Chapter 10 - The Hidden Beneficiary-10
Three days after the arrests, the story made national headlines.
The Portland Sentinel published a front-page investigation titled: The Poisoned Cradle: How a Forensic Analyst Exposed Her Family's Darkest Plot.
Ethan was officially discharged from Doernbecher Children's Hospital. His cardiac condition was successfully managed with non-invasive medication, and doctors assured me he would grow up to live a completely healthy, normal life.
I moved Ethan into a secure, luxury apartment building in downtown Portland, protected by 24-hour private security provided by Marcus’s firm.
However, as I reviewed the final asset seizure reports provided by the FBI Financial Crimes Division, another anomaly appeared.
While Theresa’s offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands had been fully frozen, a secondary stream of money—nearly five hundred thousand dollars—had been transferred out of David’s business account forty-eight hours before Ethan was born.
The recipient of the transfer was a private legal trust named The Sterling Group, registered in San Diego, California.
I sat at my new desk, nursing Ethan while running a deep-level corporate trace on The Sterling Group.
The registered agent for the trust was a woman named Samantha Sterling.
I pulled up her background file, DMV records, and social media accounts.
Samantha Sterling was twenty-six years old, an elementary school teacher living in an affluent neighborhood in San Diego.
And posted on her private social media profile from four days ago was a high-resolution photograph of a positive pregnancy test, accompanied by the caption:
'Building our new dream life with D.V. Can't wait for our little princess to arrive in six months! Florida here we come!'
I stared at the screen, a cold realization hitting me.
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David hadn't just been participating in his mother's plot to steal Ethan's trust fund to buy a villa in Key West.
He had a secret second family in California. Samantha Sterling was pregnant with his child. They were planning to take the stolen thirty million dollars, abandon Ethan and me entirely, and start a new life under false identities in South America.
