ST has a story about an even more mini Mini-Madoff:

Members of the Mercer Island Covenant Church considered 84-year-old Stephen Klos a successful retired military man and real-estate investor who served as a church usher and frequented a local Bally Total Fitness club.

Klos was charming and talked about his real estate that was worth millions. Invitations to friends and churchgoers to invest — sometimes with promises of returns of 24 percent a year — were met with open checkbooks.

But King County prosecutors Wednesday painted a different picture of Klos, who was charged with 28 counts of securities fraud in a scheme involving the alleged theft of $3.5 million from dozens of churchgoers and others, including more than $3 million from six elderly women in the church.

Something like a holy trinity: Madoff worked the synagogue, Klos worked the church, capitalism works everybody.

Let’s turn to the dark core of this story:

The charges say Klos is “romantically involved” with one 85-year-old suspected victim who has given him more than $350,000. She continues to turn over her Social Security, despite warnings from investigators and family, according to the charges.

What is this strange love that the exploited has for her exploiter? And it is not an exceptional love; it’s very common. Indeed, Republicans know all about this strange love. It is the bread and butter of their politics.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

9 replies on “The Mini-Madoff of Mercer Island”

  2. I believe it’s called delusion. And no matter how much contradictory evidence, the delusion persists. Mostly, from what I have seen, it stems from a stubborn refusal to see they are mistaken in their beliefs.

  3. I’d love to hear the theory on how this couldn’t happen in a Marxist society. Is it just because nobody has any money of their own that can get stolen?

  5. @3, look up the Albanian Lottery Uprising. This sort of thing is especially popular in Marxist societies that have recently imploded, because in those countries NOBODY understands a damn thing about economics.

    People who’ve been taken never stop believing. There are people in prison today who are still convinced their big Nigerian payoff is still coming, so they’ll be able to pay back the church or office they embezzled to get the money to send to them. Oscar Hartzell, who ran the fake Sir Francis Drake inheritance scam for decades, died in prison with tens of thousands of his victims still believing in him, still sending him money.

  8. “Capitalism works everybody”. You should out that on a t-shirt with a picture of Marx on a treadmill and a Bally Total Fitness logo on the back.

  9. Why is he not in jail? He’s been cited by the SEC and Olympia in 1992, 2006, 2010 and now. And he’s walking around a free man.

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