Nothing but Money_ How the Mob Infiltrated Wall Street Part 10

But Robert was ambitious. He'd found another brokerage called Meyers Pollock Robbins through one of his second cousins, Eugene Lombardo, the six foot four inch street guy with the knee-length leather jacket. Eugene believed himself to be a man of finance. He carried at least two cell phones at all times, and was on one or both at any given moment. Lombardo was not an actual member of an organized crime family, although he yearned to be one. He was just a lowly a.s.sociate, but he had found Meyers Pollock all by himself, and he saw it as a way to win himself a promotion into the Bonanno crime group. Meyers Pollock had all the trappings of a legitimate brokerage house. Headquarters on the ninety-first floor of the World Trade Center, branch offices at 100 Wall Street and in suburban New Hyde Park. It was perfect, and now the Bonanno family had two guys in two Wall Street houses, pumping and dumping to their hearts content.

It was too good to last. In months, it was clear to Robert Lino that just about every tiny brokerage house with a WASP name had a guy named Tony or Vinnie working behind the scenes. They were everywhere: Joseph Stephens, White Rock Partners, J. W. Barclay, A. R. Baron, D. H. Blair & Co. At any given moment, wiseguy brokers both licensed and otherwise would drift from one of these firms to the other, leaving when they got too many customer complaints. There were more wiseguys wandering in and out of these firms than at the Ravenite. It was clear that soon conflict would visit Meyers Pollock.

The problem with Meyers Pollock was Eugene Lombardo. Most of the time he was all bl.u.s.ter and blather, but he had an unfortunate habit of throwing his weight around in front of people. He seemed to believe that humiliating a subordinate was not effective if it was done in private. Lombardo became an issue when Pollock was having problems with a stockbroker named Jonathan who ran Meyers's office in New Hyde Park. Jonathan didn't seem to understand that the company he was now working for was run by gangsters. He certainly was happy to pocket the cash bribes forwarded his way, but he did not like to be lectured by guys he believed to be inferior to him. They were farther down the evolutionary scale; he was at the top. He operated under the misconception that intellectual superiority trumps physical threat. All he wanted was to be left alone to make money and keep his end of the scam running.

His job was to push a company called HealthTech, which purported to run a string of upscale workout gyms in Texas and Arizona. It traded under the symbol GYMM. To pump up GYMM, Jonathan had recruited a number of brokers who weren't controlled by Lombardo. They far outproduced those under Lombardo's wing. He then tried to fire Lombardo's brokers. Jonathan the broker insisted that he had the "right" to fire unproductive brokers. Lombardo's response was simple. He leaned his six-foot-four frame forward in the conference room of Meyers Pollock in front of a roomful of people and slapped Jonathan the broker in the face.

Jonathan the broker did not pull out a .38 and shoot Eugene Lombardo in the forehead. He did not reach for a baseball bat or pull a s.h.i.+v to avenge his compromised manhood. He sucked it up, for the moment. Eugene Lombardo was a big guy, allegedly backed up by an organized crime family. Jonathan the broker knew that. But something had to be done. He couldn't let this insult go. The solution was obvious. If a big guy smacks you, get another big guy to smack him back.

Jonathan the broker made a decision. He reached out to another guy he knew who was with the Genovese crime family. That guy's name was Butch.

Now, in a corporate setting, this would be like going over your boss's head to complain about your boss. It was a maneuver fraught with danger. But Jonathan the broker decided his manhood was worth it, and so he called upon Butch Montevecchi, a soldier in the Genovese crime family, to fix things up. A sit-down was arranged at Abbracie mento's in Canarsie.

Pleasantries were exchanged. Butch Montevecchi was an affable silver-haired guy from the West Side who was known for his connections to Russian organized crime. He was considered tough but reasonable. The Bonannos were coming into this little dispute at an advantage because they already had control of Meyers Pollock, but it was always better to have control of something n.o.body else knew about. And the Genovese family was not to be taken lightly. They were considered the stealth family, run by the quietly ruthless old boss Gigante. Now that Jonathan the broker had let them know all about Meyers Pollock, the Genovese family wasn't going anywhere.

