All Bets Are Off
All Bets Are Off
Times Staff Reports
First published: Sunday, February 6, 2005
Swilling free vodka, John R. Breen Jr. played piles of Quick Draw tickets from bar stools morning to night.
Running out-of-control gambling tabs at several taverns, he wrote checks that he knew would bounce if they were immediately deposited. Instead, bar owners held them for up to a week while Mr. Breen scrambled to find more money to put in his bank account.
Then one day his money was gone. Creditors hounded him. His wife, Maureen, wanted to know why their Flower Avenue West home was listed on the unpaid tax rolls in the newspaper. He lied, saying he paid the bill but was too late to prevent publication.
With his secret life as a compulsive gambler about to be revealed, Mr. Breen became desperate, unable to sleep at night, still chasing big winners in his mind.
He needed money, a lot of it, and fast.
He found it. Mr. Breen began stealing from a bank account and investments he managed for his stepdaughter, Maggie Rizer, an internationally acclaimed fashion model who shot to stardom after her mom sent a photo of the 1996 Watertown High School grad to the Ford Agency.
Using the power of attorney she had given him to pay her rent, utilities and other bills, he wrote checks on Maggie's HSBC Bank account and deposited them into his own account.
His gambling habit grew unabated, and the secret raid on his family's finances exploded.
Investments he had created for his stepdaughter were cashed out. He surrendered life insurance policies on his wife and Maggie's sister, Julia.
At home, he snuck into the bedroom of his 10-year-old son and stole $100, according to Mrs. Breen.
His gambling losing streak was often played out at the Speak Easy, a Watertown tavern owned by his longtime friend, Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham. He lost just as relentlessly at Kegler's Lounge in Watertown. The end came after he bounced more than $85,000 in checks in a 14-day binge at the Rusted Route Bar & Grill just outside the city.
Mr. Breen's arrest exposed his addiction to the community. But Maggie Rizer and her mother had no idea what was to come. During 2003, they discovered that Mr. Breen had stolen most of Maggie's money. Mr. Breen estimates he gambled away $3.5 million. Investigators believe he stole $7 million.
Maggie Rizer told herself it couldn't be true. She couldn't believe that the man she considered her father, the man who taught her to ski and helped her with her homework, had betrayed her by gambling away the money she had so carefully saved.
“I just kind of broke down. I was confused,” she said.
Depressed, she stopped working and spent most of her time at the New York City apartment she shares with another model. Her financial plight became fodder for New York City tabloids. She gained a few pounds, which in the high stakes fashion world can end a career.
In Watertown, her mother was facing the real possibility that she would not only lose the Watertown home, but also the family's cottages at Campbell's Point on Lake Ontario. Miss Rizer, who three years earlier had graced the cover of Vogue magazine's special edition called “20th Century Fashion,” swallowed her pride and accepted assignments for less prestigious catalog modeling to bring some money in.
Slowly, Maggie Rizer has begun to right the ship. She lost the weight, dropping from a size 4 to her professionally honed size 2. She is back modeling with the big guns of the fashion world. The family's Jefferson County properties are safe from tax foreclosure for the time being.
And now there is no confusion about what happened. Maggie Rizer now knows how Quick Draw works and how bar owners collect 6 cents on every dollar gambled. She now publicly berates the “cold-hearted friends” who nurtured her stepfather's drinking and gambling while reaping financial benefits.
She's hired a Madison Avenue lawyer. She's seen the hundreds of checks John Breen wrote to cover his gambling losses. She knows where her money went.
And now, Margaret-Mary McGowan Rizer wants her money back.
Two lives
John Breen lived a double life.
One his family knew: stepfather to two and father of three. The owner of Breen Associates insurance who ran for Jefferson County treasurer. A member of St. Patrick's Church in Watertown and an exchange-student host. The treasurer of Woman's Life Insurance Society.
The other was the secret John Breen, a gambler with a years-long Quick Draw obsession and deepening debt. He'd kept everything from his family. He is an alcoholic, but he rarely drank at home. He set up a post office box at Mail Boxes Etc. in Watertown so bills and past-due notices would go there. He rarely checked the box.
“You end up being a liar,” Mr. Breen said. “You don't have to be a good liar because you're lying to the people that trust you the most that aren't even looking.”
Mr. Breen's story starts at Watertown clubs like the American Legion and the Eagles, which he joined in the mid- to late 1980s for bowling and softball. At the clubs he started playing lottery style pull-tabs, which were easy to play — all you need is a match to win — and were seen as fund-raisers for the clubs.
