All language subtitles for Generation.Hustle.S01E03

[ Birds chirping ]

♪♪

♪♪

So, this is what I have dubbed the "Jeremy Box."

A lot of it is just really old photos

and pictures from him growing up.

You know, that's a professional one.

That's me when I'm little with Jeremy.

Jeremy is 15 years older than me.

I think I keep those kind of things

just to remember that he's human,

'cause sometimes I want to dehumanize him

and hate him and be angry at him.

I mean, I look at these and --

especially the ones of me and him, and just --

it's a long road, it's a different road,

it's a weird road, it's a crazy road.

But I do love him. That's not gonna change.

Just wish things would've been different.

Sorry, it's making me shake.

Knowing how the story ends.

[ Gate rattles, indistinct chatter ]

[ Keyboard clacking, siren wailing ]

♪♪

♪♪

Reimers: This is a fucking crazy story.

I didn't know this would be a whole thing.

I thought he was just, like, a normal little grifter

that got himself in a little bit of trouble.

I didn't know this was a decades-long, like,

international fucking scandal.

In the summer of 2009,

we had a roommate leaving and the house opening up.

And so we'd been allowing people to stay through the website

Couchsurfers, which is just kind of a

social network/free place to crash kind of place.

This guy named

Angus Jocko Ferguson reached out.

He had a surprising amount of good reviews on the site.

And so we were like, "Sure, come on over."

This guy Angus rolled in.

[ Tires screech, horn honks ]

He's a big, tall, kind of goofy guy.

Fairly well-built, red ginger beard.

Totally engaging and funny,

and his, like, young little girlfriend.

It was during that time we were having

a "Heaven and Hell" party with our downstairs neighbors.

So, we decorated with all this white,

and the downstairs neighbors had everything really red.

And people dressed as either, you know, an angel or a devil,

or, like, people dressed as, like, Mormons.

Angus got very excited about it

and got, like, a red sequined suit

and, like, a walking stick and stuff

and did a full red face makeup.

It was pretty fun to see somebody

who didn't really know anybody there,

hadn't really been in town for very long

really dive into something like that and go like 120%

on, like, a full, like, devil costume.

♪♪

[ Wolf howls ]

He was cagey about what his job was,

but he'd mentioned that he was part of a

kind of secretive military group.

And then he would go on weekend trainings.

♪♪

Negron: It was on a Sunday.

I was about to sit down and enjoy my beverage of choice.

[ Chuckles ] I shouldn't say that.

Back in 2009, we got a call about a suspicious person

that had gained entry into Fort Harrison.

He used the name Angus Jocko Ferguson

and claimed to be a Special Forces soldier

from 5th group, dressed in military uniform.

He said he was needing to go on a mission to Afghanistan

and he needed to get equipment and an ID card.

And after he encountered several soldiers on base,

there were a lot of inconsistencies

in what he was wearing,

and his story just did not make sense to anybody.

So we get the call.

Obviously, working in terrorism, you think the worst.

Like, "Well why is a person that's looking like a soldier,

wants to get all this equipment?

Is he an actor of terrorism?"

So, immediately, we go out to Fort Harrison,

but he was not there.

He was gone.

So we sent out a BOLO to be on the lookout

for a person claiming to be a Special Forces Captain.

He used the name Angus Jocko Ferguson.

We still did not know what he was going to do.

We didn't know his intentions.

[ Birds chirping ]

One time, Angus came back after one of his long weekends

with an entire duffel bag of, like, full military gear.

He'd be like, "I can't tell you a lot,

but we were jumping out of planes this weekend

as part of the training, and it was kind of cool.

I was actually a little scared before I did it,

but then once we did our, like, second and third run,

I was really into it."

Him and his girlfriend had been in town for about a month now.

He was looking to really settle in.

It was during that time, I really got to know him better.

He seemed to have, like, a very honest,

dopey, and dorky kind of mentality.

He really liked to have fun,

was a good person to have some drinks with

and just, you know, whoop it up, as it were, around a campfire.

He told me that he was so interested in theater stuff

and that he'd done a lot of performing in England

and had a degree in theater from there.

So I connected him to our theater troupe,

and he was, like, in the cast and rehearsing with them

and performed as, like, kind of the MC for this saucy cabaret

in a small little black-box theater

and was super creepy on stage in, like, a really fun way,

which was his role.

And then he and his girlfriend

took a road trip out to Eastern Montana.

