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FROM HOME COUNTIES TO HELL HOLE
© Published Daily Mail (U. K.)
Oct 27, 2005
by HELEN WEATHERS
TWICE a week, without fail, Chantal McCorkle phones her mother from America to
catch up on what's happening back home in England and how her family are doing
- especially her four young nephews and niece.
They are chatty conversations, so artificially cheerful that Diane Forrester
can sometimes fool herself that her beautiful 37-year-old daughter, who left
home at 19 to work as a nanny in Florida, is still living the American dream.
In fact, the dream, as they are both only too aware, vanished long ago. With
it went the Florida mansion, the Caribbean holidays, ski jaunts to Aspen, the
flashy cars and designer clothes she used to enjoy with her
property-magnate husband.
These days, Chantal has just the one 'designer' outfit: a shapeless prison uniform.
And 'home' for the past seven years has been a cell in one of America's notoriously
grim penitentiaries. Her 'friends' are now convicted
murderers and drug addicts.
Neither mother nor daughter dwells too much on the future, because Chantal doesn't
have one. By the time she is released, she will be 53 years old. Too old to have
children.
They are now pinning all their hopes on a new appeal against her sentence for
fraud and money-laundering - charges Chantal has always vehemently denied and
which, incredibly, in the UK would have warranted a fine or suspended sentence.
Following a re- sentencing hearing in Florida on October 7, the original trial
judge, Patricia Fawcett, is reviewing this disturbing case. Even she expressed
reservations over the length of the 24-year sentence she imposed seven years
ago, and her new decision is expected in the next few weeks.
As they wait, the anxiety is etched on the faces of Diane and her husband Len.
Used to having their hopes crushed, they dare not even think about the possibility
that Chantal might be coming home at last.
'This is Chantal's last chance,' says Diane, 57, a charity shop worker who lives
in Slough. 'After this there is nothing - only the possibility that the U.S.
authorities might allow Chantal to serve the rest of her sentence in a British
prison so she can be near her family.
'Chantal is always saying to me: "Mum, I'm so sorry." She is more worried about
us than herself, because she knows how heartbroken we are. She tries to be
cheerful, telling as about the friends she's made in prison and the aerobics
classes she runs, but we know she's putting on a brave face for us.'
LEN FORRESTER, Diane's husband of 30 years and Chantal's stepfather adds:
'We go to see her twice a year in prison because that is all we can afford. We
live for those visits. When the time comes to leave, it is always a wrench.
'If this appeal fails, we'll probably be dead by the time Chantal is released.
The thought of her spending the best years of her life in prison, never able
to have children, is unbearable. She still doesn't understand
what she's done wrong.' So precisely what was Chantal's crime - deemed so terrible
that she will remain in prison long after killers serving alongside her are released?
In January 1999, Chantal and her husband William, now 39, were jailed for almost
a quarter of a century apiece following an FBI investigation into the couple's
get-rich-quick property business, selling videos and seminars on how to make
a fortune buying and selling repossessed property.
The couple were arrested after disgruntled customers - lured by the McCorkles'
glamorous TV 'infomercials' - complained that they hadn't made a penny, only
to be met by dead phone lines when they then demanded refunds.
Federal agents subsequently discovered that some of the ' satisfied customers'
featured on the McCorkles' extended TV adverts were in fact actors, and the helicopter,
mansion and Ferarri used to display their trappings of wealth simply hired props.
This deception, according to prosecutors, constituted fraud. And each time funds
were moved from account to account - no matter how innocently - this counted
as separate offences of money-laundering, for
which the McCorkles were penalized on a 'points' system.
'I remember sitting in court and listening to the judge giving a few months
for each separate offence and thinking "Well, that's not too bad",' says Len, a shop
fitter. 'But they all ran consecutively, not concurrently, and then you add them
all up, divide 292 months by 12 and think: "Oh my God." Diane adds: 'I was
in a terrible state, screaming and crying.
Chantal was in tears, completely stunned, as she was led away in handcuffs to
start her sentence.
She would have received a shorter sentence if she'd killed someone.
'I kept thinking: "This is some terrible mistake." Her only crime was naivety.
Until the point she was convicted, she truly believed that she would be found
innocent.
'I remember begging her to come home after she was investigated by the FBI,
but she told me: "No Mum, I haven't done anything wrong, I've got nothing to
hide."
'People talk about them running a scam, but there were people who did make
millions after attending William's seminars and buying his books and videos.
It was a genuine business.' Over the years, the Forresters have spent£10,000
on air fares and legal fees in their quest to free their daughter. Each month,
they pay $200 into Chantal's prison account so she has money for toiletries,
food and her weekly telephone calls, during which they try to remain positive.
They have the support of Labour MP Tom Clarke, who has written personally to
Judge Patricia Fawcett, while 127 MPs signed an Early Day Motion expressing concern
over Chantal's case.
In 2003, the Forresters' hopes were briefly raised - only to be dashed when Chantal's
request to have her appeal reheard was refused. Now they have been given a second
chance, with lawyers appealing on the grounds that the trial judge sentenced
Chantal for offences which were never admitted or heard by the jury.
