Kansas City News Blog

When we published our feature about con man Brent Barber in 2003, one of his victims, Sue Cooper, said she expected to see Barber’s face on Dateline someday. That hasn’t happened yet, but it’s not for lack of trying.

Sentenced in October 2006 to 12 years in prison for a massive mortgage fraud operation that hit more than 80 people, Barber has become a sought-after interview on the national media scene following a January article in USA Today. The story, by reporter Noelle Knox, depicts a guy who’s pretty full of himself for someone spending 12 years in a federal penitentiary in Arkansas.

“If I wanted to be a stinker, I could tear up any state I walked in. From right here in jail, I could do every one of the things I talked about,” Barber told Knox before he went on to advise readers on how to avoid assholes like him.

The Barber profile has set off a wave of national media requests, according to attorney Patrick McInerney, who represented Barber until two weeks ago. “Good Morning America and CNBC have called, but he declined to speak with them,” McInerney tells us. “There’s been a lot of interest.”

In an e-mail to the Pitch, Knox said she never had any particular interest in Brent Barber; she just wanted a personality to hang a story on. “I was looking for someone involved in a recent mortgage fraud case who had been recently convicted. So, no, he was not trying to get his name out in the press,” Knox writes.

We haven’t been able to talk to Barber. The bureaucratic process to secure an inmate interview takes awhile without a prisoner’s lawyer around to act as press agent. And at this point, we’re a little scared of the guy we’d have to go through: his warden, the awesomely named T.C. Outlaw. -- Peter Rugg