Cape & Islands News

Windles faced foreclosure prior to alleged church theft

by Julie Brooks

• Jeffrey and Jeannine's life together a chaotic jumble of jobs, bankruptcies, kids, and crimes
• Catholic turned Congregationalist?
• The burning question
• Jeffrey donated $2,300 to failed senatorial candidate Jeff Beatty's campaign
• When is this going to end?
  

Indicted Harwich Port embezzler Jeffrey Windle  and his wife Jeannine  were kindred spirits who married and had a family, but their life together was far from idyllic or even normal .    Even now,  as Jeffrey (inmate #49175) is incarcerated in Plymouth awaiting his fate at the hands of federal prosecutors, Jeannine appears to be loyal to him, according to sources in Harwich.  

Both Jeffrey and Jeannine hail  from the Millbury/Sutton, MA area south of Worcester.  Jeffrey's family is well-known in the towns, as his grandfather and father owned the now-closed Windle Industries, a textile mill.    There's a baseball field in town called Windle Field and the town has a such a long history of textile industry that the local school sports teams are called the Woollies.  

 Jeffrey married  Jeannine Cournoyer in 1994 on Martha's Vineyard, where Jeffrey's mother lived then and now.   Like many natives of central Massachusetts, Jeannine was of French-Canadian extraction.  She did not graduate from college and according to many sources, Jeffrey's family found her to be "loud and coarse" and were not thrilled by Jeffrey's choice of a wife.  

The Feds recently filed a superseding indictment against Jeffrey, in which they charge that he stole up to $650,000 from the South Dennis Congregational Church.

As I have detailed in prior blog postings, Jeffrey and Jeannine landed on Cape Cod in 1995 when they purchased a house at 346 Trotting Park Road in Dennis.   Here's a timeline of activity during this period:

1989: Jeffrey graduates from Bentley College with a degree in business administration

1990: Jeffrey pleads guilty to larceny of property under $250 and pays a fine

1993: Jeffrey obtains a bank loan for $55,000 by falsifying information and forging his parents' signatures as co-signers.  He pleads guilty to uttering, forgery, and larceny in 1996 and is sentenced to two years, which apparently he did not serve.

1994:  Jeffrey marries Jeannine

1995: The Windles purchase house at 346 Trotting Park Road for $145,000, taking  out a $100,000 mortgage

1996: The Windles' daughter is born.

1996:   Jeffrey pleads guilty to larceny. He stole two checks from an employer and used one to make a down payment on a boat and one for himself.   He is ordered  to pay  restitution of $17,950.

January 1997: Jeffrey is indicted by Feds for filing false tax returns.  He pocketed about $78,000 from this scheme.  Caught, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in a federal boot camp.

 April 1997: The Windles' mortgage holder, Wells Fargo,  filed a complaint for authority to foreclose

June 1997:  Jeffrey files for chapter 13 bankruptcy. It's dismissed.

July 1997:   A $6800 judgement is found against Jeffrey for a credit company.

April of 1997:  The Windle's mortgage holder, Wells Fargo,  filed a complaint for authority to foreclose.

June 1998:  Jeffrey released from prison.

October 1999: Jeffrey filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy, discharging $25,000 worth of debt.

July 1999: A $20,000 judgement is filed against Jeffrey by his neighbor who says Jeffrey cut down trees on his property.  To satisfy the judgement, Jeannine's Ford Taurus station wagon is auctioned.

November 1999:  The Windle's mortgage holder, Wells Fargo,  filed a complaint for authority to foreclose.

2000:  The Windles' son is born.

May 2002:   The Windles' mortgage holder, Wells Fargo,  filed a complaint for authority to foreclose.

May 2002:  Jeffrey files for chapter 13 bankruptcy, stating he was employed by Coyman Construction company in Sandwich as a carpenter. He also states he was employed by P. Wiles, Inc. and Michael P. Neath, Inc. in 2000 and 2001.  Download complete document here.

August 2002:  Jeannine files for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, stating she was employed by Odyssey Engineering in Dennis.  Download complete document here.

February  2003:  Jeffrey files for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, stating he was employed as Finance Director for General Cable in Taunton, MA.  Download complete document here.

Summer 2003:  Jeffrey and Jeannine begin attending South Dennis Congregational Church, very near their home.

September 2003:  Jeffrey becomes volunteer treasurer of church.

October 2003: Jeffrey allegedly begins theft of church's funds, totalling over $800,000 over five years.

June 2004: Jeffrey allegedly first begins to steal money from Cambium Learning, where he had been employed for a couple of months.  The amount he is alleged to have stolen over 4 years  is $14 million.

December 2004: Jeffrey purchases the house at 652 Main Street, Harwich Port for $1.9 million.

2004-2008 Jeffrey purchases 4 more houses, 5 boats, and 5 luxury cars.

May 2008: Jeffrey is arrested.  In interviews with the FBI, Jeannine claims that she knew about her husband's crimes in 1990, 1995, and 1997, and also claims that she knows nothing about her husband's alleged illegal activities from 2003 to the present.

In general, filing chapter 13 bankruptcy, which allows you to re-structure your debt and work out a payment plan with your creditors, is a strategy used by people whose homes are facing foreclosure. 

The Windle's $100,000 mortgage was over 30 years. The monthly payments (at 8% interest) would have been $750.

Catholic turned Congregationalist?

