Stolen Dreams

(CBS)  This story originally aired on March 15, 2008.

Stephen Trantel was a Wall Street insider who seemed to have it all: a beautiful family, a nice home in an upscale Long Island community, and fancy cars. But what those closest to him didn't know was that he was living a secret life.

And as correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports, that secret life began to unravel on one November day in 2003 after what was supposed to be just a day of fishing.

---

It was dark and stormy in more ways than one on that November night. There had been no news about Stephen's whereabouts for hours, when police called his wife, Jeanne Callahan.

Jeanne's friends Brooke and Laura had been with her since earlier in the evening, hours after Stephen was due home. "We were going through a thousand different scenarios. If he was in a hospital, why had nobody called, if he was mugged, somebody stole his wallet, he was in an accident his body was in a ditch someplace," Laura remembers.

The news wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good, either: Stephen was alive but was under arrest, charged with crimes that could put him away for the rest of his life. Police told Jeanne her husband was a bank robber, and that he didn't commit just one or two robberies - he committed ten.

Jeanne told police they had the wrong man.

To the people who knew Stephen, he was the least likely to rob a bank - for one, he was the son of a New York City cop. And because he was a trader in the big money world of commodities, he wouldn't have to steal anything.

The Trantels lived in a tony little town in the suburbs of Manhattan called Rockville Center. And Jeanne was living a nice life. Every month, Stephen handed her a wad of cash. He had always been generous, ever since they met when she was just 24.

After they married and he established himself as a trader, they drove nice cars, took nice vacations and Jeanne could stay home to raise their two sons, Stephen Jr. and his baby brother Ryan.

And when Stephen got home from his job, he got right down to work, helping with the upbringing of his sons. It was impossible to imagine this man robbing banks.

Yet there he was in police custody.

"He got on the phone and he was really scared. And I just kept saying 'Steve, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on?' And he said, 'It's okay, I'm innocent,'" Jeanne remembers.

Police had been confronting him with surveillance pictures from bank security cameras.

For Stephen, this day that ended in handcuffs began out on the water for a fishing trip. The only problem with the day so far was the tail light on Stephen's car: it was out.

But on his way home, police suddenly swooped in and surrounded his car. And he was a little bit of a wise guy. "I got to the stop sign and five cops surrounded me. They handcuffed me and put me in the car," he recalls. "And I'm like, 'Guys, all this for a tail light? Come on.'"

By the end of the night, Stephen was charged with bank robbery.

Stephen's lifelong friends, Laura, Bobby, Sarah, and Tommy knew this was a case of mistaken identity. Stephen was a little league coach, and played Santa Claus at their annual Christmas party. He also volunteered at soup kitchens and Habitat for Humanity.

In fact, his friends even doubted that Stephen had the guts to rob a bank. "He was like a nervous Nellie. Like I couldn't picture the calm it would take to walk into the bank," Laura says.

While Jeanne spent a sleepless night reeling from her husband's arrest, Detective James Skopek was methodically going through the evidence to make sure he had the right man.

It had been a maddening case. After the first few robberies, Skopek had a bunch of clothes that the robber had tossed away and a group of terrified tellers, but not much more.

Surveillance tapes showed a white man in his 30s. Aware of all the cameras, the robber pulled the brim of his baseball hat low to cover his eyes.

"You could see on some of the videotapes, he walked in, made sure that he was okay in there, make sure there was a minimal amount of customers, so we didn't have a lot of witnesses to help our case," Skopek says.

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[Angelflying]

The bottom line, he did the crimes, it makes no difference what the reason's were, he did them. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but If my job ran up on hard times, I would be just spilling the beans and saying "we need to downsize big time", start selling things etc... However instead of choosing to tell his wife, he just opted for the life of crime. There is no one to blame, but himself. People need to stand up and take ownership of their own actions. His wife, his parents, his kids, no one is to blame but Stephen. Just my opinion

[southernbell21]

What a *****! Her husband was trying to support HER lifestyle. He was desperate, and he obviously didn't feel he could tell his wife. How much you want to bet if he had explained the situation to her, she would have divorced him anyway. It was all about HER. Look what he did to HER and the kids. Well he wanted the best for them. Isn't it ironic, SHE is now using his wrongdoing to elevate HERSELF. When SHE sells real estate, SHE says maybe you remember my husband the bank robber. What happened to "in good times and bad times,in sickness and health til death do us part?" I don't feel sorry for HER. I feel sorry for him!

[Shroomduke]

yea, till death do us part... bla bla bla

I can not sympathise with the Banks after seeing them use immoral and dishonest tactics to intentionaly drive MILLIONS of homeowners into bankruptcy so they could force them from homes allowing banksters to steal equity with no regard for the lives and the families they've destroyed.

Foreclosure Activity Counts - U.S. http://www.realtytrac.com/trendcenter/

[rmstaff]

The Fairy tale ending would be the Princess stood by her man through thick and thin till death do they part!
Obviously she was not a Princess! The vows she took were meaningless! She was a kept woman! He certainly was not right but he garners more sympathy than this broad as she wilted when the going got tough! Thankfully, her parents along with his were there to pick up the pieces and lead this inept broad through the hard times!
Write a book? Stick to giving massages and prostituting yourself in the real estate industy!
As to Stephen, he is paying his debt to our so called society. At least he gets to see his children. He will be free in a couple of years and hopefully he will be able to decipher the wrongs and when released meet someone who will be a little more compassionate and stand by him regardless!
Bet she has already found a new "Sugar Daddy"!
Good luck Stephen!

