Whether that was completely true or not, I’ll never know. But he was smart enough to understand that cooperating with Howard’s investigation was his best and only chance to avoid going down with his brother.
Within two weeks, the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
Ezoic
The filing pulled back the curtain on years of decisions Richard had hidden from me, from his brother, from his own mother. He’d exaggerated revenue to get loans. He’d delayed payroll taxes again and again. He’d used new loans to cover old ones, like a man bailing out a sinking boat with a teacup.
Ezoic
The family business hadn’t been one unlucky month away from recovery, the way he’d always told me.
It had been slowly collapsing for almost three years.
My money had just been hiding the cracks.
The failed transfer set off two separate investigations, one by the bank and one by law enforcement.
