Three Long Island lawyers stand accused of teaming up with a Manhattan dominatrix and a Manhattan fetish club to run a $50 million mortgage scam. —Robert J. Ambrogi writing in "Lawyers, Dominatrix Whip Up Mortgage Scam"

If you don't click on the link, you're a better person than I am.

We learn some background to the scam from Eric German and Sandra Peddie—

Prosecutors said the fake borrowers, or straw buyers, were recruited by a Manhattan couple, Donald MacPherson, 65, and Carrie Coakley, 38, from among the clientele of their sexual fetish fantasy business, Arena Studios....

According to Arena Studios' Web site, the Broome Street company provides space for dominatrixes to meet clients, boasts a "beautifully decorated and fully equipped private dungeon," and, among other items, rents out "medieval torture" implements, bondage furniture and three kinds of whips.

Imagine that! People are paying good money when they can enjoy the same sort of thing from the government for free.

But the the Associated Press account almost brought tears to my eyes. It came so close to home—

"The damage these defendants single-handedly caused to our local economy is simply appalling," Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said....

Yet what did the community expect? A free ride? In a capitalist society we must all pay for the entertainment—and the less you have the more it costs.

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