The Death of Ricky Chotin: Is the Industry to Blame?
By Jane Everhart
I didn't know Rick Chotin very well, though I interviewed him on
the phone three or four times, sometimes for as long as an hour
at a time, in the course of researching my articles on the
fracture-filled scandals in St. Louis. Unfortunately, most of our
taped conversations were "off-the-record" at Rick's request-
meaning I could not write about many of the things we talked
about. Most reporters will honor such a request because
even an "off-the-record" interview will grant us some insight
into a story. But it also means that we often know a great deal
more about a story than we are able to write. I still
have those tapes of Rick's voice somewhere in my desk, but I
don't have the heart to listen to them again. They are a voice
from the grave now: Rick died on March 7 from a self-administered
dose of the "Jewelers' Cocktail"-a cyanide solution used for
treating gold. He was only 44 years old. I shall respect
Rick's request, even after his death, and what he told mewill
remain "off-the-record," but I would like to share with readers
my own feelings and opinions about Rick and what happened to him.
Rick was a charmer: He was loquacious, with an easy
friendliness and a quick intimacy. He didn't hold back any
details of his complicated medical and personal problems. If the
photo he sent us is any indication, he was also very good
looking, although there is a haunting, almost pleading, look in
his eyes in that photo. It seemed to me he looks, in that photo,
like a contrite little boy who has been caught with his hand in
the cookie jar. Above all, Rick wanted to be liked. He wanted
to be popular. Listen to a letter-to-the-editor that was
published in a St. Louis newspaper shortly after his death:
"Jeweler Rick Chotin had his share of problems both in
business and his personal life. But having known Ricky since
early childhood, I would like to share what kind of person he
really was. Ricky was kind to everyone. He was the most well-
liked person all the way from elementary school through
senior high. He had a way of making people feel good about
themselves. Although he was very popular, he would be nice to
everyone at school. He had a way of smiling or saying
something to make you laugh when you walked by him. He gave
so much of himself to both friends and strangers. Ricky
was very charitable. He was constantly giving to a variety of
good causes. I saw Ricky a couple of weeks ago. Despite all
his problems, he was still wearing that smile. Ricky will be
dearly missed by those who truly knew him." Susan Frank
Creve Coeur
I gradually came to believe that Rick Chotin sold
fracture-filled diamonds without telling people that the stones
were treated not so much to make more profit-after all, the
Kawin-Chotin store, in business for 40 years or so, had been
doing very well even before treated diamonds came on the market-
but to do people "a favor." He could sell them a beautiful
diamond for far less money than they had to pay elsewhere, and
that made him feel good. (Although the added profits must have
helped, too: There is nothing like affluence to enhance one's
popularity.) In fact, Ricky sold fracture-filled diamonds
without disclosure to many of his closest friends, including, we
heard from other sources, to his physician and his golfing
buddies. I suspect he thought he was doing them a good turn.
What mattered to Ricky was that his customers got a
beautiful diamond they could afford, and that they were grateful
to him. He may have even "forgot" that they were fracture-filled.
It's easy to do that when you're selling so many diamonds daily.
If Ricky ever realized that what he was doing was
fraudulent, he must have pushed that knowledge somewhere into his
subconscious mind, and soon it didn't exist for him at all.
People do that. In fact, Ricky seemed somewhat baffled
by station KSDK-TV's expos of his selling practices. He didn't
quite understand what the furor was all about: Customers got what
they paid for, didn't they? Maybe they weren't told that the
imperfections in their diamond had been filled with a glassy
substance, but would that really have mattered to them?
It turned out that it did matter to them. After the
expos, hundreds of customers besieged his store for refunds, and
Ricky tried to give them their money back for as long as his
funds held out. That, too, was in character for him. As
he had tried to be a "good guy" by giving people "bargains," now
he tried to be a good guy by giving refunds. In the end,
Ricky lost everything dear to him: his wealth, his health, his
good name, his popularity. How responsible for Ricky's
tragedy is the industry that plied him with merchandise that was
so tempting and easy to sell without disclosure of its secrets?
In a way, we are all responsible: dealers, treaters,
customers, other retail jewelers, the media, the World Federation
of Diamond Bourses-we are all to blame. The Missouri
Attorney General said the Chotins had been selling treated
diamonds without disclosure since 1986-or about seven years. In
those years, how many in the industry looked the other way?
Surely his suppliers were aware that he was selling the
stones without disclosure; you had only to go into his store to
see that there were no placards, no brochures on counters, no
information about enhanced diamonds. Did the treaters and dealers
engage in a silent, ongoing complicity? Are they to blame for
continuing to provide treated products to a retailer even when it
is evident that there is no disclosure going on? Should
the retail jewelers in the St. Louis area, who must have known
what was going on but kept silent, take their share of the blame?
(Why did they keep silent so long? Some speculate it's because
some of them were doing the same thing. But why did the honest
jewelers stay silent?) Customers, too: Ricky didn't
force them to buy; they came to him looking for an unrealistic
bargain and then were angry when their dreams turned to glass.
Is the World Federation obliquely to blame for so
belatedly coming out with its resolution against selling
fracture-filled diamonds without disclosure? Why did they wait
until 1993, at least nine years after fracture-filled diamonds
hit the market, leaving an ambiguity in the marketplace about
whether or not selling these products without disclosure is
unethical or illegal? Ricky is gone. By punishing
himself, he denied us the opportunity to punish him. He had his
faults and weaknesses, but surely he did not deserve the death
penalty for his infractions. But the treaters, the
suppliers, go on. They are already swarming over the leftover
goods at the Kawin-Chotin store, sucking them back into the vast
distribution machine that will deposit the goods in Dallas and
Detroit and Dubuque. The beat goes on. There is a story
here of epic, Shakespearean proportions. It should be told at
conclaves and conferences and passed down through generations of
jewelers. Let's make sure that Ricky Chotin's death was not in
vain. There are other Rickys out there.
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