Lawyers wore dark suits like pallbearers. The crowd in the courtroom pews on Thursday wore its best funeral faces. Some wept. Some just sat looking grim. It was like watching a family's wealthy world get buried alive, with federal Judge Arthur Spiegel presiding at the interment.

"I lost my family," cried Erpenbeck, 69, wearing a blue-checked shirt and saggy gray slacks crinkled like a wadded up lunch sack. "I've ruined my life. If I get any kind of sentence whatever, it will be a death sentence.''

This is the patriarch of the family that acted out a Northern Kentucky version of one of those '70s soaps - Dallas or Dynasty in Edgewood. He was caught on a hidden microphone, worn by his daughter, asking her to lie to save his son, Bill Erpenbeck.

It didn't work. Bill is now doing 30 years, far from the luxury homes, cars and parties he loved.

"What I did is no different than what a dog would do if its litter was attacked," Tony sobbed as he got 70 months.

Sure. But most people wouldn't treat a dog the way the Erpenbecks treated their victims. "Where is the remorse for all the people who have been hurt?'' the judge asked.

Banks, contractors and homeowners will not hold their breath to see $21.5 million ordered in restitution.

Michelle Marksberry went to closings and lied to keep the Erpenbeck home-sales fraud rolling. She shook and cried as she was given a two-year sentence, reduced for her cooperation.

"I didn't have the strength or the courage to say no and walk away," she told the judge. But still, she had no word of remorse about the victims.

I wondered what was going through the minds of the friends and family members who watched. While the SS Erpenbeck was docking with the rich and famous in Naples, Fla., and Cincinnati, those who were not lounging on the sundeck still got a chance to ski on the wake. How many knew the business was fueled by burning other people's savings?

Would they give it all back to get a second chance? Or were some only crying for the lavish lifestyle that was being buried with the Erpenbecks?

Ordinary shlubs who play by the rules and wonder what it's like in the most exclusive ZIP codes took a perverse satisfaction in watching the Erpenbecks throw each other overboard as their yacht sank.

It fit the Dallas plot, complete with rumors of a "hit contract'' on the judge by Tony Erpenbeck. It was "just talk," Speigel said, but steps were taken to protect him and his family.

And like any good Dynasty plot, the seeds of the Erpenbecks' destruction were sown long before they blossomed in bitter irony. Lori Erpenbeck put on a wire to bust her brother and father because she was "threatened, bribed and browbeaten all of her life," her lawyer said.

Her aunt, Lynda Rager, said Lori was "psychologically, emotionally and verbally abused" by her brother and father. She was used as a baby sitter, cook and errand-runner, and humiliated in front of others.

"They told her you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not thin enough."

Turns out she was smart enough to cut a deal for just a year and one day in prison.

I felt sorry for her. But I wondered: Where's the funeral for the dreams of the victims?

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E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call (513) 768-8301.