Nancy Guthrie's Ransom Hoaxer Sentenced To WHAT?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Robin Drake** (0:17)
Moving on to Nancy Guthrie once again, because there's so much chaos that continues to surround this case and around these ransom notes. So while Nancy Guthrie is still missing after six months, one criminal case has actually closed recently, and it's not about her disappearance. A California man pleaded guilty to sending her family fake ransom texts demanding Bitcoin, milking a grieving family's worst hours for a sick game with nobody on the other end.
Retired Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer will hopefully join us again because she's been- She's back. Ah, Jen, I'm doing your intro. We are bouncing to Nancy Guthrie and talking about the ransom notes, talking about the California guy who just pleaded guilty for sending the family fake ransom texts. And so, Jennifer is joining us to talk about what this actually means and what a five-year probation offer of torment and family mid-search has actually- what's that cause for the investigation, to the family and everything else. And so, Jen, welcome back again. What do you make of this conviction?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (1:15)
Well, the conviction isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is the plea deal.
And the plea deal to plead him down to only a harassment charge, which is only punishable in the federal system by two years, this particular charge. And then to plead him down, at least the plea agreement, unless he messes up, it's going to stand, is a five-year probation. And they're stacked on top of each other. So it's not 10 years, it's only five years for both counts. And I think it's a travesty. I really do because it sets a precedent in this case, a case where so many others are doing this exact same activity as TMZ as well pointed out.

**Robin Drake** (1:57)
Yeah. So what does this do to the investigators? So here the investigators, they're still doggedly going after this, trying to flush out every little last miniscule of whatever leads they do have. And then you have this thing come around, and you have someone who's created noise and a drain of resources, personnel and investigative tools, techniques, and things you're working on, is nothing but a fraud. And so then they're not even punished to the full extent they can be. What does this do to the investigators' morale? What's it do to other leads come in? What's the overall impact?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (2:29)
Well, it's a huge impact because if I'm looking at this from the FBI's point of view, and I guarantee those agents that worked on that are so irritated. I've been in those shoes so many times where you put the case together, and then you have the prosecutor's office decide, listen, we're going to get our two convictions and we're going to move along. This is white collar. This is a situation where it's not violent.
He didn't threaten anyone, right? You just ask for Bitcoin. When you look at all that, I'm just trying to present both sides of the pancake. That's the lawyer side, but the agent side is saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, why are we spending likely hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to figure out who sent those, I call them the TMZ Twelve, the Twelve extortion notes, if they're going to get probation? Because now the judge has set the precedent and it's going to be the same jurisdiction. They could get a different federal judge, but it's a mess.

**Robin Drake** (3:36)
So how do you think they were able to do this as fast on this one guy?
When you look at Porch Guy, and granted, a lot of people, including yourself, think there's other people involved that might have three marbles rolling around upstairs, not just one of the Porch Guy. What made them be able to trace this guy down so fast and not actually one of the legit ones, if there are any legit ones, because I want to get into that as well. Where do we stand on all these notes? Because it feels like every day there's... Matter of fact, I got a timestamp. Everything I'm seeing coming across the news feeds, because I don't know which is the most current on whatever we're sending these notes. But to my first question, how do you think they were able to track this one down so fast and nothing else?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (4:19)
Well, this was an easy, no-brainer case. Kaleela, he is not a bright bulb. He decided to use his devices that directly go to him, and he flanked the messages by messages that would only be made by him, and he used a voice VoIPA to make it, and then it transitioned to text. So he basically made the most simple roadmap for any agent to be able to quickly put together this case.