B009HOTHPE EBOK (45 page)

A few months later I’m performing in Las Vegas and I arrange a meeting with Mickey and Janie Thomas at my suite at the Mirage Hotel. The meeting is to go over the performance results of the money that I had invested. Thomas lays out these Excel schedules that summarize all the assets I own, the returns on my investment, and where the money is being invested, which is mostly in foreign currencies and foreign bonds.

The statements show my investments are doing great and I’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars over a short period of time. To me everything seems perfectly legitimate, but it doesn’t make sense to Mickey. He says the markets are doing lousy and here’s this broker who is producing returns of about 40 percent. He’s becoming more wary about Thomas, especially since she’s not providing any official Merrill Lynch statements of my assets.

But I am getting excited and suggest to Mickey that maybe I should invest more money with Thomas. But he’s still suspicious even though he was proven wrong in the past when I asked her for some money back and ended up with a good return. I tell Mickey I want to move some of my kids’ money over to Thomas for her to invest. I could see now that he is starting to panic a bit. He decides to do further checking on the broker.

He has friends at Merrill Lynch who handle private clients in Los Angeles. He tells them about this broker. They tell Mickey the kind of returns Thomas is getting in the market are unheard of because it isn’t a boom market. Mickey’s friends at Merrill Lynch suggest he contact security officials at the company and have them check her out. By this time I’m due to make another tax payment to the government. Mickey suggests I again ask Thomas for more money. Merrill Lynch says if there’s going to be an exchange of money they want to be part of the transaction. I ask Thomas for the money and she balks at first. She says she needs more time to get the money because they’re not “liquid assets.” That’s an odd answer because usually if you’re investing in currencies or anything else like that, they are normally liquid.

A few days after asking her she comes through with the money, about several hundred thousand dollars. But this triggers a series of events that begins to unravel the ingenious scheme this woman had devised. Mickey gets a call from the security division at Merrill Lynch. They say there’s a major problem, which they can’t disclose right away, but that I have to return the money. They say they’ll explain in a few days and to just sit tight. The following day Merrill Lynch’s security division and the police do a search of Thomas’s home and office in Las Vegas. They are ready to arrest her. Thomas calls Segal at his office and says the whole thing is a big mistake and that it’s all going to be cleared up. She says it was a bookkeeping error at Merrill Lynch and other transactions that were done out of Denver.

We find out her husband, Bobbie Thomas Jr., was also involved in the scheme and he worked out of the Merrill Lynch office in Denver. Mickey tells me all this. I can’t believe it, there must be some kind of mistake. After all, my doctor friend recommended her and he earned a lot of money through the investments Thomas made for him.

The police go to arrest her but she disappears. They find her car days later in Los Angeles, near the airport. She disappears without a trace. A search warrant for Janie Thomas and her husband, Bobbie Thomas Jr. was issued in 1994 after they fled Las Vegas. The police and Merrill Lynch officials believed the couple fled to Mexico. In 2004, after being a fugitive for nearly a decade, Bobbie, a former financial consultant with Merrill Lynch, turned himself in. Authorities said they were trading customer accounts without authorization through false account statements they created to deceive their clients.

It turns out because of our investigation their elaborate financial shell game was finally exposed. Janie Thomas allegedly embezzled about $20 million from dozens of clients, including many schoolteachers in Las Vegas. Instead of giving out monthly statements they were mailed to Thomas and then she prepared Excel spreadsheets, which were doctored to show what a client had or didn’t have. If a client asked for money from their investment Thomas would take the money from somebody’s else’s account in order to pay them. It was the perfect scheme because referrals were always coming from friends who had invested with her.

It was a pretty successful scheme that continued for some time. Janie Thomas was a very persuasive person who knew the investment business. She knew what she was selling, she was professional, was sharp in our meetings together and was always well dressed. It took Merrill Lynch several months to figure the scheme out and even then they didn’t want it to become a big story. I’m glad I didn’t get burned for any money, and that I had poked around because we saved many people from losing a lot of money. After the couple disappeared, Merrill Lynch disclosed the scheme, the amount of money embezzled, and made restitution to the clients who were affected. Merrill Lynch voluntarily repaid about $17 million to clients. I got a settlement of about $250,000.

