Episode Transcript
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This episode of Swindled may contain
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graphic descriptions or audio recordings of
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disturbing events which may not be
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suitable for all audiences listen to.
0:57
Discretion is advised. But
1:00
the real high instability is down
1:02
here over Nebraska. That's why there
1:04
is a particularly dangerous tornado Watch
1:06
parts out for parts of Asia
1:08
Nebraska and that is where the
1:10
Stanton. Tornado are the tornado near stand
1:12
to Nebraska is and at very. Unstable
1:15
air so watch out. That storm has plenty
1:17
of years to work with and will likely
1:19
be ongoing for a while to com. A
1:23
cluster of storms formed over Eastern
1:25
Nebraska just after noon on Monday,
1:27
June sixteenth. Twenty fourteen, A warm
1:29
front followed closely behind the black
1:32
clouds that it just rained hell
1:34
upon the big cities. The.
1:36
Cool air in the warm
1:38
air eventually collided, swirling together
1:40
creating a massive rotating supercell.
1:43
The. That meteorologists that the National
1:45
Weather Service questioning the accuracy
1:47
of their instruments. At
1:50
three thirty eight Pm. A. Tornado
1:52
watch turned into a tornado warning:
1:54
a small funnel cloud touchdown and
1:57
an open field just east of
1:59
Madison. an EF-Zebra on the
2:01
Enhanced Fujita Scale, which means no
2:03
damage and wind speeds that did
2:05
not exceed 85 miles per
2:08
hour. Even more pathetic
2:10
is that the tornado, if you
2:12
even want to call it that, only lasted two
2:14
minutes. But as we all know,
2:17
it's never wise to taunt Mother
2:19
Nature. This warning here,
2:21
and they continue to be
2:24
a threat as we head throughout the
2:26
rest of this afternoon. Now the good
2:28
news is, this is generally rural farmland,
2:30
but again with the farms, you do
2:32
have farm houses without buildings, but right
2:34
now no reports of major damage. Two
2:37
minutes later, another tornado dropped
2:40
as the storm rode towards Stanton
2:42
County. It was a huge one
2:44
that rumbled across the highway toward a group
2:46
of farms. Three houses were
2:48
flattened down to the basement. Cars
2:51
were launched a quarter of a mile through the
2:53
air. Luckily, no one was
2:55
hurt. But there were
2:57
near misses. Darren Schneider was
2:59
fishing at the lake when the storm
3:01
roared by. He told 81 seconds
3:04
author Lorraine M. Topp that
3:06
he took cover under a bridge and held onto
3:08
one of the pillars for dear life. From
3:11
his vantage point, he could see telephone
3:13
poles, uprooted trees, and his fishing equipment
3:15
whizzing by him. It was
3:17
huge, he said of the tornado. It
3:20
was brown with circulating debris. I
3:22
got so scared and said, God
3:25
help me. It
3:28
was an EF4 tornado, 400 yards
3:31
wide, with 200 mile per
3:33
hour winds. It was on the
3:35
ground for almost half an hour and traveled over
3:37
12 miles, and the storm was
3:39
just getting started. Over
3:42
that massive tornado completely dissipated, at
3:45
4pm on the dot, another
3:47
massive tornado touched down east of
3:49
the town of Stanton. Another
3:51
EF4 traveling northeast, picking up
3:53
strength and speed along the
3:56
way, heading directly for
3:58
the small village of Pillow. Augur.
4:00
Population: Three hundred fifty years right
4:02
here. And that's the old tornado
4:04
that moved to the northwest. The said
4:07
in there is a new one developing.
4:09
Right out in here are very large
4:11
and pulled in circulation just to the
4:13
south. West of Boulder, Nebraska,
4:16
just. For
4:18
sixteen pm, the five hundred yard
4:20
wide monster was entering the village.
4:23
On it's way on the Pilger
4:25
sand and gravel pit on the
4:27
outskirts. Transformed was schooler. When.
4:29
The feedlots don't buy the Dinklage family.
4:31
Where the hell's the seventy five thousand
4:33
and cow were in? It's direct path.
4:36
Helpless in the fields, cattle
4:39
were pelted with pieces of
4:41
syncing irrigation systems and various
4:43
machinery the lucky ones killed.
4:49
Next, the tornado cruised down
4:51
Pilgrims First and Main Streets
4:53
parade float. And eighty
4:55
one seconds, Seventy percent of the
4:57
entire village was destroyed. Workers
5:00
at the Farmers Co op reportedly had
5:02
in the safe while the green been
5:04
surrounding them exploded resulting in a corn
5:07
and soybeans shower from the heavens. Next
5:10
door at Pilger Store, half a
5:12
dozen people, including a Fedex delivery
5:14
driver hidden the dairy cooler as
5:16
the building around them was torn
5:19
apart and evenly distributed across the
5:21
countryside. Around the Corner
5:23
and Mid West Bank, the banks president
5:25
Jean Willers locked eight people in a
5:28
vault. They would be safe there. Was
5:31
a prepaid cell phone and pre
5:33
drilled Ehrhoff winning a result of
5:35
the Nineteen Ninety robbery or several
5:37
employees were forced and side. Will.
5:40
He said he did not spend the vault style just
5:42
in case it was of the someone else to set
5:45
them free. Any hidden the tide
5:47
crawl space underneath the bank of the
5:49
violent tornado wiped from the landscape. cross
5:52
the street from the banks and a
5:55
trailer home it was occupied by candy
5:57
murphy and are young daughters five year
5:59
old cali dicks and three-year-old Robin Dixon.
6:02
The family, including Candy's oldest son Cody,
6:04
who was not home at the time,
6:06
had moved to Pilger from Alabama four
6:09
months earlier. A
6:11
trailer home is not the ideal place
6:13
to ride out in EF-4 tornado. Candy
6:16
realized this and made a run for the
6:18
bank across the street with Callie, Robin, and
6:21
their dog Turbo in tow. It
6:23
was too late. The unforgiving winds
6:25
sent Candy and Callie flying 50
6:27
feet through the air. Three-year-old
6:30
Robin sheltered between the legs of a
6:32
corn dryer as debris whipped around her.
6:35
The EF-4 tornado finished off the
6:37
business district before making quick work
6:39
of the adjacent residential neighborhood. Only
6:42
slabs were left in its wake. On
6:45
its way out, the tornado destroyed the middle
6:47
school and the St. John's Lutheran Church for
6:49
good measure. The village of
6:51
Pilger would never be the same.
6:54
Fire Chief Cory Comus is where the
6:56
fire station once stood. Everything was just
6:58
destroyed. I mean, it's like he
7:00
came in here and just blew the whole town up, literally. I
7:02
mean, he had stuff everywhere. As
7:05
the tornado rambled through the fields
7:07
northeast of Pilger, a second tornado
7:09
spawned two miles southeast of the village.
