The story I recount here is very unusual, not least because of the weird behavior of some of the participants. It’s also long and a little tortuous, covering as it does some 16 years or more, but the majority of the relevant action takes place right at the beginning of my involvement (1994) and right at the end (i.e. 2011).
I have broken it into three parts, to make it easier to consume. Even so, it’s complicated.
What makes it so dreadful is the dysfunctional family dynamic that is revealed, one largely controlled by what is almost certainly undiagnosed – and untreated – mental illness coupled with wealth, along with sheer criminal greed. And I do mean criminal – there are aspects of the story that warrant investigation by the FBI.
It would remain just that – a story – if it were not for two facts.
One, it’s all true. Two, I have documentary evidence for much of what I describe here, and I include fragments of those documents as proof of what I say. The originals are well-preserved.
The Beginning
There’s a necessary preamble, to set the scene. I’ll be as brief as I can, but note that “brevity” is not my middle name. I’ll also use pseudonyms, partly because I don’t want to give the guilty parties any opportunity to launch frivolous lawsuits as a way to avoid their inevitable punishment, and partly because that way only the guilty will know who’s who. If they choose to act upon what I write, they’ll be opening themselves to action by exposing their identities.
But who said criminals were intrinsically smart?
Let’s start with the two people I know well: Pea and Sea. Pea’s male, Sea’s female. They are the innocent parties in all this and I feel badly for them. They did nothing whatsoever to deserve the fate being imposed upon them, and they are presently still powerless to do anything to stop their descent into oblivion. And thus the rationale for this post.
Pea and Sea met in an unusual way. At least, it was unusual for 1994 – they met online, 6,000 miles apart from each other. Back then the Internet hadn’t been invented and sending email was something of an art rather than a routine event.
Pea was working for a well-known University in the UK, while Sea was coping with having become recently disabled in the USA. Sea used her AOL account from home to access newsgroups (they still exist today) via UseNet and Pea found himself doing two jobs – one paid, one unpaid – that came with access to the academic online communities and while working late at night in the office he, too, explored UseNet in between print jobs that sometimes took hours to complete.
Both Pea and Sea encountered one newsgroup in particular and found many kindred spirits there. They read each other’s posts and found them supportive yet entertaining, and over time progressed to email and finally to telephone communication.
By the beginning of 1995 – even though neither knew what the other looked like – they had formed a strong relationship and in late February 1995, Pea flew to visit Sea for a couple of weeks. Both were pretty sure they wanted to make a lasting commitment, and on March 5, 1995, Pea proposed (taking eight hours to do so – l..o..n..g story) and Sea accepted.
The difficulty lay in deciding how to marry. Should Sea move to the UK to marry Pea (option A), or should Pea move to the US to marry Sea (option B)?
The decision was made as a result of three things:
- Pea already had a passport whereas Sea didn’t (score 1 for option B);
- Pea had reached a crossroad in his employment and the possibility of resigning had arisen more than once (score 2 for option B);
- Aunt Bee, a relative of Sea’s (her only aunt), had indicated to Sea that if Pea could get himself over The Pond, she would pay for both wedding and honeymoon, which was (it seemed at the time) incredibly generous
Score 3 for option B and option A yields the floor.
So Pea began the process of dismantling his life in the UK and the extraordinary process of applying for a K1 (Fiancé) visa, (which didn’t come through until the morning of the day that Pea was due to fly out of the country), and at one point nearly causing an incident at the US Embassy in London. Talk about coming down to the wire.
And so it was that Pea arrived on the Eastern seaboard of the US (nearly causing yet another incident in the process, this time at the office of the INS at Newark, NJ – another long story), where he was met by Sea and whisked away to Meet The Family.
On to Part 2…
