Made a Killin', Was Chillin' Like a Villain, Now He Be Fulfillin' Some Jail Time
Made a Killin', Was Chillin' Like a Villain, Now He Be Fulfillin' Some Jail Time
Florida Piss-Scammer Is a Case Study on How Not To Flee by Boat
Thomas R. Stanley II, 54, ran a racket in Florida that billed insurers $141 million for medically unnecessary urine tests. When he got caught, he tried to flee to Venezuela with his 29-year-old girlfriend on a comic-book catamaran named Chillin Like a Villain. Bounty hunters ran him down in the Bahamas.
This is the story of Stanley’s brief and buffoonish career as a fugitive, and how a couple of bail recovery agents, Patrick Zeigler and Carlos Sevilla, tracked him to the place in the Exumas where even swindlers can swim with the pigs.
“His hubris was his undoing…If he was in any other white catamaran on the water, he would have been a lot harder to figure out. He went out wrapped with that ‘Chillin Like a Villain’ and made it really easy to identify him,” Zeigler said, referring to the boat’s over-the-top hull decal.
First, the latest news: In April, Stanley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in state prison. At around the same time, federal authorities persuaded Stanley’s girlfriend, Lauren Williams, to surrender proceeds from the sale of Chillin. As it happened, Stanley had been ordered to repay ill-gotten gains from a previous scheme, unrelated to the jail time.
In May 2021, a federal judge ordered Stanley to pay a “disgorgement obligation” of more than $8 million for having cheated investors though a series of LLC’s that purchased rundown apartment complexes (among other things) during the years 2009-2014.
Stanley was operating out of Illinois when the federal Securities Exchange Commission first came after him, but by 2015 he was living in Florida, where all good grifters go for a second chance. In this case, it was a urine racket.
In a sworn statement, a state investigator explained how Stanley and a business partner made insane profits through their company, Coastal Laboratories of Lake Park. Here’s what Mark Berey told a federal court about Stanley’s “patient brokering” crimes committed in 2017 to 2019:
I was focused on some allegations that some toxicology labs were paying kickbacks to addiction treatment centers to get their urinalysis business; and that was because, at the time, insurance companies were paying up to several thousand dollars for every cup of urine that was tested and billed to insurance. So toxicology labs were paying, in some cases, up to $400 per urine cup to a treatment center in order to get their business. In other cases, they are paying a percentages of revenue collected from insurance companies.
Stanley was charged with 53 counts of patient brokering and seven counts of conspiracy.
READ ABOUT IT: Thomas Stanley II was part of a criminal phenomenon known as the “Florida Shuffle.”
Bail was set at $270,000, and guaranteed by Milano Bail Bonds of Fort Pierce. There was talk of an agreement that would let Stanley plead guilty and serve three years in prison. Instead, he failed to show for a court hearing on June 7, 2021.
Milano Bail Bonds now had six months to return Stanley to the legal system, or it would have pay the full bail amount to the court. Clock ticking, Patrick Zeigler of Milano went into action. First, he called Stanley’s family. “They were fairly uncooperative. They acted like they didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “They lied to us on several occassions about his whereabouts.”
Hmm, He Has a Boat
Zeigler learned that Stanley had a boat. Bimini was the closest international port to South Florida, so he asked contacts there to make some inquiries. They checked the marinas and learned that Stanley had cleared into the Bahamas there on May 31, a week before his court date.
Stanley had made quite an impression, even though it was under the name Thomas Miguel Magallon, holder of a Spanish passport.
“We talked to a dock guy in Bimini who said, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that guy. He’s on a boat called Chillin Like a Villain. It’s a catamaran, and he’s got it loaded down. It’s wrapped. You can’t miss it’,” Zeigler said.
“So I started searching and found a company in Ft. Pierce that had posted photos that they were doing a wrap on a catamaran, a full vinyl decal. Sure enough, it’s called Chillin Like a Villain, and it’s full of all these villainous movie characters. So now we knew what we were looking for.”
