After he left I went to bed. He was supposed to work the midnight shift.

Over the next few days he never came home, didn’t call, didn’t answer my calls or the other tenants. They were coming to me with problems.

Now I had finally met the owner, but he still thought I lived upstairs. All of a sudden he came to the apartment and caught my son and I there and wondered what was going on and where was “P”?

Well things started to fall apart fast. We all told him what we knew and the owner started to think I was in collusion with “P” and I said no I didn’t know what he was doing. He told us he was part owner. The owner said no he wasn’t. Well then it all started to come out. All the deals he made. The money he was hiding and using. I was scared to death. This guy was a big fancy DC lawyer.

We all went to the police and filed a report. The only thing the police really cared about was could my son say he molested him. They had several complaints. My son said no. They couldn’t change his mind. They lost interest, but the owner filed a suit against him because he lost almost $100,000. Ours were attached but of no significance to the police.

As the owner worked through all the bills and stuff he found out that he hadn’t paid anything in months and the utilities were about to turn off. I suddenly had a electric bill to pay, the cable went off. I couldn’t afford that huge apartment and he wasn’t honoring anything about we had all paid rent to “P”. He brought someone in and he lived with us for a bit to manage the place, but I had to find a place to go because the rent he wanted and the fact I would have to share the apartment with this other man was not cool for me. He threw the kids in the basement out.

I started packing my belongings and found “P” took nothing with him that didn’t fit in his gym bag. That was why he was getting rid of papers. I found a letter from his wife who he owed money to for the kids he demanded so no one would know he was gay and he did something the federal government wanted him for as well. So he ran.

That is how we ended up with my mom and dad. My son had 2 years of high school to go through still.

Eventually he was caught and I went to the sentencing for closure. He looked nothing like the man I knew. I got nothing back and filed for bankruptcy. I won’t go into all the things he actually did to others there and on the job.

Have I learned anything? Yes and no. I am still too far trusting, but just a little more cautious.

THE END

Tessa