by Bill Evans
Lisa began her story about attending her first meeting.
“I arrived at the Hyatt Hotel in Palm Springs at 6:50. I was able to walk right into the room after giving the name provided for me. The person at the door simply checked my name off the list.”
Tom’s source had told him the name of someone who would be on the list but had agreed not to attend the meeting.
“I walked into the large meeting room where there were already three hundred plus people. Motivational music was playing over a loudspeaker. Music that set a tone of excitement, like the theme from Rocky or an Elvis concert. No one tried to talk to me. People were standing and clapping. It kind of reminded me of one of the church services I attended in the South—a revival meeting. By the time the meeting started, another hundred people were in the room.”
“Lisa, did you know anyone at the meeting?” Detective DiSanto asked.
Her partner jumped in. “Lisa is brand new to the valley. She’s only been in the desert four or five days. Isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.” Lisa looked around the conference table. “I arrived a few days ago. I really don’t know anyone.”
“Lisa, did you see anyone pay any money that night to participate?”
“God yes!” she exclaimed. “Maybe half the room went forward to put money into the Gift Exchange. It was amazing to watch. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get very close because there were so many people.”
“How did they keep track of the money?” Detective Barnes wondered.
“There were charts. There must have been five or six charts at the front of the room. Every time someone put money in, their name was written down. They were constantly updating the charts and paying the money out as fast as it was coming in. At least in the beginning, that’s how it was.” Lisa was composed as she described the scene.
“What do you mean ‘in the beginning’?” Jack asked.
“It was interesting to watch. When the first group of people was rushing to get their names on the list and paying their money, there, on the other side of the stage, a lot of the money was being paid out, and those people at the top of the lists receiving money were celebrating. Then, at a certain point, when the donors slowed way down, a panic seemed to set in. It was like the people who hadn’t gotten their money back were getting worried. Some of the leaders took to the microphone to reassure people that not everyone would get to the pay levels in one night. Then they announced the dates and times of upcoming meetings. They did this to assure everyone who put their money up at the end that the next meeting would be their opportunity to get to the payout levels.”
The detectives were very pleased that Lisa recalled such fine detail. These meetings weren’t even on their radar until the TV3 live truck blew up. Now every law enforcement agency in Riverside County was going to be looking into the Ponzi scheme reported by TV3.
The interview in the conference room lasted a little over an hour. Jack and Lisa walked out of the room together.
“Lisa, follow me to my office. You handled yourself very well in there. I want to give you this story to run with. It wasn’t fair, I know, that we pulled you off the earlier story after you did so much groundwork on it. We couldn’t take the chance that someone might see you before the meeting you went to.”
“Mr. Router, I understand, really.”
“I want you to do the story in first person tonight. I want you to tell your story from the standpoint of being undercover, and then give your eyewitness account. Are you up for doing this?” Jack Router had another reason for showcasing his new reporter this way. He believed it would immediately put her on the map in the market. For him, it was all about more viewers and ratings.
“I’ll do a great job, I promise.”
“I know you will. Spend the day putting your script together. Get with someone in the newsroom who can help you with editing your piece. Then let’s get together around four to review where you are.”
Lisa could barely contain her excitement. “Thanks, boss. I won’t let you down.”
“You better not.”
***
Lisa worked on the story all day. She already had the footage from her undercover work. As part of her story, she wanted to cover the police investigation. She decided to turn the tables on Detective Barnes, the investigator who interviewed her earlier. She arranged to interview him on the steps of the Palm Springs Police Department. He wasn’t excited about the idea, but police policy was to be as accessible to the press as possible. This was especially true when the television station was the news story.
“Where are you right now in your investigation?” Lisa didn’t like to mince words.
“Our department, along with the FBI and the sheriff’s office, are working together to solve this as soon as possible.”
“Why is the FBI involved?” Lisa asked.
“Television stations are regulated by the FCC, the Federal Communication Commission. When a crime of this nature is committed against a TV station, it is considered a federal crime.”
“And the police investigation has concluded that this is a crime and not an accident?” The TV station had already reported this as a crime, but Lisa wanted confirmation on tape.
“What we know right now is that the TV3 live truck was blown up by a bomb-like device. The explosion killed someone, so this is being treated as a murder and not just a bombing.”
“Any leads at this point?” Lisa asked.
“At this time, I can’t comment on whether we have leads in this case.”
Lisa shut off the microphone and signaled her cameraman to turn off the camera. She thanked Detective Barnes. Her next stop was to speak to Tom Preston in the hospital. The main anchor and the catalyst for the story had not talked to anyone. It was still his story in his mind, even though he was the story.
Tom lay in his hospital bed with tubes and wires attached to his body. The blast had damaged the hearing in his left ear and given him some internal bruising. He could speak, and he seemed stronger. Lisa thought it would be a better visual to interview him in his hospital bed. Against the advice of his doctors, Tom agreed to the interview to make sure he was attached to this story.
The camera was rolling.