Then we got a call at about 3:00 a.m. from his girlfriend.

And she was in a complete panic.

She said she only had a few minutes to talk,

but that something had gone wrong

when they were trying to get onto Malmstrom Air Force Base.

And Angus had gotten arrested.

Negron: When I get the call that Angus Jocko Ferguson

was arrested, I immediately went to the jail.

He was arrested because the car that he was driving

was reported stolen.

When I sat down across from him,

I started looking at, you know --

sizing him up from the shoulders all the way down.

And I'm looking at his Special Forces Tab

and Ranger Tabs

on the left shoulder, where they typically go.

They were lower than they typically would.

He mentioned that he did a combat tour.

There was no combat patch on his right sleeve.

So I said, "No,

this is not somebody that served in the military."

These are basic things.

Then I asked him, "Well, who is the group commander?"

His answer was, "You know, I don't know.

Task force changes. I don't know."

And I said "Listen, I think you're lying to me.

I don't think you're telling the truth.

None of your story makes sense."

But that didn't seem to phase him.

He still proceeded with the same story that he was --

he used to be in the military.

And although I would press him on it and I would say,

"You never did a day in the military,"

he always had a story, he always had a comeback.

So we finished the interview, and then we searched his vehicle

that was impounded after his arrest.

There were military uniforms. There were patches.

There were documents that had been forged.

There were books written by Tom Clancy.

Tom Clancy uses a lot of legitimate and existing

organizations that exist within the military.

I believe that Ferguson

would read his books to learn the military lingo.

So he was definitely doing his homework.

I went home that night thinking you know, "We'll get this guy."

Next morning, I get a call from the Cascade County jail,

and they're telling me that we got the fingerprints back.

This Angus Jocko Ferguson was Jeremy Clark-Erskine.

There's a pattern of forgery, of theft, all over the place.

It started long ago.

And then they said, "By the way, he bonded out last night."

You bail out a buddy right?

We found out he was just on $1,000 bail

and that we could go pick him up

and whatever mess was going on would get sorted out later,

but at least he wouldn't be sitting in jail.

And that's kind of when things really started to come to light

and fall apart, at least from our end.

After we picked him up, we kind of got out of town,

and he told us he had some things he needed to say.

"First of all, I'm not 27," as he had claimed.

He said he was 37

and that he wasn't actually in the military at all

and that things had gone kind of terribly wrong in his situation

and that right away, when we got back,

he was going to pack up his bags and go,

and didn't really want to give us any details,

and I didn't really want to hear them, to be honest.

I was shocked by it and confused.

I don't know why he would do that

or play this kind of game,

but there must be something else bigger going on,

I realized quite quickly.

He kind of said fare thee well,

and off he went walking down the street.

Negron: When I learned that he was gone, it --

I mean, I just -- [Laughs] it's like the air was taken out.

I felt like I got punched in the gut.

After that, he just went silent.

I had no idea where he was.

We had nothing on him -- nothing.

So I started to conduct online searches on his name.

Sometimes evidence are found in the weirdest of places,

and I came across a website called Kung Fu Knitting

written by Ms. Weisberg.

♪♪

The proper response to someone like Jeremy is to be pissed off.

In 2006, I was trying to date, and up pops this guy --

Jeremy Erskine.

He was new to town, not settled,

and a week or two out of the army.

Very shortly thereafter, he messaged me.

"Hello, pretty lady.

Most of my day has been spent trying in vain

to find an apartment.

It hasn't been the most auspicious start to a life

outside the fragile womb of the military.

I served in the army for 12 years.

I was in the 75th Infantry Regiment, Airborne,

for most of my service.

I have a bachelor's degree in drama and anthropology,

which is effectively useless.

So, tell me about you. Tell me about Mary.

More to come. Have a warm day -- J."

He had a good sense of humor and was kind of nerdy,

and I liked that. [ Chuckles ]

So I decided to meet him, and we went out.

He was very charming and flattered me a lot,

and it felt nice, and he was fun to be around.

We went out quite a lot.

He got a sublet for an apartment in Evanston,

and I helped him move in.

I liked helping him out.

He was interested in my way of life.

He had a lot of questions about Jewish customs and practice.

He wanted to know the names of things

and to be able to repeat them.

Then, one day, I became very ill, and he made certain

to take very good care of me that night and made sure that

I kept taking my medication that made me groggy

and in the morning asked if he could take my car,

borrow it to go and run some errands.

