Stung

by Gary Stephen Ross

  Walt Devlin was reading the Sunday papers over breakfast in Washington, D.C., when a headline caught his eye. He put on his reading glasses. The article, by H. G. Bissinger, said that “a mild-mannered assistant bank manager” in Toronto had been charged with defrauding his employer of more than $10-million, most of which he’d lost at Caesars in Atlantic City. Devlin went through the piece with care. He was looking for suggestions that the banker had enhanced his material life — cars, jewellery, expensive trips. Had he found such indications he would have thought no more about it. Instead, the article referred to Molony’s unassuming appearance, his privileged background as the son of a respected surgeon, and the one-bedroom highrise apartment he shared with his girlfriend. Molony was out on $250,000 bail and was being represented by “perhaps the finest defence lawyer in all of Canada.”

  Next morning Devlin called Toronto information and got Eddie Greenspan’s number. He talked his way past the firm’s secretary and Greenspan’s own secretary. When Greenspan came on, Devlin identified himself as executive director of the council on compulsive gambling in Washington. Had Greenspan started debriefing his client about the case?

  “Why do you ask?” said Greenspan.

  “I want you to understand I’m not a crank. I’m not out to commercialize this thing. I want to help. Are you aware there’s a medical diagnosis of a pathological disorder of impulse control?”

  Beware people who see $10-million in the newspaper and want to help. Beware anyone who says, “I want you to understand I’m not a crank.” This was not the first call Greenspan had received about Brian Molony. Besides the crown and the police and the bank’s lawyers and the bonding company’s lawyers and the casino’s lawyers there were reporters wanting interviews, a publisher putting out feelers, someone inquiring about film rights. Greenspan lit one of the sixty Belmont cigarettes he smokes each day.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t know there was such a diagnosis.”

  “I’ve never met Brian Molony, but I’m going to tell you about him.”

  “Just a minute,” said Greenspan. His secretary was gesturing that he was late for a meeting — he indicated he’d only be a moment. “Sorry, you were going to tell me about Brian.”

  “First of all, everybody’s going to think he’s got something put away. He doesn’t. There’s no money. Nothing buried in a tin can in his backyard. No account in Switzerland. Whatever the final number happens to be, he lost it all. He’s not going to be able to pay you unless the money comes from family or friends.”

  “Is that so?” said Greenspan. Molony had told him all the money was gone.

  “I don’t know if you’re this far along, but when you look into the embezzlements you’ll find he went in hand over fist. This is no Robert Vesco, crafting an elegant scheme. He grabbed. Once he started having to cover up, that’s when you’ll find the artifice.”

  Greenspan’s own understanding suggested Devlin was right.

  “You’ll find he started small. You’ll find the embezzlements get bigger as he gets more desperate. The size grows wildly toward the end.”

  Greenspan motioned to his secretary that he was going to be a few minutes after all. He reached for pencil and paper. “Anything else you can you tell me about Brian?”

  “He’s been under incredible strain. While the frauds were going on, he lived in a pressure cooker. Each time he dips in, the heat gets turned up another notch. When it ends so abruptly, when your life is altered so dramatically, it does things to your head. Throw in this guy’s young age, his staid background, the banking environment, the huge sums involved, the notoriety he’s facing — he’s struggling with some big issues. I’m worried about his state of mind. He could be suicidal.”

  There was something irritating about Devlin’s cockiness, but Greenspan was impressed. He asked for some personal background and learned that Devlin himself had come to grief gambling. He’d been abandoned by his father when he was seventeen days old and raised by his mother and, eventually, his stepfather in Newark, New Jersey. They lived in an eight-family, cold-water tenement house. An inordinately tall kid and gifted athlete, Walt had used basketball as his ticket out. After a career at George Washington University he was a first-round NBA pick and went on to play four seasons as a guard with the Pistons and the Lakers. When his pro career ended he was disillusioned to realize the adulation had been aimed not at him but at his uniform. He was happily married to a nightclub singer, though, and they had a lovely daughter.

