Chapter reveal: ‘I Should Have Stayed in Morocco’ by Stephen Caputi

Title: I Should Have Stayed in Morocco

Genre: Memoir

Author: Stephen Caputi

Website: http://www.stevecaputi.com

Publisher: Twilight Times Books

Read the First Chapter

Purchase from Amazon / OmniLit

About the Book: 

Stephen Caputi’s memoir, I Should Have Stayed in Morocco, is not just another forensic account of billionaire Ponzi-schemer Scott Rothstein’s life. Caputi opens his heart and soul as he takes the reader on a journey through two decades rife with personal experiences, misadventures and wild escapades with Rothstein, climaxing with their now-infamous ramble in Casablanca. It’s a frighteningly true story of how friendship and loyalty was dedicatedly served to a master-manipulator, just to be rewarded with deceitful betrayal and a prison sentence.

PROLOGUE 

Amtrak Station, Deerfield Beach, FL

February 5, 2012 – Super Bowl Sunday        

“You fucking idiot, you should have stayed in Morocco,” I muttered under my breath to nobody in particular as I collapsed my forehead onto the headrest of the empty seat in front of me. I’d boarded the train at 7:04 a.m. yet still had my foot wedged intentionally in front of the door-closing mechanism to prevent the door from shutting—a feeble attempt to prolong an already excruciating goodbye scene. It had turned into a real-life enactment of one of my all-time favorite movie scenes from Casablanca.Only it was playing in reverse.

It was me, the nightclub owner who was departing on a train, not Ingrid Bergman boarding a plane. It was my girl Elizabeth who was being left behind, not Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick. She was crumpled up on a wooden bench just outside the train door, shedding the tears that can only be caused by the separation or death of a loved one. A distinct, sickening anguish shared by both of us.

It was like being conscious during a nightmare, only in this case the nightmare was real. Watching it unfold as if it were on the big screen added a surreal element to what was already a disjointed, fragmented scene, like a living 3D Picasso. My actions felt animated and somehow rehearsed, but the pain was real. I withdrew my foot and watched her from the window. The reflection staring back at me in the dual-paned glass presented another distorted Picasso-like image. The final minutes on that platform dragged on in slow motion, yet my heart was racing. A lifelong movie aficionado, I could only hang my head in recognition of the ironic, film-noir quality that my departure—and my life—had taken.

The horn sounded and the train began its slow roll, creeping up the track. The last thing I recognized before my eyes glazed over completely was a blurry wave and a futile kiss goodbye blown in my direction. I was going directly to jail, without passing GO or collecting $200. As a matter of fact, my entire net worth couldn’t even equal that figure. The $173 in my wallet and the shirt on my back were the only things I had left.

To make matters worse, I had manifested a blinding headache from fighting back the tears, resisting the urge to break down. I’d promised myself beforehand that I would stay strong and not crack. I was en route to FSC (Federal Satellite Camp) in Jesup, Georgia, a federal prison camp where I would self-surrender. After not working for three years, courtesy of the U.S. Marshals, my resources had dwindled, forcing me to sell my beautiful home in Forest Lake Estates to pay my huge legal fees. It had been my dream to gift my daughter the house where she’d been happily raised during her childhood. I was crushed. My destruction was now complete.

“I… I should have stayed… should have stayed… in Morocco,” I whispered again in staccato, my voice fading as I began to choke on my own words. Not long ago I’d been lounging in a suite at the Golf Palace in Marrakesh, staring at $16 million in cash and over $4 million worth of designer watches sitting on the floor at my feet. When I left Morocco, my bank account at the Banco Popular held a cool one million U.S. dollars. But no… I had to do the right thing… my father’s mantra ringing in my ears… and at least try to help recover the money stolen by my crooked partner, Scott Rothstein. People had been hurt, and I had been used and manipulated like a puppet in one of his colossal schemes. I was disgusted with myself. How could I have let that happen?

At the beginning of the government’s inquisition, I was optimistic that they would uncover the truth; I had never stolen anything from anyone, EVER, and this incident was no exception. I planned and expected to be grilled by men of intelligence that cared about the truth, men who would understand that I’d been duped. I’d been tricked by a master manipulator, fooled into believing him the same way everyone else did — includinghigh-ranking people in government: 2008 Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, Senator Arlen Specter, Governor Charlie Crist,Sheriff Nick Navarro, and even one of the most seasoned, intelligent and calculated businessmen on Earth: The Don.

