Oil baron's son? Well, right this way!

One of my brother's has a childhood friend who's nickname in his early twenties was Id. Rugged, good looking, and a genuinely good guy, Id was a heavy-drinking, party-loving wild child. Some of the stories... (One included an encounter he and my brother had with a rabid racoon...) Fortunately, Id outgrew his idness and went on to live life on the straight and narrow. 

I haven't thought of Id being Id in years. But, although Id was never a conman, grifter, crook, the first thing I thought of when I read about Nicholas Bryant was here's a guy who's pure id. And unlike Id, who figured it out on his own before he did himself or anyone else irreparable harm, it looks like Nicholas Bryant will have plenty of time in prison to work on his ego and superego. 

Bryant was doing not so much with his young life, but - having played around with check kiting and rent avoidance - he was onto the concept of the grift. So he landed on some sort of scheme that was making him excellent money (he claims $60K a month) running some type of fraudulent oil-related business that I can't quite figure out. But it involved hiring and scamming subcontractors, including a childhood friend. 

But the directly paying schemes weren't enough to fund the glorious lifestyle he wanted. So he concocted a "scheme using payment platforms to send fake payments" for luxury travel and pricey goods. 

He said the scheme began in January 2020, when he and a friend were spending a Thursday evening at a Topgolf in Dallas—when they agreed that “playing a round of golf in Scottsdale” would be way more fun. On a whim, he said he started calling charter companies and was surprised when they were able to fly to Arizona soon after.

“We did the trip no problem and when I asked how I am going to pay for it, [the sales representative] said I could wire the money,” he said, noting he “just Googled third-party wire transfers” and learned that these systems would send over confirmation payments that he later learned could cancel.

The delayed payment confirmations, he said, was how he was able to “get away with it for so long.” But, he noted, he was constantly hounded by private jet companies when they realized that he did not pay. 

"I would just stop taking their calls,” he said. “I just went crazy.” (Source: Daily Beast)

Poor baby. Imagine having to dodge all those calls. 

But as stressful as all those pesky calls were, Bryant remained pretty insouciant, which I guess is pretty easy if you have no inner core and live solely for what (someone else's) money can buy, and having no concept of what the future might hold for him. 

 “I was living life,” he said. “I was spending 50, 70, $100,000 dollars a day at the peak. I was so far deep into it it didn’t really matter.”

Anyway, soon his social media accounts were popping with images of Nicky-boy living large. 

For over a year, scammed his way to the high life, creating new identities as some fake oil tycoon's son or another as he went his merry way.

“I took private jets and stayed at the most expensive Airbnbs and hotels. Went deep sea fishing and toured everything that was possible,” Bryant said this week, noting that he has a lot of remorse over his actions. “I bought and drove five different high-end cars.”

“By far my most favorite trip was to [Turks] and Caicos. I spent two weeks on the island from fishing to sailing yachts. I stayed in a $30,000-a-night house. It was amazing,” he added.

In all, prosecutors estimate Bryant stole approximately $1.5 million in the fraud scheme.

He also conned a contractor into beginning construction on a million dollar house. (Seriously, what kind of contractor would keep pouring money down the cellar hole of a house if a payment hadn't cleared? My home reno was for a lot less than a million dollars, and I knew the contractor. I can't imagine he would have kept on the job if a check had bounced.) 

Having admitted that the "allegations against him 'are pretty much true'", Bryant is cooling his heels in the Lubbock County Detention Center, which I'm assuming is a far piece from the $30K a night house he once lounged around in. He's awaiting sentencing, and could get 20 years. 

Here's how Bryant's scheme worked well enough to sucker 50 businesses and individuals:

What the now 26-year-old Bryant has admitted is that, between 2020 and 2021, he would use online platforms like QuickBooks to send payment confirmations without ever intending to pay up. It would take days, however, before vendors and businesses would learn that Bryant had canceled that transaction before the money was sent through. By then, Bryant told The Daily Beast, he had already enjoyed the jet ride or the lavish excursion and vanished.

Talk about living in and for the moment. 

In the end, prosecutors say, Bryant took at least 17 private jet flights, stayed in numerous high-end hotels, spent half a day on a 90-foot yacht with friends where he demanded a steak and champagne dinner, and obtained five luxury cars worth $500,000.

Rather than concentrating solely on making public noises about remorse, Bryant must be driving his lawyer crazy with his comments from the jailhouse. 

Bryant told The Daily Beast that while he thought it was “crazy they are comparing me to both” [Anna Delvy] Sorokin and [Frank] Abagnale—he feels like he’s got the notorious swindlers beat.

“My story might be more wild than theirs! I can almost guarantee it!” he added.

I don't imagine Nicholas Bryant will ever have much by way of a superego, but where's your ego when you need it. Surely, his ego would have whispered in his ear not to be crowing about his crimes. 

It's pretty amazing how many folks Bryant was able to con. And I'll give him this. He was pretty fast on his feet. What tripped him up was trying to book the same private charter company for both legs of a trip from Lubbock to Miami to Houston and back. The company was looking for its money, and not just a promise of it, when Bryant went into avoidance mode. Rather than risk being confronted at the airport by the charter company, he high-tailed it over to a Porsche dealer. Who he managed to con out of an SUV. 

But a Porsche SUV wasn't quite enough. A month later, he was arrested while "he was at a car dealership attempting to buy an Audi and a Maserati."

Bryant is now making some moo-moo noises about remorse.

“It was fun, but I definitely do regret it. A lot of these companies are good, hard-working people. They built these companies up and it’s hard to take a $100,000 loss. And I did that to 50 people,” Bryant said in a Wednesday phone call, his thick southern accent choking up. “It’s definitely weird to look at pictures and think wow I was just living in the moment.”

Depend on how the sentencing goes, Bryant may have plenty o' time to live in plenty o' prison moments. May he draw some comfort from spinning tales for his fellow inmates about his exploits. 

“He always seemed to have friends and talk about how his father was in the oil business,” one high-school friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of personal safety, told The Daily Beast. “But he was always a piece of shit too. There was just always something with him.”

Frank Abegnale was bullshitter and con artist, but at least he had interesting stories to tell about his personas (pilot, doctor, professor, etc.). Anna Delvey/Sorokin was a bullshitter and con artist, but at least she had a real interest in the arts. 

Nicholas Bryant? Looks kind of soulless to me. All this waste of his young life just so he could create a rich kid fantasy life for himself.

As for Id? If something were to happen to my brother, Id's one of the first people I'd call. And he'd be there for my brother in a nano-second.