“I’m with Tom Preston, who remains hospitalized after being injured from the blast that blew up the TV3 live truck. Tom, first off, the station has received so many well wishes for your quick recovery. How are you doing?”
“I’d like to thank our TV3 viewers for all their well wishes. I’m doing okay. The doctors think I might be able to go home tomorrow. I’m hoping to be back at work next week.”
Lisa took note of how much Tom perked up when he saw the camera’s red light. Always the performer, she thought.
“Do you have any idea what happened?” Lisa was sure that Tom had told the story a thousand times, but she wanted him to answer the question for the viewers. Lisa was a natural reporter with great instincts.
“I didn’t know at the time. It happened so fast. I’ve since learned that a bomb went off and it was attached to our live truck.”
“Any thoughts as to why someone did this?”
“I have no idea, except”—Tom paused dramatically—”maybe someone knew that I was going to name names of those involved in this giant Ponzi scheme.”
“Some might ask, What is the big deal about this story? After all, it is just a pyramid scheme.”
Tom thought this was the perfect question to allow him to explain the whole story.
“This story is not just about a simple pyramid scheme. It is about well-respected community leaders who influenced hundreds of people to invest their hard-earned money for a quick payoff. The problem is that the bottom layers of the pyramid lose a lot of money.”
Tom thought a little longer and then looked directly into the camera. “The real story is about what responsibility community leaders have when they get involved in something they know is illegal. This is really the crime here. These leaders should have known bett
er. And they did, but then their own personal greed took over.”
Lisa had everything she needed for her first piece. This would not be a typical eighty-second lead story in tonight’s news lineup. This story would be over six minutes. Jack knew exactly what he was doing giving Lisa this lead. The grizzled news director was going to launch her broadcast career in a very big way.
That night, Lisa grabbed the attention of everyone watching the local news at six and eleven and again the next morning. The story, combined with her stunning beauty, garnered lots of praise. Jack had a new star in his newsroom.
***
The police investigation would be slow and tedious. The lab had reassembled as much of the TV3 vehicle as they possibly could under the circumstances. The perpetrators had known what they were doing. Tom returned to the anchor desk the following week. While the investigation continued, life at TV3 went on.
Over the next several months, Lisa worked hard to hone her TV skills. Her looks and personality won over the socialites of the Palm Springs community. A lot of unemployed actors who had “retired” in Palm Springs welcomed the new beauty as they tried to relive their movie star days. Lisa became inundated with invitations to great parties. She was as much a socialite as TV reporter and on the fast track as a local media personality.
She had arrived in Palm Springs.
5
TELEVISION STATIONS THE size of the Palm Springs ABC station usually had a sales structure that comprised a local sales manager, national sales manager, a national sales assistant and a local sales assistant, and then, of course, the sales team. News Channel 3, or TV3, was no different.
Ross Mitchell was the local sales manager for TV3. He recently joined the team after spending his early broadcast career in radio. Dick Thomas recruited Ross after losing his local sales manager to Los Angeles. Ross was a handsome thirty-year-old who loved broadcasting. It was all he had ever done. He was also considered a player. Dick liked this about him because it allowed Dick to live vicariously through this young kid’s exploits.
Ross drove his five-person sales department hard. He wanted every advertising dollar he could find and would be cutthroat to get it, even if that meant making lowball, dirty deals to steal the money away from his NBC competitor.
Ross was well liked by both the business and the social community in the Coachella Valley. The single girls at the station considered him a catch. He played that part well, but only because it helped him get things done as quickly as possible. Ross kept a secret that no one knew, but his secret was the reason he loved working and living in the Coachella Valley.
Steve Draper was the national sales manager. He came out of Los Angeles, where he had worked the agency side of the business for one of the big owner-operated stations—the O&Os. O&Os included the three major networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—and the stations that they owned and managed. In 1986, FOX was not a network yet.
Steve was forced out of his job in Los Angeles after a car accident. The sales manager at the Los Angeles station wasn’t willing to support his account executive through the recovery. There were too many dollars at stake and no guarantees that Steve would return at full strength. To say Steve was bitter was an understatement. He felt his career was stolen from him. He was forty-two and at one time was on the fast track for a network position. The cutthroat culture of a big-market television station robbed him of what he believed would be an incredible career.
Palm Springs was a pretty good place to recover and rebuild or finish out your career. Steve had his father to thank for the opportunity. John Draper knew Stewart Simpson very well. John called Simpson, who in turn reached out to Dick Thomas at TV3 in Palm Springs. Simpson didn’t promise anything, and he resented the request, but it didn’t matter; in the end he told Dick Thomas about Steve Draper, and Dick took that to mean that Simpson wanted him to hire the guy. That was not the case, but before the general manager understood that, it was too late. Dick Thomas didn’t realize it then, but that move to hire Steve Draper probably cost him his job later down the road.
Steve Draper turned out to be a dubious hire. He was very good at what he did with national sales, but he was not a team player by any means, and he wasn’t a nice guy. And Steve couldn’t stay focused for more than a couple of hours at a time. He joined the ABC station within a month of Ross Mitchell joining the team. The two would become rivals—both personally and professionally.
