Lester Crest

"We are about to put the Darwinism back in Social Darwinism, and brother, it is gonna be fun."

- Lester Crest

Lester Crest is a character in the Grand Theft Auto series who appears as a central character and the main deuteragonist in Grand Theft Auto V. He is also a main character in Grand Theft Auto Online.

Background
Lester suffers from a wasting disease which has gradually worn down his motor skills during his life and left him wheelchair-bound, though he is able to walk short distances with the use of a cane. Due to his limited mobility, Lester has grown considerably overweight, and he also suffers from asthma. It is implied that Lester was bullied in high school, as he posted on Bleeter that "getting revenge" on his old high school class "never seemed to get old".

At an unknown point in time, Lester met and became affiliated with Michael Townley and Trevor Philips, becoming a regular member of their heist crews since the start of their partnership, working mostly as a planner and information scout. It is stated by Michael during The Merryweather Heist that Lester went against doing the heist depicted in the Prologue, possibly having an idea of what eventually happened.

Events of GTA Online
"Welcome to paradise."

- Lester to the player.

Lester is one of the several mission givers the player can interact with in Grand Theft Auto Online. He can be found at his house.

The player is introduced to Lester upon reaching rank 10; Lester phone calls the player and asks him to meet up at his house in El Burro Heights. At Lester's place, he informs the player of their growing reputation and suggests to invest the player's money in real estate.

Before the player leaves, Lester tells him/her that he is able to put a bounty on other players by calling Lester. If the player sets a bounty on another player, Lester will take a cut of $1,000.

After the 1.15 Patch, the player can recieve messages from Lester who requires a target eliminated for easy cash.

After the Heists Update, Lester sends a text message to the player, asking to meet him in his factory, to talk about a great opportunity. Lester then introduces the player to the online Heists. He and Paige Harris help the player in the execution of an heist, targeting a safety deposit box at the Chumash branch of the Fleeca Bank.

Afterwards, he'll be referring the players into other jobs he's definitely not interested in, but he might still get a finder's fee for the referral.

Finally, after the heists he didn't want to be involved in, Lester is once again leading a final heist into the Pacific Standard Public Depository Bank along with the players.

Also after the Heists Update, Lester requests the online player to distract the cops occasionally to allow his contact to safely escape.

Events of GTA V
After Michael faked his death with the assistance of FIB agent Dave Norton, Lester left North Yankton and relocated to San Andreas, eventually discovering that Michael had indeed faked his death and gone into witness protection with the FIB in Los Santos. Nonetheless, since Michael told the FIB nothing about Lester's involvment with his team, Lester told nobody about Michael's ruse.

Lester and Michael reunite after nearly a decade when Michael finds himself in need of a new heist after angering Cartel boss Martin Madrazo by pulling his house down a hill (believing it to be the home of Kyle Chavis, the tennis coach who'd slept with his wife). Lester agrees to help, but only after Michael helps assassinate Lifeinvader CEO Jay Norris so that Lester can make a profit by buying Lifeinvader shares at minimal price, only to sell them at inflated ones later. Once the assassination is taken care of, Lester helps Michael, and his new associate Franklin Clinton, pull off a robbery at the Vangelico jewel store in Portola Drive.

Later on during the game, Lester hires Franklin several times to pull off other similar assassinations in order to amass a fortune in the stock market. Lester buys up large amounts of stock in the rival companies of his targets when their share prices are low, so that their share prices will rise significantly following the assassinations and Lester can sell his shares at a profit. Other victims include Brett Lowrey, the CEO of Bilkington Research; Jackson Skinner, the Head of Product Development at Facade; Isaac Penny, a venture capitalist who planned to acquire a majority share of the Vapid Motor Company; and Enzo Bonelli, a mobster turned real estate developer who'd blackmailed his way into most construction contracts for Los Santos.