They trusted him, as I had. Most of the “big shots” that Rothstein associated with took money from him in some way, shape or form… but I didn’t. Why was I held to a higher standard? I considered myself to be nothing more than an inadvertent participant. Little did I know that my lack of “knowledge and intent” to commit a crime was not a relevant defense. Only law enforcement was allowed the luxury of having the defense of non-intention when it came to committing a crime. The powerbrokers in their ivory towers protected their backsides when they changed the laws to facilitate more, quicker and easier convictions. In my case, the prosecutors’ hands were tied by laws that precluded them from applying more than a cursory dose of discretion, intelligence and common sense. I knew they were just doing their jobs within the framework they’d been given, feeding a steady stream of bodies into the insatiable Perpetual Prisoner Money Machine. They were blindly carrying out the orders of the taskmasters, the sociopathic Suits on Top (“SOTs”), regardless of the inhumanity of it. Wasn’t that what I did with Rothstein — follow his orders?The scary truth was that they had the power to punish me even more than they did. They could have destroyed me completely, but to their credit, they chose not to. Thank God! But in the moment, it provided no solace.The system was a beast.

This robotic process seemed to be no more than an unfortunate series of consequences resulting in the conscienceless destruction of people and families… by the millions. In practice, bona fide justice had been diminished, now relegated to being a random, inadvertent and often incidental byproduct of a perverse and calculated criminal justice system. Enforcement of written law had somehow become more important than the concept of law, and the concept of “equal application of justice” had been downgraded to a buzzword. I didn’t have $300 million dollars to stroke a check to the Feds to get them off my back like others did. In other words, I was totally fucked.

In retrospect, I was incredibly stupid for having given the remotest consideration to the possibility that the government would care even one iota about anything other than my conviction. That’s what I should have been convicted of, being naïve enough to think that doing the right thing would save me. Dumb-ass! I deserved a 60-month sentence just for thatalone. By the end of eighteen-months of legal “processing,” my frustration level had crescendoed to an all-time high—with myself, the system, and of course my ex-partner Rothstein.

         Regardless, the unthinkable had just happened; my last day had finally arrived. Every day for the past two years I’d wake up thanking God for giving me one more day of freedom. Now it was over.

My nightmare had inauspiciously begun on Halloween night a little over two years ago in 2009, when Liz and I boarded the Air Marac flight to North Africa. I became numb just thinking about that day. My ears started ringing… tinnitus on steroids. My mind began to race, flitting from one thought to another every few seconds. My heart palpitating, I wondered if I was about to have a heart attack. The coffee had turned to acid in my empty stomach and I needed to throw up.

         I SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN MOROCCO.

* * *

Two hours down the tracks I began to calm down. The train was approaching Orlando, which conjured up images of countless road trips that flickered like a slideshow in my mind’s eye. Vivid recollections of dozens of softball tournaments, celebrations and award ceremonies, deep laughter that turned to tears, cheap motel rooms and lumpy beds. I envisioned a virtual collage of theme park adventures flashing before me. Sounds of children screaming on the thunderous rides, and the smell of cotton candy that had to be eaten quickly before it melted in the torrid, sopping central Florida heat. Every one of them a memorable clip in a long-running highlight film of experiences with the crown jewel of my life, my little girl Lucy.

For a few fleeting moments I was freed from my ragged emotional body, floating with her through Disney’s magical It’s a Small World Fantasyland boat ride. It was the ultimate kids’ dream to see in real life what had previously only been imagined; to see the animated munchkins, toy soldiers drumming, talking lollipops and flowers, singing puppets and other characters come to life. She looked up at me in what may have been the first wave of realization of her young life and blurted, “Daddy, it’s my birfday and we’re at Disney World! Thank you, thank you, Daddy!”

She’d gazed up at me with her big, brown, loving eyes, a look that could only come from a three-year-old who adored her father, hugging me tight before beaming herself back into that Small World. Life had awarded me with a perfect moment. For fifteen seconds, everything had synchronized into a pure consciousness of love, appreciation and contentment shared between two connected souls. It was as close to perfection in this world as I’d ever felt, before or after, and I lived it again as if it had happened just earlier that morning.

