Wesley
Snipes can’t seem to get anything right when it comes to his personal finances.
The notorious star of the hit “Blade” trilogy found a new kind of fame last year when he was sentenced to three years in jail for trying to fraudulently obtain $11.4 million of tax refunds between 1999 and 2001. He was also nabbed for willfully failing to file tax returns.
And now a court case in Britain has revealed that Snipes may have lost millions of dollars during that same period in an alleged Ponzi scheme.
Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook, the two former bosses of a now-defunct British investment firm Imperial Consolidated, went on trial in London at the end of last month accused of defrauding as many as 3,000 victims out of nearly $400 million.
The pair denies running a Ponzi scheme, maintaining that the firm was a legitimate investment operation that merely fell foul of the market.
Prosecutors maintain that Fraser and Brook kept taking money from clients — including Snipes — even though they knew the firm was insolvent and incapable of making money.
It is not known exactly how much Snipes lost to the alleged Ponzi scheme, although insiders claim the Hollywood hero invested “millions.”
Fraser and Brook, both in their 30s when the firm fell apart, are said to have no financial qualifications. The pair allegedly have frittered away Snipes’ cash — and millions more — on a luxurious lifestyle that included buying a private jet.
Snipes, meanwhile, has not yet been sent to jail for his tax evasion crimes, despite his conviction last April. The star remains free on bail pending appeal.
James Doran
Web of lies
One of the lesser known players in SpongeTech — the New York company under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible securities violations — is now floating to the surface.
George Speranza, who sources say was one of the parties who helped create the list of unverifiable customer addresses that SpongeTech sent The Post last month, is also raising questions.
Other than a Web site Nohypenobull.com that touts SpongeTech’s stock, Speranza appears to have no relationship to the sponge maker. He runs a series of Web sites promising to sell interested parties pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge and old Yankees Stadium.
But several people recently told The Post that Speranza was calling around to set up virtual offices for some of SpongeTech’s largest customers, including Dubai Export Import Co. Ultimately, no offices were set up although the addresses were used in a list of customer contacts provided to The Post by Lippert/Heilshorn, the firm’s outside investor- relations agency.
Meanwhile, a woman who answered the line for one of Sponge Tech’s customers on the list gave her address as being in Bay Ridge, Brook lyn, even though the company in question, SA Trad ing, is supposedly lo cated in Miami.
Not surprisingly, the same Brooklyn address is found in registration records for Spe ranza’s Web sites, including Ownapieceofthebrooklyn bridge.com.
Neither Speranza nor SpongeTech returned requests for comment.
Kaja Whitehouse
That Hertz
The latest dust-up between corporate America and independent research firms took an interesting twist last week when James Kaplan, chairman and founder of Audit Integrity, asked Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to investigate Hertz Rent a Car and its attempt to induce 19 companies to sue the firm.
Hertz sued Audit Integrity in a New Jersey state court last month for defamation and libel after a company report listed the rental-car company as being among 20 large companies “most likely to declare bankruptcy.”
Tough words, for sure, but Audit Integrity took the information directly from Hertz’ most recent 10-K. In the SEC filing, Hertz said: “If our cash flows and capital resources are insufficient to fund our debt service obligations, we may be forced to reduce or delay capital expenditures, sell assets, seek to obtain additional equity capital or restructure our indebtedness.”
The Hertz suit could send a chill through independent research firms and the information they produce. After BankAtlantic sued analyst Dick Bove over a critical report, Bove was forced to shell out over $1 million in legal expenses.
In 2005, Overstock.com sued Gradient Analysts over a negative report. Overstock dropped the suit after three years — after Gradient apologized.
Stay tuned.
Richard Wilner