The Shocking Secret Past of One of QAnons Most Toxic Stars

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/ishonest

QAnon conspiracy theorist Tommy Gelati loves to talk. Just not about this.

William Bredderman

Researcher

Trash-talking QAnon conspiracy theorist Tommy Gelati has a long list of celebrities he thinks belong in prisonor who might secretly be there already.

Hes claimed that top celebrities torture children for adrenochrome, a substance conspiracy theorists believe contains magical life-giving powers. After Tom Hanks contracted the coronavirus, Gelati began speculating that Hankss recent haircut proved that he was secretly hosting Saturday Night Live from prison.

But whats less clear to his audience is that Gelati himself served nearly two years in a federal prison after engineering a sensational bank robbery with a crew dubbed the College Boy Robbers. Now, his online rise highlights how anyone can reinvent themselves and find success in an era where conspiracy theories run rampant.

His style is a lot more aggressive and insulting than a lot of the other Q gurus, Mike Rothschild, a journalist who tracks the QAnon movement, told ishonest. He seems like the really agro guy yelling at the TV in a bar, except thousands of people share it immediately.

When I challenged him after he insinuated I had something to do with pedophilia or child trafficking (which I flatly deny), his followers really piled on, Heidecker told ishonest.

Sixteen years ago, Tommy Gelati went instead as Thomas Galati, a 24-year-old recent Villanova University graduate from Paramus, New Jersey, with mounting gambling debts.

They started threatening my family, Galati later recalled in a courtroom, according to New Jerseys The Record newspaper. They said they were going to kill my mom and I didnt know what else I could do, so I did the wrong thing.

Galati, bank teller Rajeev Sidhana and friend Micron Sanchez Rodriguez hatched a plan to get enough money to pay off Galatis debts, by staging a robbery. Rodriguez would play the bank robber, while Galati and Sidhana would hand him the money while pretending to be the victims.

Galati wrote out the robbery note himself.

React in any way, and Ill kill you and your mother, the note read. I know where you live You take my bag and get me all the $ from behind the counter and the vault ASAP I worked at banks before, so I know theres at least 10 to 15K in each register.

On Jan. 2, Rodriguez entered the bank, approached Galati, and handed over the note. Galati handed the banks money over to Rodriguez, who took Sidhana as a fake hostage as he made his getaway.

The robbery netted the trio a whopping $202,000, which one FBI agent investigating the case described at the time as an unusually high sum for a bank robbery. But the scheme quickly fell apart, with detectives intrigued by the bizarre note and the huge haul questioning Galati and Sidhana, who cracked after a few days of interrogation.

Dubbed the College Boy Robbers, their case became a local sensation. Galati pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months on a conspiracy to commit bank robbery charge.

I was president of my class, captain of my baseball team and now Im a bank robber. I lost everything, a weeping Galati told the judge, according to an account of the sentencing in The Record. I kind of wish I had a rewind button just to go back and take care of all of this.

The name Gelati uses now is spelled slightly differently from the last name used in court records for Thomas Galati. But there are plenty of items demonstrating that Gelati the QAnon conspiracy theorist is the same person as Galati the bank robber. Its not clear if he has legally changed his name.

Meanwhile, the 1995 Paramus High School yearbook shows Dedes and Thomas Galati, who looks very similar to Thomas Gelati, both posing in a photo of the football team.

Gelati is described in a 2015 USA Today article as a New Jersey native. A search on the directory Spokeo returns only three results for a Thomas Galati or a Tom Galati with connections to New Jersey, two of whose ages wouldnt match the Galati described in the court record and newspaper accounts, while Gelatis age does. There were no results for Thomas Gelati or Tom Gelati.

Within a few years of his release, however, he became prominent as a high-stakes player in the world of fantasy sports. Gelati, as he was then known, soon became a prominent player and media personality in daily fantasy sports, a variation on fantasy sports popularized by websites like DraftKings and FanDuel. Gelati styled himself as the hard-partying cool kid at the nerd table.

In 2017, Gelati landed at Barstool Sports, a sports media outlet where he co- hosted a fantasy sports podcast with actor Michael Rapaport. But Gelati soon ran afoul of one of his Barstool coworkers after the man, spotting Gelati wearing a backwards baseball cap at a Yankees game and dubbed him Prison Mikea reference to a faux-tough bit Steve Carell played on The Office. Gelati exploded in direct messages to his coworker. Rapaport was fired from Barstool a few months later, and Gelatis Barstool podcast was no more.

With episode titles like TOM HANKS IS A PEDO! and OPRAH, ELLEN, MADONNA PEDOPHILES?, the No Mercy podcast has become the fifth most popular podcast in the sports category on the iTunes charts, even though its not really about sports anymore. It just ranks ahead of podcasts from sports heavyweights like Colin Cowherd, J.J. Redick, and Skip Bayless, as well as The Ringers NBA podcast. And it features a number of conservative athletes, including QAnon- friendly former baseball pitcher Curt Schilling and former baseball player Aubrey Huff.

Gelatis former Barstool coworkers appear to have watched his pandemic-era rise to conspiracy theory infamy with bemusement.

Without sports, Tommy G, he might just uncover every plot in America, Barstool personality Dan Big Cat Katz said in a Barstool video that discussed one of Gelatis conspiracy theories.

Whats interesting about Tommy G is that nothing about his schtick is novel, View said. You could find 10 QAnon influencers just like him. He just does it with complete sentences and a blue checkmark.

Gelati shows no signs of stopping, suggesting that more people in the future will be baselessly accused of pedophilia or eating children by the former bank robber turned conspiracy theory star.

I would be surprised if Tommy believes any of the crap hes peddling, but I do worry he may influence someone impressionable and unstable to do something dangerous, Heidecker said.

Read more on: thedailybeast, qanon