Busted

As I drove through the snow-lined streets of Lake Placid, I imagined what it would have been like when the town hosted the Olympics. I was on my way to what had been the athletes dormitories, converted to a high-security prison.

My assignment for Credit Union Times (CUT) was to interview Richard Mangone, my former boss at Polaroid Credit Union. Together, we and others had started the Digital Credit Union (DCU) for the employees of Digital Corp. In the eight years I worked there it had spurted into a multi-million dollar financial institution with offices in company plants throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Now several decades later, it is over a billion dollars.

Mangone, after I moved to Europe, had committed the greatest theft/fraud in credit union history. Some $40 million was gone not just from DCU, but his other credit union on Cape Cod. After running from the law in a story worthy of a TV series, he gave himself up and began his 24-year sentence.

I was greeted at the prison by Mr. Lane and I think my name, Donna-Lane had helped build a bond in our conversations as I arranged the visit from Geneva, Switzerland where I was living.

Going through all the security procedures was like being on a television program.

This was going to be an all-day visit so we were assigned a room. There were two chairs and a small table where I could set up my recorder. I had plenty of pens and paper. 

Richard came in. No more was he wearing his custom-made Louis of Boston's suits. Prison garb had replaced it. During his life he had gone from being a poor boy in East Boston, to a millionaire to a fugitive to arrive in front of me -- a prisoner.

For the next six hours we talked or he talked and I listened. I was the interviewer: he was the interviewee and although he asked about my daughter, I was there to get a story not tell one.

Back at my hotel, I reflected on how my life had been impacted by Mangone.

Our first meeting had been so different. I was being interviewed for as PR Director of Polaroid Credit Union at its headquarters in Cambridge, MA. I thought it was a labor organization, but as I walked into the office, it looked like a bank.

Mangone interviewed me at a long-table in a huge office with wall-to-ceiling windows. My first impressions of him were smart, young, ambitious and oozing energy. Some years later he told be as  single, unemployed mom he said he felt sorry for me, so he hired me.

It was the career break of a life-time. I had almost a free hand to promote the credit union to Polaroid employees, who were already convinced as a financial institution they had a great deal--low rates on loans, high rates on savings, innovative products, service people who acted if they really cared. I remember setting up seminars for newly widowed or divorced women on how to handle their money, something I knew nothing about until I researched the topic. It helped in my finances too.

We had national industry recognition for our innovations. As a result when Digital Equipment Corporation planned a credit union, they offered the top job to Richard. Several of our management team went with him. Prior to the move night after night was spent planning in a Cambridge Chinese restaurant. Starting a credit union from scratch was like be given an old-fashioned hope chest.

We wanted to create something that was special for the members, that would make their financial lives easier. We wanted to create an inspiring place to work for the staff. Digital gave us the tools.

Professionally, I found developing the credit union, the greatest thrill of my career. Richard let his team think and implement. After a few years of rocketing success, I wanted to leave and devote myself to writing.

He said no, but with that no was an offer to work two days a week with benefits. I did this until I wanted to buy my retirement home in France and returned to work full time.

I noticed Richard was less interested in the credit union. We saw less of him. It didn't matter. We knew he was starting another credit union on Cape Cod. The management team was christened the High Five by the staff. We were passionate about what we were doing.

At that point, I had a personal crisis with my daughter. A board member told me Richard had tears in his eyes when he told them of my problems and that he had given me whatever leeway I needed for her. All worked out.

I bought a place in France. Leaving the credit union was a little bit like leaving home. Still, I wanted my new life. Strangely enough I ended up working in Switzerland but I stayed in touch with my old colleagues.

Three calls from a former colleague tore into my heart. 

The first was the death of Richard's son. He and my daughter were the same age and when there were get-togethers, the kids played with each other. I couldn't imagine what he and his wife Mary, whom I really liked, were going through.

To cope with her pain, she started painting. I have two of them and my guests comment on what a talented artist she was.

The second call was even a greater shock. I was told he had been arrested for misappropriating $40 million. I followed his trial from afar. I was sad and furious at how someone that smart could be that stupid. I was devastated that an organization that I had worked so hard to help build was attacked from within.

The third call was to tell me, he'd done a runner and was on the FBI's most wanted list.

At one point the publisher of Credit Union Times (CUT), with whom I had worked on news stories over the years, talked to me. "If you saw him in the Geneva train station, would you turn him in?"

The answer was no. 

I hated what he'd done, but I knew his other side, the one that gave me everything I needed during my family crises, how he loved his family.

Fortunately I never saw him in Geneva to be faced with a decision to call the police. I am not sure what I would have done, had I seen him twice.

He turned himself in and went to jail. I asked the CUT publisher if I could get an interview would he pay for the story. He jumped at it, which left me sitting in that small room in a high security prison a month later.

I found Richard changed. Before he'd been in constant motion. A late night telephone ring and I knew -- Richard! He'd be brimming with ideas always delivered at rapid speed. They couldn't wait until the morning .

Now he sat opposite me, calmly. I looked into his eyes to see if he was on drugs. They were normal. He told me how he'd found God. I was skeptical, but I added it to the story.

We stayed in touch by mail. He told me that stamps could be used like money in jail. I solicited stamps from my co-workers from all over the world and sent them to him. The prison sent them back.

During his imprisonment, his wife died of cancer. The judge, the same one who tried the shoe bomber, refused to let him attend the funeral.

After Richard was released, we also stayed in touch. Had he been released earlier, I would have hired him as a salesperson for my Canadian credit union newsletter, I had started from Switzerland, but I'd reached a stage that retirement seemed like a better idea.

Richard decided he wanted to write about his life.

His story was a fascinating one right down right down to his surrender to a priest. At the time, I was mostly bedridden from the effects of chemo (I am four years clean now). 

It made sense that I be at least a reader. When I worked for him my assistant and I wrote his speeches. We joked that when he opened his mouth, we had to be brilliant.

He wrote about his life, starting as a poor, poor kid in East Boston, his early struggles to establish his career, and then becoming extremely wealthy, before it all crashed. He'd send his words to me. I'd make suggestions. He'd make counter suggestions.

Finally the book was done and was published. 

Since his released from prison, Richard found a beautiful and loving new wife.

She has supported him as he promotes his book, not for his own profit, but for the ministry in prison he has started. He tries to help prisoners see a better way.

I had been so wrong about his religious conversion. It was sincere. 

When I was in Boston at Christmas, we had a great Italian meal which he cooked.

He gives talks about his experiences at libraries, churches, bookstores and prisons where he went wrong and how he found his way back. His wife made a special suit for him, half business, half prisoner, as a symbol of the two contrasting parts of his life for his talks. He has been interviewed on the radio and written up both in industry and regular press.

I am no longer angry at what he did to the credit union, which I had been so proud of. It recovered and is doing extraordinarily well. It was a fascinating professional journey.

Watching Richard's life unfold has been intriguing. He has grown from a selfish jerk, a term he himself has used, to someone who is redeeming himself every day.

He is no longer the man who one night in the 80s when we left the credit union on a snowy night after I helped him brush the snow off his car, got in his and drove away leaving me to clean off my car by myself in the empty, dark parking lot. I suspect today he would clean my car first.

Busted is a good read telling of good winning over bad, opportunities ceased and squandered and lessons learned.

https://www.amazon.com/BUSTED-BANKERS-Richard-D-Mangone-ebook/dp/B07TQ3ZWDR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=busted+mangone&qid=1583929680&sr=8-1