Jordan Belfort is a name most people would recognize, especially after his memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street, which recently became a blockbuster film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The question some may ask may be, is all this glorification justified? Jordan Belfort became so famous, or as some would counter, infamous, from his role swindling millions of dollars from investors in the 1990s through his investment firm, Stratton Oakmont. To date, Jordan Belfort owes more than $110 million to former clients, and partners. Accounts vary but everyone seems to agree that the actual amount paid by Belfort to date is much less than $110 million. If Jordan isn’t paying his retribution, then what exactly is his punishment for his many heinous crimes? Jordan …show more content…
From a young age, Jordan always had a natural talent as a salesman. At an early age, he operated a door-to-door seafood and meat business in the 1980s. Upon the failure of those businesses, Belfort began selling stocks in 1987 at the age of 25. After two years of selling stocks, Jordan started his own investment operation, Stratton Oakmont, by 1989. With his partner, Danny Porush, Jordan gathered tremendous amounts of cash using a “pump and dump” scheme. Using this system, his brokers pushed stocks onto their unsuspecting clients, which helped inflate the stocks’ prices, and then the company would sell off its own holdings in these stocks at a great profit. The firm made millions illegally, defrauding its investors. The Securities Exchange Commission began efforts to stop the company's delinquent ways in 1992. In 1999, Belfort pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering. He was sentenced in 2003 to four years in prison, but only served 22 months. (Source 6)
To many, Jordan’s story was view as comical what with the mountains of drugs and bountiful outrageous parties. However, Jordan Belfort remains a scot-free criminal, allowed to live in riches while his victims still await their reimbursement. Awash with cash, Belfort lived the high life. He spent lavishly, buying a mansion, sports cars and other expensive toys.
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However, Jordan has been given the opportunity to redeem himself by doing the right thing and pay back the 1,513 people who had fallen victim to Belfort’s crimes. (Source 8) While Jordan did take the initiative to help federal agents take down several members of Stratton Oakmont it does not justify the fact that he’s only been able to pay back $14 million dollars of the required $110 million in restitution. Especially since he claims to be currently making more now from Straight Line Persuasion than he ever did at Stratton. Before going to prison Jordan pocketed $100 million that year from Stratton Oakmont, implying that today he is somehow able to make more than that. If that is indeed the case, then Jordan, assuming he is paying 50% of his income toward restitution, should have easily been able to make much more than a measly $14
The PBS Frontline Documentary The Untouchables shined light on the claim that wealthier people in today’s society get off easier when they break the law. During the financial crisis of 2008, it was said that fraud was committed when many mortgage bankers and high-end executives on Wall Street knowingly bought loan portfolios that didn’t meet their policy credit standards. Even with the evidence in place, no one was arrested and held responsible for a stock crash that nearly destroyed the entire financial system of the United States. With a powerful justice system and justifiable evidence in place, no was prosecuted. Did the justice system not take the necessary steps to ensure that justice was served
On March 5, 2004, Martha Stewart, a successful business woman and the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was sentenced by the jury to five months in prison at a minimum-security federal prison, another five months of home confinement along with 19 months of probation and $30,00 fine. Stewart was found guilty on four counts in what seemed to be known as white-collar crime. In this paper, I will briefly explain, identify and answer respectively in order on the three topics of, what crime did Martha Stewart commit, what evidence did the jury appear to find most convincing and whether should Stewart have received prison time. I will be using my own ideas along with the researches from reputable and credible sources to support my ideas.
After 8 years the SEC finally found the scheme controlled by Madoff. In December 2008 Madoff was found guilty; however, stayed under house arrest by the until his trial in March of 2009. He was not arrested because of the 10-million-dollar payment which allowed him to stay under home surveillance until the trial. While at home, he and his wife, mailed valuables such as jewels and jewelry to family members. In March of 2009, Bernard Madoff was finally found guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. On the day of his arrest, the FBI found 100 checks that totaled $173 million dollars that were made to friends, family, and
Jordan Belfort is famous for his crooked way of earning his millions as a stockbroker on Wall Street. Even Belfort started at the bottom, on his first day in Wall Street he was told he was “lower than pond scum”(Belfort 1). After writing a book about his happenings on Wall Street, we’ve seen the
In the early 2000’s, America’s famous and favorite home cooker made headlines, and not in a positive way. Headlines that would forever change that way people thought about her. Martha Stewart was convicted for misleading federal investigators who were looking into allegations of insider trading which raised several ethical issues. Is being to rich a reason to convict Martha of this crime? If everyone does it, why hold Martha to a higher standard? In this case, insider trading was clearly evident in Martha Stewarts Case.
