THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9603300276
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Twenty years ago, a church deacon in Suffolk made headlines by swindling a number of elderly people, including a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, out of $90,000.
The con man, Marshall H. Parker, confessed, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation. He was 51.
Today, Parker is 71 and stands accused again - in the same courthouse, of committing an almost identical scam.
This time, a family in Georgia has accused Marshall of bilking $181,500 from an 86-year-old woman in a nursing home from 1993 to 1995. They seek to recover all the money, plus triple that amount - $544,500 - in punitive damages.
The accusations are contained in a lawsuit filed earlier this month in Norfolk's federal court. The suit accuses Marshall, a retired machine operator for Planters Peanuts, of fraud, embezzlement and other misdeeds.
On Friday, Parker declined to comment on the lawsuit. He referred questions to his attorney, Joseph R. Mayes, who also declined to comment. ``I prefer not to litigate cases in the newspaper,'' Mayes said. ``As you know, a complaint is just one side of the story.''
The family of the alleged victim, Alice Carey Mulinix of Rome, Ga., also refused to discuss the case this week, as did their lawyer, David A. Greer of Norfolk.
Details of the alleged swindle are contained in the lawsuit.
According to the suit, Mulinix and Parker struck up a friendship about 30 years ago in North Carolina. In the mid-1980s, Mulinix, who had taught school in Georgia for 42 years, started sending money to Parker to invest.
Parker promised her a 14 percent return on her investments, the lawsuit says.
From August 1993 to May 1995, Mulinix allegedly sent Parker money almost every month, sometimes two or three times a month. The payments ranged from $1,000 to $35,000. They totaled $184,500.
In return, Parker repaid $3,000, the lawsuit says.
Mulinix died in January at age 86. Her relatives then tried to recover her money from Parker. According to the lawsuit, Parker admitted he had invested the money and agreed to return it, but never did.
``Parker has appropriated the funds provided by Mulinix for his own use,'' the lawsuit says. ``Parker has refused to return or account for the funds.''
If the money had been invested at 14 percent interest, it would have earned about $47,000, the lawsuit states.
Mulinix apparently has few survivors. Her obituary in the Rome News-Tribune lists only several cousins, but no husband, children or grandchildren. Parker is one of several beneficiaries named in Mulinix's will, the lawsuit says.
The swindle in the lawsuit is almost identical to the one of which Parker was convicted in 1976.
At that time, Parker and an accomplice were accused of mail fraud, bilking about $90,000 from several elderly people from 1972 to 1975, including Dr. Robert G. Lee, a Memphis evangelist and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
A postal inspector called it ``a classic confidence swindle'' in which Parker persuaded his victims to trust him to invest money for them at what would have been high rates of return.
Instead, Parker admitted using the money for personal expenses and said he never intended to invest it, the postal inspector testified.
Parker pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud. Prosecutors recommended probation, but a judge sentenced Parker to 10 years in prison - then changed his mind four months later, sentencing him to probation and ordering him to pay restitution.
Coincidentally, the judge in that case was Richard B. Kellam, who is still a judge in Norfolk's federal court, where the latest lawsuit was filed. ILLUSTRATION: B\W photo
Marshall H. Parker, now 71, in a photograph from 1976.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT FRAUD by CNB