by Owen Parr
“We may have taken our little investigation business to a new level, wow. Continue to take messages, Patrick. We’ll decide later what to do,” I replied. “I have a question, Marcy.”
“About?”
“Arturo, Kathy’s boyfriend. Isn’t he in line for a reward if the Feds recover money from Evans and Albert?” I inquired.
She responded, “The SEC has a reward program for whistleblowers payable out of the Insurance Protection Plan that could pay him anywhere between ten to thirty percent of any money recovered. But he has a problem.”
Father Dom seemed worried and asked, “What could that be?”
Marcy turned to Dominic and added, “He admitted to you that he had some involvement in the Ponzi scheme and knew about some of the insider-trading tips. Didn’t he?”
“I don’t remember anything about that. Do you, Joey?” asked Dom, looking at me and shaking his head.
“I have no recollection of that, no.”
“If he isn’t implicated, he will be entitled to a reward. Plus, the IRS has another whistleblower reward system set up that might come into play.”
We all gazed at each other and smiled.
Marcy went over to the front entrance. Eyeing up and down the street, she said, “There’s a news van setting up shop across the street from your pub, boys.”
I applauded. “Patrick, better get ready for a busy night.”
Dom said, “Joey, let me read the rest. I need to get out of here, but I want to finish the story.”
“Read on, bro,” I said.
“A fourth subject charged after Monday’s revelations is Adelle Parker, wife of Jonathan Parker, the first victim. Adelle Parker was charged with insurance fraud and the attempted murder of her husband. Allegedly, Adelle Parker and a co-conspirator, Robert Sands, fraudulently took out an insurance policy on the life of Jonathan Parker with the intent of killing him and collecting on the policy.
Sands, the lover of Adelle Parker, posed as her husband for the medical exam required for most new insurance policies. Sands, who is currently facing fraud charges on another case, is collaborating with authorities and has implicated Adelle Parker on the fraudulent insurance scheme. Kapzoff and Associates are representing Adelle Parker.
Finally, a fifth suspect has been arraigned on money laundering and racketeering charges. Andrew Huffing, father to Adelle Parker, is facing charges for his alleged conspiracy to launder funds for the Mexican and California Lindo’s drug cartel. Ricardo Lindo’s, a Mexican national, has been under investigation by Federal authorities in the U.S. Lindo, who is also the owner of a Mexican business consortium, reportedly bought Andrew’s Sporting Goods stores from Andrew Huffing four years ago. Not only may he have overpaid for the business to launder funds, but he was also laundering illicit funds, with the assistance of Huffing, via cash sales for years, prior to Huffing’s ultimate sale of the business to Lindo.
Sands, who was the general manager for Andrew’s Sporting Goods stores, has provided authorities with information on the alleged money-laundering scheme.
I asked, “Anything else on the article?”
Dom replied, “No, just a little more blah, blah, and that the reporter will follow up with a full expose of all the persons charged with crimes. But we already know that part. Don’t we?”
Patrick was obviously excited with all the commotion. “What do you guys want to do about the press and phone calls?”
“I’m sure as hell not in the mood to talk to any of them,” I
replied. “Father, you want to deal with them?”
“Oh no, not me,” Dom replied. “I’ve got to get back to the church.”
Marcy said, “Father, I can give you a ride back.”
I quipped, “I’m not staying here. Patrick, can you handle the bar?”
“Of course, Joey, not the first time. Get out of here.”
I turned to Marcy. “Dinner at your place?”
“If we order in, no problem,” she responded.
I moved in closer to her and whispered, “Now that I’m famous, I want to talk about our future.”
“Yeah, why don’t you make love to me tonight, and we can talk tomorrow?”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll let you make the first move.”
“Don’t I always, Mancuso?”
Life is good.
Epilogue
None of the cases were immediately resolved; justice is not necessarily swift. The crimes that Joey Mancuso and his half-brother, Father Dominic O’Brian, exposed that Monday morning at their pub took a little over a year to finalize. All the attorneys worked ferociously on behalf of their clients.
Melody Wright was charged and found guilty of:
Aggravated identity theft, a class D felony in the state of New York.
First-degree felony murder for the brutal killing of Kathy Miller.
Money laundering as a result of using false identities to obtain the funds.
Tax evasion for failing to report the offshore accounts she held under her false identities and for failure to file a tax return for the same.
The prosecutors decided not to turn the case over to California, where Ms. Wright was facing additional charges for identity theft. While death is one of the penalties for first-degree murder and a class-A felony in New York, the death penalty was negotiated to a life sentence in a plea bargain because of her cooperation with authorities with respect to Evans and Albert, and her pleading guilty. Melody Wright is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum-security prison, located in Bedford, New York State. All her offshore accounts were identified and confiscated. She was assessed a fine of one million dollars, which she was unable to pay. Federal authorities continued to seek the cooperation of Melody Wright in connection with Vittorio Agostino to no avail. Six months into her sentence, Ms. Wright was killed in prison, stabbed several times with a shiv—a crudely made knife. Her murder has not been solved.