In between the plates of antipasto and gnocchi, a compromise emerged. It would be simple: both families would chop up Meyers Pollock, bleed it dry, and walk away. Jonathan the broker would think he'd received some form of retribution because Eugene Lombardo would be told to stay away from him. Now Jonathan was put with the Genovese family, who could treat him however they wished. In a way, there was even more pressure on Jonathan because he now had not one but two mob families looking to make money, which only meant that more money needed to be made.

Soon the conference at Abbraciemento's was over. Everybody shook hands all around. The Linos and Eugene Lombardo went their way, Butch and his a.s.sociates went the other way. Everybody was happy. The gangsters had achieved a first-a brokerage house selling stock to unsuspecting investors across America was now attached to not one but two separate sets of organized criminals. It was just a new version of the New York/New Jersey waterfront being divided up. That was the whole reason organized crime was organized-to eliminate unnecessary conflict so everybody got his share. There was plenty for all. Wall Street was an endless supply of other people's money.

June 6, 1997

At 2:45 in the afternoon on a beautiful June day, Eugene Lombardo had one of his ubiquitous cell phones pressed to his ear. His friend, Claudio Iodice, was boiling like a tea-kettle down in Boca.

"Where are you now?" Lombardo asked.

"Where am I now?" Iodice screeched. "I'm in the middle of the biggest f.u.c.king aggravation, motherf.u.c.ker. We're going to Arizona. As soon as I get this guy's home address, we're on a plane to Arizona."

Eugene had heard this kind of thing before from Claudio, who was a fairly emotional guy. Claudio didn't know much about doing things in moderation. He owned a 1997 thirty-two-foot Powerplay speedboat and had made millions with a bogus consulting firm in Boca Raton called Equities Consulting Group. Pretty much anything could set him off. Eugene was considered a bit of a hothead, but compared to Claudio Iodice, he was Gandhi.

Once again Claudio was having problems with the CEO of HealthTech, a guy named Gordon Hall. Gordon was very frustrating. Eugene was pretty sure HealthTech was going to make everybody a lot of money. It was a good scheme. They were using a string of workout gyms in Texas and Arizona and Oregon to claim they were selling the next Bally's. At the time, national workout chains were burning up the market. All they had to do was overstate the a.s.sets a bit, such as by 80 percent, and soon they would all be rich. That, anyway, was the plan as imagined by Eugene Lombardo.

Meyers Pollock had handled all the brokers and promoters, cold-calling senior citizens and plastering the bulletin boards on the Internet with hyperventilation about HealthTech. On New Year's Eve, 1997, HealthTech was selling for 87 cents per share. A day later it was selling for $1.34 per share. The trading volume had jumped 250 percent. Only a month before 642,000 shares of HealthTech were traded. In January 1997, the number blasted to the sky-2.3 million shares traded under the SIC code GYMM. In exchange, HealthTech's CEO, Gordon Hall, had transferred two hundred thousand shares of HealthTech to a fake consulting company owned by Lombardo called N.A. Promotional Services-free of charge. Another one hundred thousand shares showed up in the accounts of N.A. Promotional in February 1997. Lombardo and Iodice, who was responsible for recruiting corrupt brokers in Florida to pump up HealthTech, split the profits. N.A. Promotional allowed Lombardo to claim he'd been hired by HealthTech as a financial consultant, when in reality he was more an organized crime consultant.

For Lombardo, this was better than hijacking truckloads of women's bathrobes out at Kennedy Airport or milking the proceeds of Joker Poker. Between January and April, he sold all 200,000 shares of his free HealthTech stock for $430,000 in pure profit, kicking up a percentage to the Bonanno family as required. He and his partners then repeated the scam with HealthTech warrants, with Lombardo, Iodice and another co-conspirator selling off warrants they'd received for free for a breathtaking profit of $900,000.

"Let's forget everybody," Iodice was saying. "Let's go right to his house. That's it. He can't pull that stock certificate. There's no money. They got a buy in there on Wednesday. That's it. The whole game is over."

"What happened now?" Lombardo replied. "Tell me what happened."

