She Got Game 41:43

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Sarah, would you say that you're good with your money? You know what? I'm not bad with it. I'm not doing anything crazy. This is too real of a question, but go on. Well, I'm great with money because I'm great at spending it. Get it? Yeah, if you got it, why not? Well, today I've got a story for you that's about the crisis of abundance that comes when you make a lot of money, especially what happens when you trust that money with the wrong people.

It's 2011, and the NBA's biggest stars are gathered at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. The auditorium is packed with legends like Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen, and they're here to see Dennis Rodman be inducted and officially named one of the greatest players in history. Ladies and gentlemen, Dennis Rodman. Dennis walks towards the stage wearing a feather-trimmed coat, a silver sequined scarf, and a suit bedazzled with the names of the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons.

When he played on those teams, he led them to a combined five NBA championships. He's 6'7", and his buzzed hair is dyed bleach blonde. It's a signature look.

Halfway down the aisle, he pauses to lean over and kiss the cheek of a Black woman. She's wearing a shimmering gown, and she has a big smile, sparkling eyes, and butterscotch-colored hair. A description I love is from one of her ex-husbands, who said that she looks like Halle Berry. She's in her 50s, but could easily pass her being a decade younger. This glamorous woman isn't Dennis' wife, but she has benefited from his fame and his wealth.

Her name is Peggy Fulford, and she's a regular at Neiman Marcus, where she buys designer shoes, bags, jeans, and of course, lingerie. She reportedly spends $2,000 a month on face creams alone. And earlier this weekend, she arrived in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in a full-length fur coat and loaded up two bellhop carts with Louis Vuitton luggage. Dennis takes the stage, and right away, he gets emotional. I didn't play the game for the money.

He thanks his wife, his teammates, and his coaches. And then he gestures toward Peggy. Thank you, Peggy.

Peggy Beams, sitting next to her business partner, Elkin. Together, they run King Management Group, a money management company for pro athletes like Dennis. He's their biggest client, and they've reportedly been in talks to work with other sports legends like Jim Brown and Joe Montana. Peggy's clients love her. She makes them feel taken care of. But what they don't know is that she's really good at taking care of herself by spending their money.

She targets rich players who want a manager and a mother figure. But Peggy's days of whining and dining on other people's tabs are about to come to an end. From Wondery, I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers.

Today's story will take us into the rarefied air and bank accounts of sports stars like Dennis Rodman and NFL running back Ricky Williams. It's a cautionary tale about how the more money you have, the harder it can be to keep track of. But don't worry, this isn't just a world's tiniest violin story about rich athletes becoming slightly less rich. It's also about how one woman exploited her client's trust to steal their money and gain access to the high life.

I'm calling this story, She Got Game. To understand how Peggy got tight with pro athletes, we need to go back to the late 90s. Peggy's hosting a party at her house. It's a sprawling five-bedroom estate on a golf course just outside of Atlanta. It's in a gated community known for its celebrities. And Peggy lives here with her husband, Dr. Forrest King, and three of her four kids.

Forrest is a doctor, obviously, and he's also a pretty well-connected guy in the sports world. He's got ties to general managers in the NBA and the NFL. And this party is packed with rich people who run in circles with pro athletes and a few pro athletes themselves. Recently, Forrest has been inspired to get more involved in the sports business through money management.

Sarah, do you know what a money manager does? I mean, I feel like it sounds pretty self-explanatory. It's someone who knows a lot about finances and whatever and tells you, OK, you should invest in this, save this, right? Yeah, that is kind of what it is. But they also, like, help them pay their bills and, you know, sort of just manage their money, broadly speaking. And Forrest and Peggy's new company, King Management Group, they want to help athletes build generational wealth. And there's a real need for this in pro sports. Yeah.

Sports Illustrated reported that 78% of NFL players say they're financially stressed just two years after retiring. And within five years of leaving the game, 60% of NBA players are flat broke. I mean, they're not taught how to manage enormous amounts of money that are coming into their accounts anymore.

And Forrest and Peggy probably see their friend, Travis Best, as the perfect potential client for their new business. He's at their party, too. He's a young point guard for the Indiana Pacers, and he's short for an NBA player, just 5'11", and he has close-cropped hair and a mustache. Peggy met him a few years earlier when he was playing college basketball. And he said,

Now, he's a big-deal NBA player and a celebrity. He's even co-starred in the Spike Lee movie, He Got Game. And his salary got a really big bump recently. He's taking home millions per year. But Peggy and Forrest think they can help him get to where he really wants to be, to have fancy cars, a nice house, and a big family, just like they do. So they offer to rep him, to take his career and his money to the next level.

