Topic of the day across the USA: Fraud.

[The Backlash Cometh]

They talk about potential fraud in the Palm Beach post regarding voucher programs. (The Republicans want a blank check -- no strings attached. In the Houston Chronicle writes about Strom Thurmond's daughter and her relationship about her father: Strom, who is a ... fraud.

And, in the St. Petersburg Times, a fraud finds a way to make money out of his own fraud:

Fraud by the book: Novelist becomes his own hero
The spelling may be sloppy, but The Associates is a page-turner for agents on the trail of its author.

TAMPA - Matthew B. Cox had made the transition from a dead-end insurance sales job to a promising career in the mortgage brokerage business some years ago when he penned a crime novel titled The Associates.

Cox billed the novel as fiction, but it has proved to be much closer to autobiography.

According to evidence uncovered by federal agents, the 317-page, unpublished manuscript was apparently a blueprint for a multimillion-dollar series of white-collar crimes that so far has spread across two states.

The fictional protagonist in Cox's book, former University of South Florida student Christian Locke, leaves a $26,000-a-year insurance sales job to make it big in the mortgage business, finds himself in hot water with the FBI and executes an elaborate plan to defraud lenders of millions before making his getaway.

Cox, 35, himself a former USF art student, started his own mortgage company, was charged with fraud in Tampa, then, according to court records, masterminded a scheme to use phony identities and falsified records to make a fortune with fraudulent loans on dilapidated properties in Tampa Heights. He is now a fugitive.

In The Associates, Locke uses various fraudulent means to acquire $2.7-million in real estate. In reality, Cox's associates say he dreamed up a series of phony buyers - Brandon Green and James Redd, among others - to sign for a series of fraudulent loans.

His take: $2.77-million, according to an examination of property records by the St. Petersburg Times.

Now, Cox's The Associates has become late-night reading for federal agents on Cox's trail. They hope his thinly disguised yarn provides insights into his psyche and, more important, clues to his whereabouts.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/19/Tampabay/Fraud_by_the_book__No.shtml

We're just one big poseur nation.