The estranged wife of a financier accused of attempting to fake his own death to escape charges of defrauding investors says she was blindsided by the charges against him, his unsuccessful flight from justice and the discovery that he was having an affair.
“I was shocked. I was shocked by everything that had happened,” Michelle Schrenker told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview Friday in New York. “Everything that happened in this last year became so shocking. The affair was a shock to me. The finances were a shock to me. Everything was a change in his behavior.”
Authorities have seized all of Michelle Schrenker’s assets, including her Indiana home, and her role as the chief financial officer of one of her husband’s companies has come under scrutiny.
Until late last year, the trim and attractive blonde thought that she was living the American dream. Her husband, Marcus Schrenker, was a handsome and dashing daredevil pilot who ran several successful investment companies. They and their three children, ages 14, 11 and 6, lived in a mansion in a private community in Indiana. They traveled in style, owned expensive cars and a private plane.
Life was beyond good. It was great.
“It was just as you saw it. We were very happy. It was just in the last year that things started changing,” Michelle Schrenker told Lauer.
The first sign that some of it was a lie was Michelle Schrenker’s discovery early in 2008 that her husband was having an extramarital affair. “That’s when I noticed a lot of changes in him,” she said.
The revelation led her to file for divorce on Dec. 30. The next day, authorities showed up at the Schrenkers’ home and offices, seizing financial records, computers and evidence of document shredding.
‘A double life’
The man who had been living so large turned out to be in serious financial trouble. He had just lost a court case that resulted in a $533,000 judgment against him. Multiple lawsuits were pending against him and he faced $9 million in potential court judgments.
“A double life” is how Michelle Schrenker described her husband’s behavior.
On Jan. 11, as his world crashed down around him, Marcus Schrenker took off in his private plane from Indiana. He radioed air traffic controllers when he was over Alabama, saying his windshield had imploded and the plane was going down. The call was a ruse. Investigators say he donned a parachute and abandoned the plane, which would crash in the Florida panhandle.
Authorities say that once on the ground, Marcus Schrenker retrieved a motorcycle he had stashed in an Alabama storage unit and rode it to a rural Florida campground. After sending a suicide e-mail to a friend, police say he slashed his right wrist in an apparent suicide attempt. He was found at the campground bleeding heavily and taken to a hospital. He has remained in police custody.
Through it all, Michelle Schrenker maintained her silence, speaking only briefly to reporters to proclaim her innocence after a court hearing into her involvement with her husband’s alleged financial double-dealing. But, she told Lauer, she felt she finally had to go public to defend herself.
“I just thought it was in the best interest of my children and myself,” she told Lauer. “I’m just very private and I didn’t think it would ever get to this.”
She was accompanied by her attorney, Mary Schmid, who said of her client: “She’s in legal jeopardy clearly now, because they have literally taken everything she owns from her without first proving that she had anything to do with the investor fraud that Marcus is accused of engaging in.”
Wife a victim, too?
Investigators are looking at her involvement as CFO with one company. Michelle Schrenker told Lauer that it was a glorious title that she took for public relations purposes: Her husband thought it would be good for business to have his beautiful wife promoting the company’s financial services.
“That was a title that he gave me, but it’s not what I was,” she said. “I had limited duties there. All I did was help my husband out. I did payroll and I paid bills. That’s all I did. I was a bookkeeper.”
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who is leading the investigation into the financial dealings of Marcus Schrenker’s businesses, told reporters that Michelle Schrenker’s role is yet to be determined. “I do not consider Mrs. Schrenker either a victim or a guilty party at this time. I think the evidence will drive that conclusion,” he said.
Michelle Schrenker said that there is a misconception in Indiana that she is getting some sort of stipend from the state to support herself and her three children. “I have nothing,” she said. “Luckily I have friends that help me and my family members help me, but I get nothing to take care of my kids.”
She said that she has spoken to her husband recently. “He has made his apologies to me,” she told Lauer.
“Does any of this sound like the man you were married to?” Lauer asked.
“No,” she said. “Not at all.”