Northshore woman gave away millions to unknowingly fund gambling habit of hairdresser's daughter
“It was $10,000 here and $5,000 here and it just kept going and going and going...I could barely keep my head above water," said 73-year-old Ronda Behrens.
After more than a decade of helping to fund two civil lawsuits filed by her hairdresser’s daughter, a Northshore woman said she was shocked to discover last year that the money was really bankrolling a gambling habit.
Ronda Behrens, 73, started loaning money to Melissa Ficarra Kagel in 2006. At that time, Behrens’ real estate business was booming, a windfall that resulted from Hurricane Katrina.
She won business awards and was a leader in the Northshore real estate community.
“I had money. I had a lot of money. And I'm a believer in what goes around comes around, Behrens said.
Kagel told her she needed money to help fund two Ficarra family lawsuits. One was a personal injury case against her father’s insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, and the other was a lawsuit over the botched sale of a family business, Seagos Starting Systems and Services, LLC.
In exchange for the loans, Behrens said Kagel promised her a piece of the expected multi-million-dollar lawsuit settlements.
A stack of handwritten IOUs, now tucked into a banker’s file, sealed each transaction providing evidence that one little loan snowballed into dozens more.
“It was $10,000 here and $5,000 here and it just kept going and going and going. So, every time I had a sale, she took my whole commission. I could barely keep my head above water,” Behrens said.
Court documents that Behrens said she now knows were fake appeared to back up Kagel’s story that two attorneys kept asking for more money for court fees and fines. Without getting paid, the lawsuits would be thrown out and they would lose all the money they had already sunk into the deal.
Behrens said Kagel told her it was all filed under seal so if she talked about it to anyone, the court would throw it out and they would lose everything.
Behrens' close relative also got roped in. He was a financial lifeline for Behrens, and he ultimately started giving money directly to Kagel too.
“I met with Missy because I didn't believe all this stuff was true, and she convinced me that it was true,” he said.
Con continued
For years, Kagel told Behrens that attorneys Mark Vicknair and Jeffrey Smith were consistently invoicing her for more money.
When WWL Louisiana contacted Smith and Vicknair, neither one had ever heard of Kagel, and neither represented her or invoiced her for payment.
A review of 1,600 pages of text messages Behrens said she exchanged with Kagel revealed a fake, $28 million settlement agreement Kagel sent to Behrens. Kagel claimed it was pending.
Court records show the lawsuits ended more than ten years ago, and they didn’t settle for millions. Kagel’s father, Salvatore Ficara, 's bankruptcy records indicate Blue Cross Blue Shield settled his case for $175,000.
“To hear it from Missy, and I have emails to this effect, she said, ‘What's the big deal? I made a mistake.’ A mistake. That's how she's viewed it,” Behrens’ relative continued, “If she made one mistake. I mean, she's been lying, stealing, conducting fraud for, over a decade. I mean, the woman's pathological.”
Will justice prevail?
Both Behrens and her relative realized last June after Kagel was arrested for stealing from another older man that they were never getting their money back.
They each have filed police reports against Kagel, Behrens, and the relative with the Covington Police Department and the Sandy Springs Police Department in Georgia.
She has been arrested and charged with exploitation of the infirmed in St. Tammany and has a warrant out for her arrest in Georgia.
“Right now, she's footloose and fancy-free,” Behrens said. “I know that the justice system will prevail. But it’s so slow.”
She said she’s hoping federal investigators will get involved.
Former federal prosecutor Matthew Chester said it’s a real possibility they could.
“Typically, in terms of kind of like, dollar thresholds, they want to see something substantial. So, five figures, high five figures, maybe $100,000 or more,” Chester said.
Behrens claims Kagel took $3 million from her and her relative said Kagel took half a million from him.
And there are more alleged victims, including another relative who is battling colon cancer.
“Missy was freaking out, you know, ‘Oh, my father's going to take me off the trust. I need $1,000’,” Behrens said about how that loan originated.
According to Behrens, Kagel offered to pay the relative’s $47,000 chemotherapy bill in exchange, but never even repaid the $1,000.
“I think from a law enforcement standpoint, I think prosecuting in the federal system makes sense because the charge ends up sticking with the defendant, and you generally can receive, prison sentences depending on the what the guidelines say,” Chester said.
Kagel's attorney declined to be interviewed and our calls to Kagel weren't returned.
High stakes
While Behrens and her relative learned a year ago what Kagel had been really doing with the money, a look back at their text conversations revealed hints along the way.
Kagel asked Behrens repeatedly to get loans at casinos along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
For example, in September 2022, Kagel texted Behrens, "If u wanted it that bad u would go to Scarlet pearl."
Behrens' close relative said Kagel emailed and texted him a number of times confessing.
He shared one of those texts that reads, in part, "I gambled and I paid bills. I am not lying anymore. At first I used money to pay my attorneys,” the text continued, “In my sick mind I thought that I could win enough money to pay you and Ronda and it just got deeper and deeper."
Kagel allegedly gambled away much of her own life's savings and the savings of up to 10 others along the way, something none of them would've ever bet would end in court.
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