Mr. Schachter still believes that his former associate had no master plan to cheat people. “In no way is it possible that he had a criminal enterprise planned from the beginning,” he said.

Instead, Mr. Schachter posited that Mr. Philbrick got overleveraged and resorted to fraud, seeking to maintain his lifestyle.

During the reporting of the story for New York magazine, Mr. Schachter said, he direct messaged repeatedly with Mr. Philbrick. Mr. Philbrick, he said, talked to him over Instagram, using alias accounts. His old account had gone private.

According to Mr. Schachter, Mr. Philbrick made nothing easy, including the fact-checking.

“He’s already denied taking private planes,” Mr. Schachter said. “I was like, ‘I was on these planes with you. What do you mean you didn’t take private planes?’” (The Times spoke with another friend of Mr. Philbrick’s who described VistaJet as “Inigo’s very own sybaritic pleasure vehicle.”)

“I said, ‘You’re like ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley,’” Mr. Schachter continued. “He wrote back, ‘Google how the movie ended.’”

So Mr. Schachter did. It turns out Ripley strangles the person who may be about to expose him.

Mr. Schachter said he never seriously considering suing Mr. Philbrick. “I’m not going to waste another nickel,” he said. “I won’t get it back.”

But Mr. Schachter did have a plan to mint money from his own misfortune. “I’m going to write a screenplay,” he said. “It’ll make a great movie.”