And then he didn't come back.

I started calling him, and he wasn't answering his cellphone.

I went in a desk drawer where I kept personal papers

like my checkbook, credit cards that I didn't normally use.

Oh, shit. These things were gone.

I called the credit-card company and found out

that the credit card is maxed out.

Then I realized, "Oh, shit, I've been robbed blind."

And when I called the police, they said, "He's gone.

You're never gonna see this guy again,

so we don't want to go through the pain of filing charges."

I was irate!

I didn't know what to do about it.

So I wrote about him on my knitting blog.

"I was scammed by a con artist, and now he's on the run.

And this is his name, and this is his picture,

and this is what he does."

I wanted to get him.

I wanted to see if there was any way

that I could help them catch him...

anything.

And eventually, Special Agent Negron

contacted me.

Her story fits the pattern of that criminal behavior

that we've been investigating.

And it wasn't just Ms. Weisberg.

Weisberg: I was contacted by people who had been his victims,

and there were a lot.

Over the years, he's used a lot of different names.

He had used 23 different aliases,

five different Social Security numbers,

and six dates of birth.

This guy's a professional con man.

Finn Jeremiah Keenan -- under that identity,

he was an MIT graduate and a veteran.

He had an Irish accent that he kept up all the time.

He got very into anarchist politics,

punk music, and BDSM sex practices.

Duncan McDonald -- he said he worked for Microsoft,

spent lots of money on hotels and strip clubs in Canada.

Finn Jeremiah O'Neill -- he was an army ranger in Chicago.

DJ Miko.

He assumed the identity of a DJ in California,

using a Scottish accent.

Angus Ferguson.

He was telling people that he was an

entertainment correspondent for ITV, Sky, and MTV.

Jeremy does tell crazy stories and get away with crazy crimes.

And as his story evolves,

you keep seeing bits and pieces of his experiences

with other people sticking on him.

I learned that Jeremy was making an asylum claim in Canada

based on abuse by guards in the Indiana prison system

and on persecution for being Jewish.

And he convinced the executive director

of a Jewish organization in Canada to help him out.

This man let him stay in his home.

He split with his credit cards,

and he went on a spree, spending lots of money on luxury things.

I think that his Jewish cultural knowledge

unfortunately came from his interaction with me.

He kind of absorbs bits along the way

that go into this big show that he puts on.

I really wanted there to be an end to this story.

And then the "New York Post" called me in 2016.

"Did you ever know a man named Jeremy Clark-Erskine?"

"Yeah I did once."

"Do you write this blog?" "Yeah, I do."

I was like, "Okay, so what did he do now?"

[ Laughs ]

And I'm like, "What kind of ridiculous story

are you gonna tell me?"

♪♪

Diaz: Wilson comes into my life,

I think, the way he comes into a lot of people's lives --

just completely by chance.

I think of him as an evil "Good Will Hunting."

A supervisor calls me in and tells me

we have this stolen-car case and a guy has been arrested.

I call the detective, and the first thing they tells me

is that he's carrying a bag with $25,000 cash.

And in his wallet, and it was an Albert Einstein wallet,

he has an MIT corporate card in the name of a professor.

And he wants to make a statement, and I told them,

"Bring him down to the District Attorney's office.

Let's put it on video."

♪♪

♪♪

Being in the room with him, you immediately got this sense

that there's something a little strange about him.

He was wearing a Harvard Law sweatshirt,

yet he's in his mid-40s.

And his hands are covered in tattoos.

In Gaelic letters on his knuckles,

he has tattooed "STAY TRUE."

So, my name is Diego Diaz.

I'm an Assistant District Attorney

here at the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

I've spoken with some of the officers

who you've already spoken to.

I wanted to give you an opportunity

to sort of tell me what's been going on.

There seems to be a lot of facets to this story.

Also present is Detective Dealmeida.

I just don't want to look like a national idiot.

That's all I'm asking.

When we walked into that interview room,

I expected Jeremy was gonna see the camera,

see the District Attorney, call it quits, ask for a lawyer,

and we were just gonna put him through the system.

What we got was something totally unexpected.

You know, the easiest question and usually the fastest question

is, "Who are you? What is your name?"

So, the name we have is Jeremy Wilson.

Out of all the names that you could select,

that's probably the least appropriate,

but I understand why it's been chosen.

That turned into a 30-minute dialogue.

