Honestly, from the podcast it sounds like he didn't start out trying to scam but instead used a fake name, probably for the reasons you mention and because he wanted to be 'in' the industry. He got in too deep, beyond his technical abilities and was allowed to spend company cash without any real control. If you partner up with a clown, expect him to behave like a fool and spend your money. Without checks and balances he continued on his merry way, spending money and taking advantage of lax leadership. He was enabled by the way the business was set up and not controlled, and he took advantage but didn't seem to have a big scam end goal in mind, just got in too deep and ran with it - it probably played out much longer than he expected.Just me thinking out loud.
I think, the "scam" was before he ever met Brian. We were the one's that were the true target of the initial scam. The scam was just a fake identity in hopes of creating this "subject matter expert" in a field of which he has no authority or qualifications to be considered a SME. He ran across Brian and when the opportunity presented himself, he thought "this is my shot." I believe if things were to never been questioned of him, Theis would still be a part of Hoplite and amongst us today, playing his role. When the kitchen started to get hot, he panicked, and his crooked ass wife pushed him by saying, "the gig is about to be up, lets cash in while we can and pop smoke." I really feel his main motivation was to be validated as an authority in the firearms realm. He had to use a fake name and fake back story b/c his real name and history would prevent him from being anyone of importance. He had long since burnt that name (his real name) in the community and nobody would give him a second thought. Once the gig was up, "lets get what we can get and move on. Its been fun but its got to end." If it was some scam dedicated to financial gain, he would have somehow taken Brian for a much bigger monetary ride than what he did. Not minimizing what was stolen, but lets face it, it wasn't $750k where he could live like a king in Mexico. Either way, he's a piece of shit and needs to fry for it. Brian has done the right thing on all accounts since the revelation of who Theis was. Everyone has been made whole except for Brian. Ive spent a lot of time thinking about this since i found out what was happening, and even more since the podcast with Dave and Brian. This is what i keep coming back to that best makes things seem plausible. But wtf do i know? Ive been wrong a couple times before.
At the end of the day, he was given free reign without any real control.....Brian said on the podcast he was scammed...and then Brian emailed a picture of his credit card to a Private Investigator
. If that's how he rolls then that's his choice but you have to hire good people into your business if you give that much discretion.Hoplite needs to sell this as a scam and make people good otherwise it looks like complete incompetence and their brand and business is toast. Yes they could have bankrupt the company but that would have implications for the owner elsewhere.
Incompetence on so many levels. Anyway, that's how it comes over on the podcast.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in a criminal court.