7:13
Twins are not uncommon occurrences and
7:15
massive supercells like the one that
7:17
terrorized Nebraska that day. But
7:19
typically, there's one powerful tornado and
7:22
one weaker tornado. But this was
7:24
different. This was a
7:26
rare phenomenon. The Pilger
7:29
Tornadoes Twin, also proved to
7:31
be an EF-4. Luckily,
7:33
it avoided the already devastated village
7:35
and traveled parallel to its sibling
7:37
for several miles until
7:39
the two tornadoes were about
7:41
one mile apart, even eventually
7:43
crossing paths, swapping places across
7:45
Highway 275, and an eerily
7:47
beautiful victory dance. I
7:50
highly recommend checking out severe weather
7:52
documentarian Pecus Hinks' Day of the
7:54
Twins video on YouTube. If
7:56
you need a fresh reminder of your
7:58
insignificance on this video, Earth. Unfortunately,
8:02
a 74-year-old Army veteran and
8:04
delivery driver from Clarkson, Nebraska,
8:07
experienced the terror firsthand. David
8:10
Hurrout was fleeing east from the
8:12
Pilgr tornado on Highway 275
8:15
when its twin tornado cut off its path. David's
8:18
car was launched off the road into a
8:20
nearby field. His lifeless body
8:22
was later discovered by a passerby. By 4.45
8:26
pm, the twins had vanished. Fortunately,
8:30
the second born did not cause nearly
8:32
as much damage as its older sibling,
8:35
although one especially blessed family's
8:37
home was hit by both.
8:40
The storm continued on for hours, producing
8:43
a total of six tornadoes in
8:45
Nebraska alone that day, including
8:47
another EF4 near the town
8:49
of Wakefield, 28 miles north
8:52
of Pilgr. Rare,
8:54
awesome, and terrifying. A storm
8:56
powerful enough to generate twin
8:58
tornadoes, dangerous enough to kill
9:00
at least one person. Pilgr
9:03
is pretty much a ghost town, but
9:05
then again it's not even that considering
9:07
there's no buildings left to abandon. Most
9:09
of the town looks like what you
9:12
see behind me here, reduced to rubble.
9:15
City Hall is gone, fire department is
9:17
destroyed, public libraries
9:19
have been damaged. It's
9:21
total devastation. Total devastation.
9:25
When the sky lightened and the winds died
9:27
down, the Pilgrites crawled out
9:29
of basements, faults, and coolers to
9:32
find an unrecognizable village. It
9:34
smelled like propane, which was leaking
9:36
from damaged tanks, but mostly, all
9:39
was quiet and calm, except for the
9:41
calls and responses from separated loved ones.
9:45
It's estimated that 75% of
9:47
the village of Pilgr was damaged, 40%
9:50
of the homes were destroyed, almost
9:52
100% of the homes were mutilated in
9:55
some form or fashion. No
9:57
more school, no church, no government.
10:00
administrative building, no electricity,
10:03
no trees. One could now see
10:05
from one side of the 193 acre village to
10:08
the other without the slightest impediment.
10:11
It was like God dragged two fingernails
10:13
across the land. One man
10:16
told the Norfolk Daily News. Unfortunately,
10:18
some of the animals were
10:21
killed and we're gonna take
10:23
care of those. We have a veterinarian out here. We're
10:25
taking care of these deceased animals
10:28
in the most humane way. In
10:34
the most humane way we can. Search
10:36
and rescue missions comprised the
10:38
immediate moments after the disaster.
10:41
But amazingly, besides the cattle, there
10:43
were a few injuries, less
10:45
than two dozen. None of
10:47
them critical. Only four people
10:50
were required to stay at the nearby
10:52
hospitals overnight. Not like
10:54
they have homes to return to anyway. However,
10:58
the most tragic story to emerge
11:00
happened while surveying the damage. Villagers
11:03
found three year old Robin Dixon
11:05
standing alone on Main Street with
11:07
Turbo, the injured family dog. Her
11:10
mother, Candy Murphy, and her older
11:12
sister, five year old Callie, were
11:14
lying on the ground several yards
11:16
away, completely unresponsive. Robin
11:19
explained the tornado was carrying away
11:21
her mom and sister, but she had
11:23
stomped her foot like Elsa from Frozen,
11:26
which stomped everything and saved them. There
11:29
was no helicopter available to rush Candy
11:31
and Callie away for medical assistance because
11:34
another storm was brewing. They
11:36
were loaded in an ambulance and driven to the
11:38
hospital. Candy Murphy remained in
11:40
a coma for a month, but recovered. Turbo
11:43
lost a leg, and five
11:46
year old Callie Dixon died en
11:48
route. A storm had
11:50
claimed another life. We believe that
11:52
she was in a mobile home on
11:54
Main Street and was completely
11:57
devastated, And we found her
11:59
in that. The finity along with
12:01
another critically injured females. Who
12:04
were was evacuated that evening by school
12:06
bus to Red Cross shelters and such.
12:09
Surrounding. Fire departments and emergency
12:11
personnel took the lead and managing
12:13
the situation since the villages own
12:15
resources have been reduced to dust.
12:18
And we offer top of that
12:20
county Emergency Manager who compared Silver
12:22
to a war zone saying be
12:24
hit. With a story that that's
12:27
why we're evacuating, the tower was
12:29
gonna get dark corners where the
12:31
storm coming in from all more,
12:33
You'll be another day with a
12:35
sharp clean up Their masks. Clean
12:37
up without the wind. But. Soon
12:40
the villagers. Former. Villagers and
12:42
volunteers from all over the country with swarm
12:44
the town to lend a hand. And
12:47
swift pride was all about. This.
12:49
Is Stan County Sheriff Mike Ongar again
12:51
without a over a three hundred volunteers
12:53
here today. I am feeling whenever I
12:55
have that same number if not more
12:57
tomorrow. By the cells were getting obvious
12:59
a we have all kinds of assets
13:02
on ground. Were getting help from numerous
13:04
Midwestern states where he called where one
13:06
from Virginia wanting to bring two teams
13:08
here. So while we're trying to work
13:10
for I think there's a lot of
13:12
progress. Made. Today But as you can see as. Much
13:14
progress has been made for still lot of
13:16
work to be does. Yeah.
13:19
There was no fixing this overnight.
13:22
The. Was still a tremendous amount of work to
13:24
be done, and Pilger Nebraska, In. Every
13:26
sense of the word. They. Were
13:28
looking a years of construction
13:31
in considerations. Where. Should the
13:33
new school be built, we should we call
13:35
the new store. Isn't even worth
13:37
it to rebuild in the of this
13:39
and all. The. Study
13:41
presence was required to hold
13:43
the village together. To.
13:46
Encourage a rebirth and to wade
13:48
through the red tape associated with
13:50
one. Pilger. Needed someone
13:52
intelligence and tough. Someone
13:54
organized and trustworthy. A.
