Progressive Prison Project
Innocent Spouse & Children Project
Greenwich, Connecticut
The Overlooked Victims of White Collar Crime
by Andrew Schwartz - Guest Blogger
Andrew Schwartz is a friend & classmate
from Union Theological Seminary.
A recent conversation in his office at
the seminary led to this important guest blog.
Andrew Schwartz is a friend & classmate
from Union Theological Seminary.
A recent conversation in his office at
the seminary led to this important guest blog.
It’s easy to vilify white-collar criminals. Post the crash
of 2008, the country cheers in unison when a banker or broker gets what is
coming to them. Before 2008, the country either knew or didn’t care about white-collar
crime, or they stayed mostly ignorant to the crimes that occurred on Wall
Street.
But in our post-2008 financial crash world, most all Americans know that bankers and stock brokers are criminals, and we Americans are ready to see justice done to them.
But in our post-2008 financial crash world, most all Americans know that bankers and stock brokers are criminals, and we Americans are ready to see justice done to them.
While this sentiment is justifiable, we must not let our
lust for justice (revenge?) cloud our ability to differentiate between the
criminals and their victims. In particular, we need to remember that the
victims of these crimes are not simply the ones who were defrauded or stolen
from. We must also remember the family members of the white-collar criminals:
the wives and children of these men.
More often than the not it is not just the banker or stockbroker
who is punished. It is their whole family. On the heels of the release of
Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street,
Christina McDowell, formerly Christina Prousalis, daughter of Tom Prousalis who
was a former business partner of Jordan Belfort, wrote a scathing open
letter to anyone who would listen. In the letter, she describes what it was
like to be an eighteen-year-old girl who was unwittingly made complicit to a
series of crimes her father had committed but that she had nothing to do with.
Unbeknownst to Christina, her father had taken out multiple credit cards and opened several bank accounts in her name to use her as a front for his seedy dealings. When the DOJ came down on him, she was caught up in the tumult and came out on the other side, destitute and nowhere to call home. She spent years putting her life back in order and now lives in relative anonymity in California.
Unbeknownst to Christina, her father had taken out multiple credit cards and opened several bank accounts in her name to use her as a front for his seedy dealings. When the DOJ came down on him, she was caught up in the tumult and came out on the other side, destitute and nowhere to call home. She spent years putting her life back in order and now lives in relative anonymity in California.
Ms. Prousalis is representative of countless others whose
only crime was being family with a criminal. It’s something she couldn’t
control, let alone stop. It is the same story for so many different wives and
children who must deal with the repercussions of their husbands/fathers sins.
The criminal’s fate is but for their family members there is often nothing but
questions. Almost always, wives who share bank accounts and titles to their
home(s) with their now convicted husnadas have their share of the property
taken from them as well. The courts choose not to differentiate between the
holdings of the husband and wife, quickly leaving the wife with very little.
In one fell
swoop, the life they once knew is gone and it is now up to them to make due
with what little is left to the mother to make a life for her and her children.
As is unfortunately typical with white-collar crime, the families of the
convicted are alienated and shut out of the communities they once belonged to.
The friends they once had will no longer speak with them and the church they once
frequented no longer welcomes their membership. Mother and children are left
alone to find their way by themselves in a world that now no longer cares for
them or their well-being.
They deserve it, we tell ourselves, and we secretly revel in
their fall from grace. But this is not justice and it is not right. If the wife
and children were in cahoots with their criminal father in his criminal
activities, then we should place the whole family into custody. Instead, we
imprison them in our way through public disgrace and by placing them in the
poor house. If the wife and children are truly innocent, though, then it is our
duty to insure that they are treated like victims and not criminals.
We should work to help them transition from their old life
into a new one, and be willing to provide mental, emotional, and spiritual
support along the way. As Christians, we are called to be with being when they
are at their lowest, and to commune with those that the rest of society has
deemed unworthy. It is a radical style of love that asks us to look beyond our
comfort zone and to welcome “the least of these” into our lives, regardless of
who they are or where they are coming from. It is a transcendent love that is willing to extend a hand where no one else
will and say, “Welcome, you will find rest here.”
Andrew Schwartz is a writer and blogger who focuses on
social justice and interfaith relations. As a Christian Agnostic,he works to find common ground for justice between the religious and religious. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary, he is a staff blogger for the Huffington Postand is currently working on a book project.
You can follow him on Twitter @schwartzajs.
social justice and interfaith relations. As a Christian Agnostic,he works to find common ground for justice between the religious and religious. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary, he is a staff blogger for the Huffington Postand is currently working on a book project.
You can follow him on Twitter @schwartzajs.
_________________
Lisa Lawler left this comment on Sunday evening, Feb. 17, 2014:
Thank you for your thoughtful post. I was a white collar wife and my son and I will forever have to live with the severe repercussions of having our lives pulled out from under us by the thoughtless mid-deeds of my ex-husband. I've been writing a book about our experience for the past few years and hope to finally finish it this summer. I've also written a survival guide for white collar wives and will hopefully also have that published as a companion piece. My goal with my book has always been to take it on the road to companies large and small in hopes that our story might serve as a cautionary tale. I started writing a blog a few months ago but as so many women suffer guilt by association they mainly seem to be in hiding and I've had no interaction. I do hope my book will help flush them out and bring them back into the light. Thank you for remembering that wives and children are victims too. Readers can find my blog @ White Collar Wives Club.
Progressive Prison Project/
Innocent Spouse & Children Project
Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Director
Christ Church Greenwich
254 East Putnam Avenue
Greenwich, Connecticut, USA 06830
(o) +1203.769.1096
(m) +1203.339.5887
jgrant@pppx.org
jg3074@columbia.edu
lspringer@innocentspousechildrenproject.org
(m) +1203.536.5508
Affiliates:
First Baptist Church of Bridgeport
126 Washington Avenue, 1st Floor
Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA 06604
Jesus Saves Ministries
784 Connecticut Avenue
Bridgeport. CT, 06607
| Cathedral of Praise C.O.G.I.C. Int'l |
| 45 Gregory Street |
| Bridgeport, CT 06604 |
