Disconnected

All that makes his April 14 court date in Washington, D.C., seem like small potatoes. On January 12 Edwards was arrested at Dulles International Airport for carrying a gun in his briefcase. He says he forgot it was there.

Lawsuits from disgruntled minority shareholders or ex-employees -- who are owed a total of almost $1 million -- may be around the corner. "There's definitely a fiduciary duty between the board of directors [Edwards, Driscoll and, before he left, Evans] and the shareholders," says assistant county attorney Rock Owens, who invested a modest $2,000. "It makes one question whether that fiduciary duty was fully adhered to. I just started wondering, where the hell did the money go?"

That question may be left to investigators and the courts, but Edwards avows that his account is empty. That seems a stretch, given that he admits to more than $2 million in salary and bonuses over a four-year period (and others peg that figure much higher), but he sticks by his story. "I put everything I had back in the company, trying to save it," he says. "It ended up not being a very smart decision."

Overall, though, Edwards thinks he did a good job running BCI and that he would make a prize catch for another telecommunications company. "I believe I made good judgment calls all the way through based on what I knew at the time," he says.

"I still think I'd make one hell of a