Episode 486: Sun Gym Gang: Bungling Murder
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On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we explore some true crime and hit you with the astounding tale of the Sun Gym Gang. This was a gang of bumbling criminals who did some awful stuff to people. It was made into a Michael Bay movie called Pain and Gain starring The Rock, but it was far more dark than that comedy seemed to make it all play out. This one involves a gang of people who met in a gym and their career of kidnapping, torture, drugging their hostages, murder, Medicare fraud, and dressing as ninjas. Yes. Ninjas.
So where did it all start? In Florida. A man named John Meese owned the Sun Gym, a place for serious body builders. It was losing money, so he hired a conman named Daniel Lugo who immediately convinced Meese that he should be head manager. While there, Lugo looked for victims and found others who he’d trust to help with his upcoming crimes. People such as Noel Doorbal and Jorge Delgado. They eventually struck gold once they met Marc Shiller. Delgado had bought a scam Medicare billing business off of him and claimed he was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, the gang decided to posse up and kidnapped Shiller.
Over the course of several weeks, they tortured Schiller (in his own home) until they got him to sign over a one million dollar offshore account as well as other assets. They took his cars, furniture, computers, and brought them all home to use them. Once they were done with him, they got him drunk and put him at the wheel of a car, figuring he’d wreck and die. He wrecked. He didn’t die. So, like you do, they lit him on fire with gasoline to kill him. He didn’t die and got away. Next crime.
Through a stripper contact, they found a guy named Frank Griga and his girlfriend Krisztina Furton. He was wort millions through phone sex. So they abducted both of them and planned to do the same thing. But it got violent, and Griga was killed in a struggle. Furton didn’t fare much better. She was given enough of a horse tranquilizer to kill several horses in an attempt to get her to tell them the security codes of the house. She died before she would.
Meanwhile, Schiller recovered, and his story was so crazy that the cops didn’t believe him. He even hired a private eye, but it came to nothing since the cops didn’t help. But, once Griga went missing, and is Lamborghini was found, they took it seriously. The names of Lugo and Doorbal came up in this investigation, and it tied to the Schiller case, and then it all fell apart for the Sun Gym Gang.
What evidence did the cops find at the gang member’s houses while putting together the case? How long did they live in house of their first victim? What type of sentences did they all get? How accurate is the movie to the real situation? Why did the first victim end up doing jail time after the trial of his kidnappers? What happened when they tried to decapitate Griga’s corpse with a chainsaw? Will Home Depot take a bloody murder chainsaw back if you have a receipt? Listen, laugh, learn
Visit Our Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Gym_gang
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pain-and-gain-the-real-life-story-behind-miamis-murderous-sun-gym-gang/
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/pain-and-gain.php
https://nypost.com/2014/04/21/pain-gain-film-subject-sues-for-alleged-misrepresentation/
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