Hi, I am reaching out for help for my friend Michelle because life can be running so smoothly and then the bottom falls out underneath us. She is in desperate need of help and I'm hoping if we all pull together it will move mountains for her. She will be needing money to back pay and forward pay things that she thought were all taken care of. When I say the bottom fell out that's exactly what happened! Not only was she deceived; but she was lied to, stolen from, and had her heart broken.

Michelle will need help with extensive lawyer bills for divorce, her home, and her family. Please donate for this unexpected, fragile time in her life and help her see some light.

Michelle's words...

This has been the most humbling and humiliating experience that I have ever had to deal with, and I have dealt with a lot. To share this with all of you is difficult but I feel that I need to let you all know what is going on to keep Emma, Trevor, and myself safe and sane. You are my support, and your prayers and love are what will bring light to our lives through this enormous task that we have been presented with.

I have more questions than answers at this point. I will tell you what I know in the short version of this complex and dark story that continues to unfold. I feel partly responsible for letting this happen as when my mother’s health was declining, I allowed my husband to take over the finances while I cared for my mother and spent time with her. I trusted him. He was my person. This is where the marriage to my

high school crush begins to unravel.

It seems to the best of my knowledge that the job that he has talked so proudly about over the last three to four years never actually existed. He was supposedly a financial advisor and held his series 65 license. He went to his office every day, often as early as three or four am. He claimed that he invested for two large companies one being Koch in Palm Springs. He was so excited to share with me that he had won three out of four quarters last year. He won trips and quite an increase in earnings. The contracts for these big-ticket items never came, but the excuses did. It was around November that I began to question the reality of some of these claims. Emma, her bestie and myself took a trip to meet him in Miami. His assistant set up two suites for us. He had spent a couple of days with the owner of Koch golfing at the Trump golf course when I began to question him. He immediately became very evasive. We never fought, but in Miami we did. He always knew what to say, and perhaps I didn’t want to face what I was beginning to discover, so I let it go. Everyone has been asking “What was he doing?” This is a question that I can not solidly answer. My guess is day trading, maybe gambling? He has changed his story so many times when I ask this same question of him that I am not even sure he knows the truth. I believed that we were financially doing great that I quit my teaching job to pursue my dream job as a life coach. Money has never been important to me, I am not materialistic. I am financially responsible and

would never have left my job had I known that I was the only person paying the bills, or in our case not paying the bills. I was let go from my life coaching job last Friday. I am not mentally or physically able to continue working at this time. Every minute of my time is spent trying to legally iron out this mess and to keep myself strong for Emma and Trevor.

What I know so far is my 401k is all but wiped out. I have a negative balance in a savings account that I have contributed to. (I put the money from my mother after she passed in this account, and it's gone.) There are 12-15 credit cards maxed out in my name that I did not apply for or have any knowledge of. A Discover card was taken out in my name the day my mother died. My mother died and he was applying for credit cards with my name while I was grieving and trying to grasp what was happening. I also found out he went so far as to borrow money from his mother to pay for my mother’s funeral. I never even had a funeral for my mom. I am being charged with tax evasion and I don’t even know what that means. My water bill has not been paid since 2020. My mortgage has not been paid for the past year. Large sums of money are owed for work that was performed on my home which I believed had been paid, and this is just the beginning.

I have pulled myself out before and I will do it again. Trevor has returned to school at Eau Claire and Emma and I are trying to resume life without the father she thought she had and without the financial security I believed was there. It is the support from my friends and my family that this will be possible for us. We may need a little help getting back on our feet, but come hell or high water we will get back on our feet. Thank you in advance for all the love and support. I am determined to make sure that this does not happen to another family and that he will never be able to harm another person.