And just like that, King Management officially has its first client. Forrest handles the business and Peggy networks. The couple is on top of the world. But a tragic accident is about to change everything. It's January 2000, a couple of years after the party at Peggy and Forrest's house. The couple has recently divorced, and Peggy is at a low point. And then she gets a phone call from her father that sends her into a tailspin.

She describes the call on BET's American gangster, Trap Queens. And he said, Peggy, Mom, she's not here no more. Peggy's mother was in her home in New Orleans when candles somehow caused a fire and she couldn't escape in time. The news is devastating to Peggy. Growing up, she often felt as if her mother was her only ally —

She's alleged that her father was physically and verbally abusive, her younger sister died in childhood of leukemia, and her older brother was shot to death outside of his corner store. But there was one place Peggy and her mom went to escape, the mall. They went shopping to forget their problems and to feel glamorous. Peggy's mom was her rock.

And after hearing that her mother has died, Peggy has a breakdown and she smashes a glass door. She eventually checks herself into the hospital for several weeks, where she later says that she's diagnosed with mania —

And mania is a word that she returns to again and again when talking about her mental health. This is how she described her experience of it on the Opportunist podcast. Everything that you do is to feel better, is to feel good. You know, you go on either a buying spree, a sexual spree, a drug spree. It's just that I didn't have those vices. I had the buying vices. I mean, I do feel pretty bad for her. Like, it's...

hard to lose a parent, especially if they are the only person you have to rely on. And yeah, I mean, I kind of get it. Yeah. It's also interesting that she has this awareness of her spending vice so early. Yeah. She knows that's her kryptonite. Yeah.

Well, when Peggy leaves the hospital, she makes some major changes in her life. She takes total control of the money management business she started with Forrest, including the clients and their money. She returns to New Orleans determined to build up the company and make it on her own. And to do that, she'll need clients who are rich and in desperate need of financial help.

About a year after Peggy's breakdown, Ricky Williams stands in a sparsely furnished condo in New Orleans' French Quarter. He's ripped, with a goatee and dreadlocks that hit right around his chin. He plays running back for the New Orleans Saints, and MTV's Cribs wants to spotlight his condo in an upcoming episode. So he really needs to redecorate before the cameras arrive. So he hired an interior designer who shows up, along with a friend, Peggy.

Sarah, we actually got to talk to one of Ricky's closest friends, Chantel Cohen, for this episode. And she was there in Ricky's condo that day. Here's how she describes her first impression of Peggy. She's so spunky and she's just like talking and she's walking fast around the house like, you need to do this, you need curtains here. And we're like, OK, well, who is this lady? You know, she just took over the room and she was very confident. Peggy did more than take over the room. She took over the interior design gig.

You know, until now, I didn't even consider that they staged their homes for Cribs. You know, I just wanted to keep the magic of Cribs in my mind, and now it's gone. Well, you know, I am here to ruin everything you've ever loved. But Ricky is a really big deal NFL player. He won the Heisman Trophy, which is awarded to the single most outstanding college football player in the U.S. And he was drafted into the NFL fifth overall by the Saints.

But the contract Ricky signed with the team has been called one of the worst in NFL history. Even though he got an $8.8 million signing bonus, most of his yearly salary is based on his performance, and he doesn't live up to expectations. He's not playing great, and he's leaving a lot of money on the table.

But about a year later, Ricky is traded to the Miami Dolphins. He plays better, but he's stumbling into other problems. He tests positive for cannabis twice. And he says that he smokes to alleviate social anxiety, but it's forbidden by the NFL. And now he's facing hefty fines. And Ricky is starting to wonder, does he even want to play football anymore?

So at 27 years old, he retires from the game and he sets out on a journey of exploration. He tours Europe with Lenny Kravitz, he strolls through Tokyo at night, and he visits Bob Marley's hometown in Jamaica. It feels like the right decision until one night, a few months into his world travels, he catches an NFL game on TV.

He's in the lobby of his hostel in Chiang Mai, about to catch a tuk-tuk to go out for the night. And he later describes this moment on his podcast, Curious Questions with Ricky Williams. In this moment, I had like this, this I need to go home, like panic feeling. It was just too crazy for me that it was this little town and this little hostel that no one there even watched football. Yeah, I mean...

