With heaps of cash and a $180,000 sports car, Brank could have stopped there, but he had sunk his teeth into Burns and didn’t want to let go. Yim said Brank blew about $20,000 on hotels, clothes and bottle service. In a whirlwind of debauchery, they continued to San Francisco and then back down to L.A. After Vegas, the two friends stopped briefly in San Diego, then continued to Brank’s old stomping ground, Sacramento, where he gave his brother $10,000, according to Yim. On February 17, Burns wired Brank $500,000 from a Goldman Sachs account. Soon after, Brank and Yim tore through the desert in the sports car to Las Vegas, where they would do cocaine and hang out in strip clubs, celebrating the coming payday. He said he was blackmailing Donald Burns, a wealthy tech tycoon he met while escorting. Two weeks earlier, Brank had arrived at Yim’s San Diego apartment in a sleek black Audi R8 sports car and calmly told his French-born friend over beers that he was about to collect half a million dollars.