The day that Lisa Addelson walked into the station, the games between Ross Mitchell and Steve Draper began. Neither one of the sales managers knew how far out of their league she was, but that wouldn’t keep them from trying. Lisa never wasted her time on small fish. Lisa was star material. To her, the world was a giant aquarium and she wasn’t interested in anything but whales. Ross and Steve were not whale material. Those two were more like the food that whales ate and then shit out.
***
Frank Bogert was the mayor of Palm Springs. He had been mayor for a long time and would continue to be mayor until Sonny Bono showed up and launched his political career. Palm Springs had become a mecca for Hollywood. Palm Springs Life magazine was the big monthly society magazine that everyone tried to get their picture in. It was what Palm Springs was all about. Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and former president Gerald Ford all called the desert home. Lisa Addelson fit right in with this crowd, riding her newfound celebrity as a crack local reporter. The crowd just didn’t know it yet. That was about to change.
Her story on the pyramid scheme provided her with some instant notoriety. She continued to chase new stories while she stayed on top of the police investigation into the bombing. It seemed to her that this was a very slow process.
In the meantime, Lisa Addelson was making her mark on the Palm Springs television market.
***
One afternoon, Lisa pulled up to parallel park in front of Nicolino’s, a popular deli in Palm Springs. She struggled with the angles—or at least that’s how she made it look to a driver standing next to his car. Lisa pulled the car forward and tried backing up again. The onlooker in chauffer attire giggled watching this beautiful girl struggle to do something that came so naturally to him. Having mercy on the young woman, he waved at her to stop and got into his car to pull it forward enough to make her parking easier.
Lisa got out of her car, red-faced, and walked up to her new friend. “Thank you, sir. You saved me”—a little pause—“and maybe your car as well.”
The two laughed and extended hands to greet each other. “I’m Lisa Addelson. Thank you again for being so kind.”
“Ms. Addelson, I’m George, and it was my pleasure to be at your service.”
As the two ended their handshake a familiar face came out of the deli.
“George, who do we have here?”
“Mr. S, this is Lisa Addelson.”
“Lisa. You’re the new reporter on TV3.”
Lisa was shocked that Frank Sinatra knew who she was. She had planned this meeting for a long time, never knowing when it would take place. She certainly didn’t count on Frank Sinatra knowing who she was.
“Mr. Sinatra, it is a pleasure to meet you. George has been very gracious to help me park my car.” Lisa didn’t let on how big a deal this was to her. Or how planned this meeting was.
“That’s good, or I’d have to have him rubbed out.” Sinatra winked at Lisa. He was always joking about his supposed mob connections and tough-guy media portrayal. Lisa smiled. She could play this cat-and-mouse game as well as anyone.
“Say, why don’t you come by my house tonight? Barbara and I are having some people over and it’ll be fun. Come by around seven.”
Sinatra climbed into the car. George gave Lisa a thumbs-up before settling behind the wheel. Lisa turned and walked into Nicolino’s Deli. Once the Sinatra car drove away, Lisa came back out and got into her car and drove off. She had accomplished her goal. Now she had a party to get ready for.
***
Lisa drove up to the double gates on Frank Sinatra
Drive at ten after seven. She didn’t want to seem anxious by showing up exactly on time. The gate opened electronically after Lisa gave her name on the intercom. Lisa drove up the driveway. The Sinatra house was full of music, laughter, lots of celebrities that Lisa recognized and some she didn’t.
“Lisa Addelson, it’s nice to have you here. Say hi to my wife, Barbara.” And with that, Frank Sinatra introduced the valley’s newest news talent.
Barbara Sinatra was a beautiful woman and a very gracious host. “I loved what you did on the pet adoption story. That is so close to Frank and me and I thought it was a great piece.”
“Her investigative story on the pyramid scheme I think was some of the best work I’ve seen in this market,” added Sinatra.
Lisa was surprised at how much the Sinatras seemed to know about her work.
“Come with me and we’ll get you a drink.” Barbara and Lisa walked into the living room and over to one of the waitresses holding a tray of wine glasses with red and white. Lisa took the white, hoping it was chardonnay.
“Let me introduce you to someone. You probably already know him. Stewart, this Lisa Addelson. I believe she works for you.” Barbara winked at Stewart Simpson and walked away.
Lisa hadn’t expected this surprise—to meet the owner of her station. She had done her homework and knew about Simpson’s wealth, his broadcast company, his conglomerate of worldwide companies, and his affection for beautiful young females. She didn’t expect to meet him outside the station setting, and she didn’t expect him to be as good-looking as he was. There was a twenty-seven-year age difference, but Lisa found herself attracted to him almost instantly.
“Mr. Simpson, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Lisa, I’ve heard a lot about you. You are even more beautiful in person than you are on the TV. So, tell me, how do you like my TV station so far? Better yet, how do you like being in the news business?” Stewart Simpson was very intrigued by his newest reporter.