May 19, 2022 • 32 mins
Is con artist Lizzie Mulder working alone? A trusted business owner known as "The Dog Trainer" gives Lizzie a glowing recommendation to print shop owner and victim Mike Cochran. So Mike hires her to do the books for his business. He also introduces Lizzie to his parents who need tax help. Then tragedy strikes. Mike’s ailing father takes a turn for the worse and gets admitted into hospice care. And con artist Lizzie Mulder… takes full advantage.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
She created a website, she created a hundred numbers. She
created a guy named Brent Harrison using Spoo software. And
I'm thinking, I'm talking to a guy overseas that wants
to invest into my winery. And really, I'm talking to
that woman in Orange County that is just scamming me
the whole time. And it sounded like a man, it did.
(00:23):
It sounded just like a man. Jay Avery's company, Jack Wines,
is scammed out of nearly three hundred thousand dollars by
c p A. Lizzie Mulder and Laguna Beach Police Detective
Jordan Morakian is digging in the bottom line. Is there
fake people who are accepting invoices on behalf of Lizzie
(00:43):
Moulder and Jack Wines? And money is not going from
Jack Wines to these people, It's going right back into
Lizzie Moulder's account. And around the same time that Jay
Avery is getting scammed, Mike Cochrane's print shop is con
artists Lizzie Malder's latest mark. I was talking to a gal.
She was a dog trainer we used to print business
(01:06):
cards for. She knew a girl, young lady Elizabeth Mulder,
and referred to us said she's a tax repairer, was
like her second mom. She claimed, I leave a voicemail
for this dog trainer. Hey, my name is Jonathan Walton,
and she calls me back the next day telling me
I actually have it all wrong. Lizzie Mulder is completely innocent.
(01:41):
I'm Jonathan Walton and this is Queen of the con
The O C Savior episode four, better than everybody, you know.
The embarrassing part about us is we're one of the
lower rip offs. Okay, she took eighteen thousand dollars out
(02:02):
of my business. She took a little over twenty dollars
out of my parents. It's been more than ten years
since c p A. Lizzie Mulder first darkens myke Cochran's
door away. He hires her in to do taxes for
his Orange County print shop. My dad died about three
and a half four months after I met Lizzie. I
(02:24):
took my eyes off my business. I didn't give a ship, dude.
You know, I was wandering around. And just so you know,
I have two older sisters. My mental sister has mental health.
She lived with my parents her whole life. Things got
worse with time. So after my dad expired, she blew
a fuse, I'm sure, and went into a facility and
all that. So I was family mode. You're just in
(02:46):
family mode and you're like, well, there's enough money in
the bank, pay roll is going to go through with
my crew. And Lizzie made you believe she's on top
of things. Oh yeah, yeah, no, I got it. Don't
worry about it. Remote, this remote that she's on information
from the I r S saying things are moving along,
and then there'll be some emails and I mean, dude,
(03:07):
the whips she played to create billing we're all fabrications,
every one of them. So she would send you documents,
semi documents from the I r S, but really she
created those documents herself. Oh yeah, and they were payments
to income tax payments. But the KUDA grab was the
checking account with the name income tax payments. And I
(03:31):
had invoices from the I r S saying make checks
payable to income tax payments. So it's kind of like
you have an I r S document backing up the
name of this account, you know, and when you say
it out loud, you go, that doesn't sound right. But
at the time it flew right through. Do you hold
(03:52):
Bank of America responsible at all. Totally. That's bullshit, man,
I mean that's lack of moral account ability. Because she
can just go to Bank of America and open up
an account called income tax payments and they don't. That
doesn't raise a red flag for him. Yeah, no, that's
just bullshit. But then we also paid Molder Financial Services,
(04:13):
which was her tax preparing, so we actually paid her
to prepare Wait a minute, she didn't prepare taxes paid
her to scam you. We paid her to scam us.
She even did a crazy thing. Probably about two years
into working with her, she told us that there was
an audit that she had to go to in l
A to the main office for your company for my business.
(04:37):
Ye needed some information, provide all these documents that edited.
I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna have to take a
girl with me, just so you know it's going to
be expensive and you know, oh, but this will take
care of it. We're going to clear it all up.
Fuck total bullshit, Okay. She she wanted to get money
from you to go on this trip from to go
(04:59):
up and do the I R S on it in
l A with her and one of her assistants and
there never wasn't on it. That was never wasn't on it,
complete fabrication. She did a series of phone calls. Factis information.
Oh I'm at the office right now. Hold Tom one sack.
This agent's gonna call you. He's gonna talk to you.
So you talked to who you thought was an I R. S. Agent,
(05:20):
But it was Lizzie Malder. It was Lizzie Molder. And
what does that voice sound like? It sounded like a dude.
You know at the time, I didn't like imprinted in
my brain. Okay, like I should remember the sound of
this voice. It was not It was not a female voice.
It had more baritone or what did guys have, Adam
(05:40):
sample something, there's some different tweak and a guy's voice,
and what do you guys have? Well, you know what
I'm saying. No, yeah, no, it's like a deeper ment
like a man's like a man's voice. Absolutely, I just
assumed it was a guy. And this sounded all legit
and uh, you know, okay, and yes I agree with that.
(06:00):
And you know he was asking me questions in particular
to our taxes, and you know, I just soaked it
all up. But looking back, you're like Jesus man, that's
that's sophistication. That is a person that is a professional.
And how does she steal the money from your parents.
My dad was close to death. Okay. Uh, he's in
(06:24):
a like a hospice hospice care. Yeah, where everybody's trying
to have you take the magic pill and go to sleep. Okay.
So he's winding down and he's trying to get his
affairs in order. So he was selling stock. My dad
had some inheritance, some houses. His brother and sister died,
no kids, and he got the houses. So you know,
the boy built up some funds and was trying to
(06:46):
take care of my mom, so he was generating some
cash and so on and so forth. Lizzie was helping us.
