

It is so impeccably decorated, it even
merits a spread in traditional home

magazine.

Doug looks like a lifelong member of the
moneyed class.

He's got the million -dollar smile. He's
got the coiffed hair. He's got the nice

suit. And his two good -looking boys,
Brent and Tyler, complete the portrait

a hugely successful all -American
family.

It was important to those guys to have a
veneer of respectability.

They knew what they were doing with
Sweezy.

But if they spent enough money the right
way, with the right charities, with the

right people, They could cover this
criminality with disrespectability. And

did that to a great extent.

And at considerable expense.

Their individual monthly American
Express bills routinely exceed $30 ,000.

For things like an $11 ,000 shopping
spree at Polo for Rhonda.

$17 ,000 worth of jewelry for Doug.

$6 ,000 worth of movies and games for
Tyler.

and $31 ,000 for a vacation in the
Caribbean for Brent.

The attitude toward the American Express
cards might be best expressed by Rhonda

when she had questioned in a video
deposition for a civil lawsuit.

Now we see the Rob and Stucky furniture
purchase, January 30, 2006, of $10

,354 .08.

See that? Yes. You didn't even know how
much money you would put on these charge

cards every month, did you? And the
reason you didn't know is because you

care. Well, I don't think that's a fair
statement.

Sure. All you cared about was that the
next time you used your American Express

card, it would be accepted and you'd be
allowed to keep charging.

Yes. And where does much of the money
come from to pay the American Express

bills?

From NPS, whose customers were promised
their money would be safe until the day

it is needed for their final expense.

You look at the website, it says your
money will be held in trust or in

insurance.

I mean, there was never a third option
of we're going to take it and use it for

our own personal use and pay it back
whenever we want.

And there is certainly no option for
throwing their money around Hollywood

29 -year -old Tyler Cassidy decides to
make his mark in the family debt

business.

This is Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

In 1997, it was called Hollywood
Memorial Park, a bankrupt, run -down

where some of Hollywood's great
legendary celebrities are buried.

Director Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas
Fairbanks.

And Hollywood's first male sex symbol,
Rudolph Valentino. There is intrigue and

mystery to be found in death, right? And
when you've got a cemetery where famous

violent movie stars and golden era
picture stars are buried, I mean, it's a

natural, right?

Tyler Cassidy looks at the ruins and
sees potential.

He buys the cemetery, renames it
Hollywood Forever.

and begins to turn both the cemetery and
himself into a national news story.

As soon as he can, he begins staging
media events.

A memorial for Valentino's death draws a
huge crowd.

And recognition for a star once not
allowed to be buried here brings in the

television cameras.

At all the events, Tyler assumes his
role as host.

You can walk across these beautiful
grounds and read the story of this

It's etched in stone.

Described as impossibly handsome, he is
a natural on camera.

And when Tyler talks, people listen.

That's something I like to think of as
20th century magic.

And the best name we have for it is
Hollywood.

What he preaches is that cemeteries
should be for the living, not just for

dead. We're here to fulfill our purpose
as cemeterians, and that is to create a

place for you.

In a fierce break with tradition, he
opens the cemetery to all kinds of

showing horror films on the wall of a
mausoleum.

The film screenings, called Cinespia,
become a huge summer -long sensation in

Los Angeles, and Tyler's popularity
grows.

He goes on to host one of the largest
Day of the Dead festivals in the

The news media is captivated by Tyler.
He is the cemetery kid.

The story is covered in Forbes, The
Atlantic, and The New Yorker. In 2000,

reaches near celebrity status when he is
featured in an HBO documentary, The

Young and the Dead.

Viewers see a smart, confident young man
with a bold vision.

Death isn't funny. It's the most serious
thing we face. It's the most mysterious

thing.

You can treat it with nonchalance, or
you can treat it as though it's

very sacred.

And I think humor doesn't make something
less sacred.

The cultural stereotype that we have of
undertakers is this dour, black -suited,

you know, very buttoned up, right? And
to a large extent, that is true. When

see somebody young, attractive, with
interesting ideas that they describe in

really interesting and compelling way,
it's like a breath of fresh air.

But in all the coverage Tyler receives,
there is no mention that millions of

dollars for his radical ideas come from
a world as far away from Hollywood as

one can imagine.