Although Mr. Breen dabbled in gambling as a teenager, he now believes he first stepped over the line at the clubs.
Gambling was becoming an obsession. When he was home, he wanted to be back at the clubs, buying more pull-tabs.
“All of a sudden, one day you think about it when you're not there,” Mr. Breen said.
He started going to clubs earlier in the day, staying longer, playing more and writing checks to buy more pull-tabs. His company, Breen Associates, was providing him the income to keep gambling and stay out of debt.
Then came Quick Draw, a televised state Lottery game that hit the taverns in 1995 and was quickly dubbed “video crack” by gambling opponents.
It wasn't long before Mr. Breen left the clubs and began playing Quick Draw at the Speak Easy on Pearl Street near New York Air Brake. In time, he found his way to Kegler's Lounge on Public Square and, to a lesser extent, Bolton's Pharmacy at Hilltop Plaza, Benny's Steak House on Arsenal Street, and several other places.
The game was easy to play, more money could be wagered and won, and his friend, Mr. Graham, allowed him to pay his daily gambling charge with a check.
“I guess I never really thought of other places doing the checks until later on,” Mr. Breen said.
While Mr. Breen was gambling, Maggie Rizer was building a modeling career. She graduated from Watertown High School in 1996, but by 1999 she was traveling the world, appearing on magazine covers and being nominated for the VH1/Vogue Fashion Model of the Year Award.
Cash was rolling in as she signed one contract after another. Her parents offered to handle her money to save the 5 percent fee she would have to pay a financial manager. Maggie accepted, and all her bills started coming to Watertown.
“To be honest, I never paid a bill in my life,” she said.
She trusted her stepdad. On May 11, 1999, she gave him and her mother power of attorney to sign checks. Maggie put all her money, which eventually totaled about $7 million, into an account at HSBC in Watertown from 1999 through 2002, said her attorney, Edward W. Hayes, New York City.
In a world where careers can be short-lived, she was saving for the future and spending little, about 8 percent of what she earned, she estimated.
Mr. Breen says today that when he got Maggie's OK to manage her finances, he never planned to steal her money. But his pattern of gambling was already set.
Most mornings, he would go to the Speak Easy or other bars. He'd run a stack of Quick Draw cards good for five, 10 or even 20 plays at a time, and then start over again with each new game appearing on the TV monitor.
He often used “quick pick,” which allows bar machines to automatically generate numbers and thus speed up his play.
He left most days before the evening crowd would arrive, he said, because he didn't want others to see him betting tens of thousands of dollars.
“I just sat there alone,” he said. “I was isolated in there a lot.”
On the rare occasions that he won big, he didn't want to miss playing the next game. Mr. Breen said he would sell winning tickets of $3,000 or more to bar owners or others, and collect 80 cents on the dollar, just so he wouldn't have to take the time to drive to Syracuse to cash in the winning ticket at a lottery office, as required by the state.
All the while, Mr. Breen was drinking heavily. Vodka led the list, with scotch and beer second and third. The drinking didn't make him want to gamble, he said, but the more he drank “the more perilous” his gambling became.
He would lose $3,000 to $15,000 or more a day, although some days he came out a winner. Mostly, he lost big.
It was easy to go through a lot of money quickly because, he said, the Speak Easy and Kegler's ran tabs for him. Mr. Breen's winnings and losses were noted on a tablet on the bar. He said the amount he owed was tallied at the end of the day, and he'd write a final check, with a tip for the server.
Mr. Breen said his gambling didn't stop even when Quick Draw was blacked out for 16 weeks in 1999 by a state budget deadlock. He said Mr. Graham made videotapes of the game and played the recordings for Speak Easy customers. The mayor had his own pay-out schedule to lessen his exposure, and he kept the take himself, according to the gambler.
Mr. Graham acknowledged making the tapes, but said, “they were not used in that manner.” He declined to explain why he taped Quick Draw games.
Mr. Breen said he wanted to stop playing, but couldn't.
“A number of days, I said, ‘This is it, I'm not going to play anymore,'” Mr. Breen recalled. “And I would go to bed at night saying, ‘I'm not going to play this game anymore.' And I'd get up the next morning, I would go to the office and then I'd go out and get in my car and go play.”
The gambling continued. And then the stealing began.
