Conman Steven Jay Russell had an impressive criminal career. Using nothing more than a bogus resume and a smile, Russell talked his way into the position of Chief Financial Officer for a large health insurance company, where he redirected funds into his wallet. After a clerical error revealed his creative accounting, Russell found himself in the Harris County Jail, where he met the love of his life, Philip Morris, who was due to be released soon.
Russell was not the type of person to let prison separate him from the man of his dreams and would go on to escape from prison on four different occasions to be with Morris. To walk out of jail, NPR reports that Russell made a guard's uniform for one successful escape, a doctor's uniform for another successful attempt, and once got a hold of a cell phone to convince a court clerk to lower his bail. Russell's last successful escape from a maximum-security prison was as insane as it was brilliant.
Russell used a crash diet and a supply of laxatives to simulate the rapid weight loss associated with a full-blown case of AIDS. Russell then arranged transfer to a minimum-security prison hospital, followed by a transfer to hospice care, where once again he walked out the front door. Not once did it occur to anyone to actually run tests on Russell to determine if he really had AIDS. While free, Russell sent a fake death certificate to a Texas court house, making him legally dead. Suspicious of the chain of events, police familiar with Russell thought everything was a little too convenient and began tracking Morris. When Morris and Russell reunited in Florida — by law a story this crazy needs to have some connection to Florida — Russell was arrested, and his original sentence was extended to 144 years. Russell's story is so crazy that it had to be adapted into a film, "I Love You, Philip Morris," and only an actor as graceful and dignified as Jim Carrey could do his story justice.
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