Greed is inevitably a quality humans are unable to escape. Regardless of the time period, humans have notoriously been characterized by their greedy instincts. These greedy tendencies have plagued humans throughout history and have been prevalent within some of the most famous people of all time. Such tendencies were present in Julius Caesar, the ruthless roman general and recent bitch. However, these devilish instincts have most recently been found in criminal Robert Rizzo, mastermind behind the City of Bell Scandal. During his lengthy involvement in the scandal of the city of Bell, California, Rizzo willingly participated in fraud, over-compensation, bribery, and theft. While he was found guilty of misappropriation of public funds and was sentenced to an $8.8 million dollar fine and a twelve year prison sentence, I do not believe that Rizzo received punishment that matched the severity of his ruthless actions. (Associated Press) The punishments given to criminal Robert Rizzo did not accurately match the ruthless of his actions; his involvement with theft, bribery, and severe over-compensation should have been met with a lengthier jail sentence and a heftier fine.
Bernard Madoff had full control of the organizational leadership of Bernard Madoff Investments Securities LLC. Madoff used charisma to convince his friends, members of elite groups, and his employees to believe in him. He tricked his clients into believing that they were investing in something special. He would often turn potential investors down, which helped Bernard in targeting the investors with more money to invest. Bernard Madoff created a system which promised high returns in the short term and was nothing but the Ponzi scheme. The system’s idea relied on funds from the new investors to pay misrepresented and extremely high returns to existing investors. He was doing this for years; convincing wealthy individuals and charities to invest billions of dollars into his hedge fund. And they did so because of the extremely high returns, which were promised by Madoff’s firm. If anyone would have looked deeply into the structure of his firm, it would have definitely shown that something is wrong. This is because nobody can make such big money in the market, especially if no one else could at the time. How could one person, Madoff, hold all of his clients’ assets, price them, and manage them? It is clearly a conflict of interest. His company was showing high profits year after year; despite most of the companies in the market having losses. In fact, Bernard Madoff’s case is absolutely stunning when you consider the range and number of investors who got caught up in it.
Bernie Madoff is one of the greatest conman in history. The Bernie Madoff scandal takes the gold as one of the top ponzi scheme in America. Madoff started the Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in 1960. Starting off as a penny stock trader with five thousand dollars, earned from his workings as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer, his firm began to grow with the support of his father-in-law, Saul Alpern, who helped by referred a group of close friends and family. Originally, his firm made markets by the National Quotations Bureau’s Pink Sheets. However, in order to compete with the bigger firms that were trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor, his firm started to use very intelligent computer software that help distributed their quotes in second’s rater then minutes. This software later became the NASDAQ that we know today. In December of 2008 Bernard Madoff confessed that he had embezzling billions of dollars from investors. It is estimated to have lasted nearly two decades, and stolen approximately $64.8 billion. On December 11, 2008 he was arreste...
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm (A&E Networks Television). Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
Martha Stewart was charged with securities fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and civil charges. She had made false statements to F.B.I., SEC, and investors. She withhold information from these organizations about the selling of her stocks with in the company of ImClone. She was convicted and sentence to five months in prison, five months of house arrest, and a full two years of probation.
Stewart was convicted of conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice in 2001, and for using insider information to sell shares of the company ImClone Systems. This type of fraud damages the confidence of investors, it makes them perceive the lack of equality.
Jordan Belfort throughout his entire life subverted the law for his own financial gain, always seeing money as worth the risk in the decisions he made. His decisions were made by a rational mind of his own volition, considering the long-term possibilities and how to stay ahead of his pursuers. He constructed an environment with Stratton Oakmont to enable this behaviour, as well as corrupt those around him to follow in his footsteps. This lead to his repeated violations of laws to generate wealth when his fear of punishment was lower than that of the rewards he could potentially gain. It was only when he was confronted with the reality of his punishment and experienced it directly that he was finally deterred from his criminal behaviour.
This case illustrated that there were real consequences to white collar crime. In addition to paying the fifty million dollar fine, he relinquished another fifty million dollars of his illegal trading profits. (He still had millions remaining, however, from his illegal gains.) His actual prison sentence was three years, yet he served only twenty-two months in the federal prison at Lompoc, California, which was known to have a “country-club” atmosphere.
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex, he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm. Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
Belfort was exploited and arrested; he went “undercover” to incriminate his friends and other brokers to get less jail time. Belfort was sentenced to two years in a minimum security prison, which was more like a country club, and ordered to pay back $150 million dollars to the people and companies that Stratton-Oakmont had stolen money from. Belfort was released from prison and now speaks at investment seminars to help pay back the restitution of $150 million that he owes. If he does not pay it back in the next ten years, he will be ordered back to jail.