Jordan Belfort – Stratton Oakmont
He's known as 'The Wolf of Wall Street.' He was really dog in a boiler room.
Convicted penny stock swindler Jordan Belfort received a glamorous makeover when Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed him in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
His firm wasn’t located anywhere near Wall Street. It was a sleazy boiler room operating out of Long Island, N.Y. And its fraudulent activities had nothing to do with the broader market, which of course has its own problems.
“He was nothing more than a thief who found a way to steal from anyone who trusted him and to blame it on the stock market,” said Ronald L. Rubin, a former enforcement attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.
Belfort pleaded guilty to securities fraud, money laundering and stock manipulation charges. His firm, Stratton Oakmont, issued stocks based on dubious businesses and used high-pressure sales tactics to foist them on an unsuspecting public.
The profits fueled all the sex, drugs and insanity portrayed in the film.
Belfort was sentenced to four years in prison, but he cut a deal with prosecutors to rat out his underlings and only served 22 months.
He had the good fortune of sharing a cell with comedian Tommy Chong, who was serving time for selling bongs. Chong inspired Belfort to write a book, and the rest is Hollywood history.
Belfort has since made a fortune as an author, speaker and corporate trainer, capitalizing off the crimes he committed against thousands of small investors. All the while, he’s reportedly not paid anywhere near the $110 million in court-ordered restitution he owes.
“I once asked Jordan if it bothered him that he was stealing old ladies’ life savings,” Rubin writes. “Without missing a beat, he replied: ‘Of course. Why do you think we took all of those drugs?’”