About ten years ago, we used to hang out with this couple. They were the ultimate fun couple- always going out, traveling, hosting parties at their huge house, etc. They lived a lavish lifestyle filled with nice vacations, fancy cars, etc. They were super nice and very fun to hang with, but we lost touch over the years as we shifted away from the party lifestyle.
Well we ran into the wife over the weekend at a restaurant, and made some normal small talk. DH asked how her husband was doing, and she made a long pause before saying he’s doing fine. So based on her reaction, DH and I start wondering if they are possibly divorced (we have no friends in common, so nobody we could ask). We look at her FB, and see she has no more pics of him, so we figure it was truly a divorce.
But then DH decides to google him, and there it is…he was arrested last year for a federal white collar crime, and was just recently sentenced to 7 years in person and a 7 figure fine! We are both in total shock. They both had good jobs when we used to hang with them, so I wondered about their spending, but just figured they weren’t saving or just going into credit card debt. It sounds like he got addicted to the big lifestyle and just kept increasing it. They have 2 young kids so I feel terrible for them. I feel like this is an episode of the show “American Greed”.
Any chance they live in a Chicago suburb? It sounds similar to our neighbors. They have a beautiful mansion that is always pristine inside and outdoor. The husband had a ton of fancy cars and my husband would always drool over them. One day the husband disappears and so do the cars. After some googling we found out he was charged with a white collar crime. They repo'd a lot of his possessions and sold a lot to pay off the crimes.I think the wife got a minor hand slap fee. Now it's just weird to walk by their house because I know she lives there alone with her kids and is barely making it. I don't know why she won't let go of the house but I expect it to go up for sale sometime soon.
Any chance they live in a Chicago suburb? It sounds similar to our neighbors. They have a beautiful mansion that is always pristine inside and outdoor. The husband had a ton of fancy cars and my husband would always drool over them. One day the husband disappears and so do the cars. After some googling we found out he was charged with a white collar crime. They repo'd a lot of his possessions and sold a lot to pay off the crimes.I think the wife got a minor hand slap fee. Now it's just weird to walk by their house because I know she lives there alone with her kids and is barely making it. I don't know why she won't let go of the house but I expect it to go up for sale sometime soon.
We had similar friends, their daughter danced with our kid and we travelled for dance and they always were buying nice turnings and going on multiple vacations each year, nice vehicles and spent money like it was water...last year the wife was sentenced to 4-20 for embezzling almost a million dollars from her employee over the last 6 years
Post by bullygirl979 on Apr 3, 2019 7:04:32 GMT -5
That's crazy! My H often wonders how some of his coworkers afford multiple new vehicles, a cottage, expensive toys, etc. I remind him that just because he is MM doesn't mean his coworkers are.
Hearing these stories... I knew a woman tangentially through some friends. She and her DH were amazingly nice, fun to hang out with, etc. She ended up getting caught embezzling money from the swim club she was the treasurer for. People were shocked, talked about how NICE she was, etc etc etc.
How much did she take? $70k. In comparison to the stories above, that just seems like such a small amount!! I have no idea the details behind it- why she did it, where the money went, etc. But then again, who knows how much she would have ended up with if she hadn't been caught.
Post by farmvillelover on Apr 3, 2019 11:01:16 GMT -5
I have several stories like this, it’s nuts. Someone in our community, her husband got sent to prison for embezzling money from customers and clients to the tune of several million over a few years. His wife wasn’t charged and she continues to live pretty nicely with their 2 kids (new G class Benz, tropical and ski vacations, high end shopping). And she’s been open that it’s not family money supporting them. You have to wonder if there was money stashed somewhere or maybe there was a deal made that she’d keep X amount if she provided information on him.
Hearing these stories... I knew a woman tangentially through some friends. She and her DH were amazingly nice, fun to hang out with, etc. She ended up getting caught embezzling money from the swim club she was the treasurer for. People were shocked, talked about how NICE she was, etc etc etc.
How much did she take? $70k. In comparison to the stories above, that just seems like such a small amount!! I have no idea the details behind it- why she did it, where the money went, etc. But then again, who knows how much she would have ended up with if she hadn't been caught.
