Con-gregation, be seated: "Scam Goddess" is a better podcast than it manifests on TV

We're all in peril of falling prey to con artists, thanks to multiple data breaches and an uptick in identity theft. For the rare few who somehow haven’t been subjected to some level of compromise, the simple act of picking up the phone for a number you don’t recognize could change that.

This distrust affects physical interactions too. Few of us accept a stranger’s outstretched hand without questioning if there’s a shock buzzer hidden in their palm. Assuming everybody has an angle is safer than trusting in the rube’s axiom that people are fundamentally good.

“Scam Goddess” host Laci Mosley isn’t in the business of alleviating these fears. In her view, we’ve all either done or participated in crimes at some point — whether we meant to or not. 

That dine-and-dash you were peer pressured into back in the day? Fraud and robbery. That charity whose leaders are pulling in healthy six-figure annual salaries might be a con. Heck, your tax dollars are being used to fund all kinds of immorality. 

Mosley suggests making peace with fraud’s integration into the American experience. Her podcast episodes open with a choir singing, “Scams, cons, robberies and fraud” — not in a way that pleads for help but invites us to get with the program. Her listeners — the “con-gregation,” she calls them — reach out to brag about scams they’ve pulled off, warn others about hoaxes that are circulating, or low-key invite her to pass judgment on the sharks they’ve let into their aquariums. 

Since 2019, Mosley has perfected the fine art of marveling at hustles without exalting the hustlers. She has no qualms with hailing the audacity of famous swindlers with her celebrity guests while constantly acknowledging their extensive wrongdoing. Bringing that approach to TV requires a slight tone adjustment that sometimes struggles to find the right balance between humor and honoring the palpable pain of the deceived and defrauded. 

Simply put, it’s easy to sit with a fellow comic, celebrity, or deft conversationalist and read about a scam, pausing to riff about a fraudster’s boldest lies and robberies. Facing the unintended co-stars of those crime tales is another matter. 

Mosley’s telegenic appeal certainly isn’t in question. An Upright Citizens Brigade veteran, she stood out on the underappreciated comedy “Florida Girls,” a gem on the now-departed Pop TV’s line-up, and was featured in Season 2 of "A Black Lady Sketch Show."

The TV version of “Scam Goddess” makes the most of her easy ability to mix glamour and goofiness, which she wields to place sympathetic subjects at ease and catch the guilty off guard. She’s also clear that she never wants to make light of the injustice visited upon the people of Dixon, IL. 

And yet, when confronted anew and on location with the story of Rita Crundwell, she admits a shred of conflicted emotions. Mosley previously delved into this case with fellow comic Adam Conover in a 2023 podcast episode titled “The Govt. Horse Hustler.” 

But when she recorded it, she wasn’t on location in the very conservative, Ronald Reagan-worshipping burg Crundwell drained of $53.7 million in what may be one of the largest municipal fraud cases in U.S. history. So while Mosley earns plenty of grins by showing up at the local watering hole in full rhinestone-spangled Western regalia, the same outfit Crundwell wore to her horse shows, she also senses a chill fall over the crowd at the mention of their homegrown thief's name. 

Laci Mosley in "Scam Goddess" (Disney)

While the town that yielded that whopping amount only consists of 16,000 people, everyone there has at least heard of Crundwell. Those who knew her personally explain her steady accumulation of trust and power in the simplest terms: She came from a solid farming family. She worked for its city hall since high school. She was one of their own, why wouldn’t they trust her?

“This is a doozy because I don’t how to feel,” Mosley claims once the extent of Crundwell’s brazen hijacking has been laid out. “On the one hand, icon! On the other hand, villain.”

In case it isn't clear, she's joking. Mosley states in no uncertain terms that she isn't making light of the misery Dixon's scammed visited the town. When children are caught up in a fraud’s net, she's downright severe. That's is what happened when Kyle Sandler set up shop in Opelika, AL., claiming to be an ex-Google founding employee with a gazillion dollars and setting up an incubator company in the town that he milked dry. (For this episode, Mosley pays tribute to Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Holmes by wearing a black turtleneck.)

One of the residents he used to score corporate investment was a middle schooler who ideated a first-aid vending machine. Once the jig was up and Sandler ran, the kid’s dream went up in smoke too. 

Any new addition to true crime asks us to consider the need it's trying to fulfill. When Mosley launched her podcast, it was a leavening contrast to the murder and violence dominating most of the genre. Her and her guests' creatively hilarious reactions to each fraudster's peak outrageousness are brilliant enough to make the most familiar stories feel fresh again.

One recently resurfaced podcast installment covers “Big Eyes” artist Margaret Keane and her fame-claiming husband, Walter. You probably saw or at least heard of the 2015 movie starring Amy Adams, but it seems entirely new to Mosley. Even if it isn't, listening to her and “Queer Eye” stylist maven Jonathan van Ness cackle over the looniest twists is the equivalent of a sugar bump. 

But all the energy those performers add is lost in the translation from audio to visual, leaving Mosley to shoulder all of the good-nature by herself as she leads viewers through bitter stories other shows dissect with sufficient gravitas. Crundwell’s crime has already fueled several TV and movie deep dives, including an episode of CNBC’s eternally circulating “American Greed.”

Sandler showed up in HBO’s “Generation Hustle.” He’s also the only scammer in the episodes made available for review who agrees to sit down with Mosley, explaining it’s his chance to “control the narrative.” You won’t find it hard to believe that he doesn’t, or that his polished interrogator takes glee in pulling him apart with a smile on her face.

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Even so, the pop-heavy graphics, quirky sound editing and integrated gags make the TV edition of “Scam Goddess” feel weightless, too light to last. Mosley maintains her magnetism, but her rapid-fire humor is her greatest asset, and that’s noticeably muzzled. 

Then again, a common thread in these episodes is that each community impacted by these large-scale scams has managed to recover in some way. Some got their money back. Others didn’t but found a way to repair the wounds opened by the grifters and thrive in different ways. Each con artist also did or is doing jail time – except for Crundwell, who had her sentence commuted by President Joe Biden in December 2024, winning him no new fans in Dixon.

The government has always bilked the people it’s supposed to serve, no matter which party is in power. Subsidies that already flowed into the tech sector and the coffers of the super-rich will swell to impossible limits. Returning a convicted fraudster to the White House only cements the dirty truth that some people will get away with anything they can because we let them get away with anything. 

Maybe the great service Mosley provides by bringing “Scam Goddess” to TV days before a tech bro robber baron officially ascends to the highest levels of power is to absolve us of any shame or guilt we might experience at knowing our pockets are being picked. Instead, the best survival option is the one she suggests in her podcast’s sign-off: Stay schemin’.

"Scam Goddess" premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15 on Freeform and streams the next day on Hulu.