Gang of One: One Man's Incredible Battle to Find His Missing

by Gary Mulgrew

  Joker had a quick glance at me – not in an aggressive way, I thought, more as if I was an irritant. Angel, meanwhile, walked off to a quiet corner of the Range. I could see instantly, from the way people seemed anxious to either acknowledge him or avoid him, that this man commanded significant respect. He also had the most outrageous swagger I had seen in a long time. In Scotland, we would have said he was ‘pure galas’ – he positively bounced along, exuding complete confidence.

  I jumped down from my bunk as competently as I could, and followed him across the room, passing Chief as I did so. He was silently nodding to me, affirming something I didn’t really understand.

  Angel sat down in quiet section of the Range where there were still four unused bunks. Seemingly without instruction, I noticed a few guys in the adjoining bunks stopped whatever they were doing and moved off so we would not be in earshot of anyone. Angel motioned for me to sit opposite him and immediately dispensed with the pleasantries.

  ‘I understand you wanted to get involved in what happened here the other day?’

  ‘Erm,’ I began, then I stopped. Angel smiled slightly and waited patiently for me to continue. Unlike nearly all of the other inmates, he had a real sparkle in his eyes and seemed almost clean-cut, not bedraggled and worn out. It was as if he belonged and prospered here. ‘I guess I wanted to see if the guy was OK,’ I managed.

  ‘You knew the guy was a rat, right?’ Angel responded instantly, still retaining a slight quizzical smile.

  ‘I know now. I didn’t know at the time,’ I answered, deciding that honesty was the best policy. There was nothing immediately threatening in Angel’s manner, although I sensed the whole conversation oozed danger for me. One wrong answer and he could sashay out of the room and order in the sock-and-lock crew. This guy wouldn’t waste time with me or get his hands dirty. He was the real deal, a serious player in the prison trade.

  ‘I’m still learning the ropes here, and don’t understand a lot of what goes on,’ I continued, trying to sound as calm as possible. Angel struck me as an intelligent guy and it seemed I could talk straight with him.

  ‘Do you have your papers with you?’ he asked, after chewing over my last response for a second or two.

  ‘Yeah,’ I looked over to my locker.

  ‘I’ll need to see those. You say you defrauded a bank, right?’ He was all business now and clearly well informed.

  ‘Erm . . .’ I began uncertainly. ‘It’s kind of bank fraud, I guess.’

  ‘You guess?’ he queried. I realised I had to be more assured.

  ‘I heard you ripped off Enron,’ he continued, still confident. ‘Why’d you tell people you robbed a bank? Which one was it, Scotland – you rob a bank or ripped off Enron?’

  Frustrated as I always was by this misunderstanding, and beginning to feel very much on the back foot, my response betrayed the irritation I felt.

  ‘It’s complicated. Really complicated,’ I growled.

  Angel paused then leaned closer towards me, staring intently as he spoke.

  ‘Listen, Scotland, and listen good. I’m not a cop, and I’m sure as hell not a genius, but I’m not fucking stupid either. Why don’t you just take your time and explain to me what it is you did to get yourself in here? And save yourself any trouble bullshitting; just keep it straight and explain it to me in simple terms. Then we’ll see where that takes us.’

  As he said this, Angel held my gaze and placed his hand heavily on my shoulder. The physical proximity and his gaze were disconcerting, and there was a clear inference that if I tripped up here I would have to face the consequences. Strangely enough, since I had first self-reported my investment to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) all those years ago, I had craved the chance to put forward my account of events to the Americans, to anyone, but it had never happened. Despite having gone forward to the authorities of my own volition, I had subsequently been indicted, appeared in court numerous times on both sides of the Atlantic and now been imprisoned, still without ever having the opportunity to respond to my accusers. Not one word, not one question; not one chance. No one ever took me into a side room and shone lights into my eyes and asked me ‘Did you do it?’ like you always saw in the movies.

  How ironic now that the first person seemingly interested in getting to the truth, was a convicted felon.

