Rebecca: A Real Showstopper 40:59

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. Sarah, you strike me as a theater kid in recovery. I know you're just saying that to piss me off. But am I wrong? The answer is no, I'm not a theater kid in recovery. I don't know anything about theater, okay? Is that true? Yeah, honestly, it is. I know very little about theater. Oh, okay.

Well, would it surprise you to know that I wrote one of my school's plays in the 12th grade? And it was amazing. No, it wouldn't surprise me that you wanted to control people. Thank you. Thank you for putting it that way. Well, Sarah, today I need you to find your inner theater kid. Because for this week's scam, I'm taking you to Broadway, baby. ♪

It's a stormy afternoon in September 2012. Louise Ferlenza sits in the passenger seat of a Ford Expedition, checking her email. Louise is in her early 60s with a chic blonde bob and colorful glasses. Her business partner, Ben Sprecher, is driving them from New York to New Jersey. He's in his late 50s with puffy eyes and a receding hairline.

The two of them are on their way to get some paperwork. They hope it'll get them one step closer to their dream, producing a Broadway musical called Rebecca. Louise has invested in a few plays before, but she's been wanting to make the jump to the big leagues.

Ben, meanwhile, has already produced a handful of Broadway shows, one of which even got nominated for a Tony. But he's never worked on a project quite this challenging before. He and Louise have spent the last six years trying to get the show off the ground. A huge part of the problem is the cost of putting on the musical, which will run them more than $12 million.

Now, that amount isn't unheard of for a Broadway production, but it is a lot for Louise and Ben. Especially because just a few weeks ago, they lost one of their investors and had to scramble to raise several million dollars. But then, at the last minute, an angel investor offered to join the production. That seems to be very good luck, if you ask me. Yes, it's super lucky. And as Ben drives, Louise eagerly refreshes her email, waiting for confirmation of the money transfer.

This is the miracle they've been waiting for, the one they hope will save their show. But when a new email pops up in her inbox, it's not what she expected. Her lawyer has forwarded an email from someone named Sarah Finkelstein. Louise reads the email out loud to Ben,

Sarah, can you read what part of it says? Yeah, other Sarah goes, the walls are about to cave in on Mr. Sprecher and the Rebecca Broadway production. Damn. Yeah, and the message only gets more ominous from there. It basically calls Louise and Ben scam artists. It ends with a warning that investing in Rebecca will only lead to a role in a fraud trial. Ben is already sobbing by the time Louise finishes reading the email. He's so upset he can barely drive.

He pulls into a nearby McDonald's parking lot. And as they sit in the car under the golden arches, they get crushing news. The cryptic email has spooked their new investor so much that he's dropping out. Rebecca the Musical has lost its funding once again.

Louise is shocked. She's being sabotaged. She doesn't know why anyone would write something so vicious. She doesn't know anyone by the name of Sarah Finkelstein. And she suspects it's a fake name anyway. Whoever sent that email wants to see her production fail. But who and why are a mystery? From Wondery, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers.

Broadway producers raised millions of dollars in the hopes of one day backing a hit like Hamilton or The Phantom of the Opera. But the odds of betting right on a once-in-a-generation smash are slim.

To survive in this cutthroat world, theater producers and artists need passion, creativity, and a healthy dose of delusion. Of course, this makes it a perfect environment for scammers. The saga of Rebecca the Musical involves a con man, cryptic emails, a mysterious case of malaria, and perhaps most dangerous of all, very dramatic theater people. This is Rebecca the Musical, a real showstopper. ♪

Our Broadway disaster starts in 2006. Louise is in Vienna for a business trip. She's an accountant, but she's passionate about theater and recently started producing on the side. So she can't pass up the opportunity to attend the premiere of a new show, Rebecca Das Musical. Louise isn't fluent in German, but she knows the 1938 novel it's based on. Alfred Hitchcock later adapted it into a psychological thriller, also called Rebecca.