  Devlin became a partner in a bar and restaurant in Newport Beach, California, and bought a house on Balboa Island, where the neighbours included film stars. Life was rich and rewarding. When a friend ran into marriage difficulties, Devlin invited him to move in until he got back on his feet. Over several months, Devlin’s wife fell in love with the man. One day she announced she was leaving and taking their daughter with her. Devlin, distraught, phoned his stepfather in Newark. A few hours later his stepfather died of a heart attack.

  Three of the four most important people in his life had been taken away. Not only was Devlin unable to keep his family together, he had killed his stepfather. He ended up in Las Vegas. The noise, the stimulation, the constant presence of others, the sensation of money at risk — it had an analgesic effect. As long as he was gambling he was immune to his problems. When he stopped, life seemed unbearably painful.

  Thus began a seventeen-year odyssey in which Devlin alienated everyone who had known him. He lost every dollar he had, then every dollar he could borrow, con, or steal. He lived in dozens of cities, bailing out when the bad cheques caught up to him. For a year he went off each morning, spent the day at the racetrack, and returned to a woman who believed he worked as a building contractor. He was shot at and stabbed, arrested six times, sentenced to penitentiary. Twice he came within an inch of suicide.

  Devlin wanted to stop gambling but couldn’t. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stop, couldn’t understand why he couldn’t understand. He concluded he was crazy and signed himself into Western State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Staunton, Virginia, for observation. It was three months before a doctor saw him; by then it was too late. When he told the staff he wasn’t crazy, they solemnly agreed. When he yelled and raged they put him on Thorazine. When he curled up in the corner he was deemed sicker than ever. Eventually he got out by seducing a woman supervisor who helped get him discharged in the belief that he loved her.

  Devlin’s search for self-enlightenment eventually led him to Dr. Robert Custer, a gentle, sad-eyed Washington psychiatrist whom he had read about in Reader’s Digest. Custer worked for the Veterans Administration and specialized in the treatment of alcoholism. Some drunks were also compulsive gamblers, and he began to see that gambling, too, could be a devastating addiction. Devlin approached him in 1974; Custer apologized that he could treat only veterans. Five years later Devlin found himself managing a new restaurant in Atlantic City. He had just stolen the first week’s receipts — $17,000 — and blown it in the casino at Resorts. His worldly possessions consisted of T-shirt, Levis, and sneakers. He’d ripped off everyone he knew, including his sister, brother, and mother. He showed up at Custer’s office and said, “Whether I’m a veteran or not, you’re taking me on. You’ve got to. If you won’t, I’m going straight from this office to the Calvert Street bridge.”

  Custer was a godsend. After seventeen years of degeneracy, self-contempt, and incomprehension, Devlin was told, “You’re not a common thief, you’re ill. You’re not hopeless, you’re treatable. You’re not unique, you’re like scores of people I’ve come across.” For Devlin, the arduous process of recovery entailed support groups, broad reading, explorations of formal religion, and therapy with Custer. He realized he could not have helped himself unaided and decided his time was best spent helping others in the same position. One way he found them was to monitor the papers and look into cases in which seemingly accomplished, responsible people had stolen money. A surprising number, he discovered, w
ere feeding a gambling habit.

  On the phone from Washington, Devlin told Greenspan he thought he could help him make sense of Brian Molony. He offered to come to Toronto at his own expense. Terrific, said Greenspan, look forward to meeting you.

  Once he was out on bail, Molony realized he couldn’t afford Eddie Greenspan. He explained his financial situation and asked Greenspan to recommend another lawyer. Greenspan said, “We’re not going to talk about fees today. We’re not going to talk about them next week. We’re not going to talk about fees until you’re back on your feet — whenever that is.” Friends told Molony to be careful, Greenspan obviously intended to use the case to heighten his own public profile. Why else would a lawyer with a reputation for billing handsomely be so unconcerned about getting paid?

  Greenspan found himself responding to his client in a forceful way he himself did not at first understand. He had grown up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a raw town behind the wax and neon. Some of his childhood friends ran afoul of the law. Greenspan’s father spent a year at law school, intending to become a lawyer, but returned to the family scrap business when his own father’s health failed. He himself died of a heart attack when Eddie was thirteen. To make ends meet, Greenspan’s mother took a job as a secretary at the public school.