As my reverie melded itself into the background of ambient train noises, I was pulled back into the real world. My solar plexus reflexively tightened as I unwillingly began to re-live the gut-wrenching departure scene that I suffered just a few hours ago. Wasn’t once enough?

It was no wonder that countless men had been driven to madness over the ages. History taught us that every man, no matter how stalwart, had his own personal breaking point. I didn’t want to think about it but couldn’t stop replaying the morning’s episode. As my old buddy Murph used to say, it was all over me like an eighty-pound fire ant. A scant few minutes ago I had been relishing moments from the highlight reel of my life, but I had become queasy again. Was there some kind of cosmic law governing the balance of energy that required a corresponding moment of negativity to countersink every moment of elation?

The pendulum was swinging heavily in the wrong direction. I wasn’t cut out for this; this was not my life, it couldn’t be! I’d been so happy for so long. Happiness was my natural condition, the default. How could that all be over for me now? What a wretched state; how could anything get any worse?

Oddly enough, a little voice inside my head whispered right back. “That’s what you think!” What I’d said to myself was the cosmic equivalent of sticking one’s tongue out at Satan himself, hissing, “I dare you!” Although I had no idea what powers governed forces like this, I did know that they were for real. Words do have power when they’re linked to emotions, and I proved it the hard way. A lesson learned: never tempt fate.

* * *

Self-pity is an exasperating, exhausting activity. My mind was shot after a few hours of thrashing myself, second-guessing every choice I’d ever made—especially the ones that created the conditions that lead to my current predicament. The incalculable complexity of the intricacies and dynamics at play combined with my legal woes and huge personal issues, such as losing my home and going broke, were throwing me into another mind-spin; more self-recrimination, guilt, trauma and pain.

I hated being miserable—more than most people. I forced myself to draw the line right then and there, and to stop thinking, at least for the time being. I collected myself, giving myself assurance that I was indeed okay for that exact moment. I’d have to forget the past and the future and force myself to stay in the moment. I understood the concept, but convincing myself of it was another story.

Focus. I was taking a nice ride through rural Florida and everything was fine. I was safe, warm and comfortable. I forced myself to relax and appreciate my immediate conditions. Nothing else was relevant. Perhaps things would stabilize for me now that I’d already sunk to the bottom of life’s apple barrel. I was just convicted of a white-collar felony, not as scathing as a convicted drug dealer or child molester. But, yes they were felons, too! Once inside we were all the same.

Perhaps I could actually survive this experience and someday emerge to join the normal rank and file of the community. Reality clawed back; it was too soon to begin plotting my comeback. I hadn’t even arrived in prison yet. I silently mouthed my favorite all-time managerial quote: “One disaster at a time.”

The soothing smell of comfort food wafted down from the dining car, so I jumped out of my seat and headed for the bar. I figured I could use a couple of Grey Goose Bloody Mary’s right about then. Ordinarily, setting the Goose loose this early in the day would have been unthinkable. As a businessman I needed to be lucid during the day, but under the present circumstances, it would be forgivable… and just might help right the ship. At least for now.

One of my three lifelong college buddies from Cornell University would be picking me up at the train station in Jesup in seven hours. He insisted on treating me to one last supper before depositing me at Hell’s doorstep. Certainly he wouldn’t judge me for drinking all day, especially since he would have polished off at least a twelve-pack on his way from Atlanta. He was from an athletic fraternity whose primary focus was drinking and I belonged to a drinking fraternity whose primary focus was athletics. The perfect match both on the field and off.

I felt extremely fortunate to have a few real friends left in this world. I’d pretty much been abandoned by everyone I’d ever known as soon as I lost the ability to do something for them. I was suddenly persona non grata after I lost my business and my status as a nightclub owner. As soon as I was considered to be “in trouble with the law,” my phone went dark—right when I needed support the most. On the bright side, at least I could tell who my friends were. My mind went temporarily blank as I threw back the first vodka.

I wondered what Elizabeth was doing and allowed my thoughts to revisit our last moments together once again… in more detail and even more emotion than before. Then twin daggers seared through my temples as my thoughts turned to my Lucy. Goddamn it!