Christina McDowell is the author of the unflinching memoir AFTER PERFECT: A Daughter’s Memoir (Gallery Books; June 2, 2015; Hardcover; $25.00). Christina is the daughter of Tom Prousalis, a securities lawyer who helped swindler Jordan Belfort (of The Wolf of Wall Street) set up IPOs for shell companies and served 57 months in prison for securities fraud. Her brutally honest tale includes her descent into drugs, promiscuity, financial demise and even homelessness following the wake of her father's imprisonment and continued denial of any wrongdoing.
In 2013 Christina wrote an opinion piece for LA Weekly titled, “An Open Letter to the Makers of The Wolf of Wall Street, and the Wolf Himself,” in which she urged people not to support the film, reminding citizens that crimes such as Belfort’s and her father’s have victims. But Christina is no victim. After years of struggle, she turned her life around, she got sober and has since put her life back together while working with InsideOUT. She found catharsis through the process of Restorative Justice, working with children impacted by the criminal justice system.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Nineteen-year-old Christina drove her father to jail while her mother dissolved in denial. Since then, Christina’s life has been decimated. She was forced to change her name when her father stole her identity, used it to launder money, and left her with nearly $100,000 of debt. As her family floundered in rehab, depression, homelessness, and loss, Christina succumbed to the grip of alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity before finding catharsis in the most unlikely of places. From the bucolic affluence of suburban Washington, DC, to the A-list clubs and seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, this provocative memoir candidly describes the harsh realities of a fall from grace.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAKERS OF THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, AND THE WOLF HIMSELF
BY LA WEEKLY
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2013
BY
CHRISTINA MCDOWELL
I
hate to be the bearer of bad news, dear Kings of Hollywood, but you have been
conned.
Let
me introduce myself. My name is Christina McDowell, formerly Christina Prousalis.
I am the daughter of Tom Prousalis, a man the Washington Post described
as "just some guy on trial for penny-stock fraud."
(I had to change my name after my father stole my identity and then threatened
to steal it again, but I'll get to that part later.) I was 18 and a freshman in
college when my father and his attorneys forced me to attend his trial at New
York City's federal courthouse so that he "looked good" for the jury
-- the consummate family man.
And
you, Jordan Belfort, Wall Street's self-described Wolf: You remember my father,
right? You were chosen to be the government's star witness in testifying
against him. You had pleaded guilty to money laundering and securities fraud
(it was the least you could do) and become a government witness in two dozen
cases involving your former business associate, but my father's attorneys
blocked your testimony because had you testified it would have revealed more
than a half-dozen other corrupt stock offerings too. And, well, that would have
been a disaster. It would have just been too many liars, and too many schemes
for the jurors, attorneys or the judge to follow.
But
the record shows you and my father were in cahoots together with MVSI Inc. of
Vienna, e-Net Inc. of Germantown, Md., Octagon Corp. of Arlington, Va., and
Czech Industries Inc. of Washington, D.C., and so on -- a list of seemingly
innocuous, legitimate companies that stretches on. I'll spare you. Nobody
cares. None of these companies actually existed, yet all of them were taken
public by the one and only Wolf of Wall Street and his firm Stratton Oakmont
Inc in order to defraud unwitting investors and enrich yourselves.
As
an 18-year-old, I had no idea what was going on. But then again, did anyone?
Certainly your investors didn't -- and they were left holding the bag when you
cashed out your holdings and got rich off their money.
So
Marty and Leo, while you glide through press junkets and look forward to awards
season, let me tell you the truth -- what happened to my mother, my two sisters
and me.
The
day my father had to surrender to prison, I drove him. My mother had locked
herself in the bathroom crying and throwing up, becoming nothing short of a
more beautiful version of Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine.
Ironically enough, Marty, she looks like a cross between Sharon Stone and
Michelle Pfeiffer. Totally your leading ingénue type. Anyhow, after my father
successfully laundered money in my name, hiding what was left of our assets
from the government in a Wells Fargo bank account, I arrived home to discover
multiple phone calls from creditors and attorneys threatening to sue me. He'd
left me in nearly $100,000 worth of debt. He left and never told me.
