Under Watch: Ervin Lupoe (mass murderer), Annette Yeomans (suspected embezzler and known spendthrift), and R. Allen Stanford and Bruce Friedman (suspected Ponzi artists)
Under watch:
Ervin Lupoe, who killed his wife Ana and their five children in Wilmington, California, after both he and his wife had been fired from their hospital jobs for falsifying income records so they could qualify for a low-income child care program. The Lupoe’s each made over $40 per hour as radiological technicians for Kaiser Permanente in West Los Angeles, but made it appear they were earning less than $10 per hour. They were behind in their mortgage payments and had recently bounced checks for $15,000 and $2,000 to reportedly pay for back property taxes and penalties. Although there was nothing in Lupoe’s military record indicating any problems, he had applied for but was rejected by several police agencies before becoming an X-ray technician. Court records show he sought a restraining order after a confrontation with a neighbor. Often, such confrontations involve alcoholism on both sides. As pointed out in “Drunks, Drugs & Debits,” financial misbehaviors are often the first clue to hidden alcoholism.
Annette Yeomans, 51, booked for investigation of grand theft and embezzlement of $9.9 million from Quality Woodworks, Inc., a cabinetry company in San Marcos, California. She managed to pull this off as chief financial officer for the company while the economy was riding high from 2001 through 2007. Her husband was one of the company’s cabinet installers but, according to Sgt. Mark Varnau of the sheriff’s Financial Crimes Unit, was “not suspected” of any crime, despite the fact that Annette spent $25,000 weekly on her credit card and paid off the balance the following Monday with company funds. She also kept $240,000 worth of shoes, $300,000 in designer clothing and 160 purses valued at $320,000 in her home, which included a bedroom that had been remodeled into a closet with a crystal chandelier and a 32-inch plasma TV. Such extravagance by itself is a clue to alcoholism. While it’s true that failure to ask questions of your wife isn’t a “crime,” the IRS may view things a bit differently.
Texas financier R. Allen Stanford of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, accused of bilking investors out of $8 billion and, in a seemingly unrelated case, philanthropist-businessman Bruce Friedman of Sherman Oaks, California, accused of stealing $17 million from investors. Stanford promised investors unusually (meaning: unsustainable) high yields of 6% to 10% annually on certificates of deposit and Friedman, a previously convicted felon, began offering “safe, guaranteed, solid secured investment notes” in 2004, yielding 9% to 12% (meaning: too-good-to-be-true) per annum, largely to people whom the SEC described as “older Americans.” Stanford and his top executives contributed at least $2 million to political candidates, including House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel (D., NY), and additional thousands of dollars on jets and resorts for such politicians. Friedman, who the SEC says “diverted” investors’ money to himself and to a charity he founded and operates, is accused of having spent much of the loot on luxuries that included a $6.5 million Malibu home, vacations, cars, jewelry and designer clothing. The allegations come 28 years after Friedman was convicted of stealing $300,000 from Avery International Corp., for which he was sentenced to 40 months in state prison. The charity, the Friedman Charitable Foundation, founded in 2006, quickly became a well-known Los Angeles Dodgers sponsor. The ostentatious living style and conspicuous consumption on the part of both indicates a need to inflate the ego, symptomatic of alcoholism. The allegedly criminal acts are also superb marks of addiction. We must always keep in mind that Charles Ponzi was an alcoholic.