My Son-in-law Punched My Daughter At Christmas Dinner. His Brother Said She Finally Needed To Shut Up. They Forgot I Was A Retired Investigator With Very Powerful Friends.
I asked: “How much money are we talking about?”
Jack answered: “Conservative estimate, north of $2 million over the past 3 years. Could be more.”
I let out a low whistle. So when Derek hit Sarah tonight, he wasn’t just an abusive husband; he was a criminal protecting his operation.
And I’d bet money that the reason he’s kept Sarah isolated and scared is because he knew if she ever talked, if she ever felt safe enough to share what she’d seen and heard, it could bring the whole thing down.
We looked at each other, and I saw the same thought in Jack’s eyes that was in mine. We had a chance here, a chance to not just get Derek on assault charges, but to dismantle whatever operation he and Marcus were running.
Jack said: “I need to make a call. We’re going to need the FBI on this.”
The Path to Redemption and Justice
Over the next 3 hours, my house became an unofficial command center. FBI agents arrived, followed by insurance fraud investigators, followed by the District Attorney’s office.
They interviewed Sarah gently at first, then with growing excitement as she recounted every detail she could remember about those basement meetings. She told them about the men who came and went, and about the papers she’d seen with claim numbers and dollar amounts.
They interviewed me about my observations of Derek’s lifestyle. They interviewed Margaret about the times Sarah had shown up with injuries.
They even interviewed my sister, who remembered Derek making a joke once about knowing how to work the system.
By midnight, they had enough for a warrant. It was not just for Derek’s arrest on assault charges, but for a full investigation into insurance fraud conspiracy and racketeering.
They raided Derek and Sarah’s house, seizing computers, files, burner phones, everything. They brought Marcus in for questioning.
Without Derek there to intimidate him, Marcus’s wife Jennifer started talking. She’d been scared too, she said.
She was scared of what Marcus and Derek were involved in, and scared of what would happen if she said anything. She’d seen the way Derek treated Sarah and knew that if she spoke up, Marcus might do the same to her.
The next day, the investigation exploded. They found evidence of at least 50 fraudulent insurance claims totaling over $3 million.
They found a network of corrupt doctors who signed off on fake injuries. They found attorneys who filed the claims knowing they were false.
They found investigators who wrote bogus reports. And at the center of it all were Derek and Marcus Thompson, running the whole operation.
But here’s what nobody expected to find, what made this case go from big to massive: Derek and Marcus weren’t just defrauding insurance companies.
They were also staging actual accidents, recruiting desperate people to deliberately get hurt in car crashes, slip and falls, and workplace incidents. They paid them a fraction of the claim money while keeping the rest.
And in at least two cases, those staged accidents had gone wrong. People had been hurt worse than planned.
One man was permanently paralyzed. A woman had died.
When they told me that, I had to sit down. My daughter had been married to a man who was essentially running a criminal enterprise that had gotten someone killed.
The thought made me physically ill. Sarah took it even harder.
She kept saying: “I lived with him. I slept next to him. I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was capable of that.”
Margaret told her: “You couldn’t have known. He made sure you couldn’t.”
The District Attorney came to my house personally to talk to Sarah. “Miss Thompson,” he said.
He continued: “Your testimony is going to be crucial in this case. We need you to be willing to testify about everything you saw and heard. About the meetings, about Derek’s behavior, about the control and intimidation he used to keep you silent. Can you do that?”
Sarah looked at me. I took her hand. “It’s your choice, honey. No one can make you do this.”
She was quiet for a long moment, then she nodded. “Yes, I’ll testify. Because if I don’t, he’ll do this to someone else. He’ll hurt someone else, and I can’t live with that.”
The trial took 8 months to prepare. In that time, Sarah moved back in with me and Margaret.
She started therapy and joined a support group for domestic violence survivors. Slowly, painfully, she began to heal.
Derek and Marcus were held without bail, deemed flight risks given the severity of the charges. Their attorney, Richard Chen, was also arrested after investigators discovered he’d been laundering money through fake legal settlements.
The whole organization was being systematically dismantled, with dozens of arrests across Oregon and Washington. I watched Sarah grow stronger with each passing day.
The scared, broken woman who’d come home that Christmas had been replaced by someone fierce, someone determined. When she walked into that courthouse on the first day of the trial, she held her head high.
The prosecution laid out their case methodically: financial records, wiretapped phone calls, testimony from the recruited accident victims, and medical evidence from the people who’d been hurt.
And then Sarah took the stand. She testified for 6 hours over 2 days.
She told them everything: about the abuse, about the fear, about the basement meetings, and the whispered conversations. She told them about Derek’s threats and Marcus’s cold observation about the night at Christmas dinner when her father had made one phone call that changed everything.
Derek’s defense attorney tried to rattle her, suggesting she was making things up, that she was a scorned wife seeking revenge. But Sarah didn’t break.
She looked that attorney right in the eye and said: “I have the medical records from every time he hit me. I have the photographs my therapist helped me take of bruises I’d hidden for years. I have the testimony of my family who witnessed the violence.”
She added: “The only thing I’m seeking is justice for everyone my husband hurt, including myself.”
The jury deliberated for less than 3 hours. Guilty on all counts.
Derek Thompson was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for insurance fraud conspiracy and racketeering, plus an additional 10 years on state charges for assault and domestic violence. Marcus got 20 years.
The other members of their organization received sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. The civil suits came next; the insurance companies sued to recover their losses, and the victims sued for damages.
Derek and Marcus lost everything: their houses, their cars, their assets. All of it was seized and sold to pay restitution.
A year after that Christmas dinner, Sarah and I sat on my back porch watching the sunset. She’d started a new job as a victim advocate, helping other domestic violence survivors navigate the legal system.
She’d found purpose in her pain. “Dad,” she said quietly.
She continued: “I never thanked you properly for making that call. For believing me. For not giving up.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “Honey, I failed you for a year by not seeing what was happening. That phone call was the least I could do.”
She said firmly: “You didn’t fail me. You saved me when it mattered most. You didn’t hesitate. You acted.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a while, then Sarah said: “I got a letter yesterday from one of the women Derek and Marcus recruited for their scam.”
She continued: “She thanked me for testifying. She said because of that, she got the courage to report the people who’d manipulated her. She’s getting her life back.”
I said: “That’s wonderful.”
