SerVaas Explains Why Family Bailed Out Durham

Tim Durham was released on a $1 million bond after his arrest last week on a 12-count indictment on wire and securities fraud for operating the now-defunct Fair Finance Co. as a Ponzi scheme. Durham's ex-wife, Joan SerVaas, and her father, former City-County Council President Beurt SerVaas, posted bond for Durham. Joan released the following statement to WISH-TV explaining why the prominent Indianapolis family bailed out the man Beurt booted from his company years ago:

First and foremost, I want to say how sorry my father and I are for those who have lost their savings, investments and jobs as a result of the failure of Fair Finance.


Tim and I have long been divorced, but as the father of our twenty- year-old son, he will always be part of our family. My father and I have not paid one million dollars for bail. We signed a surety bond for that amount as part of an agreement between Tim and the U.S. District Attorney's office.

As I understand it, the purpose of bail is to assure Tim's attendance in court. We agreed to these terms because we are confident that Tim will continue to cooperate with the federal authorities and abide by the conditions of his release from detention.

Joan SerVaas is the CEO of Curtis Publishing, which publishes the nation's oldest magazine, The Saturday Evening Post. Beurt, in addition to being the first and longest serving President of the Indianapolis City-County Council, is the CEO of SerVaas, Inc., which owns a number of companies around the world. SerVaas was a high-ranking officer in the nation's first spy agency, the OSS, and has long been rumored to have CIA ties. Among the companies SerVaas has owned in the past include International Investigators, Inc., a private investigation firm based in Indianapolis that boasts of employing former FBI and CIA agents. The firm's role in corruption within the Indianapolis Police Department under former Mayor Richard Lugar is discussed at length in Pulitzer Prize-winning former Star reporter Dick Cady's recently-released book, Deadline: Indianapolis. Cady suggest surveillance equipment purchased by IPD with federal funds wound up in the hands of private investigators of the firm who allegedly illegally wire-tapped various politicians. Some believe SerVaas was responsible for landing Indiana's Dan Quayle, at the time a relatively obscure member of the U.S. Senate, the Vice-Presidential spot on the ticket of former President George H.W. Bush, a former CIA Director whose family was instrumental in establishing the nation's intelligence apparatus.