It's money that comes from the checking
accounts of middle to low income people

who are just trying to take care of what
happens at the end of life.

They don't know that NPS is paying for
Tyler's $800 ,000 house in the Hollywood

Hills.

or paying for his $72 ,000 BMW, or that
their money is paying to prop up his

sensational business.

They were told that their money would be
safe in a bank trust account or

insurance policy.

Whether it's on a daily, weekly, or
monthly basis, you see wire translators,

,000, $80 ,000, $120 ,000, and being
sent directly to the bank accounts of

Hollywood Forever.

Later, in documents and a deposition for
a civil lawsuit, Tyler Cassidy defends

the use of the NPS pre -need customer's
trust money for his business, arguing it

was a good investment.

We had promissory notes.

We had payment schedules.

We paid according to those promissory
notes and payment schedules.

If I walked in and said, you want to buy
a pre -need plan, okay, so you're going

to pay me $10 ,000 for that pre -need
plan.

But I'm going to go loan it to my son so
he can, you know, develop his dream.

Now, we may pay it back, may not.

Who knows?

Is that something that you do?

Most people wouldn't. Most people are
like, no, get out of my house.

Next, the NPS girls turn up the charm
and rake in the cash.

They would appeal to some funeral
directors that maybe no one has ever.

Hit on before.

Nantucket in August.

Once a quiet hideaway for old money, the
island is now attracting new big money.

And Doug and Rhonda Cassidy are riding
the wave in grand style.

The house they buy overlooking Nantucket
Harbor makes a bold statement about the

extraordinary success of Doug Cassidy.

This was the ultimate landing spot,
Nantucket, for Doug Cassidy.

He'd made it. For a guy from Buffalo,
Missouri, to end up in Nantucket, most

people would shake their heads and say,
how did that happen?

especially if he's a convicted felon
already.

The answer, of course, is that he gets
here by stealing.

A portion of the money for the
multimillion -dollar house came straight

you guessed it, the trust accounts
filled with money for funerals.

And while Doug and Rhonda mingle with
their yacht club friends, back in St.

Louis at NPS, there is a daily struggle
to meet the payments that are due.

The Cassies were doing well. NPS was
never doing well. They were always one

away from collapse.

And that is why they need to sell.

Sell, sell, sell.

That's what they had to do to survive.

Not only to line their pockets, but just
to keep the fraud going.

And they are selling to people who are
easy targets.

General directors tend to make decisions
on vendors in a very simple fashion.

They don't look at financials. They
don't look at blue books. They don't

ratio analysis.

It's based upon relationships.

And before long, the kinds of
relationships the NPS girls are

a topic in the industry.

Nan Fowler is a former NPS girl.

She became aware of the reputation some
of the girls had while she was working

with them at an industry convention.

I was working the booth, and I had a
funeral director who I didn't even know

from, you know, whatever state come up
and say, I hear you guys, you know, are

great partiers. Where are you going
tonight?

Some of the gals, they would go out,
and, you know, they would have a good

Funeral home consultant Dan Isard claims
that a few of his customers confessed

to him that things with the girls went
too far.

They would appeal to some funeral
directors that maybe no one has ever

hit on before.

And when you figure how much money these
girls were making, some of them decided

to go the extra yard to get the account.

The NPS sales tactic works, and the
girls bring in millions of dollars.

By 2006, the company boasts that it has
served 340 ,000 families and has

paid $120 million in claims.

But the big secret, of course, is that
Cassidy is running a Ponzi scheme.

And at his insurance company, the hunt
is always on for cash to keep the fraud

alive.

Now Cassidy's team is taking out loans
against customers' policies without

knowledge. It all looks legitimate on
paper.

A customer in Ohio buys a policy paying
in full more than $8 ,000.

Three months later, NPS takes close to
$6 ,500 from that policy in the form of

loan, leaving just under $1 ,800, not
nearly enough to cover her funeral.

And the customer in Ohio has no idea
that her money has been taken.

They're not doing this one at a time.
They're doing it 5 ,000, 10 ,000

individual policies at a time. So the
policy loans are figures like $2

$3 million, $5 million.

Eventually, Cassidy and his team will
take $130 million in loans against

customers' policies.