(For those who haven’t been paying attention to advertising technology, a “wrap” is a full-size vehicle decal, usually used to promote a business. It’s a computer-generated illustration customized to the shape of a car or vessel.)
The Bimini dock guy had also supplied information about a young woman with Stanley, who was later identified as Lauren Williams, 29.
Zeigler decided to enlist fellow bail bondsman Carlos Sevilla, a proven tracker who had recently helped bring back a Milano client that had skipped to Mexico. Sevilla was confident the mistress would be the key to catching Stanley. “We never chase who we’re looking for. We look for who they’re with,” Sevilla said.
Stanley was no savvy mariner. He needed all the help he could get. Wearing a red bikini in her profile picture, Williams began asking for advice from various Facebook cruiser groups.
Sevilla decided to give her some of the help she needed. He employed a fictitious Facebook identity named Charles Monteiro. “The Facebook character I made was an expert boater who was giving her advice about getting into Cuba and things like that,” Sevilla said.
Through her questions, Williams inadvertently disclosed Plan A: Cruise down the Bahamian archipelago, cross down to the Dominican Republic and then spend a month or so at the Banister Hotel and Yacht Club in Samana Bay. From there they would cross to Venezuela, which has an extradition treaty with the U.S. that it chooses not to enforce.
It turned out that some of Stanley’s family were heading down to Samana to meet the boat. Zeigler and Sevilla were following them. Tipped off by Milano, the U.S. Marshal’s Service was there too with Dominican cops. They were all waiting for its scheduled arrival, but Chillin was a no-show.
Thorny Path
Chillin had reached as far as the northern tip of Long Island in the Bahamas, when she was turned around.
After Long Island, the 350-mile transit to the North Coast of the Dominican Republic is a lonely one, requiring overnight passages and—except for the Turks & Caicos Bank—lacking the easy anchorages of the Exumas. Chillin’s way forward would have been against the inexorable trade winds, waves and current. That’s why sailors have long called that stretch “the thorny path to windward.”
Williams’ helpful Facebook friend was able to elicit that Stanley had formulated a Plan B. Her questions had shifted in focus. She wanted to know about getting into Cuba. Sevilla believes that Stanley had come to doubt that his skills as a mariner, and Cuba was looking like a better option—maybe Cuba, then Venezuela
A tropical depression had formed in the Caribbean, later to become Hurricane Elsa. Like most boats in the Southwest North Atlantic, Chillin had hunkered down waiting for the storm to pass. The question was: hunkered down where?
By then, the inquisitive Sevilla had been tutored in passagemaking. Captains were telling him that Long Island marked the starting line for the thorny path. He had to start searching somewhere, so Sevilla decided to fly into tiny Cape Santa Maria airport. He struck up a conversation with a local cab driver there, telling the guy that he was looking for his uncle on Chillin. When the cabbie said he remembered the boat—of course, he did—the hunt was on.
Sevilla guessed that Stanley had decided to backtrack. On July 1, he chartered another plane and from Long Island headed back up the Exuma chain, checking out the anchorages. The pilot, of course, knew them all.
Swimming Pigs
Google “Exumas,” and the first listing reads, “Home to Bahamas World-Famous Swimming Pigs.” The reference is to Big Major’s Spot, an island whose features have come to be called Pig Beach and Pig Bay. Bahamians from the settlement at nearby Staniel Cay have a long tradition of dropping off some pigs there as a tourist attraction. Hungry swimming hogs greet arriving boaters, who feed and fatten them for an inevitable fate outside of selfie range.
Pig Bay is a nice, easy anchorage. It’s a dinghy ride to Staniel Cay and the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, where the next barstool over is sometimes occupied by Nicholas Cage or Johnny Depp.
