![]() ![]() That means he personally conned people out of more than $6 million. He got 30% of whatever he talked a person into investing. Since Diamond was one of the operation's top salesmen, he made $2 million in commissions in just four years on the job. Needless to say, no one ever made a dime, except the people running the scam who cleared $40 million. Give us your money and we'll put it into this great 900 number business, or this online shopping network, or this hot new internet service provider. ![]() But after that I just thought geeze, I've got to find some way to come clean about this.ĭavid Diamond was just one of a whole bunch of guys making money hand over fist in an operation in southern California that was basically running the same scam over and over, under different names, for seven years. They went home, and I sort of imagine them stopping at a Hardy's just outside of Ithaca, getting a burger as soon as they say goodbye. And I felt so bad about it afterwards.Īnd they never once complained. They just wanted to come down and see me there and feel all proud that I was there, and I was sort of hiding them out in this vegetarian restaurant. They never complained once about doing it. I mean, financially they were really stretching themselves, and we were taking out all sorts of loans, and all of those things that people do in order to go to college. And I just thought, geeze, you know, these people, my parents, have really given up a lot for me to come there. They were so willing to go along with it because, for some reason, they thought I really wanted to bring them there. And there I was bringing them here.īut they were so game about it. And I could he was sitting there thinking geeze, I just drove an hour and a half, all I want is a steak, and a baked potato, and a beer. And I was looking at my parents across the table, and they were dressed up and they were excited to be coming down, and I could tell my dad was sitting there and sort of perusing the menu and thinking, well, maybe this lentil salad will be good. There's the Moosewood cookbooks that are out.Įxactly. And so what I did was make a reservation at the Moosewood Restaurant, which is in Ithaca. At someplace either, A, where nobody else's parents will be, or at a vegetarian restaurant. And then, of course, the cat would be out of the bag.Īnd so I thought, I've got to make a reservation at a restaurant. And somebody across the field would see Mr. And it suddenly occurred to me, this real panic set it, that my parents would come down, and we would go to a football game and my dad would buy a hot dog. ![]() And in that week leading up to parents' weekend, everybody's talking about their parents coming, and everybody's making reservations at restaurants, where to eat on Saturday night, and everybody's sort of planning on taking their parents to the football game on Saturday during the day. And so they drove down from Camillus, which is about between an hour and an hour and a half, they came down. We would freeze the Arby's roast beef sandwiches and then we would have them there. And we would bring home this giant box full of those tin foil covered Arby's roast beef sandwiches, and we would stuff them in our freezer. And they would put them in this cardboard box. And we would go in there and we would buy 48 Arby's roast beef sandwiches. So my dad and I would go to Arby's, on say, a Thursday afternoon or something. I don't know if you have those out in Chicago, I think they're countrywide. I mean, not only had I had hundreds of hamburgers, and gone to the McDonald's drive through hundreds of times, but the counter point situation that I always think about when I remember this time was that, when I was a senior in high school, my family, for time saving reasons, decided that a great thing to do would be to go to Arby's Roast Beef. And of course, I had grown up- just to put this in context for a second, if you don't mind. And vegetarianism was the thing that I chose. And I had to think of something to say about myself that seemed interesting. It was like suddenly I'd become possessed. But at the time I had no idea what I was saying. I'm not entirely- well, I mean, I have some ideas now about why I said that. And there's a sort of puzzled look on everybody in the room. Because it wasn't even as if I said well, I'm a vegetarian. And then everybody in the room sort of turned and looked at me. I said, I can't take that because my parents are vegetarians. And then, completely unplanned, I suddenly said, as a slice of pizza was passed to me, this pizza with sausage on top of it. And worldly beyond what I am now, frankly.Īnd I remember sitting there at the time thinking, oh my God, I'm so out of my league here. And they seemed sort of worldly in ways that was just beyond my wildest imagination. And so it suddenly seemed like this incredibly impressive group to me. ![]()
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