And when regulators in Ohio are tipped
off about the loans, Doug and Brent

they have a simple answer.

They take all the policy loans on Ohio
policies, and they transfer them to

states. And they do that for all the
Ohio policies. So they can then write a

letter to the regulators saying, there
are no policy loans on Ohio policies.

Maybe the Cassidys think they are
fooling Ohio regulators.

But it is really the people in small
towns across the Midwest who are most in

the dark.

They think the money they spent for
their funerals is being kept safe by

They have no idea that they are really
helping the Cassidy family buy a big,

beautiful house on Nantucket.

It's infuriating. It's infuriating as a
consumer advocate, and it's infuriating

as a human being that you can do this to
other people. The people who prepay for

their funerals are generally middle
-class people or poor, right? They are

people who take care to spend their
money wisely to the degree that they

and it's disgusting how easy it was for
them to take advantage of those people.

Next, the real cost of doing business
with the Cassidys.

This firm could potentially, over the
next 20 years, lose somewhere in the

vicinity of $7 to $10 million.

Listen to how Doug keeps his cash flow
flowing at AmericanGreed .CNBCPrime

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We'll be right back.

If you'll come in tomorrow at 10 o
'clock, we'll discuss it and assure you

we'll take great care of your loved one
and make sure everything is the way he

wanted it.

In 2007, while Doug Cassidy is long gone
from the small towns of Missouri,

funeral director Marty Myers is hard at
work in the business he entered when he

was just 12 years old.

When I was in the seventh grade, I was a
trumpet player in the band, and the

local funeral director asked if I would
be willing to play taps for veterans,

and I got paid for it.

What he sees in that experience makes a
lasting impression.

I've never been in any business or seen
any business that a family pays you

and they thank you.

And they're so grateful for what you do
for them.

Out of high school, Myers heads to
mortuary school and begins working at

homes around Kansas City, dedicating his
life to his customers.

I'm here for him.

I miss birthdays.

I miss Christmas, you know.

For more than 20 years in the business,
he wants only one thing.

I always said I wanted my own place.
That was my goal.

Finally, in 2007, he has enough cash and
enough loans to put in an offer to

purchase two funeral homes.

As a condition of the purchase, Myers is
required by law to sign an agreement

saying he will honor the funeral home's
existing pre -need contracts.

Basically, when you do that, you're on
the hook. You have to do it, and the

state required that we did it.

700 of the contracts, totaling close to
$4 million, are with NPS.

And at the time, Myers has no reason to
worry.

He's been dealing with NPS contracts for
years.

They would pay him?

It was not really a big deal. We would
send in the contract that they had.

Within 30 days, I had a check with
growth from NPS.

But the checks from NPS are the products
of a fraud that is nearly out of

control.

Now it is becoming impossible for NPS to
come up with the millions required each

month to pay the loans taken out on
customers' policies.

There is just one answer.

Throw out the policies with loans.

They can do that by...

surrendering the policies and replacing
them with new policies without loans.

Surrender is a surrender. It's as if the
policy never existed.

Obviously, they never tell the funeral
home individual that their policy has

been surrendered.

In 2007, in order to keep their house of
cards standing, Cassidy and his team

surrender 56 ,514 policies.

The surrenders were the last bit of the
fraud.

Reflection of the Ponzi scheme
collapsing.

But across the Midwest, funeral homes
received statements showing that all is

good. Their customers' money is growing.

On this particular one, with all the
contracts, there was the inflation

was $567 ,000.

That's how much each of these had grown.

We got this every month, and so had no
reason to believe that something was

wrong. The money is growing, and there's
no problems.

In Blue Springs, Marty Myers also knows
nothing about the financial problems at

NPS. And at the start of 2008, he closes
on his funeral homes.

Oh, it was the greatest day of our
lives, other than my children being born

getting married to my beautiful wife.

You know, we were ecstatic by finally...

got and did what I said I was going to
do. And so that day came to fruition.

And then three months later, it all went
south.

Next on American Greed, Doug Cassidy has
some answers.

In April 2008, Doug Cassidy gets bad
news.

It took a while, and he got away with a
lot, but finally state regulators begin

to ask questions, and the truth about
his operation is out.

