Big Story In Little Harrison, Arkansas


Sherry & I were walking into the Harrison Wal-Mart yesterday and saw this headline (Brown surrenders to police ) screaming out from the newspaper box. It didn't show up the paper's website until this morning.

I'm not a criminal attorney, but it seems odd that she was able to stay free by posting only $5,000 cash, considering the amount she has allegedly already confessed to taking ($400,000), plus whatever additional amounts are discovered after a complete audit.

Brown loses real estate title issuing license - Her name is mud in this town; so she will probably have to relocate to another state in order to find a new job.

The chain reaction ripple effects from this mess are spreading very wide. It's not just the people who had money in Harrison Abstract's account that are suffering the consequences. The sellers whose money is tied up were normally planning to use those funds to buy something else, delaying or canceling that deal. The sellers of those properties are then without the proceeds that they may have been planning to use for another purchase. It goes on for several levels.

This is going to be a field day for lawyers. Even after everyone is hopefully compensated for all of their direct monetary losses, there will be litigation over the other deals that fell apart because of the inability to access the funds in a timely manner.
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 7/17/2003 10:18:00 AM Send this post: