Episode 381: Arthur J. Williams Jr., Part 1

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

Society & Culture, News, True Crime

4.5 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1999, a young US Secret Service special agent is assigned to the counterfeit squad in Chicago, Illinois. Aside from dignitary protection, one of the agencies’ roles is to investigate counterfeiting. Across the Midwest, someone is spending up big with $100 counterfeit notes. The level of skill, expertise, and execution required to break the most secure and sophisticated note in the history of the US Treasury is equal parts impressive and intimidating. But the con can’t last forever. In episode (insert number), Jac and Alexis detail the life and crimes of Arthur ‘Art’ J Williams Jr, whose journey from street crime to becoming the top currency counterfeiter in the country brought him face to face with Special Agent Brad Beeler. This two-part story shows how two men from opposite sides of the law can come to develop respect for each other as they each make their way to the top of their chosen careers, and how redemption is never too late. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Based on the worldwide best-selling novel.
0:02.0	Why do you want this job?
0:03.0	I really enjoy being a housemaid. This Christmas. Would you like the Grand Tour? See what you're getting yourself into? Discover what lies. I don't know what's been going on with her lately. Behind closed doors. I need this job. I do not want to go back. Sydney Sweeney. You'd lie it about everything. Amanda Seifred. What kind of monsters are we?
0:23.0	I want you to feel safe here. The House Maid. In Cinema's Everywhere, Boxing Day. See it first with previews from December 22. The first degree. First degree. First degree. First degree. First degree. The first degree.
0:38.3	You see it on the news. You see it on the paper. You see it on Facebook.
0:42.3	These things are supposed to happen in movies, not in real life.
0:50.3	When they were haunting me, and I say hunting because they were hunting.
0:55.0	For 12 days, they were on my tail and I was bouncing from place to place.
0:59.0	We didn't know who he was at the time.
1:01.0	He was just an unsub, basically passing pretty good counterfeit money that was able to pass the pen and had the watermarks on it.
1:09.0	I was 26. I was fresh out of the academy, and he was in his mid-20s as well.
1:13.6	We literally, same height, same weight.
1:16.1	I felt I was kind of looking at a little bit of myself in a way,
1:20.3	and that here's a really gifted guy, very creative guy,
1:23.3	that just took certain turns in life that led him to be in front of me.
1:27.3	And if he would have taken a
1:29.0	different turn, maybe that wouldn't have happened. Welcome to the first degree, the true crime
1:34.0	podcast that you might end up on. My name is Jack Vannick. I'm with Alexis Linkletter. She was
1:38.7	mouthing the words as I was saying them. You know, I didn't even know I was doing that. The autopilot just takes control
1:46.9	sometimes. The autopilot is so insane. Like, you know our sign-off that we do every first three episode.
1:53.3	Yeah. I can't even think when I do it. I have to, like, enter some sort of a flow state in my mind and,
1:58.2	like, look off to the side and let it just come through my mouth.
	...

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