Starting in August 1999 — three months after receiving Maggie's power of attorney — Mr. Breen began writing checks from her HSBC account, mostly to himself and to cash. He took $19,900 that year, according to a Times review of checks provided by Mr. Hayes's office. He would put them into his accounts, mostly at Community Bank, to cover the checks he wrote at bars.
Meanwhile, Mr. Breen's and Mr. Graham's relationship grew tighter. That year, Mr. Breen ran for Jefferson County treasurer on the Independence Party ticket. He said he consented after being asked to run by Mr. Graham, then a secretary of the party's Jefferson County organization. Mr. Breen said he was not trying to get his hands on more money for gambling.
They came up with a campaign slogan: “Trust Your Green with Breen.”
That year Mr. Graham also decided to open a second bar — the Paddock Club in the Paddock Arcade — and Mr. Breen fronted him $10,000, a loan he claimed was approved by Maggie Rizer herself.
The political-business relationship of the two men was well known. Maggie Rizer said Mr. Graham was frequently at their house, and the tavern owner would call her stepdad at home about Quick Draw “specials,” and urge him to come play.
By November, however, both men were political losers. Mr. Breen came in a distant third, well behind winner Nancy D. Brown, and Mr. Graham, finishing his second term as mayor, lost his re-election bid to Joseph M. Butler.
Mr. Breen's stealing accelerated. To cover gambling debts in 2000, he wrote at least $89,316 in checks Maggie knew nothing about, according to a review of bank documents.
Lori A. Froysell, a childhood friend of Maggie Rizer, worked at the Speak Easy for a few months in 2000. She remembers how Mr. Graham wanted his bar to be run, and she remembers how Mr. Breen wanted to play Quick Draw.
When she was hired, Mr. Graham told her Quick Draw was the main part of the bar business, even ahead of drinks, she said.
“He makes it clear to you that Quick Draw is very important and that he has die-hard Quick Draw customers and that they come first,” she said.
Ms. Froysell, who now lives in Florida, said Mr. Graham told new employees that he has many regular “hard-core gamblers” and Quick Draw “was their business,” she said.
“We were to keep our mouths shut about it and don't bother them unless they needed something,” she said.
Since she knew Mr. Breen long before she got her job, Ms. Froysell remembered how he arrived most days with a plastic envelope “stuffed” with Quick Draw cards already filled out and in order as to when he wanted them played.
“It was down to a science,” she said. “Believe me, you didn't want to screw it up on him.”
During the few months Ms. Froysell was on duty, Mr. Breen was spending about $1,000 a day, she said. She never kept a tab for him, and she always charged him for his drinks, she said.
“I had no idea it was Maggie's money,” she said.
By the end of 2000, the Speak Easy and Kegler's were starting to take a large share of Quick Draw bets in Jefferson County. The Speak Easy had typically been the top Quick Draw location in Jefferson County, but Kegler's was catching up fast. In 1997, according to state Lottery Division numbers, the Speak Easy had Quick Draw sales of $828,169, while Kegler's was at $112,433. In 2000, the Speak Easy took in $687,819, but Kegler's had jumped to $794,249.
In 2001, Mr. Breen stole $641,090 from Maggie's HSBC account. But he also began raiding Miss Rizer's investments and life insurance policies, and may have taken an additional $1 million or more, according to an initial accounting by her lawyers.
Mr. Breen opened the investments in his stepdaughter's name and then took out money when he needed it, according to Ms. Rizer and her attorneys.
For instance, Miss Rizer's lawyers have two 2001 checks from the Tucker Anthony investment firm (bought out by RBC Dain Rauscher in 2002) made out to “Margaret-Mary Rizer” that were deposited directly into Mr. Breen's account at Community Bank the same day they were written. One, dated April 30, 2001, was for $15,000; the second, dated May 7, 2001, was for $13,000.
“M Rizer” appears on the endorsement line, along with “John Breen.” Mr. Breen, who said he can't remember every theft he made, acknowledges he “probably” forged his stepdaughter's signature.
State records show where much of the money went as Quick Draw sales in 2001 soared to $1.6 million at the Speak Easy and $1.3 million at Kegler's.
Mr. Breen said he would have done anything to support his burgeoning gambling habit.
“Where the money came from didn't really matter as long as I didn't have to go into a convenience store with a gun,” he said. “God knows, if this would have gone on, maybe it would have gone to that.”