  In 1962 Eddie graduated from Niagara Falls Collegiate Institute and was accepted in the general arts program at the University of Toronto. He got a student loan and worked the summer demonstrating and selling kitchen knives in the Pure Foods Building at the Canadian National Exhibition. One of his late father’s best friends had been a racetrack denizen named George. One day, out of the blue, Uncle George showed up in Toronto. The man knew Eddie disliked him but wanted to talk. He’d been a schmuck, he was sorry, he hoped Eddie could forgive him. He was straightening out his life. He’d landed a good job, things were going well, but he needed help over the hump. He couldn’t go to anyone else and wondered if Eddie could let him have a thousand dollars for a week. A thousand was almost exactly what Greenspan had banked for the school year. He wrote a cheque. Uncle George had a job at a plumbing supply store, and Eddie drove him to work in his beat-up Rambler. The man climbed the steps, turned to wave, and went inside.

  A week passed, two weeks, three. Eddie couldn’t understand why Uncle George hadn’t phoned. He didn’t want to pester him but he needed the money. In desperation he looked up the number of the plumbing supply company. They’d never heard of the man. The loss of money was catastrophic; even worse was the emotional blow. His father’s close friend had taken him for every cent he had. How could anyone do such a thing? Hurt, confused, and humiliated, Greenspan had to ask his mother for help. Between his mother and his aunt, they scraped up enough to see him through.

  As a U of T student, Greenspan did a little gambling himself — cards, hockey games, the racetrack. Like junk food and late nights, gambling was a part of being away from home for the first time. Greenspan settled down, met his future wife, and entered Osgoode Hall Law School. Inspired by G. Arthur Martin, a renowned criminal lawyer and appeal judge, he threw himself into his work and graduated near the top of his class. For his year of articles he joined the provincial attorney general’s department in Welland. He worked for an old friend of his father’s, Don Scott, who sent him around to the different courts in the area.

  One Friday, as Greenspan was preparing for a Monday appearance in Niagara Falls, Scott told him he wanted him to go to Fort Erie instead. Greenspan asked why. “Eddie, just go to Fort Erie.” From one of the other crown attorneys Greenspan learned Uncle George was on the Niagara Falls court list for Monday. He was depressed that the man was back in trouble but happy not to have to encounter him.

  Greenspan went on to become a capable and celebrated criminal lawyer, gaining public acclaim before he was thirty. He and his first partner, Joe Pomerant, represented Peter Demeter, a Hungarian-born developer, in a sensational murder case. Demeter, the jury concluded, had arranged to have his wife’s brains bashed in, and was sentenced to life. But Greenspan distinguished himself, brilliantly arguing against the conduct of the police investigation and the admissibility of certain wiretap evidence. He made his mark again during the appeal. Reporters found him a willing interview, gifted at untangling legal complexities; judges found him hard-working and prodigiously knowledgeable. Before long he was attracting high-profile clients of his own, making a splendid living, and worrying about his double chin on magazine covers.

  His success, he felt, was due to hard work and to luck, but also to his sympathetic nature. Psychopaths were one thing, and you gave them legal representation; but most clients were ordinary people led into trouble by passion or greed. They were not unlike the kids he’d grown up with, and Greenspan empathized with them. About the only petty criminal for whom he had no feeling was Uncle George. He’d done the unforgivable and Greenspan had shut the door on him.

  Then, one day, in walked an unlikely bank thief. Brian Molony struck Greenspan as principled, intelligent, and decent. Yet he’d jeopardized everything — career, family relations, liberty, even his well-being — to satisfy an extraordinary urge to gamble. Greenspan was intrigued by Molony’s character, which seemed to accommodate two separate personalities, and fascinated by the fraud, among the biggest in the history of criminal law. But his involvement ran deeper. As he got to know Molony he began to catch glimpses of the demons that lurked in his own past.

