Steven W. Blood: Radio scammer
WARNING: This is long, so don't bother reading this shit unless you have 10-15 minutes.
I've run into a lot of scammers in the poker world, but most of them are basically painted with the same brush.
However, sometimes you run into a scammer who is so brazen, so prolific, and so cold-hearted that you realize that he is a special breed of sociopath. This type of scammer isn't just in it for the money -- he actually enjoys conning people.
Steven W. Blood was one of those scammers, and it's actually pretty amazing he managed to pull off.
https://evbdn.eventbrite.com/s3-s3/e...fmfooter-1.jpg
In 2005, he tricked the California ski resort town of Big Bear Lake into believing he owned a JACK-FM franchise. Blood set up shop in Big Bear, broadcasting from the 87.7 FM frequency, which he rented from a local TV station. Somehow nobody bothered to question why someone rich enough to own a JACK-FM franchise would settle for a low-power FM frequency too low on the dial to be received by many radios. They also didn't seem to question why he would choose a small resort town with a very limited potential audience. However, Blood did not pay up front for the airtime. He sold ads to a few local businesses and pocketed that money, but it wasn't very much. He captured the small town's attention by announcing expensive contests for the station, including cars and trips to Cabo San Lucas. He also planned a charity drive meant to supposedly raise $1.2 million for "needy children" in the town of 6,500 people. Here is a newspaper article from the Big Bear area announcing the new station: http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/news/b...864b408ef.html
Indeed, JACK-FM played commercials from national sponsors. They claimed to be seeking local sponsors. As the JACK-FM format has no DJs, the station had no other staff, though Blood sometimes violated the format by coming on air himself under the name "Jack Hammer". Other than that, it was just like any other JACK-FM station, including the snarky prerecorded clips from the JACK voice-over guy.
Except it was all a lie. There were no cars, no cruises, no charities. Blood never paid a dime for his airtime, stiffing the TV station from which he rented. Most amazingly, he wasn't actually a JACK-FM affiliate. He simply copied the in-between voice over clips from another JACK station, copied some national ads (so as to give the station legitimacy), and claimed he was a JACK affiliate. The whole thing was phony.
Here are two stories: http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/news/a...25b0019bd.html and http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/archiv...1ca42feac.html
Recall from the above that Blood gave away phony trips to Cabo San Lucas. He continued that Cabo obsession when conning two celebrities -- rocker Sammy Hagar and voice-over-artist/actor Shadoe Stevens. In 2007, Blood called himself "Woody Nelson", and approached Hagar with an idea called "Cabo Wabo Radio". In 1990, Hagar opened a cantina called "Cabo Wabo" in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, which despite initial failure, became a success. There are now two other locations, one in Lake Tahoe, and one on the strip in Vegas. Blood pitched a seemingly ludicrous idea to Hagar that there should be an internet radio station streaming from Cabo Wabo in Mexico, and that somehow its Cabo San Lucas locale and association with Sammy would make it a huge hit. Without doing any research, Hagar bankrolled the idea, but was cautious enough not to hire any expensive staff until he saw how it worked out. Blood promised Hagar that they would either sell advertising or subscriptions, and would make huge money.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...SammyHagar.JPG
Blood then approached Shadoe Stevens, who hosted the show American Top 40 from 1988 to 1995. Shadoe had been working as the voice-over guy The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson since 2005, but Blood convinced him this was a huge opportunity that would make him millions. Stevens then signed on as "co-creator" of Cabo Wabo Radio, and Blood gave him full authority to program the station. Sammy Hagar was mostly detached from the whole thing, despite it bearing his brand's name. It was basically bankrolled operationally with Hagar's money, with Blood and Shadoe only making a salary if the station turned a profit. Nobody was aware at the time of Blood's misdeeds in Big Bear two years earlier.
http://www.popentertainment.com/ShadoeClose300dpi.jpg
Here's a press release about it: http://www.redrocker.com/news/cabo-wabo-radio
Shadoe actually moved to Cabo San Lucas and spent months working tirelessly on the project.
It was an epic failure. After failing to get any appreciable number of sponsors or VIP members, they retooled it a few months later and made it "all free", hoping it would draw in new listeners. That also failed, and Cabo Wabo Radio was shut down in 2009. Hagar realized the project was a complete failure, and that Blood had exaggerated his contacts and influence, but probably didn't realize at the time the full extent of what had occurred.