In 2002, Mr. Breen ran through $548,708 of Maggie's money in the HSBC account. Meanwhile, records provided to the Times by Ms. Rizer's attorneys show that the Smith Barney investment firm was holding up to $285,000 of Miss Rizer's money, but that Mr. Breen withdrew $40,000 in April and $15,000 in June, while incurring “huge penalties.”
The Tucker Anthony account was valued at $560,938 in June. Mr. Breen closed the account out before the year was over, while Quick Draw sales for 2002 were $1.2 million at Kegler's and $925,269 at the Speak Easy.
Those higher sales directly affected the incomes of both Mr. Graham at the Speak Easy and Todd L. LaVere as owner of Kegler's.
Getting back 6 cents on every dollar spent on Quick Draw, the Speak Easy received $49,750 while Kegler's got $20,271 in 1997. But during the height of Mr. Breen's gambling in 2001 and 2002, Mr. Graham's bar received commissions of $98,403 and $55,516, and Mr. LaVere's bar received $78,069 and $72,414, according to state Lottery records.
Late in 2002, Mr. Breen began gambling at the Rusted Route, which also allowed him to run a tab, and suddenly the tavern, located between Watertown and Sackets Harbor, became one of the top five Quick Draw locations in Jefferson County. In October, it broke into the top-five list for the first time by taking in $40,057 in Quick Draw sales. In November, Rusted Route was second in the county, behind only Kegler's, at $79,168. In December, it was No. 1 at $150,968. Kegler's was second at $60,000 and the Speak Easy had dropped to $39,863.
As late as Nov. 29 that year, Mr. Breen deposited a check for $14,452 made out to “Margaret M. Rizer” into his account at Northern Federal Credit Union. The check, turned up by her lawyers, closed out a retirement annuity that was valued at $99,000 a month earlier.
And then it was over. Ms. Rizer's bank account was empty, and Mr. Breen's checks started bouncing. Owners of the three bars were stuck with $93,884 in bad checks, more than $85,000 at the Rusted Route alone.
Mr. Breen's family got a hint of what had happened, but not the whole story. His gambling became public when Watertown Savings Bank sued Rusted Route to recoup just over $23,000 for bad checks the bar had deposited into the tavern's Lottery account. A bank clerk credited the account without verifying whether Mr. Breen's checks were good. She was fired, and the state removed Rusted Route's Quick Draw machines.
“The checks I bounced at the end were a drop in the bucket to the real problem,” Mr. Breen said.
His wife, Maureen, confronted him about the checks on Jan. 15, 2003. Believing Mr. Breen's gambling problem was related to his drinking, she had his suitcase packed and gave him a choice: get out or admit himself into the Tully Hill Alcohol & Drug Treatment Center in Syracuse. He agreed to the treatment center, and they drove there the next day.
On the way, Mrs. Breen asked her husband if there were any more bad checks beyond the $85,000 at Rusted Route.
“And I looked at her right in the face and said, ‘Yeah, you won't find anything else,'” Mr. Breen said.
It would take months to learn the full extent. Mrs. Breen learned her husband also took money from policies belonging to her and another daughter, Julia, according to the Hayes law office.
After leaving Tully, Mr. Breen went to a halfway house in Florida and got a job selling cars. His father, John R. Breen Sr., living in Darrow, La., became ill and the son moved there, where he got another job selling cars.
The elder Mr. Breen died May 11, 2003, in Louisiana but wanted to be buried in the Watertown area. Father and son returned to the north country.
A day after the May 16 funeral, Mr. Breen was charged by police with writing a bogus check for $650 to play Quick Draw Jan. 3 that year at the Speak Easy. His former friend, Mr. Graham, wanted his money.
The other bar owners wanted their money, too. Police charged Mr. Breen with writing 21 bogus checks for $85,519 to the Rusted Route and two bad checks totaling $7,715 to Kegler's Lounge. He also was charged with cashing forged $6,000 and $7,500 checks belonging to his wife, and, finally, stealing from his stepdaughter.
As the investigation continued, Mr. Breen got a job selling cars six days a week in Syracuse.
“I couldn't work in this area,” he said. “I was too embarrassed and humiliated. I still am today.”
He thought about suicide, imagining 20 different ways he would do it.
“I'm sure I was getting closer and closer to it,” he said.
After pleading guilty to a variety of charges in October, Mr. Breen awaits sentencing. He is no longer working, and his Breen Associates insurance company is gone. He spends part of his time getting outpatient treatment at Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, and he is in 12-step programs for alcoholism and compulsive gambling, which he calls a disease.
