Earl Washington: A Rip Off the Old Block | 165

Singer-actor Earl Washington turns out to be a triple threat when he takes up carving wood blocks to make ends meet while hustling to make a life as an entertainer in Los Angeles. But just like any other artist, his wood carvings need a good origin story, so Earl creates a new identity, a made-up grandfather, and begins selling his blocks on eBay as historical relics rather than his own creations. What Earl doesn’t account for is the number of times people will try to take him down, including a collector named Doug, who does his research, calls the FBI, and gets justice for the trail of deceived collectors Earl has left in his wake. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletter Listen to Scamfluencers on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/scamfluencers/ http://wondery.com/links/scamfluencers/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sarah Hagi?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:14Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, have you ever been a collector of like, anything?

• 0:18Scaachi Koul?

  I want to say no, but I know that I have a problem, which is that I like buying stuff that looks like other stuff.

• 0:25Sarah Hagi?

  Same. Oh, my god.

• 0:27Scaachi Koul?

  Right? Like, a trompe l'oeil is unfortunately putting me in bankruptcy.

• 0:32Sarah Hagi?

  I know.

• 0:32Scaachi Koul?

  I own a lot of purses shaped like other things, and I have a small collection of fake cigarettes.

• 0:40Sarah Hagi?

  I love candles that look like real objects, and I never burn them. I've like, become an old lady.

• 0:47Scaachi Koul?

  I know. This is why I don't buy them anymore. I went to Target the other day, and they had a bunch of candles shaped like cakes, and I had to talk myself out of it.

• 0:53Sarah Hagi?

  Oh, my god. I know what I'm gonna get you as a gift. Just buying it brings me joy. Okay, I can't wait. But I do have to stop myself from becoming this kind of person, because I know how far it can go, and I don't want to be that person. But today, we're gonna talk about a true artist and scammer who cornered the market on an incredibly niche art form. But he underestimated the fact that collectors like me are total freaks, and you can't fool a true fan.

• 1:27Sarah Hagi?

  It's early 2021, and Doug Arbiter is at home in York, Pennsylvania. Doug is in his mid-50s, tall, and wears clear-rimmed glasses. He's an anesthesiologist and an executive for a New Jersey healthcare system. But his real passion is collecting antique medical equipment. It's more of a lifelong obsession, really. Doug has been collecting this stuff since he was a kid. He has over 3,000 pieces in his collection: anatomy dioramas, surgical knives, candlesticks, even leech jars. Some of this stuff is centuries old. Doug cares about his collection so much that he spent nearly half a million dollars building a two-story private museum behind his house.

• 2:11Sarah Hagi?

  For him, it was a small price to pay to preserve these important pieces of medical history. Here's a picture of it, Sachi. Can you describe it?

• 2:21Scaachi Koul?

  This room looks like a public professional museum. It's really beautiful. It has all these matching armors with the pieces in it. It has this big staircase with a big railing, stained glass window in the ceiling. This is someone with a lot of money. It's not a mere hobby.

• 2:42Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I mean, it looks super professional. You'd never know this was just something a guy did. And Doug is in the museum today, but he's not here to admire his collection. He's waiting for the FBI. The agents arrive and Doug leads them inside. It's still COVID time, so the agents are wearing masks. They quickly start packaging up some of Doug's pieces and load them into a big van. But not everything. They're focused on his collection of about 130 wood block carvings. The wood blocks are hand carved to depict medical procedures and anatomical models. The seller said they were rare artifacts from the 16th and 17th centuries,

• 3:25Sarah Hagi?

  so Doug spent about $120,000 on them. He thought he was getting a deal, but a few years ago, Doug discovered that all of the blocks are fakes. That's why the FBI is here today. They're going to run tests on the blocks as part of a larger art fraud investigation into the seller, a guy named Earl Washington. The FBI plans to destroy the carvings after the tests, but Doug says, absolutely not. He wants them all back. Sure, he is upset that he spent more than $100,000 on fakes, but here's the thing: Earl's blocks are really good fakes. And even though Doug is helping the FBI bring Earl down,

• 4:09Sarah Hagi?

  he has to admit that the guy is an artist. Doug isn't the only one who's fallen prey to Earl's artistry. Turns out, the allure of this obscure kind of art has led collectors all over the globe to fall for Earl's scam for decades. But Earl's made one fake too many, and his scam is about to be stamped out.

• 4:35Speaker 02

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• 5:05Speaker 03

  I'm Lauren Malloy, the host of the podcast My Mom's Murder. For 30 years, I thought my mom died of natural causes. That's what everyone told me. That's what I believed. Until one day, I got a phone call that changed everything. A woman claiming to be my mom's best friend told me my mother was murdered and that no one had ever investigated it. So I did what the detectives wouldn't, pulled the threads, knocked on doors, and confronted the contradictions. And what I found, it's worse than I imagined. Something happened to my mom. Someone killed her. And I won't stop until I find out who.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  The system may have given up on my mom, but I never will. Listen to My Mom's Murder wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all 10 episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 6:09Sarah Hagi?

  From Wondery, I'm Sarah Haggie. And I'm Sachi Cole. And this is Scamfluencers.

• 6:22Sarah Hagi?