Sarah, have you seen it? I haven't seen any of the sophisticated versions of the story, nor have I read the sophisticated version of the book, but I have read things based on Rebecca. So I kind of know a little bit about it. You know the gist then. For anybody listening at home, I am going to spoil this 100-year-old story. So if you don't want it spoiled, now's the time to listen to something else.

Rebecca is about a woman who marries a wealthy widower. But when she moves into his estate, Manderley, she can't escape the lingering memory of her husband's first wife, Rebecca. The housekeeper at Manderley is obsessed with Rebecca and is constantly trying to undermine the new wife. And finally, it's revealed that the husband actually murdered Rebecca. And the whole thing ends with the house going up in flames. ♪

It's a classic and it's an epic. And Rebecca Doss' musical totally lives up to it. Louise is blown away by the stunning sets, the costumes, and powerful operatic score. The show ends with the housekeeper literally setting a spiral staircase on fire. Sarah, here's a clip of the show's climax. Would you describe it for us?

This is fully a staircase on fire on stage. I didn't know you could do that. This is like the episode of The Simpsons where they're watching the Planet of the Apes musical and Homer's like, I love theater. That's how I feel watching this. I'm like, oh, this is dramatic.

Well, Louise has been looking for a musical to produce, and now she's confident that she's found it. She calls up her friend Ben, who's always looking for new shows to produce, and she tells him, holy shit, you have to see this production. When he does, he's just as impressed. They decide they're going to do it. They'll produce the first English-language version of Rebecca Das' musical.

To make it happen, Louise and Ben need to first find investors with deep pockets and a love of theater. It won't be easy because neither of them have been the head producer on a major musical. Plus, musicals are notoriously hard to fund since they're expensive and they rarely make a profit. But with Ben's Off-Broadway connections and Louise's wealthy accounting clients, they're confident they can find investors who believe in Rebecca the musical just as much as they do.

Within two years, Louise and Ben have convinced enough investors to help them buy the English rights to the musical. They hire translators, and they set out to find a theater to host the show. After a few setbacks, including a basement flood in their initial location, Ben and Louise find a new theater, this time on Broadway. What could possibly go wrong? ♪

Louise and Ben get to work hiring actors and crew, building sets and making costumes. They sign a Broadway star to lead the cast and land a two-time Tony Award-winning director. They even set an opening date, spring 2012. But then Louise is hit with some bad news. One of her investors says they're pulling back on the money they initially pledged. It's a major blow to the production. So they have no choice but to postpone rehearsals and push the show's premiere. It's humiliating to make this announcement.

Rebecca is one of the most anticipated new musicals of the year, and the press has been covering it closely. Plus, Broadway is a small world, and theater people do not forget. Yeah, I'm sure whatever the reason for the investor pulling out, like, it is a stain on something because people get suspicious, right? Yeah, I mean, I would be too.

So Louise and Ben are on a real deadline. They need to raise $4 million by the fall or they'll lose their spot at the theater. And if they don't stage the production, they won't be able to repay their investors. And that's why, on a brisk day in January 2012, Louise walks into a Long Island diner for a blind date. The business kind. She's here to meet Mark Houghton, a 46-year-old former stockbroker who now works as a financial consultant.

With his fancy suit and his shiny Rolex, he looks like he could be the answer to all of Louise's problems. Louise tells Mark about the cast and the crew they've already lined up. Plus, the original Vienna production is a proven concept. Adaptations in Tokyo, Seoul, and Helsinki are having successful runs too. It's got all the makings of a hit. Mark seems intrigued. He tells Louise he has friends who have invested in productions on London's West End, and they've done really well. Louise leaves the diner feeling encouraged.

A week later, Mark tells her that he can't invest in the musical himself, but he wants to help her find others who can. All he wants in return is a finder's fee and reimbursement for any expenses. This is pretty unusual for Broadway, but Louise talks to Ben about it, and they decide they've got nothing to lose. They agree to give Mark a flat fee of $7,500 and a percentage of any money he brings in after they raise $250,000.

