For 16 years, Dwight, 45, worked in Atlanta schools as a psychologist and then "voluntarily resigned" in February 1989, some two years before she was first seen in Moscow, said Spencer Ragsdale, a spokesman for the Dekalb County School System, which includes Atlanta.
Those dates do not appear to mesh with accounts Dwight gave to Moscow acquaintances of what she did before arriving in Russia sometime in 1991. Several people, all of whom asked not to be named, said Dwight had told them she lived for two years in Monte Carlo immediately before coming to Russia. Prior to Monte Carlo, they quoted Dwight as saying, she lived in California for several years.
The discrepancy covers the period -- from March 1984 to February 1989 -- when Dwight and her now-estranged husband, David Carter, are charged in a 1991 federal indictment with defrauding seven banks out of over $1 million through a catering company they jointly owned.
The prosecutor in the case, assistant U.S. Attorney John Malcolm, said the pair were aware of the investigation before they disappeared. In 1992, Dwight and Carter, 49, were declared fugitives.
Carter has yet to be located, but Dwight was arrested Jan. 19 by militia officers acting on a request by U.S. officials. Prior to her arrest, Dwight lived a high-profile life in Moscow, hosting a weekly radio program, working as a psychologist at the Anglo-American School and serving as the president of the American Women's Organization.
Officials from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marshal's Office refused to say how they were led to Dwight in Russia. One woman familiar with Dwight speculated that law enforcement officials may have located Dwight when she applied for a credit card several months ago.
Her lawyers said they didn't know how Dwight was found initially but expressed frustration Thursday at their lack of access to her.
"They desperately need to see Ms. Dwight," said her Atlanta attorney, Cliffe Gort, speaking about the Moscow lawyers representing her. "They need to know what her position is, what she wants to do. She is just lingering in jail."
One of those Moscow lawyers, Walter White, said he and a Russian counterpart were pressing the Russian General Procurator's office for access to Dwight, who is being held in a one-person cell at Petrovka 38, Moscow militia headquarters.
Dwight first came to Russia on a whim, she told friends. The visit was a 40th-birthday gift from her husband. The couple initially lived in the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel, from where Carter seldom ventured.
"I don't think he left the hotel, like, for six months at a time. We used to joke about how pale he was," said one American businesswoman who knew the couple at the time. "They didn't live like they had money. They were not pretentious. Beverly was extremely frugal."
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