Adam Aristotle Starchild, born Malcolm Willis McConahy, (20 September 1946 – 22 September 2006) was a financial consultant, convicted fraudster, key figure in the "perpetual traveler" movement, and prolific author of books relating to investment, taxation, and the "offshore" world.
Early life
Malcolm Willis McConahy was born in Minnesota on 20 September 1946. Nothing more is known of his youth but he later changed his name to Adam Aristotle Starchild, explaining on his website that Starchild was "a common Plains Cree name, found in usage across western Canada" indicating that he may have been of Native American descent. He claimed to be a former chairman of the Confederation of American Indians.
Scouting
Between February and July 1965, McConahy was an assistant scout master with Troop 27 in Minneapolis, a troop sponsored by Plymouth Congregational Church of that city, but was suspended after admitting homosexual interest in boys in the troop. Scouting records state that his personal and family church relationship was with Joyce Methodist Church. At the time he was operating a travel business in Minneapolis.
In July 1965, McConahy was arrested in Wisconsin for circulating pornographic material. He was travelling to New York to take up residence there and was in the company of four boys to whom he had given money.
In 1966, he moved to Milwaukee where he applied in February to be a college reserve scouter. His application stated that he was studying at Blackstone School of Law, to graduate in December 1968. The application was rejected by the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America who were aware of his scouting background in Minneapolis. In 1967 he was convicted of possessing obscene literature and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In 1968 he was arrested for his involvement with a 16-year-old.
First frauds
In 1968, McConahy was convicted for a $57,000 cheque fraud in which he tried to dupe ten different banks. He was running a travel agency, Creative Travel Inc., at the time. In January 1969 he was sentenced to one year and one day in jail on three counts of mail fraud but failed to appear to start his sentence in April that year, resulting in the issue of a warrant for his arrest.
He travelled to England around 1970 where he was arrested by police and subsequently served four years in jail for forgery. In 1970, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission placed securities thought to have been issued by McConahy on its Foreign Restricted List. These included "Bank Money Orders" in the name of J.P. Morgan & Company Ltd. of London (intended to be mistaken for the J.P. Morgan) in an amount exceeding $375,000 which had been mailed to 31 savings and loan associations in California and a bank in Minnesota in order to open new accounts against which withdrawals were then attempted, and documents labelled "Negotiable Certificate of Deposit", also of J.P. Morgan & Company Ltd. of London, which had been circulated in the United States. Advertisements had been placed in U.S. newspapers offering for sale joint venture interests by Swiss Caribbean Development & Finance Corporation of Zurich, and certificates of deposit issued by Trust Company of Jamaica Ltd. After being released from prison in the U.K., McConahy was extradited to the United States where he was arrested by U.S. Marshals in February 1974 after he stepped off the plane in New York. He was charged with unlawful flight and bail jumping and extradited to Wisconsin where he was convicted and sentenced to an additional one-year and one day in prison. He began his sentence in Sandstone, Minnesota, in May 1974 and was released in July that year.
In September 1974 he appeared in court in Trenton N.J., asking to be declared indigent so that he would not have to pay fees required as part of the process of recovering the charters of three Panamanian mutual funds that had been seized by British police. He claimed their loss had cost him $855,000.
Adam Starchild
Around 1975 or 1976, McConahy changed his name to Adam Aristotle Starchild. In February 1976 a photograph of him as Adam Starchild appeared in the gay newspaper The Advocate by that name. The paper reported that Starchild, an "openly gay business consultant" of West Hudson Business Service, Kearny N.J., had received a Presidential Sports Award from Gerald Ford for his canoe expeditions through the Quetico-Superior wilderness area of Minnesota and Ontario.