  Earl Washington was a promising artist, but his chosen medium, wood carving, isn't exactly mainstream. So Earl took to tall tales to up the value of his work. Once he was in deep, he was willing to do anything in order to keep the scam going, including lying to galleries, art museums, and serious collectors. But Earl is about to learn that the wealth and obsession that make for a good mark also make for a terrible enemy. This is Earl Washington, a rip off the old block.

• 7:01Sarah Hagi?

  To understand how such a niche art form turned into a federal case, we have to go back a few decades. It's the late 1970s and young Earl Washington is growing up in Detroit with parents that a friend later describes as strict. He's a handsome guy with striking features and a creative streak. One day, as he walks down the hallway of his high school, he notices an ad for an art contest. He's intrigued and decides to enter. But Earl isn't interested in drawing or painting. He wants to try something more obscure: carving. We don't know why carving piqued his interest, but he sets out to make something beautiful from a piece of linoleum. At first, the hobby doesn't seem to stick.

• 7:45Sarah Hagi?

  Earl leaves carving behind after high school and goes to college. Then he drops out and moves to Vegas to pursue a different art: singing. When he's in his late 20s and early 30s, Earl starts singing in casinos like Sands, The Mirage, and Caesar's Palace. Sachi, I have a photo of Earl from around this time. Could you describe it?

• 8:06Scaachi Koul?

  Okay, so this is a photo of, I think, a bunch of the performers who were working at these casinos in, it very much looks like the 80s. All of the women are in these short sequined dresses. They look like lifesavers. And all the guys have these sparkly fuchsia lapels. And our friend Earl, I think he's in the middle here, is wearing this red blazer. He looks like a sexy realtor.

• 8:38Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, that is a perfect description. I mean, they all look pretty cool to me. I mean, I'd see them perform.

• 8:46Scaachi Koul?

  Right.

• 8:46Sarah Hagi?

  And yes, that is Earl in the middle. He's part of a doo-wop review band called The Love Notes. They're performing with the young son of one of the band members. The kid looks like he's impersonating Michael Jackson, and he is pretty talented. Later in his life, he'll go by a more familiar stage name: Bruno Mars.

• 9:08Scaachi Koul?

  What?

• 9:09Sarah Hagi?

  That child is Bruno Mars.

• 9:12Scaachi Koul?

  I mean, I didn't know Bruno's relationships with casinos went this deep.

• 9:17Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:19Scaachi Koul?

  Has he been in debt since he was eight?

• 9:23Scaachi Koul?

  You know what? Why not? Why wouldn't it be Bruno Mars? Honestly, Sarah, we're like on season three of this show. I, nothing should surprise me anymore.

• 9:31Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, and also Earl's lawyers later say he didn't just know Bruno. Earl claims he gave Bruno voice lessons. So you're welcome, Bruno Mars fans.

• 9:44Sarah Hagi?

  Earl might be a talented singer, but he's struggling to make ends meet. So in the mid 1980s, he gets a job at a wood shop and he realizes that he's really good at woodworking. Surrounded by raw material, Earl remembers his old hobby and picks up carving again. This time, he uses wood instead of linoleum and he quickly becomes obsessed. Can you read how he described the allure of this art form to the New York Times years later?

• 10:13Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, he said, quote, "Every now and then, a person discovers something that is so in tune with everything their mind and brain is designed to do, and that was me when I discovered the wood blocks." You know, I have never felt this way about anything tangible, but I do think it's nice.

• 10:30Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty unique feeling, I think, for people who are really good at something. But Earl's still not willing to give up on singing and acting. So in 1989, he decides to go somewhere he can pursue both passions. A place that will make all of his dreams come true. That's right, Earl's going to Hollywood.

• 10:56Sarah Hagi?

  For the next few years, Earl is on his grind in LA. He claims he's able to book roles in a few movies, including a sequel to Chinatown and a sci-fi film that gets nominated for an Oscar. He also says he goes on Star Search and he still goes back to Vegas from time to time for casino lounge gigs. But Earl hasn't left carving behind. In fact, he starts incorporating his Hollywood dreams into his art. He carves more than 200 blocks depicting entertainment icons. He also goes deeper with his hobby and starts doing a ton of research on the history of wood block carving. Sachi, I think it's time we talk about how woodblock printing actually works.

• 11:39Sarah Hagi?

  Pay attention, because it took me a minute.

• 11:42Scaachi Koul?

  Cam listening.

• 11:44Sarah Hagi?

  First, an artist cuts a design into a wooden surface. Then, a printer adds ink, presses paper onto the carving, and produces prints. It's kind of like a big rubber stamp. Woodblock carving is actually the oldest form of printmaking in the world, but it hasn't been popular for centuries. And it's not widely taught as an art form either. So what Earl's doing is pretty unique, even in the art world. Around this time, Earl starts selling his blocks. And he adds a layer of mystique to jazz up his sales pitch. He tells potential buyers that his blocks were actually made by his great-grandfather. He says that this ancestor, Earl Mack-Washington,

• 12:26Sarah Hagi?

  was a skilled woodblock carver and a collector back in the late 1800s. Of course, none of this is true. But Earl truly sees himself as carrying on an ancient tradition. To him, the lies are necessary to sell his art. In his mind, they help generate more interest and value in his pieces. Plus, Earl likes the way people respond when they think his art is special. There's just one problem. When people buy historic artifacts, they want documentation verifying their authenticity. So Earl develops a contingency plan. If people ask for proof that his great-grandfather's art is authentic,

• 13:07Sarah Hagi?

  he says all the records burned up in a house fire back in the 60s or 70s. He also prepares for someone to ask for evidence of his ancestor's printing career, but no one ever does. Earl is bringing an entertainer's flair to the ancient art of woodblock carving, and his early success inspires him to tell even bigger, bolder lies.

