Michael Vick's "Chump Change"

NOVEMBER 13--Michael Vick, who now earns 12 cents an hour for prison work, has just filed detailed reports and ledgers showing how his financial condition imploded in tandem with his football career. Vick, who declared bankruptcy in July, yesterday filed a statement of financial affairs charting how he spent $17.7 million in the two years preceding his Chapter 11 petition (keep in mind, of course, that he has been imprisoned since November 2007).

The two-page statement lists the former football star's payments to lawyers, relatives, and the mothers of his children. Lousy investments, security, cars, a boat, $3.5 million in 'miscellaneous' transfers, and $1.1 million in checks made out to 'Cash' are also memorialized in the ledger. One indication of Vick's, um, unorthodox financial controls can be found in the recording of a $1000 check cut to his mother Brenda Boddie in October 2006. At the time, Vick gave a brief description of the payment: 'chump change.'

Vick's U.S. District Court filings also included a list of the nine cars he owns: a $73,000 Land Rover is driven by his fiancee, the woman's mother uses a 2007 Cadillac Escalade, and Vick's brother Marcus drives a 2007 Land Rover. A 2007 Infinity is even kept in Leavenworth, Kansas--where Vick is imprisoned--for use by his fiancee, Kijafa Frink, when she visits the federal lockup.

The court records also describe Vick's financial interest in about five horses. But considering that the ex-quarterback is behind bars for dog fighting and knew that his cronies killed underperforming pit bulls, Vick might have offered a more assuring statement on the well-being of the horses than, 'Upon information and belief, these horses are being fed and cared for by an individual, unknown to the Debtor, who is not being paid or compensated for his services.' (5 pages)