Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine January 2018 New Year, New You | Page 43

I Won’t go to Jail for You
When we think of people serving time, the last
thing that comes to mind are people who did a little
“creative accounting” with our taxes, or maybe
someone gave you the hook up on the paperwork
to help a loan application pass through all the hoops
that banks send buyers through these days. We
don’t think of the bootleg man coming through
with CDs and Movies that have been pirated and
is basically stealing from the artist. No, we think of
guns, drugs, assaults and things of that nature.
Recently, it came to my attention that an attorney
I once worked with is serving nearly five years in
Club Fed for being caught up in a mortgage scam.
I did some research to find out what happened
in the case. The attorney, I’ll call her Wendy for
this article’s purpose, did the closings for a few
questionable real estate deals. Now mind you,
when I knew Wendy she was into corporate, labor
and employment, and entertainment law. None of
what her field of interest encompassed had anything
to do with residential deals. So, after reading pages
of transcripts, listening to the recordings of the
hearings, I found that Tiffany, the woman who
handled the paperwork for the banks, underwriters,
appraisals and such; brought Wendy in for the
closings, then decided to turn the tables on Wendy
by testifying against her. From the behind the
scenes maneuvering, Tiffany, not Wendy, was the
one who ended up with a house that was $723,000
and change. She also was the only one to benefit in
other ways.
When that woman sang to the Federal government,
she let loose with the whole opera. Tiffany cut
a deal to save her own ass without going about it
the proper way. She effectively blindsided Wendy
and Wendy’s attorney. The bad part is—the judge
Naleighna Kai
completely let it slide. A mortgage broker was a
smaller fish to fry than a lawyer who had spent years
in college, then law school and who once worked at
a major firm. The legal system was sending Wendy
a message. Unfortunately, Wendy’s attorney pissed
off the judge a few times and that certainly didn’t
bode well. The dissension between the judge and the
attorney was one of the major factors in a failed appeal
along with that “deal” that Tiffany cut to thrown
Wendy under the bus, then back up and roll over her
a second time.
Now, through it all, Wendy never “snitched” and
told Tiffany’s part in things and I’m certain she soon
became aware at some point that Tiffany wasn’t on
the up and up. In the beginning, either Wendy didn’t
know anything, or she was more loyal than she should
have been given the fact that it didn’t take much for
Tiffany to serve her up like day-old bread.
The end result? Wendy, a lawyer who had been
introduced to the residential real estate field by
Tiffany, found herself disbarred with no way of paying
off debts and massive student loans for a profession
she dreamed of since a little girl. Then she found
herself in a women’s prison, away from her sons and
her husband. She will miss their formative and teen
years. Tiffany, the mastermind of the scheme to
defraud four separate homeowners, walked out of the
courtroom and back to her family. Wendy, however,
received 4.9 years.
In another case, a Chicago woman who owned several
businesses, one of which provided tax services is also
behind bars. “Raine” is serving about five years in Club
Fed. She did a little creative accounting with people’s
taxes to get them more of a refund than the IRS felt
they were entitled. She didn’t see a dime of that extra
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