• 13:34Sarah Hagi?

  In the mid 90s, when Earl is in his 30s, he decides to give up his Hollywood dreams. He settles down in an old Victorian building in Monroe, Michigan, which is about 40 minutes away from his hometown of Detroit. Earl is on his third marriage by this point. We don't know much about his first two wives, but in the late 90s, his third wife Stacy gives birth to their son. Stacy also gives Earl another life-changing gift: his first full-size printing press. Earl's determined to make a living from his carving, and thanks to Stacy's gift, he can start making and selling actual prints using his carvings. He starts putting in 16-hour days,

• 14:17Sarah Hagi?

  churning out thousands and thousands of prints. At this point, he's moved beyond just doing Hollywood portraits. Earl is black, and much of his work depicts Black American themes like flyers for Harlem's Cotton Club, lynchings, or portraits of Josephine Baker. And the stories he tells about his prints have become way more elaborate, too. Sometimes, he tells people that his great-grandfather saved a bunch of historic woodblocks from a fire in Manhattan. Other times, he claims that the original woodblock carvings are by famous artists like M.C. Escher, discovered from the remnants of a 1958 auction in Switzerland.

• 14:57Scaachi Koul?

  This is an absurd lie. This is a lie of such a scale that it is clear he is going to lose control of this so fast. Like, what do you mean you found an M.C. Escher that was a remnant from an auction 30 years earlier? It doesn't make any sense.

• 15:15Sarah Hagi?

  I know, but again, it's such a rare form of art, and he's so good at it. That's kind of like, why would someone question it, right?

• 15:22Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I guess no one would look.

• 15:24Sarah Hagi?

  And Earl manages to sell some of his work to art galleries in Detroit, Toledo, and San Francisco for prices ranging from $20 to $350 per print. He sells other pieces on eBay, including to some collectors who then resell the prints as rare merchandise. Eventually, he carves and sells around 3,000 wood blocks. He also buys up 200 printing presses and uses them to make and sell more than a million prints. Later, Earl will claim he was making $30,000 a month. Earl might not be a movie star, but he's a celebrity in the niche world of wood block carving. But Earl's talent is about to draw attention to his scheme.

• 16:07Sarah Hagi?

  Sellers might be willing to look the other way, but Earl's about to discover that true collectors are a different breed entirely.

• 16:22Sarah Hagi?

  It's the early 2000s, and Mark Veldhousen is having a pretty typical experience: angrily scrolling the internet. Mark is a middle-aged Dutchman with round glasses and a slightly goofy demeanor. He's a director of the M.C. Escher Foundation, which oversees the estate of the late artist, including licensing his work. Right now, Mark is looking at several eBay listings for wood block prints claiming to be Escher's work, but he knows they're fake. Most of Escher's best-known works are lithographs. Escher did make some wood block prints in his lifetime, but these wood blocks are rare and look pretty different from normal wood block printings.

• 17:03Sarah Hagi?

  For starters, Escher didn't use a traditional printing press, like the ones Earl uses. Instead, he used a bone spoon to carefully press the ink into the wood carvings. He also kept more of the original wood, which created a very dark effect. And he used a special, super-thin, super-absorbent paper for his prints. In Mark's expert opinion, there's no way these eBay prints are legit. Mark gets eBay to take down Earl's listings. Then, he alerts the FBI, filing a formal complaint accusing Earl of fraud. Mark doesn't know it, but he's just the latest in a string of people trying to take Earl down.

• 17:43Sarah Hagi?

  Back in 1999, a Canadian lawyer named Kenneth Martins saw an erotic print that one of his friends bought from Earl. The friend was told that the print was made by the late British artist Eric Gill. But of course, it's Earl's handiwork, not Gill's. Kenneth already owned a genuine Gill print, so he brought it over to compare signatures, and the print purchased from Earl didn't match. When Kenneth realized his friend had been scammed, he tried to get authorities to look into it, but they didn't seem interested. So Kenneth did what any spurned nerd in the late 90s would do. He sat down and made a website dedicated to exposing Earl and connecting the people he scammed.

• 18:25Scaachi Koul?

  That sounds like a really fun hobby.

• 18:26Sarah Hagi?

  It's something I would do, too. Very aptearly.com hobby. I mean, there was really a time when single-purpose websites mattered, you know?

• 18:39Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. We used to be a real society.

• 18:42Sarah Hagi?

  Yes.

• 18:42Scaachi Koul?

  And now we've lost monoculture and nothing's been right since.

• 18:46Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Kenneth's website and Mark's FBI investigation are turning up the heat on Earl's grift. But journalist Alan Abrams has also been digging into Earl's history. Around the same time Mark complains to the feds, Alan publishes a bombshell story in Forbes that exposes Earl as a fraud. Alan spoke with one of Earl's former girlfriends, who revealed that Earl was passing off his own work as that of more famous artists or by his great-grandfather. Alan also reveals that he couldn't find any evidence that Earl's artist-great-grandfather ever existed. Alan actually spoke with Earl for the story. They met in Earl's office, and sitting on his desk was a book about counterfeit Salvador Dali prints.

