Stephen Douglass

Synopsis

The Tainted Trust is, in addition to a moving and action packed thriller, a brilliant depiction of what perfectly normal people will do for love and money.

No one wept when Jim Servito died. He left an estate amounting to $325,000,000 when his wife, Karen killed him in Caracas. He had accumulated the fortune the old fashioned way: he stole it from the U.S. and Canadian Governments using a brilliant gasoline tax evasion scam. The money is hot, deposited in a Cayman Island bank, and it is cursed. Managed by Alfred Schnieder, an aging and unscrupulous Caracas banker, it has a profound affect on everyone who touches it.

Mike King, the love of Karen’s life, and nearly ruined by the Feds’ scorched earth efforts to recover Servito’s fortune, convinces her to keep the money, instead of returning it to its rightful owners. With the assistance of Schnieder, they form The King Trust, a near fatal mistake. Desperate to recover the money, the Feds continue to spare no expense and effort to do so. Phillip, the only child of Karen and Jim Servito, assumes he is the natural heir to his father’s fortune. His greedy plans for the money have catastrophic implications for everyone associated with the trust. Alfred Schnieder relinquishes the trust’s management to Louis Visconti, a thirty-two year old financial engineer. Dubbed ‘The Crown Prince of Wall Street’, and substantially more unscrupulous than Schnieder, Visconti takes The King Trust to bewildering heights, then fails, miserably.

Kerri Pyper, Mike King’s twenty-three year old estranged daughter, has not seen or communicated with her father since she was nine. She discovers the existence of The King Trust and is shocked to learn that her natural father is its Trustee. Visconti, his pride and reputation crushed by his colossal investment failures, embezzles the fortune and flees to Monaco. He made only two mistakes: he deceived Alfred Schnieder and fell in love with Kerri.