In the Milwaukee County Courthouse, where plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers and ex-spouses line up every day to bicker about money, nobody knows quite what to make of the man who won't take home his $617,000.
By a judge's order, that sum sits quietly in an interest-bearing account at Tri City National Bank, waiting for Gene A. Sehrt to walk into the clerk of court's office, show an ID and ask for what's his. The ownership of the money couldn't be clearer - the sum came from the rental and sale of some Milwaukee commercial properties a court-appointed receiver administered at Sehrt's family's request, after he wasn't heard from for several years.
If Sehrt exists, and no shortage of evidence says he does, the money is his.
What could be simpler?
Just about anything, according to many of the judges, attorneys, court clerks, relatives, detectives, ex-business partners and ex-lovers whose paths have crossed with Sehrt or his case over the 30 years since his mother asked the courts to legally transfer her son's property. Their accounts consistently describe an elusive figure, a self-styled fringe character in society who, confoundingly, is said to be both unmotivated by money and perpetually scheming for more.
"The man was nearly a genius," said George Grosch, who was involved in a set of real-estate deals with Sehrt that ended shortly before Grosch turned Sehrt in to the district attorney in 1987. "But I always said, if there were 10 straightforward ways to do things and one convoluted legal way to do things, he'd always pick that convoluted one."
And so it happens that Gene Sehrt - or a man who the clerk of circuit court and his staff believe is Gene Sehrt - shows up frequently in the very office where he could easily claim that $617,000 but leaves every time without even asking for it.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may05/329830.asp
By a judge's order, that sum sits quietly in an interest-bearing account at Tri City National Bank, waiting for Gene A. Sehrt to walk into the clerk of court's office, show an ID and ask for what's his. The ownership of the money couldn't be clearer - the sum came from the rental and sale of some Milwaukee commercial properties a court-appointed receiver administered at Sehrt's family's request, after he wasn't heard from for several years.
If Sehrt exists, and no shortage of evidence says he does, the money is his.
What could be simpler?
Just about anything, according to many of the judges, attorneys, court clerks, relatives, detectives, ex-business partners and ex-lovers whose paths have crossed with Sehrt or his case over the 30 years since his mother asked the courts to legally transfer her son's property. Their accounts consistently describe an elusive figure, a self-styled fringe character in society who, confoundingly, is said to be both unmotivated by money and perpetually scheming for more.
"The man was nearly a genius," said George Grosch, who was involved in a set of real-estate deals with Sehrt that ended shortly before Grosch turned Sehrt in to the district attorney in 1987. "But I always said, if there were 10 straightforward ways to do things and one convoluted legal way to do things, he'd always pick that convoluted one."
And so it happens that Gene Sehrt - or a man who the clerk of circuit court and his staff believe is Gene Sehrt - shows up frequently in the very office where he could easily claim that $617,000 but leaves every time without even asking for it.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may05/329830.asp