Mrs. Adelle Parker was charged and found guilty of:
Attempted murder, class A felony, because of her lover Robert Sands’ cooperation with authorities. Sands testified that Adelle and he had planned to kill Jonathan Parker with poison to collect on the insurance policy.
Premeditated, planned, deliberate, “hard” insurance fraud.
Money laundering related to her father’s ongoing laundering and the sale of Andrew’s Sporting Goods.
Mrs. Parker was sentenced to twenty years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility alongside Melody Wright.
Andrew Huffing was charged and found guilty of money laundering, again, because of the testimony of Sands, who served in the capacity of general manager at Andrew’s Sporting Goods since the inception of the business.
Huffing was sentenced to a five-year term at Lincoln Correctional Facility, a minimum-security prison facing Central Park in New York City on 110th Street. While the facility has a capacity for four hundred six prisoners, it currently houses two hundred seventy-five. The facility’s neighbors include the Met and the Guggenheim, Museum Mile, and the Dakota Apartments, where John Lennon lived and where he was shot. A year into his sentence, Andrew Huffing was broken out of prison. His body was found in Nogales, Mexico, by Mexican authorities. He had been shot once in the back of the head. That crime remains unsolved.
Mrs. Anita Schilling, sister to Adelle Parker and daughter of Andrew Huffing, was successful in her trial, with her attorneys proving that Mrs. Schilling was neither privy to nor an active participant in the money-laundering scheme concocted by her father. The authorities were successful in a “claw back” of two million dollars from her trust, as a result of proving that part of the gains from the sale was from illicit profits. The claw back included an agreement to limit the amount to the two million or fifty percent, whichever was greater, of the amounts recovered from Evans and Albert client-invested funds.
Robert Evans was charged and found guilty of:
One count of f
irst-degree class-A felony murder for the killing of “Jimmy” or John Doe in the alley behind the 21 Club and one count of second-degree class-A felony murder for the killing of Jonathan Parker.
One count of conspiring to kill Kathy Miller, a felony murder.
Securities fraud and insider trading as a result of Kathy Miller’s boyfriend’s testimony, even though the SEC had investigated the charges on a prior occasion and were unable to bring charges.
Operating a Ponzi scheme and defrauding investors. Again, the testimony and records brought by Miller’s boyfriend were the smoking gun that sealed the case for the prosecutors.
Tax evasion.
Evans received two sentences of twenty-five years each for the murders of Jimmy and Jonathan Parker, each sentence to be served separately, and ten years for conspiracy to commit murder. Additionally, he received a sentence of twenty years for securities fraud and insider trading. Awaiting the completion of those eighty years in prison was a sentence of one hundred years for the charge of operating a Ponzi scheme. No additional time was added for the tax evasion conviction. Additionally, Evans was fined five million dollars and the forfeiture of his real estate properties. Mrs. Evans was allowed to keep two hundred thousand dollars and a small condominium in Albany, New York, as her personal residence.
Thomas Albert III was charged and found guilty of:
One count of first-degree class-A felony murder for the killing of Jonathan Parker.
One count of conspiring to kill Kathy Miller.
One count of the attempted murder of Joey Mancuso. Securities fraud and insider trading like Evans.
Operating a Ponzi scheme and defrauding investors, like Evans.
Tax evasion.
Albert is serving twenty-five years for the murder of Jonathan Parker, plus ten years for conspiring to commit murder. He will serve an additional twenty years for insider trading and securities fraud. Like Evans, an additional one-hundred-year sentence awaits him for operating a Ponzi scheme.
Additionally, two portfolio managers at Evans, Albert, and Associates were charged and found guilty of insider trading, securities fraud, and operating a Ponzi scheme. Both received fifty-year prison terms.
Both partners and their two portfolio managers are serving their time at the Clinton Correctional Facility in New York, the largest correctional facility in New York State.
Arturo Alvarez, Kathy Miller’s boyfriend and an analyst at Evans and Albert, wasn’t charged with any crimes. As a whistleblower, he was entitled to receive from the SEC’s Insurance Protection fund anywhere from ten to thirty percent of any funds recovered from Evans and Albert. It would take two years for the authorities to recover any funds, but Arturo was to receive three million dollars. The IRS was also in line to recover unpaid taxes from Evans and Albert. Once collected, Arturo would receive an additional bounty from the IRS.
Edmonton Daniels, or Ed, was the second homeless person in the alley the day “Jimmy” was murdered by Evans and the prime witness in that murder. Ed would receive, as a gift, three hundred thousand dollars from Arturo Alvarez. With the funds and a government grant, Ed would open a homeless shelter in Harlem and became the director of the facility.
Joey Mancuso and Father Dominic O’Brian had been promised two hundred thousand dollars from Arturo Alvarez for solving the murder of Kathy Miller. The IRS awarded them a “whistleblower informant” award of fifteen percent of the taxes and penalties recovered from Ms. Melody Wright’s offshore accounts.