Michael Lafferty, Dean Ray Patterson,

Alexander Gabriel, Tyrone Nixon,

Asimov-Beckingham, and there's just Beckingham.

I couldn't believe he was telling me

what he was telling me.

You don't know how bad I wanted to call myself Peter Parker

or, you know, Bruce Wayne or something, just --

and no offense to you guys, but part of it is --

it's a thumb.

He not only told us what he did

but told us exactly how he did them.

People don't presume that you're fucking with them,

and that's what -- in this situation,

that's what you take advantage of.

He said he was an executive from British Airways

in order to get himself a fancy hotel room.

I basically said, "Look, we've got a guy. He's in town.

It's very sensitive work. It's very important to us.

So he's kind of a VIP for us,

so if you could take care of him,

we'd appreciate it, if you could move him in immediately.

Diaz: He said he was a decorated army veteran.

I've spent a lot of time in prison.

Because of that, I have a lot of gaps in my life --

a lot of experiential gaps that are really tough to explain.

And there's similarities with the military.

You're gone for long periods of time.

You can, with some people, get away with saying,

"I just don't want to talk about it."

It's something that I have enough of a knowledge base on

that I could pull off.

Diaz: Where does that knowledge base come from?

I read a lot. I'm kind of a sponge.

So it doesn't take me long to pick stuff up.

He said he knew he'd get his way onto a college campus.

You know, I shave and put a baseball cap on,

I can pass for a grad student.

His confession turned into a master class

in fraud and forgery crimes.

So, one example was on the campus of MIT,

he found an open door

and started going through mailboxes.

In one of the mailboxes was the envelope with the pin

and the separate envelope with the card.

It was a MIT corporate account.

But it was a woman's name on the card.

So I activated the card, which was not easy,

and I kept calling the credit-card company.

They were saying, "Your name's Sara?"

I was like, "Well it's Sara, actually. It's Jordanian.

You're just pronouncing it -- I get it --

I've gotten it my whole life, you know, whatever."

But then they started asking questions

I didn't have information for.

So, how did you get that information?

I tried a number of times and come up with really good excuses

as to why I didn't know the information.

"Well, it's a corporate card

I don't really have access to all that.

So maybe I need to go ask these questions

to somebody else and then call you back."

"Oh, okay."

And I even remember asking the person,

"So, are there any other questions

that I might be asked?" [ Diaz laughs ]

And they told me.

So there's your credit-card security for you, boys.

Then he said that he walked into a BMW Dealership

in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

and was able to illegally obtain a BMW X3.

I have found that people are more willing

to listen to your bullshit when money is involved.

High-end hotels, high-end car --

there are eccentricities and things that are off,

they're willing to overlook it 'cause you have money.

Diaz: Wilson was impressed with himself.

I mean, he went step-by-step

and told me how he outsmarts people

and how he gets the things he wants by tricking people.

During that interview, he felt that he was in total control.

He was not only the star of this video,

that he was going to tell a story

and that the story was going to make everything okay.

And it's that arrogance that got him arrested.

I'm sitting down for a lovely steak dinner in Queens,

and I receive a phone call from a Special Agent

with Homeland Security.

He stated that an individual by the name of

Jeremiah Asimov-Beckingham

was able to illegally obtain a BMW.

So BMW was able to track the vehicle

to a parking garage in downtown Manhattan.

So I arrive at the parking lot, and lo and behold,

there is the vehicle in question.

I get in the car, I'm about to take off,

and then the little lightbulb in my head goes off.

[ Clicks tongue ]

So I handwrote a little note.

"This is Detective Michael Dealmeida.

Your car was involved in a carjacking.

Please call the above number for further details."

And I left my cellphone number.

My wife was like, "No way is he gonna fall for that."

She was like, "Nope, it's never gonna happen."

And then she does that Borat thing, where it's, "Ha-ha-ha,

you're never gonna get it, never gonna get it."

Nobody believed me. Nobody.

Clark-Erskine: On New Year's Eve, I go down to the parking garage,

and then they hand me this piece of paper

with a note written on it that said,

"Firearm-involved carjacking.

Call Detective Dealmeida at this number."

And so I called him, like, literally.

I was walking away from the lot. I'm like, "Yeah, hi, Detective."

"This is you know, Jeremiah Beckingham."

I said, "How are you, sir?"

And he says, "I hear you have my car."

And I said, "I do!" [ Laughs ]

He begins to tell me, "Well, what happened?"