Lester's main role in the game is in helping the protagonists set-up various heists and operations. He helps them plan out a robbery on a County Bank to finance an FIB operation; he helps Franklin rescue Michael after he's captured by Wei Cheng's triad due to his connection with Trevor; he helps Michael and Franklin carry out a break-in on the FIB Headquarters to delete incriminating files about the team and Agent Steve Haines; he helps the three protagonists rescue Franklin's friend Lamar Davis after Franklin's former friend Stretch betrayed him to the Ballas; and ultimately he helps the trio pull off the biggest score of their careers: a robbery on the Union Depository. If the player chooses the Obvious approach to The Big Score, Lester will travel as a passenger in Trevor's helicopter and shoot down pursuing Merryweather helicopters with a Rocket Launcher.

Endings
By the end of the game, Franklin is given separate orders by Steve Haines and Devin Weston to kill one of his friends. Haines wants him to kill Trevor and Weston wants him to kill Michael. The player then has to choose between carrying out Haines' instructions, carrying out Weston's, or disregarding them both and getting together with both Trevor and Michael to take out their enemies.

Ending A or B= In this endings, Lester only appears again through an email he sends to the two surviving protagonists. If Trevor is killed, he sends Franklin and Michael their share of the Union Depository job as well as half of Trevor's to each of them, as well as claiming to be rather disappointed that things had to end as they did. If Michael is killed, Lester sends Franklin and Trevor their shares of the Union Depository job and sends Michael's share to his family, while at the same time stating in his email that he hopes neither Franklin or Trevor were involved in Michael's murder. Ending C= If the player chooses ending C, the "Deathwish" ending, Lester does appear physically once again. Franklin contacts Lester and asks him for help on figuring out what to do. Lester initially suggests killing both Trevor and Michael, but eventually comes up with a better way to solve the problem. He lures Haines' corrupt FIB allies and Weston's private Merryweather batallion to a foundry where the three protagonists ambush and kill all of them, stripping both Haines and Weston of their brute force power. Afterwards, Lester acquires the locations of all of the protagonists' enemies (after Franklin explains to him that Stretch's real name is Harold Joseph), allowing them to take out their enemies once and for all. Michael kills Stretch, Franklin kills Wei Cheng and Trevor kills Steve Haines before going to Devin Weston's mansion to kidnap him. Trevor takes Weston to a cliff in Blaine County where he meets up with Michael and Franklin and all three protagonists proceed to mock a terrified Weston before pushing the car he's in off the cliff, killing him. After the assassinations are carried out, Lester sends all three protagonists their respective shares from the UD job and congratulates them on a job well done.

Personality
Despite Lester's physical disabilites, he makes up for this with a genius-level intelligence, a masterful expertise in technology and computing and a sharp eye for detail, which is what makes him an excellent planner for the various heists he has pulled off throughout his life. He is also an avid video-gamer, and is a particular fan of Righteous Slaughter 7.

He's admittedly socially awkward and reveals to the GTA Online character during the Fleeca Job that he's not the best conversationalist and rarely meets people in person. When he meets people online and arranges to meet them in real life, he will show up but unseen by his dates and Lester instead will watch them from afar. Sometimes he likes cracking bad jokes that end up in unanswered laughs, showing his inability to deal with people outside the business or the online life.

Lester is very well informed on world politics and the insider details and machinations of corporate action. Using this knowledge, he has previously been involved in stock fraud and corporate assassination.

"You see, I like my scores like I like my dates: across the street and unaware they're being watched."

- Lester to the player.

On Lester's Lifeinvader page, a message from a girl asking about his true age can be seen, implying that he fakes his age in order to talk to younger women, with Trevor referring to him as "Lester the Molester". Lester admits to Franklin that he hacks girls' webcams to watch them and after the The Bureau Raid (Fire Crew approach), he says he will "reverse engineer a webcam and spy on those sorority girls again". It is possible that he is bi-sexual, as a folder entitled "Gay porn" can be found on his Facade computer, however, this may also be a way to "troll" people. Lester possibly believes that the Illuminati is watching him as he has an Illuminati poster in his house, and this may possibly explain why the windows of his house are covered up. Because of his intense interests, it is possible that he suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.