If I was confused about my life, I would absolutely see that as a sign that would make me go crazy. Like you're in Thailand where they don't really watch the NFL and a football game is on TV in your hotel lobby. That's crazy. Yeah. And I mean, he's also 27. That's a really young age to be retiring. And so he gets on the first flight back to the U.S. and he unretires. He's ready to get his life back on track, starting with his finances. Because here's the thing.

Ricky actually has a toddler at home with his girlfriend, Kristen. He has a family to support, and he only has a few more years of healthy playing time. And Sarah, guess who he turns to for financial help? I'm guessing it's Peggy. That's right. It's Peggy Fulford. Ricky has actually kept in touch with her ever since she redecorated his condo.

They bonded over their struggles with mental health, and they've gotten really close. Peggy actually drove Ricky and Kristen home from the hospital when they had their baby, just two months after the Cribs episode aired. Peggy even moved to Fort Lauderdale after Ricky was traded to Miami to stay close to him. She's a good friend, and Ricky thinks she can help him be smarter with his money.

So in 2007, he asks Peggy to become his business manager. He also signs over power of attorney to her, which gives her the authority to act on his behalf financially, to file taxes, open bank accounts, and transfer money. You know, I've never been in a position where I've come into extreme wealth by any means, but I truly just couldn't imagine, even if this was someone I trusted and loved with my whole heart, like just signing that

over to anyone. Like, not even because I don't trust them, but it's like, anything could happen. Like, why would I do that, you know? Yeah. Well, here's a twist. Peggy insists on not being paid. She says she's already plenty rich. She's invested well, and she married a series of wealthy men. She just wants to help a close friend build generational wealth. It must seem like the answer to Ricky's prayers. He's trusting her with his money and his future.

And he's just one of several pro athletes who are putting all their trust and their money in Peggy's hands. Around this same time, Dennis Rodman and his manager pull into the driveway of Peggy's 6,000-square-foot Fort Lauderdale mansion. It's on a street dotted with palm trees near a private country club.

The house is built on a man-made canal. It has street parking out front and boat parking in the back. It also has a private dock, a four-car garage, and of course, an elevator.

Dennis retired from the NBA seven years earlier, but he still has incredible earning power. He gets paid to DJ in San Tropez, play basketball in Japan, and appear on reality shows like The Apprentice. I sent you out. I wanted you to prove something, Dennis, but you didn't prove it. You let me down. You let yourself down. You let your team down. Dennis, you're fired. Absolutely.

But he hasn't managed his money very well. He owes a lot in back taxes, and he's a big spender. One friend remembers a time he brought $60,000 in cash to a nightclub, just, you know, in case. And according to BET's American Gangster, Dennis met Peggy through her son, Elkin, who worked as Dennis' road manager. Now, Elkin's running King Management Group with his mom. And he's hooked Dennis up with her to help Dennis manage his money —

Only Elkin apparently doesn't disclose that Peggy is his mom. He reportedly says that she's his sister. I imagine that neither of them want to shatter the illusion that Peggy's been creating, that she's a full decade younger than she really is. She lies about other things, too. She tells potential clients that she went to Harvard and had a successful career on Wall Street. Peggy welcomes Dennis and his manager inside her mansion, and she immediately talks herself up.

She says that she'll get Dennis' taxes sorted, pay off any debts he owes, and of course, help him build generational wealth. What she doesn't mention is that she's making payments for her fabulous house and her fabulous clothes and her fabulous cars using Dennis Rodman's money.

Though Peggy has married a series of wealthy men, including her current husband, an anesthesiologist, that isn't the only way she's supporting her taste for the finer things in life. She's starting to rip off her clients, transferring money from their bank accounts to shell accounts that she controls. And then she spends every single cent. Peggy's getting away with all of this by treating her clients like family. But her fabulous life is built on betrayal, and the lies are piling up.

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It's a beautiful night. Chantel remembers it as a really happy day, even after her speech was interrupted by an uninvited guest, Dennis Rodman. I'm trying to ignore him, like, no, what, no, you know, and finally I was just like, okay, he's not going to stop. He talked about Ricky for a little bit, but thanked Peggy a lot throughout the speech. Peggy has become so close with Ricky and Kristen that she insisted on hosting the reception herself.