At the time, I was a little peeved.

Nothing like the righteous indignation of a felon.

He's saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a carjacking."

"Somewhere near the parking garage,

and because of the DNA evidence that was left on your car,

we had to take your car into custody

to bring to our lab for analysis,"

and that I'd get it back to him as soon as I possibly could.

He's friendly. He's telling me, you know,

"Enjoy Your New Year's," you know?

If anything was hinky,

the police would have been knocking on my door.

I wouldn't be finding this out by accident.

And I'm like, "There's no way.

There's just no freaking way that they're gonna give me

three days leave time or head start.

No, that's not gonna happen."

So I bought it, and I said, "Okay."

My first reaction to that phone call was,

"This guy's got balls."

Who in the hell calls a cop, knowing that your car is stolen,

and engage him in conversation

to try to get that stolen property back?

I went out for New Year's Eve, had a great time.

At midnight, I texted a picture

of Liz blowing a kiss to the NYPD.

"Best wishes to the boys in blue. Stay safe."

He was pleasant, he was flattering.

It was just like we knew each other for years.

"Forward it to all your friends." [ Detectives laughing ]

'Cause I knew every cop in town was down in fucking

Times Square, so I was like, you know,

"Text it to your buddies, may get a kick out of it."

I got to be honest, it was a cat and mouse,

almost, where if you have the balls to kind of do this,

I'm gonna have the balls to see what I can do

to counteract that.

So, we were texting back and forth.

It was very casual, and he was looking for updates.

I was giving him his updates.

It was friendly.

Completely comfortable, completely casual.

Now it's Monday morning.

We had a team that was set up on the 10th Precinct itself,

There were plainclothes officers, agents.

This was a -- everyone on the team was out for the arrest.

Lo and behold, taxi pulls up, guy gets out of the taxi,

and he walks into the precinct.

He comes in and I was like, "Jeremy?"

He said, "Yes."

He goes, "Detective?" I said, "Yes."

We shook hands. I said, "Let's just go into the back."

As soon as he said that, I knew, it's done.

Walk him into the back.

I said, "The good news is you're getting your car back.

And I said, "The bad news is you're being arrested."

He got duped.

Bravo.

This was the first time that he was on

the receiving end of a con,

as opposed to the giving end of a con.

And I don't think he knew how to handle himself.

Clark-Erskine: From a legal standpoint,

this is a really stupid thing to be doing.

I'm on video camera, basically laying out every nook and cranny

of everything I've done in the last three months.

Diaz: At this point, I knew I had a strong case,

but other than using a false identity,

we didn't know exactly who he was

or where he was really from.

Diaz: Where did you grow up?

If I was gonna pick a home, it'd be Indianapolis.

And as far as your family now, where are they?

Mother's side of the family

I presume, most of them, to still be in Indiana.

I don't have contact.

♪♪

Rybak: I've never been blind to who Jeremy is

and that Jeremy lies and that Jeremy manipulates people.

Jeremy was not well-liked by my family.

Jeremy's first identity theft was against my cousin Brian.

And Jeremy stole his identity.

He stole and totaled my grandfather's car.

He broke my mom's heart.

So he was a sore subject, to say the very least.

But he's still my older brother.

Jeremy and I are technically half-siblings.

So we share the same mom but not the same dad.

Jeremy's father was my mother's first husband, Lonnie Wilson.

They were never together for very long.

So when my mother married my father, John Clark-Erskine,

my dad adopted Jeremy.

My parents [Chuckles] were awful together.

With my dad bouncing in and out of our lives,

when mom and dad would fight, which they did a lot,

Jeremy was my protector.

He was the person that would make sure

that I wasn't feeling scared.

He would read me "Winnie-the-Pooh."

And so Jeremy would call me Pooh Bear.

I loved it. I remember feeling safe with Jeremy.

The last time I remember Jeremy,

we were at my grandfather's apartment in Speedway, Indiana.

Jeremy and Mom and my grandfather

were having an argument about something.

And normally that's when Jeremy would step in

and be the protector and take me on a walk or read me a book.

So I remember Jeremy coming into the living room

and having that sense of relief

when he leaned down like, "Oh, okay, here we go."

And he said, "See you later, Pooh Bear."

And he was gone.

After that, I didn't hear hide or hair from Jeremy for years.

And then in 2012, I got a phone call one day

with an unknown California number.

