An Over-Served, Highly Questionable, Ponzi Schemed Monday Morning Grab Bag

By Robert Wilonsky Mon., Nov. 23 2009 at 8:15 AM

Categories: News

University of Texas at Dallas

You know what'll make this picture more action packed? Beer. And wine.

According to the University of Texas at Dallas's own press release, more than 80 percent of students surveyed want the school to sell beer and wine at The PUB in the student union -- which seems shockingly low, you ask me. Nonetheless, that's why the school has asked Chartwells, which handles its dining services, to apply for a liquor license from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Best sentence from the press release: "Last March, a subcommittee of Student Government studied the issue in depth and sent a report to President David E. Daniel with a recommendation to serve beer and wine in the Pub." It's like reading The Onion ...

Maybe these were Mrs. Lincoln's. Maybe not.

One year ago, the Kentucky Historical Society paid Oak Lawn-based Heritage Auction Galleries $19,000 for a pair of earrings that, according to Heritage, were once "owned by Mary Todd Lincoln." But yesterday, the Lexington Herald-Leader ran a piece that said some historians ain't so sure about that. That may have to do with the fact that one of the earrings' previous owners also "claimed to have skin shed by the serpent in the Garden of Eden." Which is ridiculous. Everyone knows Harold Simmons has that ...

And the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a Collin County man to federal court in Dallas, claiming that Derek Nelson's been operating a Ponzi scheme based in Dallas that bilked investors out of some $25 million. How'd he do it? Simple enough: Nelson, says the SEC, took their money by promising to buy "real property at deeply discounted values, and that the properties would then be improved, leased, and resold at a profit." Instead, he used the dough for Ponzi payments to other investors while stashing $2.6 million in his bank account and using $1 million as a down payment on this 8,359 square foot, $2.5 million home in Fairview. What a man'll allegedly do for a wine cellar and a fitness center on three countryside acres.

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