The problem was Gordon Hall, who was sick of dealing with Claudio and Eugene and had ripped up half the certificates for the warrants he'd gifted to the two of them.

"And there's nothing you could do?"

"Forget about it," Iodice complained. "I'm gonna end up getting them thrown in jail for this today. I told the other guy, you don't find him in fifteen minutes, I said, 'Do yourself a favor. I'm on my way to Arizona. Keep yourself outta the office because even if I just see you, you're f.u.c.king getting hit."

Lombardo did his best to calm down Iodice. He was aware that this kind of behavior, this paying visits to people's houses, was sometimes necessary but almost always bad policy. And at the very least, he needed to let the Linos know what was going on before anything unusual happened out in Arizona. This would not be easy. Iodice was steaming.

"I don't really care anymore," he said. "These f.u.c.king people are not making me out to be a f.u.c.king jerkoff. I'm tired of it. I ain't no f.u.c.king jerkoff! I never was somebody's jerkoff. I'm going to Arizona. I'm not going to his office. I'm going to his family's house."

"When do you want to go?"

"I wanna go today. I want to knock on his wife's door, kick it in, and f.u.c.king hold him hostage."

"You can't do that. Relax. You're flipping . . ."

"Oh you you can't do that. Let can't do that. Let me me do that . . . I'm gonna f.u.c.king knife his family. He took away something I like, I'm taking away something he likes." do that . . . I'm gonna f.u.c.king knife his family. He took away something I like, I'm taking away something he likes."

"Relax. Come on, relax."

"I'll call you back in a half hour when I got my tickets. If you want to come, you come. That's where I'm going. I got the address."

"Will you please calm down?"

Iodice hung up.

Somewhere in New York, an FBI agent wrote down in a log, "Wire 5105, Tape 38A, Call 49." Partic.i.p.ants were listed as "Eugene Lombardo and Claudio Iodice." Anything they couldn't make out was listed as "UI" for unintelligible. The log was filled with similar notations, all of them involving conversations taking place over Eugene Lombardo's busy cell phones.

The more Lombardo talked, the more the FBI listened.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

July 1996

The day Cary Cimino learned that all the charges were going to be dropped he made sure to reach out to Jeffrey. It had gone just as Jeffrey had predicted. Jeffrey had told him to stick it out, that the case was weak, and then he'd proved it. He may have been arrested, a criminal complaint with his name on it had been drafted, but now it was as if nothing had ever occurred. It was tabula rasa. Clean slate. If he was filling out some job form and they asked him if he'd ever been convicted of a crime, he could say no.

Jeffrey had gone right back to work at DMN, the day after his arrest, and he hadn't stopped since. Cary couldn't do that. He'd truly been spooked by the entire procedure with the FBI agents and the court appearances and the long conversations with his criminal defense lawyer. He was just a little gun shy. He decided to stay away from DMN and only communicate by phone. No more hanging out hearing the stories of Jimmy Labate. Now it was strictly business. If Jeffrey needed people to push a stock, he could help. No matter how optimistic Jeffrey was about the whole thing, Cary's plan was to ease his way out of DMN within a year.

Besides, Jeffrey was swimming in deals. On most days at DMN, Jimmy Labate and his Mafia pals might stop in once or twice a week. Robert Lino would drop by weekly for his envelope. Brokers Jeffrey worked with would stop by to complain or demand more money. But everybody who stopped in to DMN was just pa.s.sing through. The only one who was there each and every day from before seven in the morning until after eight at night was Jeffrey Pokross, the hardest working guy in the place.

Usually he worked two phones at once. Routinely he screamed at his sister, his partners, anybody who walked into his office. That was how he did business. Never talking, always screaming. Nothing was ever going right for him. The amount of time to execute a sale, the spreadsheet information handed to him by an a.s.sistant, the presence of too much cream in his coffee-all of this made him irritable, even more so than before he was arrested.