Mission appearances

 * GTA V
 * Friend Request (Boss)
 * Casing the Jewel Store (Boss)
 * The Jewel Store Job
 * Friends Reunited (Post-mission phone call)
 * The Hotel Assassination (Boss)
 * The Multi Target Assassination (Voice/Boss)
 * The Merryweather Heist
 * The Vice Assassination (Voice/Boss)
 * The Bus Assassination (Voice/Boss)
 * The Construction Assassination (Voice/Boss)
 * Paleto Score Setup
 * The Paleto Score
 * Hang Ten (Voice)
 * Surveying the Score (Boss)
 * Pack Man (Post-mission phone call)
 * Fresh Meat (Voice)
 * Cleaning Out the Bureau
 * Architect's Plans
 * The Bureau Raid
 * The Wrap Up
 * Lamar Down (Voice)
 * Meltdown (Voice)
 * Planning the Big Score
 * The Big Score
 * Something Sensible (Option A/Post-mission message)
 * The Time's Come (Option B/Post-mission message)
 * The Third Way (Option C/Boss)


 * GTA Online
 * Cops Capacity (Boss)
 * Landing Strip (Boss)
 * A Titan of a Job (Boss)
 * Last Chopper Outta LS (Boss)
 * High Priority Case (Boss)
 * Quarry Quarry (Boss)
 * By Land, Sea and Air (Boss)
 * Teaser Trailer (Boss)
 * Four Trailers (Boss)
 * Sinking Feeling (Boss)
 * Bust Out (Boss)
 * The Parking Garage (Boss)
 * Hack and Dash (Boss)
 * On Maneuvers (Boss)
 * American Exports (Boss)
 * Chemical Extraction (Boss)
 * Stocks and Scares (Boss)
 * Docks to Stock (Boss)
 * Docks to Stock II (Boss)
 * Crime Scenester (Boss)
 * Master Data (Boss)
 * Denial of Service (Boss)
 * Truck Together (Boss)


 * Heists
 * Fleeca Job - Scope Out (Boss)
 * Fleeca Job - Kuruma (Voice/Boss)
 * The Fleeca Job (Boss)
 * The Prison Break (Post-mission phone call)
 * The Humane Labs Raid (Post-mission phone call)
 * Series A Funding (Post-mission phone call)
 * Pacific Standard - Vans (Voice/Boss)
 * Pacific Standard - Signal (Voice/Boss)
 * Pacific Standard - Hack (Voice/Boss)
 * Pacific Standard - Convoy (Voice/Boss)
 * Pacific Standard - Bikes (Voice/Boss)
 * The Pacific Standard Job (Boss)

Services (GTA Online)
Lester is unlocked as a phone contact at rank 10. When called, he offers a wide range of services, which purpose is generally to assist the Protagonist. Each service costs a specific amount of money and is unlocked once a specific rank has been reached.

Trivia

 * Lester may in part be inspired by the character Kelso from the movie Heat. Both Kelso and Lester have physical disabilities, and both men are more involved with planning heists than with actually carrying them out.
 * Lester has two boxes of files in his house on a shelf. The boxes say "Assassinations", and "Zombie Outbreak".
 * According to the Rush Casting Call, Lester's beta name was Jerry Cole.
 * As reported by media outlets, Lester may be based heavily on Karl Rove, Senior Advisor and White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. Despite the uncanny resemblances in appearance, they are both also criminal masterminds that operate from "behind the curtains," Karl Rove and Dick Cheney being coined "Bush's Brain."
 * Lester's email address is "t34b4g99@eyefind.com" which is Leet/1337 for "Teabag99."
 * The in-game version of Lester's artwork shows him wearing a red shirt instead of the green check shirt. This outfit is only seen in the Paleto Score when he meets Michael, Trevor, Franklin and the chosen gunman at Ace Liquor.

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