• 19:30Scaachi Koul?

  He may as well have a notebook, like in The Simpsons, when that guy comes in with the monologue. On a rail and it's just drawings of him running away with bags of cash. There's a lack of subtlety.

• 19:41Sarah Hagi?

  Hey, listen, I mean, he could just be interested in knowing how to avoid them, right?

• 19:46Scaachi Koul?

  You're right. You're right. This is not firm evidence even still.

• 19:50Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Earl did admit to Alan that he's the artist on some of the prints, but he denied making up an ancestor. After the story comes out, Mark, Kenneth and Alan probably feel satisfied that they've stopped a scammer in his tracks. But Earl is an accomplished actor and he's ready to take on the role of a lifetime in order to throw law enforcement off his scent.

• 20:17Speaker 04

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• 20:48Speaker 05

  I'm Gemma Whelan and in the new season of The Spy Who, we tell the story of the original femme fatale, the spy who was Mata Hari. A famous dancer turned World War I secret agent, accused of seducing Allied officers to uncover their plans. But was she a temptress or a scapegoat for French failures? Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Was Mata Hari early and ad-free on Audible.

• 21:27Sarah Hagi?

  After the Forbes article exposes Earl's scheme, the FBI interrogates him for about 45 minutes. Then they let him go, but that's too close for comfort for Earl. He backs off wood carving and sells all but one of his printing presses. A few years later, Earl and Stacy have a nasty fight and Earl moves out. Two years after that, he moves to Key West, Florida. And once he settles in, Earl decides to get back in the game. But this time, he's doing things differently. He's still telling people that a relative salvaged these rare, old wood blocks. But now he means really old, like from the 16th and 17th centuries.

• 22:09Sarah Hagi?

  Earl has to work even harder to make sure that his fakes look like the real deal. So he rubs his wood blocks against harsh materials like gravel to make them seem convincingly old. Earl searches online and looks through books for inspiration. These historically inspired images might not be as cool as Escher, but they're niche and interesting in their own way. Sachi, take a look at one example.

• 22:34Scaachi Koul?

  Oh, I like this. This is weird. It looks almost like a playing card of a jack, except his body is like, you can see into his body and see all of his organs and his intestines and his heart. I like it. It's gross.

• 22:49Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and it's kind of like an old timey depiction of what they thought the inside of someone's body looks like, you know?

• 22:55Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, yeah. Old, bad anatomy.

• 22:57Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, listen, I'm looking at that and I'm convinced. And, not just me, the supposedly ancient prints sell very well at around $700 a pop, which would be a great deal if they really were from the 16th and 17th centuries. Also, Earl isn't selling work under his own name anymore. Now, he's doing it all under a pseudonym. He's calling himself River Sen.

• 23:24Scaachi Koul?

  I hate it. That's like the name a girl uses for her.

• 23:28Sarah Hagi?

  Live journal?

• 23:29Scaachi Koul?

  Contemporary art.

• 23:30Sarah Hagi?

  Tumblr.

• 23:32Scaachi Koul?

  This sucks.

• 23:34Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Earl's new work gets the attention of lots of buyers over the next few years, and no one seems to have any suspicions. But he's about to meet a dedicated collector and fan who will soon become his greatest enemy: Doug the Doctor.

• 23:54Sarah Hagi?

  It's February 2013 and Doug Arbiter is doing his favorite thing, browsing eBay, looking for interesting treasures. Remember Doug Sachi? He's the doctor collecting medical antiques from the very beginning of this episode. And today Doug stumbles on something totally unexpected. It's River Sen's eBay page, and it features carved wood blocks depicting medical scenes from centuries ago. Woodcuts were used to illustrate medical textbooks beginning in the 15th century. And illustrations of autopsied bodies helped doctors share information with practitioners all over the world. The block Doug's looking at is supposedly from a medical textbook printed in 1501,

• 24:38Sarah Hagi?

  and it depicts the inside of a human abdomen. And to Doug, it's beautiful. Sachi, we actually talked to Doug for this episode, so I'll let him tell you what he's feeling in this moment.

• 24:51Speaker 06

  But I'm like, holy cow, did I have something from 1501 used to print the first medical image of the thorax? Okay, it's not a surgical instrument, but heck, I want to have it. So I bid on it, I won it, and then I did what any collector does, which is you say, do you have any more?

• 25:09Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I get it. I would also want this if I thought it was real. It's cool as shit. It's very rare.

• 25:16Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, of course. I mean, it's like, this is your special interest and you find something you've never seen before, right? And shockingly affordable. Well, River Sen, aka Earl, is happy to show Doug more medical wood blocks. He also tells Doug one of his concocted origin stories, that his grandfather recovered a bunch of printing blocks after a fire in Manhattan in the early 1900s. Now, he says they're clearing out a family's storage facility and parting ways with the blocks he salvaged. Doug offers to pay more than $1,200 for every wood block with any medical or surgical association. And River agrees. Usually Doug likes to do tons of research to verify the origins of what ends up in his

• 26:00Sarah Hagi?

  museum, but he doesn't know much about verifying wood. And since the images on the blocks are historically accurate, and they look old, Doug is satisfied. In fact, he's so happy with the first block, he puts it in the central display case in his museum. Doug buys dozens more blocks from River. He buys so many that he orders custom display cabinets just to show them off. River even starts to throw in some free ones here and there. Doug and River quickly strike up a rapport, exchanging messages all the time. Once Doug wrote that he got, quote, "palpitations" opening a box of wood blocks. Can you read River's response?