That seems like the most reasonable thing to do for something that is like a bit weird. You know, they're not giving him a ton of money. If he does something crazy, you know, it's just $7,500 at that point, right? Yeah, it does seem kind of low risk. And a little more than a month later, their gamble does seem to pay off.

Mark tells Louise he's found a group of investors willing to chip in. One of them is a South African businessman living in Australia. His name is Paul Abrams. He's agreed to put in $2 million and three of his friends will chip in another $2.5 million.

An investment of this scale is virtually unheard of in Broadway, particularly by new investors. But it would put Louise and Ben well over their $4 million fundraising goal. They're thrilled. Normally, they would meet their investors in person, but they don't have time to travel abroad. And when Ben tries to set up time to meet with Paul in New York, he cancels on him. So they handle all the paperwork over email, and Mark promises they'll get the money by the end of July. Louise breathes a sigh of relief.

Now she and Ben can reschedule rehearsals and set a new premiere date for the fall. But while Louise is preparing for the drama on stage, things are about to get even messier behind the scenes.

A few months after making the deal with Paul, Louise and Ben host a preview of Rebecca for critics and investors. Now, I don't have any audio from this event, but I do have audio from a trailer for Rebecca. So, Sarah, please, if you will, imagine you're in a rehearsal space in New York City watching performers belt their hearts out to a small but wealthy audience. ♪

As someone who has never, like, gone to a musical before, this is what I would want from the experience. So much is happening. There's just so much going on. I could see why this is an expensive production. Yeah, man, listen, they're spending that money. And after the performance, Louise approaches Mark. She asks him if Paul, the South African investor, is in the crowd. And he says, no.

She's eager to meet him and his friends, who are solely responsible for saving their musical. Mark says they weren't able to come, but that Paul's niece is here. And he points to a middle-aged brunette standing across the room. When Louise goes over to say hi, she quickly realizes that Paul's niece doesn't have a South African accent, or even an English one. She sounds American. It's unexpected, but Louise shrugs it off. Rich people grow up all over the place, you know? Yeah, I mean, again, that is...

A thing that probably in retrospect is a red flag, but at the moment you'd be like, yeah, of course you can have an American niece. You just don't know till you know. Yeah. Well, the performance goes well, but Louise and Ben are still nervously sprinting towards their fall premiere. They're confident they can get there, but there have been so many delays already that their leading actors recently left the production, and they still haven't gotten the money from their new investors. Still, they honor the end of their deal with Mark and give him a portion of the finder's fee. ♪

They figure it's a show of good faith. They also reimburse him for an African safari he took with Paul to secure the investment. In total, they've given him about $35,000. ♪

So this is Scammer 101. We've seen this so many times where in order to secure an investment, they go on like a very luxurious trip. And they're like, listen, it's necessary with these rich guys. You got to take them somewhere nice. And to a normal person, you're like, cool. I don't know what rich people do. This is true. But Sarah, get this.

Soon, they hear from Mark that Paul is in the ICU with malaria. Louise feels horrible, but she also really needs to get his money. She and Ben decide to wait it out and hope for the best. But four days later, Paul's assistant reaches out to them with some bad news—

Paul has died. Louise and Ben do not have time to mourn the investor that they never actually met. They are freaking out. They start frantically trying to get Paul's friends to send in their money. But with Paul's death, everyone has gone silent. Mark promises he'll fly to London and figure it out. But summer comes and goes, and the money still hasn't arrived. Louise and Ben have no choice. They have to postpone Rebecca the Musical again.

They're devastated. But they also have to be strategic. They don't want other investors to get spooked. They need to make this look like a bump in the road rather than a full-on disaster. So they reach out to the only person they think can save them, a PR genius. ♪

It's September 2012, the same month Rebecca rehearsals were supposed to have started. And Mark Thibodeau is walking up to an Upper East Side apartment. And Sarah, since there's already a mark in the story, I'm going to call this guy Thibodeau. Will you please describe what him and his formidable neck look like? You know, he looks like a business guy because he has that kind of gray skin.

mostly gray salt and pepper hair, and he has angry eyebrows. So he means business. He sure does. And Thibodeau is actually a superstar Broadway publicist. His company has represented more than 200 shows, including Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and Wicked. If anyone can help make a show a hit, it's him. And his job is now to help Louise and Ben save Rebecca the Musical.