The notoriety paid off before the money came in. Mancuso appeared on Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, and The O’Reilly Factor days after the charges were filed against the five suspects. The brothers are considering being consultants in a TV series offered to them by the cable channel USA. They continue to solve crimes from their headquarters, Captain O’Brian’s Irish Pub & Cigar Bar in Manhattan’s Financial District.
Agnes Smith received a bonus of twenty thousand dollars from Mancuso and O’Brian as a token of their appreciation for her hard work on this case. Agnes continues to attend early morning Mass at St. Helen’s.
Patrick O’Sullivan, or Mr. Pat, continues to manage the pub and has been able to hire additional staff to handle some of his duties.
FBI Special Agent Marcela Martinez, or Marcy, was offered a promotion as the deputy director of the FBI’s white-collar crime division in Chicago, Illinois. Marcy declined the promotion and move, preferring instead to stay in the New York office, giving Joey hope that they soon will tie the knot.
—THE END—
A note from Owen Parr
I trust you enjoyed reading A Murder on Wall Street. I certainly enjoyed writing and researching the material. While I tried to be accurate in police and legal procedures, I may have taken some liberties and made some errors, for which I am entirely responsible. This is a work of fiction.
A big Thank You always goes to my wife, Ingrid, for putting up with my aloofness during my writing. And to the many friends whose first names I have used for characters in the novel. Not everyone got equal billing, and I hope you forgive me for that.
Other novels by Owen Parr
Due Diligence—A Caribbean Romantic Thriller Operation
Black Swan—A John Powers Mystery Thriller
The Dead Have Secrets—A John Powers Mystery Thriller
A Murder on Wall Street—A Joey Mancuso & Father O’Brian Crime Mystery
A Murder on Long Island—A Joey Mancuso & Father O’Brian Crime Mystery
The Manhattan Red Ribbon Killer—A Joey Mancuso & Father O’Brian Crime Mystery
Plus,
A non-fiction self-improvement book by Owen Parr How to Sell, Overcome Fear of Rejection and Learn Time Management.
Visit Owen Parr at: www.owenparr.com or write him at: [email protected]
A MURDER ON LONG ISLAND
The Last Advocate
A Joey Mancuso, Father O’Brian Crime Mystery
By
Owen Parr
A MURDER ON LONG ISLAND
—The Last Advocate
—A Joey Mancuso and Father O’Brian Crime Mystery
Author: Owen Parr
Published by: Owen Parr
[email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission from the author, except for inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
ISBN-13: 978-1546726012
ISBN-10: 1546726012
Copyright © 2017 by: Owen Parr
Published in United States
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
In memory of,
Owen Gordon Parr
Blanca Alvarez Parr
Edgardo Buttari
Gloria Puig Buttari
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
– Arthur Conan Coyle, Creator of the Sherlock Holmes Series
1
Monday, December 26th
“With all due respect, Mr. Adams, you’ve had a whole year to find the murderer, and you’ve failed. What makes you think that we can do it in ten days?” I said, on my cell phone.
Adams replied, “In all honesty, Mr. Mancuso, no one at our law firm thinks you fellows can.”
Harold Longworth’s final day in court was to be Tuesday, January third, 2017. Ten days from today. His attorney, Marshall Adams, had requested a meeting with my brother, Father Dominic and me. Longworth’s reputation in New York City, as a reputable and successful real estate developer, was deserved. His charitable contributions were numerous, including building homeless shelters out of his pocket. His social life was
like an ongoing series on page six of The New York Post.
The notoriety we had received after the newspaper articles, and the appearances on local and national television because of the last case we worked on during the summer, had made us into local celebrities. I must admit that I didn’t mind the fuss they had created about Mancuso and O’Brian. My brother, the priest, not so much. Although secretly, I think he loved it. The Catholic Diocese hadn’t appreciated the front-page news about one of their priests being a private investigator and owner of an Irish pub and cigar bar.
During the last six months, flurries of cases were offered to us—none of which interested us. We’d accepted the book deal, A Murder on Wall Street, in which brother Dom and I were the main characters. The cable channel USA was negotiating with us for a detective series based on the novel. Otherwise, I continued working the bar with Mr. Patrick, our manager, and brother Dominic continued his daily duties at St. Helen’s Catholic Church in Brooklyn.
Mr. Harold Longworth was facing a first-degree felony murder charge if found guilty of killing his wife. Both Dom and I had followed this case in the papers and local news, and from the looks of it, Longworth was as good as done. That, by itself, got my attention. My methodology in solving cases while at the NYPD homicide desk, was always to look beyond the obvious, beyond the expected. In my book, what was, is not necessarily what is. The newspaper reporters, the television pundits, and the law enforcement personnel that had publicly rendered an opinion on this case, all mentioned the same, the apparent. Perhaps this case had been as simple to solve as that, but my curiosity piqued as soon as I got the call, and I was anxious to meet Mr. Adams.