• 26:43Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he said, quote, "It's a sickness, Doug. We share the same symptoms of acquisitive affliction."

• 26:48Sarah Hagi?

  But I love it. Honestly, there's something so wholesome about this scam, like, without thinking about the scam itself, like-

• 26:59Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. If no one got hurt in this, I would be tickled by all of it.

• 27:05Sarah Hagi?

  And I mean, you could also tell that Earl genuinely, like, feels a connection to it in this way. Like, I feel like the love is there, you know?

• 27:15Scaachi Koul?

  He's starting to believe it's on bullshit, yeah.

• 27:19Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Doug usually pays River through PayPal, but sometimes River asks him to cut a check to his assistant, Suzie, in Florida. It isn't how Doug normally pays for items in his collection, but hey, he's getting the blocks. Over time, Doug comes to think of River as a kind of friend. River praises Doug's museum, and Doug hears about River's passion for antique cars. Doug feels like he found a kindred spirit and a treasure trove. But things aren't going nearly as well for his source. Earl is about to hit a rough patch, which will throw his booming online business into disarray.

• 28:02Sarah Hagi?

  It's sometime in 2015, and Earl is taking the stage at Chicago's, a blues club in Key West. The bar has exposed brick walls, and Deep Dish is on the menu. Its motto is "Bringing the Midwest to Key West." Earl seems to have gotten things together. At some point, Stacy and their two kids joined him in Florida. And in addition to selling woodblocks online, he's gotten back into singing. He also teaches voice lessons, and he's performing. He's here tonight with his 60s cover band, Threesome. Spelled "three" as in the number three, "S-U-M."

• 28:41Scaachi Koul?

  Uh, that is the name of a band that a virgin would pick. I hate it. I hate it so much. I was on Earl's side, until now.

• 28:49Sarah Hagi?

  Well, after Threesome is done performing, Earl takes to the dance floor. And he ends up dancing with an older woman who immediately captivates him. Her name is Mary Ann, and though she's there with her husband, she and Earl begin an affair. It doesn't last long, but Earl and Mary Ann remain good friends. In the spring of 2016, Earl welcomes Mary Ann to his house, where she meets his wife and kids, and one of his voice students, Zanit. Mary Ann has a business proposal for Earl. They both love classic cars, so Mary Ann suggests that they start a vintage car importing business. Ever the entrepreneur, Earl agrees.

• 29:30Sarah Hagi?

  But this may not be the best time for Earl to start a new business, because his personal life is a mess. Just one month after Mary Ann's visit, Earl moves from Key West to Hawaii with Zanit.

• 29:45Scaachi Koul?

  Ugh, deplorable, disgusting, and weird.

• 29:50Sarah Hagi?

  Well, definitely not a virgin.

• 29:52Scaachi Koul?

  No, I guess not. In the worst way possible.

• 29:56Sarah Hagi?

  Earl's roller coaster home life threatens to derail more than his marriage. He's struggling to stay on top of his woodblock business. And when he falls off the map, one of his favorite clients will start to wonder where he is, and who he is.

• 30:16Sarah Hagi?

  By the time Earl is getting ready to leave Florida, Doug has filled his specially-made cabinets with hundreds of medical-themed woodblocks. He spent more than $100,000 to build up this collection, and he's incredibly proud of it. But it's around this time that he falls out of touch with the mysterious River Sen.

• 30:37Sarah Hagi?

  Doug's not the only one who caught the woodblock collecting bug. Doug has spread the word about River's incredible stash to other collector friends, including one in Germany named Thilo Hoffman. Thilo is a world-class antique dealer specializing in religious objects. He also went wild for River Sen's woodblocks and bought tons of them over the years. Doug and Thilo are both so impressed with the quality and uniqueness of the woodblocks that they decide to co-write an academic article about them. The first thing they need to do is verify that the blocks are real. Thilo has the woodblocks tested for carbon dating analysis, while Doug decides to look into River's story about how he came to possess the blocks.

• 31:21Sarah Hagi?

  Here's what Doug told us about it.

• 31:23Speaker 06

  I, just a slight suspicion as we were talking more about it and doing research, I said, "Let me look into this fire story." And I spent two or three days searching every fire in the history of New York City, okay, because that's what I do, down every rabbit hole, every fire, and I could not find a fire at a printing company in any early magazine, in any early newspaper in New York City in the 20th century. And that got me a little, a little concerned. That, plus the fact that I kind of lost touch with him over time.

• 32:00Sarah Hagi?

  I'm so glad that somebody finally looked into the very basics around the stories of these blocks and discovered that it was all bullshit. I'm glad somebody did a Google. You know, it's clearly someone who does so much research that it's a bit shocking he only looked into the fire at this point. Yeah, yeah. But for Doug, not being able to corroborate the fire story is a huge red flag.

• 32:29Sarah Hagi?

