Ovarian Cancer and Extortion

January 24, 2015.

Passing Thoughts

In all honesty,  Greg was right, the view from the rear view mirror was getting smaller and smaller, and that is the way I want it too - so hopefully the Universe will have this tale wrapped by the end of the month.  Again, the statements made in my blog, are merely my personal opinions about real events that actually happened and about events that affected our family.  As I stated earlier,  I have no interest to dedicate any resources to dig deeper into the nefarious events that happened behind closed doors, but I know enough of the truth to think it is actually my obligation to tell part of it so that people who place trust in others and assume that people are working on their behalf and who yield an incredible amount of power should somehow be asked relevant questions.  And besides, the State of Alabama has Sovreign rights, i.e. the state cannot be sued, so I actually have no recourse other than telling the Universe.

The Tale

Abe now had seven months of trial preparation under his belt.  He had plowed through the 2,000,000
pages of documents a farcical amount of paper, and had as well had time to conduct interviews with many of the players.  The information that was being uncovered did not look good for the prosecution, and the worst incriminating piece was that there was a real issue with the math.  Three thousand hours of forensic accounting billed to Greg  revealed that every dollar could be accounted for, and there was no fraud.  Worse yet, the building costs came in at $305 Million, an acceptable margin for a project that estimated costs (as per the original contract/loan agreement) at $250 million for building, and and addition $100 million for equipment.  The project cotract was signed by important people in the State, as well there were documents showing that a copy of the original contract had been delivered to a certain you know who.  The prosecution download another 30,000 documents.  Abe asked for a continuance, and surprise surprise, it was granted.  The trial was moved from October to Spring 2015.  Ridiculous.

(It's a wonderful thing when you own media.  You can pump out any story you want, and the little lambs just read what you want them to read.  There exists a gorgeous facility, designed by Albert Kahn Architects,  a notable name in American architecture and history.  The internet has articles
"Design Matters".  A state of the art facility that cost a $150,000 million less than the fixer upper back in the Rust Belt in Hamilton.  When the economy collapsed, and Greg could not take out the bridge loan arranged for him to get those shovels in the ground before December 31 2007, the date when that GO ZONE program would expire, when the banking crisis led by the housing collapse happened - anybody still remember that, that's when Greg could not find a bank to get rid of that certain someone.)

It certainly did not look good for the accusers and yet Greg was caught in the 'procedure' of American law.   The legal team thought that a local jury would not understand the case, and I would argue with Greg that they were insulting the intelligence of good working class people living in Colbert county.  Those are the people who sit at a kitchen table and figure out if they have extra money left over to go to the movies.  Those are the people who get an additional part time job to pay bills.  I was convinced that the trial would be fine, but the experts were aware of the forboding corruption, and were not prepared to take a risk.  Jonny, Mark's partner had become involved in the case after spending weeks just casually chatting to Greg when they happened to be in the 'lunch room' at the law office.  Conversing about football and life and whatnot, Jonny began to take an interest in the case.  Jonny had a glimpse into Greg's character and began to instinctively understand that the accusations were false and was determined to be the Atticus we needed.  Jonny was prepared to charge into the flames, bear the torch and fight for Greg.  Greg finally, had an advocate.  Jonny was the man.

Before the project started, Mr. Ruffles,  a certain someone's right hand man, had told Greg to make sure that the Hotel room had at least 2 forty ounce bottles of liquor for the overnight stay in Hamilton.  It was a lot of alcohol to consume for one person.  The whispers within the inner circle in Alabama knew that there was, sadly, an issue with a certain someone, and that he could not make it on the witness stand for a week.  A week was a long time to sit in a chair in a public courtroom and not let the secret come out.  It was when Abe tipped his hand to the prosecution that the defence  would be calling a certain someone to the stand, that eye balls popped on the prosecution side.  Abe also new that Greg had told a certain someone that the building cost would be over budget, sometime in April of 2008 while they were sporting about in one of the facilities built by that same certain someone. The time line of when that certain someone was told of cost overruns, did not line up with a Securities fraud.  How could it be a fraud when you were given information months earlier and then insisted on gettin equity?  Abe still wanted to prepare for trial.  Jonny was working on the solution offered by the prosecution.

There were two other very troubling facts.  Greg had told Abe that the Ground breaking ceremony was not attended by ACS (A CERTAIN SOMEONE) , in September 2007 because at the time,  ACS was furious when he found out that Greg had not awarded the big soil grading contract to the Tennessee company that had done all of the work for ACS facilities, presumably a friend of ACS, and he was displeased.  The other troubling fact was that ACS also told Greg he had to use his insurance company 'Eyesight' again presumably because they were friends, but Eyesight would cost about $9 million dollars more that the lower bid.  Greg kept the insurer that he was planning to use, on board to audit the insurance, and that audit was all documented and ready to be presented at trial.  The mess that was swirling around with misleading dates and figures was confusing.  The GO ZONE money had been available to the Gulf States since 2005, and by federal law had to be used by December 31 2007, when the rebuild program would expire.  Federal documents (GAO) clearly identify the names of companies that received the money.  I was only interested to follow the money trail in Alabama, so I do not know what happened in the other two States, but it was odd to see that the Tennessee company ended up getting GO ZONE money in May 2008 for the Garrows Bend project in Mobil, where the Thyssen Krupp plant was going in.  Odd that both Greg, and Thyssen Krupp were offered GO ZONE in 2007 to the tune of $700 Million.  Between the two companies being enticed to come to the state Thyssen Krupp and Greg somehow there was still $700 million available a half a year before the program was set to expire?  How is it possible that two years into the program that much money was still available?  $700 million is not 12% of 2.1 billion.  I never had an opportunity to speak to Abe directly and this topic and Greg was not about to bring it up as Abe was not interested in investigating the subject.  The mere mention of GO ZONE would just infuriate Greg, but it made no sense to me.  It made no sense to me that the people involved could write a contract promising $350,000 million, signed in July 2007, so late in the game and especially odd that it would take an Act in Congress in Washington, to change the law to get Colbert County into the GO ZONE.  Yikes, but of course just conjecture and my personal opinion.

Even though I thought the GO ZONE subject was relevant Jonny also thought it was out of the realm of the indictment, nor would it help his negotiations.  With all of the other facts that I knew to be the truth in Greg's case, I still did not understand why Jonny was adamant to reach a settlement rather than go to trial.  I became the thorn in his side.  I thought we should risk going to trial and believed that the jury would 'get it'.  But this was Alabama, fifty years later after 'To Kill a Mockingbird" was published, and Gregory Peck starred in his Oscar winning role as Atticus.  I spolied several dinner parties arguing the moot point - pay money and Greg can get out.  It sounded like ransom to me, just like the terrorists now are asking for $200,000 million for the two Japanese hostages.  Same thing, except you expect horror from crazed lunatics in far off lands, not in the land of the Free and the Brave.  It was extortion.  After you scare someone, they are willing to pay anything just to be safe.  The professionals involved all agreed it was extortion, but they liked Greg too much to risk a verdict and a financial settlement was the direction they were going.

Natalie called me near the end of July,
"Mom?  Are you at home or in a public place?"  She asked.
"In public."
"Good"
Than Natalie told me that during all of July she had been going from one doctor to another, one test to another.  The doctors had found a mass.  She had a 'growth' the size of a pomelo 10 x 10 x 11 centimetres arising from her ovary, and she needed surgery.  She would be meeting with the doctor next week.

Ant that is how I learned Natalie might have ovarian cancer.