In case you were starting to feel badly for poor Michael Vick who is rotting in federal prison right now on dog-fighting charges, comes this incredible
article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which shows just how stupid and irresponsible Vick really is.
While none of what you are about to read is illegal it goes to show what kind of person Michael Vick is. Instead of trying to repay his debt and rebuild his life he spent his last few days of freedom on a spending spree of "if I can't have it nobody can" proportions.
The day he went to jail, Michael Vick bought a $99,000 Mercedes. On Nov. 19, 2007, Vick went to a car showroom in Hampton, Va. He picked out an andorite-gray 2008 Mercedes-Benz S550 sedan and, using his bank debit card, paid in full: $99,589.71.
Then he drove it to Richmond, surrendered to federal marshals and went to jail.
Altogether on Nov. 19, 2007, Vick spent $201,840.
He cashed four checks that totaled $24,900. He gave $28,000 to the mother of his oldest child. He paid a public relations firm $23,000 and gave a friend $16,000.
But that was just some of it, he spent $18.2 million from 2006 to 2008.
Vick is now seeking bankruptcy protection from his many creditors when he gets out of jail.
From Aug. 27, 2007, the day he pleaded guilty in a Richmond federal courthouse, until Nov. 19, the day he bought the new Mercedes before reporting to jail, Vick shelled out $3,627,291.
And now his creditors (including the Falcons who are seeking to recoup about $3.75 million of bonuses paid to Vick) are furious and accusing Vick of "sheltering assets" in his own decadent way.
In 2007, documents show, he used cashier’s checks to withdraw $908,500 from his bank accounts. During a two-year period, he wrote checks payable to “cash” totaling almost $1.1 million.
But Vick's spending was out of control long before he knew he was going to jail.
Not long after joining the Falcons, Vick bought his first house: a $918,000 mini-mansion behind the gates that guard the Sugarloaf Country Club in Duluth, Georgia. Two years later, in April 2005, he upgraded to a larger house in the same neighborhood, for almost $3.8 million. Among his improvements to that property: a movie screening room and a golf simulator.
But he had the money. In 2004, after two seasons with the Falcons, he signed a new contract that, with potential bonuses, could pay him $130 million by 2013. Endorsement deals — with Nike, AirTran Airways and others — added millions more. In 2006 and 2007 alone, Vick took in almost $22 million.
He bought four more houses, all in Virginia, and began building another.
He bought a condominium in Miami Beach.
He bought interests in two farms — one in Virginia, one in Rockdale County, east of Atlanta.
He bought six Paso Fino horses, worth about $450,000.
He bought two boats, one for $100,000, the other for $125,000.
He bought cars: a Bentley, two Land Rovers, Cadillacs, an Infiniti sport utility vehicle and an Infiniti sedan, two Ford pickup trucks, a Dodge, a Chevrolet, the $99,000 Mercedes.
And he bought as much as $450,000 in jewelry. The pieces included two Swiss watches, a bracelet, a pair of diamond stud earrings, and a charm inscribed, “World is mine.”
In 2006, he bought his sister, Christina, a GMC Yukon. The next year, he gave a Lincoln Navigator to Tameka Taylor, the mother of his first child. The mother of Vick’s other two children, Kijafa Frink, got a Land Rover; her mother, a Cadillac Escalade.
He paid Frink’s mortgage and gave her $1,000 a month for clothes, court records say, and $300 for “beauty-related expenses.” He supported Taylor and their son with $3,500 a month.
For his mother, Brenda Boddie, Vick covered a $4,700-a-month mortgage and $2,100 in payments for her two Cadillacs.
In all, routine monthly bills for the mothers of Vick’s children and for his own mother came to $31,293 — more than $375,000 a year.
To run his complicated financial life, Vick in 2005 created a management and marketing company, MV7 LLC. It provided income for at least two family members, according to public records: Vick’s mother, whose salary approached $100,000 a year, and his sister, who earned about $22,000. The firm even had a retirement fund.
He also set up several other businesses, all using his name or jersey number in their names.
Divine Seven operated a Payless Car Rental franchise at the Atlanta airport. Seven Charms Farm raised horses. Vicktory Corp. oversaw family investments. Siete (Spanish for “seven”) delivered a gift of $317,000 to his mother’s church a week before Vick pleaded guilty.
In 2006, Vick personally guaranteed a $2.1 million bank loan to Divine Seven in exchange for a 60 percent stake in the company. A little over a year later, the bank declared the loan in default. It obtained a civil judgment against Vick and is trying to collect through his bankruptcy case.
In 2007, Vick put up $200,000 for a 60 percent interest in Seven Charms Farm, a 5-acre spread near Conyers. In September of this year, Rockdale County sold the property at auction to satisfy an unpaid property tax bill. The buyer got the property for $40,000.
Vick’s philanthropic efforts didn’t fare especially well, either. In 2006, the Michael Vick Foundation provided 100 backpacks to poor children in Newport News and paid for an after-school program. But the foundation spent only 12 percent of its budget — $20,590 of $171,823 — on charitable programs, according to its 2006 federal tax return. The foundation paid its fund-raiser, Susan Bass Roberts, a former spokeswoman for Vick, $97,000, the tax return shows.
The foundation ceased operations in 2006.
However, when Vick was sentenced he began setting aside money for family members. He put $625,000 into two businesses that would make monthly payments to Frink, who then was pregnant with their second child. He also gave Frink $48,000 and an SUV to keep in Leavenworth, Kan., where he would serve his sentence.
During his last weeks of freedom, though, Vick also spent $85,000 on a fish pond and $48,257 for landscaping. He bought a $31,000 Ford pickup and a $33,100 Chevrolet.
In the weeks before he went to jail, he made 48 cash withdrawals for a total of $325,945.
The Mercedes now is in the hands of a group of creditors; they recently told a bankruptcy judge they have found a buyer willing to pay $65,000. A luxury-car broker is trying to sell the rest of Vick’s vehicles.
Under bankruptcy laws, Vick will be allowed to retain ownership of one house; he chose his mother’s home in Suffolk, Va. He also is keeping $136,500 of home furnishings, $5,000 of clothes and a retirement account with a balance of $96.63.
Vick’s other houses are on the market. The proceeds of any sales would go toward paying off the mortgages.
In addition to his other debts, Vick owes more than $1.2 million in back taxes, the Internal Revenue Service told his bankruptcy judge last month. That figure may increase, the IRS said in court papers; Vick has not yet filed his 2007 return.