Once Thibodeau arrives at Louise's apartment, she and Ben tell him that their key investor has died. And now they need to find a way to let people know that they're postponing the show and to spread the word that they need to raise more money without scaring their current investors off. Thibodeau says he'll go home and draft a press release. And in it, he explains that the play has to be postponed due to the sudden and shocking death of their largest investor, Paul Abrams. But after reading it, Louise and Ben immediately push back.

They say he has to remove any mention of Paul's name. Thibodeau is confused. This is their second postponement in a year, and they need to have a good reason for it. Tickets are already on sale, and more than 100 people's jobs are on the line. If Louise and Ben aren't careful, they'll become the laughingstocks of Broadway. With everything else at stake, Thibodeau thinks they should include more information about Paul.

But Louise and Ben stand firm. They insist on leaving Paul's name out. They want to protect his privacy. And so the release goes out saying that the delay is due to the death of an anonymous investor. It is especially weird because there's been so many issues already that it's like, why not just name this guy? He was obviously well-known enough to have that much money. Yeah, it's weird. And soon after, Thibodeau gets a call from a New York Times theater reporter named Patrick Healy saying,

Patrick doesn't think the story about a dead investor adds up. He wants to know who the investor is. Otherwise, it seems like Louise and Ben are just stalling, or maybe even making up a fake investor so that they could raise more money and not raise alarm bells. Thibodeau has to stand by his clients, so he refuses to share Paul's name.

The next day, he breathes a sigh of relief when he reads Patrick's article in the New York Times. It's headlined, Rebecca Delayed Again After Major Investor Dies. No mention of Patrick's suspicions about the anonymous investors. But what Thibodeau doesn't know is that the drama with Rebecca is somehow just beginning. The play is about a woman haunted by her husband's dead wife. And now, the musical itself will try to move forward while being haunted by a dead investor. ♪

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Just use the code SCAMPOD. That's HappyMammoth.com, M-A-M-M-O-T-H, with the code SCAMPOD to get 15% off your entire first order. The day after Patrick's article hits newsstands, Ben is sitting in his small fifth floor office in Manhattan's theater district. He and Louise are desperate to find new investors so they can keep their premiere date and their venue.

He's scrolling through his email and he sees one from a stranger, a guy named Larry Runsdorf. Larry says that he's read about their late investor and he's interested in potentially replacing him. He even gives his office address. Ben reads the email again. He's skeptical, but at this point, he'll follow any lead that could get Rebecca funded. So he drops everything and he sprints across Manhattan to meet Larry.

Larry is 72, and he looks a little bit like Bernie Sanders. When Ben gets to his office, the two of them sit down and they chat for a while. Larry tells Ben that he runs a pharmaceutical company, and he's interested in investing in Broadway for the first time. So Ben gives him the pitch about Rebecca. He asks Larry point blank if he can replace Paul's multimillion-dollar investment.

And Larry says, yes, he can. But he wants to remain anonymous. An investment this large would send every Broadway producer to his door. Ben eagerly agrees, and he leaves the meeting with a handshake deal and a skip at a step. Within days, Ben's lawyers have drawn up the agreement for Larry to invest more than $2 million. ♪

I understand part of the wanting to be anonymous thing, but for a second time of this coming up, it is so sus. Well, even with this last minute investment, Ben and Louise are still more than a million dollars short of their goal because Paul's so-called friends in London never came through. Luckily, Mark says he can cover it.

He feels awful about Paul's death, and he wants to do everything he can to help the show. He says he'll get Ben and Louise a bridge loan, and that he'll even use his own house to insure it. Ben is eager to tell the world that Rebecca is fully funded. But just as he's secured a roof over their heads, the floor is about to fall out. Around this time, Thibodeau is still thinking about that phone call from Patrick at the New York Times.

