Update: Behind The Scammer feat. Celisia Stanton

In June 2021, Isaiah Goodman, a financial adviser, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for defrauding clients out of $2.3 million dollars. One of the clients he stole from was Celisia Stanton, and in 2021 we interviewed Celisia about being a victim of that crime.

Nora recently caught up with Celisia about how she’s processing this experience a few years later and how she took this experience and created a podcast called Truer Crime, which centers the victims of crimes in the storytelling.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Terrible, Thanks For Asking.

In July 2021, Isaiah Goodman was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding clients out of more than $2.3 million. Isaiah spent the money on a hot tub, on a fancy house, on two cars, on cruises, but it wasn’t his money to spend.

Isaiah Goodman was a financial advisor. That money belonged to his clients, and among those clients was Celisia Stanton. She was a woman in her early 20s who had entrusted Isaiah Goodman with her entire life savings, $35,000, and that money was gone.

Scammers are a fascination to many people, myself included. I have listened to every episode of Scamfluencers, Scam Goddess, I’ve watched every scam documentary you can think of. I subscribe to scam YouTube channels.

I am fascinated by scams and I don’t think I’m the only one. We don’t want to know just the how of it, how an Isaiah Goodman or a Bernie Madoff or an Elizabeth Holmes can do what they do.

We want to know how they can get away with it, and we also want to know how they can live with themselves. Don’t they feel bad? Don’t they have shame?

And yet, with every piece of media I consume about scammers, I come back to the same conclusion. They are boring. They’re boring because they are all the same.

Each and every one of them, they want something that isn’t theirs. Money, status, success, lifestyle, whatever it is, and they find a way to get it, and they justify the means to their ends, to themselves and to other people.

And because scamming is more American than apple pie, Uncle Sam, and baseball all combined, we have plenty of scam material to pull from, plenty of scam material to feed this fascination.

In 2021, we published an episode called Behind The Scammer, where we focused less on Isaiah Goodman himself, the man who defrauded these clients, and more on the clients, the victims of this scam. Celisia Stanton was a huge part of that episode.

Like I mentioned, she lost her entire life savings to a financial advisor, Isaiah Goodman, a man that she trusted to do his job. Isaiah is currently in prison. We did get the opportunity to interview him for a very unsatisfying follow-up episode.

And in the years since we put out that episode, and since that crime has occurred, Celisia’s life has changed significantly.

She is now the host and the creator of a podcast called Truer Crime, which I love, a show that explores the nuances of true crime cases with a special emphasis on centering the victims of these crimes. So today we’re catching up with Celisia.

Celisia, hello.

Thank you for being here.

Yes. I’m excited to be here.

It has been literal years.

Literal years, yes.

Actual, honest-to-goodness years since we sat down and had our first conversation. Literal years since that episode came out. Literal years since we sat in a courtroom.

Oh, yeah.

Passing notes?

Right, right.

Yeah, no. I mean, and this all happened in 2020, so it’s like that was both yesterday and 20 years ago.

You know, we are ever since the pandemic, time means nothing, and it’s still 2020 in my mind. Like we’re just in like the extended cut, right? It’s 2020 version four right now.

It’s about to be 2020 version five coming up. It’s just all one long span of time. When we were in that courtroom, and when the sentencing occurred, it felt like, or it felt to me, it’s hard for me to conceive of time even just in general, right?

So the sentencing felt like not enough time, and also like, oh, that’ll be really, really long in the future. What have you learned about sentencing in federal crimes since then?

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I felt like throughout the whole process of the case and the, I mean, not trial, but, you know, the criminal process was kind of opaque, and I still feel that way, you know, like four years later, almost.

I get emails that are like, here is an update about, you know, a man incarcerated at whatever prison, and they’re always really cryptic. His new release date has been moved to insert random date, and the date always is sooner and sooner.

Like, they keep moving it up, which is confusing to me because when he was actually originally sentenced, they said he wasn’t eligible for parole.

So I don’t, I still don’t understand, like, okay, so what is his sentence, or what is his release date being moved up for? And so I feel like I don’t have a ton of clarity, other than the fact that, you know, it’s coming up at some point here.

