Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [122]
“I am not going to flee,” he said, “but will stay here and face the music. I am going to prove that I am on the level now. The past has nothing to do with the present.”
He went back inside but a short time later slipped out a back door, ducked into the Locomobile, and pulled down the window shades for the ride to Boston. It was a long enough ride for him to think about how miserable he’d felt in 1908 when two Montreal police detectives had surprised him at his apartment and placed him under arrest. He also had time to recall his shock in 1910 when the immigration inspector had seized him for smuggling aliens. This time, a decade older and wiser, he was determined to change the script. Ponzi wanted to remain as much in control as possible under the circumstances, deciding when, where, and by whom he would be taken into custody.
Attorney General Allen was greedy to do the honors, having spent nearly three weeks battling accusations that he had bungled the investigation. But Ponzi was loath to give him that satisfaction. Federal prosecutor Dan Gallagher had played straight with him and, more important, the federal prosecutor was a friend and ally of Ponzi’s lawyer Dan Coakley. If the time came to cut a deal, Ponzi wanted Coakley by his side and Gallagher on the other side of the table. He told his driver to take him to Coakley’s office.
With Coakley in tow, Ponzi went glumly to Gallagher’s office on Devonshire Street, his walking stick hanging limp on his arm and his jaunty cigarette holder nowhere in sight. When Gallagher received them, Ponzi admitted no wrongdoing and asserted his belief that Pride had overestimated his debts.
“But you have agreed to accept the auditor’s figures,” Gallagher said.
“Yes,” Ponzi acknowledged. “I have agreed to accept his figures.”
At that moment, Ponzi knew he was defeated, but he had no intention of remaining that way. He would take his medicine but surely rise again, next time even higher than before. “No man is ever licked, unless he wants to be,” Ponzi told himself. “And I didn’t intend to stay licked. Not so long as there was a flickering spark of life left in me.”
Ponzi told Gallagher he was ready to turn himself in. Gallagher readily accepted. They left Gallagher’s office and crossed the street to the federal building. Ponzi walked into the office of U.S. Marshal Patrick J. Duane, an eccentric who was dressed, as usual, as if for a wedding, in a tall silk hat, striped pants, and a long, double-breasted frock coat.
“Mr. Ponzi wishes to surrender,” Gallagher said, beaming. They sat around Duane’s office while a warrant was hastily drawn up charging Ponzi with using the mails in a scheme to defraud. With Ponzi putting himself at Gallagher’s disposal, it made no difference that the charge was almost comical. His only use of the mails had been to send letters to investors urging them to collect their money, which he’d gladly paid when they’d showed up. Gallagher glossed over that fact, focusing the clamoring reporters on Ponzi’s admission that he could not meet the debts Pride had counted. Gallagher even borrowed a phrase from turncoat publicity agent William McMasters, declaring that the financier who had gripped the nation was now “hopelessly insolvent.”
Ponzi waited quietly in Duane’s office for Coakley to summon a bail bondsman named Morris Rudnick, who dutifully put up the twenty-five thousand dollars in cash needed to secure Ponzi’s freedom.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Allen continued to collect names and stories from Ponzi note holders who seemed certain to reclaim only a fraction of their investments. They came from all walks of life, young and old, new arrivals and the deeply rooted. Some were on the verge of panic. Others took their