LUST ON THE HIGH SEAS

LEEANNE AND JAMIE

Leeanne and Jamie were looking forward to the trip. It the occasion of their 25th anniversary. Jamie had been a nurse since before they were married. But nursing wasn’t how Jamie made his real money. He was also a performer. Jamie was an Elvis impersonator. He actually did well and the family savings was the proof of this.

The financial arrangement had long been that the income Jamie earned nursing was the money they lived on. The money he made performing went into their, i.e. HIS, savings. Leeanne had no access to this money. Jamie was always very clear about this.

Coinciding with the couple’s 25th anniversary, Jamie was celebrating having finally landed the Harrah’s account. He’d earned an exclusive contract to perform for 14 of the Harrah’s casinos. He’d start on the Gulf Coast, then Atlantic City, Reno and finally at the Las Vegas location.

The plan had always been that when Jamie could save up $2 million dollars, he would quit nursing and only work his Elvis act exclusively.

Jamie kept the plans for their trip to himself, only giving his wife the barest of details. They’d take a yacht from it’s home port in Mobile, AL, around the state of Florida and up to Miami. They’d stay for 3 days, then sail back to Mobile.

It wasn’t until Jamie was pulling into the parking lot of the harbor that he revealed the surprise. They’d checked into the Marriott Harbor hotel, and would be leaving early the next morning at first light. After dropping the luggage off in their room, Jamie told Leeanne they needed to go to the harbor.

Jamie: I got a surprise for you Leeanne.

Leeanne: What?

Jamie: It’s better that I show you rather than tell you.

–

STAN

I was huddled in the front seat of a brand new Ford Expedition in a car carrier on a rail car. The rhythmic clattering of the southbound train was making me sleepy. The adrenaline rush and excitement had worn off and sleep was quickly overtaking me. As I drifted off memories came back.

It started with her – my now ex-wife, Rachel.

I was hired by the investment house owned by her dad, Bob, right out of college. I’d been with the firm for 3 months when I met his oldest daughter – Rachel. She was home from college for the summer. Bob insisted she work at the firm during her off months. That’s a thing he would do. Rachel was daddy’s little girl and was treated as such. However with that singular distinction there were expectations placed on her. If I’d known she was the old man’s daughter, I wouldn’t have asked her out. If I’d known any number of things, I would have never thought of stopping by the mailroom and even spoken with her.

I was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. My family was euphemistically called financially disadvantaged. In other words, we were poor. I was the first in my family in generations to graduate from college. My academic career was somewhat less than distinguished as well. I attended college, mainly to get as far away from my hometown as I could and still pay in-state tuition. If not for a brief Army enlistment, I couldn’t even have afforded it. Wouldn’t you know it, the only job worth having upon graduation was an equity firm back home. It honestly felt like returning back to hell after being given a holy reprieve.

I was a hustler.

Not exactly in a bad way, not in the pejorative.

It meant that I got by with hard work. Every newbie in an equity firm, the ones with brains to see anyway, would say the same. In my case it was particularly true. Show up early, stay late, scramble and hustle for every investment. Fight for every dime. The firm wasn’t remotely shy about telling all of us newbies that we were in direct competition with our contemporaries. Basically, kill or be killed.

During my 1st year I brought in more new accounts than 5th year senior investors.

I pursued Rachel with equal gusto. We were engaged a year after we began dating, and married a year after. Rachel busied herself with the life of a young suburbanite housewife. Daddy’s girl married to the fastest rising up and coming equity fund manager. She spent my money as soon as I made it. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t the ideal son-in-law that my in-laws would have preferred. I didn’t come from a good family, I didn’t attend an Ivy League school. I didn’t have the MBA/PhD nor other credentials her dad, Bob, craved as a husband for his “little girl”.

At work, I didn’t wine and dine the upper crust for investment opportunities. I was basically incapable of kissing ass. I let the other drones play that game. When I say I hustled, I mean I went after small market opportunities. Guys who started with nothing, put it together and made something and needed capitol to grow and expand. I’d plug in some of that blue-blood investment money and it paid off. Without even trying, clients were opting out of a relationship with the snobs down the hall and banging on my door. Money was money, and if it came with sweat and dirt on it, who cared? Money just became a way of keeping score.

