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When the swindled clients began looking for their money, the pathway was framed with lies, deceit and dead-ends. Donald Marquis Bickerstaff, age 38, seemed to have vanished with no trace.
He left a wife in his five-story home in Mill Valley, an ex-wife and some children in an upscale house in Tiburon, a house in Poway, a Mercedes, a Porsche, many racing horses at tracks throughout California and a lot of bewildered and frightened clients.
Bickerstaff, a fast talker with a golden tongue, convinced folks to invest their money through him. Claiming to hold a Master’s degree in economics from Birbeck College, London University, in England, Bickerstaff was not above distorting his personal portfolio to support his claims. In order to obtain a $750,000 line of credit from Pacific Bank in San Francisco, the con man claimed he had $2 million in securities held by WS Griffith and Co. The Griffith people told another story, however, claiming that Bickerstaff had counterfeited Griffith documents in order to copy them and convince clients their money was safely invested.
An arrest warrant charging Bickerstaff with bank fraud was issued and the FBI started looking for him. They believed he had fled the US to his native Great Britain—where extradition would not have been possible. Luck was with the authorities, however, and Bickerstaff turned himself in. He faces two counts of bank fraud.
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