Patrick's questions about the sudden death of an investor were perfectly reasonable, but Thibodeau didn't have answers. Neither did Ben or Louise, at least none that they shared with him. Thibodeau is a bit shaken by the whole thing, so he starts an investigation of his own. He starts by looking over the investment paperwork for Paul Abrams. And right away, he finds a lot of red flags, like street addresses that he discovers don't actually exist and phone numbers that don't work.

Thibodeau has gone from curious to deeply concerned. So he decides to look into Mark. He Googles Mark Houghton and Long Island and gets a flurry of hits. And they implicate Mark in a series of fraud schemes.

So you're telling me that it was that easy to find dirt on Mark by literally Googling Mark Houghton Long Island. That's all it took. Sarah, as you know from hosting the show, people don't look anybody up. They just don't bother. That's insane. Well, Thibodeau is freaking out. So he calls Ben, eager to share what he's found.

But Ben doesn't want to hear it. He says successful people like Mark always have lies written about them on the internet. Ben still believes that Mark is going to get him that bridge loan, and he doesn't want anything to stand in the way of it. Now, Thibodeau's mind is racing. How could Ben willingly ignore such gigantic red flags? He could be getting scammed right now. Is he just blinded by his ambition to get Rebecca up and running? Or could he be in on the cons?

Thibodeau doesn't know what to think. And the next day, things get even more complicated. Patrick publishes a new article about Rebecca. It's so juicy that it lands on the front page of The New York Times. It turns out Patrick has been talking to the show's other investors, who were all pretty alarmed by Rebecca's fundraising situation.

Through his reporting, Patrick has discovered the name of the person he dubs "the mystery man," Paul Abrams. And the article details how Paul was set to invest millions of dollars, only to die suddenly.

But as Patrick notes, there were no obituaries and not a single death notice. Plus, the only contact for his estate is a spokesman who goes by one name, Wexler, who refuses to speak on the phone and uses an email address that was created last month. Okay, so obviously this man does not exist. No.

Well, when Patrick contacts Ben for comment, Ben admits, well, he never met Paul in person and they never spoke on the phone. But he won't say whether he thinks Paul was made up. He tells Patrick he's just focused on doing everything he can to replace Paul's money. The day after the article runs, two FBI agents show up at Ben's office. It seems like they think Ben may have invented Paul as some kind of fraud scheme. They ask him for all documentation relating to Paul and they tell him to come in for questioning.

For Thibodeau, this is turning into something beyond crisis PR. It feels like Rebecca is doomed and its producers are caught up in something that no amount of spin can save.

Two days after the FBI raid, Ben and Louise's newest angel investor, Larry, gets an unexpected message. It's from someone named Sarah Finkelstein, and it's really ominous. It warns that the walls are closing in on Rebecca the musical. And this is the email that gets forwarded to Louise when she and Ben are driving in the rain. Here's another quote from it. I am writing for one reason only, to try and protect an innocent person from losing a lot of money.

Sarah, can you read this next part? Oh, yes. It says,

This is so juicy. I love an ominous message. I love a scary prediction. I love a spooky tattletale. This is drama, my friend. Yes. But Larry doesn't know anyone named Sarah Finkelstein. And he's especially startled because his investment in the musical was supposed to be kept private. And this isn't the first time that someone has contacted him about it.

A couple of days earlier, his legal team got similar emails from someone named Bethany Walsh. Larry was willing to overlook those initial messages, but this one puts him over the edge. He's spooked. He tells Ben and Louise that he's pulling his investment. That's the note that caused Ben to have a mental breakdown in a McDonald's parking lot. Larry's just the latest to lose faith in this cursed musical production. And the FBI are now digging into the question, is it cosmic bad luck or a criminal caper?

