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(HARPERSVILLE, Ala- bama) With his world crumbling around him, American investment adviser Marcus Schrenker opted for a bailout. However, his plan to escape personal turmoil was short-lived.
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| Grounded: Schrenker's crashed plane found after he ditched it in an apparent attempt to fake his own death |
In a feat reminiscent of a James Bond movie, the 38-year-old businessman and amateur daredevil pilot apparently tried to fake his death in a plane crash, secretly parachuting to the ground and speeding away on a motorcycle he had stashed away in the pine barrens of central Alabama.
But the captivating three-day saga came to an end when authorities finally caught up to Schrenker in North Florida. Gadsden County Sheriff's Lt Jim Corder said late on Tuesday night that police there had Schrenker in custody.
'He had cut one of his wrists, but he is still alive,' said Alabama-based US Marshals spokesman Michael Richards.
Schrenker was on the run not only from the law but from divorce, a state investigation of his businesses and angry investors who accuse him of stealing potentially millions in savings they entrusted to him.
'We've learned over time that he's a pathological liar - you don't believe a single word that comes out of his mouth,' said Charles Kinney, a 49-year-old airline pilot from Atlanta who alleges Schrenker pocketed at least US$135,000 of his parents' retirement fund.
The events of the past few days appear to be a last, desperate gambit by a man who had fallen from great heights and was about to hit bottom.
On Sunday - two days after burying his beloved stepfather and suffering a half-million-dollar loss in federal court the same day - Schrenker was flying his single-engine Piper Malibu to Florida from his Indiana home when he radioed from 2,000 feet that he was in trouble.
He told the tower the windshield had imploded, and that his face was plastered with blood. Then his radio went silent.
Military jets tried to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. The pilots followed until the aircraft crashed in a Florida Panhandle bayou surrounded by homes. There was no sign of Schrenker's body.
They now know they should never have expected to find one. More than 220 miles to the north, at a convenience store in Childersburg, Alabama, police picked up a man using Schrenker's Indiana driver's licence and carrying a pair of what appeared to be pilot's goggles. The man, who was wet from the knees down, told the officers he'd been in a canoe accident.
After officers gave him a lift to a nearby motel, Schrenker apparently made his way to a storage unit he had rented just the day before his flight. He climbed aboard a red racing motorcycle with full saddlebags, and sped off into the countryside.
At 38, Schrenker was at the head of an impressive slate of businesses. Through his Heritage Wealth Management Inc, Heritage Insurance Services Inc and Icon Wealth Management, he was responsible for providing financial advice and managing portfolios worth millions.
And by outward appearances, he was doing quite well.
He had come a long way from his humble beginnings in north-west Indiana, where he and his two brothers were raised after their parents' divorce by their mother and stepfather, a Vietnam veteran who worked at US Steel Corp.
But officials now say Schrenker's enterprise was ready to topple.
Authorities in Indiana have been investigating Schrenker's businesses on allegations that he sold clients annuities and charged them exorbitant fees they weren't aware they would face.
State Insurance Commissioner Jim Atterholt said Schrenker would close the investors out of one annuity and move them to another while charging them especially high 'surrender charges' - in one case costing a retired couple US$135,000 of their original US$900,000 investment.
The tangled web of Schrenker's financial affairs began to unravel more than two years ago.
In 2006 the aviation buff had convinced dozens of active and retired Delta Air Lines pilots - including Mr Kinney - to allow him to manage their retirement accounts. But some of the pilots stopped investing with him after a court case raised questions about his past. He then never showed up to testify for the case, and the retired pilots lost.
'He had a way about him - you trusted the guy,' says David M Smith, one of the retired pilots. 'He was very credible. He talked a good story. So, we entrusted him with a task he never produced.'
Mr Smith believes Schrenker may have been running from a past unknown to many of his clients at the time, a past that was disclosed just days earlier in a deposition of him by a Delta lawyer.
'They uncovered things that literally made your jaw open,' said Mr Smith, adding that he and other pilots stopped letting Schrenker manage money for them after the deposition. 'I believe he was scared to death that Delta was going to expose him.'
According to the 156-page deposition obtained by The Associated Press, a judge in a 2003 bankruptcy reported being 'deeply concerned' that Schrenker was not disclosing thousands of dollars in monthly income to the court and not reporting the income on his tax returns.
On Dec 31, officers searched Schrenker's home, seizing the Schrenkers's passports, US$6,036 in cash, the title to a Lexus and deposit slips for bank accounts in Michelle Schrenker's name, who the day before, had filed for divorce. - AP
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