There's no money in any part of what was
represented to the funeral homes and

the customers. There's no money safe and
secure in insurance policies.

There's no money safe and secure in bank
trusts.

It was a business model of fraud. It
wasn't something that collapsed because

there was mismanagement. It wasn't an
attack by a competitor.

It was by design a fraud to line the
pockets of those people that stood to

benefit the most. And that was Doug
Cassidy and his family.

The total bill for the fraud is more
than $450 million.

For Marty Myers, who was holding close
to $4 million in NPS contracts, the news

is devastating.

None of us knew whether we were ever
going to be paid. I got people coming in

with these contracts. I'm not going to
get paid for them. It was going to put

under. A few months later, there is a
partial rescue.

State insurance guarantee funds that pay
the bills of insurance companies that

become insolvent step up to pay funeral
homes what customers pay.

but not the inflation factor that NPS
promised.

And because he signed that agreement
saying he would honor the NPS contracts,

Myers is legally stuck with hundreds of
contracts like this one.

Written in 1982, the customer paid $3
,075 for a funeral that today costs $10

,000.

This gentleman was born in 1942.

If he lived to be 100,

That's 2042.

What's a funeral going to cost in 2042?

A lot more than it does today, and we're
still going to get face amount of $3

,075.

This firm could potentially, over the
next 20 years, lose somewhere in the

vicinity of $7 to $10 million off these
contracts.

And that's our hit. That's not the
consumer's hit. That's the funeral

hit.

The consumer's going to get what they
pay for as long as I'm alive.

In Mount Vernon, Illinois, months after
the NPS collapse, Carmen Huey Dykeman

learns how customer Nellie Payne's
application was altered.

I just couldn't believe it. I mean, I
saw my contract there, the way I filled

out, and then the way it was changed. I
just couldn't believe it.

I don't know how they could live with
their self, you know, knowing that

taking this person's money and putting
it somewhere else. It's just

unimaginable. But Carmen, like many
others stuck holding the bag, continues

honor her NPS contracts.

And she does so at a huge loss for her
small business.

It'll be maybe $5 million before it's
over.

I mean, that's a rough estimate, but...

I would say it would be close.

And I will probably not be here when the
last one goes through the office.

In November 2010, the U .S. Attorney's
Office indicted six officials of NPS,

including Doug and Brent Cassidy.

It's a 50 -count indictment charging
wire, bank, mail, and insurance fraud.

I was thrilled in 2010 when they got
indicted. It was like manna from heaven,

because for years I'd been saying
terrible things about these guys, and

the United States government agreed with
me. Doug Cassidy pleads guilty to

directing all aspects of what is called
a Ponzi scheme, including whiting out

the policy applications and taking money
from customers' accounts for his

personal use.

He is sentenced to nine years, six
months.

Cassidy agrees to be interviewed by
American Greed, but the Marion Federal

Penitentiary warden does not allow the
interview.

And so Cassidy writes to us by email and
defends the NPS business plan as legal.

He writes that he pleaded guilty only
because prosecutors offered to let

keep her house and Tyler free of
charges.

If he doesn't take the deal, the entire
family would be destitute.

Brent Cassidy also pleads guilty to his
participation in the fraud and is

sentenced to five years.

Brent was the only one that apologized.

And I felt extremely sorry for his wife
and daughters.

Because I feel like his dad took him
down a wrong road.

Rhonda and Tyler Cassidy are not accused
of wrongdoing and are not indicted.

Later, Tyler tells lawyers in a
deposition he regrets his use of NPS

Hollywood Forever didn't go to banks for
its money, did it? What you're saying

is in retrospect, you wish you had done
it differently.

That's very true. But at the time, you
knew it's trust for monies that are

propping up Hollywood Forever.

At the time, yes.

Today, Doug Cassidy is in the federal
penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

where he served his first sentence more
than 20 years ago.

For a moment, he made it into the high
life and then ended up right back where

he started, hurting the small -town
people he so desperately wanted to get

from.

This is who Doug Cassidy is.

This is where he grew up. This was his
real playground.

This is what Doug Cassidy understands.

I think that's kind of the ironic part
of this whole thing.

On his way... Up the ladder, he was
stepping on the people that he once

with. Doug Cassie was doing that.

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