So we thought I told my parents. I only knew
Lizzie for about a month. Okay. She did the taxes
from my mom and dad had them right five checksture,
you know where they all went, income tax pay income
tax payments, and so she uh filed the taxes, but
(07:09):
she did not apply any of the payments. Of course,
she took that money for herself. Then she was saying
that she wanted to help them with their estates. So
that was where Lizzie possibly could have stole millions of dollars.
But my mom was like, nope, nope, nope. My mom
was an executive secretary. She used to do stuff for
one of the vps at Wells Fargo. So my mom
(07:33):
had her ship together, thank god, thank god, you know,
and basically said, no, baby, I'm in charge. I take
care of this when you get stuck in one of
these crappy situations with I hope most people don't, okay,
but there's millions of common people out there. In my view,
the real human nature is dirty, you know, human nature. Well,
(07:55):
I don't think human nature is dirty. I think most
people are good, fine people. Yeah, but Lizzie, Uh, Lizzie
really got us. She pooled us the whole way. Talking
to Mike, it's clear that he's not over what happened
to him. I mean, how could he be. This has
been one of the biggest mistakes in my life. Well,
(08:17):
you see, I don't think you should frame it that way.
What you didn't make a mistake. You were the victim
of a con artist, yes that you were. Just the
mistake you made was having a business and needing a
c p A, that's not a mistake. And then this
dog trainer recommends her. This woman gave her a glowing recommendation. Yeah,
do you think she's in on it? I question it
(08:39):
highly because she was a woman of very simple means.
I think it's a nice way of saying it. And
now she has quite a bit means, but a dog trainer. Yeah,
but she met a nice man. Okay. She never gave
me any signals that she would lie or swindle me
(09:00):
or anything. Well, after my meeting with Mike Cochrane, I
get a return phone call from the dog trainer on
February eight at ten past nine in the morning, and
my mouth is a gape for our entire seven minute conversation.
I wish I could play it for you, but she
(09:21):
didn't agree to be recorded. The dog trainer doesn't want
to be interviewed for the podcast, and she says neither
does Lizzie or anyone in her family. She goes on
to tell me that Lizzie Mulder is not a con
artist at all, and all those entrepreneurs she did the
books for the winery, the salon, Mike's print shop are
(09:43):
just bad business people who lose money and they're now
trying to blame poor Lizzie Mulder. Okay, I call up
Mike Cochrane to see what he makes of this interesting revelation.
I'm thinking, or more, dude, that she was the one
that referred us to her. I'm starting to think that
(10:05):
this was a group, not an individual, like a family
of scammers, a family of scammers. So it's a very
suspect situation with her. You know, her occupation of training
dogs as well. A lot of people have dogs. She
could have come in and you know, we have her
up here and she trained our dogs, so she got
(10:28):
a full look at our house and our assets and stuff.
And maybe that's what prompted Lizzy to come onto us.
She was like doing reconnaissance possibly, so you know, I mean,
you get you know, all sorts of paranoia theories come
into play. But when you start looking at lizzy body
of work, nothing was out of bound, nothing was too
(10:50):
far fetched because look at all the methods she used
to extort people. My next call is to the owner
and operator of Jack Wines, who Lizzie scams out of
nearly three hundred thousand dollars. Hello, hey, ja Vree, can
(11:12):
you talk now? I came in. I'm just driving. I'm
in a fucking RV, so low and flow. Maybe, since
Lizzie was almost like a sister to Jay, or at
least she was pretending to be while she was scamming him,
I'm wondering if he actually knows the dog trainer. Yeah,
(11:35):
I've never met her, but I've heard that name before.
So what's going on with that? I talked to her
and she doesn't want to do an interview. Shocker, because
the dog trainer tells me Lizzie Maulder is innocent. Lizzie
Maulder is not a con artist. You and all the
other victims are just making this up because you're bad
business people. You lost money and you're trying to blame her. Wow,
(11:58):
I mean that is that's interesting. Wow, that's my mind
is well right now, I'm specious. Don't even thinks this
is wild. I mean, that's that's cognitive dissidence like I've
never seen before. Somebody madam impressed. I just don't understand
how you can even come up with the concept that
is insulting and delisional like that crazy. But the fact
(12:22):
that you know we made it up, it's crazy. You're
still rattling the I R S right now from you know,
I'm not paying taxes for five years, and the I
R S just was originally came after me. It was
was all over a million and a half and you know,
a million justin penalties because she didn't find my taxes.
(12:44):
But the part about that that you know, frustrates me
is that I thought I paid my taxes. I put
money in the account for tactics. I had no clue
that she wouldn't paying them. So I'm still dealing with
a five year later. So it's just infult thing even
think that someone getting even go down that room and
making that Livie in benefit, you know, yeah, I know. Hey, Johnathan,
(13:14):
how are you. I'm good man, thank you so much
for My next phone call is to Sergeant Jordans Moracian,
the Laguna Beach Police detective investigating Lizzie Milder back in.
I want to know if he knows about the dog trainer. Yep,
it sounds like what she said to me. So you
talked to the dog trainer. Yeah, I talked to her.
(13:35):
I tried to go out there and actually visit her
in person. She wanted nothing to do with me, she said,
that everyone was framing Lizzy and that Lizzy was innocent
and we got it all wrong, and she's a sweetheart,
she would trust her dogs, and her life was Lizzy.
(13:58):
And I said, I understand where you're coming from, but
I have pages and pages of bank records that tell
me different. And I left it at that. She wanted
nothing to do with me. This just reeks of a conspiracy.
To me, the dog trainer taking Lizzie Mulder's side means
she's got to be in on the scam, right. But
(14:23):
I realized, as the victim of a con artist myself,
my lingering, anger and emotion can sometimes get the best
of me and blind me from seeing things clearly. So
I reach out to a neutral third party who doesn't
have a dog in this race, but does have decades
of experience investigating complex criminality. Jonathan I was a psychiatric
(14:47):
nurse for ten years when the FBI recruited me to
be a special agent, and that looked like fun to me.