And when the wedding is over, Peggy charges the Williamses 60 grand, which is double what the reception actually cost. Ricky and Kristen, they don't suspect a thing. They trust Peggy completely. They don't even get financial statements that show where their money is going. So with power of attorney and without any checks and balances, Peggy steals freely.

Of course, Dennis and Ricky aren't the only victims. In 2010, Travis Best gets a letter from the IRS saying his taxes haven't been paid for several years. Travis is the NBA player who co-starred in He Got Game, and he was Peggy's first client.

And when Travis gets this IRS letter, he's confused because he wired Peggy $1 million specifically to pay his taxes. He knows something is up. So after more than a decade of working with her, he decides to cut ties with Peggy. But he's embarrassed, so he keeps this chapter of his life private for a while. It isn't easy to admit when something like this happens. ♪

Meanwhile, Peggy uses her clients' money to pay for real estate in Houston, New Orleans, Oakland, and Fort Lauderdale. Plus luxury cars, designer fashion, and very fancy creams. She's finding comfort and escape in consumerism, something she's done since she was a kid. Peggy has built her career working in the background for celebrities. But now she's ready to claim the spotlight for herself. ♪

About a year after Travis fires Peggy, she's plotting the next step in her career, reality TV fame. She puts together a sizzle reel to show TV networks what a reality show based on her life would look like. In a clip from the reel, Peggy's seated on a golden yellow chaise, all done up.

And then she does what she does best. She sells herself. These guys need lots of your, you know, they're just big children with lots of money. And I bring a lot of love, I bring a lot of concern, and I bring a lot of knowledge because I do care.

Oh, my God. That is so condescending. Like, oh, these guys are just like big babies and I'm the only one who can mom them. Yeah. But here's the thing about Peggy. She knows how compelling her story is. She's a Black woman killing it in an industry dominated by white men. And her clients are household names. She suggests a title that is such a chef's kiss. The Peggy Show, of course.

The sizzle reel ends up in front of development executives at BET and VH1. BET orders a pilot of the Peggy show, but it doesn't get picked up. TV's hard, but the sizzle is a perfect encapsulation of Peggy's life at this time. All glitz, all glamour, but all on the surface. There's nothing underneath.

Even though in her pitch she swears to protect her clients against would-be scammers, the reality is she's the one robbing them. Yeah, I would love to know the mental gymnastics she did in her head to be like, you know what? Yeah, I'm taking this extra money from them, but it's actually a good thing because people would be taking more if I wasn't helping them. I mean, listen, delusion is a hell of a drug.

And Peggy has created a maternal, disciplinary attitude towards Dennis Rodman's financial management. When she opens an account under his name, she makes herself the account manager. Instead of helping him create a budget, Peggy cuts Dennis off from his own resources. She won't even let him have a debit card. Later, his friends talk about times when they'd have to buy his groceries because he didn't have the cash. And when he complains, she tells him it's for his own good.

Peggy also takes this disciplinarian attitude towards his alcohol abuse. She says his drinking just proves how much he needs her help. But meanwhile, her son Elkin reportedly joins Dennis on benders that can sometimes go on for days. And over the years, Peggy's operation grows much more complex.

She opens more than a dozen shell corporations registered in multiple states to launder her clients' money. They have names like Dennis Rodman Group LLC, Dennis Rodman Group and Associates LLC, and Dennis Rodman Inc. But Peggy's free ride can't last forever. Even her clients who see her more as family can't ignore all the red flags that she's throwing down. ♪

In 2012, Dennis Rodman is in an Orange County courtroom for a hearing to adjust his child support rate. The year before, his ex-wife had filed a declaration claiming that Dennis had missed payments and that he owed her more than half a million dollars. And Dennis's team says that was under Peggy's purview, which she's denied. It's actually been a weird couple of years for Dennis financially. One day, the electricity at his Florida condo shuts off because of unpaid bills.

Payments lapsed on his $5 million life insurance policy, and his ex-wife got calls from the doctor's office saying the premiums hadn't been paid on their children's health care plans. These were all payments that Peggy was supposed to be handling. Okay, so now it's getting to a different level of serious where, I mean, it's making Dennis Rodman to be some type of deadbeat that he's not because he's, you

you know, being told by Peggy, yeah, yeah, I'm like dealing with all this. Yeah, exactly. And in court, Dennis's lawyer is trying to demonstrate that Dennis's income is much more modest now than when the child support plan was initially put in place. The lawyer outlined some of the recent expenses listed on Dennis's American Express statement. That's one of the only financial documents Peggy provided for this hearing.

