The strange story of Barry Minkow,
conman turned fraud investigator,
who just found out he's heading back to jail.
In 2008, he targeted giant homebuilder Lennar Homes.
But the government says in that case,
he wasn't exposing fraud, he was committing it.
According to court filings,
Minkow spread false information about Lennar,
while at the same time, profiting from short sales of the company's stock,
which lost more than $400 million in value.
[man 1] Barry Minkow is just an enigma.
[man 2] Barry's a very dangerous man.
[man 3] The kid was really a genius.
[man 4] This guy will be around conning people until the end of his life.
[overlapping voices]
Barry Minkow. Barry Minkow. Barry Minkow. Barry Minkow...
[woman 1] ZZZZ Best. ZZZZ Best.
Okay, come over here.
[Lisa] He just came home one day and said, "That's it,
get everything packed up, we've got to get out of here,
we've gotta leave." He says, "I got in trouble, We gotta go."
[Barry] "Are the kids in the car, dogs,
we got everything?" "Where we going?" "Don't know."
I didn't know where we were going, nothing.
He just says, "I got in trouble,
I'm being indicted and we gotta get outta here because all the news crews
are gonna start showing up here
and I don't want you part of this, I wanna protect you from this."
He just wanted to run.
[Barry] "What do we tell the boys?"
"Nothing."
And I remember kinda getting teary-eyed and crying.
And he was just nails. He says, "What are you cry... Don't cry."
And I was like, "Oh, my gosh, what's happening?"
He said, "Don't let the kids see you cry." I'm like, "Okay."
[Barry] '"Everything gonna be all right?"
"Probably not, but we'll get through it."
It's almost like when you have to evacuate.
There's a fire or something, an evacuation, you don't know.
"What do I bring, what do I do?" And it was really surreal.
We just pulled out of our driveway and left.
He said that he was getting into some trouble with Lennar
because he caused their company to lose a lot of stock.
So I thought, "Okay, wow," you know, it's like,
"Well, I hope this thing gets cleared up
and, you know, life gets back to normal again," right?
I didn't know what the future was to hold.
I didn't know, I really didn't know.
I never in a million years thought that something like that
would ever happen again in his life.
I don't know if I was naive, or if I was just too... um, too trusting?
I never believed that you would be able to make those kind of mistakes again.
I just wanted a healthy, normal family.
I thought I had that.
We did have that.
[Barry] I preached on a Sunday and left on a Monday.
Left everybody.
I had elders at the church that were my best friends.
Had no clue I was addicted to OxyContin.
Had no clue I was living a double life.
They literally saved my life,
and what they got in return...
was 11 years later,
me escaping in the middle of the night...
betraying every one of them.
Everything I swore that I would never do again...
I was practicing.
[Scott] When Barry left,
the next day, Monday, when we came to work,
each of us had a note.
And it basically said, "I'm going to prison.
That's what you get for trying to help people out."
It had something like that in there.
"I'm sorry that you guys are gonna experience
a little hardship." That was about it, you know,
and there wasn't any kind of acknowledgement of wrongdoing, you know,
it was just kind of like, "See you later.
Stinks to be you."
It was a very difficult time.
The people were devastated.
[Barry] When I was driving from San Diego to Tennessee,
it's March, 2011,
like, almost my 14th anniversary to the day at my church,
car was full of suitcases, dogs, two kids and Lisa.
Resigned from the church, it's all over the media.
And I remember that stretch
and I just thought about Peanut and just cried.
[actor playing Peanut] Barry Minkow, you a quitter.
When things get tough, you look for shortcuts, you quit.
You quit on your family, you quit on your friends,
you quit on God.
If he was looking down, he's, like, I...
"I taught you better than that."
You know, when you're in prison,
you make promises and I'll tell you one of the promises,
"I'm never doing that again."
And at the time, you mean it.
I mean, I really meant it.
When Peanut and I were making our plans...
to pastor a church when I got out,
securities fraud, tax fraud and embezzlement were never part of it.
[Lisa] First stop was to my mom and dad's in Arizona
where they lived at the time.
And I said I've got to see my mom and dad before we go anywhere.
So we drove up there and spent the night there
and that was really emotional.
My parents kept saying, "You're strong.
You're gonna be okay. You're strong. You're strong."
You know, they were really encouraging to me.