It’s coming up. When is the last known release date?

August 8th, 2026. I believe he was originally sentenced to seven years or something like that. And he was sentenced in, was it 2021?

The math isn’t quite mathing for me there, but you know, it’s actually funny. It says, this notice is to inform you that Isaiah Goodman’s release date has been changed. The Inmate is now scheduled to be released on August 8th, 2026.

The Inmate is not eligible for parole. Period. End.

So odd.

Part of our first conversation too was a little bit of you most like wrestling with what it means to believe in restorative justice and also participate in the criminal justice system as well.

What, if anything, has been recovered from those stolen assets and what would restorative justice look like in this situation when he gets out in 2026 or 2027?

Yeah. So in terms of like the actual assets themselves, I haven’t gotten very much. It was like, essentially, they did one for so for a super long time, they were kind of like liquidating assets allegedly.

I’m sure that’s what they were doing. It just that’s everything always feels like allegedly.

It really does.

But anyways, so that took a long time, like over a year, I’m pretty sure. They actually split that equally.

Which for somebody like me who did have tens of thousands of dollars stolen, but was maybe on the lower end of what he stole compared to some of the victims who had hundreds of thousands of dollars retirement stolen.

So for someone like me, the fact that they’re equally distributing the assets, that’s great. I mean, it’s not obviously my fault that he stole more money from other people.

But then I do think, obviously, for the folks who did have more money stolen, it’s like a drop in the bucket. So I think it was like maybe $1,000 or something like that, maybe a little bit more.

I was like, and the funny thing was, it was so removed from when it happened that I was almost like, oh, well, thanks, thanks, Isaiah. A little gift in the mail that was unexpected. It kind of right around tax refund time.

I was like, all right, all right.

Yeah, did it come with like a letter? What did the memo say on the check? Like stolen funds returned?

Sorry.

No restitution or something like that.

Okay.

Restitution. So I don’t, yeah, but no, I don’t think there was like a letter or anything like that. And then we technically, so he technically owes restitution till whenever he pays it off.

So like, I have it. Oh, well, I think they only pay it out when it hits a certain amount. But like while he’s working in prison, for example, we’re supposed to get some like pennies of like-

On the pennies.

Right, right.

Exactly.

Some pennies on the pennies.

Which is- Yeah, actually. And so yeah, so then when he gets out, the same will apply.

But so it is, I think they’ll only cash it out when it hits a certain amount. So I haven’t seen anything other than that yet because, I mean, he probably has made like $50 since he’s been in there or something. Yeah.

But yeah, it’s kind of interesting too. Like if I want, obviously, and you know, it’s logistics, it makes sense. But I have to like make sure every time I move, I’m updating my address in the system, you know, make sure that I’m staying on top of it.

Like it’s not like they’re going to like go out of their way necessarily to really track me down.

And it’s kind of like a part time job for you too. Like being a victim of a crime like this is a job for you.

Oh yeah. I literally had like a little workflow set up for myself of like following up with the victim advocate and stuff of like, okay, what’s the update? Are we, what’s, is there going to be any kind of payout?

Whatever of like, you know, after X amount of weeks, send another email. So it is, it’s very much like you’re doing that on your own behalf.

Technically, your case is kind of closed, but when we were doing that episode, there’s, I still have a lot of questions about it.

I still have a lot of questions about it. Do you, what are some things that you still wonder about the scam that Isaiah pulled off? I’ll start with mine.

He was using a software that he was able to very easily manipulate. Are they aware of that? What are they doing about that?

Like your financial advisor should not be able to use the software meant to manage your money to go make a fake graph.

Yeah, and it was like, it’s like a real software that actual financial advisors use. And he was an actual financial advisor.

Yes.

Yeah, it’s a little, it’s a little bit scary. Yeah, I’m sure they’re doing nothing about that. But yeah, no, that’s interesting to me.

I think I’m obviously interested too in just like what he’s going to end up doing when he gets out.

