Jazz pianist scammed out of $20M

[brownie]

I was not aware jazz musicians could be that rich

Article in The Wall Street Journal

but I knew some of them could be that crazy

The total amount of the swindle is estimated at between $6M and $20M!

[AllenLowe]

I hate to blame the victim, but this seems incredibly dumb on his part -

[mjazzg]

I hate to blame the victim, but this seems incredibly dumb on his part -

have to agree.

Also, the victim doesn't know whether he's lost $6m or $20m? In a perverse thought I kind of wish I couldn't notice such a discrepancy...

[JSngry]

How do you make a million dollars playing jazz?

(...2...3...4...)

[Christiern]

I see by her name that Helga is of Icelandic origin, I wonder if she used some of that money to help steer her (once our) little island out of its dire financial straits.

Did they get the Grammy, too? Those thing aren't worth the cast iron that went into making them.

[Larry Kart]

How do you make a million dollars playing jazz?

(...2...3...4...)

"Mr. Davidson is the great-grandson of one of the founders of Schlumberger Ltd., a Houston-based multinational oil-field-services company that posted revenue of about $23 billion last year...."

Voila!

[Claude]

From the information given in the articles, the victim seems extremely gullible. How could he have fallen for this Opus Dei story?

[Ken Dryden]

Why would anyone fall this? I would think most of us would go to law enforcement, especially the FBI, if we thought

this was an international crime issue.

[Christiern]

If he had had a Mac, he would not have needed repairs and, thus, would have saved himself 20 million dollars. I have always maintained that Macs are a better investment—this proves it!

[JSngry]

How do you make a million dollars playing jazz?

(...2...3...4...)

"Mr. Davidson is the great-grandson of one of the founders of Schlumberger Ltd., a Houston-based multinational oil-field-services company that posted revenue of about $23 billion last year...."

Voila!

Exactly!

Q: How do you get a million dollars from playing jazz?

A: Start off with $23 billion!

[John L]

Right! The cause and effect are the other way around - if you have that much money, you can afford to be a jazz pianist.

[Claude]

Here's one of his album covers. Quite fitting for the current story

http://www.rogerdavidsonmusic.net/discography/

Edited November 12, 2010 by Claude

[flat5]

A Be Baa Band

[bertrand]

So this guy is probably 'smooth jazz'.

Now if anyone could con Kenny G. out of his collection of horns...

Bertrand.

[seeline]

I'm willing to bet that Davidson has some problems (mental health issues) that made him vulnerable to these people.

How sad.

[Rooster_Ties]

I'm willing to bet that Davidson has some problems (mental health issues) that made him vulnerable to these people.

That would almost have the be the only plausible explanation.

[Tjazz]

As they say, "A Fool and His Money are Soon Parted."

[Justin V]

Davidson's Ten to Twelve is a decent piano trio album. Helen Keane produced it four years after encouraging him to play jazz. It's too bad that those people were able to take such advantage of his extreme gullibility or other issues.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Justin V

[Niko]

The way the story is told here

http://www.lohud.com/article/20101110/NEWS02/11100342/-1/NEWSFRONT/Oil-heir-Roger-Davidson-says-he-was-a-victim-of--grifters-

is sufficiently different to make one wonder...

[Claude]

According to Bedi, Davidson entered his Mount Kisco store in August 2004 with a computer virus and was worried about the content stored in his hard drive, including decades of musical compositions, “massive amounts” of pornography and, most importantly, e-mails between Davidson’s family and lawyers addressing their effort to transfer a portion of the family’s wealth to the United States from Lichtenstein, where they were evading taxes from the United States, France and other countries.

All this on one laptop hard drive, and no backup.

Probably not the last version of the story.

[Dan Gould]

The way the story is told here

http://www.lohud.com/article/20101110/NEWS02/11100342/-1/NEWSFRONT/Oil-heir-Roger-Davidson-says-he-was-a-victim-of--grifters-

is sufficiently different to make one wonder...

Why? Because the guy in jail has started insisting that he just gave them the money?

If its true that they were charging his credit card $160,000 a month, what does that tell you? It tells me they were charging him for some ongoing "service" and royally screwing him over.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Dan Gould

[Niko]

The way the story is told here

http://www.lohud.com/article/20101110/NEWS02/11100342/-1/NEWSFRONT/Oil-heir-Roger-Davidson-says-he-was-a-victim-of--grifters-

is sufficiently different to make one wonder...

Why? Because the guy in jail has started insisting that he just gave them the money?

If its true that they were charging his credit card $160,000 a month, what does that tell you? It tells me they were charging him for some ongoing "service" and royally screwing him over.

the possibility that the victim was unusually panicked by the virus because he had all his tax evasion documents on his laptop makes his behavior sound a little less weird to me than before... still doesn't quite explain where Opus Dei comes in - but factoring in that probably both sides are making stuff up, at this point i can imagine a bunch of things that happened... (i mean - maybe these computer people just knew enough to have him go to jail if he didn't pay and that's what they got their money for... and now both sides are trying to get out of the whole thing by telling tales...)

Edited November 13, 2010 by Niko

[Dan Gould]

What makes you think anyone would have "tax evasion documents" sitting on a hard drive? The con man is telling tales to save his skin.

[Niko]

What makes you think anyone would have "tax evasion documents" sitting on a hard drive? The con man is telling tales to save his skin.

i mean - either Davidson is as naive as the story makes it seem - and then why no tax evasion documents on his hard drive - or the guy is not naive and that opens up all sorts of possibilities... at least, the tax evasion thing seems like a reasonably hard fact to be found out during the investigations (?) the computer guy will know that he will not get away with this story unless it's proved, if it's not it will probably make his matters worse - so i tend to believe Davidson had something to hide (the alleged porn collection does make the story sound a bit suspicious though)