Story Archive

Understatement of the Week

Abraham Maghen, 24, admits it: “I’m not very good at finances.” That’s a bit of a problem, since (he says) he’s a financial planner in Hollywood, Fla. Or, at least, he was: his boss was giving him “some constructive criticism,” he says, but “I wasn’t taking it too well,” and “I was fired.” This all got into the news because of who Maghen was talking to: a federal judge. That’s because Maghen’s own finances were a mess too: despite making “good money” at his job, he was $30,000 in debt not even counting his overdrawn bank account, which he allegedly tried to solve by robbing a bank. He escaped with $10,000, the FBI says, but within an hour he had already lost $2,755 of that at a casino. Since that strategy failed, he allegedly robbed a second bank a week later. This time, investigators got Maghen’s car’s license, and showed up at his house. Among other evidence, they found he had searched the Internet for bank robbery “success and failure stories.” (RC/South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ...Welcome to the failure column, Abe.