Scott Tucker is an extremely loathsome specimen. As this episode of 'Dirty Money' ("Payday") recounts, Tucker and his two brothers (Blaine and Joel) founded an online business in 2001 that made payday loans (even in states where these super-high-interest, low-principal loans were restricted or illegal). Tucker's clientele were working-class Americans at the bottom of the social heap - vulnerable, desperate people who needed cash advances in order to stay afloat. Tucker set up usurious loans (with lots of strings attached) that would make mafia loan-sharks blush. He took ruthless advantage of millions of poor people to enrich himself, live a lavish lifestyle, and indulge his passion for amateur car racing. Happily, after about 12 years, the Feds eventually got wind of Tucker's shenanigans, busted him on RICO and other charges, slapped him with a $1.3 billion fine, and sent him to off to federal prison for 16 years (too short a sentence, actually). It's heartwarming to see this human piece of slime brought low but "Payday" is nonetheless a frustrating viewing experience. It spends far too much time with Tucker, his wife (who looks like an aging, Botox-ed Joey Heatherton), his naive daughter, and his sleazy lawyer-partner, Tim Muir (also convicted and now serving a 7 year sentence). Tucker and Muir are utterly unrepentant about their crimes. Quite naturally, they cast themselves as aggrieved victims of government overreach, never admitting that they were greedy thieves preying upon the weakest members of society. This TV doc should have spent more time with a number of Tucker's victims, to show in a vivid way the incredible misery he caused. Too bad hell is a myth; it's a pleasing image to imagine Scott Tucker burning in agony in its fiery furnaces forever.
