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Two years ago Thomas Belesis, founder and CEO of John Thomas Financial, took up the mantle of bringing “the pride” back to the financial industry and helping “restore” Wall Street’s tattered reputation.
Given the way Belesis has burnished his own image, he might be just the man for the job.
Since founding his brokerage firm in 2007, just down the street from the New York Stock Exchange, Belesis has become a frequent guest on cable television and has won numerous public and private sector accolades.
In 2010, Belesis — who cuts a figure in tailored suits — caught director Oliver Stone’s eye and landed a bit part in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” the sequel to the 1987 hit that immortalized fictional corporate raider Gordon Gekko.
As a crusader for Wall Street, Belesis is no stranger to publicity, yet he has managed to keep his own controversial past — one involving drugs and car theft — out of the limelight.
The first glimpses into his past came last year when Belesis, 37, was called to testify in a Central Islip courtroom as a witness to a triple homicide. Belesis took the stand for the government, which had charged his former childhood pal, Christian Tarantino, with killing three people between 1994 and 2003, according to testimony obtained exclusively by The Post.
Belesis, whose friends rented a storage space where one of the 1994 murder weapons was found, was not charged in the crime and played no part in the alleged murders. But his testimony highlighted his own youthful exploits, leading lawyers for the defendant to question his credibility. While the trial drew little publicity, Belesis’s testimony could resurface later this month in the re-trial over the murder of Vincent Gargiulo, the brother-in-law of Twisted Sister front man Dee Snider.
Prosecutors accused Tarantino of killing Gargiulo in 2003, after he allegedly tried to blackmail Tarantino with a secret recording of him confessing to two 1994 murders surrounding a botched armored car robbery. The FBI used Gargiulo’s tape to arrest Tarantino for all three murders in 2008.
Last year, with the help of Belesis’ testimony, a jury found Tarantino guilty in the 1994 murders, but remained split on whether he silenced Gargiulo. A re-trial is set for April 23.
Robert Bursky, a lawyer for John Thomas Financial, said Belesis doesn’t know if he will be called to testify but said it’s possible.
“I think it takes great courage to get up on a stand and acknowledge that we make mistakes when we’re youthful, which we all do,” Bursky said, describing Belesis’ past as “a vagary of youth.”
He said Belesis was travelling and unavailable to comment.
Just 19 years old at the time of the first two murders, Belesis told the jury that he was “involved with some marijuana and stealing cars” in 1994, when he was hanging out with a group that included Tarantino’s younger brother, Steven.
It was no small operation. The ring would steal, store and “tag” cars for re-sale, including a white four-door Lexus, a black two-door Lexus and a white Cadillac Seville, according to his and others’ testimony in the trial.
Nassau County police detective Jack Kennedy was investigating the thefts and obtained a warrant to search the Farmingdale storage facility where the ring stashed the cars. It was there that he found a black canvas bag filled with walkie-talkies, police scanners and the rifle that prosecutors alleged was used in the armored car murder.
Belesis was never charged as part of the car theft ring. His record is clean, although on the witness stand he admitted “an assault case” when he was in the 10th grade.
Former pals say Belesis’s troubled path started in high school.
The son of Greek immigrants, Belesis grew up in the leafy suburbs of North Merrick on Long Island. He was on the football team at Sanford Calhoun High School,where he graduated in 1993.
One childhood friend described Belesis as “reclusive and quiet” despite being friends with a group of popular “troublemakers” known for bodybuilding, selling drugs and using steroids.
“They were a rowdy crew that did a lot of fighting,” another friend told The Post.
Belesis moved to Arizona briefly in 1995, and joined a small Garden City, NY, brokerage firm in 1996, three years after graduating high school.
Many of those from Belesis’ former circle, some of whom lived in wealthier South Merrick and went to John F. Kennedy High School, weren’t so lucky.
Tarantino’s younger brother Steven was busted in a massive illegal gambling operation in 2006. Another former pal, Carl Vahldieck, is serving three years in a Boynton Beach, Fla., prison for stealing an ATM machine.
Belesis’ troubles didn’t end when he made to it Wall Street. His brokerage record is marred by five customer disputes before he founded John Thomas Financial and one termination in 2005 amid allegations, never proven, that he misrepresented his identity to a customer.
Belesis founded John Thomas Financial in 2007 after 11 years of working as a broker. His firm employs about 200 employees, up from a handful when it opened.
One former employee described John Thomas Financial as “the nicest offices on Wall Street.”
“There’s an attendant in the bathroom because that’s the image he wants to portray,” the ex-staffer said.
Belesis risked losing it all in 2005 when FBI agent Robert Schelhorn asked him about Tarantino. Belesis, at first, lied to the agent about elements of his past.
“And if you were convicted of a felony, like making a false statement to a law enforcement officer, it is your understanding, is it not, that you could lose your license to work as a stockbroker. Is that correct?” asked James Froccaro, one of Tarantino’s defense attorneys, asked during his cross-examination of Belesis.
“Correct.”
“And your career as a stockbroker would be over; is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you would lose everything; is that correct?”
“Yes.”