I wrote this for the Portland Tribune comment section but felt this too would be an appropriate venue.

This scares me to death. My parents are near retirement age and count dearly on the advice of the man who has managed their retirement funds for years. If he were to be a dishonest character and abscond with their retirement, my parents would end up working well into their retirement years and living on social security. They have worked much too hard for anything like this to happen, period.

Wes Rhodes took advantage of people like my parents with sizable retirement accounts and stole not only their money, but so much more. I can’t even begin to image, investing prudently for decades with a well designed plan for retirement with a man many called their friend. His behavior is that of a psychopath. I can’t think of any other terms that better describes Wes Rhodes. These are honest people who worked hard all their adult lives and were sucker punched by this psychopath. His conduct goes beyond criminal.

I feel so badly for these people – given what I know about how my parents so count on the advice of their retirement advisor. It’s a sacred trust – and Wes Rhodes broke that trust. He should spend the rest of his life in prison.

For those of you who have been critical of the victims in this matter, you really need to think about how naïve you are. In no way did they deserve any of this to happen to them. They are law abiding, tax paying, community involved citizens who are the kinds of people you would love to have as friends and neighbors. They watch you house when you’re away, collect your mail when you’re on vacation, watch out for your kids at play, call the police if they see something suspicious, laugh with you as you enjoy a neighborhood barbeque, coach your kids baseball or soccer team. They in no way deserved this – and again, Wes Rhodes deserves life in prison, period.

May the victims of Wes Rhodes find justice.

Towards the end of their lives, I had to tend to my grandparents financial affairs and there were predators coming from from all sorts of places. Including from family members. It was just ugly.

People like Wes Rhodes gets away because us "young ones" don't really care much about these things until we're elderly ourselves and/or become a victim.