I picked up, said "Hello."

"Jeremy Clark-Erskine."

I had a lot of hesitation 'cause it had been 20 years

since I'd seen my brother.

"Ma'am, I'm his lawyer, and it's very important.

Your brother needs to speak to you."

My whole entire life, all I wanted was my older brother

to come home and protect me.

And so I wanted to connect with my older brother.

I wanted to know the truth about who he was

and where he's been and why he was missing

for some of the biggest moments in my life.

So, when Jeremy gets on the phone, he said...

My mother had passed away and died in 2007.

And he wasn't there when she died.

He wasn't there at the funeral.

"What could you tell me about Mom that I don't already know?"

What Jeremy told me was that before he was even born,

my mother ran off to Ireland

because she was in love with the history and the land

and got pregnant by Brian Keenan,

who was a very high-ranking member of the IRA

and that Jeremy

is the illegitimate son of Brian Keenan.

For me, it was like, just,

"I know the type of person you are.

I know what you've done. How am I going to believe you?"

And he goes, "You don't have to believe me.

You can believe mom."

He had proof in the version of a notarized letter

that my mother had signed.

..."and I want to be your big brother and I want to fix this."

I was looking forward to getting the proof

and maybe being able to start somewhere.

In the meantime, we would talk on the phone

and write letters back and forth.

I shared so much with him, he shared so much with me,

and it wasn't all heavy.

It was just a brother and a sister

talking and bonding.

It was hopeful.

Like, it was the first time where I was like,

"Okay, maybe we can fix this."

♪♪

Then, I finally got a large manila envelope in the mail.

What is written down in this packet

is going to change my life for one way or another.

When I did go to open it, I opened it very slowly.

I'm like "Oh, okay, this is a big deal."

It was an official document.

And it's backing up what Jeremy told me --

that Jeremy is the son of Brian Keenan.

I finished that section, and I had to stop,

you know, and go, "The one part I'm doubting,

I'm now reading an FBI classified document,

and it's backing him up.

I think my whole entire life is a lie."

♪♪

What is your name now?

Legally, it's Keenan. The last name is Keenan.

Jeremy Daniel Keenan.

Based on what? My father.

Your father. Yeah, my birth -- my biological father.

That's Keenan. Right.

What's his first name? Brian Keenan.

♪♪

Hayes: His father was a wild man.

His father was a bomber and a killer -- an IRA hard man.

I'm in the office one day and I get a phone call.

He said, "My name is Jeremy Keenan.

I'd like you to represent me."

I said, "I don't know anything about you."

He told me that he was Brian Keenan's son.

I said, "I know who Brian Keenan is."

Diaz: Ed Hayes is a legendary New York attorney.

He's a character in "Bonfire of the Vanities,"

and he's always on the list of New York's best-dressed people.

I knew I had a strong case,

but going up against a legend was something

that was a little bit intimidating, to say the least.

Hayes: I am a pretty well-known Irish-American lawyer,

and I think that a lot of people knew my sympathies.

Where I grew up, the IRA was viewed as one step behind God.

I felt the need to support anybody connected

to the fight for Irish freedom.

Jeremy came across as a very hard guy --

a smart man, articulate.

He had a very good knowledge of Keenan's background.

He knew everything.

He knew something called "The Book," which is

what you got when you were first trying to get in the IRA.

He said, "I want you to represent me.

And I said, "Well, now, I would like to support the IRA

in some meaningful way,

so if you're Brian Keenan's son, I'd be happy to represent you.

[ Birds chirping ]

♪♪

Rybak: I didn't even want to read the second half.

I didn't even want to read, at that point, what Mom had wrote.

It took me a while to read what Mom had wrote.

Took me a long while.

I read it very cautiously, and it is confirming

Jeremy's story about his birth.

Then I got to page 3,

which is the actual notarized part,

and it's got my mom's signature on it,

and that's not my mom's signature.

Not even close.

♪♪

"The fucker is lying to me. Are you fucking kidding me?

That little fucker's lying to me."

I have never thrown something so hard across a room,

in my life, as I did when I got to that page.

I cannot explain the amount of angry I was.

You [Huffs] tried to make my mom --

who's dead, who's not here, who's been dead,

who you weren't here for,

you didn't have a relationship with at the end,

you didn't watch her die, you didn't do any of that --

look like shit.

And then I just realized, "Oh, my God,

I'm getting duped now.

And I don't know why."

