Less than 12 hours after the last box was loaded off the moving truck, a man rang my doorbell. When Suzi answered the door it was not, as expected, the pizza guy. It was a tall black man with a court officer's badge around his neck and a fistful of papers.

He was looking for the previous owner.

Now, I'm not really sure if I should be saying what the name of the previous owner is in connection with this matter. Legal stuff like this, like, serious legal stuff, makes me kind of nervous. So we're going to give him a pseudonym, just to be on the safe side. We'll call him. Mr. Screwed.

"Is Mr. Screwed here?" the tall black man with the court officer's badge asks.

Suzi shakes her head. "He doesn't live here anymore. He sold this place to us."

The tall black man was not immediately convinced, and asked if he could see Suzi's driver's license. She complied. Still not entirely convinced, he asked if he could come in for a few minutes. She complied. He came upstairs and found only me. Then he explained.

Mr. Screwed used to work for a man named Alan Stanford. If you watch the news, you already know where this is going, but if you don't, a brief explanation is in order. Sir Robert Alan Stanford was the chairman of Stanford Financial Group, a multi-billion dollar investment enterprise. Earlier this year, it was determined that Stanford and his company had been perpetuating a Ponzi scheme worth over $8 billion. Alan Stanford is Bernie Madoff, except he's a gentile. Oh, and he actually has a Hitler mustache. Seriously.

Mr. Screwed is one of 60 or so employees who have been named in a lawsuit against Alan Stanford and his company. It is common for the SEC to file civil charges before criminal charges (Stanford, who was captured in February, was not formarly charged with a crime until June.) According to our visiting court officer, he had been trying to serve Mr. Screwed with his paper's for over a month. Furthermore, Mr. Screwed knew about the impending lawsuit, as he had been sent letters and had papers taped to his door.

Suddenly, it made alot more sense why Mr. Screwed had been living in Mexico City while he tried to sell his Houston townhome.

In a case like this, the SEC is not necessarily interested in pursuing criminal charges against a low-level figure liked Mr. Screwed. Cooperation in the civil phase of the process that helps them pin down the big guys later, will often result in leniency. I believe the legal phrase is "unindicted co-conspirator." However, when they run, and dance, and evade, and make the court officer come out looking for you at 10 o'clock on his Saturday night, then the odds that you are staring down hard time in prison go up, up, up.

Mr. Screwed made half a million dollars last year selling Stanford's phony paper. Now, he could be looking down the barrel of 10 years hard time.

Oh, and the townhouse? It's really nice.