Ponzi Schemer

My family has an old friend named Shawn Merriman. Our dad was his scoutmaster in high school, and he joined the church when he & my brother Brian were about 16. We've visited him & his wife Andrea in Colorado where they've lived a very posh lifestyle. About a year ago, he revealed to Andrea and their four kids that he'd been running a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme for the past 17 years (here's a news article). As you can imagine, this has been devastating to their family - not to mention all his victims. But Andrea has handled it beautifully. Miracles began to happen for her as she moved herself and her four kids (and little else - they were left with nothing since everything was seized by the gov't) to Orem, Utah, where she was handed a house and a Public Relations job.

Brian and his son Jordan were in town in March, and we got to go to dinner with Andrea and hear all about her last year, plus more details of Shawn's actions. We had a lot of fun, though the news she shared was SO shocking!

She has started a blog recently to document her story. I just know it will lead to a book deal and she'll soon be on Oprah and famous!! HAHA. She's an great writer and can really tell a story. It's fascinating and gaining popularity like crazy. On her fourth day posting, she had 800+ hits on her blog!!! Lots of curious readers!

It was great having Brian & Jordan here for a few days and getting to spend lots of time with them. Jordan was participating in a Ballroom Dance competition at BYU, so we got to go watch his team perform. Very talented kids!!