四十岁以前一定要成为百万富翁，也真的做到了

亚特兰大前高官饿死陈尸街头

这周一具陈尸街头的游民尸体，成为了美国亚特兰大的热门新闻。因为死者桑布瑞二十年前是当时市长杨格身边的红人，意气风发以致得意忘形，假公济私，触法而锒铛入狱，自此他的人生便一蹶不振，最后沦为街头饿殍。

　　据“中央社”报道，富乐顿郡验尸官将在铁道旁发现的桑布瑞尸体，编号为“07-0989”，八日他断气时身染严重的酒精中毒与糖尿病，身体爬满了蚂蚁，寿命为六十三岁。

　　据铁道官员指出，衣衫褴褛的桑布瑞头靠在背包上，躺在铁道旁，看起来像在小睡。他的背包内只有几分钱、假牙黏胶、胰岛素与糖浆、捷运车票以及六旗乐园的临时工作证。

　　桑布瑞远在佛罗里达州的妹妹伊芙林说，从他出狱后，家中九个兄弟姐妹至少已超过十五年没有他的任何下落与消息。

　　过去曾与桑布瑞同为游民的人指出，桑布瑞除了在喝酒时会唠唠叨叨之外，平日只是沉默、尊贵又冷漠地坐在角落，他曾透露自己有过很棒的工作，与前亚特兰大市长、美国首位非裔驻联合国大使杨格以及现任市长富兰克林熟识，但因发生了一些事，让他流落街头。

　　没有人相信桑布瑞说的是真话。但是，这只是他辉煌年轻岁月中的一小段历史而已。

　　桑布瑞在六十年代末期从佛罗里达农工大学拿到经济学学位后，开始追求财富与机会，他扬言自己在四十岁以前一定要成为百万富翁，而他也真的做到了。

　　干劲十足又精力旺盛的桑布瑞，先到纽约工作，接着到巴尔的摩，进而为联邦国民抵押协会工作，最后来到了亚特兰大。一九八五年他获得市长杨格的青睐，被任命专责分配住屋给低收入者的职务。

　　桑布瑞卖命地工作，超越住屋署的年度目标，一年之内完成分配穷人一千五百个以上的居住单位，因而受到长官们的高度赞赏。

　　但是在此同时，他也开始了步上触犯法网的不归路。他开始向沉默的弱势人群，如老人、病患、身心障碍者，出租自己的房子，并且在这些人缴不出房租时，毫不迟疑地将他们扫地出门。

　　终于有名被赶出去的癫痫患者的家人忍不住向有关单位抱怨。桑布瑞狐假虎威、假公济私的丑行，便被一一揭露。一九八八年，当时四十四岁的他，以伪造文书等罪行被判处五年的徒刑。

　　桑布瑞虽然在狱中信誓旦旦地向亲人表示，他必将东山再起。但是根据警方的记录，桑布瑞在一九九零年十二月出狱后，因违反假释法，先后又于九二、九六年入狱。

　　在他人生最后流浪街头的几年，又因于公共场所撒尿、酒醉闹事、搭公交车逃票等罪名，遭警方逮捕。多年未曾与他谋面的妻子，也在二零零四年向法院诉请离婚。对于他陈尸街头，他的前妻不愿发表任何意见。

Ex-Atlanta official, broken by prison, dies homeless

By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/24/07

The homeless man\'s head rested on his backpack, his yellow preion glasses still on his face.

To the railroad detective, who spotted the rag-tag man loitering in the tree-shaded lot by the tracks the day before, it looked like he was taking a nap.
(
Robert Sumbry apparently never recovered after prison.

LOUIE FAVORITE/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Robert Sumbry\'s body was found along these tracks. In the mid-1980s, he ran the city\'s agency that provided housing for the poor. But his career ended when he was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud. Sumbry\'s downfall began when, as a landlord in his private life, he victimized tenants — including the sick and the elderly.

Brant Sanderlin/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Safehouse counselor David Baird says Sumbry preferred sleeping outside, where he\'d end up \'in the park or under a bridge.\'


But the man wasn\'t sleeping. He was dead, covered in ants. Investigators found pennies and denture adhesive in the pockets, insulin and syringes in his backpack and a MARTA card and a Six Flags Over Georgia contract employee ID in his wallet.

Fulton County Medical Examiner\'s case 07-0989 appeared to be open and shut: Life expectancy is not good for 63-year-old alcoholic diabetics on the street.

But the life and death of the former Atlanta city official, who worked for Mayor Andrew Young in the 1980s and was known by two other future mayors, was anything but simple.

Robert F. Sumbry apparently never recovered from a hard, notorious fall that sent him to federal prison and forever altered his life.

Sumbry\'s nine siblings had not heard from him in at least 15 years, a sister in Florida said. He just faded away after being released from prison.

When family members learned of his death on June 8, they were surprised he was still in Atlanta.

The phone call ... telling us of his death was finally a sad closure, said Evelyn Henderson of Tampa. How sad that families must go through this. You could never guess what lives these street people previously lived.

Those who knew Sumbry on the streets usually saw a reserved man with a quiet, sad dignity who existed in the margins, trying to slip by unnoticed. That is, unless he was blithering drunk.