Ben is scheduled to meet with the FBI the day after Larry pulls his investment. But first, he needs to confront the person who found Paul and supposedly communicated with him up until he died. Ben arranges to meet with Mark in a Long Island diner. And we're not sure, but it seems like it could be the same diner where Louise met Mark for the first time, just nine months earlier. Ben brings his attorney along and a man he introduces as a colleague, even though he's actually a private investigator. Ben tries to act natural, even as his stomach churns.

Ben's attorney hammers Mark with questions about Paul, but Mark is good at deflecting. He regales them with tales of private jets, luxury hotels, and dinners at Nobu. He exudes confidence, and Ben is reminded of why he trusted Mark in the first place. But the private eye has a very different perspective. When breakfast is over, he tells Ben he doesn't find Mark credible. And he says, in his professional opinion, that Ben has been had.

In some ways, it's kind of worse that Ben didn't know, only because, like, there were just so many times he should have known this was...

totally messed up. Like, I can't believe it took this much for him to get the truth that was very obvious to Thibodeau from the beginning. I know. And before Ben has time to fully process this, he has to go meet with the FBI. Agents grill him for three hours, presumably making him lay out every interaction with Mark and the mysterious Paul Abrams. They bring up all the inconsistencies in Mark and Paul's stories —

And by the time the meeting is over, it's clear to Ben that everyone around him was right. Mark is a scam artist. Ben and Louise fell for his trap, hook, line, and sinker. And if Ben and Louise don't want to be implicated in Mark's schemes, they need to cut off contact with him immediately. That's easy. But their next task will be much, much harder. Breaking the news to the more than 100 cast and crew members who've put their lives on hold for Rebecca the Musical.

The day after the FBI meeting, the main cast and crew of Rebecca get called into Ben's office. One of the actors is a theater and cabaret vet named Karen Mason. She's in her early 60s, a bubbly blonde with a big smile and an even bigger voice. And months ago, she landed the part of the housekeeper who lights the legendary staircase on fire. She stuck with the production through both of its major delays. She's been waiting for a breakout role to take her career to the next level, and she thinks this one could be it. Aya?

livid right now. Well, you already know what happens. In Ben's office, Karen gets the worst possible news. Her heart nearly stops when Louise and Ben tell the small group why they've gathered. They detail the threatening messages that have scared away their angel investor. And Ben starts to read the emails out loud, but soon he's crying so hard that he has to stop.

His attorney steps in and finishes it for him. Ben, Louise, and their attorney tell the actors there will be one day of rehearsal so the cast can get paid. But after that, the musical is postponed indefinitely. Karen is stunned and destroyed. And like Manderley itself, Rebecca's Broadway dreams seem to have been burned to the ground.

Louise is completely gutted. She spent six years trying to achieve her dream of producing a Broadway musical, and she was this close to making it happen. The play's logo, a cursive R with flames around it, is already on the theater's marquee. The sets have been built, the costumes have been made, a million dollars in tickets have been sold, but the show won't go on. And unless by some miracle she and Ben can secure the rest of the funding in the next three months...

They're on the hook to pay their investors back for the millions that they've already spent. But if Ben and Louise want to salvage their reputations, they have to tell the world about the mysterious circumstances that stopped this production dead in its tracks. But that could be harder than ever because their publicist, Thibodeau, has resigned. Ben somehow convinced him to send out one final press release before he did.

In it, he explained that the musical was thrown into chaos by a, quote, malicious email filled with lies and innuendo sent to an angel investor. And now it's clear that Rebecca the musical is taking its final bow before it's ever able to take its first. Louise is worried that she'll never be able to work in the theater industry again. And the most frustrating thing is that whoever sent those eerie messages is still walking free.

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In October 2012, less than a month after Rebecca officially folds, federal agents swarm a brick mansion on Long Island. The agents rush inside and grab their man, Mark Cotton. They cuff him and perp walk him into a squad car. He's actually being brought in on charges related to an entirely different scam. But hours later, he gets slapped with charges for his role in Rebecca the Musical 2. Oh, and he's also charged with stealing more than $750,000 from a Connecticut real estate company.

