Here is my sob-story of the month:
Buddy of mine from Chicago came down to visit this weekend. He's former CPD like me and we worked a car together for a couple of years. I love this man like a brother and I'd step infront of a bullet for him.
A year ago, he resigned from CPD to take care of some family issues. He tried to get a leave of absence, but it was a no-go. One of those fucked-up situations where there is just no good option. If I had been in his shoes, I would have done the same and it's partly why I work in Az now.
Now comes the good part - during this year-long ordeal, he finds out his wife is screwing around on him. He hires a private dick to follow her around and gets all sorts of nastiness on her. Pics, recorded conversations, cell bills, the works. She responds in kind by playing up the abused wife role. It's a very long, ugly story - short take is that he took it in the shorts in the divorce. Somehow she ended up with the house, but prior to this he moved out, she defaulted on the mortgage and now he has a judgement against him listed on his credit report, as well as all her bounced checks/collection notices from when they had a joint account. Nothing ever came of the domestic battery charges she filed against him and the OOP she tried to get was thrown out.
He's getting back into LE now and he's pretty sour on Illinois as a state in general. Can't say that I blame him.
He really wants to work out here or in Nevada. I KNOW that some of the agencies here will flat out toss him just due to the fact that he's got a judgement listed against him and of course, the ensuing bankruptcy that his wife filed before the divorce was finalized.
The upside is that he's got a 12 year stellar record with CPD, 8 on HBT, FTO yadda yadda yadda. The only black mark in his file is a 2 day suspension that he got for being in a car that I crashed...
As far as I know, his wife defaulted on the mortgage (and so did he, by proxy - stupid, I know), filed for bankruptcy but never did anything more with it, royally dicked his credit over and then pranced off with a rich orthodontist from Highland Park.
He's still young at only 35 and he's got the itch for the job as bad as he ever had it. Do I tell him to F' It, roll the bones and apply with agencies hoping he gets lucky? Do I tell him to eat crow and pay off his wife's debts, clear his credit, wait a couple of years and then try or do I say to hell with being a cop, stay in your cushy current 9-5 gig?
This one is tearing me up. We talked about it at length before he left yesterday and I never gave him a solid answer. I feel like shit.
Sheep