4 ex-John McAfee Associates Admit They Lied About Tycoon for Documentary

Gringo, it’s the anticipated documentary about John McAfee, the eccentric millionaire, which is airing this Saturday on Showtime. But like most things in McAfee’s life, there are twists and turns that are surfacing just prior to the airing. Showtime producers are being accused of bribing four former employees to lie about McAfee. And they have now come forward saying they took thousands of dollars, U.S. dollars and now want to stop the airing.  News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Gringo—it is a Showtime documentary about the bizarre and scandalous life of tech millionaire John McAfee. According to the network, the famed inventor of the anti-virus software “went off the grid to live in Belize, building a compound and harem, becoming a drug lord and developing an armed security force to guard himself against the police until he is a suspect in his neighbor’s murder and must make a great escape.” The producers had traveled to Belize to interview persons close to McAfee…but now, attorney Bryan Neal is saying that his clients were manipulated by producers, Nanette Burstein and Jeff Wise.

Bryan Neal

Bryan Neal, Attorney

“Certain producers named in the press release came to Belize, manipulated them, got information from them under false pretenses, forced them to sign documents—in certain cases, gave them alcohol and payment—to say bad things about John McAfee.”

So today, Tyrone Moralez, Zaira Majil, Saka Canul and Cassian Chavarria came forward stating that they lied about McAfee. They received thousands of dollars—in one case over twelve thousand dollars—for an interview with a producer for the documentary and signed documents authorizing the network to use the videos.

Tyrone Moralez

Moralez, a resident of Tower Hill, had been working with McAfee since 2008….first in construction before becoming a security personnel at his Towel Hill home and then at his residence on San Pedro. Moralez says he was coerced into giving the interview in Orange Walk Town and was given five thousand Belize dollars.

Tyrone Moralez, Former Employee of John McAfee

“She says well if you accept to do this interview, I will actually pay you…so I said of course. I still told her it do not want to do it. So later on she kept sending me text messages, but from the beginning I do not know why or how she got my phone number. I went with her, took couple tequilas so I also got a monetary advance from her. How much….an advance about two hundred dollars, but later on. So she went home and we said we gonna meet up at the club. She eventually got me to do the interview. So after the interview, in total she gave me five thousand dollars Belize. So that was it. She also made me signed a paper that I tried to read the paper, but the words were do small…very small, I couldn’t read it. I don’t know what happened there; I actually signed it.”

Cassian Chavarria

Cassian Chavarria worked with McAfee for eighteen months on San Pedro between May 2011 and February 2013. He was on McAfee’s property, when Gregory Faull was killed on the adjacent property and his dogs poisoned. He was detained for thirty-five days following the murder of the American national. Chavarria says he requested thirty thousand dollars, but he received twelve thousand five hundred dollars and gave a fifty minute interview before signing off the release documents.

Cassian Chavarria, Former Caretaker for John McAfee

“During the course of the interview, she kept insisting that she wanted to hear about this murder and what John had to do with it and stuff like that. And I just refused to tell her anything about murder because I don’t know about anything about the murder. I knew when I was called out of bed at eleven o’clock and I saw the dogs, about seven or eight dogs poisoned. Up to Sunday morning when I was advised by a guy that they had killed the guy further down the street. But then what happened is that the more I was talking, the more I had this hook in her. So when I looked at my watch, I saw that the thirty, thirty-five minutes was already up because I did specify to her that it was only going to be thirty minutes—take it or leave it. So she told me, yo know what give me another fifteen minutes…let’s make it up to an hour and I will give you two thousand five hundred dollars more. And I agreed to her and that was the end of it. Then she gave me about five or six pages of a document to sign—I guess it was the release—but I couldn’t read it.”

John McAfee

Reporter

“Would you say that you lied or misrepresented the truth due in your interview with her due to the incentives?”

Cassian Chavarria

“Yeah because [umm] certain things I said were outright lies, but I tied it in with certain truths to make it more plausible, more credible…you know I want more, I want more. It’s like when you’re reading a good book and when you reached that part that you want to get to the bottom of this thing and then seeing that she had already made that offer of ten thousand dollars, I realized that I was just gonna give her something.”

Zaira Majil from Orange Walk Town was one of McAfee’s girlfriends right up to his escape from Belize. Majil says she received eight hundred U.S. dollars in ten-dollar notes.

Zaira Majil

Zaira Majil, Former Girlfriend of John McAfee

“She said it was on behalf of John McAfee and that John sent her to do the interview. So I said yes. So when I went to do the interview, she was asking me so many times if I know if John McAfee killed the gringo and I told her no. John McAfee is not a person like that; he would never do something like that. And she was trying to make me say lies that John killed the man and so forth. Then after that when the interview done, she paid me eight hundred U.S. in lone ten dollars.”

The documentary has been aired in some parts of the country and trailers have already been circulating online about the anticipated airing of the documentary on Showtime on Saturday. Attorney Neal says that he has contacted Showtime requesting them to refrain from publishing images and video of what his clients have said.

Bryan Neal

“We cannot stop them if they want to air their show, but to say to them that anything that is said by these four people in that movie ought not to be published. And we have indicated to them that if they go ahead and publish it, we will retain attorneys in the United States to pursue our case to have them held liable for any damages or any injury to my clients’ reputations.”

Duane Moody for News Five.