And along the way, we'd stop at hotels
and go in the swimming pool and to the boys,
they were like six or seven, they thought it was a great time.
They didn't understand.
They just knew that Dad was going cross country with them
and that was fun.
We landed in Crossville, Tennessee.
It's... it's weird. You move into a small town
where nobody knows you, and I thought, "This is strange."
But that's what we did.
It was a really weird, confusing, hard time.
I just didn't want to be there.
I wanted to be home,
I wanted to be back with our family. I wanted to be home.
I'm sitting there saying, "Yeah, so, we're gonna take the boys,
we're gonna pack up, we're gonna move to Tennessee,
and everything's gonna be okay,
and I'm going to jail, and... your husband's a crook."
[Lisa] When he went to get indicted,
he was sentenced to Lexington, Kentucky,
and I realized he'd want us close enough to come visit.
[news anchor] In March, Minkow agreed to plead guilty
to a single count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud
to avoid what could have been a 30-year federal prison sentence.
Thursday, a federal judge sentenced him to five years
and recommended drug rehabilitation for his OxyContin addiction.
He must cooperate with authorities,
still investigating his business dealings.
He must also pay Lennar
more than half a billion dollars in restitution,
which his attorney concedes is not likely to happen.
When I went to get sentenced for Lennar, I was a first-time offender
because 16 years had passed since as the ZZZZ Best case,
and under federal law, if you go 15 clean, you're clean.
So, I was a first-time offender.
Lisa knew I'd get five years,
but I'd only have to do 30 months
because I had the drug program and good time.
I'm just getting off OxyContin
because this was looming in on me.
So I went from OxyContin to morphine
and then I went from morphine to Vicodin,
and then Vicodin to nothing, that's how I stopped.
[Lisa] One day he turned himself in, and really was very distant.
I mean, I'm sure it was very painful for him too,
like, "Wow, here I go, you know,
I'm leaving my family behind, who knows what's gonna happen?"
And he just left.
The boys were eight years old,
seven or eight years old, they were young.
I just wanted everything still to be okay,
even though everything was not okay,
I was trying to act like everything--
I was just the world's greatest kind of actor.
And as long as they had their mom,
as long as they were with me,
they were gonna be okay, 'cause I was gonna take care of 'em.
I was gonna... We were gonna be okay.
Barry went back to prison for a second time.
This was the Lennar stuff.
And while he's in prison,
apparently the FBI is investigating his church.
When Barry's gone, he's unable to control.
Him and Shannon, who was Barry's first secretary...
[interviewer] Did Shannon work for Fraud Discovery Institute?
She worked for both,
which was wrong, I mean, she was double dipping.
But Shannon went running after Barry when Barry was gone.
She packed up and moved
to move out closer to where he was.
All of a sudden, information starts becoming available
because he's not there to control it.
Documentation in the mail that was previously being stolen,
phone calls that are now being answered by one of us instead of by them.
Why are we getting a credit card for $50,000?
And here's another one for $40,000,
and this says Lloyd
or this says so and so, or...
What's this bank statement to the church?
So, all of a sudden,
all these things just began to be made known.
The FBI came and said, "We want to talk about
what you know about Barry
and we wanna know about Shannon."
They had all kinds of questions,
and so they wanted access to all of our records.
It just unraveled for him.
They told me Barry had been taking money
from the very beginning of when he got here.
From the very day he came here,
he looked at it as a front
where he could have very little supervision
or any authority over him.
And being the senior pastor as well as the CEO of the corporation,
he could have free rein and do whatever he wanted.
He used the congregation, the people,
he developed relationships with people
so that he can benefit himself in the long run.
[interviewer] So, let me get this right, this is what Barry was doing,
he was opening credit cards in people's names without knowing about it?
That's correct.
[interviewer] Right, he was borrowing money against the building illegally?
[man] That is absolutely correct.
[interviewer] He broke in and staged a robbery?
[Scott] That's correct.
[interviewer] He was taking advantage as a pastor
and going round getting money out of grieving families?
That's correct.
[interviewer] He was using the church money, up to $3 million,
to fund a movie about his life, about his redemption?
Yeah.
If you hired me, I can promise you one thing
that no one will work harder for no other reason
than out of gratitude
for being given the opportunity
to pastor such a great church.
I believe he started, like, taking money from a lady
whose wealthy husband had died,
and she worked at the church,
and, like, he pleaded with her, like,
"I have to finish this movie, we're too far in now.