The Congregational demonination of churches are rooted in  New England puritanism.  Conceivably, Jeffrey could have been raised a Congregationalist, if not, he could certainly blend in with them.  Jeannine,  not so much.   (In fact, Jeffrey's father, Terrence Windle, who still resides in Sutton, was a member of a Congregational church in Sutton as recently as 2007.)  I have often wondered:  did Jeffrey actively seek out a church or other non-profit that he could sense was vulnerable to embezzlement?  It just seems so coincidental that a church with $800,000 for the taking was located so close to his home.  

The Windles first joined the South Dennis Congregational Church  in the summer of 2003 and Jeffrey became the treasurer in September of 2003.  The church's small but loyal and mostly elderly congregation eagerly welcomed the young local family into their fold.   According to church sources, Jeannine was raised a Catholic. Yet she  faithfully attended the Congegational church every Sunday alongside her husband, children in tow.    I have known many Catholic people, and sure, many of them are lapsed Catholics who haven't been to Mass in 20 years, but I have only rarely  heard of one becoming an active member of another church.  I wonder what caused Jeannine to forego her Hail Marys and her rosary beads all of a sudden in the summer of 2003.  Perhaps it was the foreclosure notices.

A Catholic priest once  said to a relative of mine:  "Saying you're an ex-Catholic is like saying you're an ex-black. There's no such thing."

Jeffrey allegedly began stealing the church's money within three weeks of becoming treasurer, eventually using the church's bank accounts to launder money allegedly stolen from his employer, Cambium Learning.

The burning question

What have Jeannine and the kids been living on since May?  The Feds froze all their bank accounts.   Jeannine supposedly isn't working, and yet she has kept the lights on and food on the table for 6 months with no visible means of support.     She has had landscapers working at the properties.  It's a big mystery.

The disappearing playground set

Jeffry and Jeannine moved to their fancy $1.9 million house  in Harwich Port in 2004,  a few months after Jeffrey began work at Cambium Learning.   They did massive renovations and improvements to the house.   They kept the Trotting Park Road house.    According to some Dennis moms,  Jeannine began to snub her former Dennis friends after her move to Harwich Port, including the ones who gave her rides to the grocery store and other places after her car had been reposessed.  When Jeffrey was arrested May 2, 2008,  the Trotting Park Road house was being rented to a teacher at the Ezra Baker school next door.   She moved out after a couple of months. Then, in the summer, a phone number was registered to that address in the name of Carol Hanson, who is Jeannine's mother.  This phone number is no longer active.  Moms in the area tell me that Carol was living in the house for awhile and that Jeannine was frequently over there.    Now it appears, no one is living there. 

And the play equipment visible in this picture taken in May is now gone.  Was it sold?  If so, that would be a violation of a court order.  A lis pendens, kind of like a restraining order which prevents a property and its contents and fixtures from being bought or sold, was filed on both the Trotting Park Road house and the house in Harwich Port by the feds in July.  Jeannine has reportedly told acquaintences that she can stay in the Harwich Port house until June.  Could this be true?   What I think is strange is that the Trotting Park Road mortgage was not paid off until 09/20/07, well past the point at which Jeffrey allegedly stole millions  from Cambium and the church.

Jeffrey was a generous Republican

Jeffrey Windle donated $2,300 to Harwich's Jeff Beatty's campaign in 2007.  Beatty recently lost the Massachusetts senatorial race to John Kerry.  He lives in a modest house on John Joseph Road and so that rules out him knowing Jeffrey from his swanky Harwich Port neighborhood.   It is ironic that Jeff Beatty's extensive security background, which includes stints with the the military, the FBI, and the CIA, did not help him detect the fraudster in Jeffrey.  I don't blame Beatty, though--apparently a lot of people were fooled.  I'm not saying Beatty even knew Jeffrey well or at all. 

When is this going to end?

It was May 9th, 2008.  On a whim, I put up my first blog posting  about Jeffrey Windle's arrest.   I am not a writer by profession; I am the CEO of the company which operates this website.  I figured, "This won't take much time; he'll plead guilty in a couple of months and be sentenced to prison.  Jeannine and the kids will get kicked out of the house in Harwich Port and they'll move to Florida or somewhere else.  End of story."

Well, 6 months later, Jeffrey still hasn't made his plea or gone to trial, more charges are being filed, and Jeannine and the kids are still living in Harwich Port,  perhaps under the delusion that their former life will somehow be restored.  The summer was pretty quiet but things have heated up again in this case.    I have a very full life besides this blog and while I and many people are still fascinated by this case, I have to say I hope it resolves itself soon!

I have received many emails and calls with tips about this case.  All are appreciated.

Call or email me:   Julie Brooks --508-385-0003 x 106

Coming later this week:

• Is Jeffrey a corporate psychopath?  Does he have obsessive-compulsive disorder?
• Neighbors in Florida nickname Jeffrey's unkempt compound "Jeffrey's Jungle" (then and now pics)
  
• 3,304 visits to this blog from people Googling "Jeffrey Windle";  148 from Googling "Jeannine Windle"

 All past blog postings on the Windle case:

Feds indict Jeffrey Windle on tax evasion - 11/7/08

U.S. Marshals Seize Indicted Embezzler's Property - 9/1/08

Jeffrey Windle pleads "Not Guilty" - 7/3/08

Windle charged by US Attorney with 15 counts - 6/28/08

Help requested in locating accused embezzler's assets - 6/13/08

Windle allegedly used Dennis church for money laundering - 5/26/08

$14 million in attachments filed in alleged Harwich embezzler case - 5/22/08

Alleged Harwich Port embezzler built lavish compound in Florida - 5/18/08

Alleged embezzler's attorney arrested for gun threat - 5/14/08

Accused embezzler's mark on Dennis - 5/12/08

Googleable: A Tale of Two Houses - 5/9/08