Things went great for a while. Rachel did the “mom” thing and played her role.

For a while.

Then things got boring and stale for the both of us. Neither of us were saints or angels. I probably cheated on her both first and more than she. We never threw it in each other’s face. What was the point? I was making the dough and she was eating cake. Why blow a good deal?

I remember that particular day as clearly as any other in my life. It was about 3:00 pm on a Thursday. My admin started to buzz me that someone was there to see me, but she was cut off. Suddenly my door flew open and into my office strolled 2 local state investigators and a rep from the SEC. Not the good kind, from the Southeastern Conference, but from the Securities and Exchange Commission. I was placed under arrest and hauled away. I was able to reach my attorney from jail. It was too late to get my bail set, but he managed to get me in front of a judge first thing Friday morning. My bail was set and paid and I was free to go home.

That’s where the next shoe fell.

Rachel met me at the door and informed me that, and I quote: “It might be best if you stayed elsewhere. At least until the court case was cleared up”.

So I’m kicked out of my house.

The house I paid for.

The next few weeks flew by in a blur. My license was suspended pending the investigation. As such, I was relieved of all my duties, with pay of course, until there was a final resolution.

Said resolution came soon enough. The forensic auditors had seized all my files and announced that they’d found more than sufficient evidence to charge me with fraud, embezzlement, wire fraud, just about every white collar crime short of ripping the tag off my mattress. Their work was sloppy and lazy. It was a results oriented investigation. I was already guilty in their eyes. When they found enough to make the case and bury me, they just stopped looking.

Suddenly my entire support system was yanked out from under me.

Work suspended me indefinitely, now without pay.

The state board revoked my license. Permanently.

And Rachel filed for divorce.

Accompanying her divorce petition, her lawyer filed a motion to freeze all of our accounts until the final distribution of assets could be made.

The only real help I had was a *********** group of clients who’d made big bank off me. Fortunately one of these was my lawyer, who basically donated his services for free.

The original plan had been to delay the trial as long as possible to find out who’d set me up. Because I’d been set up.

Big time.

With my funds drying up, this became impossible to prove. The trial began. D-Day came 14 months after the charges were first filed, 4 days into the trial. The DA and the SEC gathered with my lawyers and made their best and final offer – They would drop all but one of the charges, interstate fraud. It was a C-Class felony. I would agree to a 10 year sentence. With good behavior I’d be out in 2-3 years. My SEC license was to be permanently revoked. If I went to trial I was looking at up to 50 years total, having to serve a minimum of 20 years. Per my lawyers, I was screwed and the offer was a gift.

All I had to do to get the awesome deal was – return the money.

Money I didn’t have because I hadn’t taken it in the first place. What money I had was tied up in divorce court. Even that wasn’t sufficiently close to covering the loss.

I was good and royally screwed.

I explained this to my lawyer – Barry Mednikow. Jaded by life as he was, I still don’t know exactly why, but he believed me. Instead he managed to work a deal with the DA. I took a plea of Nolo Contrende – No Contest. It was a way of saying I wouldn’t fight the charges any longer, but wasn’t exactly pleading guilty. The difference being I would not have to perform the process known as purging myself – announcing in open court that I was guilty of what I’d been accused of. The plea got me a single 25 year sentence.

I was hauled off to jail immediately. Per my plea agreement, I’d serve at a minimum security facility.

I spent the first year in prison keeping largely to myself. I wallowed in shame and self-pity. My only visitors were my lawyer and my now grown kids. No one else bothered and that was fine with me.

After sulking for 12 months, I would spend the next 6 figuring out exactly what had been done to me. Clyde, my erstwhile assistant at the Brokerage Firm, accompanied Rachel on a daily basis after testifying against me. It was Clyde’s testimony that ultimately sunk me. Exactly one week after I ceased my defense and took the plea agreement and went to jail, Rachel and Clyde married. I focused my attention on Clyde. I had my lawyer bring me a tran*********** of the trial and all the discovery evidence. After taking half a year to review the case en totem, I nailed down exactly what happened. I strongly suspected during the trial that Clyde was the one that set me up.