So I turned in my stethoscope for a Smith and Wesson,
and there I was. Candice DeLong was a criminal profiler
(15:08):
for the FBI from two thousand. She worked on some
pretty groundbreaking cases from the Thailand All murders. Johnson and
Johnson is now offering a one hundred thousand dollar award
for those responsible for spiking Tail and all capsules with
deadly cyanide poisoning to taking down the unibomber, FBI agents
(15:28):
are searching the Montana cabin of former mathematics professor Ted Kazinski.
These days, though, Candice hosts a podcast called Killer Psyche
where she shares her expertise on the criminal mind. One
of the most difficult situations is if you're in love
with someone, then you've got blinders on love is truly
(15:51):
truly blind. The emotion of it prevents you from seeing
clearly or analyzing clearly what's right in front of you.
Because con artists, in a way get their victims to
fall in love with them, even if it's not a
romantic love. Yes, it's it's friendship. They groomed them. And
(16:11):
when you really love someone or like someone or consider
someone a quote best friend, yeah, you overlook a lot.
You'll believe a lot that you wouldn't believe if you
had your your full brain operating exactly exactly. So what's
your take on the dog trainer that Lizzie did a
hell of a job on her. She did a job
(16:32):
on her, and it's the halo effect. It's with Lizzie Molder.
People saw a successful woman, successful with money. They believe
she was a c p A. No one questioned her,
she lived in a beautiful home, had nice cars, and
they had the halo effect about her. In fact, she
(16:52):
was a psychopath con woman. It's it all boils down
to trust. I dog trainer judged Lizzie to be a
good and wonderful and successful and nice person, and she's
hanging onto that despite overwhelming evidence and proof. It all
(17:13):
boils down to I see what I want to see,
and I know what I want to know, and I
don't want to know bad things about Lizzie. And that's
that go away to me. She's like Lizzie. Well, it
might be, or it simply could be. She's married to
(17:34):
her ideas, she's married to her beliefs. Jonathan, what we're
talking about could boil down to we like to believe
we are good judges of character, and this happens. Let's
say someone is arrested for molesting a child. Maybe it's
a coach. Turns out he's been arrested for molesting a
twelve year old boy, and maybe other parents come forward
(17:59):
to go, I think there's happened to my child. My
child said had happened to him. There is initially, especially
in cases. I'm not talking about a stranger coming into
a nice neighborhood and grabbing a kid. I'm talking about
somebody who lives in the neighborhood, is part of the community,
and is trusted by parents to be with their children,
and then something like this happens. People circle the wagons
(18:24):
to protect the accused. Nope, I couldn't have done it.
Couldn't have done it because to accept that they were
so wrong to trust that person with their child is painful.
It shakes their world, and it's really easier to go no, no,
(18:44):
I think the kid's lying. It's a witch on it's
this at that. And to deal with these kinds of criminals,
whether it be a child molester or a con artist,
we have to accept, Hey, we're human, and if you're
a trusting person, that's not a criminal, which for aginately
most of us are not criminals. These things happen. Misjudging
(19:04):
someone's intent, it happens. You know, what's brilliant about you.
You completely changed my mind, just really you did, because
I was convinced this dog trainer is in on it,
when really that example illustrates perfectly how strong people don't
(19:25):
want to believe that they were wrong because they played
a role in hurting someone. Plus and I think the
stronger thing is they have to accept that they made
a mistake, their judgment was inaccurate. I think that's the
dog trainer. She doesn't want to believe it. I hope
she never gets victimized. It's human nature. Really, you just
(19:46):
don't want to believe bad things about the people you love,
the people you trust, the people you stick up for, and,
as Detective Morackian points out, the people you have stuff
in common with. Lizzie likes to rehabilitate horses and the
dog trainer likes to train and to some extent, rehabilitate dogs,
(20:10):
so they have a commonality which is not unlike any
of the cons that Lizzie accomplished. Like every single person
that Lizzie scammed out of money, she found a commonality
with them to make them feel like Lizzie was a
part of their family or at least a very close
(20:30):
personal friend and not a business associate. I have a
little bit of background with people who love animals. They're
very tight knit community. And my personal opinion on it
is that Lizzie charmed her way in the Dog Trainer's
life with her love for animals. It's kind of one
(20:52):
of those things where they all stick together, kind of
like cops stick together. You know. Yeah, that makes sense, thankfully, though,
once the elaborate cons of Lizzie Maulder start going public,
ardent supporters of Lizzie, like the Dog Trainer are in
the minority. She came to my wedding and my baby shower. Yea.
(21:14):
Jen Rodriguez is a forensic accountant that a company called
with him. She's whipped smart, with long brown hair and
a hopeful glint in her eye. She exudes kindness and
a perpetual curiosity about everything. She's actually good friends with
Lizzie Malder before she finds out Lizzie's a con artist.
(21:35):
But looking back, Jan realizes it was far from a
healthy friendship. She was the personality that was the one upper.
Everybody has that friend, right you say, oh my gosh,
I got this new car. It's really great. Oh that car, Well,
I just bought this car. She always was a one upper.
Oh John, I'm so sorry you rent. Oh yeah, she
(21:59):
would say that. Often. Jen's friendship with Lizzie starts, like
a lot of friendships do, on the job. I worked
at a place that she was doing a counting, and
that's how I first met her. They're both working for
(22:20):
a website selling luxury experiences. Ironically, we actually had many
other crossings before even that that we put together after
the fact. For example, her uncle actually sang at my
grandparents's wedding, believe it or not, yet her uncle sang
at your grandparents wedding wedding, so like a long time ago,
(22:41):
like a long time ago. And I even danced with
her uncle because her uncle was a Armenian musician and
I did belly dancing and belly dancing back in the day,
belly dancing Forensic account. There's a show here that a second.
(23:04):
But when Jen first meets Lizzie in they're working for
the same company, f y I. It's a different company
than where Jen's working now. She would come to the
office just like very sporadically, you know, for year in
taxes or things that were going on at the time.
