We’re gearing up for our 2010 inductions — and we need help deciding which crooks deserve a spot! We’ve selected some of the best nominations submitted by visitors to the Hall of Infamy; every two weeks, we’ll post a bit about these schemers and ask for your VOTE. We’ll post the results the following week — and then give you another chance to vote on who you think we should add to this infamous crew.
VOTE #1:
Courtney Chauncey Julian may have had a big, flowery name but he used down-home folksy tactics to run his con in the 1920s. He reeled in thousands of people during the speculative oil frenzy that gripped the city of Los Angeles with clever newspaper ads that promised easy money. When the bubble burst in 1927, shareholders lost up to $150 million.
Jordan Belfort, the “Wolf of the Wall Street” ran a pump-and-dump operation in the 1990s; investors who bought his artificially inflated stocks lost $100 million. A movie about his life (and based on his autobiography) is due out in 2010 – it’s directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Jacobowitz family of New York ran a huge decade-long fraud with Allou Healthcare, from imaginary sales and inventory to phony insurance claims. The con collapsed when the family bribed an undercover Fire Marshal to describe the fire in an Allou warehouse an “accident” (rather than “arson”). Losses totaled about $160 million and three Jacobowitz brothers are serving prison time.
Philip M. Musica was known to the world at various times as Frank D. Coster and F. Donald Coster; under all three names, he ran afoul of the law until his suicide in 1938 – for bribing customs officials while importing cheese, for borrowing on invoices for a company that dealt in human hair and, finally, for masterminding a major financial fraud through McKesson & Robbins, a pharmaceutical company.
Lou Pearlman launched two of the biggest “boy bands” of the 1990s — and he swindled banks and individuals of more than $300 million. Over 20 years, Pearlman took funds from hapless investors for companies that only existed on paper. In 2008, he plead guilty to four counts of conspiracy, money laundering and making false claims of bankruptcy.