Network News already had arrangements with Merrill Lynch and PaineWebber, Levin said, but needed one other brokerage house for a segment that would be focused on an outside trading adviser, a young man named Joe Hunt. The Karnys put up $150,000 to stake Joes trading account, and persuaded friends to add another $250,000. But she said Hunts continuing insistence on his innocence makes it hard for him to win over Brown. As Hunt's best friend and partner, together they convinced a clique of ex-classmates from the Harvard School for Boys to invest in the BBC. By the end of April 1984, Joe saw his situation coming to a head. [9] At the time of his disappearance, Levin was free on bail and awaiting trial, and Hunt's defense team argued that Levin left the country to escape a pending FBI investigation into his financial misdeeds. The detective asked Hunt, What can you tell me about this?. For other uses, see, Last edited on 22 December 2022, at 06:36, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, List of murder convictions without a body, Billionaire Boys Club (clothing retailer), Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice, "Fast Cars, Armani Suits, Pretty Women: How the 'Billionaire Boys Club' Led to Murder", "Billionaire Boys Club's Joe Hunt seeks cut in life sentence", "Charges In Famed Death Dropped / Victim's son accused in 'billionaire' slaying", "James Cox to direct 'Billionaire Boys Club', "Madoff's gone but Ponzis go on; There's a schemer like him born every minute", "Billionaire Boys Club Bodyguard Admits Slaying in TV Interview", "Ninth Circuit Appeal, Excerpts of the Record, Vol I", "Levin Sightings Cast Doubt on Boys' Club Murder", "Laurence J. Rittenband, 81, Shows an Unorthodox Style: Crusty Judge Rules His Court with Iron Hand", "Los Angeles Times, "Billionaire Boys Club Leader Denied New Trial" July 13, 1996", "JOSEPH HUNT V. TIM VIRGA, No. No criminal charges have been filed against themor against Alex Gaon, Gene Browning, Jerry Eisenberg, or others whose dealings with the BBC were minimal in the eyes of prosecutors. A guy like that might be good for the BBC, Hunt said, and hired Pittman as a martial-arts instructor. Young and blond, Brooke styled herself as a sort of pastel punker. . In northern California, defense attorneys have subpoenaed several federal agencies, including the CIA, for evidence supporting the theory that Hedayat Eslaminia was killed either by Iranian terrorists or by drug dealers. Joe had grown to six feet four inches and sounded like a young man who had taken some long strides since Harvard. The suspect started to look at them and became visibly shaken (blank look on face, nervously going from page to page, over and over again), the detective wrote in his report. Hunt acted as his own attorney during this trial and contended that star witness Karny had killed Eslaminia. I cant believe the calm. Hunt was in total control of that room, his secretary Lorie Leis remembered. Brian McNamara was born on the 21st of November, 1960. 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. This would provide good cover for the mans disappearance, Joe suggested, and he told them to be ready on short notice. Dean had just been dumped by a girl he wanted to marry and was experiencing some self-esteem problems. While the others in their party were off skiing that weekend, Joe stayed behind with Dean at the lodge. Through his membership, Joe was sending out feelers to the citys most exclusive neighborhoods, announcing that the BBC was looking for people who understood that it took money to make money. She found two of Rons young friends sitting outside on the porch with their luggage. Joe called that one correctly: through Bens mother, Dean said, they learned from a reporter at the Los Angeles Times that the Beverly Hills Police Department had not even bothered to send a detective to the missing mans house. As the group began to fray at the edges, Hunt and Pittman grew tighter, the others noticed. Two days later, on June 6, Joe asked Dean to take Brooke to the movies that night. BBC investors started to ask for their money back, money Hunt didn't have. They found just one, containing only a few hundred dollars. After Joe admitted that he had been taken, Levin became public enemy number one among the BBC. A story so remarkable, and such an indictment of the greed, excess materialism, it could only have happened in L.A. during the 80's. . ), "No one that I have met to this day really knows the whole story. Another mystery. Tall and slender and always expensively dressed, Levin had fine silver hair, an immaculate white beard, a smile that was an affront to some, irresistible to others. Levin agreed to split the profits with the BBC, meaning Hunt's cronies (most of whom had family money, which thickens the mystery of why they were so drawn to Hunt) were also looking forward to a payday. The result was a hung jury, 84, in favor of Hunt's acquittal. Most memorable, according to a BBC member, was the time she painted her entire body with watercolors, spread a huge sheet of art paper on the floor, pressed herself against it in a series of postures that looked as if they had been lifted from the Kama Sutra, and wrote I LOVE YOU, JOE in one corner. Jim Pittman was a black bodyguard who carried 210 pounds on a five-foot-eight-inch frame, with muscles that shifted like a nest of pythons under his starched white shirts. Thats all youre qualified for.. Dean Karny is Hunt's best friend and a