Salon.com > Janet Lombardi http://www.salon.com Wed, 22 May 2013 00:22:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 My husband, the criminal http://www.salon.com/2012/07/20/my_husband_the_criminal/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/20/my_husband_the_criminal/#comments Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12960859 The December day my husband went to state prison, an angry wind whipped the flag at the entrance to the county courthouse. I had considered skipping his sentencing altogether, but instead I walked up the steps, willing myself not to cry.

Joel had been out on bail for a year and we’d been separated for five months, after being forced to sell our home in an affluent Long Island suburb. I showed up that day hoping for closure and some relief from the parrying between love, grief and disbelief.

My husband, soon to be a disbarred lawyer, began serving one to three years for “borrowing” funds from a client’s escrow account, a grand larceny charge I had known nothing about. My two college-age sons and I had been trying for months to find some footing on a crackling ice pond. We’d lost our home and the person we loved. I had no idea how to pay our expenses, my husband’s debt, and the hefty college tuition. The financial and emotional debt my husband had inflicted wasn’t going away with him.

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