Schrenker Embraces the Fish Monger's Defense

National news services report today that Indiana stock broker Marcus Schrenker is claiming amnesia. Schrenker is the financial advisor accused of bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers and then crashing his private plane near Milton in a bizarre scheme to fake his own death.

Marcus Schrenker called The New York Post from the Escambia County Jail on Wednesday night and Thursday night and told the newspaper that he has no memory of the events of Jan. 11.
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"I have no memory of any of it — not going to the airport, being in the air, nothing," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The reason Schenker is in our midst is that he has been indicted by a Pensacola federal grand jury on charges related to sending a "false distress message." That's nothing, of course, compared to his legal problems back home in Indiana:

Investigators there compiled evidence and collected testimony that Schrenker had misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in clients' money, forged client signatures and obtained licenses to sell insurance in several states, apparently in an effort to avoid prosecution.

The thing is, we have Schrenker here; they don't have him there.

His claim "not to recall the events of the day he bailed out" is an all-too-familiar defense in Pensacola. Frank Patti, the locally prominent fish monger, made a similarly preposterous claim when he crashed his vehicle at slow-mo speed into the historic locomotive on display along Garden Street six years ago, shortly after he was indicted on multi-million dollar tax evasion charges.

Never thought we'd say this: Frank Patti isn't the biggest dumbbell in Pensacola. At least his absurd claim of amnesia conveniently stretched back in time to the very same day he signed the first in a string of incriminating checks and documents.

Schrenker, according to news reports, only claims to have blanked out the day he went flying. That would mean he must still remember how he cheated all those customers of his.

Here's our medical prognosis: Shrenker's amnesia will get worse. As soon as he learns more details about the Frank Patti defense, and how gently Frank was treated after his conviction, the stock broker's memory will get worse -- all the way back to the first time he defrauded a customer.