Popular true crime ex-con podcaster with ‘millions’ of listeners claimed to have turned his life around… but now the FBI has blown that out of the water

A famous Ohio podcaster, who claimed to turn his life around after serving time for fraud, is facing new scamming allegations by the FBI.

Steven Comisar, 64, made a name for himself by scamming people out of money for decades. He was federally convicted five times and sentenced to prison for  combined longer than 22 years.

Three years ago, he started a podcast named Scam Junkie in which he presented himself as a reformed con man.

However, this Wednesday, the 64-year-old was charged in US District Court in Cleveland and accused of carrying out yet another fraud coup worth $7 million against an Ohio couple, Cleveland.com reported.

No attorney is listed in Comisar’s court records and an initial court date is yet to be determined after he was arrested in California. 

Comisar allegedly used the money on gambling, hotels, food and other personal expenses, according to authorities.

The fraudster entered public spotlight as a con man in the 1990s, wrote a book called ‘America’s Guide to Fraud Prevention’ and repeatedly appeared on TV as a scamming expert.

In the trailer for the podcast he started in 2023, Comisar presents himself as the ‘Don of Con,’ says he ‘perpetrated every scam known to man,’ but now managed to turn his life around.

He even went so far as to claim he now helps people avoid scams and use techniques to ‘legally make money and influence people.’

Comisar’s convictions curriculum includes a telemarketing scam in horse racing, fake oil well investments and bilking an Iowa man out of $125,000. 

In 2003, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for defrauding an 84-year-old Minnesota man out of $480,000.

While awaiting sentencing in that case, Comisar tried to extort an attorney for more than $50,000 by falsely claiming he had information that could exonerate her brother,  who was convicted for murdering a government informant.

When the attorney refused, Comisar threatened the attorney that mobsters would come to her house and mutilate her husband.

After being released from prison in 2018, it only took the fraudster about a year to start scamming a couple from Massillon, FBI agents said.

Posing as CEOs of companies, investors, a wealth director, an attorney and an unidentified ‘person well-known as one of the wealthiest people in the world’ in emails, he got the couple to invest in projects Comisar promised to yield a ‘huge windfall,’ court records show. 

Comisar allegedly used the personas to tell the Massillon man to quickly send cashier’s checks for fees, taxes or government fines before he could be sent the millions of dollars Comisar promised he had made through the fake investments.

FBI agents linked Comisar to the scam using phone and email records, court records say.

Some text messages directed the man to send cashier’s checks to ‘S. Comisar’ at a room at the Beverly Hills, California, Marriott hotel, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Agents said they found out Comisar had lived there on and off for years and even had Amazon and FedEx packages delivered to the hotel.

The Massillon man sent 70 checks to Comisar from 2019 through July 2026, ranging in amounts from $7,000 to $300,000, according to court records.

While the total amount Comisar scammed out of the couple is still being investigated, an FBI agent wrote that it exceeds $7 million. 

Bank records show that Comisar also made around $1.2 million in profit from a thoroughbred racetrack in California, where he bet about $4 million between January and May 2026. 

The Daily Mail contacted Comisar for comment.