Sure he'd walked away from the ordeal with nothing on his record. He'd told Sal and Jimmy that even if he'd been forced to plead guilty, the amount of money was low enough that the rules governing prison sentences would have allowed him to receive a sentence of probation only. He wouldn't have had to do a day in jail no matter what. But he felt the charges were bogus and demanded that they be dismissed. He'd advised Cary Cimino to do the same. Surprising nearly everyone, they prevailed. All the charges against both Jeffrey and Cary were dropped by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's white collar crime unit.

The Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal reporter was a young girl named Peggy something, probably straight out of journalism school. The idea she was pitching to Cary was this: there were a lot of single guys working on the Street with money to burn, and she was interested in how they were burning it. reporter was a young girl named Peggy something, probably straight out of journalism school. The idea she was pitching to Cary was this: there were a lot of single guys working on the Street with money to burn, and she was interested in how they were burning it.

Cary took her on a tour of his new 2,100-square-foot Upper East Side condo, the one he was renovating. He claimed he planned to spend $700,000 to fix the place up. In the living room, he pointed out that the wall fixtures were candelabra that had been wired and fitted with lights. In the dining room, he showed her his Christofle china and silver for formal settings and his Wedgwood china for informal affairs. He made sure to let her know he had a separate set for his deck, which offered a stunning view of the island of Manhattan stretching all the way to the source of his wealth, Wall Street.

In his bedroom, he pointed out the antique box that held his TV set bolted into the ceiling. He mentioned that his girlfriend "loves everything," which gave him an opportunity to drop in that he owned Pratesi sheets. He showed off the rack of Brooks Brothers suits, the drawers of crisp white s.h.i.+rts, the wall of silk ties with designer names easily recognized by readers of the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal. The Boston University biology major presented a tour of his art collection. Cary was comfortable with conspicuous consumption, though it was likely a phrase he did not remember from economics 101.

"No one wants to live like they did in college. We are finding ourselves in our thirties and forties, single, with the means to live well," he said as the reporter scribbled furiously. "Everything in the den is Louis the Eighteenth and Charles the Tenth."

He claimed he would soon be hiring a design consultant to give him direction on how to decorate his bachelor pad. The consultant would be given a budget and instructed to fill his apartment with even more important works of art and only top-of-the-line home furnis.h.i.+ngs. Not that this was a home. Cary hardly spent any time there. He was always out wining and dining, shepherding this model and that model from Cipriani's to Lutece to Cafe Des Artistes.

In the kitchen, he told the reporter, "When I do get married, I will need a full formal kitchen. Now the caterer is really the only one who uses the kitchen. I have Cap'n Crunch and coffee in there."

He mentioned he knew people in the movie business, and that he was semiretired. He was not, he emphasized, a stockbroker. He was a "private investor."

She scribbled away. He felt he looked particularly good that morning because once he'd known that the Journal Journal was interested in his story, he'd timed his weekly session in the tanning booth for the day before, plus he'd just returned from a week in Aspen. He kept waiting for her to ask about the arrests. was interested in his story, he'd timed his weekly session in the tanning booth for the day before, plus he'd just returned from a week in Aspen. He kept waiting for her to ask about the arrests.

As they walked about the apartment, it appeared she didn't know about the arrests. He would have been happy to tell her all about it, but why disturb calm waters? If she had asked, he would have admitted that in fact he had been charged with certain felonies. But he could also have said that his lawyer quickly got a commitment from the United States attorney to drop all the charges, and within thirty days of the morning he was arrested, all the charges filed against him had been completely dismissed.

By now, Cary was aware that the whole business of Thorcon Capital had been a disaster for the federal government. When it was first announced, it was a big deal. All these government lawyers and agents had stood in front of cameras and expanded on the nefarious nature of this major conspiracy. The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement unit even talked about honor.

"Billions of dollars change hands in our markets every day. They change hands on the honor of a broker's word and the trust that is placed not only in the broker, but also in the integrity of our market systems. The people who were arrested today have abused that trust. The consequences for abusing that trust must be severe."

Now all charges had been dropped against almost all of the forty-five defendants in what the FBI had called Operation Uptick-at least those who didn't plead out immediately and decided to stand and fight. Jeffrey Pokross and Cary had made a point of calling up everybody they knew to announce that their cases had been thrown out. They'd said the whole thing was nonsense and shouldn't prevent them from coming back to DMN. When Jeffrey started talking about a new deal, however, Cary wasn't listening.

The Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal reporter seemed happy with the answers Cary provided. He answered all her questions and then took her business card. She said good-bye and Cary felt confident about the whole affair. He was, of course, taking a chance. If she knew all about the arrests and was just using this bachelor pad nonsense to get an interview, he'd be screwed. So far hardly anybody he knew was even aware of his arrest. His name hadn't made it into any of the stories written in the papers. reporter seemed happy with the answers Cary provided. He answered all her questions and then took her business card. She said good-bye and Cary felt confident about the whole affair. He was, of course, taking a chance. If she knew all about the arrests and was just using this bachelor pad nonsense to get an interview, he'd be screwed. So far hardly anybody he knew was even aware of his arrest. His name hadn't made it into any of the stories written in the papers.

A few days later the article appeared on page B12 in the "Home Front" section under the headline "Bachelor Pads: Men Behaving Grandly." The author was listed as "Special to the Wall Street Journal," whatever that meant. It began, "Cary Cimino didn't see any reason to wait to get married to set up his dream home."

Cary had hit a home run. The article described his apartment, leaning heavily on the brand names. It described Cary as a "personal investor who has spent 15 years working on Wall Street." It was better than Cary could have hoped. There were several financial advisers and brokers mentioned, but he was the lead example. There was mention of the fact that the consultant he'd hired charged people $30 to $60 a week to have their plants watered. There was no mention whatsoever of Cary Cimino's arrest. Apparently the "special" reporter really didn't know a thing about it.

What a remarkable world. In his years on Wall Street, Cary Cimino had gone from being a Bear Stearns partner to a vice president at Oppenheimer to struggling in boiler rooms to making millions-more than he'd ever imagined-with DMN and Jeffrey Pokross and his Mafia pals. He'd even been arrested and cleared. Now here he was, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal, portrayed as one of New York's most eligible bachelors.

The phrase "crime doesn't pay" was all wrong. "Stupid crime doesn't pay" was more like it. Only stupid criminals got caught. If you were smart enough, you could walk away from anything. Now Cary Cimino was sure he could do anything he set his mind to, and nothing would stand in his way.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

On the July morning when the FBI knocked on his door, Francis Warrington Gillet III did not clearly understand the difference between regret and remorse. As he stood there listening to his former business buddy turned cold-hearted FBI agent explain to him in a friendly manner that he wouldn't have to wear handcuffs as he was escorted from the building out onto Central Park South, he probably believed he was experiencing remorse. More than likely, he was merely experiencing regret.

Regret always came first. It's easier to swallow. You don't have to admit to anything. Regret shows up in many costumes: regret at having been caught, regret at having not done certain things that could have meant not getting caught. And of course, regret at hanging around with certain people-Nick Vito, for instance-who clearly should have been avoided. Regret at having sullied your own good name, the name of your family, your father, your mother, your children, your nieces and nephews. Your war hero grandfather! Of course, regret about the nefarious effect you were having on your loved ones meant only one thing-remorse was on the way.

Francis Warrington Gillet III was escorted by the FBI from his exclusive address on Central Park South at the unG.o.dly hour of 7 a.m., past the allegedly unseeing eyes of the doorman. Warrington had no idea what lay ahead. He had expected to wake up, brush his teeth, take a quick shower, shave and begin yet another day acc.u.mulating piles of money. He was a licensed stockbroker. He was a good guy. Now he was headed to court. It might even be a public courtroom, where people drift in and out, watching the spectacle of human failure unfold. His folly would soon become fodder for idle gossip. He had to think quickly.

He was taken to a room in Lower Manhattan, a section of the city he rarely visited. It was sort of near some clubs he'd partied in, but he hadn't spent any time here. His only experience with courts until this morning was jury duty. He remembered that. You put your life on hold for a day or two, then begged and whined until they let you go home. It was annoying but essentially harmless. This was certainly not going to be jury duty.