My boss was married, so she also handled their personal taxes,
(23:25):
so she would interact with my boss's husband, and I
really thought she was just over the top, like oh,
like literally I had a sentence for her, oh Lizzie,
because she would say things and do things that you
would think, wait what and oh Lizzie. You know that
that was kind of my thought for her, and because
(23:45):
she would say things so out of the blue, almost
as if she didn't have filters. And then I struggle
with that too, so I get it. So I just
kind of had compassion and just would be like, oh, Lizzy.
But she was good, garious. She was very um, outspoken
and direct, and to be honest, I quite appreciated that.
That's something I quite liked about her, was that she
(24:06):
seemed to be very direct and upfront and to the point.
It's amazing you say that. I had the exact same
feeling when I met Mayor. She seemed like a woman
who told it like it is. We didn't have a filter,
and living in l a where everyone's fake, it was
so refreshing to see someone so quote honest. Yes, but
now in retrospect, we both have learned the hard way
(24:29):
that wasn't honesty that was a con well, and probably
the real truth of it was some of it was honest,
and that's what makes it so believable. Yes, that's our
biggest fall was because you would hear things and as
the story unfolded, you would get one nugget of truth,
but then you would rationalize the things that didn't add up.
(24:54):
I mean I trusted things that she said, like damning
things about colleagues and people I work with, people that
are now my closest friends. So she was telling you
crap about other people what to keep you away from
them or keep you disliking them, I think, to keep
us autonomous. Yeah, so that way, there weren't checks and balances,
(25:14):
you know, as in a forensic accountant. Now, I know
the number one thing is you always have checks and balances, right,
like internal controls. But she drove in between those internal controls.
She interrupted them because she acted as a control. And
that's a classic contact name. That's what Merri Smith did
to me. She kept me separate from people by telling
(25:34):
me my neighbors or murderers wanted in Canada, so I
avoided them. Meanwhile, she's scamming them, She's scamming me and
we're avoiding God like so awful to write like they're murderers.
But but Lizzie did the same thing to you, told
you lies about friends and colleagues to keep you separated, right, Yeah,
there is a technique to these people. There was one
(25:58):
party that we went to, my husband and I. We
went with her, and she was so socially awkward. It
was very interesting, and I was actually right before things
really started unfolding. It was kind of like you know
when you're picking up the crumb pieces and you look
back and you're like, wow, how did I not see
that before? And there was a party at dinner party
(26:20):
that she had before we knew anything that happened, And
she was so over the top, trying to be cool
and trying to be fun, and she was taking shots
and making a big deal that she couldn't swallow jello shots.
It was just very high school, like somebody that hadn't
really evolved and matured and grew up and went through
(26:43):
that in high school. Were you ever suspicious of Lizzie Mulder,
Like before everyone figured out she's a con artist and
she stole all this money from all these people, there
were things that didn't add up but I fell into
(27:03):
that trap that it was you can justify it, you know, like, oh, well,
maybe she's just really stressed out, or maybe she has
a lot of going on, or maybe I just misread that.
My husband, on the other hand, knew from the get go.
The minute he met her, he knew something. Was that
what gave her away in his eyes, what was she saying?
Her arrogance was here that again and again she was
(27:25):
very arrogant. She was always telling you how great she was. Yes, yes, yes,
she was better than everybody. And something about that rubbed
him the wrong way. And in the end crack started
really showing up. But she always had an answer for them.
She could explain it. So if something didn't add up
(27:46):
at the time, my counterpart that's based out of state,
she blamed a lot of the things that were coming
up on her and so I would have never thought
to put it that she was lying to me or
putting it on this person. And I just thought, man,
this person sucks at their job, which ironically she's the
polar opposite of that. She's amazing at her job. But
(28:08):
Lizzie had built up this persona that I believed was
this person, and then probably about three weeks before everything
really started coming out. I caught her in some big lies,
(28:28):
and that one I couldn't justify. And one of them
was a really big lie. And I couldn't even talk
for a whole night because there was no justification. The
only justification was that she was doing something really wrong.
And what was that lie? So we use a program,
like a lot of companies, a CRM program, and it
(28:51):
was Salesforce at the time, and it was like a
five thousand dollar subscription that you pay annually. But if
you don't pay on time, you know, they shut down
your database, so you lose everything. So my reps are down,
everybody's down. And I had told her, Lizzy, you need
to pay this bill. There I'm shut down. And she
had told me, I'm on the phone right now with
(29:11):
a guy. Well, I was on the phone with the
guy and and she had said that she was paying
with I can't remember now if it was that she
was paying with a credit card or with the check,
I can't remember. Whatever it was that she said she
was paying with, they don't take that. And the guy's like, Nope,
that could have never happened. Nope, she's not on the
(29:33):
phone with anyone. So she was texting me blow by blow,
but I was on the phone with Salesforce and there
was just no So you knew every single text at
that point was a lot lie m h. Yeah. So
at this stage in the game, Lizzie Mulder scams dollars
(29:53):
from print shop owner Mike Cochrane and his parents, while
she's scamming two five thou dollars from Jay Avery and
Jack Wines, while she's also scamming two from Geneva Mendoza's
Newport Beach salon. But Lizzie's biggest swindle by far actually
comes out of Jen's bosses pocketbook. How much money did
(30:17):
your boss end up losing? Millions? Next time on Queen
of the Con The o C Savior, It's sometimes I
feel like a bad mom because I opened my family up,
and you know, I kind of invited the devil into
the den, and dealing with the devil causes Jen Rodriguez
(30:39):
to take matters into her own hands. I happen to
have a stack of her meal and I ripped open
a big statement right then and there, and I literally
almost vomited, like vomited. But Lizzie has a plausible explanation
for everything. My boss would never listen if I would say, hey,
this doesn't quite make sense. One of the things Lizzie
(31:01):
was famous for is in a roundabout way, making people
feel stupid, and Lizzie kind of browbeats people into Hey,
you you stay in your lane. And that's how Lizzie operates.
(31:22):
Queen of the con The O C Savior is a
production of a y R Media and I Heart Media,
hosted by Me Jonathan Walton, executive producers Jonathan Walton for
Jonathan Walton Productions and Eliza Rosen for a y R Media.