  Then sometime after this, Doug is up late one night doing more research. And he suddenly remembers that a few years ago, River gave him his phone number. He also knows that River is into antique cars like Bugattis. Here's Doug again.

• 32:43Speaker 06

  But what I decided to do was take those two little clues I had, which was cars, antique cars, and that phone number, and go to my best friend, Google. And lo and behold, I found a advertisement for a Bugatti car or a similar antique reproduction car, and it had that phone number. I'm like, OK. And on that phone number, it said, "Call Earl." I said, "Earl? Who's Earl?"

• 33:10Scaachi Koul?

  Brutal. Just brutal. He doesn't even know his name. Ugh.

• 33:16Sarah Hagi?

  I know. It's almost like has hints of a catfishing story as well.

• 33:20Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, he was catfished.

• 33:22Sarah Hagi?

  He was.

• 33:23Scaachi Koul?

  He was lying about who he was.

• 33:24Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, but he kind of fell for River as a bud, you know?

• 33:28Scaachi Koul?

  That's what I'm saying. He got catfished by a girl's Tumblr.

• 33:34Sarah Hagi?

  Well, after that, Doug goes in. He subscribes to a white-page public record search engine. The name Earl Marshawn Washington comes up, as does someone named Suzie. Doug remembers her as River's assistant, the one he sent money to in Florida. So then Doug Googles Earl's full name.

• 33:54Speaker 06

  I will never forget. I typed in Earl. I was sitting at my dining room table. After a long day of work, I typed in Earl Marshawn Washington and hit search. And what do you know? There's a Wikipedia page about someone who had been selling fraudulent prints for many years, tens of thousands of prints. There was an article written about him in Forbes magazine in 2004. And I'm like, holy crap.

• 34:29Sarah Hagi?

  And that carbon dating analysis, it came back saying the blocks were fake. So Doug is crushed and feeling a lot of different things at once.

• 34:39Speaker 06

  I mean, I couldn't even believe it. I mean, I'm, it sounds obnoxious or weird, but I'm considered like an expert, like a true world expert in medical history. I've done it for over 40 years, right? I was scammed. I mean, it's impossible not to be embarrassed. And then that turns to anger. It absolutely turns to, I am not going to let this go.

• 35:07Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, listen, this would send me to the moon and I would make it my life's mission to expose this person. If I felt like I was an expert in something and they made me look like a fucking idiot, I'd freak out.

• 35:20Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, of course. I feel like that betrayal would create a level of determination in someone like Doug especially. And Doug wants to bring Earl to justice. And luckily, he knows just who to call. His sister is the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She puts him in touch with the FBI's Art Crimes Division. But while they have the authority to look into Earl, they tell Doug they need more information to see if they'll take on the case. So Doug goes buck wild. He doesn't want anyone else to get scammed like he did. So over the next few months, he starts putting together a huge file with all the information he has on Earl. He prints out all the emails between them. He adds photos of the blocks and the eBay listings.

• 36:05Sarah Hagi?

  And once it's done, his dossier is almost 300 pages long. Doug then hands it off to the FBI and his research is enough to kick off their investigation of Earl. Earl's high-flying career of scammy artistry is about to be whittled away.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  A trucker merges onto the I-10 in New Orleans. He checks his mirrors. The lane is clear. And then, boom, impact. A pickup truck, seemingly out of nowhere, scrapes down the side of his 18-wheeler, multiple passengers inside. One man flees the scene. And the driver of the pickup? He doesn't seem all that upset. It didn't feel like a regular accident, because it wasn't. Across the city, truckers are getting sideswiped, all on the same stretch of the same freeway. And behind many of the cases is one person, a Hollywood stunt woman turned personal injury lawyer, named Vanessa Moda. This podcast is a story about fake accidents that lead to real consequences, and a scheme that ends in betrayal and murder.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• 37:28Speaker 06

  Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia spent her life exposing powerful people. Then, in 2017, she was killed in a car bombing. I'm Stephen Gray, and for the past nine years, I've been trying to find out who wanted her dead. That search took me to Malta through secret companies, organized crime, and eventually to one of the island's richest and most powerful men. Now, after years of waiting, his trial has finally happened. But when the verdict came in, the case took a turn that almost no one had expected. In a brand-new update to the multi-award-winning podcast Who Killed Daphne? I'm returning to Malta to find out how we got there and where the search for the truth goes next. Listen to the new episode of Who Killed Daphne wherever you get your podcasts,

• 38:13Speaker 06

  and you can hear the full six-part investigation from the beginning, ad-free with Audible. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app and by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 38:37Sarah Hagi?

  It's early January 2023. FBI Special Agent Jake Archer is in Waikiki, but he's not on vacation. He's waiting for a target. Jake has short-cropped brown hair and a military manner. He's basically straight out of FBI Central Casting. He's been posing as a buyer of antique woodblock carvings, and today, he's in a hotel lobby to meet with a supplier, Earl Washington. It's been more than two years since Doug first contacted the art crime unit and gave them a thick dossier of evidence. Jake recovered Doug's woodblocks as evidence, and the FBI did their own carbon dating analysis. They've also been interviewing other people around the world

• 39:21Sarah Hagi?

  who bought items from Earl. Eventually, Jake and his colleagues search a storage locker in Vegas that belonged to Earl. The locker contained the art forgery equivalent of a murder bag: woodblocks, carving tools, and photos that Earl used as inspiration for his carvings. Finally, they had enough evidence to go after him.

