Leopards and Their Spots No. 1
In looking back over my career, one thing that's striking is the number of people I’ve encountered who have been unable to change after getting caught the first time.
Example #1 in what will be an ongoing series is Thomas J. Ernst, a good-looking attorney who showed up in the St. Louis area in the 1970’s and worked for the local transit system. He served as an aide to long-term U.S. Congressman James Symington (whose father, Senator Stuart Symington, was one of the first to stand up to Joe McCarthy). Ernst claimed to have worked for a medical services company. In the early 1980's, he ran for a number of statewide offices, getting publicity but not many votes.
He once invited a friend of mine to attend a presidential primary caucus, and offered to let him nominate Ted Kennedy. Unfortunately, Mr. Ernst had nothing to do with the caucus, and my friend was prepared and excited for nothing.
Ernst bought a building in St. Louis's Central West End with borrowed money, and then proceeded to sell equity shares of it to a client for whom Ernst theoretically was managing a medical practice. The client eventually found out that he was being scammed. Then, Ernst started getting sued for all sorts of routine expenses, such as electricity, credit cards and other similar bills. He started passing bad checks for large and small amounts, including one for $36 to a court reporter. Ernst was indicted. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that he was also under federal investigation for check kiting, but nothing seems to have come of that. He pled guilty to the bad-check charges, which were felonies; he lost his law license, but received no jail time.
Ernst apparently left St. Louis, and ended up in the Washington, D.C., area where he started a medical services company. He was indicted in 2011 for "corruptly endeavoring to impede the IRS" and for tax evasion. The charges largely related to his paying personal expenses out of corporate funds without reporting them as income. (Sounds just like some national figure who recently was accused of the same thing.) In addition, Ernst was charged with failing to file corporate and personal tax returns. The loss to the Government was alleged to be $4.5 million. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison.
An IRS tax lien for over $7 million is still reported as unpaid.