Written by Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate
(31:44):
producer Eric Newman. Sound design by baked ZD Media, mixed
and mastered by Cameron Taggy, Sound editing, audio and studio
engineering by Matt Jacobson. Legal counsel for A y R Media,
uh Jihanni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya Howard
She created a website, she created a hundred numbers. She
created a guy named Brent Harrison using Spoo software. And
I'm thinking, I'm talking to a guy overseas that wants
to invest into my winery. And really, I'm talking to
that woman in Orange County that is just scamming me
the whole time. And it sounded like a man, it did.
(00:23):
It sounded just like a man. Jay Avery's company, Jack Wines,
is scammed out of nearly three hundred thousand dollars by
c p A. Lizzie Mulder and Laguna Beach Police Detective
Jordan Morakian is digging in the bottom line. Is there
fake people who are accepting invoices on behalf of Lizzie
(00:43):
Moulder and Jack Wines? And money is not going from
Jack Wines to these people, It's going right back into
Lizzie Moulder's account. And around the same time that Jay
Avery is getting scammed, Mike Cochrane's print shop is con
artists Lizzie Malder's latest mark. I was talking to a gal.
She was a dog trainer we used to print business
(01:06):
cards for. She knew a girl, young lady Elizabeth Mulder,
and referred to us said she's a tax repairer, was
like her second mom. She claimed, I leave a voicemail
for this dog trainer. Hey, my name is Jonathan Walton,
and she calls me back the next day telling me
I actually have it all wrong. Lizzie Mulder is completely innocent.
(01:41):
I'm Jonathan Walton and this is Queen of the con
The O C Savior episode four, better than everybody, you know.
The embarrassing part about us is we're one of the
lower rip offs. Okay, she took eighteen thousand dollars out
(02:02):
of my business. She took a little over twenty dollars
out of my parents. It's been more than ten years
since c p A. Lizzie Mulder first darkens myke Cochran's
door away. He hires her in to do taxes for
his Orange County print shop. My dad died about three
and a half four months after I met Lizzie. I
(02:24):
took my eyes off my business. I didn't give a ship, dude.
You know, I was wandering around. And just so you know,
I have two older sisters. My mental sister has mental health.
She lived with my parents her whole life. Things got
worse with time. So after my dad expired, she blew
a fuse, I'm sure, and went into a facility and
all that. So I was family mode. You're just in
(02:46):
family mode and you're like, well, there's enough money in
the bank, pay roll is going to go through with
my crew. And Lizzie made you believe she's on top
of things. Oh yeah, yeah, no, I got it. Don't
worry about it. Remote, this remote that she's on information
from the I r S saying things are moving along,
and then there'll be some emails and I mean, dude,
(03:07):
the whips she played to create billing we're all fabrications,
every one of them. So she would send you documents,
semi documents from the I r S, but really she
created those documents herself. Oh yeah, and they were payments
to income tax payments. But the KUDA grab was the
checking account with the name income tax payments. And I
(03:31):
had invoices from the I r S saying make checks
payable to income tax payments. So it's kind of like
you have an I r S document backing up the
name of this account, you know, and when you say
it out loud, you go, that doesn't sound right. But
at the time it flew right through. Do you hold
(03:52):
Bank of America responsible at all. Totally. That's bullshit, man,
I mean that's lack of moral account ability. Because she
can just go to Bank of America and open up
an account called income tax payments and they don't. That
doesn't raise a red flag for him. Yeah, no, that's
just bullshit. But then we also paid Molder Financial Services,
(04:13):
which was her tax preparing, so we actually paid her
to prepare Wait a minute, she didn't prepare taxes paid
her to scam you. We paid her to scam us.
She even did a crazy thing. Probably about two years
into working with her, she told us that there was
an audit that she had to go to in l
A to the main office for your company for my business.
(04:37):
Ye needed some information, provide all these documents that edited.
I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna have to take a
girl with me, just so you know it's going to
be expensive and you know, oh, but this will take
care of it. We're going to clear it all up.
Fuck total bullshit, Okay. She she wanted to get money
from you to go on this trip from to go
(04:59):
up and do the I R S on it in
l A with her and one of her assistants and
there never wasn't on it. That was never wasn't on it,
complete fabrication. She did a series of phone calls. Factis information.
Oh I'm at the office right now. Hold Tom one sack.
This agent's gonna call you. He's gonna talk to you.
So you talked to who you thought was an I R. S. Agent,
(05:20):
But it was Lizzie Malder. It was Lizzie Molder. And
what does that voice sound like? It sounded like a dude.
You know at the time, I didn't like imprinted in
my brain. Okay, like I should remember the sound of
this voice. It was not It was not a female voice.
It had more baritone or what did guys have, Adam
(05:40):
sample something, there's some different tweak and a guy's voice,
and what do you guys have? Well, you know what
I'm saying. No, yeah, no, it's like a deeper ment
like a man's like a man's voice. Absolutely, I just
assumed it was a guy. And this sounded all legit
and uh, you know, okay, and yes I agree with that.
(06:00):
And you know he was asking me questions in particular
to our taxes, and you know, I just soaked it
all up. But looking back, you're like Jesus man, that's
that's sophistication. That is a person that is a professional.
And how does she steal the money from your parents.
My dad was close to death. Okay. Uh, he's in
(06:24):
a like a hospice hospice care. Yeah, where everybody's trying
to have you take the magic pill and go to sleep. Okay.
So he's winding down and he's trying to get his
affairs in order. So he was selling stock. My dad
had some inheritance, some houses. His brother and sister died,
no kids, and he got the houses. So you know,
the boy built up some funds and was trying to
(06:46):
take care of my mom, so he was generating some
cash and so on and so forth. Lizzie was helping us.
So we thought I told my parents. I only knew
Lizzie for about a month. Okay. She did the taxes
from my mom and dad had them right five checksture,
you know where they all went, income tax pay income
tax payments, and so she uh filed the taxes, but
(07:09):
she did not apply any of the payments. Of course,
she took that money for herself. Then she was saying
that she wanted to help them with their estates. So
that was where Lizzie possibly could have stole millions of dollars.