Inside a windowless room he answered questions about his background, his family, his financial a.s.sets. He was asked if he had ever been arrested and he practically laughed out loud. He confessed that he'd once had his license suspended when he'd twice made rights after stopping at a red light in Manhattan, something that's allowed in most places but not in New York. That was the extent of his experience with the criminal justice system in his thirty-seven years on the planet. No felonies, no misdemeanors. Not even a trace of youthful folly was evident in the file of Francis Warrington Gillet III. There was no file.

He was taken to another room with a sign on the gla.s.s door, "United States Marshal," and fingerprinted and photographed for the first time in his life. He tried to imagine what the photo looked like. Did he look like John Dillinger?

John Gotti? He hadn't shaved and was barely awake before dropping in on the United States marshals, so he had to a.s.sume he looked like Keith Richards after a tough night. He shuddered to think of that mug shot running in the newspaper for his mother and father to see.

He could fight the power. That would mean pleading not guilty and keeping his mouth shut. He'd have to hire an expensive lawyer and work out a deal where you write a check to the Securities and Exchange Commission, promise never to trade securities again and go back to acting school with a student loan. That was an option. But suppose there was no deal? Suppose they made you go to trial, and you faced a jury of angry Social Security recipients furious at their lousy investments. Suppose they found you guilty of all charges-even some you weren't aware of-and the judge sent you away to prison for forty years. Visions of old prison movies came to him. Birdman of Alcatraz Birdman of Alcatraz. He'd end up like that guy, talking to sparrows. He nearly retched.

There was also option two: admit to everything you've done in your life and beg the court for mercy. Immerse yourself in remorse. This was much more complex than regret. If you admitted you'd done something terrible or bad or just stupid, and you even said it out loud to yourself while taking a shower or sitting alone drinking Scotch in the dark, you'd have made enormous progress. You'd have taken a huge step. But of course much more was required. To make it official, you had to make the admission in a public place, and ultimately to people you love. You must say it out loud and with simple noun-verb syntax-"I did something wrong."

But did he? When he was having those talks with Nick Vito/D. True Brown about a possible deal, it was all just possible, wasn't it? Had he really done anything that any other normal stock picker would not have done under the very same circ.u.mstances? He could certainly admit to whatever they needed him to admit to, just to avoid jail time, but then he'd have to live with himself. Was the great-stepgrandson of Marjorie Merriweather Post really a felon? The more he thought about it, the more confused he became.

Suddenly he thought of the original Francis Warrington Gillet.

Francis Warrington Gillet III, of course, was hardly an original. His grandfather was the original Francis, followed by his father, Francis Junior, and ultimately by his son, Francis the Fourth. His name had implications. He was burdened with the legacy of it; encouraged not to bring shame upon it. It wasn't easy. His grandfather-born on a frigid November day in 1895 in the port city of Baltimore, Maryland-set the bar high.

On April Fool's Day, 1917, the original Francis signed up for the United States Air Service. He wanted to learn how to fly. At the time, the United States had successfully stayed out of the great conflict raging from England to Russia. But that conflict wasn't going so well for the Allied Powers, and the United States was finding it more and more difficult to justify staying out of the mess. German submarines were making a regular practice of shooting at anything that tried to float across the Atlantic. Still, on April Fool's Day, the United States had yet to actually declare war against Germany. That wouldn't come for another week. The original Francis could not wait. He joined up.

A graduate of the University of Virginia and a son of privilege, the original Francis tried desperately to make it into the elite world of the flying ace. It was not to be. At that time you could learn to fire a gun, don a gas mask and slog it out in the trenches at the age of twenty-one, but you could not fly. He was declared too young to be commissioned, and so he did what many other young men of his time did-he headed for Canada, not to dodge but to seek the life of the soldier. He joined the Royal Flying Corps by telling a lie. He was no longer the original Francis. Now he was Frederick Warrington Gillet.

Now a lie is a lie is a lie, but it could be argued that there is such a thing as a good lie. The original Francis clearly had nothing but good intentions when he pretended to be someone else so he could partic.i.p.ate in the mighty battle against evil. He was committing a lie for the greater good. And as a result, he was allowed to join and learn to fly. Off he went to England to begin training as a pilot.

