Embezzlers: good people. Until they're not.

When it comes to criminal categories, I don't find thievery particularly interesting. Cat burglar. Stick-up artist. Bank robber. Pickpocket. Somewhere along the line those cat burglars, stick-up artists, bank robbers, and pickpockets made a decision (conscious or not) to become criminals, to participate in what can be a very risky business. That homeowner whose house you just broke into may be armed. That bank guard may be trigger happy. 

Basically, I'm happy when thieves go to jail, go directly to jail. But mostly I find them a pretty boring lot. For every Willie Sutton, who may or may not have said that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is," there are probably a million garden variety dullards who decided that being a thief beats working.

Embezzlement, on the other hand, I find infinitely fascinating. 

Unlike thieves, who likely don't up close and personally know they folks they're robbing, embezzlers steal from their workplaces - their employers, their clients - so they know exactly who their victims are. It takes a special someone to rip off the outfit that pays their salary, the client who's entrusted them with their business. 

I'm of the belief - based on zero actual evidence - that most embezzlers don't set out to become embezzlers. Embezzlement is a crime of convenience, something that a person just falls into. Maybe they started out thinking they're just borrowing the money. They're short this month, there's an emergency. Sure, they've stuck their hand in the till, but in their mind, they're planning on paying it back. Until they figure out that nobody's noticed, so why not keep it up? 

Other embezzlers may be envious or resentful of their clients, especially if their clients are well to do. They want a bit of the lifestyle they're adjacent to. 

This seems to be the case of Lisa Schiff, who was a well-known adviser to high-rollers (on was Leonardo DiCaprio) looking to invest in and/or collect art. Schiff had no desire to go through life like the poor little match girl, nose pressed up to the window of the brightly lit mansion. 

She was living the glam life: a TriBeCa loft that rented for $25K a month. Buzzing around in helicopters, because who wants to wait in Manhattan traffic in a cab - or even a black car. Spree shopping in Paris for items like jeans that cost nearly $1K. Being able to keep up with her clients - flying first class, staying in luxe hotels, dressing for success - gave Schiff "more mojo and confidence." Until it didn't.

While her clients and friends saw a successful woman at the top of her career, she hid a secret. She was stealing from them. To conceal her theft, she would do things like pay one client with another’s money, or leverage their friendships to keep them believing that late payments were always almost on their way.

By the time it all came crashing down in 2023, she had stolen some $6.4 million, from at least a dozen people. (Source: NY Times)

Today Schiff is broke, bankrupt. Seven of her former clients are suing her. She's living in much more modest digs - an apartment her parents are paying the rent on. She's hoping to stay out of prison. (Last fall, she pleaded guilty to defrauding her customers. She's been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.) At 55 - a single mother with a 12-year-old son - the life she's living is anything but charmed. 

Instead of jet-setting around and looking for and at works of art by emerging artists she deems bound for greatness, she's playing with Legos (building a replica of Hogwarts), feeling guilty about fleecing her clients, attending AA and Debtors Anonymous meetings, and worrying about what's going to happen to her kid. (The plan was that if she went to prison, her son will go live with Schiff's brother.)

But back in the day...

Schmoozing at cocktail parties and lecturing clients as an ethics authority, she seemed like the ideal art guru: getting access to hot artists before their paintings jumped in value; discreetly brokering sales with the major auction houses; and warding off predatory dealers looking to upsell and overcharge novice collectors.

Ethics authority? Hmmm.....

She was everywhere, quoted in newspaper pages and speaking at museums. But all last year, she was missing from the cocktail circuit, and absent from the auction floors, except in the fine print: Listed atop three lots in a November auction at Phillips were the words, “Property [including her own extensive art collection] to be sold to benefit the creditors of Lisa Schiff.”

After it's over and done with - prison sentence, probation, whatever - Schiff is not likely to ever be able to work as an art adviser. Most people, I believe, would give a murderer, or even a thief, a second chance before they'd hire an embezzler. She's only 55, so she's got a lot of years ahead of her. 

Ms. Schiff continues to believe that in some ways she was a good art adviser. She listed her tireless efforts to help her clients amass their collections, and claimed she often eschewed making money to steer clients toward art in which she truly believed.

Then she caught herself.

“I am the worst kind of perpetrator, because I seem so good,” Ms. Schiff said. “I’m a good person, I’m a good friend, I am loving and generous, I work hard — and I stole your money.”

Maybe this is why I'm drawn to embezzlers. Most of them probably are good people. Until they're not.