13:56
Natural leader whose. Well. Versed
13:59
in seemingly. Everything. Thankfully.
14:02
A villager pilger. And. The perfect
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person for the job. Ability
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clerk in Nebraska for the
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victim to a mysterious international
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16:09
Well from the first minute I saw
16:11
the tornado and then when we came back in
16:13
and saw what it had done to the town
16:15
and it was never in my mind to to
16:17
leave Pilger. Some people believe that in two to
16:20
three years will die. I do
16:22
not believe that. Kimberly
16:24
Nyman, a volunteer firefighter and EMT
16:26
for the village of Pilger, was
16:29
riding in the back of an ambulance on
16:31
her way to the side of the first
16:33
tornado near Stanton when the second tornado touched
16:35
down just outside of her village. Kilm
16:39
had lived in Pilger for almost 20 years
16:41
with her husband Ted who was driving the
16:43
ambulance and three sons one of whom was
16:45
riding along. Kilm watched
16:48
the EF4 destroy their beloved village through
16:50
the back window. Kilm
16:52
Nyman wore a lot of hats in Pilger. In
16:55
addition to being a volunteer first responder,
16:57
she also trained lifeguards, mowed the grass
16:59
at the cemetery and sang in the
17:02
church choir. She was
17:04
a member of the Stanton County
17:06
Emergency Management Team and the Nebraska
17:08
Fire Instructor Society and an adjunct
17:10
EMS instructor for nearby community college.
17:13
Kilm Nyman was also Pilger's village
17:15
clerk and treasurer. Appointed in
17:17
1998, she
17:20
managed to cash inflows and outflows.
17:22
It was her name written on the
17:24
village's checks. Nobody could
17:26
have told you where Pilger was. You know,
17:28
I live from Pilger in Nebraska. Where is
17:31
that? And you know, I've never heard of
17:33
it. Now, you know, oh, you're from that
17:35
tornado place. Mama Kilm, as
17:37
everyone called her, had kept Pilger running
17:39
for years. In 2007,
17:41
she was recognized for it, winning
17:43
the award for Outstanding Village Clerk
17:46
by the Nebraska Municipal Clerks Association.
17:49
It was a dead heat that year. In
17:51
2008, she became a certified master
17:54
municipal clerk. And in
17:56
2014, as if Kilm Nyman's plate
17:58
wasn't already full. The tornados
18:00
happened. It was chaos or the
18:02
lack of a better word. But
18:05
she took control. Com. Lineman
18:07
coordinated with the federal and state
18:09
Emergency Management Agency So Fema and
18:12
Nema. Shield. Greedy Search and
18:14
Rescue Plan. She talked to the Mayor
18:16
and declared disaster as he made sure
18:18
that all the rules and regulations were
18:20
followed to avoid any hiccups along the
18:22
way. My. Responsibility is to
18:24
the village and to make sure that
18:26
we get anything and everything we can
18:28
get think it everything fixed back to
18:30
the way it was she told The
18:32
Daily Nebraska. Not
18:34
declaring the debris come lime and managed
18:36
all the building permits for new construction.
18:39
she crunched the numbers for all the
18:41
projects. reportedly just the cleanup alone cost
18:43
a million bucks. Emergency. Funding
18:45
would pick up some of the tab, but. Name.
18:48
In estimated that the Village of Pilgrims
18:50
debt would amount of five million dollars.
18:52
But. It would be words that. Are
18:54
reinventing Pilger not going to be different if
18:57
it was ever again and we're not saying
18:59
are dying or we are building a lot.
19:01
You know you want to buy and from
19:03
the community. Has anyone thought about using at
19:05
The Mouth and you want to have what
19:07
they want where they wanted as much as
19:10
you can Just. It's. Still ground zero
19:12
She told the Norfolk Daily News. But.
19:14
Everything's triple the amount of what it
19:16
was before, if not more. Even with
19:18
all the tornado stuff did I deal
19:21
with every day I have all my
19:23
normal stuff than I do. the accounts,
19:25
receivable accounts, payable pay roll, all that
19:27
stuff. you know that still going on.
19:30
It's like you job grew suddenly times
19:32
one hundred. Not to mention
19:34
come Nyman have lost her home and
19:36
workplace and the tornado. She. Worked
19:38
tirelessly from a makeshift office in
19:41
a large metal warehouse club, juggling
19:43
for cellphones and an effort to
19:45
run the villages daily business. answer
19:48
questions from confused volunteers and overwhelmed
19:50
citizens, take information from fellow Village
19:53
and county employees, and deal with
19:55
the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Kill
19:58
Nine Minute also lost her. 18
20:00
and a half pound cat, Panzer, in the
20:03
storm, but only temporarily. She was
20:05
found alive and well under a bookcase in what
20:07
used to be City Hall. Everyone
20:10
was sharing the load. You can't
20:12
control the weather though, so those
20:14
things happen. But the cool thing about
20:16
those happening is we as
20:19
Nebraskans always pull together. We do
20:21
it better than any other state.
20:24
Well stated. Larry the Cable Guy appeared on
20:26
the morning blend this morning. The
20:28
breeze still litters Pilgrin, Nebraska, seven
20:30
days after EF4 tornadoes stormed through
20:33
town. But on Monday, help
20:35
was on every corner. Even
20:37
rock star Brent Michael signed up for duty. Unfortunately
20:40
a major hurdle soon stymied
20:42
rebuilding efforts. Three quarters
20:45
of the village of Pilgrin was in a floodplain.
20:48
The 60 to 70 year old homes that
20:50
were demolished were built before modern guidelines.
20:53
The floodplain map was redrawn in 2004, which
20:56
meant that any new houses built in
20:58
Pilgrin must sit one foot above base
21:01
flood elevation, which means no
21:03
basements. It was a tough
21:05
pill to swallow for Pilgrites, considering many
21:07
of them owed their lives to basements.
21:10
There were other safety measures they could take,
21:12
like building a safe room or something, but
21:15
it was just another disappointment. The
21:17
village had also recently learned that the middle school
21:19
would not be rebuilt at all. Instead,
21:22
be joined with the school in the neighboring
21:24
town of Wisner. It's moving slowly,
21:27
but it's moving forward. In
21:30
a testament to its resiliency, the village
21:32
of Pilgr adopted a new motto, the
21:34
town too tough to die. To
21:37
prove it, just one month after the tornado, on
21:39
July 19, 2014, Pilgr held its annual Pilgr Days
21:45
Festival to feature a barbecue,
21:47
mud volleyball, and other
21:49
fun in the sun. Pilgrim
21:52
came together for mud volleyball, a barbecue,
21:54
and a big event. Sheriff Mike Unger
21:56
getting tased. It
22:01
was nice to restore some normalcy, and
22:04
before long the village was showing progress in
22:06
other ways. In August 2014, Kim
22:09
Niman and her husband were the first
22:11
to rebuild in Pilger. Of
22:13
1500 square foots, three bedroom manufactured
22:16
home was placed on the lot
22:18
where their previous house stood. It
22:21
adhered to all of the new floodplain guidelines.
