I have enough experience with sales staff to separate the good from the bad; the ones who may tiptoe around the edges of the law, and those who willingly cross over it, to maximise their returns, irrespective of the possible consequences. Back in the nineteen seventies, I was acting as outside legal counsel to several chemical companies, and I had sufficient contact with their sales staff, to teach me how to recognise the bad eggs. The problem is, the bad ones are frequently the most successful, and when they cut corners, management frequently forgives their transgressions. Unfortunately, lawyers do not generally have the power to terminate problem partners, so I decided to move on.

One of the companies that I had examined had strict rules about its operation, and they were interested in me. That is where I ended up, plus my compliance writing and lecturing on the side but the real story remained with the company formed by the top salesman that I had just left. Here's the sad story:

• Extremely successful salesmen, those who earn seven figures annually, often believe that their success entitles them to privileges over and above those enjoyed by others. The individual, who had a live-in girlfriend for several years, also had two outside love interests. When he went on trips, he would often take one or the other along. At the time that he was establishing his new business, he was seeking to extricate himself from the nine-year relationship. She obviously expected marriage, but he was already mentally moving on.

•  Was his girlfriend too materialistic? One time, when we visited them on our way to Palm Beach, she bored my wife to tears with a fifteen-minute recitation of all the material things they owned. Since she had nothing going on herself, the girlfriend stuck like glue to the salesman. Eventually, he decided to terminate the relationship, give her some money, which I considered "palimony," and move her out of his house.

• She had other plans. a few month earlier, she had persuaded him to buy her a .357 Magnum handgun, ostensibly for her personal protection, during his overseas trips. when she was home alone. One day, when he was out of the house at work, it appeared that she read an e-mail on his computer from one of his two "outside" girlfriends. Incensed, she waited for him to return.

• The best guess is that she picked an argument with him, and then grabbed  the firearm, allegedly shot him in the back, subsequently making an emergency call to the authorities. He died then and there.   When paramedics and the police arrived, she alleged that he was beating her, and threatening her with a knife. She did have some minor injuries, but it is believed that they were self-inflicted. She immediately checked herself into a medical centre for treatment.

•  She claimed self-defence, and for a number of months, the investigators appear to have insufficient evidence with which to charge her, but eventually, listening to pleas from family and friends, they did obtain an indictment for First-Degree Murder.

The trial is set for October. If there's a moral here, it's that material success should never be allowed to
go to your head, and that if someone has been with you during your road to success, they may take offence when you seek to discard them.

Next Chapter: Writing about financial crime and consulting turns out to be fun after all.

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