Kenneth Wayne McLeod
Humble beginnings
McLeod grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., attending Nathan B. Forrest High School. He was athletic: he played football, baseball, soccer and ran cross country.
According to The Florida Times-Union, he was a popular guy, voted with the other members of the Pheta service club as "the Wild and Crazy Guys of Forrest."
The Florida Times-Union detailed his trajectory post high-school :a stint as a Prudential Insurance Agent, then insurance underwriter. Marriage, then divorce. And bankruptcy.
Despite his later claims, McLeod never went to the University of Georgia, nor did he get a degree at The American College, The Florida Times-Union reported. He married his first wife, Sheila, but then had to file for bankruptcy a month after their wedding. By 1995, he was a divorced father of four, paying $200 a week in child support.
He had few assets, save for a car and an expensive television. He was a natural salesman though; his primary asset was himself.
Almost none of the grandiose claims McLeod routinely made were true. He fibbed about his schooling; he told people he'd been an undercover agent. The Florida Times-Union reported that McLeod would brag about unusually small things. McLeod claimed to be a black belt martial artist. He claimed he'd been drafted by the Mets in college. He claimed his bulldog was a descendent of a University of Georgia mascot.
But those tales don't seem so tall in comparison to his tallest tale of all, a yarn which made him $35 million dollars, over the course of 22 years.