• 39:44Scaachi Koul?

  It's funny to crack into a into a storage locker, being like, "All the evidence is in here." And it's just full of wood. Pieces, pieces of wood. An old knife.

• 39:57Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's like the smoking gun, and it's like a block of wood.

• 40:01Scaachi Koul?

  It's a dull knife. A couple of blocks of wood.

• 40:05Sarah Hagi?

  And it seems likely that Earl is waiting for the other shoe to drop. A couple of years before, Earl wrote to the guys who sold to Doug's German friend, Tilo. Earl admitted that he was the real artist behind those works. He offered to repay for the fraudulent woodblocks and to provide additional blocks mimicking historical artifacts if Tilo would refrain from taking legal action. But of course, it's too little, too late. At the hotel, Jake spots Earl walking through the doors. Earl makes his way towards Jake, and then Jake flashes a badge and says, "Take a look. This is real."

• 40:44Scaachi Koul?

  That's an incredible burn. So specific. I love it. That's very Jerry. They're real and they're spectacular, which I say four to 10 times a day.

• 40:53Sarah Hagi?

  I feel like there's not a lot of excitement in the world of art fraud. You gotta create some lines, you know, some memories, you know?

• 41:00Scaachi Koul?

  You gotta get your jabs and your zings in where you can. Yes.

• 41:04Sarah Hagi?

  And after he nabs Earl, Jake decides to call the person who made this all possible to give him some closure: Doug. Doug is walking his three dogs down his tree-lined street in northern New Jersey. He picks up Jake's call and gets the news. After years of waiting, he's achieved his goal. Earl is going to be held accountable for lying to Doug and so many other collectors for decades.

• 41:32Sarah Hagi?

  About a month after his arrest, Earl's out on bail in Hawaii. Since he got indicted and arrested, he hasn't been able to sell his wood carvings. And the court agreed to release him pending trial on one condition: He can't contact any victims while the case is still ongoing. He agrees, but Earl can't help himself. With only two days to go before his first appearance in court, he writes a long email to one of the collectors who'd been buying from him for years. Could you read some of the note he writes to the collector?

• 42:05Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he wrote, "I am making the preemptive effort to reach out to all of the victims whom my duplicities have affected in an attempt to propose compensation by restitution in whatever means and amounts that might be viewed by the courts as a significant initiative to assuage the wrongs of my xylographic crimes." Someone bought a thesaurus, and he is using it.

• 42:26Sarah Hagi?

  Listen, Earl is an old soul. He's using words that people don't use these days. You know what I mean?

• 42:32Scaachi Koul?

  I've never heard xylographic. I'm gonna use it 400 times in the next week, Sarah. You will hear it from me.

• 42:38Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's going in the lexicon. And Earl even offers to pay him $20,000 in restitution for the blocks. But even though it seems well-intentioned, Earl just keeps violating court orders. And Earl's put more than just his customers in a bind. He hasn't been able to communicate with Mary Ann, and she's freaking out. They've been running their car import business, and now there's a chance the court will seize some of the company's assets to pay for Earl's wood block crimes. Zanit, who's now Earl's wife, was indicted too. She helped him accept payments in the scheme. The court forbids Earl from contacting her, but that doesn't stop him. Can you read what he wrote her on her birthday, Sachi?

• 43:22Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, he wrote, quote, "I hope and pray that after the end of this ordeal, that I will still have a loyal, beautiful Hungarian wife. If not, I will understand. Thank you for being the most wonderful and amazing wife for taking a chance on me. I love you."

• 43:40Scaachi Koul?

  If my ex-husband

• 43:44Scaachi Koul?

  had written this to me, on the way out, my head would have burst into flames. It would have been simultaneously so gratifying and so unsatisfying at the same time.

• 43:58Sarah Hagi?

  Okay, so safe to say you're no one's loyal, beautiful Indian wife?

• 44:03Scaachi Koul?

  No, I was not interested in sticking around to be the loyal, beautiful Indian wife. But perhaps she will be the loyal, beautiful Hungarian wife. Not looking good.

• 44:13Sarah Hagi?

  Well, later in 2023, Earl pleads guilty and cooperates with authorities. As part of his plea deal, the charges against Earl are dismissed. But then prosecutors file new charges against him that summer: mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. He pleads guilty to those charges too. After decades of slipping under the radar, Earl seems tired of running. He finally admits to everything, selling fake wood blocks under the alias River Sen, and using his romantic partner's bank accounts to carry out the fraud. It's finally over. Earl is eventually sentenced to 52 months in prison

• 44:55Sarah Hagi?

  and ordered to pay over $200,000 in restitution to the people he scammed. But even in prison, Earl has found a way to keep the joy of wood alive. Apparently, he found a little piece of wood in prison, which he's been keeping under his bed. But he doesn't carve it. He just likes to be close to it and to feel the texture of the wood grain.

• 45:22Sarah Hagi?

  It's the summer of 2023, and Doug is excited that his hard work has paid off. Once the FBI got involved, he watched with satisfaction as Earl got charged with mail fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. But then, one day, Doug's email dings. Guess who it is? I'm guessing it's, uh... What was his Tumblr icon? River Sen? Yes. It is Earl again. And he's got a pretty brazen proposal. Earl says he's willing to donate his vast wood block and carving knowledge to Doug's museum, including speaking at symposiums the museum might hold. He even offers to give Doug more blocks for free.