Here's where I have a brief part in the story. In 2010, Blood approached someone I knew in the LA Radio industry. This person was once a big-time radio personality, but had fallen upon hard times, and did not have a job. Blood claimed he had some huge project in the works which would make them both millions. However, someone in Blood's past got in touch with me and told me everything about him, figuring I would be the type of guy who would listen. I told the person I knew in radio not to work with Blood, and that he appeared to be a career scammer. The radio guy didn't completely listen to me, but suspected enough to where he started questioning Blood. At this point, Blood decided to present "his side" of the story, which mostly sounded like a lot of confusing nonsense. Like many scammers, Blood was not confrontational at all, but instead acted friendly and easygoing when I questioned him. Fearing that perhaps Blood might strike another victim, the guy who warned me about him got a hold of Shadoe Stevens and put him in touch with us.
Shadoe, who still works on The Late Late Show to this day, told a very sad story of how badly he was fooled, and how his whole life was almost ruined thanks to Blood. Apparently he almost gave up his Late Late Show job to focus on Cabo Wabo Radio, and Blood had lied to him about all of these big sponsors already in place, as well as big acts that were supposedly going to come and perform live in studio. Shadoe said he would have never uprooted his life at age 60 if Blood hadn't convinced him that it was basically a turnkey operation to success, only needing an experienced DJ/programmer in place.
It was surreal having this conversation with Shadoe, as I actually listened to American Top 40 a lot as a teenager, and coincidentally it was the first thing I heard on the radio on the drive home after losing my virginity. Shadoe was also an LA-area celebrity, appearing in many well-known commercials in the '80s, including playing "Fred Rated" for the Federated Group:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N8AzoDzQhM
So basically it was a guy I saw on TV and heard on the radio all the time growing up, and now he was on the phone pouring his heart out about getting conned by a cruel scammer. Shadoe basically made no money for his entire body of work with Cabo Wabo.
I asked Shadoe if he blamed Sammy Hagar for any of this, and he said that Sammy's only fault was being too detached and not vetting Blood well enough, but that he never actually made any promises. I still thought that Hagar had some responsibility in this (even though likely unknowingly), and should have made it right for Shadoe. It's not like Sammy is hurting for money.
Blood promised a rebuttal to all of this, but then vanished into thin air....
... until the Joplin, Missouri tornados of 2011.
At the time these hit (May, 2011), Blood was running some fail internet radio station in Key West, Florida.
Realizing a new opportunity to scam, he set up a "charity fund" through the internet to benefit victims of the tornados.
He collected somewhere between $5,000 and $20,000 (seems like figures vary in accounts I've read) via Paypal. He kept it all. (John Sepulveda would be proud!)
The Missouri Attorney General filed a lawsuit against him, but strangely did not pursue criminal charges: http://ago.mo.gov/newsreleases/2011/...charity_fraud/
While some of the above scams were slick and well orchestrated, some of his more recent efforts have been pathetic. Here is Blood pretending to be a Hawaiian DJ named "Ken Tiki", hoping to secure sponsorship from Kings Hawaiian Bakery. They declined, so it went nowhere. Listen to the hilarious fake Hawaiian accent, which wasn't suppsoed to be a joke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSwbC-q2l4Y
Sadly, Blood actually realized he could capitalize on a lot of vitriolic Obama hatred to sell "Patriot Packs" and "President's Enemy List" cards for $13-$30 each. As you guys know, I'm no fan of Obama, but LOL @ spending $13 to buy a card that says you're on the President's Enemy list. But idiots are turning out in droves to buy this crap, and his Facebook page has over 258,000 likes, including one of my Facebook friends who doesn't know better:
https://www.facebook.com/BreakingObama
http://www.breakingobama.com
Blood also runs a "conservative" radio show from the site, which I'm sure isn't genuine, as I never saw any past evidence of Blood's interest in politics prior to realizing this scam angle.
I guess the only lesson here is that I should quit poker, make an Obama hate site, and let the bucks roll in.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with poker or gambling, but it's pretty interesting stuff if you like reading about shifty characters like this. I felt I might as well share it here, especially because I was a small part of the story four years ago.
Here's a recent picture of him, in case you're wondering:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...7822f45ae0602c