“I hurt a lot of people, and now I've got to pay for it,” he said.
He worries about being sent to prison. Mr. Breen blames only himself.
“I mean, it was just sick what I did,” he said. “It was terrible. It's what I did to my family, to the people closest to me.”
He says he hasn't had a drink for a year. He doesn't know if having money would send him back to Quick Draw. And he doesn't trust himself to make a decision.
“I thought I was an honest, nice guy,” he said. “And now that I look back, I was a bulldozer that didn't give a s... about anybody and I caused such a train wreck. Here it is two years later, and the train is still wrecking. It's a mess.”
He and Maggie talked once following a funeral for a friend of hers. Mr. Breen did not attend the marriage ceremony for his stepdaughter, Julia, where Maggie was the maid of honor last fall.
“It hasn't been the easiest last few years,” said Ms. Rizer. “I definitely denied this entire situation for some time. I also know that this is far from the worst thing that could happen to me. I have more then my share of happiness and love. My family is healthy and we'll all come out of this stronger and more determined.”
Miss Rizer is still shocked that her stepfather could gamble away so much money in his hometown in front of people who have known him for years.
“Now, I'm just angry and I'm looking forward to my attorney yelling at everybody for me,” she said. “Maybe he'll let me be lawyer for a day so I'll have a chance to scream a bit. I think sometimes anger is healthy.”
She said her “feelings are very mixed” about her stepfather.
“He is a man I've always known, I've always cared about,” she said. “But you know what, he did it.”
She has no interest in talking with him.
“I'll always love the person he should have been,” she said.
The aftermath
John Breen will likely go to jail for what he did. When he is sentenced, there is little doubt Jefferson County Judge Kim H. Martusewicz also will order him to pay back what he stole. Only the amount is still in question.
Mr. Breen admitted Oct. 22 in court to stealing from Maggie, bouncing checks at bars and forging the signature of his wife, Maureen. But the Jefferson County district attorney's office is still counting and has asked that sentencing on Monday be delayed.
The former insurance agent says he has no money, having closed his business years ago. He is living at the Watertown home of his sister, Elizabeth, with his dogs, Walter and Buddy.
Ms. Rizer's attorney, Mr. Hayes, is looking elsewhere to get her money back. Mr. Breen is cooperating and recently met with Mr. Hayes in Syracuse.
The attorney blames Mr. Breen, but he has also set his sights on the banks, and the bars where Mr. Breen gambled. Especially the bars. He has been publicly critical of Mr. Graham.
“These bar owners had to know that he was getting money illegally,” Mr. Hayes said at his Madison Avenue offices during an interview with the Times in January. In essence, he said, they were laundering money and receiving stolen property.
“And you would think somebody would say, ‘Hey, Maggie, your father's drunk all the time, spending what looks like your money,'” Mr. Hayes said. “He's gambling a fortune. Nobody said anything.”
Chief Assistant District Attorney Kristyna S. Mills, the Jefferson County prosecutor handling the Breen case, said there is no evidence bar owners knew the money was stolen.
All the checks that bounced were from Mr. Breen's personal accounts and not Ms. Rizer's, she said. She said she has heard of nothing about irregularities at the taverns.
State laws for Quick Draw do not prohibit bars from allowing players to run a tab, but the Lottery Division does not encourage it, according to Jennifer L. Mauer, a Lottery spokeswoman.
“If we heard a retailer was doing that, we would try to stop it,” she said. “We would go out and talk to the retailer.”
Mr. Hayes's office has collected copies of about 270 unauthorized checks from Maggie's HSBC account. Mr. Breen sometimes wrote several a day for tens of thousands of dollars. He deposited most into his accounts at other banks, mainly at Community Bank.
One example was July 25, 2002, a particularly busy day for Mr. Breen. It was also a day he wrote HSBC counter checks directly from Maggie's account that were cashed by Mr. Graham and Mr. LaVere.
Counter checks can be obtained from bank staff, with the account number printed on them but not the account holder's name.
One for $16,188 was written to “Todd LaVere.” Mr. LaVere also endorsed another for $5,150 made out to Watertown Savings Bank.
Mr. Graham endorsed an $18,500 counter check dated the same day.
Mr. Breen also wrote a $14,400 check to Dexter Eaves, although Mr. Breen said he doesn't remember what it was for. Another check for $9,000 was written to cash and deposited into KeyBank, but the endorsement could not be read. Mr. Breen also wrote a check for $500 to himself.