But my mom was like, nope, nope, nope. My mom
was an executive secretary. She used to do stuff for
one of the vps at Wells Fargo. So my mom
(07:33):
had her ship together, thank god, thank god, you know,
and basically said, no, baby, I'm in charge. I take
care of this when you get stuck in one of
these crappy situations with I hope most people don't, okay,
but there's millions of common people out there. In my view,
the real human nature is dirty, you know, human nature. Well,
(07:55):
I don't think human nature is dirty. I think most
people are good, fine people. Yeah, but Lizzie, Uh, Lizzie
really got us. She pooled us the whole way. Talking
to Mike, it's clear that he's not over what happened
to him. I mean, how could he be. This has
been one of the biggest mistakes in my life. Well,
(08:17):
you see, I don't think you should frame it that way.
What you didn't make a mistake. You were the victim
of a con artist, yes that you were. Just the
mistake you made was having a business and needing a
c p A, that's not a mistake. And then this
dog trainer recommends her. This woman gave her a glowing recommendation. Yeah,
do you think she's in on it? I question it
(08:39):
highly because she was a woman of very simple means.
I think it's a nice way of saying it. And
now she has quite a bit means, but a dog trainer. Yeah,
but she met a nice man. Okay. She never gave
me any signals that she would lie or swindle me
(09:00):
or anything. Well, after my meeting with Mike Cochrane, I
get a return phone call from the dog trainer on
February eight at ten past nine in the morning, and
my mouth is a gape for our entire seven minute conversation.
I wish I could play it for you, but she
(09:21):
didn't agree to be recorded. The dog trainer doesn't want
to be interviewed for the podcast, and she says neither
does Lizzie or anyone in her family. She goes on
to tell me that Lizzie Mulder is not a con
artist at all, and all those entrepreneurs she did the
books for the winery, the salon, Mike's print shop are
(09:43):
just bad business people who lose money and they're now
trying to blame poor Lizzie Mulder. Okay, I call up
Mike Cochrane to see what he makes of this interesting revelation.
I'm thinking, or more, dude, that she was the one
that referred us to her. I'm starting to think that
(10:05):
this was a group, not an individual, like a family
of scammers, a family of scammers. So it's a very
suspect situation with her. You know, her occupation of training
dogs as well. A lot of people have dogs. She
could have come in and you know, we have her
up here and she trained our dogs, so she got
(10:28):
a full look at our house and our assets and stuff.
And maybe that's what prompted Lizzy to come onto us.
She was like doing reconnaissance possibly, so you know, I mean,
you get you know, all sorts of paranoia theories come
into play. But when you start looking at lizzy body
of work, nothing was out of bound, nothing was too
(10:50):
far fetched because look at all the methods she used
to extort people. My next call is to the owner
and operator of Jack Wines, who Lizzie scams out of
nearly three hundred thousand dollars. Hello, hey, ja Vree, can
(11:12):
you talk now? I came in. I'm just driving. I'm
in a fucking RV, so low and flow. Maybe, since
Lizzie was almost like a sister to Jay, or at
least she was pretending to be while she was scamming him,
I'm wondering if he actually knows the dog trainer. Yeah,
(11:35):
I've never met her, but I've heard that name before.
So what's going on with that? I talked to her
and she doesn't want to do an interview. Shocker, because
the dog trainer tells me Lizzie Maulder is innocent. Lizzie
Maulder is not a con artist. You and all the
other victims are just making this up because you're bad
business people. You lost money and you're trying to blame her. Wow,
(11:58):
I mean that is that's interesting. Wow, that's my mind
is well right now, I'm specious. Don't even thinks this
is wild. I mean, that's that's cognitive dissidence like I've
never seen before. Somebody madam impressed. I just don't understand
how you can even come up with the concept that
is insulting and delisional like that crazy. But the fact
(12:22):
that you know we made it up, it's crazy. You're
still rattling the I R S right now from you know,
I'm not paying taxes for five years, and the I
R S just was originally came after me. It was
was all over a million and a half and you know,
a million justin penalties because she didn't find my taxes.
(12:44):
But the part about that that you know, frustrates me
is that I thought I paid my taxes. I put
money in the account for tactics. I had no clue
that she wouldn't paying them. So I'm still dealing with
a five year later. So it's just infult thing even
think that someone getting even go down that room and
making that Livie in benefit, you know, yeah, I know. Hey, Johnathan,
(13:14):
how are you. I'm good man, thank you so much
for My next phone call is to Sergeant Jordans Moracian,
the Laguna Beach Police detective investigating Lizzie Milder back in.
I want to know if he knows about the dog trainer. Yep,
it sounds like what she said to me. So you
talked to the dog trainer. Yeah, I talked to her.
(13:35):
I tried to go out there and actually visit her
in person. She wanted nothing to do with me, she said,
that everyone was framing Lizzy and that Lizzy was innocent
and we got it all wrong, and she's a sweetheart,
she would trust her dogs, and her life was Lizzy.
(13:58):
And I said, I understand where you're coming from, but
I have pages and pages of bank records that tell
me different. And I left it at that. She wanted
nothing to do with me. This just reeks of a conspiracy.
To me, the dog trainer taking Lizzie Mulder's side means
she's got to be in on the scam, right. But
(14:23):
I realized, as the victim of a con artist myself,
my lingering, anger and emotion can sometimes get the best
of me and blind me from seeing things clearly. So
I reach out to a neutral third party who doesn't
have a dog in this race, but does have decades
of experience investigating complex criminality. Jonathan I was a psychiatric
(14:47):
nurse for ten years when the FBI recruited me to
be a special agent, and that looked like fun to me.
So I turned in my stethoscope for a Smith and Wesson,
and there I was. Candice DeLong was a criminal profiler
(15:08):
for the FBI from two thousand. She worked on some
pretty groundbreaking cases from the Thailand All murders. Johnson and
Johnson is now offering a one hundred thousand dollar award
for those responsible for spiking Tail and all capsules with
deadly cyanide poisoning to taking down the unibomber, FBI agents
(15:28):
are searching the Montana cabin of former mathematics professor Ted Kazinski.