He really didn\'t have any friends out on the street, said David Baird, a former homeless man who is a guidance counselor at Safehouse Outreach in downtown Atlanta. He said he used to have a great job but things happened and he ended up on the street. He kept to himself. He didn\'t want to cause any trouble.

Juanita Ford, another of Sumbry\'s sisters, said he got an economics degree from Florida A&M University in the late 1960s. The proud young man was set to seize the opportunity. He moved to New York, then Baltimore — where he married — working with the Federal National Mortgage Association before coming to Atlanta.

He was a go-getter; he had a lot of energy, she said. He always wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 40.

In 1985, Mayor Young appointed the dedicated man in a crisp business suit to run the city\'s agency that provided housing for the poor. In 1987, Young reappointed him, saying, Mr. Sumbry has done an outstanding job during his brief tenure with the city.

Another boss said he surpassed the agency\'s yearly goal, making more than 1,500 units habitable for poor families.

But Sumbry had another side. He bought his own houses to rent out to poor people and threatened to evict them if they didn\'t pay more than Section 8 stipulated. Mary Bennett, an epileptic who could not read, was one such tenant. Her family complained to Atlanta Legal Aid. Dennis Goldstein, a lawyer who took the case, figured Sumbry was doing the same thing to other tenants.

Sumbry\'s victims were working mothers, the elderly, the sick. Most were too scared to talk to legal aid lawyers.

I remember him as arrogant, said Goldstein. He struck me as a guy who tried to hide his lies through bluster. But then we ground him down.

The legal aid case led to a federal investigation. An ambitious U.S. Attorney named Bob Barr, who later became a congressman, took up the case. An equally ambitious city councilman named Bill Campbell publicly tore into Sumbry and the Young administration.

Young\'s chief administrative officer, Shirley Franklin, initially defended Sumbry, saying removing him from office would slow the momentum in housing improvements he had made.

The sympathetic victims made the case dramatic and put it on the top of the evening news. One victim had her heat cut off and huddled with her children by the fireplace. When [she] refused to pay any more, he gave her 10 days to get out of her house and threw her furniture after her, Thomas D. Bever, the prosecutor assigned to the case, told the judge as Sumbry was being sentenced after pleading guilty to three fraud counts.

Sumbry, then 44, got five years.

Juanita Ford last talked to her older brother during his prison stint. He said he\'d go back to landlording. He said he\'d get in touch when he got out, she said. But he never did.

The family tried a computer search of their brother, to no avail. We felt he was alive but embarrassed, Ford said. We were hoping he was rebuilding his life.

Instead, his life was coming apart.

At least five times after he left prison, he or his wife filed for bankruptcy. One judge called the filings an abuse of the system. He returned to prison twice after his December 1990 release — in \'92 and \'96 on parole violations. In 1996, he tried unsuccessfully to appeal his conviction.

His brothers and sisters never heard what Sumbry did, or tried to do, to make it in the world after his release. Another sister heard that her brother drove a cab for a small Atlanta taxi company in 1992 but he didn\'t stay there long. His former wife declined to say much, other than she hadn\'t seen him in years. She filed for divorce against her absentee spouse in 2004.

Police reports show he had bottomed out by then. He was arrested for public urination, intoxication and fare evasion at MARTA.

He had been out on the streets for at least four years before his death, street people and homeless advocates say.

Delores Young knew one of Sumbry\'s tenants who complained in the 1980s. Bonnie Owens, a nearly blind woman, was threatened with eviction for coming forward, she said.

I feel bad, said Owens\' friend, Delores Young, about how Sumbry had died. But when you do people wrong in life, bad things happen to you.

Tim Sewell, a homeless man standing by the forbidding brick shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets last week on a hot, sunny afternoon, immediately identified Sumbry from a 20-year-old photo.

That\'s Bob, he said.

He was a supervisor for the city, or something. He said he knew Andy Young personally. And Shirley Franklin. Nobody believed him.

He talked about the opportunities he had and was proud of that. He wanted his life back. It was eating at him every day.

He sometimes drank cheap liquor, causing him to forget his insulin and go into diabetic shock, Sewell said.

The two men hung out at downtown parks or made the rounds to a half-dozen or so missions and shelters around downtown, hearing religious services to get a free meal.

Sometimes, Sumbry went to the library downtown to peruse the Internet. He liked to keep up with politics, keeping an eye on Franklin\'s rise to mayor and Campbell\'s fall from mayor to convicted tax cheat and federal prisoner.

Reminiscing was a temporary respite from a grim reality. Street life is a test even for a young man. Sumbry sometimes slept at shelters like the one Peachtree and Pine, which can accommodate 500 men. But he preferred not to.

He\'d end up outside in the park or under a bridge, said Baird. If it\'s nice weather, most guys like to stay outside because when you get a bunch of guys in a building all together, it\'s not a healthy atmosphere. You\'re dealing with so many situations. People are drunk, bipolar. The hotter it gets, the worse it gets.

But outside, you get extremely wore out because you\'re always in the elements, said Baird.

You want to rest, to become invisible. But it\'s hard to do.

And likely, that\'s what Sumbry was trying to do when he laid down in the shady, secluded lot that offered a panoramic view of Atlanta, the city he came to years ago to make his mark.