• 46:05Sarah Hagi?

  Even though he blatantly lied to Doug for years, it seems that Earl still wants to help him with his medical museum. Here's how Doug feels about this.

• 46:14Speaker 06

  For him to tell me that I can come and be a docent, give you 10 blocks a year, and give two lectures a year in carving blocks?

• 46:23Speaker 06

  That's... I don't know where that comes from. Is that idiocy? Is that just, you know, to embarrass me? Is that him genuinely thinking, I'll make up for what I've done by making this offer? Would he have thought that would have made sense on any planet? I mean, I couldn't even believe that. So that was almost... I almost laughed when I read that. 10 free fake blocks a year, you know, sign me up.

• 46:48Sarah Hagi?

  Doug's shocked by Earl's lack of self-awareness, but in a weird way, he still respects Earl as an artist. Doug has a soft spot for the wood blocks he bought and finds them aesthetically beautiful, even though they're fake. Even after he was scammed out of all that money, he's still holding on to Earl's fraudulent blocks.

• 47:11Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, did you even know what wood blocks were? Or that they existed at all? And that this was an art forum that could be involved in any type of scam, really?

• 47:22Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's interesting to think about the people who invented these modalities of art in the 14th and 15th and 16th centuries and thinking, you know, one day, someone's gonna fake this to make thousands of dollars for no good reason.

• 47:38Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's really interesting because it's like Earl has had such a fascinating life of like being in the arts, singing, honing in on this very specific dying skill, but still weirdly doesn't have the confidence to be like, these are my wood blocks. I'm gonna reinvigorate this somehow. And I do think he kind of like latched on to Doug's purity of like, how his interest in these wood blocks and the world of medical antiques came from like a very real place for him, you know?

• 48:13Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's interesting. It's like a weird scam that like could take advantage of a lot of people, but mostly took advantage of one particular person who had this very unique obsession, which is maybe the difference between Earl and like some of the other scammers we've talked about who do these like artistic scams is they're trying to rip off everybody, like museums or libraries or like Sotheby's or whatever else. But this was so specific and like a weird war between two old friends. One of them didn't even know he was in it.

• 48:45Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and it's like, of course, there were other people he scammed through the, you know, M.C. Escher wood blocks and all that kind of stuff. But a part of his last kind of grasp at reconnecting with Doug. Tells me that Earl actually wanted to be his friend and went about it entirely the wrong way or something like it's also rare that we haven't really seen anyone reach out and be like, hey, you know what, like, let me make this right. Wouldn't it have been easier to just like, I mean, we say this all the time, but like, make it a real skill, you know what I mean?

• 49:19Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I mean, this is something that's so specific that he could have just done it and been like, I'm the guy who's the expert on this outdated format in art. But I think he understood something that a lot of scam artists understand and a lot of people who collect art understand, which is that it's not enough just that the product exists, it's about who made the product, right? So it isn't enough that he's really good at wood carving, it isn't enough that he is able to replicate these things. What matters is if it's an M.C. Escher original.

• 49:53Sarah Hagi?

  No, exactly. It is exactly what you're saying, but also, you know, one thing about Doug is that it just goes to show how deep his desire was for having what he thought it was, where he didn't even really look into this guy. Like, you know, there, once he understood that there was a lie happening is kind of when he woke up and did the normal Google searches that you think someone would do.

• 50:14Scaachi Koul?

  Well, I hate to say the lesson is do a Google, but it's to do a Google. You should look up your new friends. When you make a new friend, Google them.

• 50:24Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, and also I do understand it from his perspective of who the fuck would lie about this? It's so random. What's a lesson here? I think for me, it's that your art isn't valuable, no matter how good you are, unless someone decides that you are valuable.

• 50:43Scaachi Koul?

  That's how art works. That has always been true.

• 50:46Sarah Hagi?

  It's like, think of all these people who died before being famous. So you know what? I think if you're an artist of any type, you know, maybe just like, wait until you're dead to see if it works out, I don't know.

• 50:59Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, the lesson today is before you make any rash decisions around your business or your friendships or your marriage, you should die and see where the chips fall.

• 51:13Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, so don't give up because one day you will die and someone might find your work and appreciate it long after. You see any returns from your blood, sweat and tears.

• 51:33Scaachi Koul?

  Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.

• 51:45Sarah Hagi?

  This is Earl Washington, a rip-off of The Old Block. I'm Sarah Hagee.

• 51:50Scaachi Koul?

  And I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were The Art Forger Had Fooled Thousands, Then He Met Doug by Christopher Quo for The New York Times, and Catch Me If You Can: Alan Abrams's Investigation for Forbes.

• 52:10Sarah Hagi?

  Paula Mejia wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagee. Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact checking by Lexi Peery. Sound design by John Lloyd. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Frieson Sync. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Our senior managing producer is Callum Pluse. Janine Cornello and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our producer is Julie McGruder. Our senior producers are Sarah Enni and Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Journalist Tristan Redman goes where no son-in-law should ever go. Deep into his wife's family history, digging up the cold case of who murdered her great-grandmother. Because, I should mention, he thinks the murderer might actually be the beloved family patriarch. For the best binge-watch series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.