Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen · Sony Music Entertainment / Campside Media

Chapter 10: Curtain Call

June 1, 2022·51 min·4 clips

The con queen threatens to mutilate an actor who doubts his identity as fake Doug Liman.

The episode opens with audio of the con queen—now impersonating director Doug Liman rather than his usual female Hollywood executive personas—pitching an actor on a fake Tom Cruise space movie. When a different actor asked for a video call to verify identity, the con queen erupted with explicit death and mutilation threats, the first time in the series he has been heard fully unhinged. Host Josh Dean notes this was happening as the podcast was actively closing in on his identity. The investigation has revealed that Gobind Tahil Rahmani was living in London as a food influencer, regularly visiting restaurants and paying his own way, while simultaneously running the Doug Liman impersonation campaign. Producer Vanessa Grigoriadis examines his social media and finds a lengthy video interview with a Jakarta lifestyle influencer in which Gobind speaks about childhood bullying for being perceived as effeminate and describes undergoing conversion therapy in a mental hospital. Josh Dean notes that Gobind was actually speaking from Manchester, not London as he claimed, having geolocated the footage from background landmarks. Prison officials at Chippenang remember Gobind as charismatic, helpful with English translation, and socially manipulative toward staff, while noting he was considered by the institution as unrehabilitatable. The episode then reconstructs Gobind's years in the United States, starting at LA City College and then Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he competed in forensics and gravitated immediately toward the most powerful students. Former coach Marianne Legreco recalls giving him her award-winning speech as a template, which Harvey then performed verbatim at a tournament. After being disqualified, Harvey sent his school a fake suicide note naming competitors John Parsi and Jennifer LaHoda as responsible for his death. He then began calling them in disguised voices and once impersonated actress Cate Blanchett. Police traced threatening emails to Indonesia but had no jurisdiction to act. Former competitor John Parsi reflects that Harvey's trajectory was not surprising in hindsight and that the con queen's scam is rooted in a need to destroy others' dreams as revenge for his own perceived failures. Screenwriter Greg Mandarano, who visited Jakarta six times and lost six figures, still expresses professional admiration for the con queen and has written a biopic script about the scam titled Hollywood Con Queen. Dean uses this as an illustration of the extraordinary emotional hold the scam maintains even on victims who know the full truth. The episode closes with the observation that the con queen was almost certainly never going to be caught had he targeted less powerful people, but the handful of women with enough resources to hire a full-time investigator changed the outcome.

As heard by us

A live scam call and older reporting keep the case unnervingly active.

The episode keeps the Con Queen case moving, with the hosts still tracking Goban Tahil Rahmani, watching social accounts disappear as fast as they appear, and hearing that he is still at it while the episode is being made.

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Why you'd press play

You want the con still unfolding while you listen.

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