22:24
Kim wanted to set an example that it
22:26
could be done and lift everyone's spirits. I'm
22:30
here for a reason, she told the Omaha
22:32
World Herald. We're just going
22:34
to keep moving forward and re-envisioning
22:36
how Pilger will look. People
22:39
took her cue. There are
22:41
signs of progress, like the construction of
22:43
the new Pilger co-op headquarters. Niman's
22:45
home was the first to go up
22:47
after the twister. The Lutheran church pastor
22:49
moves into the second new home here
22:52
Friday. Even Candy Murphy
22:54
eventually rebuilt in Pilger. Thanks
22:56
to funds raised from a Brett
22:58
Michaels charity concert. Nobody expected
23:01
me to be back. I
23:04
mean not just be alive, but nobody expected
23:06
me to rebuild here. But
23:09
I love this town. Construction
23:12
continued throughout the year. By November
23:14
2014, the farmer's co-op had rebuilt seven
23:17
of its grain bins, which was a
23:19
huge boost to the village. The
23:22
co-op was Pilger's largest employer and
23:24
revenue source. And fortunately, it looked
23:26
like that relationship would continue. But
23:29
we, the co-op has rebuilt so many
23:31
of their grain bins and their buildings
23:34
and they're continuing to build more. We
23:36
are our bank, Midwest Bank, broke ground
23:38
last Friday and we're so excited about
23:41
that because we haven't had a bank
23:43
in town. And
23:45
we've got a restaurant in the works, we've
23:47
got a convenience store in the
23:49
works, and a community center in the works. Things
23:53
were looking up by the one
23:55
year anniversary of the disaster. That
23:57
convenience store was reopened on First Street.
24:00
Now called Pilger Pride, a
24:02
new city hall had been constructed at its
24:04
previous address on Main Street, a
24:06
block away from the bank which had also
24:08
been rebuilt. St.
24:10
John's Lutheran Church was under construction
24:13
for a second time. A
24:15
violent windstorm had wiped out the initial
24:17
rebuild, a sign that I
24:20
don't think I personally would be willing to
24:22
ignore but the people of Pilger are tough
24:25
and they persevered. People
24:27
ask me how I'm doing this and I don't
24:29
have a big answer. Kilm Niman told the World
24:31
Herald, God gave me the strength. He
24:33
put me in Pilger 19 years ago because
24:36
he knew I could deal with this. I've
24:38
been handling this and I will keep
24:40
on handling it. I still
24:42
deal with a tornado every day. It
24:45
hasn't been a piece of cake but it hasn't
24:47
been something I couldn't handle. We're
24:49
not going anywhere. We
24:51
are tough people. We've made it a year. We're
24:54
proud of making it a year and what we've
24:56
accomplished in a year. We
24:58
knew from the beginning that we were too tough to
25:01
die and Pilger wasn't going away. We were hearing lots
25:03
of stories. Well that town's never going to survive. It
25:05
was so small. It was only 352 people. We're
25:08
back up to 197 and we're excited about it. Pilger's
25:13
recovery had been remarkable and
25:16
Kilm Niman's leadership did not go unnoticed.
25:19
In 2015 she was named Nebraska's
25:21
Outstanding Public Administrator of the Year
25:23
and won the Lieutenant Governor's Be Prepared
25:25
Award. Well deserved according
25:28
to everybody. I'm
25:30
hardly ever speechless as people have seen over
25:33
the past several months but it really
25:35
means a lot that an organization like
25:37
this has recognized the kind of work
25:39
that I'm doing even though I'm
25:41
in Pilger which is very small and it really
25:43
means a lot to me to get this. Kilm
25:47
Niman took great pride in her job
25:49
and continued to do so in the
25:51
following years as Pilger rebuilt and reinvented
25:54
itself. That's what makes
25:56
the next chapter of this story so
25:59
peculiar. As usual, it
26:01
all starts with an audit, a
26:03
routine annual audit of the Village
26:05
of Pilgris Books in November 2018
26:09
performed by Moro Davies and
26:11
Toel P.C., the CPA firm
26:13
based in Norfolk, Nebraska, typically
26:15
tasked with the job. It
26:17
was during this audit when CPA
26:19
Diane Davies found what could be
26:22
described as spending irregularities.
26:26
Examples of invoices paid by Kim Nyman
26:28
had not been approved by Pilgris Village
26:30
Board as required. Davies
26:32
flagged these payments for Nyman, who explained
26:35
herself to Amber Labans, the chairperson of
26:37
the board, in an email dated November
26:39
30, 2018. Nyman
26:42
wrote, Amber, just wanted to
26:44
let you know that Diane Davies was just
26:46
going over stuff for the village audit. She
26:49
pointed out that I had not placed several items
26:51
on the bill listing or the manual checklist for
26:53
the board to approve at a meeting. Some
26:56
were small items, some were items from
26:58
the tornado rebuild and some were settlement
27:00
payoffs for things that happened during the
27:02
tornado time that were weird. Diane
27:05
said that I didn't need to go back and make
27:07
a list of them for the board since they were
27:09
double signed by either you or Corey, the fire chief
27:11
and co-chair, and none of the funds were funneled
27:13
to me. I just needed to be more
27:16
detail oriented. I told her I would bring it up
27:18
at the December meeting that I had neglected to list
27:20
some of the bills, big and small, on the listing.
27:23
Just wanted you to know that I screwed up
27:25
and if you wanted to give me a verbal
27:27
warning or write me up, that would be just
27:29
fine. Sorry, Kimberly Nyman,
27:31
village of Pilger. So
27:35
she got a little sloppy, hard
27:37
to hold out against a woman with a thousand
27:39
jobs. However, at that closed
27:41
village board meeting in December, Kimberly
27:44
Nyman reportedly admitted to the other
27:46
Pilger officials that she was actually,
27:48
in fact, being scammed
27:50
and she was scared and she didn't know what
27:52
to do. She said she
27:55
was making payments for advertising and other
27:57
unknown services out of fear of being
27:59
sued. and she hadn't told
28:01
anybody. The board encouraged her
28:04
to file a consumer complaint form with
28:06
the Consumer Protection Division of the Nebraska
28:08
Attorney General's Office. So that's what Kilm
28:11
Niman did. And here's what she wrote.
28:13
Her feet and voices did not remember
28:16
ordering anything. They told me I had.