These days, though, Candice hosts a podcast called Killer Psyche
where she shares her expertise on the criminal mind. One
of the most difficult situations is if you're in love
with someone, then you've got blinders on love is truly
(15:51):
truly blind. The emotion of it prevents you from seeing
clearly or analyzing clearly what's right in front of you.
Because con artists, in a way get their victims to
fall in love with them, even if it's not a
romantic love. Yes, it's it's friendship. They groomed them. And
(16:11):
when you really love someone or like someone or consider
someone a quote best friend, yeah, you overlook a lot.
You'll believe a lot that you wouldn't believe if you
had your your full brain operating exactly exactly. So what's
your take on the dog trainer that Lizzie did a
hell of a job on her. She did a job
(16:32):
on her, and it's the halo effect. It's with Lizzie Molder.
People saw a successful woman, successful with money. They believe
she was a c p A. No one questioned her,
she lived in a beautiful home, had nice cars, and
they had the halo effect about her. In fact, she
(16:52):
was a psychopath con woman. It's it all boils down
to trust. I dog trainer judged Lizzie to be a
good and wonderful and successful and nice person, and she's
hanging onto that despite overwhelming evidence and proof. It all
(17:13):
boils down to I see what I want to see,
and I know what I want to know, and I
don't want to know bad things about Lizzie. And that's
that go away to me. She's like Lizzie. Well, it
might be, or it simply could be. She's married to
(17:34):
her ideas, she's married to her beliefs. Jonathan, what we're
talking about could boil down to we like to believe
we are good judges of character, and this happens. Let's
say someone is arrested for molesting a child. Maybe it's
a coach. Turns out he's been arrested for molesting a
twelve year old boy, and maybe other parents come forward
(17:59):
to go, I think there's happened to my child. My
child said had happened to him. There is initially, especially
in cases. I'm not talking about a stranger coming into
a nice neighborhood and grabbing a kid. I'm talking about
somebody who lives in the neighborhood, is part of the community,
and is trusted by parents to be with their children,
and then something like this happens. People circle the wagons
(18:24):
to protect the accused. Nope, I couldn't have done it.
Couldn't have done it because to accept that they were
so wrong to trust that person with their child is painful.
It shakes their world, and it's really easier to go no, no,
(18:44):
I think the kid's lying. It's a witch on it's
this at that. And to deal with these kinds of criminals,
whether it be a child molester or a con artist,
we have to accept, Hey, we're human, and if you're
a trusting person, that's not a criminal, which for aginately
most of us are not criminals. These things happen. Misjudging
(19:04):
someone's intent, it happens. You know, what's brilliant about you.
You completely changed my mind, just really you did, because
I was convinced this dog trainer is in on it,
when really that example illustrates perfectly how strong people don't
(19:25):
want to believe that they were wrong because they played
a role in hurting someone. Plus and I think the
stronger thing is they have to accept that they made
a mistake, their judgment was inaccurate. I think that's the
dog trainer. She doesn't want to believe it. I hope
she never gets victimized. It's human nature. Really, you just
(19:46):
don't want to believe bad things about the people you love,
the people you trust, the people you stick up for, and,
as Detective Morackian points out, the people you have stuff
in common with. Lizzie likes to rehabilitate horses and the
dog trainer likes to train and to some extent, rehabilitate dogs,
(20:10):
so they have a commonality which is not unlike any
of the cons that Lizzie accomplished. Like every single person
that Lizzie scammed out of money, she found a commonality
with them to make them feel like Lizzie was a
part of their family or at least a very close
(20:30):
personal friend and not a business associate. I have a
little bit of background with people who love animals. They're
very tight knit community. And my personal opinion on it
is that Lizzie charmed her way in the Dog Trainer's
life with her love for animals. It's kind of one
(20:52):
of those things where they all stick together, kind of
like cops stick together. You know. Yeah, that makes sense, thankfully, though,
once the elaborate cons of Lizzie Maulder start going public,
ardent supporters of Lizzie, like the Dog Trainer are in
the minority. She came to my wedding and my baby shower. Yea.
(21:14):
Jen Rodriguez is a forensic accountant that a company called
with him. She's whipped smart, with long brown hair and
a hopeful glint in her eye. She exudes kindness and
a perpetual curiosity about everything. She's actually good friends with
Lizzie Malder before she finds out Lizzie's a con artist.
(21:35):
But looking back, Jan realizes it was far from a
healthy friendship. She was the personality that was the one upper.
Everybody has that friend, right you say, oh my gosh,
I got this new car. It's really great. Oh that car, Well,
I just bought this car. She always was a one upper.
Oh John, I'm so sorry you rent. Oh yeah, she
(21:59):
would say that. Often. Jen's friendship with Lizzie starts, like
a lot of friendships do, on the job. I worked
at a place that she was doing a counting, and
that's how I first met her. They're both working for
(22:20):
a website selling luxury experiences. Ironically, we actually had many
other crossings before even that that we put together after
the fact. For example, her uncle actually sang at my
grandparents's wedding, believe it or not, yet her uncle sang
at your grandparents wedding wedding, so like a long time ago,
(22:41):
like a long time ago. And I even danced with
her uncle because her uncle was a Armenian musician and
I did belly dancing and belly dancing back in the day,
belly dancing Forensic account. There's a show here that a second.
(23:04):
But when Jen first meets Lizzie in they're working for
the same company, f y I. It's a different company
than where Jen's working now. She would come to the
office just like very sporadically, you know, for year in
taxes or things that were going on at the time.
My boss was married, so she also handled their personal taxes,
(23:25):
so she would interact with my boss's husband, and I
really thought she was just over the top, like oh,
like literally I had a sentence for her, oh Lizzie,
because she would say things and do things that you
would think, wait what and oh Lizzie. You know that
that was kind of my thought for her, and because
(23:45):
she would say things so out of the blue, almost
as if she didn't have filters. And then I struggle
with that too, so I get it. So I just
kind of had compassion and just would be like, oh, Lizzy.
