Three hundred miles away, in a penthouse that had been purchased through so many shell companies it would take forensic accountants months to trace, Daniel Harrison stared at the legal documents his lawyer had delivered that morning. The charges against him read like a horror story, a catalog of crimes that he could barely recognize as his own actions.

"This is exaggerated," he told his attorney, a man named Harold Vance who had represented Daniel's business interests for over a ...