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to a stipulation of facts, Mr. McWade introduced exhibits at the
trial of the test cases pertaining to the Thompsons'
participation in the disputed Kersting programs. During
Mr. McWade's cross-examination, Mr. Thompson made the following
statement:
Mr. McWade: When did you terminate your
participation in these plans, Mr. Thompson?
Mr. Thompson: In--let's see--1984. No, wait a
minute; 1982. I retired, and I went to my retirement
party, came home, and I had notice from the Internal
Revenue Service regarding my 1978 taxes. And I went up
to the house, called him up, and said, "Henry, I've got
a problem." And he said to just send it to him and
he'd take care of it.
Two and half years later he was still taking care
of it. I still didn't know what was wrong. And I was
becoming very disenchanted with his taking care of it.
To be quite honest with you, I went to an attorney over
it.
And an agent actually came to our house and was
interested in my paying him $23,346, as I remember, on
the spot.
In the interim period I had received no notice
that our house had a lien slapped on it from the
Internal Revenue Service, but I didn't know about this.
But anyway, this was all the thing that brought
all my investments with Mr. Kersting to a head. I got
absolutely no support that was effective from him. I
wanted to know what the problem was so that I could
address it--not in a manner of putting a band-aid on
it; I wanted it settled. I was retired. I couldn't go
on with this business that, "Oh, we'll go to court and
they'll never get us," and all of this business that we
had. I was out money, lots of it: $80,000, on the one
hand. And $23,000 goes over 100--pretty easy, right
then.
I was in the process of doing a trust. I went to
the attorney that was running that for me, and he wrote
a letter to Kersting wanting to know what he had done,
and got a rotten letter back from him. I tried to get
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