But one of the charges makes Dennis stop in his tracks. $1,000 at Victoria's Secret. Dennis knows immediately that this was definitely not one of his purchases. Dennis's agent, his lawyer, and all the people close to him have reportedly raised their concerns about Peggy. And he's defended her up until now.

But finally, he's had enough. Dennis is furious. He turns to Peggy's son, Elkin, for answers. But Elkin doesn't have any. Or at least, not any good ones. But when Dennis and Peggy finally talk, she calms him down. Dennis considers Peggy an Elkin family, and he doesn't want to just turn them away. But these unpaid bills and unusual charges are adding up. And some of Peggy's other clients are about to come face-to-face with the stone-cold reality —

that she's been living large on their dime and leaving them with nothing. In the summer of 2012, Kristen tells Chantel that she got a letter from the IRS. She and Ricky are being audited. They owe $375,000 in back taxes. And they're really confused. I mean, Peggy was supposed to take care of all of this.

Ricky retired from the NFL a few months earlier, this time for good, which means there's been a major slowdown in their cash flow, and in Peggy's too.

Chantal told us that she and Kristen got on the phone to talk it out. That was our two, three-hour conversation, and we just started going backwards with red flags, basically, you know? And his first child's mom, no child support. Where has the child support payments been? Why are you not being able to go get groceries? Why is your car being reposed? That year, Kristen was going to take her kids to school and discovered that the family car had been repossessed.

When Kristen asks Peggy about the car payments, of course, she just talks her way out of it. Here's what Chantel recalls from her conversation with Kristen. Every time Kristen would ask, it was like, oh, Kristen, let me take you to dinner. Oh, Kristen, let me take you to the mall. You know, try to get Kristen's mind off of it. So it was it was a mind playing game for sure.

But now, with these IRS letters, it's finally clear to Kristen and Chantal that Peggy is untrustworthy. Kristen calls Charles Schwab's financial services firm, where Peggy claimed to have invested millions of their dollars. And Sarah, there are no funds in their names. She calls the bank where Peggy had opened their accounts, but she's denied access. Kristen begins to realize that Peggy has been lying to them this whole time —

She starts to wonder what else Peggy has been lying about. So she asks a friend who went to Harvard to check the alumni database. And you know what? There's no record of Peggy. Oh my god, Peggy's getting caught. Peggy's getting caught. In December 2013, Kristen and Ricky sue Peggy and file a temporary restraining order against her. Their lawsuit alleges that Peggy transferred at least $6 million out of a joint account opened in Kristen and Ricky's names without their knowledge.

It also alleges that when Kristen discovered the transactions and tried to contact Peggy about them, Peggy ended all communication. Peggy's losing control of some of her closest clients and friends. And this civil lawsuit is about to draw serious media attention. And once law enforcement gets involved, Peggy's freewheeling days of spending other people's money will finally come to an end.

By early 2015, Dennis is more enmeshed with Peggy and her family than ever. Peggy's son Elkin actually went with Dennis to North Korea two years earlier to visit Kim Jong-un. Dennis had been invited to play an exhibition game and sign some autographs, something he had done countless times all over the world since his retirement.

Sarah, you can see Elkin sitting behind Dennis and Kim Jong-un in this picture from the visit. Oh my God. Okay, so this photo, you know, it's obviously Dennis and he's sitting beside Kim Jong-un and there's like a bunch of people behind. And I've seen this photo before, Sachi. Yeah. And I've always been like, I wonder who that other random Black guy is. And I never really interrogated it more because the initial image was already too much to absorb. But now that I know, it's like,

Oh my God, my mind is blown. But here's the thing. Any bonding Dennis and Elkin may have done on this trip goes sour when Dennis learns that Elkin is actually Peggy's son, not her brother, which is what he'd been led to believe this whole time. That deception crushes him. Dennis finally fires Peggy, and his lawyer sends her a letter accusing her of stealing from Dennis and of lying about graduating from Harvard.

This is big news. TMZ runs with a headline that says, Dennis Rodman brutally fires biz manager. She's a total fraud. When TMZ reaches Peggy for comment, she tells them, the whole letter is crazy and bogus. I've been with him through thick and thin. And then she calls him an alcoholic drunk.

