Only later, after Fenne was given the boot and the company was struggling to regain its footing, would the full truth emerge: Michael Fenne, the charismatic man who raised $30 million claiming he had invented a new way to broadcast video on the Internet, was in fact David Kim Stanley, a convicted con artist and fugitive on the lam since 1996.
Stanley was born in the rural south, the son and grandson of Appalachian preachers. In his 20s, he used his status and a near-hypnotic speaking style to fleece many of his impoverished neighbors, including parishioners of his father's church, out of more than a million dollars. In 1989, Stanley pleaded guilty to more than 50 fraud-related charges. A judge sentenced him to 36 years in prison and agreed to suspend all but eight if Stanley would repay his victims. In early 1996, while working as a traveling salesman and having paid only a fraction of the money he had promised his victims, according to court records, Stanley vanished.
He turned up in the sleepy town of San Juan Capistrano in late 1996, just as the Internet was transforming the most unlikely people into overnight multimillionaires. The setting would provide the perfect environment for the then 35-year-old con man.
With little more than a made-up name, a dilapidated Hyundai and his wits, Stanley would convince an unsuspecting group of locals that he had found the Holy Grail of Internet broadcasting: a unique means for stuffing television-quality video into ultra-thin files that could download in a matter of seconds. It was only later that Stanley would learn rudimentary programming in languages such as C++ and Visual Basic, but his polished sales pitches convinced just about everyone at the time that he was an accomplished programmer whose skills were sought after by the CIA and the Saudi royal family. He was also emerging as a pillar of the community, teaching Bible studies at a local church and playing piano during services.
By mid-1999, Stanley had convinced Advanced Equities, a fledgling investment firm in Chicago, that his technological breakthrough was about to transform the way video would be delivered over the Internet. The investors were so smitten by Stanley's claims that they coughed up $28 million. They were hardly the only ones to fall for Stanley's scheme: Pixelon was also cutting high-profile deals with the likes of VH1, Paramount Pictures, the Republican National Committee and actor and singer Will Smith.
Now, just one year later, Pixelon is nearly a goner and Stanley sits in a Virginia county jailhouse. During a rare jailhouse interview in Wise County, Va., Stanley comes off as a humble man, bright and gifted with words. Though this blue-eyed, cherubic-faced man seems large enough to wrestle a bear, the soft-spoken Stanley can make just about anyone feel warm in his presence. Many who have known Stanley for only a short time are quick to call him a genius, a deeply gentle soul and one of the most gifted piano players and singers they've ever heard. Even after it was revealed that he was a convicted con artist living under a fake name, his supporters remain steadfast, as convinced as ever that Stanley has a special blessing from God.
From his sweaty jail cell and in the many accounts passed along to friends and acquaintances, Stanley claims over and over that he's the real victim, horribly abused by family members and fellow parishioners, conned by double-dealing business associates and betrayed by a legal system that won't let go a minor transgression he made 10 years ago.
It's no coincidence the judge hearing Stanley's case branded him the golden-tongued salesman. Many who met him were so hungry to strike it rich that they were ready to believe just about anything he said. They lost their fortunes and personal reputations and tolerated the indignities of a man inclined to humiliate them publicly and deceive them privately. The Pixelon story reminds us of the old adage: Deals too good to be true usually are.
Wise County, Stanley's home through much of his early life, is in the Appalachian Mountains near the Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia state lines. Unemployment is in the double digits, and a great many of its residents try to adhere to the Ten Commandments. Even during the coal boom in generations past, only a handful of residents ever got rich, and times have only gotten tougher since then. It was here, in a county where even $40,000 can be considered a nest egg, that Stanley worked his first cons.
