By STEVE BOGGAN Herald correspondent
Being Chantal McCorkle can't be easy. The bright, attractive 32-year-old Briton once enjoyed a millionaire's lifestyle but is now in a Tallahassee jail.
She is about to spend her third Christmas in prison, with the prospect of another 21 to follow and no chance of parole.
Her crime was to become wrapped up in the pseudo-glamorous world of "info-mercials" - the daytime and insomniac-hour cross between advertisements and shows - in which dubious claims are made and fulfilment of wishes promised.
Her only chance of an early release lies with President Clinton, who could include her in a list of people to whom he may grant clemency before leaving office.
Cherie Booth, the prominent British human rights lawyer and wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, has been approached to act for McCorkle. McCorkle and her Mexican-born husband, William, 34, are the first people in America to pay for not telling the truth on airtime bought from television networks.
"I had no idea that what we were doing was wrong," she said. "We were selling a product. It was William's company and he had lawyers, editors, scriptwriters, bookkeepers and more than 200 employees. It was on national television. If you know you're doing something wrong, the last place you'd do it is in front of millions of people."
McCorkle's story began 12 years ago when she met William in Florida. She was 20, from Slough, just west of London, working as a nanny for family friends in Orlando; he was an ambitious businessman with an idea.
He wanted to make money from buying and selling repossessed property and he wanted to make even more from telling others how to do it too. He made $153.75 videos advising customers on how to find ideal repossessions to buy low and sell high.
He wasn't very successful. His claims to have made it rich were false and few believed him. In 1992 he was forced into bankruptcy because he could not pay for the television airtime he had booked.
He had to put his business, Cashflow Systems Inc, into McCorkle's name, and that is where her downfall began.
"I didn't take much notice of the business at first," she said. "I was running a little magazine of my own. But then it began to take off, so I sold up and worked for William fulltime. I concentrated on the admin and social side, not the sales, and I signed everything that William put in front of me. Why shouldn't I?"
But as the business grew, the deception became more profound. By 1996, when some $900,000 of videos were being sold every two days, it was one of America's top three high-profile infomercials. William now promised viewers that if they could find the perfect repossessed property, he would buy it and split the profits 50/50.
In return, punters had to buy extra courses and videos - now priced at about $2000.
But they soon discovered that the "perfect" repossession had to satisfy impossible criteria - high-value property in perfect condition with at least 50 per cent equity ready to be snapped up.
"The idea was that William would cover the debts and the previous owners would sign it over to him and pay rent," said Paul Byron, the assistant US attorney who prosecuted the case.
"When they defaulted, as William predicted 80 per cent would, they would be evicted and William and his partner would sell the property and split the money. From tens of thousands of customers, only 12 deals were done."
Complaints flooded in. In 1997 the Florida Attorney General began taking an interest. The couple's home and business were raided at gunpoint and their assets seized; strangely, the infomercials were allowed to keep running.
After a 10-week trial during which William hired F. Lee Bailey - OJ Simpson's lawyer - for himself and a local attorney for McCorkle, they were both found guilty of conspiracy, fraud and money-laundering charges.
Investigators had found tapes of infomercial out-takes that proved some "satisfied customers" were actors and trappings of McCorkle's early "wealth" - a house, a car and a plane - had been rented.
Because McCorkle signed so many papers, Byron is convinced she knew what was going on. She is adamant she did not: "I thought actors appeared in all commercials. I was in charge of admin; I had nothing to do with sales."
McCorkle is divorcing William, angry that he never admitted the scams were his idea.
A cautionary tale from the land of 'infomercials'
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