Not long after Dennis fires Peggy, the FBI comes calling. Agent James Hawkins actually started looking into Peggy's business about two years earlier, after reading an article in the Houston Chronicle about Kristen and Ricky's lawsuit. That suit fell apart. But when Agent Hawkins starts digging into financial records, he sees potential for a criminal case. He plans to file an indictment and arrest Peggy. But first, he wants to talk to Dennis.

So he boards a flight from Houston to Fort Lauderdale. He brings a stack of financial documents to a meeting with Dennis and his team. And Dennis is quiet at the meeting, only really speaking up when he's asked any questions. Agent Hawkins says he's never seen a fraud case this complicated in 30 years at the FBI. Peggy has 85 bank accounts. He doesn't know how much money was stolen from Dennis, but he guesses it was around a million dollars.

And on December 16th, 2016, Peggy is arrested on eight counts, including money laundering, liar fraud, and mail fraud. The evidence is damning, so Peggy takes a plea deal. She pleads guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property for having transported $200,000 of a client's money from Montana to Texas. ♪

A judge sets Peggy free on a $25,000 bond to await sentencing. But Peggy's gonna Peggy. So even with jail time likely on the horizon, she goes out hunting for a new mark.

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He's a 64-year-old aerospace engineer who builds F-15 fighter jets in Saudi Arabia. He sports a well-groomed goatee, flecked with gray hairs. He has a daughter, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. And while he's back in New Orleans, he runs into an old acquaintance, Peggy. They catch up for a bit, and then Peggy makes an offer. She says she wants to get him in on a lucrative opportunity, starting an emergency room management business in Phoenix.

Ray is intrigued. Hurricane Katrina hit him hard. He basically lost everything, and he was out of work for over a year before he found a job overseas. This could be a chance to come home for good. So he gives Peggy $25,000. But when he asks for paperwork or a business plan, she says that she doesn't have it on hand.

And I have to remind you, she has pled guilty to a crime and is out on bond awaiting sentencing. This kind of takes me back to earlier in this episode where she's talking about how, like, shopping became this weird manic addiction for her, where it's like,

How could she possibly do this? She's a well-known person at this point. TMZ covered everything. That is so brazen in such an unhinged way. Yeah, Peggy's coping mechanism is scamming. And then one day, several months after this deal, Peggy just shows up at his house really shaken up. She's vague about the details, but she says that there are some legal problems with her ex-husband.

What Ray doesn't know is that there's a warrant out for Peggy's arrest. In the time since Peggy took the plea deal, she's gone missing. Peggy was supposed to have been living with her father, but he says that she hasn't lived with him for six months. Ray says that if she's done nothing wrong, it'll all get cleared up. And he even drives her from New Orleans to Houston to turn herself in.

It's only after he drops her off that Ray Googles her, and he finds out that Peggy's been accused of running a huge scam. And thanks to Ray, Peggy is back in the hands of the law, and she'll have to face her victims one last time. Travis Best sits in the back room at Peggy's sentencing hearing. It's a foggy morning in Houston with a thunderstorm looming. Travis filed a civil lawsuit against Peggy years ago, claiming that she had embezzled over $2 million from him.

But like Kristen and Ricky's suit, his was dismissed. Travis decides not to address the court at the sentencing hearing. But Kristen does. She speaks on behalf of herself and Ricky, who is now her ex-husband. And she says that Ricky's too busy to come. He had to start a second career after Peggy stole all of his money. On the stand, Kristen talks about the time Peggy posed as Ricky's wife and then filed for more than $300,000 in fraudulent tax refunds and stole the money for herself.

Peggy addresses the court, saying she accepts full responsibility for her actions. She apologizes to everyone who was hurt, and she says that she suffers from mania and that she never did anything intentionally. Things just spiraled out of control. But the U.S. attorney reveals that not only had Peggy continued scamming while out on bond, she was still using two of Dennis Rodman's bank accounts.

Peggy gets the maximum sentence that her plea agreement allows, 10 years in prison. The conservative estimate of what she stole is $5.7 million. She owes $1.3 million to Travis Best, $1.2 million to Dennis Rodman, and $3 million to Ricky Williams.

She's currently five years into her sentence in Alabama. And on her release date in 2026, she will be 67 years old. Elkin, Peggy's son and longtime business partner, was never criminally charged. And he maintains that he did not know about Peggy's fraud. And meanwhile, Peggy's victims have been working hard to earn back what they've lost. In 2021, Ricky started a cannabis company, Heisman. Like the Heisman Trophy, but H-I-G-H, do you get it?

