Bankruptcy

Con Man who was ?redeemed? now investigated

By mcbride

Under the sub heading of: “this will make a great movie” comes this tale.  A convicted con man, goes straight and becomes a pastor, trains the IRS and FBI on how to detect fraud and he is now being investigated by the SEC for … fraud.  (As an aside, if you have not seen the movie “The Informant” then you should rent it, it is a great “mainly true” story!)

“Minkow became a teenage millionaire as the founder of a carpet-cleaning company called ZZZZ Best, which made a splash on the stock market. But much of the company?s purported revenue was derived from imaginary clients. In a 1996 Washington Post profile, he recounted how he fooled auditors by fabricating checks with a razor blade and correction fluid.

The scam unraveled when ZZZZ Best got caught claiming that it was doing work in a five-story office building in a town where no building was taller than two stories.

After spending several years in prison, Minkow embarked on a new career trying to expose financial scams, and he created a business called the Fraud Discovery Institute.

He taught courses in fraud detection for the FBI and worked closely with a variety of law enforcers ? including federal prosecutors, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, according to a court document.

In 2005, Minkow issued an autobiography titled, ‘Cleaning Up: One Man?s Redemptive Journey Through the Seductive World of Corporate Crime.’”

Here is a link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/con-man-turned-pastor-barry-minkow-accused-of-securities-fraud/2011/03/24/ABdqqSRB_story.html

Michael

Full post as published by Texas Lawyer Blog on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).