Joe Hunt and Dean Karny were both real and not simply characters. In 1993, Pittmanwent onA Current Affair in 1993 and said he shot Levin at the man's Beverly Hills homeand Hunt was there. . We were involved in various deceitful transactions with investors. Within the week, Reza was arrested in San Francisco as he attempted to pick up a passport issued to Christopher Potter. He had come to California early in 1983 with a fifty-two-inch chest and the idea that there would be people out west who would appreciate his special talents. During the course of their first meeting, Hunt began outlining the machines industrial applications and was already shaping a sales pitch. My parents . Hunt was the basis for Philip Swann, a character in the Law & Order Season 4 episode "American Dream," which was subsequently adapted into the Law & Order: UK episode "Unsafe". One began by freeing oneself of concepts like good and bad, true and false. BBC attorneys had prepared conservatorship and power-of-attorney papers for Reza upon which Hedayat Eslaminias signature had been forged by Joe Hunt and notarized by Evan Dicker. Behind the cover of his new name, he had begun trading at the Beverly Hills brokerage house of Cantor, Fitzgerald & Company in accounts that had been set up under the names Tom May, Dean Karny, and Alex Gaon. Joe grew incensed when the company, which was testing the BMWs and Porsches that West Cars had converted to meet federal emission standards, not only refused to pass most of the autos, but also refused his demand for a discount. His response was an unsuccessful drive to impeach the speech-squad captain. She thought he would fall head over heels, the BBC member recalled, and Joe acted like, No big deal.. Tom and Dave sported complicated but thoroughly impressive pedigrees. He was told later that the bank had received his message at the very moment the $127,000 was being counted out for Ben and Reza. Joe convened a meeting of the Shadings the next day, including Evan among the inner circle for the first time. Ah, the 1980s, when shoulder pads, hair and egos ran sky high. When Levin threw parties, his guests included Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Andy Warhol. He said that he was going to the library to look up some books on how to torture people, Dean recalled. In the center of the room sat two navy-blue trunks, each big enough for an adult human being, Dean said. And Joe did, running the $5.2 million up to more than $13.5 million within six weeks. Behind bars, Hunt teaches yoga and meditation. I cant believe the calm. Hunt was in total control of that room, his secretary Lorie Leis remembered. They will pay for it forever. Young and blond, Brooke styled herself as a sort of pastel punker. Then we, of course, went and told our parents, Hey Mom and Dad, we got a shopping center, Dean recalled, and our parents said, Well, do you have a title? And we said, No, but that doesnt matter, because Joes going to take care of it., As the end of the year approached, Hunt pressed Levin to deliver title to the shopping center as collateral for a loan. Joe Vega, the Plazas security supervisor, reported for work on June 10 and was immediately asked to accompany the hotels credit manager to room 1071. Dean would find happiness, Joe explained, only if he achieved purity of action. The starting point was an understanding that the impediments between what you had and what you wanted were external, not internal. One of our landmark cases, said Utrata, who had supervised a series of hearings that resulted in a record ten-year suspension of Gamskys trading privileges. [21][22][23] Judd Nelson, who played Hunt in the 1987 miniseries, played Hunt's father. Evan Dicker was asked to prepare the minutes of a nonexistent June 7 meeting of the Microgenesis board and to fabricate a discussion of the Levin deal. he had used the statements from that account in order to get credit in other brokerage houses fraudulently, and that he had actually scammed up about a million and a half dollars, Dean remembered, and he agreed to give Joe about two or three hundred thousand of it., Joe spent nearly two months chasing Ron Levins last promise to him, Dean recalled, then let it go: He said that . The Dostis hired top criminal attorney Richard Hirsch to handle their sons defense. Rons reverse spin was to prepare a three-page treatment as the pilot for a proposed TV series he titled The Reporter. Follow. By the mid-1970s Harvard was posting numbers for National Merit Scholars and college-board scores that surpassed any other West Coast high school and rivaled those of the best eastern boarding schools. When the gentleman reached the French doors at the Fifth Avenue entrance, Vega recalled, four of my units were waiting for him. The gentleman then did something that no one had ever done in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel: he dropped his suitcases, let out a yell, and assumed a karate stance. Hunt, 59 at the time, told the Associated Press. As the plan grew more definite, each of them was assigned a list of duties. He is known for being a TV Actor. Joe was now driving the Jeep exclusively and Dean had gone back to his old Fiat convertible. At the