Enigmatic con man stirs sympathy - and contempt

The defendant stood before the judge, wearing a green prison jumpsuit instead of the smart jacket and tie he once wore. His hands, cupped behind him, shook violently from the Parkinson's disease that has overtaken him since this all started. His wrists were badly bruised by the handcuffs, evidence of the effects of medications that thin his blood.

"Have mercy on me and my family," said Jerry Lynn Watkins, 55, of Forest Lake. "We are not bad people."

The victim, one of many who had the bad luck to invest with Watkins, sat a few rows back, her makeup and hair done just so for this day of reckoning. Phyllis Holtz, a retired machinist, wore a grey pullover with the words "Twin Cities Harley-Davidson," on the back. Tears welled in her eyes as she talked about losing $190,000 and her house.

"I want to tell Jerry, 'you went on vacation to handle the stress, I went on anti-depressants,'" Holtz said.

Between the defendant and the victim stood Tim Rank, an assistant U.S. attorney who, long before Tom Petters and Bernie Madoff, tried to tell federal authorities that financial crimes were escalating, devastating people's lives.

Watkins had pleaded guilty to helping former Forest Lake pastor Neulan Midkiff bilk people of $20 million in a Ponzi scheme -- "back when we thought that was a lot of money," as Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis put it.

After he was caught, Watkins helped the government send Midkiff to prison for 15 years. For that, he could be rewarded with reduced jail time. But he also either hid or blew through as much as $65,000 of the stolen money per month on exotic trips or expensive items that he cannot account for. For that, he faced more than 60 months.

I had spoken with Watkins' wife, Misty, a week earlier. "I was there when he was beating himself over the head when the money didn't come in for his clients," she said. "I told him not to take [a final $500,000 payoff from Midkiff]. He didn't listen to me -- I'm just the wife. Now he's paying the price, and I'm paying the price too."

Rank, 43, has prosecuted white-collar crime for four years. He was so torn by the contradiction between Watkins' cooperation and his inability to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars that he didn't make a sentence recommendation to the judge. "The hard thing was I thought about a lot of the victims I met," he said. "Sweet, sweet people."

Watkins made his plea in a soft Southern accent:

"I'm not a career criminal," he said, before quoting Pink Floyd: "As the rock song says, it was a momentary lapse of reason. Right now I'd trade 40 acres of stacks of hundred-dollar bills to get to see my kid again."

Judge Davis rubbed his chin and pondered. Then he turned to Rank.

But probably not well enough to satisfy anyone in this sad case.

"Mr. Watkins, please step forward," the judge said.

Watkins was sentenced to 24 months in prison for not listening to his wife, or his conscience.

His "designated place of confinement" will be the Federal Medical Facility in Rochester.

Phyllis Holtz's designated place of confinement is a subsidized housing complex in the northern suburbs, where she and her retired husband, Gordy, "barely make it" on income that includes an $80-per-month pension.

Rank put his hand on Holtz's shoulder outside court. "I imagine you're not happy," he said. "I'm sorry."

Yet Rank, the improbable hero in a story with no happy endings, will no doubt continue to stand up and tell juries and the government that those who steal with a briefcase are every bit as dangerous as those who steal with a gun.

Perhaps now they'll listen.