In fifty years of law practice Ben Reach had seen every manifestation of human nature, good and bad, in family relations. But this one topped them all for pure villainy in Ben’s estimation. And he had seen it more than once, always between brothers, one weak, the other treacherous.
The circumstances had always been some variation of these.
The weak brother was, due to bad luck or poor judgment or an unseen turn in the economy or weather or all these causes, facing loss of his farm. He had gone to the treacherous brother for help in the form of a loan to be used to pay off creditors. The treacherous brother had instead suggested that the weak brother give him a mortgage on the farm in an amount at least equal to the farm’s value.
Sometimes the loan supposedly secured by the mortgage would not be made, just faked on each brother’s books. Sometimes the treacherous brother would in fact advance funds but be repaid quickly and surreptitiously after the loan proceeds were laundered through untraceable bogus straw-man transactions back to an entity owned by the treacherous lending brother.
Then the weak brother would take bankruptcy, showing the treacherous brother as the only secured creditor, holder of a mortgage to full value on his only valuable asset, the farm, and other creditors, suppliers of seed, fertilizer, chemicals , equipment fully depreciated and likely worn out or obsolete, unsecured.
The agreement between the brothers was always that the treacherous brother would, after the bankruptcy was old and cold, convey the farm back to the weak brother. But the treacherous brother inevitably would double cross the weak brother and refuse to return the farm. And the weak brother would be helpless, for if he exposed the treacherous brother he would expose himself as a co-conspirator in fraud on his own honest creditors.
Ben had first heard of such a fraud from his father soon after he had graduated law school and commenced his practice in partnership with his father. His father had said it happened frequently in the Great Depression. Ben had seen it during later recessions. This instance occurred during the Great Recession of 2008-2009.
It involved a double fraud, but Ben had found himself helpless to block it.
He had been consulted by the wife of the weak brother. She and the weak brother had owned the farm as tenants by the entirety, that is jointly with survivorship rights, having inherited it that way from her father. Titled that way it was not subject to the claim of a creditor of either one of them, only to a claim of a joint creditor. Her father had counseled her wisely never to guarantee her husband’s debts, and she had wisely followed his advice. But her husband in his weakness and desperation had forged her name on the mortgage securing the treacherous brother.
Ben had told her that she could save the farm, but only by exposing her husband’s forgery which would mean prison for him. She had two young children and could not bring herself to send their father to prison for fear of what that might do to them psychologically. The rules of attorney-client confidentiality would not allow Ben to expose the brothers’ treachery when the wife-client forbade it.
Today Ben met Sam at seven A. M. at Millie’s Diner for breakfast. Millie ushered them to their booth at the back and handed each a menu. She also handed Ben the house copy of the Albany Herald.
By habit, Ben opened the paper to the obituary page. There his eye caught the name of the weak brother, accompanied by a photo of him as a young man.
“What are you smiling about?” Sam asked.
“I am about to return a nice farm to its rightful owner, a new widow lucky to be one. And we will have fishing privileges on its ponds, dug for irrigation water storage. According to the widow they hold some very large bass as well as nice bream.”