The United States Attorney’s Office took eight months to build its case.
In June, a federal grand jury in Chicago indicted Adrian Voss on eleven counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering, for the scheme that moved $1.87 million out of Voss Meridian through Lakeshore Hospitality Partners and into the Cayman Islands account.
Clara Hayes was indicted on four counts of wire fraud as a co-conspirator. Lakeshore Hospitality was her company, her name was on every invoice, and she’d signed every one.
Clara pleaded guilty first, in August, in exchange for cooperation. She told the prosecutors everything.
It started six years earlier, when Adrian hired her as Martin’s executive assistant. She’d worked at a staffing agency before that. Adrian had chosen her, interviewed her, and told her what kind of woman his brother liked.
“Adrian said Martin was easy,” she testified at Adrian’s trial the next spring. She sat in the witness box in a plain gray dress, with no makeup and her hair pulled back. “He said all you had to do was make Martin feel like the most important man in the room, and he’d give you anything. He was right.”
The affair with Martin was Adrian’s idea. So was setting up Lakeshore. So was the forty percent markup on everything.
And so were the babies.
“After Martin’s fertility results,” Clara said, and the whole courtroom went still, “Adrian found out. He saw the letter from the clinic in Martin’s desk at the office. Martin never opened it. He just threw it in a drawer.” She swallowed. “Adrian said it was perfect. He said Martin would never get tested again because he didn’t want to know. He said if I got pregnant, Martin would believe it was his. And that would make me, and the baby, part of the family. Part of the trust. Part of the company.”
“And who was the father of that baby?” the prosecutor asked.
“Adrian,” Clara said quietly. “Both times.”
“Did Martin Voss know?”
“No,” Clara said. “Martin never knew. Martin thought he was finally getting the family he always wanted.” She looked down at her hands. “He was a really good father to them. That’s the part I can’t…” She stopped. “He was good to them.”
In the gallery, Martin sat in the third row with his mother. He put his face in his hands.
The jury deliberated for one afternoon and found Adrian Voss guilty on all thirteen counts.
In September, a federal judge sentenced him to seven years in prison and ordered him to pay $1.87 million in restitution to Voss Meridian. The Cayman account was frozen and forfeited, and about $1.4 million in it was still traceable. The government seized his condo in River North and his Porsche. Clara got eighteen months, with credit for her cooperation, and was ordered to pay $310,000 in restitution.
When the sentence was read, Adrian turned around in his seat and looked for his mother. Ingrid was sitting next to Martin.
She looked straight at her younger son, and then, slowly and deliberately, she turned away.
The divorce was final in October, almost exactly a year after the gala.
Under the forfeiture clause of the Voss Marital Trust, which Judge Strasser upheld in a fourteen-page opinion, Martin’s beneficial interest in the trust’s marital assets passed to me. That included the Lake Forest house, the investment accounts, and control of the fifty-four percent stake in Voss Meridian, held in trust.
I didn’t keep the house. I sold it in the spring for $3.2 million to a young couple with three children and a golden retriever. I didn’t want to live in that marble foyer anymore.
I didn’t keep the lake house in Wisconsin either, the one Martin wanted to give to Clara. Instead, I donated it to a nonprofit in Milwaukee that runs summer camps for kids in foster care. Now forty children a summer swim off that dock, catch fish they’re too scared to touch, and roast marshmallows over a fire pit Heinrich built with his own hands.
Martin repaid every dollar of the $1,104,600 he owed the company, plus interest, in eighty-four days. To do it, he sold his car collection, his boat, and most of his watches.
After the independent review cleared him of any knowledge of Adrian’s scheme, the board offered him a role back at the company. He didn’t want to be CEO anymore. He became head of fleet operations, the part of the business his father started with one truck in 1974.
“I always liked the trucks better than the boardroom,” he told me, a little embarrassed. “Dad used to take me to the yard on Saturdays when I was a kid. I’d sit in the cab and pretend to drive.”
The board hired an interim CEO, and a year later made her permanent. Her name was Patricia Okafor, a former operations executive from UPS who knew more about logistics than anyone I’ve ever met. Under her, Voss Meridian closed the $340 million credit line on better terms than Adrian had negotiated, without anybody’s life insurance as a condition.
As for me, the board asked me to stay on as chair.
I said yes, on one condition: that I could reopen my law practice at the same time.
Evelyn Marsh Law opened on a Monday morning in a small office on LaSalle Street, two rooms and a receptionist. I focus on two things: drafting trusts and prenuptial agreements for people who want to protect themselves, and representing spouses, usually women, who’ve been financially controlled by the people they married.
Margaret Kowalczyk sends me referrals every week.
“I told you to keep that license active,” she said at my opening, raising a glass of champagne.
“You did,” I said. “Best advice anybody ever gave me.”