He scammed them in a similar way as he scammed Louise and Ben, through a web of fake companies, made-up people, and fake email addresses. And get this, the police only discovered this other scam when they looked into the mystery surrounding Paul's death. It turns out Mark has been living on borrowed time. He declared bankruptcy the previous year to avoid paying back millions he stole from real estate clients.

they were funding his lavish lifestyle. His old colleagues nicknamed him Hollywood for his ridiculous spending. I mean, he actually bought a yacht and named it Hot Catch, and that's hot with two Ts, just like his last name. Oh, my God. Another stupid boat with a dumb name. Men love boats.

Well, the feds now understand a lot about Mark and his various cons. But it's still unclear why Mark got involved with Louise and Ben. Did he think he could actually find investors? Probably not. Maybe he just saw a desperate producer at that diner and thought he had an easy mark. Or maybe there was a bigger con that would have unfolded had he not been caught. We'll never know. It's probably obvious by now, but Mark made up Paul and his associates, and he sent all the fake emails pretending to be them.

And remember the woman Louise met at the backers audition? The one who was supposedly Paul Abrams' niece? The one with the American accent? Well, that was Mark's wife. I'm really glad you said that because I was like really hoping we'd find out who she is. Well, Louise and Ben immediately file a $100 million lawsuit against Mark for ruining the show. The lawsuit also says that whoever sent the emails to Larry might also have criminal liability because they led him to pull out.

Sarah, who do you think sent the ominous emails? I am very curious as to who sent those emails because they obviously knew something, right? Well, Sarah, strap in because we're about to find out. Shortly after Mark's arrest, Thibodeau is riding his bike around New Jersey's Liberty State Park. He just goes in circles around and around for six straight hours.

Ben recently told him that the email sent from made-up people, Bethany and Sarah, were potentially criminal and the FBI is investigating. Thibodeau is panicking because he's the one who sent them. Oh my God, that makes so much sense because he was obviously like, how could these people be so stupid? Like they must be in on it too.

And they weren't in on it. But that was a natural assumption to be made. And he wanted to, like, save people from getting in trouble, I guess? I guess. Well, when Ben and Louise refused to reveal Paul's name and then ignored Thibodeau when he brought up Mark's super shady Google results, Thibodeau was beyond suspicious. And he assumed that Ben and Louise were involved in Mark's scheme. And then he found out that his press release is what caught Larry's attention and led him to invest.

Thibodeau felt responsible for playing a part in an innocent investor potentially getting scammed out of millions. And he knew that Patrick, the Times reporter, was sniffing around. So he came up with a very drastic plan to try to scare the investors away. Oh, my God. This is so convoluted. But I kind of get it. Like, it was already so deep into the problem that, like, I could see someone's mind going there, you know? Sarah...

There's more. No. I would love if you could read how Thibodeau later told Vanity Fair that he came up with the name Bethany Walsh. Okay. He goes, my mother's maiden name is Walsh, and maybe I had seen Bethany Frankel on the Today Show that morning. Oh, my God. Bethany Frankel selling her skinny margaritas or whatever. I love that he was like, Bethany. Hmm. That's a real name. Yeah.

Well, Thibodeau isn't the most tech-savvy guy. So he went to a public computer at a coffee shop to send the email, and he hoped that was anonymous enough. And then, when Larry's lawyers didn't respond, he created another email account and made the sender name Sarah Finkelstein. And then he typed that super dramatic email. Thibodeau knows he didn't cover his cybertracks very well. It's only a matter of time before he's found out, which is why he's been riding his bike around in circles, because he's terrified.

He later hires a criminal defense attorney, but he's so afraid he won't even go into his office, worried that the FBI will show up, just like they did at Ben's office. Thibodeau thinks of himself as a whistleblower, someone trying to protect the innocent. But will the theater community agree? Or will his reputation as a respected publicist be forever tainted? He doesn't have to wait long to find out.

