Diamonds are forever, but this Ponzi scheme will get you only 7½ years.
Kenneth Starr concocted an elaborate, $33 million fraud to bilk his celebrity clients in part to impress his decades-younger ex-stripper wife, a Manhattan federal judge said yesterday in handing the disgraced money man a shorter-than-expected prison sentence.
“I can’t believe I did what I did. I lost my moral compass,” a visibly shaken Starr told the court.
He caught a blockbuster of a break when US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin — impressed with his longstanding charity and civic work — decided to toss out federal guidelines for his crimes and give him a lighter sentence.
PAGE SIX: STARR’S WIFE EYES REALITY STARDOM
“He seemed to have lost his moral compass partly as a result of infatuation with his young fourth wife,” Scheindlin said.
The guidelines recommend that Starr — who handled the fortunes of stars including Al Pacino, Uma Thurman and Lauren Bacall, among others — serve between 10 and 12½ years.
The object of his passion, buxom Diane Passage, sat front and center in a body-hugging skirt that left little to the imagination. Her cleavage was so generous, she used it to tuck in her sunglasses.
Starr’s jail stint will be a marked change from his luxury Upper East Side existence, which he bankrolled by looting his rich clients’ bank accounts.
He pilfered some $5.75 million from the account of a wealthy heiress — who according to sources is 100-year-old Rachel “Bunny” Mellon — to purchase a $7.5 million condo on East 74th Street that includes an indoor swimming pool and 1,500- square-foot garden.
In addition, he tried to use another $1 million from a client — identified in court papers only as an “actress” but who a source said is “Kill Bill” star Thurman — to help pay for the lavish home.
His wife, when asked after the hearing if she’ll leave the swanky condo, said, “I’m working on it.”