After
all of that liquidated money was gone from the Wells Fargo bank account, things
got pretty bad. My younger sister ran away at 17. My older sister struggled to
finish school in Texas. I couch-surfed for two years, sometimes dressing out of
my car and stealing pieces of salami out of my boyfriends' refrigerators in the
middle of the night, because I was so hungry and so ashamed that I couldn't
feed myself. Tips at the restaurant weren't cutting it. It's a pretty confusing
experience to go from flying private with Dad to an evening where he's begging
you for a piece of your paycheck so he can buy food for dinner.
But,
here's the real kicker --
I
believed him.
I
believed everything my father told me. I believed it was the government's fault
he was going to prison and leaving his little princess, I believed it was your
fault, Jordan Belfort. I believed that by taking out all those credit cards in
my name, my father was attempting to save me. I believed him when he got out,
and when he told me everything would be OK. I believed him until he tried to do
the same thing all over again -- until I was at risk of being arrested myself
(and I'm saving that story for the memoir).
So
here's the deal. You people are dangerous. Your film is a reckless attempt at
continuing to pretend that these sorts of schemes are entertaining, even as the
country is reeling from yet another round of Wall Street scandals. We want to
get lost in what? These phony financiers' fun sexcapades and coke binges? Come
on, we know the truth. This kind of behavior brought America to its knees.
And
yet you're glorifying it -- you who call yourselves liberals. You were honored for career excellence and
for your cultural influence by the Kennedy Center,
Marty. You drive a Honda hybrid, Leo. Did you
think about the cultural message you'd be sending when you decided to make this
film? You have successfully aligned yourself with an accomplished
criminal, a guy who still hasn't made full restitution to his victims,
exacerbating our national obsession with wealth and status and glorifying greed
and psychopathic behavior. And don't even get me started on the
incomprehensible way in which your film degrades women, the misogynistic,
ass-backwards message you endorse to younger generations of men.
But
hey, listen boys, I get it. I was conned, too. By. My. Own. Dad! I drove a
white Range Rover in high school, snorted half of Colombia, and got any guy I
ever wanted because my father would take them flying in his King Air.
And
then I unraveled the truth. The truth about my father and his behavior: that
behind all of it was really just insidious soul-sucking shame masked by
addiction, which we
love to call ambition, which is really just greed. Greed and the desire for
fame (exactly what you've successfully given self-appointed motivational
speaker/financial guru Jordan Belfort, whose business opportunities will surely
multiply thanks to this film).
For
me, it's become goddamn unbearable.
But
I refuse to give up.
Belfort's
victims, my father's victims, don't have a chance at keeping up with the
Joneses. They're left destitute, having lost their life savings at the age of
80. They can't pay their medical bills or help send their children off to
college because of characters like the ones glorified in Terry Winters'
screenplay.
Let
me ask you guys something. What makes you think this man deserves to be the
protagonist in this story? Do you think his victims are going to want to watch
it? Did we forget about the damage that accompanied all those rollicking good
times? Or are we sweeping it under the carpet for the sale of a movie ticket?
And not just on any day, but on Christmas morning??
So
here's what I'm going to do first. I'm going to hand you my shame. Right now,
in this very moment. The shame that I've been carrying for far too long as a
result of being collateral damage. Because each of you should feel ashamed. And
then I'm going to go pre-order my tickets to August: Osage County in
support of Julia and Meryl -- because, at least, as screwed up as that family
is, they talk about the truth.
I
urge each and every human being in America NOT to support this film, because if
you do, you're simply continuing to feed the Wolves of Wall Street.
Yours
truly,
Christina
McDowell
PS.
Quick update on Dad: He is now doing business with the Albanian government and,
rumor has it, is married to a 30-year-old Albanian translator -- they always,
always land on their feet.
Originally
from McLean, Virginia, Christina McDowell currently resides in Los Angeles with
her dog Zelda Fitzgerald. She volunteers for InsideOUT Writers, a nonprofit for
children impacted by the criminal justice system.
*Article reposted from LA Weekly, December 26, 2013
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