Part 5
It took eight months.
Trevor pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and to a false-statement charge. Because I asked the prosecutor to consider it, and because
he cooperated fully with the district attorney’s office on Kristen, he received probation, a restitution order, and two hundred hours of community service. It was less than he deserved. It was more than he would ever have faced if I had called the police that first night and let the story end there.
Kristen was arrested on forgery and fraud charges. She tried to bargain, but Trevor had kept a notebook, a sloppy, frightened record of every conversation, every threat, every wire. He handed it over without being asked. She
took a plea deal with eighteen months in prison and a ban from ever holding fiduciary authority again.
The Kessler Private Group collapsed more slowly. Howard passed everything he had to the state attorney general and a federal task force that, it turned out, had been quietly building a case against Lyle Voss for years. The two-million-dollar note was voided as an unlawful loan secured by a fraudulent representation. Voss was indicted in the spring. I never saw him again, and I never missed him.