point of the choice between the police disguises and the delivery-boy outfits, Reza came by the condo to announce that his father was leaving for Europe within a few days. She wanted to be an actress, Brooke said, but Bobby Roberts had forbidden his daughter any involvement in show business. Ben Dosti and Reza Eslaminia continued their unsuccessful search for Hedayat Eslaminias European assets. Ben is currently working in a Los Angeles law office. While Hunt is seeking a shot at freedom, he still maintains he didnt kill Levin. Pittman remains at the main County Jail in downtown Los Angeles, where he is currently the only BBC member behind bars. A fraud officer at the U.S. Passport Agency contacted the Registrar of Vital Statistics in Minnesota and was referred to the state of Kentucky, where Christopher Potter died with his brother Lansing Lee and their parents in an airplane crash on January 3, 1965. Dean again argued that they should tell the others. So, he tried it again in Beverly Hillschristening himself Joe Hunt and forming an investment club with some of his former classmates, using his bravado and promises of quick, big returns to get them to put up the capitalfor what eventually became known as the Billionaire Boys Club. On the seat next to him was a maroon briefcase. His superiors actually resented talent and initiative, stooping to all sorts of petty intrigues against him. [7] Pittman, granted release with time served in two murders, died of kidney failure in 1997, age 44. A credit check revealed that he had registered with an American Express card showing thousands of dollars in past-due charges. Allison convinced her father, film editor Steve Weiss, to invest $20,000 in the trading fund during June 1983. And he said he killed Ron Levin, and therefore Ron Levin must be dead. If that is the case, there is no physical evidence., The irony of the situation isnt lost on me, said Hunt, who admits he was the consummate liar, drawing an analogy to the fable of the boy who cried wolf. On May 20, 1993, a few months after all charges were dropped against him in the Eslaminia case, Jim Pittman admitted on the television program A Current Affair to have participated in the Levin murder, confessing that he was the one who shot Levin and bragging that he was now untouchable in court due to the restriction on double jeopardy. Having been in prison for three and a half years, unable to afford bail, Pittman was sentenced to time served and released. He wasambitious and charismaticand also on scholarship, meaning he didn't have the deep-pocketed parents that so many of his classmates had. Joe was still predicting ultimate success when he was arrested on September 28. Joe, Brooke, and the boys became the shock troops of L.A. night life, traveling fifteen and twenty at a time to the China Club, Le Dome, La Scala, and the Hard Rock Cafe, running up tabs of $3,000 in a night, letting Ben run amok with the wine list, leaving $500 tips, making an impression. He had passed the C.P.A. He is also responsible as the club's second-in-command. Two days later, Cantor, Fitzgerald liquidated the accounts, leaving the trading funds of Tom May and Dean Karny some $60,000 overdrawn. You dont have blights. Fred Wapner, who adamantly opposed Hunts release on bail and was visibly upset when Judge Laurence Rittenband granted it, said afterward, This is the one person Ive ever prosecuted who actually scares me.. Some testified at the trials. In October 1983, the BBCs core members took up residence at the Wilshire-Manning, a high-rise of luxury condominiums above Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, where their neighbors included Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews, Mr. T, and a young Saudi prince who sent the bellboys scurrying every time he opened his front door, hoping to catch one of the hundred-dollar tips he handed out. Eight young men and Brooke Roberts pulled the pieces of a playpen sofa into a semicircle. I had met very few investors, Mary Brown said, and I was astounded by the caliber of people who had been taken in. Jim and Ben went north with Reza to perform surveillance on the condo in San Mateo County. As Hunt and Pittman watched Levin die, the blood began to flow, seeping onto the bedcovers. We decided to double-lock the door, so that the guest would not be able to get in without checking with the front office, Vega explained. That inmate was released last month. Within weeks of the BBCs first meeting, Joe led a caravan of Porsches, Mercedeses, a Rolls-Royce, and a BMWWe all borrowed our parents cars, Dean rememberedto a demonstration at Gene Brownings desert plant in Hesperia. Hunt is being assisted in his effort by his family. Reza returned with these to Los Angeles in his fathers Cadillac. This is the spot, he said. Steve Cooley said that Hunt killed for greed and that his case was one of the highest-profile murder cases handled by the office in the 1980s. Two days later, on June 6, Joe asked Dean to take Brooke to the movies that night. But alsothat year,the father ofanother BBC investor,Reza Eslaminia, had gone missing in Northern California. He had known for some time that the younger Eslaminia hated his father, the