I was once party to a crime. Well, it would have been a crime and I would have been an accessory to that crime had we actually went ahead with our plans. It was the mid-80's and pyramid schemes were spreading like a virus everywhere. Kids at school were starting them, guys at the gym were involved, people at work were frantically trying to convince people to join (and I worked at a bank!).
The idea was simple, and it seemed like it was a win-win proposition. Basically, the guy who starts a pyramid puts in $100. That guy only has to make one deposit. He then finds two people who also make a $100 deposit once to the guy who brought them in. The two new people then each recruit two others. Money keeps getting deposited and paid to each person in the pyramid above you. Feasibly, if you keep suckering people into joining, more and more money exchanges hands. The only people making money are those above you. Once the chain or cycle is broken, no more money is to be paid.
It sounded like a brilliant idea. I knew people all around me that I could get to join underneath me. I figured I'd be rolling in the dough with all of my marketing efforts. So I gave this guy, who was the boyfriend of a girl I worked with, $100. The thing is, I convinced my brother and our close friend to join too. $100 is a lot of money to a 17 year-old. As soon as I gave the guy my deposit, I felt guilty and scared. I knew something was not right.
I casually mentioned the idea of a pyramid scheme to my dad, and he immediately warned me that not only were they a waste of time, they were illegal. If I was a cartoon character, my head would have popped off. I went insane with anger, embarrassment, and shame. I wanted revenge and I wanted it quickly. It's at that point, I went into criminal mode.
Our friend, who I convinced to join the pyramid, owned guns. He was a card-carrying, NRA loving, Republican, whose favorite pastimes were reading Guns & Ammo, going to the range, and cleaning his guns. I figured that two wrongs did, in this case, make a right. We were going to hold this guy up.
It is kind of scary how easy the plan came to me. It may have been a combination of my anger, and the fact that I was pumping mass amounts of steroids in my ass cheeks that made it all seem so logical to me. Whatever the reason, I told our friend my plan, and he was all for it.
I was going to call the guy on the phone and tell him that I found a few more people to join the pyramid. I was going to ask him to meet us someplace dark and remote. I was also going to tell him that the guy wanted to see the money that could be made, and insist that he brought the money in a duffel bag. Once we met up with him, we would pull out our guns, take all of the money, and run. We walked through the plan several times; we called it a dry run. In our minds, this was easy and harmless. In reality, we were crossing a line.
Luckily, it was a line we never had to cross. When I called the guy on the phone, I decided to make a plea for the return of the money. I told him that I found out that this money making idea was actually an illegal scheme. I told him that if he didn't return all of the money I gave him, I would go to the police.
"Don't fucking threaten me," he said. "I'm not some asshole you can push around."
I seriously thought we were going to have to go through with the plan. "I told my dad about this," I lied. "I'm a minor, don't forget."
I could hear the guy's mind working through the phone. He could either return the money or push me into a direction neither one of us wanted.
"I'll give you your fucking money back, ass wipe," he yelled. "But I promise you, I will fucking kick your ass--or worse--if I ever see your punk-ass near me again. You got that?" I almost threatened him back. I felt like he was egging me on to go ahead with our plan. I felt like teaching him a lesson. I told him I understood.
In the end, he returned the money to me through his girlfriend. I seem to remember that he was arrested a couple of weeks later. His girlfriend brought another unsuspecting victim into the mix; another minor, if I remember correctly.
My record remains clean, thankfully, but I do feel kind of dirty.
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