28:18
Didn't know what to do so paid
28:20
them. A municipality doesn't
28:22
need advertising. A lot of
28:24
stuff went on since Pilgris Tornadoes so I
28:27
wasn't sure what had happened. Our
28:29
village auditor suggested I contact your
28:31
office. A
28:33
week later, on December 19, 2018,
28:36
Kilm Niman filed another report. This time a
28:38
property loss claim of $194,065.80 with the League
28:40
Association of Risk Management. In it, she expanded
28:48
on her story. Deceived
28:50
invoices did not order advertising. They
28:52
said they had me on tape
28:54
saying yes to ordered. Didn't
28:57
know what to do so paid them. All
28:59
checks were double signed and none of
29:01
the amounts paid were to any village
29:03
employee relatives or board member relatives. A
29:06
lot of stuff has happened since the tornado
29:08
so I wasn't sure what had happened. If
29:10
payment wasn't sent out, would receive phone calls
29:12
telling me that the village and or I
29:14
would be sued if the
29:16
payments were not made. Was
29:18
offered lower settlement amounts to pay to
29:20
take care of the multiple invoices. Still
29:23
receiving bills from multiple companies.
29:27
Kilm Niman willingly signed a written
29:29
acknowledgement that she had violated the
29:32
village of Pilgris personnel policy for
29:34
inefficiency, incompetence or negligence in the
29:36
performance of duties and
29:38
for careless, negligent, abusive, improper
29:40
or unauthorized use of the
29:43
village's property, equipment or funds.
29:46
On January 7th, 2019, the Nebraska
29:49
Auditor of Public Accounts was tasked
29:51
by the Attorney General's office to
29:53
investigate this mishandling of public funds.
29:56
A deep audit would take several months to complete.
29:59
In the meantime, Kiln Eiman was
30:01
placed on investigative suspension with pay.
30:04
That deep audit would eventually reveal that
30:06
hundreds of thousands of dollars were missing,
30:09
and that Kiln Eiman was almost certainly
30:11
aware. Soon the
30:13
entire village of Pilger would be made
30:16
aware, and it would come as a shock. How
30:19
could the most admired and responsible person
30:21
in town be taken by a crook?
30:25
Who was this mastermind? The
30:33
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33:30
We love you long time
33:33
long time. In
33:39
Japan, don't
33:41
try and use this against me. Unbelievable.
33:47
Beautiful Japanese girls on bikes with their vaginas
33:49
all nice and roasted. Hey,
33:52
my vaginas are roasted and gone. Fucking
33:59
wasted. I'm
34:01
gonna give a fuck what you think. Just fuck you. I'm
34:03
the one who travels first class around the world and you
34:05
don't. Bitch. Gavin
34:10
Avento was on the other side of
34:12
the world when the tornadoes flattened Pilger
34:14
in June 2014. That
34:16
year the 45 year old
34:19
self-employed Canadian national bounced
34:21
around from India to Thailand to
34:23
Japan back to India. Judging
34:26
by the publicly available amateur video footage
34:28
of his travels, Gavin was
34:30
the ugliest of tourists and
34:33
excessively crude. Left that
34:35
previous statement serve as a warning for what's
34:37
to come. This is my last day
34:39
in India. Last
34:41
day. And might I say, it's
34:44
a fucking nice place with the people
34:46
here. There's a lot of fucking assholes
34:48
in this country. And
34:50
they're jealous of anybody from the west because you have
34:53
things that they only think that they can fucking have
34:55
or think that they deserve. But
34:57
they can get it, but they get
34:59
no line. But then they complain because they don't have
35:01
it. So whatever. By
35:04
September 2014, Gavin
35:07
Avento landed in Cambodia. He
35:09
spent his time getting drunk and being
35:11
obnoxious. Hey sexy girl, if I was
35:13
a king would you let me have boom boom? Hey?
35:17
He dumped himself swimming in the
35:19
ocean, shooting guns and flexing his
35:21
muscles on every reflective surface he
35:23
encountered. Truly living the dream.
35:26
No, no, no, no, no.
35:30
I wish all my friends and my mom and my brother
35:32
can be with me right now. Oh,
35:35
you know, for the time of your life. Only
35:38
the things that we dreamed about or saw
35:40
on TV when we were younger is
35:43
what I'm living right now. Gavin
35:46
was riding motorcycles, buying
35:49
motorcycles. The fastest, coolest,
35:52
neatest motorcycle ever. Buying cars. Check out
35:54
what I just bought. Renting
35:57
mansions. It's a mansion. Six bedroom.
36:01
GIGRIGO! He filmed himself
36:03
counting stacks of cash. GIGRIGO!
36:13
Cash that he earned legitimately, of
36:15
course, while working remotely.
36:18
I'm working! When
36:21
he was off the clock, Gavin Avento managed
36:23
to meet and fall in love with a
36:25
bashful Cambodian woman named Pao. She
36:28
started showing up in Gavin's videos along with
36:30
her young daughter. He happily brought
36:32
them along on his journeys. Gavin
36:34
Avento and Pao were married sometime in
36:36
2016. Oh, by
36:38
the way, she's 30 years old. When? No
36:42
one's going to believe, but when my
36:44
friends see the video, they're going to say she's probably like
36:46
15 years old. You're not fat like
36:48
my other girlfriend. You're not fat
36:51
like my other girlfriend. You're not skinny and
36:53
sexy. Are you a mama? She's not pretty.
36:55
She'll never get fat and ugly with her
36:57
booby sagging like my old girlfriend. Because
37:00
she's a fat pig. Gavin
37:02
Avento documented his travels and
37:04
uploaded the videos to YouTube to share with
37:06
his son back home in Canada. Sometimes,
37:09
in between the persistent coughing,
37:11
pick-up-ing, burping and chain-smoking, the
37:14
shark-toothed necklace-wearing, bloated day drunk would
37:16
send life advice back home to
37:18
his son. You
37:20
see Vincent? There's no fat women here. All
37:24
sexy women, no fat biotches. You're
37:27
old enough to know the difference of fat women who are
37:29
disgusting. And they have attitude problems
37:31
because they're fat and they like welfare. So
37:35
you gotta come check out this part of the world,
37:37
Vincent. Because you'll find a really nice chick, man. You're
37:39
a good-looking kid, so they'll be all over you in
37:41
two seconds. And please
37:45
don't go over to a fat chick. There's nothing worse
37:47
than a fat chick with an attitude. You
37:50
know? Especially when they're on welfare. Trying
37:53
to make everyone believe they're trying hard in life, but
37:55
yeah, they sit around, eat fucking chips all day long,
37:57
watch TV, have shit jobs, and
37:59
we're just fucking- losers. Just
38:02
telling my son there's no fat women here. All
38:04
the women are beautiful in Asia. They're not fat
38:06
pigs like in Canada. And I'm not
38:09
saying any of this because of your
38:11
mother or anything. Gavin
38:14
Avento was a walking, talking
38:17
buffoon with the tattoos and
38:19
goatee to match a fucking
38:21
real-life cartoon. Singapore.
38:27
Giggity. You know Singapore.