Mr. Graham canceled a Tuesday interview appointment with the Times, but Friday afternoon said Mr. Breen's allegation about illegal gambling at the Speak Easy is “just not true.”
“He's cutting a deal to stay out of jail and will say what he can to avoid prison,” said Mr. Graham. “They can make all the allegations they want. He'll say anything to stay out of jail and I don't blame him.”
Mr. LaVere agreed to be interviewed for this story but canceled an appointment with a Times reporter.
Mr. LaVere said he did not want to talk because he was still working with the Jefferson County Probation Department, apparently to see how much restitution Mr. Breen will have to pay.
“The poor bastard did what he did, unfortunately,” Mr. LaVere said after calling off his interview. “For you guys to keep bringing it up in the paper hurts him and hurts his family.”
Mrs. Mills did not recall the check made out directly to Mr. LaVere or make the connection that Mr. LaVere is the owner of Kegler's Lounge.
In fact, Mrs. Mills said, she does not have evidence Mr. Breen used Miss Rizer's money for Quick Draw, although she said she has heard stories about it.
At first, Jefferson County authorities investigated checks Mr. Breen bounced or forged. But they are now looking at the draining of Miss Rizer's bank account to make sure that is part of restitution when he is sentenced. Mrs. Mills put Mr. Breen on notice it could be up to $7 million.
The district attorney's office has not interviewed Mr. Breen, because he has had a defense attorney who has blocked it from doing so. Mrs. Mills said her office is willing to debrief Mr. Breen if defense attorney James R. McGraw agrees to it. She would reopen the investigation if “concrete evidence” of other wrongdoing comes to light.
Theft from Miss Rizer's account was not made part of the prosecution until she filed a complaint about two months before her stepfather pleaded guilty, Mrs. Mills said.
“We were dealing with a series of bounced checks up until that point,” she said.
Neither is the DA's office looking at investment accounts Mr. Breen raided. She said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is handling that side of the case.
Mr. Hayes said he believes prosecutors in the county office are well-intentioned and decent people, but this case involves a large theft. He said he was surprised they did not interview the mayor or other bar owners concerning other possible crimes.
Mr. Hayes also wants to hold HSBC accountable.
The bank says it did nothing wrong.
“HSBC denies any wrongdoing or liability in connection with the matters regarding John Breen and Maggie Rizer,” bank spokeswoman Kathleen Rizzo Young said in a prepared statement.
Beyond that, she said she could not comment due to customer privacy.
A banking law expert sided with HSBC.
“The bank does not have an independent duty to look much beyond that power of attorney,” said Bruce J. Baker, who is chairman of the banking committee for the New York State Bar Association.
As far as the bank is concerned, Mr. Breen may have been reimbursing himself for his stepdaughter's expenses he paid for on his credit card, according to Mr. Baker.
An attorney working for Mr. Hayes, Rae Koshetz, said the question is whether the bank should have been aware of what Mr. Breen was doing. At the least, she contends, the bank should have asked questions even though Mr. Breen had power of attorney.
Mr. Hayes said he has already settled with one Watertown-area bank, receiving 65 cents on the dollar because Miss Rizer needed the money. He would not reveal the bank or the amount.
The law firm is still sorting through records. According to Mr. Breen, he spent some money from the investments on a down payment for Maggie Rizer's New York City apartment, and the stock market decline took a bite as well.
Mr. Hayes continues to look at the account records for the former Tucker Anthony and Smith Barney.
Neither firm would comment.
“I'm not allowed to comment on any client's accounts,” said Cyril Mouaikel, the RBC Dain Rauscher manager at the Watertown office.
Gregory G. Couch, first vice president of investments and branch manager for Solomon Smith Barney, also declined comment.
Other life insurance policies or investments the law firm seeks to link to Mr. Breen's gambling include Hartford Life (valued at $5,081.24 and surrendered Dec. 5, 2002), GBU (valued at $99,000 in October 2002 and surrendered Nov. 25, 2002), and Unity Life (valued at $246,346 and surrendered in October 2002).
Mr. Hayes said he will file a suit in Manhattan on behalf of Miss Rizer in the coming weeks.
“There's lots of people here that are not judgment-proof, and I would think that the bars have very substantial insurance policies and probably all these guys have very substantial assets,” Mr. Hayes said.
Times staff writer Chris Garifo contributed to this story.