(NC) Loomis Fargo Heist: Couple charged with snatching $1.3 million of infamous haul to be in Charlotte court today
WyrdWoman
Loomis figures go to trial
Couple charged with snatching $1.3 million of infamous haul to be in
Charlotte court today
By AILEEN SOPER
A couple charged with swiping $1.3million taken in the original 1997
Loomis, Fargo & Co. heist and using it to bankroll a swanky new life in
Colorado go on trial today in a Charlotte courtroom.
Jody Calloway, 32, and his wife, Jennifer, 28, are accused of plundering
cash his half-sister and others stashed in a Lincoln County storage locker
four days after the $17million Loomis score - the second-largest cash
heist in U.S. history.
The Calloways, indicted last year on charges of receiving stolen funds and
money laundering, could face decades in federal prison if convicted in
U.S. District Court. Both are free on bond.
The trial is the latest twist in the outlandish tale of greed and bungling
that ended in the convictions of 21 people who helped steal and launder
the $17million. The $1.3million the Calloways are charged with taking
represents the last significant sum of money missing from the heist.
Prosecutors are expected to call heist mastermind Steve Chambers to
testify about how he squirreled away millions of dollars in a locker
rented at Lincolnton Self Storage.
Chambers, now serving an 11-year federal prison sentence, is staying at
the Mecklenburg County Jail so he can testify in the Calloways' trial.
Prosecutors are expected to emphasize how the Calloways moved from a small
apartment in Charlotte to a $212,000 house in Littleton, Colo., just
months after the money vanished from the storage locker.
A grand jury has indicted the pair for continuing to launder the missing
money - using it to live on and buy cars, a boat and other items - through
June of this year.
Other government witnesses could include Jody Calloway's half-sister, Amy
Grant, and mother, Kathy Grigg, who gave statements to the FBI implicating
the Calloways in the storage locker theft.
Grant was convicted of money laundering and spent nearly a year in prison.
She was working as an FBI informant when she arranged to meet her
half-brother in Denver, Colo., on Aug. 31, 2000.
During the meeting, Calloway denied any involvement, records show.
Grigg, 50, of Maiden is slated to stand trial next month on a charge of
receiving stolen funds. She told the FBI her son gave her $28,000 of the
Loomis loot in 1998 after he confessed to taking the money from the
locker, court documents say.
Grigg's lawyer, seeking to stop her from incriminating herself, has asked
a judge to keep prosecutors from calling her as a witness or allowing the
jury to hear her statements to the FBI.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Whisler declined comment.
Jody Calloway's court-appointed lawyer, Chuck Morgan, said the couple
obtained their property legitimately, through a combination of hard work,
inheritance and savings. "He is looking forward to his trial," Morgan
said. "He is looking forward to being exonerated."
Jennifer Calloway's lawyer, Larry Hewitt, did not return calls.
The couple, who had their first child in May, moved into a two-story brick
and aqua-trimmed house in Littleton, Colo., in January 1998. In March, the
FBI seized the following from the couple:
Their house, plus documents, receipts, photos, financial statements and a
computer.
A power boat and boat trailer.
A 1998 Ford Explorer, 1996 Chevy Tahoe and 1977 Harley Davidson
motorcycle.
A bank account containing $42,000, more than $3,000 in cash and money
orders and a $2 bill collection.
At the time of her arrest last year, Jennifer Calloway was working at a
wireless phone company, in Denver, Colo., making $2,500 a month. Her
husband was unemployed, records show.
Grigg and Grant were initially interviewed in August 2000 by an
investigator for Amsec International, a global risk management company
trying to locate the rest of the missing $17 million. Amsec was working on
behalf of Lloyds of London, insurance underwriters of the stolen money.
The Amsec investigator tipped off the FBI to what he'd learned about the
storage locker theft, and an agent then interviewed Grigg, leading to the
arrests of her, her son and daughter-in-law.
In a hand-written statement to the FBI, Grigg spoke of visiting her son in
Colorado the summer of 1998:
"My son was under very heavy stress which lead to confessing to me, his
mother, that he had taken money from storage," she wrote. "Later, to find
out it was Loomis Fargo money, it was beginning to eat him up."
Grigg also wrote she was sorry for taking the $28,000 from her son: "This
whole situation has swallowed us up," she said.
In 1999, Chambers pleaded guilty to charges including bank larceny,
conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering.
He is expected to tell jurors how he planned the heist and traded his
Gaston County mobile home for a $635,000 house atop Cramer Mountain in
Gaston County.
The original heist investigation unfolded Oct. 4, 1997, when David Scott
Ghantt, a Loomis employee, was caught on videotape loading $17million from
a vault in a Loomis warehouse in Charlotte into a van. Authorities located
the van two days later near the Gaston County line. Inside, agents found
$3.3million, along with two videos that recorded Ghantt during the theft.