Scumbag on Trial

When Erin was in high school, we met up with another parent, Joseph Metcalf, who had his own investment company. Patrick went on a trip to Australia and New Zealand with this individual, and when he returned, Patrick insisted that we invest with this man. I was cautious. We initially invested some money in a project he recommended, and within a year had made a 50% profit on the investment. Encouraged by this outcome, Patrick transferred our retirement accounts to him to manage, and we made several investments. This man was entrusted with a substantial amount of our retirement funds.

It became harder and harder to reach this man to ask questions or make changes in our investments. Gradually over time, he failed to return calls, and made a few errors in bookkeeping that cost time, money and adjusted tax returns. We stopped investing further funds with him. We were contacted by other parents of the band group who were concerned that they hadn't been able to reach him. We contacted the federal government about our concerns as a group, and waited for the long arm of the law to take it's sweet time locating and questioning him. It turned out that he had divorced his wife, signed over all of his physical assets to her, and skipped the country to Panama, where he was living it up on the money we had all invested. It seemed hopeless that they would ever catch him, and we ended up saying goodbye to most of the money we had invested for our retirements.

Not long ago, we were notified that he had been arrested and extradited to a local federal court. We were notified of his court dates and our rights under the law as victims. Patrick attended one of his hearings and reported to me that he was in chains and an orange jump suit in court, which I have to admit was small comfort considering the likelihood that we will never see our money.

Not only did we lose the money, but there is no deduction or claim that we can make to the government regarding this loss, since it was retirement income invested pre-taxation. Quite simply, we are out the money with no recourse to get it back. Seeing the man go to jail will be nice, but it certainly won't replace all that we lost. I have to admit that this situation is testing my ability to forgive and forget.