38:31
Giggity. Giggity.
38:36
Giggity. Giggity.
38:41
Pop-ball drinks, sir. Giggity.
38:46
Giggity. Giggity, you're going to smoke a fucking joint. Giggity,
38:49
two gloves. Giggity. That's
38:52
a bad one. This
38:55
Brainiac and former felon was also
38:57
a business owner. Gavin
39:00
Mark Avento owned a
39:02
collection agency named North
39:05
American GME Collection. Strangely
39:08
enough, the North American GME
39:10
Collection Agency was the
39:13
single largest recipient of payments
39:15
from Pilger, Nebraska. More
39:17
than $233,000 over five years. And Gavin Avento was not the only one. The
39:25
auditor's report notes 282 checks
39:28
drawn from the Village Bank total more
39:30
than $560,000 and appear to be related to an
39:32
alleged scam or fraud. The
39:37
report also questions more than $156,000 in Village credit card
39:39
charges. By
39:43
March 2019, a state
39:45
audit found that Kimberly Nyman sent a total of
39:47
$718,000 in checks
39:50
and credit card transactions to
39:52
80 different vendors determined to
39:54
be possible scammers. Only
39:57
four of 282 checks were submitted by
39:59
Nyman. to the Pilger board for
40:01
approval. How is
40:03
that even possible? Well,
40:06
Amber Labans, Pilger's chairman of the board,
40:09
admitted to the Nebraska auditor of public
40:11
accounts that she would readily sign every
40:13
check presented to her by Kimberly Niman,
40:16
even if they were blank. According
40:18
to the audit report, quote, it is
40:21
unclear why Ms. Niman did not notify the
40:23
board years ago that she was truly being
40:25
scammed. It is clear she
40:27
was intentionally leaving those vendors off the
40:29
approved and published claims listings. This
40:32
gives rise to concerns regarding
40:34
possible official misconduct. And
40:36
the tornado was no excuse as Kim
40:39
Niman had alluded to in her report
40:41
to the attorney general's office. Pilger's fund
40:43
started disappearing in 2006, eight
40:46
years before the tornado. But
40:48
in the years after as donations and relief
40:51
funds poured in the frequency and
40:53
amount for the questionable transactions certainly increased from
40:55
$42,000 in 2014 to more than $240,000 in
40:57
2018. The state auditors were skeptical of
41:05
Kiliman's faulty memory. How
41:08
does the village treasurer spend almost
41:10
three quarters of a million dollars
41:12
on a service or product that
41:14
she quote, did not remember ordering?
41:17
Pilger's annual budget is only $1
41:19
million. Relatively
41:21
speaking, these expenditures were
41:23
significant. It is difficult
41:26
to believe that Ms. Niman could not
41:28
recall having made any of the purchases
41:30
at issue literally hundreds of times. The
41:32
audit report stated, even if there
41:34
were any doubt the logical course of action
41:36
would have been to notify law enforcement or
41:38
the village board of the dilemma. Next,
41:42
the auditors tried to determine where
41:44
were the checks physically sent. The
41:47
addresses on the invoices paid by
41:49
Niman led to UPS stores, FedEx
41:51
mail rooms, saving ships, PO boxes,
41:54
apartment buildings, and even a vape
41:56
shop. Fenders in New
41:58
York, Connecticut, Quebec. Minnesota, and
42:00
more. Vendors with generic
42:03
names such as Great
42:05
Solutions, Publication Internet, Global
42:07
Internet Publishing, National Business,
42:09
Intermedia Marketing, and of
42:11
course, North American
42:13
Division, GNE. What
42:16
was the connection to Gavin
42:18
Avento specifically? The local
42:20
media and law enforcement wondered if Gavin
42:23
was Kim Nymond's former husband or maybe
42:25
a friend of Kim's current husband. Maybe
42:27
they had been associated with Avento when
42:29
they lived in Tennessee, where Kim admitted
42:31
during a 2004 deposition
42:33
that she had been accused of stealing
42:35
from an employer. News
42:37
Channel Nebraska's Joe Jordan wrote about
42:40
the mysterious man and his connection
42:42
to the Nymond's and surprisingly, he
42:44
received an email from Gavin Avento
42:46
in which Gavin denied being Kim's
42:48
former lover. Quote, never met
42:50
her before. Thank God. In
42:53
fact, Gavin continued. Kim Nymond
42:55
and the publicity the scandal
42:57
had received, quote, ruined my
42:59
name, business, and financially crippled
43:01
me, and he wanted to be
43:03
compensated for it by the
43:05
media and the Stanton County Sheriff's Office
43:08
investigating the case or else
43:10
Gavin threatened he would sue them. Sue
43:13
us for what? During our job,
43:15
Sheriff Mike Unger said, relaying his
43:18
response to the Flatwater Free Press.
43:21
The Ventos declined any of our requests to come
43:23
back to the United States to be interviewed. For
43:25
him to sue us, he would have to
43:27
come back. So I don't foresee that happening.
43:31
Coincidentally, or maybe not, Kim
43:34
Nymond had recently tweaked her explanation,
43:36
adding that the mysterious vendors had
43:38
threatened her if she did not
43:40
pay the invoices. They had threatened me
43:42
and my family. So I paid them with
43:44
village funds. She told a village lawyer. Who
43:47
were they? Nymond couldn't
43:50
say. Emails uncovered
43:52
by the Nebraska Auditor of Public Accounts failed to
43:54
shed any additional light on a motive for a kickback
43:56
scheme or anything like that. that.