If it all falls apart, it's all for nothing,
all these people's money are lost,
and we can't let that happen, God can't let that happen,
you can't let that happen."
[news anchor] In 2009, she says Minkow came to her house
and asked for $150,000 loan to help finish a movie about his life.
[Mary] Since he was known and it was the pastor,
I felt I could trust him.
Mary says she eventually gave Minkow
almost $300,000, mostly from her home equity line of credit
for various business ventures.
He gave her promissory notes and checks that turned out to be worthless.
Now she could lose her house.
It's so important for you to prove to the world
that you're a good person,
that you do all these bad things that end up proving that you're a bad person.
He can't help himself. He just can't.
That's typical of what Barry had done
to many people in the church.
I would have liked to have seen some remorse and restitution,
uh, an apology to the people that he hurt.
Have I missed anything?
Um...
There was a member of the church,
his wife had died from cancer.
There was a fairly large life insurance policy.
And he goes, "I wanna do something that honors my wife.
Something that remembers her life, something that helps people."
And so Barry said, "I can help you with that."
And so what he did was he took $150,000, I believe.
He said that he was going to open a children's hospital
over in Africa
to help children with AIDS.
He said, to this gentleman,
"The hospital's built, here is a picture of it,
this wing is named after your wife."
Well, it turned out that all that was false
and that he had stolen the money.
He's a fraud detective.
[Scott] The level of trust that's violated
in a situation like that...
not only affects them personally,
but it affects them in a way where they don't want to trust anybody else ever again.
He wrote a letter to the elders,
and he said, and I'm quoting, "You knew what I was when you hired me."
So, no remorse, no guilt, no anything.
Still to this day, there's people that won't
darken the door of a church because of his actions.
Yeah.
Looking back, it sounds crazy,
but at the time, I really didn't think it was so bad.
[Scott] When Barry left in 2011,
the church had about $17 left in the bank,
and it was hemorrhaging money.
Of the 700 people there was maybe... pfft, I don't know,
3 left.
We made a pretty major remodel
to address some of the... [sighs]
...the features of the buildings
so it would give people a fresh start.
Wouldn't have things that reminded them of the Barry days, so to speak.
We wanted to remove anything that people had a strong association to
that prevented them from having an enjoyable
church experience with us on the weekend.
And so, that included everything
from repainting to the carpet, to the floors
to the lighting.
It makes you angry, it makes you feel ashamed
that somebody would use God for their own selfish gain.
Barry used what God intended for good,
Barry used for his own personal evil.
And that's the ultimate prostitution, I suppose.
I have no excuses for that. None at all.
'Cause it didn't happen overnight, it wasn't like I went from, you know,
pastor preaching on Sundays to insider trading,
tax fraud, embezzlement,
fraud uncovering and drugs.
That happened slowly, and it's before I knew it.
I was the old Barry.
It became a lifestyle.
And always with the excuse that, "Well, I'm uncovering fraud,
the church is growing, we're expanding.
Nobody's getting hurt, it's all good.
Come on, man!
This is worse than a return of ZZZZ Best Barry
because I knew better.
I knew it ended up nowhere.
I knew I was gonna get found out eventually.
I had been through all those games
of I can do it, cover up, and lost.
What kind of idiot does it again
expecting a different result?
So, it's 2012,
I'm in prison because of the Lennar thing.
And my prayer is that the church doesn't come after me.
And my lawyers say, "Listen,
they just busted you for a $500 million insider trading case,
they don't care about $3 million at some church.
Don't worry about it, you're fine."
I was supposed to go home within months of when I got the church.
Then I got five more years.
[news anchor] At his sentencing, he declined to speak
and kept his head down as victims read emotional statements
about how their lives are forever changed.
[Lisa] I have to be honest,
I really had resentment for that church after a while
because when this whole thing went down,
we were going through such hardship and they didn't care.
I'm sure the chatter was,
"Oh, she had to have known, she had to have known." And I really didn't.
There are hundreds of people here
who have been really hurt by what Barry did.
They see Lisa as a person who was living a much better lifestyle
than any of them have
at their expense.
They don't see Lisa as apologizing
for her role in anything, they don't see Lisa as
one who is a victim, she's maybe playing a victim now.
I was told by friends that they held a big meeting at the church
and told everybody in the congregation to stay away from Barry
and to stay away from Lisa and the kids.
