John Montgomery Presents This Week's	September 11, 1999	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	Martin Frankel
	Wine, Women and Song With Your Money

It happens to all of us occasionally. You're sitting across the desk from some guy trying to sell you insurance, a car loan, or perhaps some investments. He starts throwing figures and financial jargon around. You're lost. You thought you understood what was going on when you walked in the room, but now you wish you'd paid more attention back in math class. You're hoodwinked and hornswoggled, but you don't want the guy to know that, so you keep nodding and smiling. Finally he gets to the bottom line and you're so anxious to get the hell out of there that you sign where he says and slink home, hoping you haven't just committed yourself and your entire family to a lifetime of poverty. That's what you hope, but you have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that you've been slimed by a slick, slithering slut.

Surely Martin Frankel's clients had that same feeling. Martin, who's from Connecticut, was arrested in Hamburg, Germany this week after four months on the lam from charges that he embezzled $218 million from insurance companies he owned. Most of the insurance policies were the small burial type that cover funeral expenses, sold to elderly or military people. He also stole as much as $1.98 billion from the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation, which he established in the British Virgin Islands. If you went to Catholic school, you will remember St. Francis. He renounced his wealthy lifestyle and preached the necessity of a poor, simple existence based on the Gospels.

Martin had no such beliefs to get in the way of his lifestyle. He lived in two lavish mansions that he bought for $5.6 million in cash, along with round-the-clock personal chefs and a fleet of 20 cars. The cops found $10 million in diamonds, gold and jewelry on Martin when they arrested him. And as you might expect, Martin surrounded himself with a entourage of hot young women who were presumably attracted by his good looks and honesty. In fact, some investors used to call him the "Hugh Hefner of High Finance." In 1997, police investigating the hanging death of a member of Martin's harem at his mansion found a 2-foot leather riding crop and bondage-related videos near her body. The death was ruled a suicide. She must have been getting ready to ride a horse to warn St. Francis about Martin.

But don't get too angry at Martin. His story has a happy ending - for us, not for him. If you're tired of seeing jailed defendants strutting around on TV like cocky, smirking bastards, cheer up! You'll be delighted to know that Martin, now a resident of Hamburg's tough Holstenglacis prison along with a pack of drug suspects awaiting trial, is described by his attorney as being "nervous, depressed, frightened, uncomfortable, confused" and worried about possible retribution from "unspecified groups or people."

And who might these unspecified bullies be? The investors he screwed, the girls he screwed, the state insurance regulators who are going to have to pick up the tab, the policy holders who won't get their burial claims paid, and the Catholic nuns who intimidate little children with tales of St. Francis. If I were Martin, I'd really be worried about the nuns.