April 22, 2011
Greg Mortenson and family
But not all scammers are writers. Some are just scammers. When reading Jean-Claude Romand’s story I clenched my fists and thought, “You”ll have your day of reckoning, you bastard.” Romand pretended to graduate from medical school, then pretended to work at the UN, then pretended he was great at investing his relatives” money until the whole thing blew up in his face and he murdered his entire family. When the jig is finally up and he goes to jail for life, a new jig is born. He says he has found God and now, instead of judgment day we have visiting day where born-agains from all over France come to kiss the miracle that is his ass.
When Azalea Cooley broke the news she was black, lesbian, in a wheelchair, and suffering from brain cancer, Portland gasped. When she added that the words “Burn, Nigger, Burn“ had been painted on her house, the city took to the streets and held a parade in her honor. It was later discovered she was the racist who painted the slurs and the only thing on her list that she suffered from was being black. Cooley shrugged her shoulders and moved 600 miles south to begin the grift again. She’s one of the few liars who didn”t build a career out her famous lies, but I suspect that’s just because she’s lazy.
The Hipster Grifter is out of jail after serving six months for third-degree felony forgery. I work with Kari Ferrell, and though she admits what she did was wrong and doesn”t dispute her punishment, she also says it was the best thing that ever happened to her. “I know it sounds terrible,” she recently told me at a local bar, “but that whole thing opened a lot of doors for me.” Ferrell isn”t close to as twisted as Romand or even Cooley; but as with Frey, Glass, and Blair, the benefits from her scams outweighed the penalties.
To assume these people will learn from their misdeeds is to make the most common mistake in the history of Thinking About People”namely, “Their brain is my brain.” We can”t imagine they wouldn”t feel remorse, but compulsive liars are sociopaths whose only regret is getting caught.
My major beef with scam artists is that all of them deserve to suffer far more than they ever do. I don”t think Greg Mortenson will ever apologize for the untruths in Three Cups of Tea. He will never admit he has only built a fraction of the schools he said he did, and he will never cop to riding his charity as if it were a cash pony. The only punishment he will receive is more money. Frey’s public shaming did nothing to his #4 spot in book sales, and his fake little memoir has sold over eight million little copies. He’s even appearing on Oprah again to promote his new book! Mortenson can look forward to the same kind of rewards”not despite his lies, but because of them”and in the end he”ll sell a hell of a lot more books than I ever will.
