Duey and Prue swung the courthouse doors open just in time to hear a “Bang!” of the judge’s gavel, and Coco’s sentence is finalized.

The judge reads “Coco pleads guilty to Criminal Possession of Cannabis in the second degree, a Class E Felony, and to Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a Class A Misdemeanor. The Aggravated Criminal Sale of Cannabis will be dropped, bringing the final sentence to 1 year imprisonment with post release supervision, and 3 years probation.”

Coco and Duey’s faces fell into sad frowns, even though they both expected something like this.

“I’m sorry Duey,” Prue said, “It’s not that bad though. One year in prison is tough, but she’ll get through it and be out before you know it.”

“Yeah I know, it’s just not easy to see your mother being sentenced. Let me say a quick goodbye and then we can leave. I need something to take my mind off of this whole situation,” Duey replied.

Prue looked down at her phone and knew just the thing to help Duey get through the day. After both had a chance to speak, Prue drove Duey back to the Fancy Valley and Four Seasons to meet up with Sue and Justin again.

“How did everything go?” Sue asked.

“Not great, she got 1 year in prison and 3 years on probation,” Duey replied, “Not in much of a mood to talk about it. What’s going on here though?”

“We were just discussing if we think we need a finance professional to join our team and take care of the books. We’re able to get it done as we are now, but I think we could really save time and allow us to work on other, more valuable parts of the business.”

“That’s interesting. We plan on growing our team more this year anyway, and you all know I’ll make a mistake in payroll. What do you think Justin?”

“I don’t hate the idea,” Justin replied, “If we do hire someone though, how can we be sure we can trust the person to do the right thing? I don’t think it’s a good idea to give just anyone that kind of access.”

“You’re right Justin, that is a lot of responsibility. That’s why we use Commercial Investigations though. They’re a licensed private investigative firm, so they can obtain additional information that other consumer reporting agencies don’t have the ability to,” Duey replied.

“Wow, what kind of information is found?” Justin asked.

“Well, it depends on what we want to search. For this position, we would want a basic credit check, but that alone isn’t enough for me to feel comfortable. Based on the persons’ work history, we could check the Federal Reserve Board for any enforcement actions, or quickly get information from the FINRA database if needed.”

“That would be really neat!” Sue interjected, “I’ve looked at the FINRA website before. It’s very confusing for a first timer, and I didn’t even get to reading the results.”

“Exactly, Sue. CI has been doing this exact thing for 20 years. They have the expertise to find and obtain accurate information and get it back to us quickly. They’ll also only pass along information that we can use to make a hiring decision, so I trust the results we get from them,” Duey explained.

“Well that settles it. If we’re going to grow, we need the infrastructure first. I’ll put the job posting online, and we’ll wait to see what happens!” Sue said.

How will Coco hold up in prison?

How will Duey react to the change in his life?

Will the Fancy Valley and Four Seasons hire a financial professional?

Find out in the next issue!