*   *   *

I’m a singer of love songs. I sing songs of everlasting love, how you’re the only one—and I believe in it. But sometimes these things don’t work out in your private life. I was married to Anne for thirty-eight years and I love her still. She’s the mother of my five daughters who have all brought terrific sons-in-law into our family, and we had a great life together. I love this woman. I always will. Getting divorced from Anne was just something I had to do for myself. Our kids were gone, our lives changed, our relationship changed. I can’t remain in something—even a long, loving marriage—when I’m no longer experiencing things honestly. I didn’t want to be dishonest to someone I love, even if that meant separating, and so in 2001, Anne and I were divorced. There was no animosity, no big fight—I just wanted out of the box. We still talk almost every day.

We worked out the terms of the divorce in the same offices where Tom Cruise was going through his divorce from Nicole Kidman at the same time. That was a war. I saw it going on and I said, “That isn’t going to happen to us.” We had one lawyer between us, Craig Leeds, a stand-up guy and good friend. I gave Anne everything that was legally hers, and I threw in our art collection (that is worth millions) because I know how much she loved it, and other considerations. But I said, “None of this down the middle stuff.”

I can’t say enough about my attorney Craig Leeds, and how diplomatically he handled my divorce from Anne, how friendly he made what could otherwise have been a trying situation. We all just sat down and talked.

*   *   *

The new musical environment has been somewhat of a dilemma for me and the Neil Diamonds and Burt Bacharachs of this world. There really aren’t that many outlets for our music anymore, what with the rise of rap and the urban radio format (hip hop, reggae, rhythm & blues, electronica). It’s been very difficult for a cross section of old-school songwriters. The market has diminished drastically. The infrastructure has changed and the opportunities are just not out there the way they were. I tell my friends, if I ever try to invest or bet into the Record Biz again they can shoot me.

Now it’s all rap, which was the first pop music to come along without a melody. What bothers me is this: if you don’t have melody, you don’t have memory. For instance, if you took over a big banquet hall and put a whole bunch of people in it, and you played the songs of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s and said, “EV-rybody sing!” most people could sing along with a pop song of the day. But if you did the same thing with the rap records of today and said, “EV-rybody sing,” I don’t know how many would be able to do that. There would be dead silence. Or am I just being an old fogey?

In the beginning, all of us who started in rock ’n’ roll—even today—you lived and breathed the music. You get up in the morning, you play the piano, strum a guitar, and carry on like a rock ’n’ roller right through the day until you fall down.

I may be old-school but I try not to be an old fart as well. Like rap music, for instance. Some of us don’t get it, but there’s a place in society for what it represents and anyway, it’s like a freight train and once it’s coming down that track, get out of the way because you ain’t gonna stop it, it’s coming through. Every generation wants its own music.

I don’t know that it’s necessarily true that romance is gone out of today’s music. I think that with rap we’re into a new genre of music—the same way we were in the late fifties when rock ’n’ roll came along. It certainly has defused it a little, but I think there is some romance left. I don’t think I’d like to see wall-to-wall of the same kind of music anyway.

When I started, people looked at the early rock stars and disliked them intensely. Mothers were against
all of us,
from the way Elvis wiggled to the way I cooed my love songs to teenage girls.

I got into the survival mode years ago. I’m a people’s writer so I figure what I write about is always going to be relevant. I just had to figure out how to go about it. What do you do when you find you’re no longer creating the flavor of the month, especially when music has gone viral—it’s now all downloading and file sharing?

*   *   *

Well, I’ve had a decades-long romance with Spanish-speaking audiences. I’ve performed all over in Latin America for over fifty years, and those audiences have been extremely supportive of me so I thought it was time to give them something more than just twelve tracks in English.

