Redwood Gospel Mission

Faith-based finalists: Boot camp for souls in pursuit of insanity | David Sessions

SANTA ROSA, Calif.—John Nutting first met Santa Claus at the San Francisco Yacht Club. The son of an international banker from the bay area, he was accustomed to the taste of the silver spoon. His parents divorced when he was 11 and he tried marijuana at 16. He entered his first of nine rehab programs at 18.

By his mid-30s, Nutting was operating a successful con business on the streets of San Francisco: "I created an Australian persona, and would walk up to strangers and tell them I was from Sydney." He got the story down to a science: "I got some nice clothes, and said I was staying across the bay, and some guy I met took me to his famous restaurant in the Tenderloin—people's eyes always widened because they knew that was the bad part of town—where his henchmen ran off with my wallet." In three years with that act, fake cards and all, Nutting says he hauled in about $400,000—and every cent went into "cheap hotels, crack cocaine, and a pursuit of insanity."