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.

Bailout Broker Collared in Panhandle

Missing Indiana stock broker and financial analyst Marcus Schrencker has been captured in the Florida panhandle town of Qunicy and is now in the custody ofGadsen County's sheriff.

Of course it would be the Florida Panhandle. Don't all con men head here when they need a big score?

May Day, May Day

That Hoosier stockbroker who radioed a distress call Monday and then put his plane down east of Milton turns out to be another fraudulent stockbroker on the run.

Marcus Schrenker, age 38, of Indianapolis has disappeared. The head of "Heritage Wealth Management" initially was feared hurt or dead from a mechanical failure of his airplane.

According to the police in Santa Rosa County in the Florida Panhandle, where the plane went down, Mr. Schrenker turned up safely about 220 miles north of there. And there is evidence that Mr. Schrenker was an experienced pilot who might have been trying to fake his own death. His life seemed to be unraveling. Court records show that Mr. Schrenker’s wife filed for divorce on Dec. 30. A Maryland court recently issued a judgment of more than $500,000 against one of three Indiana companies registered in his name — and all three are being investigated for securities fraud by the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office, a spokesman, Jim Gavin, said.

After the police kindly gave him a lift to a motel, he disappeared "into the woods" again. He was last known to be "wet from the knees down," wearing "a black toboggan cap," and carrying "what the police described as 'goggles that looked like they were made for flying.' "

Of course, that could have changed by now. But you can recognize him, we're pretty sure, by the planeload of cash he's carrying with him.

When the history of our era is written, stock brokers deservedly will rank as low as the "mostly coarse, brutal" knights of the fourteenth century, whose "chief passion, besides warfare and excessive drinking, was the unrestricted satisfaction of their sexual desires."

Substitute "money" for "sex" and you have a perfect picture of Wall Street at the opening of the 21st century.