[v22forever]

I don't understand the underlying mystery here? Viz, "why did he do it?" It is so obvious that Ray Charles could see it. I believe this guy knew to the bottom of his soul that if the tough times hit, his wife would desert him. In the end, when the money ran out, so did she.
On the one hand, I see him as a sympathetic schmuck and on the other, I see him as a dumb ass who was willing to prostitute himself for his choice of a wife.

[csi-lover]

You do the crime, you do the time. Now when are banks going to get armed security guards in every bank? What's more expensive, paying someone to protect the bank, or getting ripped off?

Da.

[raymarfam]

To those of you who are bashing the wife - have you not heard/read about the "Clark Rockefeller" story? He was married to a very intelligent woman who made millions of dollars a year - and she didn't know about his lies until more than a decade after they'd married. Seems to me that if someone like his wife didn't know - it's not such a stretch to believe that the wife in this story didn't have a clue about what was going on. A lot of women - myself not one of them thank God - are not at all familiar with the financial status of their families. As far as she knew he was working & making a good living for their family. This unfortunately was not the truth. So she divorced him afterwards - do you blame her? I would do the same. I'm quite sure that if he'd sat down and spoken with her about their money problems, she would have tried to help - instead he chose to rob banks to avoid facing his wife, his friends and his family.

[kfreeman1967]

Perhaps he should have been more upfront with her. If they couldn't afford the lifestyle she longed for, and he longed to provide, then why didn't he just TELL HER? I am a stay at home mom (granted, I do not send my child to private school, and I drive an 11 yr old vehicle, so my situation is somewhat different), so my husband brings the money home, but I sit and pay the bills. We both know exactly where we stand and what we're spending. If you want to be a grown-up and be married and live in a grown-up world, then anything other than a complete open dialogue about the household budget is moronic. In my world, it would be unthinkable to just wander around spending money without ever questioning the bank balance, or the realism of a purchase, etc., but perhaps in her world, in her circle of friends, maybe they lived that way. This isn't 1956, ladies, you should WANT to know, and if you don't know, you should ask. Otherwise, you aren't fairly sharing the burden.

[sunlover518]

I doubt she was ignorant. probably got red flags but didnt want to give up her lifestyle. now she claims ignorance. dont get married again girl you are a bad judge of character

[mbsheisey]

Please don't judge this woman until you've walked in her shoes. When your spouse wants to keep a secret, they can be successful. I discovered my husband was in serious money trouble after he committed suicide. I knew something was a little off, but he was so good at covering it up, like this man, that I would reluctantly put it out of my mind for awhile, hoping that maybe he woul tell me when he was ready. This went on for years. I would beg and beg him to let us do the bills together and we would do them together for, say, one month, and then the next month, he would go right back to doing them by himself and hiding them from me. I would tell him that I knew I was bad with money and that paying the bills together would help me to get a feel of what was coming in and going out of the house, cause I'm bad with numbers. He still would not do it. Occasionally he would let his jolly facade slip and I could tell something was bothering him, and I would ask him to please go talk to someone and not hold everything inside like most men do and die early of a heart attack cause I loved him so much and did not want to lose him. He told me that men did not go talk to therapists. Well, after 25 years of marriage, he lost his job, but he told me he was laid off. A few months later he committed suicide and after I could see ALL of the mail, I discovered that he had several credit cards that I didn't know about and was about $100,000.00 in debt. I also discovered that the reason he lost his job was because he used his boss's credit card improperly. Several people that he spent his time with during the day also told me that he seemed to be caught up in gambling online. However, when I talked to the police when they investigated his suicide, they said that they could not find anybody who had anything bad to say about him. My husband was also an extremely well-liked person who found himself in an impossible situation, like this man. He tried to be the perfect husband to me, even though I did not ask him to be. I love jewelry and cannot walk by a jewelry store window, but I discovered that when I would stop to look, he would feel like he had to buy me something! I just wanted to look!
Now I have lost my hubband, my best friend, my house, my job, and have gone to live with my mother. Not where I thought I would be at 52 years old.

[drthvader]

Good thing you have a mother, concentrate on that.

[mwalker63]

I for one wish CBS & 48HRS would stop with all this darn Michael Jackson videos and lets get back to work with the real crime videos I am so accustomed to watching. I watch this daily for the last couple of years and now I find myself on you tube looking for old videos cause 48hrs have not come up with anything new until now and the video for stolen dreams I still can't watch. C'MON CBS, I REALLY LIKE WATCHING THE GOOD WORK YOU PUT INTO YOUR STORIES BUT WE NEED SOME NEW MATERIAL. EVEN YOUR PAST VIDEOS YOU HAVE LOCKED UP AND ONLY HAVE PREVIEWS AVAILABLE. ANY LONGER AND YOUR GOING TO LOSE A FAN.