That's what I was told. They said, "Stay away from them."
And I thought, "Wow, really?"
Like, suddenly we're the... You know, we're evil.
So, there's huge things the elder board didn't know about.
There's huge things the accounting firm that did our books didn't know about.
There's huge things that people responsible for doing due diligence
on me and the church, didn't know about.
Certainly, Lisa, who wasn't even there when any of it was happening,
wouldn't know about it at all, of course not.
[Scott] Clearly, she enjoyed the lifestyle of the money that he was taking.
You've got to look at the life that you're living
and the places that you're going and the cars that you're driving
and know that that's not coming from a pastor's bank account.
I just... I feel guilty because I feel like if I would have known something,
I would have said something.
The government has said she's a victim,
she wasn't a part of the conspiracy,
she's an innocent spouse.
So let me just briefly say,
she absolutely should have been...
they should have come alongside and helped her, but they shunned her.
We think it would be disrespectful to the people of the church
to give away their last few dollars
to the wife of the person who stole their money
and may put their church out of business.
She had two boys that were eight.
She was the victim of me, just like they were.
And then it just went downhill from there.
I really don't want to get into this.
This is a can of worms that I... I mean, do you wanna go into this?
As it turns out, Barry was having an affair
with the secretary.
[Lisa] Now, he moved her out and her family out to Tennessee, too,
lived in the same town.
That's kind of twisted, I mean, if you would agree?
It's a little twisted.
But I don't know what his mindset was.
-I'd rather not say her name, but it's... -[Interviewer] Okay.
[interviewer] What was her name?
-Do you remember? -Shannon.
He was really good at manipulating women.
I mean, he really knew how to take advantage of them emotionally.
[Lisa] Her name was Shannon.
She was his personal assistant
at church and also with his businesses.
[interviewer] And how long were they having an affair for?
I don't know if I really wanna get into that
because I don't wanna hurt families.
Because I'm sure, after all this time,
I don't even know what her husband knows,
if he knows anything or if he just kind of, like,
buried his head and kept moving in his life, I don't know.
He got a boob job for her because he didn't want to be seen
with a girl without big boobs.
And then he told her husband, "You're gonna like what happened."
Not the... not the affair part, but the boob part.
It's kind of weird, huh?
[Barry] So, the... the... the issue is,
when you're in the middle of doing something wrong,
those consequences get cropped out. [chuckles]
You know what I mean, you just see the fun.
It's pleasure on credit, right? So...
The affair was evil and horrible because there were several victims.
Her husband, the woman, and her family and her husband,
and then my family and my children.
Their family moved with us to Tennessee, that's correct.
It was just, like, "I wanna go with you,"
and they were tired of San Diego,
and they were all up for moving,
the husband was involved in approving that decision as well.
I knew I was going to jail.
So it wasn't like I was having her there
so that we could have this life together on the side.
I was going to jail.
This family liked my family and it would appear they were going to help them,
so it was very pragmatic.
[interviewer] So, Shannon, she testified against Barry as well, right?
She did. I think it was part of a... a... maybe it was a plea...
plea argue... agreement or something.
She did testify.
I was the only one they wanted.
No resentment about that at all.
If I didn't want them to go to the grand jury,
I shouldn't have done crime in the first place, right?
So I'm not tripping.
[Scott] I think she was very concerned,
the last few times that I saw her
of her culpability with Barry.
I think she's remorseful over it.
You know, in all honesty, I think Shannon realized that she was used,
and I think in that, in that sense, she was used and was a victim,
even though she was a perpetrator with a lot of these things.
I think those were very tough years for Lisa,
and I think that, um,
she didn't have a clear understanding
of why Barry would have an affair with this woman.
Lisa's perception was, "Well, what's the matter with me?"
It was embarrassing. I looked like a fool.
I really did. I looked like a fool.
I never thought that my husband,
a pastor, a man of God,
would do something like that to me.
The way I saw it was, there's never enough attention for Barry.
It had nothing to do with Lisa,
and I think it's very difficult for Barry
to acknowledge the pain that that caused.
He's not at all emotionally intelligent.
It's a weight on her still.
[Lisa] I was mad. "How dare you, God, let this happen to me?"
You're not a bad person.
You're a good person, you're a good wife, you're a great mother,
you don't deserve this.
Just, it's very... it's painful.
