Chapter 9 - The Fall of the House of Holloway
The trial of Margaret and Grant Holloway began three months later, in the dead of the Chicago winter.
It was the most highly publicized corporate trial in the state's history. The courtroom was packed with journalists, union representatives, and local residents who wanted to see the people who had stolen their retirement funds.
But the real drama was the testimony of the doctor from the Lake Forest clinic.
Faced with fifteen years in a federal penitentiary for insurance fraud and medical falsification, he had agreed to a plea deal. He stood on the witness stand and described, in cold, clinical detail, how Margaret Holloway had paid him fifty thousand dollars to alter Hannah’s medical records to make her look mentally unstable, ensuring that she could never testify against her husband.
When the jury returned after only forty minutes of deliberation, the verdict was unanimous: GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS.
Margaret Holloway was sentenced to twelve years in a federal facility in West Virginia. Grant was sentenced to eight years for tax fraud, domestic battery, and corporate embezzlement. The assets of Holloway Select Markets were seized by the state, and the courts ordered the immediate liquidation of all Holloway properties to pay back the three million dollars—plus twenty-four years of compound interest—to the Teamsters pension fund.
On the day of the sentencing, Hannah and I sat in the front row of the gallery.
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As Grant was led away in his orange prison jumpsuit, he looked back at his mother, who was sitting at the defense table with her head in her hands, her empire completely reduced to dust. He didn't look at us. He couldn't.
Because he knew that the seventy-two hours he had given us had ended up being the exact amount of time it took to erase his name from the state of Illinois.
