Lynch had worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, where he helped develop a prescription drug program for seniors. He was retired when he met Scott, who touted "safe" investments in coins, metals and stocks. Like Madoff, Scott presented clients with documents purporting to show high rates of return, Maryland authorities said. But in reality, they said, much of the clients' money was actually being spent on gambling trips and other personal expenses rather than in those illusory "safe" investments.
Today, Lynch is approaching his 80th birthday living in the rented first floor of someone else's house in Beaver, Pa.
He had to sell his own house after losing all but about $60,000 of his savings, which had come from a lifetime of work and what his father had left him in his will. He doesn't do the traveling that he anticipated he would do after retiring from his job with the state but considers himself lucky that Social Security payments allow him to keep a roof over his head and food on the table.
There were other terrible stories among Scott's victims: A young man whose parents had died in a plane crash lost the money they had left him and had to leave college. Clancy, who became friends with Scott after meeting him through mutual friends at an Orioles game, was particularly angered over the $100,000 he gave Scott to start a college fund for his best friend's children. The friend, whom Clancy had known since their days as classmates at Loyola High in Baltimore, had recently died, and the author had promised him he would take care of his kids.
"It's all really sad," Lynch said. "A lot of people ended up completely broke."
Now we're hearing the sad tales coming out of the Madoff scandal, particularly among the Jewish charities that trusted him, given his own philanthropy and his reputation on Wall Street, where he had once been NASDAQ chairman. Surely there's an especially horrible fate reserved for someone who, if the accusations turn out to be true, could rip off Elie Weisel, the Holocaust survivor whose foundation had the bulk of its assets, some $15 million, invested with Madoff.
How this could happen, and on such a huge scale, is no doubt a complicated thing. There surely was some greed involved in some cases, that allowed people to believe that their investments were growing even as the markets were faltering. There was the comfort factor, that people you knew, or at least knew of, were investing with the guy. And there is the question, now under investigation, of how federal regulators managed to miss such a large Ponzi scheme for so long.
But, in the end, I have to wonder how we can ever be protected from our own selves, or rather, those charming, convincing con artists that somehow burrow their way into our trust.
Richard Scott's victims all seemed rather wistful even after learning how they'd been bilked, remembering how much they enjoyed his friendship - the meals and parties they had shared, the sporting events and concerts they had attended, the way their kids called him "Uncle Richie."
Perhaps their affection was deepened by the fact that he was also making them money - or at least claiming to be making them money - and yet, it seemed no less genuine for whatever profit motive might have been mixed in there.
That, of course, only made it doubly crushing when the scheme and the friendship collapsed at the same time.
"Definitely it's a financial loss," as one of Scott's investors told us at the time, "but it's also a personal betrayal."