And Ricky's also gotten big into astrology. You can actually schedule a reading from him on his website. I mean, he has to do what he has to do at this point. Like, I hope he's happy in whatever endeavor he's pursuing. How could he not be happy if he owns a cannabis company called Heisman? Yeah, that's very true. What else is there? True.

Well, Travis Best started the Travis Best Foundation, which supports young people in the Springfield, Massachusetts area. And he also got into the cannabis game. He was announced as a co-owner of a Springfield dispensary in 2021. ♪

Dennis Rodman has revisited North Korea a bunch of times, including the summit between Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump in 2018. And just last year, Dennis appeared on a reboot of The Surreal Life, where a bunch of celebrities live in a house together and argue. It's my favorite show, obviously. The second acts for these athletes have, thankfully, included many lucrative opportunities.

But Peggy's just one extreme example of how pro sports stars are especially vulnerable to shameless scammers. Sarah, did this story make you feel bad for people who make obscene amounts of money for playing sports? Yeah, it actually did. And I'm not even being sarcastic. I think it's like Peggy kind of knew that.

There's this whole thing about athletes and them not knowing how to manage their money and how they give way too much money to people. And, you know, she was here to bridge that gap. And I can guarantee they trusted her also because she was a Black woman and not some random white guy. Like, she understood the kind of stuff they went through. Yeah. There's something especially icky about the fact that

Peggy was saying to them over and over again, I'm here to help you build generational wealth. Yes.

And she was offering them a path forward. This is how you're going to be able to survive forever off of the money, the backbreaking, you know, labor that you have to do when you're 24 and that money can last until you're dead. Fully. And then she just took it. There is something also about Peggy that is just like so tragic, you know? It's not that I feel bad for her, really. And she did so many things that were so avoidable because...

Because clearly she had some sort of charm and charisma to get herself in these circles in the first place. She could have done anything else. But the fact that she just like compulsively kept doing crazier and crazier things is just like, what? Like, why are you doing this? Just stop. Like, it's over, Peggy. Yeah. And also, it seems like she really knew who to target with this scam where it's people who...

are kind of vulnerable in this way. You know, like, Dennis Rodman always had this reputation of being very hot-headed and impulsive and the crazy guy on the team. And it really seems like she was able to prey on the right types of athletes that were especially lost and vulnerable. Yeah, like, Ricky's in Chiang Mai, like, trying to figure his life out. Travis is really young. He doesn't know what he's doing. And Dennis is, like, perceived as erratic.

So if he hires someone like Peggy, it kind of gives him this patina of respectability in the public. And it is really interesting to think about how people talked about Dennis Rodman's finances and the way that he spent his money and his child support issues. Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, like I had never heard of Peggy until now. In my mind, it was just like, oh, yeah, Dennis Rodman was this crazy guy who

But, you know, there's like a whole other layer here that I didn't know about at all. And it's just like, wow, it's so easy to prey on famous people in these vulnerable positions where they're like, okay, I'm suddenly rich. Now what? Like,

It's hard and it's really sad. I feel like this bummed me out in a way I wasn't necessarily expecting. Did you learn any lessons today, Sarah? Yeah, it's that anyone who enters your life suddenly and creates this level of intimacy and then is like, you know what? You don't even need to hire me. I'm going to volunteer to be your partner.

basically right-hand person. To me, that's just like, you know, I just don't trust anyone who puts themselves in a caretaking position for someone they don't have, like, a real history with unless that's their job, you know? Mm-hmm.

I feel like I learned that my total lack of athletic ability has protected me in more ways than one. And I'm proud of the fact that I can't do anything physically ever. Maybe it's a good thing also that I've never been able to do anything athletic and also that I'll never have millions of dollars. Wow, what a relief. It honestly made me so happy to be someone with a normal income. I'm glad you found comfort today. Oh, being rich sucks. Bulletin!

This is She Got Game. 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 Opportunist podcast hosted by Hannah Smith,

Jessica Ford wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Saatchi Cole and Sarah Hagee. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary.

Our story editor and producer is Sarah Enney. Allison Weintraub and Eric Thurm are our story editors. Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock. Sound design is by Sam Ada. Fact-checking by Will Tavlin. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia.

Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Our managing producer is Matt Gant, and our senior managing producer is Tanja Thigpen. Kate Young and Olivia Richard are our series producers. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer-Beckman, and Marsha Louis for Wondery. Wondery.

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