  The thought relaxed me and I decided to tell him as plainly as I could.

  ‘I made an investment in a company based in the Cayman Islands, which was offered to me by Andy Fastow, one of the top guys at Enron,’ I began. ‘He was a good client of mine when I worked at NatWest, a British bank based in London. I had previously been in charge of the group that sold a deal to Fastow and he re-structured it into this investment. The investment made a lot of money very quickly,’ I continued, eyeing Angel closely to see if he was following me. He was.

  ‘I trusted Fastow and there were plenty of other people, other bankers, in the investment, and since it was connected to an Internet stock and it was early 2000, the big return was feasible, if unusual.’ Angel, uncommitted, nodded for me to continue.

  ‘The problem was Fastow had ripped off Enron to make the money; he hadn’t made it legitimately,’ I concluded.

  ‘So you conned Enron?’ asked Angel making that logical conclusion.

  ‘No,’ I responded. ‘Fastow made it clear to the authorities that he acted alone, and that neither I nor any of the other investors were aware of his actions. The other investors, including me, had been invited in unknowingly to hide his own return in the deal.’ I paused again as Angel digested this. He moved awkwardly on the bunk.

  ‘I don’t understand. What did you do then?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, this is where it starts to get complicated. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have invested in a deal I had already sold for NatWest, but I was leaving them and had sought their specific permission through my lawyer. Still, it probably lacked a bit of integrity, and I often wonder why I didn’t think that way at the time.’ I’d gone slightly off track as my mind started thinking more about my actions, but it didn’t seem to have dampened Angel’s interest.

  ‘When Enron started to go tits up, I went into the authorities in the UK, called the FSA, with my two buddies.’ I paused watching him intently. ‘That’s the Financial Services Authority . . .’

  ‘I know who the FSA are; like the SEC here,’ he interjected, seemingly irritated. I hesitated, slightly disconcerted, as I continued to try to figure out which level to pitch this at. The surprises never end in here, I thought.

  ‘So,’ I faltered trying to get back on track. ‘The FSA thanked us for coming forward. A few months later, Enron went bankrupt and a criminal investigation was launched.’

  ‘Bush’s Task Force,’ Angel added, with a certain disdain.

  ‘Yes. Well, the FSA asked if it could send our information to the Task Force and we agreed,’ I said, tailing off slightly. The stupidity of this action seemed greater than ever as I sat among the luxuries of Big Spring. Angel said nothing, but I caught that flickering moment when his face betrayed the feeling that he was sitting opposite a buffoon, a novice, a dickhead.

  Sighing slightly, I continued.

  ‘We never heard shit from the US for six months until I turned on the TV one day and found out I was indicted. Given they couldn’t say we defrauded Enron, the indictment claimed I had defrauded my own employer, NatWest, by breaching my employment contract. In essence, I stole the opportunity to make the investment from NatWest, as Fastow was their client, and thus the opportunity belonged to them.’

  ‘The opportunity to invest in a fraud?’ asked Angel, without missing a beat.

  ‘I guess,’ I responded, feeling that it all sounded stupid. It always did.

  Angel was quiet for a minute or two, and I found my nerves starting to fray again.

  ‘It’s all in my papers,’ I said eventually, hoping this would help to sway things my way. Angel nodded thoughtfully before speaking.

  ‘So Sco
tland, this is still kind of confusing, and I still don’t get the bottom line. I still don’t get why you are here.’

  ‘I don’t understand . . . what do you mean?’

  ‘Why did they want you? Why did they go through all that trouble to extradite you when they could have dealt with you in England?’

  I remained silent for a moment as Angel continued to stare at me intently. I wanted to be truthful but worried about how he would react to what I was about to tell him. ‘The thing is . . .’ I began slowly,’ we did actually try to get ourselves investigated or charged in the UK . . . we created legal history by taking the Serious Fraud Office – our FBI – to court to try to force them to investigate us . . . or charge us’ I tailed off awaiting his reaction. He seemed bemused.