It's really... It's just...
Especially when you've given him, like, no reason.
Like, why?
There's no reason.
Why would you do that to me on top of everything else?
That was the nail in the coffin, you know.
[Barry] Lisa takes the boys, we're not talking.
She moved back to L.A. Every call is, "I hate you."
March, I find out Lisa's gonna divorce me.
[Lisa] When he finally admitted to the stuff that he was doing,
I said, "You know what, I can't live like this.
I can't be married to a man like that.
I can't. I can't do this." So I divorced him.
[Sheri] When he heard that Lisa was divorcing him,
it was really very painful for him.
Very painful for him.
[Barry] When you're in prison
and you're not talking to your kids,
and you're done... and your wife files for divorce,
as one great author once said,
"It's like dying with your eyes open."
You hear this,
you can see it in your imagination,
and you can do nothing about it.
Brutal.
I thought, "Oh, my gosh, I haven't worked in years,"
'cause I was home with the kids and everything, I'm a stay-at-home mom.
"What am I going to do now?
How am I even going to make enough money to take care of them?
What am I gonna do?"
[Barry] When I went to prison,
I had financially prepared for her to survive,
and it was only a help for a couple of years
'cause I had a five year sentence, I would be out.
Then San Diego came and I got another five years, so...
You can survive two years, eight's a whole different story.
So, yeah, the money runs out.
And I'm just telling you, it was brutal, those times.
[Lisa] I lost everything. I lost hope, I was angry all the time,
I just... I was just a recluse, I didn't want to do anything.
I drank just to kinda... Every time something would come up again,
I didn't want to think about it. I mean, I just wanted it to go away.
I wanted the pain to stop.
[Sheri] Lisa was not doing well.
It got to where she wasn't able to care for the twins.
They were getting a little bit out of hand.
I mean, they were neglected horribly by Barry
when he was there, but even when Lisa had them, they were horribly neglected.
You know, they weren't doing well in school,
I mean, they couldn't read, they couldn't do basic math.
They were pretty much doing whatever they wanted to do after school,
and they had friends over, and they would get in a fight
and they'd throw stuff at each other.
I was drinking, I mean, those big huge liter things.
I don't know how much they are, necessarily,
but they're big, and I would go through that and couple of days.
That's a lot.
So I went over one night,
and, um...
picked 'em up, brought 'em home,
said, "You guys are now staying with us. You have a new life."
[Lisa] When they went to live with Sheri,
I didn't have anything left.
I felt like everything... [voice quivers]
I'm going to cry again.
I felt like everything was gone.
After a couple of years, we'd had them for a couple of years by then,
we did an intervention on her where we all sat down
with, you know, like, a therapist type person,
and the kids read letters to her about her behavior
and how it's affected their lives.
[Lisa] It was so heartbreaking.
And I thought, "They're so young to sit here
and have to write this about their mom."
They cried, they're, like, "Mom, I just want you to be okay,
I want you to be better."
You know, "You deserve better, Mom,"
When I sink to hearing that, it's, like, "Man, I let you guys down."
So... It's shameful.
The least I could have done is kept it together.
I couldn't.
I just wasn't strong enough, I thought I was.
I wasn't.
Sheri made sure I got the help I needed.
She said, "Lisa, you've got to go to in-patient."
I said, "I can't leave, I can't, I've got a job, I can't."
And she said, "You gotta, you have to, you don't have a choice."
She went in treatment the next day and stayed for six months.
And she's been sober ever since then.
She's a very remarkable story, Lisa,
and I think she doesn't get a lot of credit
because she's behind Barry all the time, you know.
But she's really a wonderful person.
[Barry] She went through a period in her life
and let me see you do any better if you were dealt the Barry Minkow card.
It was very hard on Lisa.
And I made it that way, so I certainly have compassion
on the consequences of what occurred based on my decisions.
One time, the boys and her came to visit.
I hadn't seen my kids in two years.
And Dylan, the last time I remember him, he was, like, eight or nine,
now he's, like, 11 or 12.
I mean, we are in a visiting room, it's crowded...
He leans in...
and I grabbed his hand,
and he looked at me with those big eyes
and said, "Dad...
why did you do this?"
I said to him that, um, "Son...
there is no excuse nor answer for why I did what I did.
I am so sorry for devastating your life.
And it caused great pain to your brother and your mother,
and I couldn't be more sorry and I'm going to make it up to you.