agent said, adding that before he flew to Europe, Reza had suggested knowledge of his fathers disappearance, claiming he knew two individuals whose principal activity involved kidnapping, torture, and subsequent killing of wealthy individuals, after the individuals had been forced to turn over their assets.. When the doors closed it was dark inside, and there were only the thumps and whimpers of the man in the trunk to keep him company. Check out the hottest fashion, photos, movies and TV shows! One other comparison, however, was made with even greater frequency: A Manson for the Eighties, Gene Browning called Joe. Thats when Levin, according to prosecutors, agreed to place $5 million in a brokerage house account and let Hunt trade it. In both trials, north and south, Hunt will take the stand as the chief witness for the defense. Reza had told Hunt and Dosti that his father was a former high official in the shah of Irans government, top officer of the Savak. All its going to cost me is a suit of clothes and another car.. Hunt will face the death penalty when he is brought to trial in Santa Monica for the murder of Ron Levin. The BBCs ranks were thinning. Levin was a truly incredible character, Joe said, a professed graduate of Harvard College, number one in his class, with a 186 IQ, whod taken a $200,000 inheritance and run it up to $25 million, and knew everything about everyone in town. With no word from Ben or Reza, money was growing tight. Before he left Chicago, he changed his last name. Ron willingly signed the Microgenesis contract and wrote a $1.5-million draft on his Swiss account, Joe told Dean. Hunt was first portrayed by Judd Nelson in the 1987 NBC miniseries on the Billionaire Boys Club, later by Ansel Elgort in a 2018 film adaptation. The suitcases looked very much like the ones he had seen in room 1071 four hours earlier. Jerry Brownfor a sentence commutation,seekingthe possibility of parole. Dean rode alone with the trunk for forty minutes, listening to the pleading and pounding of the man inside. The police would undoubtedly suspect that Levin had attempted to create the impression of an abduction before skipping the country, Joe predicted. Levin's body was never found, and Hunt maintains that Levin, who was under criminal investigation and out on bail at the time of his disappearance, instead fled the country to escape prosecution. Near the bottom of the hill, the coyotes had left a scrap of white cloth with a label that read JOCKEY CLASSIC BRIEF, SIZE 36. He told the firm not to execute Hunts orders but said Hunt needed to believe his buys and sells were real decisions. Through the endless passages of the cosmos. At the top of the page was a title: At Levins, TO DO. Below was a list of fifteen numbered items: Close Blinds; Scan for Tape Recorder; Tape Mouth; Handcuff . Hunt described himself simply as administrator. Brian McNamara's age is 62. Those who dwelled in the gray areas Joe called Shadings. The brokerage house sued, calling in the principals for depositions. His body would never be found, but a Santa Monica jury convicted Hunt in 1987 of murdering Levin. It was like the ability to debate an issue from either side. Join Facebook to connect with Dean Karny and others you may know. From a high of about thirty, BBC membership collapsed to a core of sixteen. When prosecutors realized they likely could convict neither Hunt nor Pittman, they dismissed all charges against Hunt and Pittman in the murder of Eslaminia. By 1984, despite the Billionaire Boys Clubs trappings of success and dreams of its members becoming more prominent than their wealthy parents, the group had lost nearly $1 million in bad investments. While the boys who in a few years would become his disciples filled their space with images of themselves driving sports cars or racing speedboats, Joseph Gamskys own page was quite different. With these in hand, seven BBC members visited every bank in San Mateo County to search for accounts bearing Eslaminias name. As they moved their load into the U-Haul, Dean heard pounding on the lid of the trunk, then a muffled voice: Please, sir, please let me out.. If I did a wholesale capitulation, then I would be a perfect candidate for parole, Hunt said. Karny alleged that they had planned to kidnap Eslaminiain Northern Californiaand bring him back to Los Angeles, where they'd torture him till he shared the location of his assets. The club enticed the sons of wealthy families from the Harvard School for Boys (now Harvard-Westlake School; not affiliated with Harvard University) in the Los Angeles area with get-rich-quick schemes. I am not going to lie about it.. Jim was spending hours at a time in Joes office. The first house the woman had shown them, just north of Sunset Boulevard in the southeast corner of Bel Air, looked very good from the outside. For young Joe Hunt, Levin would remain a figure who not only fascinated, but also frustrated him. Much of Deans problem could be traced back to his parents, Joe suggested. While Joe Gamskys name always appeared at the top of the tab board, he could not conceal his envy of the boys whose names hung near the bottom, boys like Dean Karny, a bony and bug-eyed little blond who had