professional tennis player. Jim and I knocked off Ron Levin, Joe announced. Recalled lawyer Holmes: He got them deals.. For as far back as Los Angeles could claim tradition, the Harvard School had been its bastion. Atty. Blanche used her own key to open the front door. The next evening, August 21, two trucks rented with credit cards issued to Dean Karny and Ben Dosti hauled away loads of electronic equipment and machinery from the office on Third Street and the warehouse in Gardena. Black is white and white is blackthat was the paradox, Joe said. It was important that the subject, Mr. Hunt, behave as if he were trading real money. Financial Futures quarterly disbursement was due in June, and he had close to 150 investors to pay off now. I want to put $300,000 in BBC Consolidated. Ten minutes later, Joe would be back at another window, drawing out a cashiers check for $800,000. Jerry Eisenberg, the young attorney who had introduced Reza to Joe and Ben, was now telling the FBI he had reason to believe that Joe Hunt was involved not only in the death of Ron Levin, but also in the kidnapping and murder of an Iranian from northern California. [25], This article is about the investing and social club run as a Ponzi scheme. Dean Kearney. It was originally simply named "BBC", the initials of Bombay Bicycle Club, a restaurant Hunt had frequented as a young man in Chicago. After a recent trip to Europe, he had warned Vasquez not to open a package that came to the condo from Germany. 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. He was gaunt, often in a distracted state, borrowing money in amounts he would have scoffed at three months earlier$10,000 from Tom May, $5,000 from Evan Dicker. The future was terrifying and the past unthinkable. 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. 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. She said it was important for me to make a statement that contradicted other statements, or Joe might not get bail set. He would discuss the matter with his attorney, Dean told Brooke. Levin was making $10,000 a month from this arrangement, he told Holmes, but he couldnt stop there. Pittman remains at the main County Jail in downtown Los Angeles, where he is currently the only BBC member behind bars. He was in an Emmy-winning episode of Family Ties in 1987 as Alex Keaton's friend, Greg. Investigators were closing in on the BBC from both the north and the south now. He was portrayed by Taron Egerton. The proceedings ended with the jury hung ten to two for conviction. He said with that higher level of information came a very great responsibility.. The BBC had exhausted its remaining cash reserve during the June disbursement to Financial Futures investors, and by July, Dean said, they were reduced to supporting themselves by the piecemeal sale of West Cars inventory. Joe said it looked like Tom was going to be a Shading, and so Tom was all happy for a few days.. Levin, forty-two, liked to introduce his black maid Blanche Sturkey and her husband Christopher as devoted family retainers whom he had inherited from his grandmother. As Hunt drew the others in, the BBC began to assume the shape of concentric circles, or layers of understanding, as Joe called them. It was a big white stucco-and-red-tile hacienda with a tennis court out back, barricaded in front by a ten-foot hedge and screened from the street by a forest of flowering trees. That, Hunt says, was the trial at which jurors got to hear the truth about his activities. . Eighteen months later he had lost it alla fortune Joe claimed had grown to $14 million. Not all the defendants consented to interviews with the author. Blanche had to go crying to his stepfather, Marvin Levin, to get back even part of the money, $20,000, and Ron arranged to cover the rest of his debt by paying the Sturkeys $900 a month to work as his servants. Zoeller, however, said he isnt surprised that Hunt hasnt lost any of his powers of persuasion after decades in prison. After a meeting at the Hard Rock Cafe, the twins gave Joe Hunt $160,000 they had inherited from their Uncle Wilbur and announced to their adopted father that they had been appointed to the board of directors at a new corporation, BBC Consolidated of North America. Joe said, Do you want me to have [him] killed? Browning recalled. When authorities tried to increase a fellow inmates sentence by two years, citing a sentencing error, Hunt filed a petition that saw the sentence cut by two and a half years. Dean rode alone with the trunk for forty minutes, listening to the pleading and pounding of the man inside. As his crisis deepened, Joe reacted not by lowering expectations but by raising them, describing his plan to expand the BBC into a national organization of kids close to their inheritances. Joe worked relentlessly, formalizing the BBCs structure in a nine-page document provided to all members, envisioning an organization of 2,187 individuals divided into cells, sections, and divisions, with a hierarchy of nexuses, axes, and thraxes. . He had invested just $20,000the poor little fellow on the block, Gene Browning called himbut had proved valuable because his father, Lewis Raymond, a well-known metallurgist, had agreed to do the stress tests for Brownings Attrition Mill. She thought he would fall head over heels, the BBC member recalled, and Joe acted like, No big deal.. Contents 1 Biography 2 Personality 3 Gallery 4 Trivia Biography
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