We're going to be a family again.
No matter what."
[Barry] This is Lisa at our wedding,
-and you see the low-cut boobs there. -God, I can't!
-I just can't! -She looks beautiful as always.
Lisa doesn't age, that's the problem, me, um,
-as soon as my face cleared up my hair fell out... -[Lisa laughs]
But Lisa, Lisa, she is beautiful,
-and gets prettier every year, don't you, babe? -Oh, yeah.
[interviewer] How did you manage to convince Lisa
to take you back, like, you put her through all this?
Oh, I defrauded her, what else would I do? She wouldn't get a...
No, of course, I'm kidding, don't print that.
This is something that people said would never happen.
-Yeah, yeah. -That God brought us back together.
There's hope that despite prison, despite divorce,
-despite my evil lifestyle... -Mmm-hmm.
...God brought us back together, this is kinda a miracle moment for us.
-Yeah, for sure. -That we were able to get back together.
Nobody... Listen, I had people come visit me and say,
-"You and Lisa are never getting back together again." -Yeah. Yeah.
-Remember that? -Yes, well, I...
I didn't think that either.
And then, um, yeah, that's great, so...
[Barry] So, when I got out, December of '18,
and knowing that I was going back into this marriage and this relationship,
I knew one thing to restore trust,
never have to... have her ask a question about where I was.
I don't go out with friends at night, I don't go to movies,
I don't go to bars, I don't go to clubs. I don't do any of that.
I'm in bed by 7:00, 7.30, get up with the boys, work out.
Uh, very predictable, my schedule.
And that brings trust.
She always knows, everybody knows where I'm at. All the time.
There's never a hole in my schedule.
There's never anything going on that she's not aware of.
That has slowly rebuilt trust.
And there's still more to rebuild.
He was much more softer around the edges,
he was much easier to talk to and he seemed like he was the guy that I...
that he's supposed to be. This is the Barry that I loved,
this is the man that I married.
Jail gave him redemption and healing and restoration,
and it gave me restoration, healing, forgiveness and our family.
And then we were remarried in November of 2019,
and we're a family again.
Which is a miracle!
Let's go, baby.
Let's do this.
Come on, don't look at the camera, you just keep walking.
[Robert] I haven't been in a long time.
Excited, though, it's nice to be back.
Look who I've brought today.
-What's up, man? -What's up, brother? How are you doing, man?
-Good to see you again. -Good to see you.
Where's my sound? Have we got a boom?
We're gonna do the...
[man] Yeah, we got it. You ready?
[Barry] Number one goal when I got out of prison...
was restore the family.
I had a window of opportunity while I was out
and she was in rehab, to care for the boys, to parent the boys,
I had a limited amount of time and I had one opportunity to make that happen.
Nice try, Dad.
[Barry] I left my kids when they were eight,
and I came back when they were in ninth grade.
So it's been hard to parent out of guilt.
That'll keep you running the right way.
Don't let Dylan have a better stomach than you.
I'll try not to.
Good, I've got you, son. Are you ready?
Stop and down, just like you used to.
There you go, big dog, breathe, there you go, son.
Attaboy.
Stronger than you thought, aren't you?
He likes it a lot, and I like it, you know, he trains me all the time.
He motivates me and my brother, you know,
he is such a hard worker and I just, like, admire that about him, you know.
[Barry] Yeah, I want them to work hard. I hate lazy, so...
-[Robert] Yeah. -And he ain't lazy.
He's got his own clothing line.
It's not ZZZZ Best clothing line, but we're working on that.
-It's, yeah... -We're gonna change the name, we're gonna take it public.
-Yeah. -He doesn't even know what public means.
-I'll have him in jail before he knows it. -[Robert laughs nervously]
And when he doesn't show up for work,
I say, "Son, I was committing felonies
when I was your age, what's wrong with you?
You're 18, I had, like, three felonies already when I was 18,
what's wrong with you? You and your brother?"
[Sheri] He is now a parent,
and when you're a parent, you don't get to be selfish.
And he's never really been a parent to these kids.
I have to laugh, because he talks, like,
you know, like, he'll call me up and he's, like,
"These kids are killing me." I'm just, like, "Welcome to parenthood."
[Lisa] We're all still a work in progress.
You come to a point where you really grow
and you learn how to deal with things differently.
Our relationship is much better than it was in our first marriage.