In 1996, I made
Amigos,
a platinum-selling album of Spanish duets with well-known Latin musicians. I recorded such golden oldies as “Tu Eres Mi Destino” (“You Are My Destiny”), which I sing with Lucero; “Pon Tu Cabeza En Mi Hombro” (“Put Your Head on My Shoulder”) with Myriam Hernández; and, of course, “A Mi Manera” (“My Way”) with Julio Iglesias. There’s also a duet with Celine Dion (an honorary Latin American) on “Mejor Decir Adios” (“It’s Hard to Say Goodbye”), which became one of the album’s more popular singles. Kenny G is on there, too (“Do I Love You”); as is Ricky Martin who duets on “Diana” with me; and the biggest kick of the whole project is my daughter Anthea singing “Do I Love You” in Spanish (“Yo Te Amo”).

Latin audiences got me early on. They loved “Diana,” “You Are My Destiny,” “Lonely Boy,” and “Puppy Love.” With Juan Gabriel I recorded “Mi Pueblo” (“My Hometown”), which quickly became a much-requested single at WCMQ-FM radio in Miami and all over Florida. The very fact that an American singer was willing to sing in Spanish with a Latin star seduced radio program directors such as WCMQ’s Betty Pino.

The
Amigos
album was a labor of love. I was proud to be able to give back to the Latin community, who have been so supportive for so many years. Especially pleasing a friend of mine from Mexico named Carlos Slim, one of the smartest most gracious and supportive friends anyone could want. Being in his company has always been heartwarming. Forget about his billions, his incredible success, he is one of the most down-to-earth and warmest human beings you would ever want to meet. He does things his way. “My Way” is his favorite song and I will never forget the evening at the Plaza Hotel recently where my dear friend Carlos was honored and given the prestigious Eisenhower Award. I had changed the lyrics to “My Way,” tailor made for him about his life. And as the tears swelled in his eyes my heart was full at that moment.

I got my old friend David Foster, one of the top producers in the world, to produce it (he produced Whitney Houston’s hit “I Will Always Love You” and Natalie Cole’s comeback album,
Unforgettable
). David Foster has been a close friend of mine since 1972. I brought him and his wife down from Canada in the early 70s. I recognized him immediately as a phenomenal talent. In his book he says I once tried to buy him out—his future producing, writing, etc. for $2 million. I have always believed he’s that talented. One of the best projects and times I have ever spent with my buddy David was when we shared our enthusiasm and commitment and talents to record our fellow Canadian, Michael Bublé, who, of course, turned into this incredible phenomenon. Foster is a songwriter, talent spotter, artist, and God knows what else. In his autobiography,
Hit Man,
he credits me with teaching him what fork to use, and for getting him hooked on traveling in private planes. He says I turned him into a jet whore. He’s got his eccentricities, like his fear of elevators—he will take only stairs. He stays on the low floors of hotels and will not be caught dead in an elevator. I once kidded him about his phobia by saying, “I’ll tell why you don’t want to go into elevators—you’re afraid you’re going to have to listen to your music.” He says that when he started out he coveted my lifestyle, but I tell you he has nothing to complain about now—he has more than arrived.

*   *   *

The idea of duets worked so well on the Spanish album, I thought, what the hell, let’s do it in the mother tongue … and I don’t mean Lebanese. So two years later in 1998, I made
A Body of Work,
on which I redid some of my best-known songs with Celine Dion, Tom Jones, and Frank Sinatra. More about that last one in a minute.

Other duets were with Tevin Campbell, Patti LaBelle, and Peter Cetera. I ended up singing “Do I Love You” with my daughter Anthea—in English—one of my favorite tracks on the album. It’s funny because when she came out of college a straight-A student, I asked her, “What are you going to do”? She turned around and said, “I want to be in show business and write.” I said, “Oh my God.”

I wrote some of the new ballads including “She’s My Woman, She’s My Friend” and “No Goodbyes” while I was recovering from a broken foot. I think being laid up for a month provided me with a weird creative opportunity. I was like, “Wow. I’ve got nothing to do here but write.” So I wrote.

I got David again, who also produced some tracks on
Amigos
, to produce tracks for
A Body of Work
, and was also thrilled to be able to work with Walter Afanasieff, someone whose talents I much admired who has had many hits to his credit, and is in the same league as David Foster.