  ‘I don’t get it?’ he responded.

  ‘I know, it barely makes sense to me. In the end they wouldn’t even investigate us because they said there was no evidence of a crime and the Judges backed them. The US didn’t need evidence to extradite us so they stepped into the void and the Judges backed them too.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Are you saying you actually tried to get yourself indicted?’ Angel asked looking more confused by the second.

  ‘Well not exactly’ I responded sheepishly, wondering how anyone could ever explain something so illogical. Angel was looking at me as if I was mad – I guess from his point of view it would seem a bit crazy, but we had felt that if we could have persuaded the SFO to begin an investigation then we would quickly have been exonerated. The problem was, with no evidence and no complaint from NatWest, the SFO had nothing to investigate.

  Angel seemed pensive and this unnerved me further.

  ‘But I still don’t understand what was the point of dragging you all the way over here and sticking you in this shithole?’ he asked, more softly this time, as he moved closer to me again.

  I looked directly at him. What the hell am I doing here? I would probably never know.

  ‘Politics,’ I eventually responded. ‘Politics, I guess. At the time of Enron and then WorldCom going bankrupt, the US was anxious to show that the system wasn’t corrupt, but that just a few “bad guys” had got greedy and that the system would punish them. The “bad guys” would go to jail, then everyone could get on with making money without any troublesome regulatory or system changes.’

  The fact was that Bush had made a speech using roughly those words just two weeks before I was indicted, so I felt strongly that what I was saying was the most likely reason.

  ‘Someone had to go to jail to make everyone feel better – I guess the details were largely irrelevant . . .’ I tailed off as my mind raced forward. The collapse of Enron and WorldCom were to me the antecedents of the mortgage collapse a few years later – again caused in the main by over-leverage and an unregulated market. The chance to avoid that collapse, and all the catastrophic ramifications ironically for companies like NatWest and its parent company RBS, had been missed as people sought to blame individuals rather than a system that was clearly already out of control when Enron went down.

  ‘Someone had to go to jail,’ I repeated more wistfully, ‘and my own country didn’t seem to have a problem nominating us for the job.’ I was thinking of Blair’s obsequious relationship with President Bush.

  ‘Mmmmmm.’ Angel paused for a moment before adding, ‘Sounds more to me like you volunteered for it, Scotland.’

  I nodded my head, thinking how stupid I’d been to believe we would be welcomed as whistle-blowers and protected by the FSA.

  Angel smiled, before going straight for the jugular again. ‘What sentence did you get?’

  ‘Three years, one month.’

  Angel noticeably shifted in his seat, unsettled. ‘Not very long.’

  ‘Long enough,’ I responded.

  ‘How much did you steal?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t steal it.’

  ‘OK, that’s a novel answer in here,’ he smiled. His mood and demeanour had suddenly changed once more and it felt like we were sparring again.

  ‘How much do they say you stoled?’ he asked.

  ‘$7.3 million.’

  Angel whistled. ‘$7.3 million, yet only three years? That doesn’t stack up,’ he said, matter-of-factly, and still with the smile. ‘There are guys in here who took a fraction of that and their doing ten or fifteen.’ He had a point. If we had really stolen $7.3 million, it would have been a ridiculously short sentence.

  ‘Three years and one month,’ I pointed out, as if the additional month mattered. I guessed it would to me eventually.

  Angel’s mood had darkened further and he barely acknowledged my correction. ‘Yeah,’ he said, seemingly deep in thought now. ‘You co-operate with the Government, Scotland?’ he asked, looking straight at me.

  After the meatball incident, true to their word, the US Government had gone straight to David Bermingham and offered him the same deal as they had offered Giles – home for Christmas, limited or no jail time and no need to testify against the others. To most people on the outside, after the length of time we had been stuck in Houston, that would seem a very tempting offer and DoJ no doubt expected a deal to be done. Although David had a very different personality to Giles, and our friendship had never been as deep or as long (I had only met him a few years earlier when he came to work in my group), I was sure he would never cop a plea. He had served as a captain in the British Army and had done time in Northern Ireland, and to him these issues were uncomplicated and easy. He declined a deal.

