Sometime in the past few years a grifter entered my life. An honest to goodness con-artist with a story that would make the producers over at Dateline slobber. In the past three months there have been phone calls from a half dozen people owed money, law enforcement and ex spouses. In the past week it has come to my attention that the FBI is sniffing around, that law enforcement and judges are pissed that this person is on the streets.

There was an arrest followed by a few days in jail and then there was a large sum of cash produced which released this person from some of the fraud charges against them. Some people will get some of their money back, though surely not all. While our lovely neighborhood grifter was languishing in the LA County Jail the non custodial parent worked the phones in an attempt to locate their children. I passed along the phone numbers that I had available to me.

This makes me a villain.

I’m really frustrated and angry. I’m angry with myself for allowing someone into my life that my husband didn’t like. When we met this person he was suspicious of the stories, the houses and the cars. He stayed away, I ignored a few signs (and a bounced check to my favorite dog trainer ever) and proceeded to let this person into my life.

I would hear stories about the spouse and dutifully retell them to Mr. G. in an attempt to explain why there was only one parent. He would nod and say, “There are two sides to every story.”

Why don’t I listen to my husband?

A housekeeper wasn’t paid for several weeks. She showed up at my door weeping. I loaned her money but distanced myself ever so slightly from the friendship.

There were websites devoted to the frauds this person perpetrated online. This person was able to make them go away. New and similar complaints are popping up.

Two women I know and respect are collectively owed more than ten thousand dollars.

But still I’m the villain.

I’m sad that a few people will exit my life because of this. It’s clear that at least one person will no longer speak to me or to my husband. I’m not crushed by this because I fully expect that the full story will come out when more victims of the fraud come forward. I also expect that this person isn’t finished with stealing from people, from businesses and from marriages (yes there appears to be one spouse in his/her crosshairs that’s facilitating real estate scams, lending money and behaving rather flirtatiously).

Only the most sophisticated liar could find a way to convince a community that I was somehow responsible for their children ending up with the other parent. Logic tells us that the nine felonies pending and last year’s arrest for similar criminal activities are what made a judge think the children belonged somewhere else.

I’m not even sure why I feel compelled to blog about this. I’ve held this person’s secrets for a very long time. Bankruptcy, repossessed cars, bounced checks, swindled employees…. maybe my secret keeping is what allows a con like this to be successful? This person was so good in garnering my sympathy that I suspended all good sense for the better part of two years. I turned a blind eye to signs that no one else would have missed.

What infuriates me about this most isn’t that I’ll lose friends that I care about. I know I will and that’s a risk I took when I did the right thing for those children. I didn’t remove children from a house. I didn’t track anyone down. I gave a non custodial parent (who incidentally was the only parent not in jail and remains the only parent not on probation) a phone number to call. If the children were “taken away” it was by a judge AND by the felonious parent’s actions, not by anyone else’s.

The thing about losing these friends? I think they’re being taken for a ride as I was.

I’m stunned that something so otherworldly has entered my life. I feel like I opened my front door and laid out a welcome mat for evil. The most upsetting part of all is that I feel like I can’t trust my own instincts. That sucks.