2 more case studies in tragedy of fraud

For a couple of years I’ve been looking at a few specific fraud incidents as case studies of fraud in general. It has been fascinating to dive deep into an embezzlement at a nearby megachurch and a corruption case in a nearby city. I’ve blogged about those extensively and even turned my blog posts into an e-book, Tragedy of Fraud.

Two more case studies have surfaced — one I’ll just mention and the other I’ll see what I can find for several more posts.

(Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update, because this is valuable for CPAs as well.)

“Googlable”

Here’s a consequence of fraud I’d not pondered before:

Explaining to your young children that mommy is a felon before they have the opportunity to start searching the internet. Better to explain your record before they read about it.

That’s what one woman had to do with her young twin boys, as described by Dr. Michael Shaub in his blog post Redemption. Please read the short post to hear her story of going to federal prison for a creative accounting deal that didn’t give her anything.

Barry Minkow

Mr. Minkow is the other case study I’ll start focusing on.

My post is titled: Fraudster turned fraudbuster turned pastor turns fraudster again: Pleads guilty to stealing from his church

Dr. Shaub has a post also:  Barry and Me.

He has a longer description of Mr. Minkow. It’s

… a rags to riches to orange jumpsuit to crime fighter to clerical collar to fraudulent short-seller to multimillion dollar church embezzlement story.

The professor has followed Mr. Minkow for many years, read several (most?) of his books, and even used his books in class.

Apparently the felon-again had a movie about his life in production. I’m guessing, along with the professor, it won’t be released anytime soon.

Read the full post as a further intro to the amazing life of a no-longer-alleged triple felon.

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