44:01
Back in January 2015, Gavin
44:03
Avento wrote the Pilger's official
44:05
government cable1.net email account wondering
44:07
about an unpaid invoice. Happy
44:11
New Year Kim, it's Gavin
44:13
from North American Division GME
44:15
Collections. I am just contacting you
44:17
concerning the outstanding invoice for $7,731.18. You asked me
44:19
to contact
44:23
you January 15th to shh, just
44:26
need to know what time frame we are looking at
44:28
to receive payment. If you can tell me it
44:30
would be helpful. And it was signed Gavin
44:32
Hill, an alias of Avento's,
44:35
director of NADGME
44:37
Collections. Kim
44:40
Nyman responded, we are in
44:42
the works of trying to get a FEMA community disaster
44:44
loan that will take a couple of months so it
44:47
is difficult to give you dates right now. Gavin
44:50
followed up a month later. Kim told
44:52
them they were still waiting. Gavin sent
44:54
another email a few weeks later. The
44:56
back and forth continued until mid-March until Nyman
44:58
wrote that she would be discussing the payment
45:01
with the board, which she never did, before
45:03
finally sending a check to Gavin on March 11th,
45:05
2015. Avento
45:08
receiving at least half a dozen $8,000 checks
45:12
from the village of Pilger and Kimberly Nyman,
45:14
plus one check for over $19,000. All
45:18
told, prosecutors note 21 checks to
45:20
Avento between 2013 and
45:22
2018 totaling $231,000. In February 2019, Kimberly Nyman was
45:24
fired from her position as Pilger's
45:36
village clerk, the position that she had
45:38
held for 20 years. Less
45:40
than a year later, on January 9th, 2020, she
45:43
was arrested by the Stanton County Sheriff's
45:45
Office with whom she once stood shoulder
45:47
to shoulder, picking up the pieces of
45:50
their village. The affidavit
45:52
states that Nyman was under suspicion
45:54
of operating two financial schemes, one
45:57
using unauthorized funds to pay off threats
45:59
and two being involved in
46:01
some kind of kickback scheme. Seven felony
46:03
theft counts, yes. You
46:06
have some official misconduct as well as
46:08
abuse of power, which are misdemeanors. In
46:11
total, Kimberly Nyman was charged with 17
46:13
criminal acts, seven felony
46:16
theft counts, three misdemeanor counts of
46:18
official misconduct, and seven misdemeanor
46:20
counts of abuse of public records. Disconvicted,
46:24
Kelm Nyman faced up to 187 years in prison. Support
46:31
for Swindled comes from Simply Safe. Fun
46:34
fact, according to FBI property
46:36
crime data, most home break-ins
46:38
happen in broad daylight. Did
46:41
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47:50
swindled. Pilgrin,
47:57
Nebraska, proved to be too tough to
47:59
die. even after twin tornadoes devastated
48:01
the village in 2014. Well
48:04
now a woman who helped the community heal
48:06
is charged with stealing from it. More than
48:09
$700,000. 57-year-old
48:11
Kimberly Niman faces seven felony counts
48:13
of theft by unlawful taking and
48:15
three counts of abuse of public
48:18
records. I don't know
48:20
what to say about it. It's just
48:22
shocking, that's all. Kilger
48:25
could have used a lot of that money. Kimberly
48:29
Niman's trial was scheduled for spring
48:31
2020. The village
48:33
of Pilger was anxiously waiting in hopes
48:36
that the who, what, whys and hows
48:38
would be answered in the courtroom. Unfortunately,
48:41
Niman's case involving international money transactions
48:44
proved too large and too complicated
48:46
for the Stanton County Sheriff's Office
48:48
to handle on its own. And
48:51
a request for assistance from the state
48:54
attorney general and the FBI went unanswered.
48:57
Ultimately, the small Sheriff's department was unable
48:59
to trace any of the missing funds
49:01
back to Kilm Niman. The
49:03
prosecution had no choice but to cut her a
49:05
deal. On
49:08
March 10th, 2020, Kilm
49:10
Niman pleaded guilty to one count
49:12
of attempted theft. Instead
49:14
of facing 187 years in prison, Niman
49:17
now faced a maximum sentence of three
49:20
years. The case
49:22
was hanging by the thread. The prosecuting attorney
49:24
told the Norfolk Daily Press, investigators
49:26
were unable to prove that Kilm Niman
49:28
benefited from the unapproved spending. So the
49:30
plea was accepted. Still
49:32
at her sentencing hearing, Stanton County
49:35
District Judge James G. Cubie remained
49:37
perplexed by it all. I've
49:40
read a lot of information about
49:42
all the reports. I
49:50
don't get it. I feel
49:52
kind of dense, you know, but I don't really
49:54
understand this. So
49:57
Kilm Niman tried to explain. things
50:00
that were wrong. But I guess I
50:02
got to a point where I didn't know how to stop
50:04
it and I was hoping somebody else would find it. If
50:07
you bring it there to their attention, anybody would
50:09
say, this is a problem.
50:11
I don't know what to do. Can
50:14
you help me with this? No,
50:16
Sergeant. The wheels were paid to
50:18
Gavin Avento. Her son was.
50:22
Why did you do that? To thank you an individual when
50:24
the company is asking for me. I
50:26
can't remember all the invoices I've seen. It's just hard
50:28
for me to understand what you would do something like
50:30
this. Without having
50:32
something about it. Were you black
50:34
male? No,
50:37
she was pregnant. They told me
50:40
they would come after the village, they would come
50:42
after me, they would come after my family.
50:44
We will sue you personally? Yes.
50:47
Did you go to the city attorney or
50:49
the county attorney or any attorney and
50:51
say, can I be held liable for
50:53
not paying a bill in my professional
50:55
capacity as village clerk? Did you ask
50:57
our questions? No. Anyway,
51:00
I don't know how to do
51:03
it. To
51:05
lighten his client's sentence, Diamond's attorney,
51:08
Sean Brennan, reminded Judge Cubie
51:10
that she was not a violent
51:12
offender and posed very little threat
51:14
to public safety. Judge
51:17
Cubie disagreed. I
51:19
would disagree with that. You may
51:22
not be a violent person. You
51:24
may not have any prior criminal history. But you
51:27
did some damage to the public here. He'll
51:29
be a judge of the sentence of this court. The
51:33
conviction of attempted theft last
51:35
to be a felony that she sentenced to
51:37
a due to two to three years of
51:40
pieces of permanent prison services. On
51:43
February 1st, 2021, 58-year-old
51:46
Kimberly Nyman was sentenced to three
51:49
years in prison and ordered to pay $44,381
51:51
in restitution. She
51:55
has since been released, but while behind bars,
51:58
Nyman wrote a letter to the Pillow. fire
52:00
department asking for her old volunteer
52:02
job back. Fire
52:05
chief Corey Colmos told News
52:07
Channel Nebraska that the request
52:09
will be considered. The resolution
52:11
of the Kim Niman case offered very
52:14
little closure to Pilgerites. Not
52:16
only did Niman's plea deal place the village's
52:18
fraud insurance claim in peril, but so
52:21
many questions remain unanswered. Rumors
52:23
and speculation persisted. Natalia
52:26
Alamdari interviewed many of the villagers
52:28
for her article in the Flatwater
52:31
Free Press. Some believed Niman
52:33
was blackmailed or had a co-conspirator at
52:35
Pilger City Hall. Others believed
52:37
that Kim Niman did nothing wrong. If
52:41
only there was someone out there who
52:43
could shed light on this whole thing. Suddenly
52:46
getting drunk every
52:48
day. This is the public's
52:50
first look at Gavin Avento, the
52:53
mystery man linked to the puzzling
52:55
tough case and scandal surrounding fired
52:57
Pilger village clerk Kimberly Niman. So
53:00
far Gavin Mark Avento has not been
53:02
charged with any crimes related to the
53:05
missing Pilger money, but
53:07
as demonstrated earlier he is very well
53:09
aware that he is connected. In
53:12
fact Gavin Avento posted comments in
53:14
response to a March 2020 Joe
53:16
Jordan article on the News Channel
53:18
Nebraska website about a year after
53:20
was published. The comments follow
53:22
the adopted guidelines for most comments you
53:24
find on local news articles so I've
53:27
done my best to edit them for
53:29
brevity and legibility. Gavin
53:31
Mark Avento writes, thank you
53:33
for reporting this story. The situation
53:36
has destroyed me financially and has
53:38
cost me to also lose my
53:40
wife in Cambodia. She thinks
53:42
that I am a criminal and thief due to
53:44
this. It has been very hard to
53:46
even survive. Also the deserved
53:48
compensation I am asking for is not
53:50
one million. It is twenty nine thousand
53:52
five hundred per month since December 2018
53:54
till now that I lost in company
53:58
revenue. $1
54:00
million for slander and other legal terms.
