Mother's Keeper

But Lisa, for once, wouldn't be available to protect her mom.

Though Lisa's childhood was tumultuous at best, it hadn't constrained her when she escaped Westlake. After graduating from Denison College in 1985, she studied at the prestigious London School of Economics and eventually took a job as director of marketing for the ICH Corporation. The job was in Louisville -- back in the States, but safely away from Cleveland.

"I think, subconsciously, Lisa was trying to create a border, yet still remain somewhat accessible," says friend Nancy McDonnell. "I think she was in a way attempting to create a life on her own . . . We all thought this was a good thing."

Lisa spent a year looking at houses before deciding on a hundred-year-old historic home. But she awoke on Sunday mornings missing the excitement of looking for a home: the open houses, the constant search for deals. Soon she found another historic home in need of renovation. So she put her recently purchased house on the market and sold it for a solid profit. Like that, real estate became a side hobby, the way marathoning or cooking is for others. "I love that it's a creative outlet and that it's so tangible," Lisa says. "You see something that needs fixing up, and you do it -- and then you see how beautiful it has become."

In 1993, when ICH moved its headquarters to Dallas, Lisa decided to stay in Louisville. She began to practice real estate full-time. The bank's generous severance helped Lisa get started. But she needed more cash. Her mom gladly helped, and Lisa began a successful run investing in real estate. She thought nothing of taking her mom's money, she says.

But 12 years later, on Thanksgiving eve 2005, Lisa was in her kitchen when two men approached her door in long, black jackets -- odd attire, she thought, for a warm fall day. As she went out to greet them, they unzipped their jackets to reveal silver federal-marshal badges.

"Do you know what we're here for?"

Lisa shook her head.

"It's big," one told her. "Really big."

They escorted her to the Jefferson County Jail. Lisa, who had no previous criminal record, spent two nights behind bars.

As prosecutors had unraveled Lisa's mom's schemes, they'd been astounded by the breadth of her enterprise. Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor James Gutierrez, a 21-year veteran, had gone after CEOs and expert con artists, but he'd "never seen anything like this case before."

During his year-long investigation, Gutierrez discovered that Joan, using various aliases, had acquired hundreds of different credit cards. She'd amassed more than $323,000 in credit on the cards in six years, withdrawing cash from the cards as needed. "It was quite impressive," Gutierrez says drily.

But what irked the prosecutor most was that despite her wealth, Joan was living off of taxpayers, receiving $500 a month in Social Security benefits, plus government subsidies to pay her utility bills. And the legal witness on each government form was her London School-educated daughter.

Lisa became a focus in Gutierrez's investigation. While she was being arraigned, Duffy and other officers ransacked her Louisville home, grabbing everything from financial documents to an essay she'd written to get into law school. When they found Lisa's credit reports, some of the credit cards listed were being used by Joan. And they found that Lisa had legal access to Joan's many security boxes -- proof, prosecutors say, that Lisa had knowledge of her mother's illegal doings. They also believed she had invested stolen money in her lucrative real-estate business. They called her a "laundress."

"Over a 15-year period," Gutierrez says, "Lisa laundered money and hid stolen money to her benefit, and her mother's benefit."

There was, however, one small hole in their case: A handwriting expert told prosecutors that Lisa's signatures on Joan's government forms had been forged -- by Joan. And if prosecutors were going after Lisa, they'd have to go after Brad. He'd also had access to the boxes.

So prosecutors suggested a deal to the siblings: Testify against your mother, and we'll offer you leniency. Lisa refused. "I could barely believe that the prosecution could even suggest it, let alone believe that I -- or anyone -- would agree to testify against their own mother," she says. "It was a morally reprehensible proposition."