Yeah, yeah, it's actually better,
we're better than we were
when we first met and got married.
She overcame, courageously, everything.
She hasn't had a drink in years and doing great,
-and we call her the glue. -[chuckles softly]
-The rudder. -She's the glue.
No, you made up rudder, I didn't say rudder.
My friend told me that, she told me, she says, "You're like the rudder."
-That's not a good analogy. -Meaning steering the ship, it's like the anchor.
-The glue, you hold us all together. -Okay, same thing.
What's not coming across is do you love your husband, or not?
I do love my husband, or I wouldn't have married you again.
Well, you're not really, like--
-Well-- -I'm not feeling it, hon,
I'm not feeling it.
He's so needy. Also. So needy.
I'm not feeling it, I'm hearing a lot of bitterness.
No, there's no bitterness, there really isn't,
there's no bitterness anymore. No.
[Barry] She is the unsung hero, in my opinion,
in this story.
By hook and by crook, she held everything together, by God's grace, and...
[interviewer] I'm also beginning to feel like she could be...
have been the biggest victim in all these...
There's no question in my mind.
-How's your life with your husband right now? -[Lisa] It's good.
-Is there anybody for you out there other than-- -No.
You're probably not gonna want to put this on,
but that's why I was saying early on,
are you gonna be interviewing Lisa without Barry?
Because Lisa with Barry, is Barry controlling what she says.
-You did good. -Thank you, hon.
It's good. Tell your story, it's great.
[Barry] Guys...
[claps]
...can we go?
Hi, guys.
How are you doing? All right, all right.
-Good morning. Good morning. Hi, sweetheart. -[woman] Good morning.
Good morning, guys. Morning, morning.
I see you hiding over there.
My girl.
Morning, guys.
So, this is our main shelter in here.
We house about 50 to 80 in here.
Great people.
We got showers,
meals, comfortable place to live,
but this is our lowest entry,
so if we have somebody on the street,
we could pull them right here immediately and get them help.
When I got out of prison,
the more free time...
the more my mind wanders to do things that perhaps I ought not to do...
whether that would be in my private life or in overt crime.
In prison, I trained others exercise,
helped them in their diet, mentored them spiritually.
The key to me was others. If I could just think about others,
then I can do well because I'm not thinking about me.
I can't believe that Barry is helping the homeless now. You see!
He's found a group that the media will target
and they will interview Barry.
This is just the step of redeeming himself
and becoming an idol
to somebody in the media once again.
When I come into a place like this, I'm looking at everybody and thinking,
"I've done ten times more evil than anybody in here,
and I have a place to live and they don't, so, to balance the scales,
I think there's a lot I could do to help people that are here.
Man, you can use the back seat, man.
Come on, man, load up.
We gotta load up.
Thank you for being here. Love you, too, man.
Appreciate you, love you.
Call me later.
Or tomorrow after church, call me after church.
[dog barking]
[car horn honks]
[Barry] So, these are bigger waters.
-Yeah. -Those are alkaline ones, those are better.
-Way better. -They're better for you.
[laughs]
-Now, remember, I've got another encampment to feed. -[woman] Bueno.
Okay, so we're straightening him out with his broken leg, right?
-You gonna get help? -[woman] Yeah.
You gonna call me if you need anything?
[Scott] I don't think he cares for the homeless people,
but I think he sees it as an opportunity.
Some well-meaning person
with resources will see it on the news and go, "Oh, I'd like to help out."
And that's how it starts.
Hey, guys, Hope Of The Valley. water and food, here you go.
Good to see you guys.
You guys all right?
Love you guys.
Hey, my man. I got water and food for you, okay?
All right. All right. Good to see you, man.
Hey, do you need a new cane?
[man] Yeah.
[Barry] Can you show me the cane?
[Barry] And then you need a new one
and I'll get you one.
It'll end up the same as every other thing he's done.
Manipulation of lives for the sake of financial gain.
[pastor] I'm privileged to introduce
this morning's speaker.
And I'm excited of what God's going to continue to do in his life.
I see him every single Sunday morning
with his boys right next to him, him and his wife
and I want you to give a great big welcome, amen,
-to Brother Barry Minkow. -[applause]
[cheering]
So, I'm in prison, it's FCI Englewood.
One day there was this football game
I was quarterback, I know it's hard to believe,
but they used to call me Barry Bradshaw.