Because, you know, he, I mean, and you had interviewed him and stuff and everything that I’ve kind of seen from him just like reveals somebody with a very, very like dangerously inflated ego, who I hopefully won’t, you know, pull and, you know, pull

it again. But I don’t don’t have the most confidence because I don’t necessarily feel that the way that prison is set up is set up to rehabilitate people.

I mean, you can tell me because I don’t remember the specifics, but didn’t he say like on his interview with you that he was going to like write a children’s book or something like that and become a motivational speaker and he had been there for like

He’d been in there for two minutes and he wanted to be a motivational speaker and talk to kids about like making mistakes and then he wanted to also like work with like the FBI to like help them catch financial criminals.

I mean, you know what?

It’d be great if he could just get a lot of success, make a bunch of money, pay back all his restitution.

Yes.

No, no.

Yeah, honestly.

Obviously, I’m hoping for his healing, reform, whatever. It’s just a little bit hard to believe when you’ve been in there very short period of time and it just doesn’t feel authentic, doesn’t feel genuine. But I also feel like you never know.

I’ve talked to some people, like I actually were preparing to hopefully do a fuller story on the man who’s on death row in Ohio, Keith Lamar. And his story is just absolutely mind boggling.

And he’s probably one of the coolest, most intelligent people I’ve ever met and talked to in my life. And it’s just surprising sometimes. I think people can learn a lot in prison or, you know, it’s not all bad in there.

So I don’t necessarily have the highest hopes for Isaiah, but, you know, there are people out there who it makes a difference for them.

Since all of this happened, I feel like scamming has hit the zeitgeist harder than maybe it ever has. Like, there is kind of a cultural obsession with scamming that has only amped up in the past few years.

As a scam-affected person, what is that like as also like a media consumer and a media creator?

There is some stuff that takes a more serious tone. There’s obviously a lot of stuff that’s more in just like the like kind of like comedy or just typical true crime sort of salacious realm.

And I think, you know, that opens an important like broader conversation.

I think for me and my experience, I feel I felt like this wasn’t like some, like I didn’t send my money to some person who like emailed me being like, hey, you know, I am a prince. I please send me funds, right? This was like a very complex scam.

This man was an actual financial advisor. He was well respected, especially within, you know, sort of the black community in the Twin Cities. So it just kind of like not what you, what people think is like a typical scam victim.

And I feel like that’s probably the case with so many victims of different scams. It’s like you have this sort of preconceived notion about like the type of person that this would happen to.

And like, it’s your own stupidity that’s to blame or whatever else.

And it’s like, oh, you’re either a vulnerable individual, someone with dementia or something like that, or you’re somebody who’s just an idiot and you don’t have critical thinking skills.

And obviously what’s happening to elderly folks or folks who are more vulnerable is also terrible. But I think there is a lot of scams that are happening that anybody could see themselves falling victim to.

It’s similar to how I feel about like cults, right? Cults also are having and have been having sort of a big moment in the culture, right? And I think a lot of people think, oh, that could never be me.

I would never fall victim to that sort of thinking. But it’s kind of just, it happens over time. And anybody could end up being a victim of these things.

And I think that that’s what’s kind of critical about. And, you know, that’s what’s good, I think, about these stories being out there.

It’s like, in my ideal world, the way we’re going to be talking about these stories and telling these stories is going to morph over time.

But you do have to be telling them and talking about it for it to ever get to a point where I feel like it’s kind of more nuanced.

I wish I could remember which cult experts said this. I read it in a book somewhere, but they said nobody signs up to join a cult. You join something else.

You join a group of friends. You join a religious organization. You join a self-help group.

You sign up for something else. And I feel the same way about financial scams. No one signs up and is like, steal my money.

And when you, just like nobody goes on a date, like saying, like, I hope you rape and murder me. Right.

And so it’s that kind of shift too, which is like, there’s not something wrong with a person who trusts another person to be who they say they are and do what they say they’re going to do.

Like there is something wrong with the behavior and like morals and actions of the perpetrator, the person who would betray that trust because truly the social fabric is built on like a baseline level of trust.

You trust that somebody else is going to stop when the light turns red and yours is green. You trust that when you go to the bank and sign a check that they are going to put it in your account and you will have the money.