In the horrendous March of 1918, with General Persh ing in France and headed for Chateau-Thierry, Frederick Warrington Gillet was a.s.signed to the 79th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, posted to France. His machine was the legendary one-man Sopwith Dolphin, with two Vick ers machine guns to score kills. And score he did. In the next eight months before the War to End All Wars came to a b.l.o.o.d.y end, he registered twenty kills. That would include 14 Fokker D VIIs, the same plane flown by the Red Baron, and three kite balloons. And he did it all as a Canadian named Frederick Warrington Gillet, of the Royal Flying Corps. He was, in truth, a hero. On November 2, 1918, exactly nine days before Armistice Day, the London Gazette London Gazette misspelled Frederick the temporary Canadian's last name as Gillett and described a key and final battle against a German two-seater as he attempted to attack a kite balloon. misspelled Frederick the temporary Canadian's last name as Gillett and described a key and final battle against a German two-seater as he attempted to attack a kite balloon.

"Lieut. Gillett shot the machine down and turning to the balloon which was being rapidly hauled down he dropped two bombs at the winch and fired a drum into the balloon, which deflated but did not catch fire."

He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Three months later, he was described as "a pilot of great dash and skill" who had destroyed twelve hostile aircraft. In one September 1918 battle he attacked three Fokkers at once, driving one down "in flames." When the war finally ended two short months later, on November 11, 1918, with 10 million dead and 20 million wounded, the original Francis was still alive. He returned to his native Baltimore and began the legacy that would haunt his grandson Francis Warrington Gillet III for the rest of his life.

The original Francis died at his home in Glyndon, Maryland, four days before Christmas 1969, when Warrington was just eleven. Francis Warrington Gillet III officially inherited the legacy of the man who lied to become a hero. No matter what else he did in his life, the original Francis would always be a war hero. He would always be the guy with twenty kills. When all was said and done, the original Francis was a tough guy to live up to. Even worse for Warrington III, his grandfather's life proved there was such a thing as an admirable lie. The original Francis was proof that there is no such thing as black and white-only gray.

Gray made everything more difficult. It was brutal, this decision. The hardest part of moving from regret to remorse was that you had to know in your heart the difference between right and wrong. You had to know that what you had done wasn't just some little technical violation, some misunderstanding of complex regulations or an action taken after receiving really bad advice. It had to be that you, personally, understood that you-as a grown-up-made specific choices after weighing facts and came out on the wrong side. You maliciously chose to do a wrong thing. You acted willfully, with specific intent.

In order to understand that he'd really done something wrong, he'd have to translate his actions into plain English. Instead of saying he'd violated a section of a federal law that he'd never actually seen in print, he'd have to say straight-out that he'd wanted something so badly he was just going to take it away from someone else. Or he hated someone so much he had to destroy them, or at least their reputation. Call it what you will-pride, covetousness, l.u.s.t, anger, gluttony, envy or sloth. The Seven Capital Sins were merely explanations for the same thing-a wrongful act. An unethical act in disobedience to a personal G.o.d.

There were whole libraries filled with books describing the nuances of sin. There were sins that cry out to heaven: willful murder, oppression of the poor, defrauding a la borer of his wages. There was the sin of the angels: pride. Some believed actions were either good, indifferent or sinful, others said there was no such thing as an indifferent act-just good or sinful. Some divided sins into categories-mortal and venial. Mortal sins were committed with conscious intent, venial were committed without the perpetrator's conscious knowledge. Where was Warrington on the spectrum of sin? Why wasn't it clear to him, even as he was brought to a room called "Pre-Trial Services" and asked questions about his brother's middle name and the year he finished junior high?

He had no idea what to do. The expression of remorse was usually enough to stop the lies you tell yourself when you get up in the morning. It was the best part of remorse, but it was difficult to remember that when the ramifications of the declaration were swirling around you like a maelstrom, pulling you and your good family name down into the abyss. People say there are good acts and bad acts. Some go so far as to say there are good people and bad people. In theory, it should be pretty simple to tell the difference.

For Francis Warrington Gillet III, discerning the difference was a difficult if not impossible task.