  A couple of weeks later, in walked Walt Devlin, a loquacious, easygoing ex-jock. Devlin’s hair had turned white, but he’d kept to his playing weight, towered over you, and moved with easy self-possession. Each day he selected a different cap to coordinate with his sweats and size 13 running shoes. He had a beaming smile and a graceful way with sporting analogies. “She’s lost something off her fastball,” he’d say of a middle-aged woman dressed as if she were twenty, “but she’ll still get you out with off-speed stuff.” A charming fellow, in short, with a pitch that made you check for your wallet. More demons.

  Devlin came to Toronto with Gerry Fulcher, a one-time New York policeman who was also a recovering compulsive gambler. When the two men introduced themselves to Molony, he seemed skeptical and reserved. His handshake was limp; perspiration darkened the armpits of his suit. When Eddie Greenspan finally arrived — he’d been delayed in court — he showed them into his office. Molony immediately took the far end of the sofa. For a man of 220 pounds he seemed oddly diminutive. To Devlin he appeared to be in acute pain.

  Devlin explained that he had recently aided in the defence of a compulsive gambler in Maryland who had embezzled more than $1-million from a stevedoring company and lost it in Atlantic City. Devlin had arranged for psychiatric and psychological evaluations, got the man into a treatment centre, and helped orchestrate the mens rea (diminished capacity) defence. The man had got eighteen months in a halfway house. Devlin was optimistic that Molony’s gambling problem, if properly presented in court, would lead to a similarly lenient sentence.

  “I don’t have a gambling problem,” said Molony, wondering why he was wasting his time. Meetings with lawyers cost money. “I have a financial problem.”

  “If it’s not a gambling problem, what was your number?”

  Molony didn’t understand.

  “You went through more than $10-million,” said Devlin. “What number were you shooting for? Twenty? Fifty?”

  “I was trying to win the money back.”

  “Why do you think you were in the position of having to borrow it in the first place? And if you had won it back, do you think you would have stopped gambling?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re wrong, my friend. You may not know it yet, but you’re a sick puppy.”

  To Greenspan, Devlin and Fulcher seemed a pair of smooth-talkers who didn’t understand much Canadian law. They spoke as if a temporary insanity defence would induce a judge to say, “Fine. You have a problem, Mr. Molony, you’re therefore not guilty, goodbye, good luck, please don’t do it again.” In C
anadian law there was no such thing as a temporary insanity defence. The insanity defence required that the accused suffer from a disease of the mind so debilitating as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of his actions. Hardly the case when someone had embezzled $10.2-million over nineteen months while otherwise performing his duties in exemplary fashion. Still, it was a staggering theft, and Greenspan welcomed any information that might help mitigate or explain it. On the surface nothing about Molony indicated illness or impairment, but then nothing about Devlin or Fulcher did either. Or Uncle George.

  Devlin suggested that Molony undergo therapy at Johns Hopkins University, the first centre for treatment of addictive gambling. A month of treatment, plus the psychiatric and psychological evaluations, plus the cost of bringing half a dozen experts to testify at the sentencing, might run to $25,000.

  “Out of the question,” said Molony.

  “Let’s think about this,” said Greenspan. He asked about ways of reducing the expense — fewer experts at the sentencing, one psychiatric evaluation instead of two, perhaps a shorter stint at the Hopkins clinic. After some negotiating, Devlin agreed it might be possible to put the whole thing together for $10,000. Molony didn’t like the sound of this, but he’d come to trust Greenspan and asked his opinion.

  “I think you should go, Brian.” Greenspan was lighting another Belmont and remembering Uncle George. “And not just because these guys may well be the difference between a ten-year sentence and two years.”

  In a letter to a friend, written in Rome in 1863, the Russian novelist Dostoevsky outlined his idea for a story about a gambler. “I’ll try to portray a straightforward man who, while quite acceptably educated and sophisticated, is yet a very incomplete human being. He has lost all faith and yet he does not dare to be an atheist; he rebels against all authority and yet fears it.…My hero is, in his way, a poet, but he is ashamed of the way his poetic feelings are expressed.…His need to risk something ennobles him in his own eyes.”