54:05
Two and a half years later,
54:07
Gavin Avento returned to that article
54:09
with additional information and updated demands.
54:12
I'm going to do my best to read it as it
54:14
was written. This is
54:17
Gavin Avento. Why don't you
54:19
give me money for this false report? And
54:22
this is what my ex-wife did to me in
54:24
Cambodia and lied about loving me and then stole
54:26
all from me and then tried to kill me
54:28
six times. Like this
54:30
photo from the police in Cambodia gave to me
54:33
and my ex was doing this because she was
54:35
doing this for scammers with the crypts gang that
54:37
saw her in Cambodia and then when she left
54:39
tried to kill me. You
54:41
made these false reports and destroyed my
54:43
business collections company with your lies. So
54:46
where are your penalties for lying about me? I'm
54:49
being constantly victimized by people like you and
54:51
you never verified anything that was said about
54:53
me. You just said it. And
54:55
that ruined my life and family because of
54:57
you. Ex lying wife
55:00
scammer who give the info to the crypts
55:02
gang in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and then scammed
55:04
many customers like Kim Nymans and then tried
55:06
to make it look like it was me.
55:09
Like you people, bad reporters did not look
55:12
at this photo. This is what I
55:14
looked like in February 14th, 2022. This
55:17
was my ex-wife's Valentine's Day gift to
55:19
me. It's on my Facebook, Gavin Avento.
55:22
Just look at the one with Harley Davidson in the
55:24
round photo. That's my bike
55:26
that she also destroyed and also my
55:28
Bentley Continental that she stole and sold
55:31
with these scammers. Now you
55:33
helped them to make up a fake story and I
55:35
want money for this. I said
55:37
before one million dollars and then after I
55:39
saw the fake slandering line report your news
55:41
did without verifying any of it. I
55:44
want 52 billion million dollars for
55:46
your slanderous lies and fake degrading
55:49
news. Look at my Facebook.
55:51
I will put the attempted murder pictures on
55:53
my main page. You'll see. Within
55:57
days another update was posted in the comments.
56:00
of that story. This
56:02
is Gavin Avento and I just put
56:04
the attempted murder photos on my Facebook,
56:06
Gavin Avento, and it had my
56:08
Harley photo in the small round circle and at
56:11
the big photo you can see my photograph of
56:13
me with a face photo sitting in front of
56:15
a cafe. Found
56:17
it, but it wasn't easy. This
56:20
man has at least a dozen Facebook accounts.
56:23
There are a slew of posts. Make
56:25
sense of these what you will. On
56:28
April 16th, 2023, Gavin posted
56:30
the promised photo he was
56:32
describing. There he is,
56:35
unmistakably, unconscious, arm tucked
56:37
underneath his body, lying in the
56:39
street. I'm not
56:41
dead, the caption begins, a relief
56:43
to everybody knowing there's no Facebook in the
56:46
afterlife. I was run over
56:48
and made the same pigs that are forcing
56:50
my ex and did, which I think was
56:52
supposed to read kid into sex labor in
56:55
Montreal. I was took there and saw
56:57
them and maybe someone lied to
56:59
them just to have them believe I was dead
57:01
and take them to the funeral and then kidnapped
57:03
them into forced sex labor. I'm trying
57:05
to stop it and save them. And
57:08
then the Avento commented under that post. This
57:11
is for the village of Pilgett, Nebraska. As
57:14
I said on your Facebook message, this being done
57:16
because you're a fake and bird full news report.
57:20
Other posts on Mark Avento's Facebook from May 2023 allude to
57:22
the fact that he has returned to Montreal and is now
57:24
homeless. Miss my Harley chopper, he writes. I miss my car
57:26
and the lovely look
57:32
that people give when I am driving it. I miss you and hope
57:34
you and your daughter are safe and thinking of me with love in
57:36
your heart. You are not doing bad. And I wish you thinking of
57:38
the great times
57:42
we had as a family. Sad Giggity. More recently,
57:44
Gavin Avento's outrageous claims seem
57:49
to have amplified. In February 2024, he posted photos with
57:51
the ambassador of Cambodia attached to
57:56
an assertion that he Gavin Avento was a fake. was
58:01
supposed to be the deputy ambassador
58:03
from Canada to Cambodia but quote
58:05
got tortured instead for nine and a half
58:07
years by terrorists Gavin says they
58:10
tried to kill him six times and then he
58:12
became a member of a motorcycle gang all of
58:15
this because he was framed for what
58:18
happened in Pilger Nebraska quote
58:21
missing my life and money to live
58:23
with because I was betrayed and
58:25
my wife knew that people were trying to kill
58:27
me and didn't tell me because of the investigation
58:29
with the FBI in the United States and
58:31
they tried to blame me for something that someone
58:34
else is in jail for fraud and
58:36
the television report tried to blame me and that's when
58:38
I found out and the people that were to blame
58:40
almost had me locked up in the United States of
58:43
America for 187 years but
58:46
the FBI found out that I was not to blame
58:48
because they never charged me with anything and
58:50
they put the treasurer in jail for insurance fraud
58:52
because she was the person who did that
58:54
and tried to blame me for her crimes but
58:57
now I want to sue them because they played with
58:59
my life and helped my wife to treat me bad
59:02
because they told her I was going to jail and
59:04
also I lost five million eight hundred and
59:06
five thousand US dollars and I want my
59:09
money back that they got my wife to
59:11
destroy me with I will try
59:13
to contact the reporters and also the media
59:15
and the FBI because I am entitled to
59:18
52 million dollars my
59:20
collections company had every right to collect the
59:22
money that the township owed the creditors and
59:24
now they owe me a lot and I'm
59:26
getting a lawyer to sue them for destroying
59:28
my life for four years on TV because
59:30
they wanted to find a scapegoat that was
59:32
out of the country so
59:34
we will see soon if it works and
59:37
justice is served for Gavin Avento diplomat
59:40
from Canada to Cambodia
59:43
quote swindled
59:51
is written research produced and hosted
59:53
by me a concerned citizen
59:55
with original music by Trevor Howard
59:58
aka the former aka For
1:00:02
more information about Swindled, you can
1:00:04
visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on
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my name is Richard
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