Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The day the FBI called

On Thursday, January 15, 2004, my cell phone rang in my office. I answered my sister's call, and thus began a long and trying tale of intrigue, greed, grief, deception, and madness. By 5:00 pm that day, I was three hours away from my home in Fayetteville, sitting in my sister's living room. We listened raptly while an FBI agent described in shocking detail the unhappy fate of $80,000 that my mother had transmitted via check and wire to Canada during the previous one and a half years. Just that week, the transmissions had escalated into thousands of dollars each day to Costa Rica with the help of her friend and accomplice Bill. I knew I needed a lawyer fast. By noon the next day, my sister and I were in the lawyer's office with $53,000 worth of wire transfer receipts to Costa Rica. Within two hours, I had an emergency court order granting me guardianship of my mother's person and estate for 90 days. This from the reputedly "meanest" judge in Little Rock who had never before been known to grant emergency guardianship in such a case. The evidence was compelling.

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