But she was good, garious. She was very um, outspoken
and direct, and to be honest, I quite appreciated that.
That's something I quite liked about her, was that she
(24:06):
seemed to be very direct and upfront and to the point.
It's amazing you say that. I had the exact same
feeling when I met Mayor. She seemed like a woman
who told it like it is. We didn't have a filter,
and living in l a where everyone's fake, it was
so refreshing to see someone so quote honest. Yes, but
now in retrospect, we both have learned the hard way
(24:29):
that wasn't honesty that was a con well, and probably
the real truth of it was some of it was honest,
and that's what makes it so believable. Yes, that's our
biggest fall was because you would hear things and as
the story unfolded, you would get one nugget of truth,
but then you would rationalize the things that didn't add up.
(24:54):
I mean I trusted things that she said, like damning
things about colleagues and people I work with, people that
are now my closest friends. So she was telling you
crap about other people what to keep you away from
them or keep you disliking them, I think, to keep
us autonomous. Yeah, so that way, there weren't checks and balances,
(25:14):
you know, as in a forensic accountant. Now, I know
the number one thing is you always have checks and balances, right,
like internal controls. But she drove in between those internal controls.
She interrupted them because she acted as a control. And
that's a classic contact name. That's what Merri Smith did
to me. She kept me separate from people by telling
(25:34):
me my neighbors or murderers wanted in Canada, so I
avoided them. Meanwhile, she's scamming them, She's scamming me and
we're avoiding God like so awful to write like they're murderers.
But but Lizzie did the same thing to you, told
you lies about friends and colleagues to keep you separated, right, Yeah,
there is a technique to these people. There was one
(25:58):
party that we went to, my husband and I. We
went with her, and she was so socially awkward. It
was very interesting, and I was actually right before things
really started unfolding. It was kind of like you know
when you're picking up the crumb pieces and you look
back and you're like, wow, how did I not see
that before? And there was a party at dinner party
(26:20):
that she had before we knew anything that happened, And
she was so over the top, trying to be cool
and trying to be fun, and she was taking shots
and making a big deal that she couldn't swallow jello shots.
It was just very high school, like somebody that hadn't
really evolved and matured and grew up and went through
(26:43):
that in high school. Were you ever suspicious of Lizzie Mulder,
Like before everyone figured out she's a con artist and
she stole all this money from all these people, there
were things that didn't add up but I fell into
(27:03):
that trap that it was you can justify it, you know, like, oh, well,
maybe she's just really stressed out, or maybe she has
a lot of going on, or maybe I just misread that.
My husband, on the other hand, knew from the get go.
The minute he met her, he knew something. Was that
what gave her away in his eyes, what was she saying?
Her arrogance was here that again and again she was
(27:25):
very arrogant. She was always telling you how great she was. Yes, yes, yes,
she was better than everybody. And something about that rubbed
him the wrong way. And in the end crack started
really showing up. But she always had an answer for them.
She could explain it. So if something didn't add up
(27:46):
at the time, my counterpart that's based out of state,
she blamed a lot of the things that were coming
up on her and so I would have never thought
to put it that she was lying to me or
putting it on this person. And I just thought, man,
this person sucks at their job, which ironically she's the
polar opposite of that. She's amazing at her job. But
(28:08):
Lizzie had built up this persona that I believed was
this person, and then probably about three weeks before everything
really started coming out. I caught her in some big lies,
(28:28):
and that one I couldn't justify. And one of them
was a really big lie. And I couldn't even talk
for a whole night because there was no justification. The
only justification was that she was doing something really wrong.
And what was that lie? So we use a program,
like a lot of companies, a CRM program, and it
(28:51):
was Salesforce at the time, and it was like a
five thousand dollar subscription that you pay annually. But if
you don't pay on time, you know, they shut down
your database, so you lose everything. So my reps are down,
everybody's down. And I had told her, Lizzy, you need
to pay this bill. There I'm shut down. And she
had told me, I'm on the phone right now with
(29:11):
a guy. Well, I was on the phone with the
guy and and she had said that she was paying
with I can't remember now if it was that she
was paying with a credit card or with the check,
I can't remember. Whatever it was that she said she
was paying with, they don't take that. And the guy's like, Nope,
that could have never happened. Nope, she's not on the
(29:33):
phone with anyone. So she was texting me blow by blow,
but I was on the phone with Salesforce and there
was just no So you knew every single text at
that point was a lot lie m h. Yeah. So
at this stage in the game, Lizzie Mulder scams dollars
(29:53):
from print shop owner Mike Cochrane and his parents, while
she's scamming two five thou dollars from Jay Avery and
Jack Wines, while she's also scamming two from Geneva Mendoza's
Newport Beach salon. But Lizzie's biggest swindle by far actually
comes out of Jen's bosses pocketbook. How much money did
(30:17):
your boss end up losing? Millions? Next time on Queen
of the Con The o C Savior, It's sometimes I
feel like a bad mom because I opened my family up,
and you know, I kind of invited the devil into
the den, and dealing with the devil causes Jen Rodriguez
(30:39):
to take matters into her own hands. I happen to
have a stack of her meal and I ripped open
a big statement right then and there, and I literally
almost vomited, like vomited. But Lizzie has a plausible explanation
for everything. My boss would never listen if I would say, hey,
this doesn't quite make sense. One of the things Lizzie
(31:01):
was famous for is in a roundabout way, making people
feel stupid, and Lizzie kind of browbeats people into Hey,
you you stay in your lane. And that's how Lizzie operates.
(31:22):
Queen of the con The O C Savior is a
production of a y R Media and I Heart Media,
hosted by Me Jonathan Walton, executive producers Jonathan Walton for
Jonathan Walton Productions and Eliza Rosen for a y R Media.
Written by Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate
(31:44):
producer Eric Newman. Sound design by baked ZD Media, mixed
and mastered by Cameron Taggy, Sound editing, audio and studio
engineering by Matt Jacobson. Legal counsel for A y R Media,
uh Jihanni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya Howard
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