♪♪

Hayes: A dramatic moment was when I talked to McKinley

at the "New York Times."

He said, "Hey, listen, this guy is not Brian Keenan's son."

Say what? I said, "Oh, it can't be true.

He tells a good story."

He says, "No, he's been telling the same story

for, you know, decades.

He's not Brian Keenan's son."

I said, "Oh, my God."

It was all make-believe.

Diaz: I think this con to pretend to be Jeremy Keenan

was all part of an effort

to try to get attention for himself.

I don't think he'd been prosecuted in a place

like New York, where you can get attention

the way that he got attention.

And I think that's a lot of the reason why he went to trial,

because my recommendation was the maximum sentence,

which was 12 years.

Prior to trial, a judge had offered him

three and a half to seven, which he declined.

At every opportunity, he tried to insert this story

into what was happening.

You know, in a sense, it worked.

He started to get some attention in New York.

He even did an interview with the "New York Times"

to tell this story of his connection to Keenan.

But I think he would have been better served

by just telling the truth

because the jury came back within an hour

with a guilty verdict on all of the charges.

And then after that, the case moved to sentence.

As sort of a last-ditch effort to get some leniency,

Wilson filed a report of an evaluation

with a psychologist

where he relays in detail what he says is his life.

It's a ridiculous document.

It sounds like the biography he wished he had lived.

And among the things he says --

he was involved with the Irish Republican Army,

he was a freedom fighter in Africa,

paramilitary groups all over the world.

He said he was part of the Earth Liberation Front.

He said he'd been shot in the head.

I mean, things that couldn't possibly be true.

For him to file this in court was extreme.

Another sign that even after trial, this is a person

who's gonna keep doing these sorts of things.

Wilson, more so than other people

that I've prosecuted, had harmed people all over the country

and really had been a relentless criminal.

Beyond the crimes he commits,

there are so many personal relationships

that he exploits for his own gain.

Rybak: I had never, once in my life, spoken to a victim of Jeremy's

outside of family.

I found a blog called Kung Fu Knitting.

There's Jeremy Clark-Erskine and what exactly he did to her.

I have never felt so dirty in my life.

You start digging deeper and deeper and realize

that it's more than just her.

Weisberg: He convinced people to let them into their lives

in very intimate ways.

They were ashamed of themselves.

There were a lot of people who were upset and felt stupid

and didn't want to talk to the police,

and they were embarrassed.

He really messes with people.

He goes through their lives and turns their lives upside down.

How you can pry on vulnerability like that

was hard for me to wrap my head around.

Dealmeida: People believe Jeremy because he's not assuming,

he's polite, he smiles, he's engaging.

He wants to treat you as if you're special,

and then he robs you blind. [ Laughs ]

And I think that's his gift.

He's an expert at finding a weakness in other people

and exploiting it.

The judge sentenced him to the maximum

on two of the counts he was convicted of,

for a total of seven to 14 years.

He did not get leniency.

Weisberg: They could throw the book at him

and keep him in jail for 30 years

and let him out when he's 73 years old.

And I think that he'd come out of jail

and he'd, like, scam the lady who lives in the

next apartment over for her Social Security check.

Honestly, as the years have kind of gone by,

I feel more bad for him.

Like, what a broken little child that eventually grows into this,

to actively be so inauthentic.

How sad to constantly feel like you need to create

this other person,

that just you are not good enough at any point.

Rybak: He has a constant need

for somebody to feel empathetic to him.

He might call it love.

I just think he needs empathy.

I'm still mad as hell at him, and if I ever saw him,

I'd want to, you know, [Inhales sharply]

scream into his face.

But it's just sad.

You could have had a little sister

who would have adored you and been geeky with you.

You have so much here,

but you choose to live in that world of grandeur

that you've created, for some reason.

Diaz: Telling these sorts of lies

started, for him, when he was young.

And it continued through his entire adulthood.

I think he has this need to feel like he's important,

that he's smart, and that he's someone who's impressive.

He really likes attention.

He likes to tell his stories.

He loves having an audience for these stories.

There's always been something going on

with Jeremy Clark-Erskine.

Whether it's interviews, whether it's stuff that

he's still doing from prison, it just never ends.

This is my whole tension about this whole thing,

'cause this is what he wanted.

The "New York Times" went to go interview him

when he was in jail.

We're making a documentary about him.

He's getting the attention that he so craves.

♪♪

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