Louise and Ben's attorneys are able to track the mysterious emails to Thibodeau's IP address. And they finally find out that the person who scared off their last hope at getting Rebecca the Musical to the stage was their own publicist. Just weeks later, Louise and Ben sue Thibodeau for defamation and breach of contract.

They ask for more than $10 million in damages. By this point, the logo for Rebecca the Musical is finally taken off the theater's marquee. It's soon replaced by the Nora Ephron play, Lucky Guy, starring Tom Hanks. The Broadway story is over, but the drama in the courtroom is just beginning. ♪

In July 2013, about nine months after his arrest, Mark pleads guilty to both counts of wire fraud, one for his Rebecca scheme and another related to the real estate con. A little more than a year later, he's sentenced to almost three years in prison and is forced to repay nearly $70,000 to the Rebecca producers and another half a million dollars to the government. One of the victim's lawyers estimates that Mark and his wife, through all of their scams, defrauded victims out of more than $7 million. ♪

He's sentenced to 11 more years in prison in the summer of 2015, this time for his involvement in an entirely different scheme, conspiracy to launder money. He's sent to Fort Dix, the same New Jersey prison where Joe Giudice did his time. As of this recording, he's being held at a halfway house in New York, and he's scheduled for early release in February 2024. The SEC eventually clears Ben and Louise of any involvement in Mark's scheme. Their lawsuit against Thibodeau goes to trial in April 2017.

Thibodeau is found not guilty of defamation, but he does have to pay $90,000 for breaking his contract and ruining the show's chance at financial success. It is a fraction of the $10 million Ben and Louise had been hoping for. Today, he's still a successful theater publicist.

As for Louise, she seems to have given up her dreams of producing a Broadway musical. Good thing she kept her day job. And now, Ben has a markedly different path since this scam. In August of 2019, he was arrested and later convicted of possession of child porn. I am... what? Like... Yeah, we cannot root for Ben.

Well, in other news, their angel investor, Larry, has since passed away. There's some speculation that he wanted his investment to remain a secret because of his son's dealings in unregulated pharmaceuticals. But that's a story for another day. Oh, and there is a happy ending for Rebecca the musical fans. The English-language debut of Rebecca finally made it to a stage in London last summer with different producers. ♪

Well, Sarah, what a ride. I know we say that all the time, but truly this was a ride. I didn't know who to believe. I know. Why do you think Louise and Ben didn't just Google Mark? I really think they were very arrogant. I think they wanted to ignore anything possible.

crazy or any red flags because they were just like, whatever, we'll get it, we'll push through, this is going to happen without thinking about anyone else who's involved. And, you know, like theater performers aren't paid a ton of money. Like this could have been life changing for a lot of people. It's so wild because it's like this chain reaction of like all these people got roped into this thing just because these two ding-dongs didn't do a Google search.

Yeah, I do feel pretty bad in some ways for Thibodeau because like he didn't do the smartest thing, but I could see how someone could think that's the only way to get someone's attention to stop.

something you know what I mean I feel like this is teaching me that you and I should just like make a musical like how hard could it be yeah definitely I have learned that honestly maybe it isn't that hard as long as you're able to like shamelessly ask for money that's the key to success

you know, at the end of the day, the scam is arts funding. Yeah. Where, you know, everyone's out here begging for money and, you know, it's such a dog-eat-dog world out there and it's,

Just makes me so sad that that's what people have to do, you know? Here's what I learned is writing is the only job in the creative space where you can do it alone. You can do it alone and you don't need anybody to help you. And I really admire that about writing and no other creative work. If that's what's helping you sleep at night.

This is Rebecca the Musical, a real showstopper. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencersatwondery.com. We use many sources in our research.

A few that were particularly helpful were The Road to Manderley by David Camp for Vanity Fair and the reporting of Patrick Healy for The New York Times and the reporting of Adam Hetrick, Kenneth Jones and others for Playbill.com.

Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync.

Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock and our managing producer is Matt Gant. Janine Cornelow and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary. Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producers are Ginny Bloom and Jen Swan. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty. For Wondery.

If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.