You trust that when you, you know, sign fiduciary responsibility over to a financial professional that they will live up to the code of ethics that they have been, you know, held to when they took this job or established themselves in this position.

So I feel the same way and I think that our obsession with scams, like on the, on the bigger cultural level, feels a lot like the, the true crime obsession, you know, it’s a branch of true crime, right? These are things that really, really happened.

But the prevailing attitude towards true crime and people, you know, have opined and researched and written all kinds of things about this is that true crime appeals to women because it’s, and I might be getting this wrong, so please, like, you know,

jump in if I am. But it’s like, it, we know the world to be a dangerous place. And so there’s something about hearing these stories that almost feels like preparing ourselves for a scary world.

And I think that there’s something about consuming scam stories, too, that’s like, oh, this is maybe, like, a tuning fork to what other ways that I could be scammed in this way, and almost like, oh, if I can live vicariously through this story, maybe

it won’t happen to me. Maybe I will learn whatever tip or trick that could save me from this same fate.

Yeah, I think there probably is some element of that. And I’ve also heard that a lot about about true crime generally as a genre and why women are so attracted to it. I think so, yeah, for sure, I think there’s an element of that.

And then also, though, I feel like, you know, this idea that, OK, we’re just listening to this because we want to do, we see the world as being scary and we want to protect ourselves.

Like, that can’t be the full story because it’s just like, I mean, really, like, if that’s the case, then we would probably be like, you know, taking a bunch of action based off that.

Or like, I feel like sometimes we would also reflect on just how the stories are being told. But I think sometimes it’s like, yeah, these are it’s entertaining. It’s interesting.

It’s salacious. You know, and I think that I don’t think that that’s like, I think obviously there can be a lot of moralizing around that of like, oh, well then, you know, true crime is bad and no one should listen to it and all of that.

And I think, you know, we could go a different direction, which is just that, yeah, okay, it is entertaining. Stories are compelling and that’s a useful tool, right? Like people have been telling you stories about everything for forever.

People have been telling crime stories for a very, very long time. You know, maybe not in the traditional true crime and the way we’re thinking about it in the modern context. But, you know, we’ve always told stories about crime.

And I feel like, okay, that’s great. People are captivated by those things.

How can we utilize that to make the world better versus when our takeaway is like, oh, you know, I’m listening to this because, or I’m watching this because I want to protect myself.

Then you create this very fearful, like, world and community that makes it so that we leave those stories feeling more afraid and less connected. And I feel like that’s, like, ultimately the opposite of what good storytelling should do.

Storytelling should be connecting and should be drive us towards action.

You know, and I think about so, like, a way to think about true crime storytelling as bigger and more important than maybe something just salacious and for our own entertainment is take, obviously, like the murder of George Floyd, right?

This is a crime that happened, you know, that captured the nation’s attention. It’s true crime, right? We’re not necessarily, we don’t necessarily always talk about it or see things like cases like that in that way.

We might see it as history at some point, or we might see it as, you know, social justice news, current events news, yeah. But it is true crime, right?

And what’s incredible about the story that was told is that it spurred a huge global movement, right? Police brutality has been happening for, I mean, hundreds of years, since the origin of the police, right?

The origin of the police in this country is slave catching. So that’s been happening for hundreds of years. Why is it that you have a story like George Floyd that all of a sudden catalyzes a global movement?

It’s because stories drive people, they move people, they stir action.

George Floyd is maybe the latest example in a series of other examples, if we look back throughout the past several decades of other cases of police brutality that have spurred action, right?

So for me, it was like trying to see beyond just the stories that are told most often and the takeaways that we most often take and thinking about like, how can true crime as a genre be something that drives a better world for all of us?

I’m Nora McInerny, and you’ve been listening to Thanks For Asking. This is a listener-supported podcast. You can get the full episode ad-free in only one place, over on our Substack.

The URL is always linked in the description, but it’s noraborialis.substack.com. This episode was produced by Marcel Malekibu, and our theme music is by Joffrey Lamar Wilson.