Some people don’t get caught. A paralegal on our floor years ago took over $200k from her employer over the course of roughly 2 years. She handled all the finances for them so basically it was taken in cash. They were making a ton of money (class actions) and so much money was being paid out to vendors and the boss wife so that $200k got lost in the shuffle. They found out after getting some forensic accountant and a few other employees admitted they knew about it but they didn’t press charges. I think she was smart about it and basically had zero paper trail or covered her tracks in bullshit receipts that they weren’t able to prove fraudulent.
Any chance they live in a Chicago suburb? It sounds similar to our neighbors. They have a beautiful mansion that is always pristine inside and outdoor. The husband had a ton of fancy cars and my husband would always drool over them. One day the husband disappears and so do the cars. After some googling we found out he was charged with a white collar crime. They repo'd a lot of his possessions and sold a lot to pay off the crimes.I think the wife got a minor hand slap fee. Now it's just weird to walk by their house because I know she lives there alone with her kids and is barely making it. I don't know why she won't let go of the house but I expect it to go up for sale sometime soon.
Are their initials S and S last name I? If so, they are former friends. He stole nearly 2 million from my best friend. If not, crazy how many of these there are.
One of the staff administrators at my college, and her H, were convicted (a few years after I'd graduated) for stealing about half a million dollars from the student government department. I was president of one of the school clubs for a couple years and handled the budget, which came from the student government. We held a fundraiser in June and handed her the cash we'd raised to deposit into our budget ... when we got back in September and were given our yearly budget the fundraising deposit wasn't reflected. She told us it'd gotten "absorbed into the general SGO budget" and we were too stupid to inquire further. The news article says they're paying it back at a rate of $150/month. Mmmkay.
We also did a fundraiser for St. Jude's Hospital and, again, handed her a big stack of cash so she could write the check and mail it to them. Another fundraiser we did was a scholarship fund in memory of a fellow student who'd died in a car crash. My stomach turned, thinking of those two things and how I just handed her a bunch of cash trusting her to take care of it, when I read the news story about her arrest.
A few years ago I learned that my uncle did 5 years in federal prison for embezzling from the insurance company he'd worked for his entire professional life. I don't know how much money he stole, but he lost everything--his wife divorced him, his (now adult) kids still don't really talk to him, his professional reputation was destroyed, and he wasn't able to attend my grandmother's funeral or see her before she passed away. As a kid I assumed that he and my dad had argued over the estate and that's why we didn't see him at family reunions for awhile, and it was only as an adult (over ten years after he was released) that my mom spilled the beans.
His story sounds just like your former friend's--they always had a big house in a very nice Chicago suburb, drove new cars, sent their kids to private school, and went on fancy vacations. Everyone in the family assumed that they were overspending because his wife only worked part-time, but in reality that overspending led to a lot of illegal shit that allowed them to maintain their lifestyle up until it didn't.
A relative of mine (from whom we are estranged, as you might imagine) spent years in prison for embezzling nearly nine figures from a youth athletic group. Got out and committed credit card fraud and is back in again. (PDQ.)
A small but affluent town near us had a big scandle. They had coin-only parking machines. That were emptied by the town sheriff every day.
Yup.
The year after he retired, the town had a million dollar surplus in the budget. They did a forensic audit and discovered that the extra cash was suddenly coming from the parking meters. Big scandal, arrests (I think one other person was charged).
Moral ... when you are skimming from the town meters, taper it down before you retire !
Any chance they live in a Chicago suburb? It sounds similar to our neighbors. They have a beautiful mansion that is always pristine inside and outdoor. The husband had a ton of fancy cars and my husband would always drool over them. One day the husband disappears and so do the cars. After some googling we found out he was charged with a white collar crime. They repo'd a lot of his possessions and sold a lot to pay off the crimes.I think the wife got a minor hand slap fee. Now it's just weird to walk by their house because I know she lives there alone with her kids and is barely making it. I don't know why she won't let go of the house but I expect it to go up for sale sometime soon.
Are their initials S and S last name I? If so, they are former friends. He stole nearly 2 million from my best friend. If not, crazy how many of these there are.
Not them but I think I know the guy you are talking about too. His name was S Ixxa and he bought a frigging yacht and like 20 houses with the money he stole. I learned about that story from a co-worker that helped investigation that fraud.
Are their initials S and S last name I? If so, they are former friends. He stole nearly 2 million from my best friend. If not, crazy how many of these there are.
Not them but I think I know the guy you are talking about too. His name was S Ixxa and he bought a frigging yacht and like 20 houses with the money he stole. I learned about that story from a co-worker that helped investigation that fraud.