Ponzi scheme convict pulls off Shawshank escape

“Think ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ ” said Calvert, referring to the 1994 hit movie in which a wrongly convicted man adapts to brutal prison life while secretly chipping away at a wall behind a poster of actress Rita Hayworth, then Raquel Welch, in his cell. After 19 years, he escapes and flees to a beach in Mexico.

Total claims against Berg in the case topped $154?million and involved nearly 700 individual creditors. The trustee was able to recover about $40 million — the rest was lost to Berg’s scheme and lavish lifestyle, which included two yachts, two private jets, a propensity for Porsche sports cars and several mansions, including a waterfront home on Mercer Island.

He turned himself in “palms up” to the FBI and federal prosecutors in 2010, claiming he wanted to come clean. But, prosecutors said, he was actually trying to get in front of the impending collapse of his decadelong fraud.

Berg, he said, is “a very, very smart, very clever man” who proved his skills as a liar and con man by successfully pulling offdecade-longong Ponzi scheme under the noses of auditors and regulators while stealing money from friends and clients.

While I certainly don't condone these hijinks, I find that at some level, there is a certain entertainment value to these post-trial events. I'll concede a heavy addiction to "American Greed" (I had a real-life brush with a con artist who never got his comeuppance). Love watching these arrogant, narcissistic sociopaths getting their asses handed to them. That said, crime does pay at least for one of them... for the time being. To be continued...

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