Wrapped in dark vinyl, Chillin was easy to spot, even from the air. A month had passed since Chillin had cleared into the Bahamas, three weeks since Stanley had missed his court date. And Sevilla had hit paydirt.
Quickly landing at the Staniel Cay airstrip, Sevilla immediately went to the waterfront where he hired a boat and skipper to ferry him, luggage and all, over to Big Major’s and around the corner into Pig Bay. His aerial observations were confirmed. “Chillin Like a Villain,” Sevilla said, and his Bahamian skipper laughed. It’s on the surveillance video.
He kept a watch on Chillin from the underbrush on the beach, and when Stanley and Williams got into their dinghy for a trip to shore, he followed them. They went into the Pink Store at Staniel and then to the Yacht Club bar.
Yacht Club Banter
There was an empty barstool next to the fugitive couple, so Sevilla sat down. The three engaged in small talk. Sevilla thought it surreal.
“I’m not used to seeing someone I’m after and not being able to grab them,” Sevilla said. “He was just saying he was there on vacation with his wife. Small talk, nothing really serious. I actually would have thought he was a pretty nice guy…She was bubbly. She was really talkative. She was talking to everyone, bouncing around in her bikini. She was really enjoying the whole Bahamian thing. He was more serious. It took him a while to open up.”
Meanwhile, Zeigler was back in Florida trying to get the U.S. Marshals to mobilize a team to travel to Staniel Cay and make the arrest. The Marshals balked. They were content to wait until the pair reached the Dominican Republic as they had initially planned.
“And then we say: ‘He’s not going there. They’ve changed their plans. Here are the posts on Facebook saying where he’s actually going. He’s trying to get to Cuba and from there to Venezuela. He’s not going to the Dominican. We’re wasting time, and we’re going to miss him,” Zeigler said.
“They didn’t want to believe us. So the owner here, John Milano, took the pictures that Carlos sent and sent them off to the Marshal’s Service and said, ‘This is where he’s at right now.’ They asked when the pictures were taken. John said, ‘about five minutes ago.’ Then they finally decided it was worth their time to get involved,” he said.
The next day was July 2. The posse arrived at Staniel—U.S. and Bahamian law enforcement. They raced over to Big Major’s Spot in a big RIB, while Sevilla followed in the hired skiff. Police let Sevilla board Chillin with them. A search revealed a small arsenal of undeclared firearms, undeclared cash and Stanley’s false passport. Sevilla took pictures.
The Bahamians turned Stanley over to the Marshals, and he was quickly returned to the U.S. He’s now serving his prison sentence. Williams is back to working as a nanny, and, according to federal officials, she has cooperated by turning over cash from the Stanley bank accounts to which she was a signatory to satisfy the earlier federal judgment against her boyfriend.
Williams was asked to comment for this article via Facebook Messenger but did not reply.
Lessons
Some lessons for future fugitives are obvious: Don’t make your boat unforgetable by tricking it out like a Miami disco; don’t telegraph your escape plans to the world over Facebook, and consider hiring a professional captain to get you quickly and covertly to your destination.
The other lesson, Thomas R. Stanley II, may be a little less obvious. If you’ve got $5 million stashed in offshore accounts and crypto currency, why not repay the few hundred thou you owe the bail bondsman? Chump change, right? But it would keep guys like Sevilla and Zeigler out of the hunt. And nobody wanted you caught as badly as they did.
..."having cheated investors though a series of LLC’s that purchased rundown apartment complexes (among other things) during the years 2009-2014."
I was one of those investors in this Ponzi scheme. I lost close to $100K, and I was the smallest investor. I was the first one in the investment group to question what might be wrong with our investment, and got a lot of pushback from several of the other investors. To this day, there are still some in that group who think he's a great guy. I was able to rally most of the investors to convince them that something was very wrong, and we sued him. We got the SEC involved and eventually the DOJ.
Unbelievably slick.
What cartoon villains are on his Catamaran? I can make out Joker & Harley Quinn but can’t the rest ?