  That left me. I was amazed that the DoJ had come to me last. Giles had told me that was because they saw me as the ringleader; the architect and the brains behind the fraud – which was further proof, if I needed it, of how little they had either investigated this ‘offence’ or understood it. Reid called me the day David turned the DoJ down. He had Schwartzy and Kevin on the phone with him – great guys and a great team, but whenever the three of them were on the line, it spelt trouble. The call was awkward and at times unpleasant and it left me with a decision to make.

  I decided to write it all down. The positive part of the deal was that I would serve minimal – if any – time in a US prison, with a good chance I could be home by Christmas. That was quite a thought in itself. The alternative was to go to trial with all the pressure that entails. I worried whether we could mount a proper defence in any trial in Houston, particularly without the key witnesses we needed from London. If we lost – which I understood was a real possibility – we could face up to fifteen years in prison, maybe longer given how seriously Judge Werlein seemed to view these Enron cases. Even if we won, the DoJ had already indicated they would seek to continue to hold us in Houston for another two years or so if necessary for a retrial. None of this was encouraging, and although I had been aware of all of this for a while, I sighed as I wondered again if I’d ever get home – if there was any way out of this.

  If that wasn’t enough, the DoJ had laced their ‘offer’ with some new ‘personal’ enticements to encourage me to plead guilty.

  The first one was that they would countenance an immediate short-term trip home for me to meet my London lawyer and my lawyer in Tunisia so we could make some progress in tracking down Cara. They had completely resisted my entreaties on these matters before, but either had found a sudden new spring of compassion or, more likely, were cynically targeting my soft spots.

  After eighteen months of complete silence on Cara, the thought of actually meeting face-to-face with the two lawyers I had found to help me through the legal process of getting her back was sorely tempting. The best we had ever managed were telephone calls from the US to London or Tunis – hardly the ideal way to make progress in locating Cara. I had made some headway through the UK courts, who now properly recognised Cara’s case as a parental abduction, but I was always hampered by the simple fact that I was not there. I was the father trying to get his daughter back from Tunisia to England while he was confined in Houston, Texas. Ironically, even being in prison in the
UK would have given me a better chance of getting her back than being ‘free’ in Houston. Incarceration can come in many guises.

  I sat back in my seat to think about this and to contemplate the even greater bombshell the DoJ had dropped on me: that Laura my ex-wife had been in Washington a couple of times talking to them, with the first meeting having taken place shortly after I had arrived in Houston. All that time, all that effort, all the frustration and all the hurt in trying to find her and they knew; they knew all along where my daughter was. I was stunned. I never realised the game was played this way. I never realised these people worked like this. I thought that even to them, the safety of my daughter transcended the mere rights and wrongs of the stupid investment we made – that everyone could see, could understand, how much more important a little girl’s welfare was. More important than this shit.

  The coup de grâce came with the clarification that if I didn’t accept a deal, then the DoJ as well as seeking the maximum sentence they could, would never agree to a transfer home to a UK prison. As no one could be transferred back to a UK prison unless the DoJ first of all agreed to allow it to happen, I would serve the entire sentence here in the US with all the implications that had for me in terms of Calum and Cara, and the rest of my family. I would be finished as a father, my life over. I had often used carrot-and-stick techniques in negotiating business deals in the banking world, but this was a whole new dimension of brutality.

  I wondered about the prosecutor sitting in his Washington office, interviewing Laura, knowing she had broken the law in England and disappeared with my daughter, and was still sought by the UK police for being in contravention of a specific High Court order to return Cara to her home and family in England. I wondered how he did that; how he got comfortable with that both legally and morally. I wondered if he had children – children he went home to and played with at night – and if so, whether he ever contemplated the horror of losing one, and not knowing where she was.

  I sighed again and rubbed my temples as I tried to take this all in.