Indeed, two-thirds of Chantal's sentence was awarded on a 'points system' for
offences she was not prosecuted for.
And in another dramatic twist, at the hearing on October 7, William McCorkle
- from whom Chantal is now divorced - admitted for the first time full responsibility
for the fraud, absolving Chantal of all wrongdoing.
Len Forrester, who was in court for the hearing, says: 'Of course we were happy
that William had at last admitted responsibility, but we were also very angry.
Why did it take him so long? If he'd admitted it in the first place,
Chantal might never have gone to prison.' DIANE adds: 'Chantal has no feelings
for William now. She trusted him and he betrayed her. He knew she had nothing
to do with the running of the business, but he said nothing. We don't know why
he's admitted it now, but we have been told that he has found
God in prison.
'What difference his admission will make, we don't know.
Chantal's lawyers have told us the best we can hope for is that her sentence
is cut to 10 years. She would be 40 when she was released, so perhaps she would
still have time to meet someone and have a child of her
own.
'But what we want most is for Chantal to come home and serve the rest of her
sentence in Britain, so she can see her family.' The Forresters rue the day
that Chantal, who has two sisters, Joanne, 33, and Kerry, 28, left her Berkshire
home to work as a nanny in Florida for friends of her father.
'It was never meant to be permanent,' says Diane. 'But she met William McCorkle
in a nightclub and fell in love. It was because of him she decided to stay.'
McCorkle - a handsome Mexican national - had a thirst for
success. He failed his estate agent exams four times before starting his money-
spinning business, which would eventually net them $7million dollars.
'Chantal was very young for her years, and she was swept off her feet by William,'
says Diane. 'He was a real go-getter.' 'One day, she phoned to tell us she was
getting married to a man we hadn't even met. We were shocked at the speed of
it, but she explained that her temporary visa had run out and
the only way she could stay was if they got married. I asked her "Do you love
him?" and she replied: "Very much."
'It was such short notice we couldn't go to the wedding, but when we did visit
we didn't really warm to William. He struck us as very controlling and he seemed
to resent our presence. It was as if he wanted her all to himself.
'Chantal never really talked about their business, and for a long time they
hardly had any money. It was only in the last 18 months before they were arrested
that they started to earn a lot, but they were never glitzy about it.' It was
in 1992 that William McCorkle set up Cashflow Systems Inc - a
company selling videos at $69 dollars a time, showing prospectors how to make
a fortune from foreclosures - buying repossessed houses low and selling them
high in a booming property market.
At first no one believed him and the business crashed. Undeterred, he set up
again - this time in Chantal's name because, having been made bankrupt, he had
a bad credit rating.
As company president, Chantal signed all the papers, but would later claim she
never read any of them. Although described by prosecutors as the 'brains' behind
the company, she maintains she never had anything to do with the running of it
and simply looked after administration, payroll and running the canteen for the
couple's 200 employees.
Certainly, all the couple's 23 bank accounts - which contained $7 million dollars
at the time of their arrest - were in his name. And while Chantal did appear
in the infomercials, Diane and Len Forrester doubt whether she was aware that
it was illegal to use actors and hire props to sell a product.
Anyway, says Len: 'Most of the people in the infomercials were genuine customers
who had made millions.' The infomercials were hugely successful and were soon
generating sales of $200,000 worth of videos each day. The
McCorkles moved into a $1m mansion in Florida and, after years of struggling,
finally had money in the bank.
THEN William McCorkle - eager to make even more money - started to think even
bigger, promising viewers that if they could find the perfect repossessed property,
he would pay for it and split the profits with them when he sold. All customers
had to do was sign up for more videos and courses costing $900.
Of the tens of thousands of customers who signed up, only 12 deals were ever
completed. When the phone lines to the McCorkles' company developed 'a problem'
and refunds didn't materialize, the Florida District Attorney was called in.
Diane had just flown over to Florida to enjoy a Mother's Day cruise with Chantal
when the federal agents stormed the McCorkles' home. 'It was about 7am and all
these armed officers came pouring in to search the house.
'Chantal was very co- operative because she was adamant they'd done nothing wrong.
She thought it was a simple mistake which would be cleared up very quickly.'
Straight away, William set up a $1m fund to repay customers and they thought
that would be the end of it.
Instead, it was just the beginning.
Today, as she awaits the judge's decision, Chantal remains locked up 23 hours
a day in a holding cell at Seminole County Jail before she is returned to the
Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, California. For how long, only Judge
Fawcett can decide.
In a letter home, Chantal writes: 'As I sit on my bunk bed in the county jail,
I look around and wonder what my life has become. This can't possibly be the
final chapter.
'With time off for good behaviour, I will be released on January 11, 2020.
It's so difficult even to write that date. I am praying that my judge will reduce
my sentence enough that I can gain hope that one day I can be a mother. I am
37 now and it's a great worry that I may never have that opportunity. I feel
like my heart is going to break.
'In the courtroom on October 7, I was so nervous I was shaking. My ex-husband,
finally, after seven years, publicly took full responsibility. I looked at
my attorney and said: "Finally." Why had he not done this before?
'Usually you say better late than never - but this time I'm afraid it's too late.'
So much for Chantal McCorkle's American dream.
