Results tagged “grifter”

Ladies, meet Martin Berres, a 62-year-old single man who describes himself on his MySpace page (martynycforever!) as a "classy native New Yorker." His heroes include Niccolò Machiavelli, and he is "in better shape and health than most men 1/3 my years. Do not let the age mislead you; I am young in heart and looks... I consider myself to be a find." Marty would love to meet you provided you meet the "paramount" requirement of "outside beauty" and "inside beauty." Oh, and you should also have lots of money and jewelry he can pawn—according to two women who say Berres swindled them out of $400,000.

Deed fraud is in alive and well in the city. Late Friday, the Real Deal reported that a woman posing as the rightful owner of three Upper East Side buildings obtained deeds for them and tried to get tenants to send her their rent checks. And today the Post adds the tabloid detail—she's a "former exotic dancer with a body for sin and maybe a brain for it."

Marc Dreier, the once prominent attorney with over 200 employees, is hoping for bail once again. A lawyer for Dreier, who is charged with stealing $380 million through "high stakes grifting", says his client has been cooperating with authorities, noting that no money appeared to be put into off-shore accounts and therefore poses no flight risk. And FYI: Dreier used the money to, according to the NY Law Journal, cover "operating expenses, capital expenditures, construction costs and security deposits; invested in losing stocks; or used to buy property and artwork." Property like boats and cars (a 2007 Aston Martin DB9 Volante) and artwork like the Tom Otterness sculpture, Big Thief (pictured), and Henri Matisse's "Grand Masque."

While once-prominent lawyer Marc Dreier's "high-stakes" grifting of $100 million seems like small potatoes next to Bernard Madoff, it's still big. According to CityRoom, former stockbroker Kosta S. Kovachev was "arrested...and charged with conspiring with...Dreier to commit wire fraud by selling fake promissory notes." The complaint says that Kovachev posed as the controller of Solow Realty when meeting with a hedge fund, in Dreier's attempt to sell $115 million of promissory notes allegedly issued by Solow. Previosuly, Kovachev was named in a complaint about a $28 million Ponzi scheme in Florida. Oh, and for the record, Michael Strahan's spokesman tells us the ex-Giant is not a client of Dreier's: "Out of circumstance because he is a public figure, Mr. Strahan has many causal acquaintances -- Mr. Dreier is one of those. However, Mr. Strahan has never been a client." Strahan and Dreier did, however, have charity events together.

More details about prominent Manhattan lawyer-slash-apparent grifter Marc Dreier (pictured with Michael Strahan and Alicia Keys at a charity event). After his arrest, it was discover that tens of millions went missing from clients' escrow accounts. According to Forbes, Dreier "even managed to transfer $10 million by telephone from escrow accounts to his personal account while sitting in a Canadian jail awaiting a bail hearing." And Dreier, the Post reports, "figur[ed] he could replace the money by selling off his firm's art collection," worth $40 million. Following his Canadian arrest and release, Dreier was arrested in NYC for an alleged $100 million fraud scheme (selling fake debt to hedge funds). His law firm is in disarray; a partner said, "The news of Mr. Dreier’s arrest has had a devastating effect. The December health insurance premium has not been paid, the firm’s December rent payment is now overdue, and AT&T will terminate BlackBerry service." More details at the Law Blog.

$100 million, "with $6.5 million of it liquid." Federal prosecutors, who say Dina Wein-Reis would buy discounted products from Fortune 500, claiming they would be given away to the needy but actually sold them to retailers for big profits, think she's a flight risk, given her art collection worth $35 million, seven homes, "dozens of bank accounts and a missing, expiring passport." However, the judge allowed her family to post $10 million bail for Wein-Reis: Her husband had begged the judge to let her go, because their "three boys... are falling apart by the day" and a Whitney Museum curator said, "I have always regarded Dina as a person who cared about others." It's unclear if the feds had testimony from her former employees, one of whom claims she "treated people like crap."

Raffaello Follieri, the Italian playboy-con man, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy yesterday, in a plea deal that will land him a minimum of five years and three months in prison. Follieri, who claimed to be a representative of the Vatican, would take investors' money and spend it on his extravagant lifestyle, which included a Trump Tower apartment and squiring his girlfriend, actress Anne Hathaway. The new news is how he agreed to surrender claim to jewelry "recovered" from Hathaway (here's a list) as well as "precious metals and jewelry" found in his Bronx storage unit. Also found among his belongings: A letter from a former Vatican secretary of state telling him to stop pretending to be affiliated with the Vatican. The Post described him as looking pale while the Times said he needed a haircut.

A friend of financier-accused grifter Rafaello Follieri thinks Anne Hathaway told what she knew to the FBI. Why? Well, in the indictment, Hathaway, who had dated Follieri for years up until a week before he was arrested and jailed (he hasn't come up with the $21 million bail yet), is identified as his former girlfriend, and the friend goes on to tell the Daily News, "I think that in return for her cooperation, the feds held off on arresting Follieri until she was out of the country." Or maybe the feds read the gossip pages too!

Police arrested a former chauffeur and his cousin in the 2006 stabbing death of real estate mogul Andrew Kissel (pictured).

Last year, the federal authorities had been looking for Esther Elizabeth Reed, a woman who faked her way into attending Harvard, Cal State and most recently Columbia University, by using a dead woman's identity. Reed was on the lam, but this past weekend's murders at a mall outside Chicago led the police to Reed, who had been living in the very same town the killings occurred.