weighed only eighty-nine pounds when he was cut from the freshman football team, but who knew everyones nickname and seemed always to have a beautiful girl on his arm. Then something changed, Dating in L.A. is exhausting, so I asked a chatbot to flirt for me. The result was a hung jury, 84, in favor of Hunt's acquittal. You are not interested in weather. Theyll never find the body.. I was sitting by his side and it was like he was not shaken by anything.. Blanche, a retired schoolteacher, had been introduced to Ron at a private party where her husband was working as a bartender. Whatever it was, Joe was like this rock.". Joe hadnt gotten Ron to invest any money, and he was kind of wondering whether Ron took him seriously as a businessman, Dean remembered. [16], In October 2018, the Los Angeles Superior Court denied an additional habeas corpus petition. The new divisions came between the Mays, as Tom, anxious to be declared a Shading, moved closer to Joe, while Dave, always skeptical, increasingly became the object of Hunts lectures on Norminess. Eventually, the twins stopped speaking to each other. Via walkie-talkie, Vega ordered an intercept in the hotel lobby. . A few convenient lies told to family and friends had swollen into a saga of alleged stock fraud, grand theft, extortion, and kidnapping. His back began to burn a few moments later, and fearing he had been attacked with acid, Swartout undressed in his office and rinsed himself with water. At the Harvard School, debate was the most popular and competitive sport on campus. Verified. . His credit had been extended to the point where either the debt would be paid that night, Joe said, or they would both be dead men by morning. On June 25, Jeff told Dave what he had missed: Youre not going to believe this. He was one of Billionaire Boys Club (also known as BBC) founders, Joe Hunt's former best friend turned archenemy and main witness in Joe Hunt's trial. Joe never flinched, Mary Brown remembered, not even when an elderly woman who said she had invested her life savings broke into hysterics. Less than five minutes after the twins pulled into their driveway in Brentwood, Tom May recalled, Joe Hunt was at their front door. From the minute you started telling them about it, everybody wanted to believe, Mary Brown said. By late August, Joe was able to tell the BBC that their share of the earnings came to more than $4 million. Warned in advance that Levin was a scammer, Joe had come away from their first meeting impressed in a way that the other BBC members had never seen. With the testimony of accomplice Karny, both Dosti and Reza Eslaminia were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Multiple Orgasms. These include Levin's "habit of writing large, worthless checks," his conversations with witnesses about plans to leave for New York or for Granada, Spain, and a conversation with another witness requesting advice on how to dye his hair. Joe asked most of the questions, nearly all of them about money, Dean recalled, and led the group to the conclusion that the idea was plausible: they could force Eslaminia to surrender property titles and bankbooks, coerce his signature onto loan documents and contracts with BBC companies. He is a mentor of sorts to burgeoning scammers Joe Hunt (Elgort) and Dean Karny (Egerton) in their get-rich-quick scheme, delivering ham-handed platitudes like "Billionaire or bust" and "You're a . He could cover himself in the short run, Hunt explained, by paying off early trading partners with the money being brought in by newer investors. He was portrayed by Taron Egerton. After Pittman boasted that he had survived eighty-seven consecutive karate tournaments without a loss, Dean introduced him to Joe. Thats unlikely to improve anyones mental health, Opinion: Why my Taiwanese American identity has become more complicated, 7 hospitalized after driver in stolen car runs red light in San Bernardino, police say, Barstow police investigating after officer caught on video hitting man with a baton, Northern California town on edge after second fatal stabbing in a week. it really didnt sit right with me at all, because I felt somehow that the ideology I had come into the situation with was being compromised., Jim was the only one who had a definite opinion on the subject, Dean recalled: He said that he didnt know of anyone that could be trusted with information like that, and that there is always someone who talks., Joe decided to test the waters. We were all making stuff up to look bigger than we were.. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. It became difficult, though, to describe exactly what that good reason had been, especially after they started killing people. Through his father, Taglianetti had access to gray market luxury cars imported from Europe at less than half the price they could be sold for in California. It was Joe who suggested the sex shop, confiding that it was where he had found the cuffs used during the first murder seven weeks earlier. And the bonds were very strong as long as Joe appeared to have the answers to things, both in terms of philosophies and in terms of coming up with money to keep people happy and activities to keep them busy.. Finally, Joe called Jack Friedman at Clayton Brokerage, hoping to gain information that would help him trace the $13.5 million. Brian McNamara was born on the 21st of November, 1960. Jim Pittman, whom Ron had never met, rang the buzzer at about 9:30 and introduced himself over the barrel of a silenced .25 Berretta. A week later, Steve Taglianetti caught a ride to Gardena with Pittman and noticed a vial of liquid on the dashboard. Capital formation, Joe would say later, is always a problem, but he had solved it neatly with the help of one of the BBCs first female members, Allison Weiss. Dean Karny, whose father was a . Contents 1 Biography 2 Personality 3 Gallery 4 Trivia Biography The first to break the circle was Jeff Raymond. When Weiss received a profit disbursement of $4,000 one month later, he added $30,000 to his portfolio, and passed the good news to friends. Brown in recent months has commuted 18 life sentences, giving the inmates a chance at freedom. Reaganomics created a crop of bullish investment bankers, yuppies dug into Caesar salads, greed was good and it all ended upmercilessly mocked by Bret Easton Ellis inAmerican Psycho. One story he told about her involved the time she had taken him to a spiritual medium who stood up shrieking in the middle of a sance, announced that the boy was the antichrist, and fled the room. They allegedly killed him to acquire his fortune, which was reputed to be $35million (the senior Eslaminia was, in fact, nearly penniless).[5]. A few years later came Hunt's trial in the 1984 kidnapping and murder ofHedayat Eslaminia in San Mateo, Calif. . In the late 1970s, Joe Hunt(then known by his real name, Joseph Henry Gamsky) was a student at the exclusive Harvard Schoolin Los Angeles (then all-boys, now it's the co-ed Harvard Westlake). He was in an Emmy-winning episode of Family Ties in 1987 as Alex Keaton . Those charges were dropped after jurors deadlocked on the allegation that he and others killed Hedayat Eslaminia, a wealthy Iranian-born businessman, in July 1984. It would then be a world where only hard assets counted, Joe explained. STREAM THIS MOVIE Watch Trailer View Photos On SHOWTIME Friday, Apr 14 at 11a See TV Schedule On Demand Available now See Schedule Stream Showtime Start Your Free Trial Billionaire Boys Club Trailer Trailer (2:13) Cast Ansel Elgort Pittman was unable to make $500,000 bail ($1.3 million today), so he was kept incarcerated through two Southern California trials for his active role in the murder of Levin. After the BBC attorneys failed to obtain a search warrant, Dean recalled, Reza and Steve Lopez broke into the Belmont condo. Eslaminia, now 38, was first accused of murdering his father in August 1985, when he was arrested by FBI agents investigating the June 30, 1984, disappearance of 57-year- old Hedayat Eslaminia, a. Before covering it, he and Jim had disfigured the body with shotgun blasts, Joe said. Detectives never found Levin, but they did find what prosecutors called the recipe for murder, a chilling to-do list scrawled on pages from a yellow legal pad. Soon Hunt really did have a few million dollars in his investment accounts and he leased a suite of offices in Beverly Hills. ), "No one that I have met to this day really knows the whole story. At the Davey Glen Apartments in Belmont, he rented their condo under a friends name, using only his initials on the registry outside and paying his bills with checks drawn on an account that belonged to his sister. Known as @lacrimes on Twitter, during almost 30 years at The Times he also has been part of the breaking news staff that won Pulitzers in 1998, 2004 and 2016. Jerry Brown to commute his sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Levin had restructured his already-made bail arrangements to release his parents from liability, and asked one witness for information about Brazilian extradition treaties. My reaction was that we should look into the possibility, Dean recalled. In truth, he had met the couple for the first time two years earlier, shortly after the Sturkeys moved to Los Angeles from Detroit. The only one of theBBC membersstill behind bars is Hunt, who lost his final appeal in 2016. 2023 E! They had considered posing as police officers, and had even rented blue uniforms from a costume shop in Hollywood, Dean recalled, but then Joe had decided that policemen attract more attention than delivery boys.. Joe was all talkative until I pulled out the seven pages of to-do list and put in front of him, Zoeller said. Vasquez had seen Reza just twice during the year she spent with his father, the second time early that summer, when she spotted Reza sitting in a gold Porsche outside the condo. Hedayat Eslaminia had fled the country during the Ayatollah Khomeinis revolution with more than $30 million plundered from the national economy, his eldest son said, and had enlarged upon his fortune in the United States by smuggling opium. The Browns brought in more investors. At the duplex on Peck Drive, Blanche Sturkey was just arriving for work. Visions ofpower and prestigedancing in his head, he went to work as a commodities trader in Chicago in 1981, ready to make millions despite not knowing what he was doing.