RUINED LIVES

Once upon a time there was a con man – a world class con man.

He did not start out to be a con man. He bought a business. He wanted it to be bigger. He needed it to be bigger. So he grew it and leveraged it to the max, and grew it some more, until it failed. And he went bankrupt.

But that did not stop him, or even slow him down. He started over.

He had a big loud personality and he was a natural born salesman. He convinced thousands of people to trust him with their hard earned money. He became a huge success at projecting success.

You have probably known men like him, in your own life, but this man was bigger, more self-confident, and more flamboyant than the smaller and more common versions that cross our paths.

The con man made millions and eventually billions. He lived a lavish lifestyle – a lifestyle of the rich and famous.

Then came rumors of bribing government officials and money laundering.

The Feds began investigating.

I need to pause here, in case you think I am speaking of Donald J. Trump, which I am not, except that there is a connection.

Robert Allen Stanford had been running a $8 billion Ponzi scheme, defrauding nearly 30,000 investors.

Federal investigators raided his offices and gathered evidence. When Stanford’s business empire crumbled, he blamed the government’s “Gestapo tactics” for its demise. He maintained his innocence even after he was found guilty of money laundering, mail fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.

The prosecution, in seeking the maximum punishment, argued compellingly that he was guilty of “economic murder,” for the many lives he had ruined. Robert Allen Stanford, who had become one of the richest men in America, is now serving a 110 year sentence in federal prison.

To win that jumbo sentence, the prosecutors needed slam dunk evidence, and they needed the testimony of someone who knew where each and every body was buried, and just how each of those bodies got there.

They needed to flip James Davis, Stanford’s college roommate, best friend, blood brother (yes, they did the blood mingling thing), chief financial officer, and co-conspirator. They needed to make him testify against his blood brother.

And they did!

What you should know about this gratifying (except for those who were swindled) crime and punishment story is that the prosecutor who led the investigation was Greg Andres.

Greg Andres now works for Robert Mueller. He is just one of seventeen hand chosen specialists investigating Donald Trump. You don’t hear so much as a peep from any of them. Quiet is becoming the new cool.

Oh one more thing!

As the Mueller investigation moves closer to its conclusion, Donald Trump will make this personal. You can count on it. He will single out the investigators as being Hilary-loving and-Obama-loving, elitist political hacks. But I seriously doubt that Greg Andres will be intimidated by name calling coming from the subject of an investigation, regardless of how dangerous that subject might be.

If you doubt me, just ask former Bonanno mob boss, Vincent “Vinnie Gorgeous” Basciano, who hated Greg Andres so much that he planned on killing him.

As mob rat Generoso “Jimmy the General” Barbieri testified in court:

 “Basciano said that Greg Andres destroyed the Bonanno Family. He ruined all our lives. We should make an example of him.”

With the hope of getting a few years knocked off his life sentence, former Bonanno mob boss, Joseph Massino gave prosecutors the specifics of the planned “hit.”

According to Massino, Vinnie Gorgeous would walk into a restaurant on New York’s east side where Greg Andres was known to dine on Thursday nights, walk up to his table and shoot him.

Vinnie Gorgeous did not get to kill Greg Andres. Instead, he and other key members of the Bonanno crime family are serving life sentences in federal prison.

Greg Andres did, in fact, ruin all of their lives, and it was he who made examples of them!

Besides Greg Andres, and of course Robert Mueller, there are at least sixteen team members who are not yet finished ruining the lives of those who deserve it.

They are: Andrew Weissmann, Michael Dreeben, Jeannie Rhee, Zainab Amed, Aaron Zelinski, Kyle Freeny, Andrew Goldstein, James Quarles, Elizabeth Prelogar, Brandon Van Grack, Adam Jed, Scott Meisler, Rush Atkinson, Brian Richardson, Ryan Dickey, and Uzo Asonye.

And, for now, that is my two minutes worth.