A Few Notes about My Former Best Friend the International Jewel Thief

First off, we weren’t close. Not at all. Sure, there are dozens of pictures and videos of us hanging out and whispering to each other and enjoying each other’s company and celebrating each other’s birthdays, but can you even call that a friendship? If you want to define it that way, then fine, we were “close friends” until his very public arrest in 2008.

Except I ended the friendship before that. But not over the jewel thievery, which I didn’t even know about. We ended it over some jewels that he took from me, but no, wait, it was over a real estate deal. And it was way before his arrest for jewel theft in 2008. After that, we didn’t speak. When he spent Christmas with my family in 2015, it was more of a nodding thing. Not warm at all. The presents were all regifts.

Second, as I mentioned above, I didn’t know one thing about his extensive jewel thievery. Nothing! I figured he was just a billionaire playboy who got his mysterious massive income from really hustling on Etsy or something. The fact that I made a wink-wink joke or two about him stealing jewels was purely coincidental and should not be taken to mean that I knew about, participated in, or condoned his extensive jewel heists in any way. They were random jokes about my casual acquaintance making jewel heists, and they were very funny. Same deal with the repeated jokes that I made in which I would admire jewels and wonder what it might be like if those jewels were suddenly mine somehow. 

Not that I think jewelry theft is funny. I never have, because it’s no laughing matter. Although, to be honest, people make too big a deal of it, don’t they? It used to be a very normal way to make a living. People accepted it. They made movies about it. It was a different time, a decade or two ago, so what’s the big deal? About this very terrible crime, committed by a terrible person, who was a great guy, and I wish his partner who designed all the heists all the best. But I thought of my ex-friend the jewel thief as more of a neighbor that you nod to when you go by his house, not that I ever went there.

Those photographs of me and him surrounded by jewels and the many stories of us finding reasons to have jewels shipped in for appraisals, just us two with chests and barrels of jewels and nobody else anywhere near? Witch hunt, pure and simple. Look! Over there! An immigrant!

What were we talking about? How good I am at golf? Oh, the man I barely knew who was a gobsmackingly industrious jewel thief and also a blackmailer of the highest levels of society for decades. What a boring topic. Haven’t you lost interest yet?

Yes, I did personally buy an international gem show, which is a ready-made way to move jewels across borders with very little oversight. And I did open a jewelry store in New York that dealt with a whole lot of jewels to and from international clients and very little paperwork. I guess it’s bad to be a businessman now, is that it? Do you want bread lines and socialism instead?

Speaking of my many legitimate business ventures, yes, I have been a big booster of the cryptocurrency industry, and so was that person who just lived in the same state that I did. It's an extremely secure and growing business opportunity, and so what if it also offers a way to sell stolen gemstones with ease and in complete secrecy? Have you no appreciation for the magic of synchronicity? Sometimes things just happen. Like when I would happen to burst into rooms full of uncut gems at the gem show. Whoops! Anyway, you should invest in my cryptocoin. Many foreign leaders have, for totally innocent reasons. Look, Amelia Earhart!

Speaking of coincidences and that random guy to whom I had no connection, people keep trying to make a big deal out of how two different attorneys who failed to prosecute him ended up getting hired to high-level positions in my company. Look, I’m a super-successful businessman. When I see great attorneys, I hire them. The hallmark of a great attorney is like that of a great jazz musician: It’s the cases they don’t prosecute.

People are always making a big deal out of nothing, like when they wildly inflate the importance of the fact that an international jewel thief that I barely knew had a voluminous correspondence in which I am named more than one million times. So what? I suggest you check in with all your distant, glancing acquaintances and hope they have never done anything wrong, because I bet you’re mentioned in their emails a million times as well. Maybe THREE million. Let us instead marvel at the smallness of a world that brings wildly disparate people together over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, completely coincidentally, in a totally blameless way. It’s an enigma.

Finally, let me be clear: People accuse other people of jewel thievery for no reason all the time, so it should be no surprise that dozens of people have accused me of jewel theft over a span of decades, going all the way back to the 1980s. You should be so lucky as to remain a regular shmoe instead of a prominent businessman like I am, because the minute you start to get successful, people start trying to get famous by accusing you of jewel theft. Not to mention completely biased news reporters who start wondering how you got all those wildly imprudent bank loans. Name one prominent businessman who hasn’t been accused of jewel thievery by some gold-digger. OK, name ten. Shut up.

So you can see: Once you explain away the years-long habit of running into a complete stranger at the parties we threw together and all the jokes and comments about jewel thievery and  the photographs of us surrounded by jewels and my jewel-focused businesses that just happened to be really good for moving jewels across state and national borders and the crypto boosting and the generous and tolerant bank loans and a few humble career perks for a couple of attorneys who were too busy to prosecute that collection of atoms in the shape of a human who I wouldn’t even recognize on the street and our voluminous correspondence and the repeated accusations for decades that I too am a jewel thief, you really have nothing. See? I’m totally exonerated.

I consider this matter closed, and there should be no more investigations. Stop. Stop investigating. Stop it right now. Stop!

It’s just my luck that all these totally unfounded suspicions have to do with trafficking jewels. Because if all the same non-evidence were piling up about me and trafficked human beings, nobody would be investigating at all. Look, Aliens!