I'm just kidding.
At the end of the first half,
there was this guy called Shotgun. That was his name.
I can't believe that he's preaching again. Unbelievable!
Unbelievable.
But I believe it, at the same time.
[Scott] The Bible makes it very clear
that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
And while people would say that Barry is a good theologian,
I would say that Satan's a good theologian, but he's the devil still.
You know them by their action and you know them by what drives them,
and Barry is not driven by love for people,
Barry is driven by a desire for fame and a desire for money.
[Barry] Peanut came over and he goes,
"Let me tell you something, Barry, at ZZZZ Best, you quit.
You took shortcuts, your whole life
is one, big, repetitive quitting.
And you have to have a time in your life, a point,
where it stops."
And I learned a valuable lesson...
not to quit when things get tough.
[Barry] The biggest victim out of everything I've done,
let's be very clear about this,
if I may... Number one, it would be Lisa and the boys, right?
But, you know, a close second is the church.
The church elder board, the church leadership,
the church that was there for me.
And then you have
my sisters on that rung as well, both of them.
Being Barry Minkow brother wasn't easy,
but my sisters have showed unconditional love
through every dark moment in my life,
and I couldn't be more grateful for them.
It's been a long road of hurt with Barry,
but the way that I was raised, you stick by your family, your family's your family.
You know, it doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything they do,
but you're there for them
and you don't turn against them, no matter what.
[Barry] Jeri Carr, wonderful lady,
did a great job, totally innocent.
Never knew anything was wrong with ZZZZ Best or me.
[Jeri] I had to totally leave a profession that I loved
because I was so blatantly blamed for,
quote-unquote, "Lying about the truth about Barry."
For me, it wasn't monetary.
He stripped me of a whole life.
That it actually destroyed a part of who I am.
[interviewer] The Swansons?
Clearly, they had a bad experience and...
somebody hit them while they were at ZZZZ Best.
That's not good. I mean, it happened 30 years ago,
hopefully, they've gotten over it by now.
But I sure would like to apologize to them.
Can I write them a note or something?
She's got a folder on you like this...
Snaking it in America, there you go.
Yeah, most do, most do.
But, I mean, it was a credit card deal,
she wasn't a ZZZZ Best stockholder or anything.
She lost... You know, she got her money back.
[interviewer] What about Mark Morze? Is Mark Morze a victim?
Mark did not tell you he was a victim?
[interviewer] Yes, he did tell me he was a victim.
[Mark] The short answer is, yeah, I wish I'd never met him.
Something biographically, I grew up extremely poor.
My dad died before I remember him
and my life was memories of growing up in Detroit, Michigan,
with no heat, no electricity, no telephone, no television, no car.
We were poor. Real poor.
And so when millions of dollars
were dangled in front of my face,
I got introduced to a world because of the money I was making from Barry.
I was being treated like a king.
It was an exciting time, it was thrilling,
but the minute things got bad, Barry just looked out for number one.
[Jonathan] I don't think he gets a shot
at committing another illegal con on a grand scale.
And the reason is because of this.
It is impossible for the facts of this story to not prove his guilt.
And showing people that this man isn't contrite, he's fake, he's a conman.
He always will be.
What I think is different now, is that Barry's willing to be accountable.
Before, he was not accountable to anybody, thank you, "And I'm not going to be."
You know, he was still the end all, be all.
And this time when he's gotten out,
I don't see him scrambling around
trying to find opportunities where he's the center of attention.
Isn't this amazing, how many people have been
touched by one person
because there is something inside of Barry
that pulls something inside of each and every one of us,
that wants to believe the good.
We all wanna believe the happy endings.
I've met some really bad people over my life.
Barry has got to be close to the top.
I don't believe for one second that Barry has changed.
[interviewer] Barry also told us that he's in the process
of paying everyone back.
Well, the church has never received a penny from Barry.
There's no possible way he can pay anybody back.
He doesn't have enough lifetimes to do that.
[Barry] You know what,
I think there's something wrong with me.
So people like me have to be keenly aware
that we have the propensity
to press the self-destruct button.
And, for me, success, I could have never handled.
Even if I just made it past,
I would have figured out another way to fail,
lie, cheat, steal.
Does that make sense?
The yin and yang of Barry Minkow.
Then again, it's a story.
It's a story that I can't wait to see the ending of.
So I have to live longer.