It’s hard to understand why the 92nd Street Y will host convicted fraudster Jordan Belfort as a high-profile speaker [next month].
That he’s to talk on the alleged current ills of Wall Street — when his only real expertise is in posing 20 years ago as a Wall Street banker as part of a criminal enterprise — makes even less sense.
The Y’s Web site announces that it aspires to “curate conversations with the world’s foremost thought leaders to deepen understanding.”
But Belfort, the self-styled “Wolf of Wall Street” whose life of crime and debauchery was the subject of the recent Martin Scorsese film, remains an unrepentant scam artist.
I was the federal prosecutor who, working closely with FBI Special Agent Greg Coleman, investigated and “flipped” Belfort into acting as a cooperating witness, helping us convict dozens of others.
In the course of the probe, he admitted to us, and to a federal judge under oath when pleading guilty, that every securities transaction underwritten by his firm Stratton Oakmont was fraudulently rigged.
He also admitted to us that he viewed all investors as potential victims for his pump-and-dump schemes. He confirmed that virtually every day for years he woke up thinking of new ways to rip off others.
He also subjected his family and closest friends to his drug- and alcohol-addled abuses, from occasional physical violence to marital infidelity.
After pleading guilty and cooperating, including offering testimony against close friends and partners, he served time in jail and was ordered to pay back about $110 million to his victims.
In the years since his release, Belfort has repaid only a small fraction of that amount. Instead, he wrote two books that celebrate depravity and trash those once closest to him — his wife, his best friends, his business partners.
Now, after the success of the “Wolf” film, he offers “motivational speeches” for pay, claiming to impart valuable entrepreneurial and ethical lessons.
He says he’s a reformed man. Yet he continually denies what he earlier admitted to the FBI and me, and in court. Instead, he misleadingly minimizes his past crimes, and falsely suggests that most of his victims were wealthy (and so presumably less worthy of sympathy).
He argues that his actions differed little from Wall Street bankers, yet he didn’t work on Wall Street but rather ran a boiler room from a Long Island office park.
He says he stepped over the line only in imperceptible steps, when in fact he leapt over the line early and often.
Even the nickname “Wolf of Wall Street” is a recent fabrication. No one called him that in his criminal heyday.
If one wishes to pay up to $42 to hear Belfort talk, that’s one’s right. But why would the 92nd Street Y choose to invite him?
Y spokespeople offer unconvincing explanations — e.g., that Belfort will discuss current Wall Street cultural challenges. That’s absurd: He never worked on Wall Street, and was barred from the securities industry 20 years ago.
The Y also argues that Belfort isn’t the focus of the event, just one of several speakers addressing alleged Wall Street ills. Yet oddly the Y’s marketing for the paid event focuses almost solely on Belfort and his invented “Wolf” nickname.
Indeed, the Y spokesperson told me she has no idea what Belfort will even say.
The night’s topic, “the law, business and culture of Wall Street and what happens — or should happen — when laws governing the public market for securities are violated” is well worth discussing.
But not by highlighting and glorifying a man whose only expertise is in pretending to be a trustworthy adviser in order to fleece innocents of their life savings.
Whatever precipitated the 2007-8 financial crisis, the experiences of a 1990s Long Island boiler-room operator are irrelevant. While the Y may sell out the event, it’s hard to see how it will “deepen understanding.”
Belfort mouths a tale of his transformation from his debauched past. But, while everyone deserves a second chance, first you must forthrightly take responsibility for the past and make amends to those you wronged — none of which he does.
These are core Jewish principles, embodied in the concept of “teshuvah.” They require remorse, restitution and confession, because words are hollow without action.
Those principles surely motivated the 92nd Street Y’s founders and current leadership and inform the Y’s avowed aim to “inspire action by bringing together today’s most exceptional thinkers and influential partners for social good” and to emphasize “the importance of family, the joy of life and giving back to our wonderfully diverse and growing community.”
Inviting Jordan Belfort to headline a discussion of Wall Street’s culture badly misses the mark set by these lofty goals. It celebrates celebrity and tarnishes the reputation of a respected New York institution.
While a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, Joel M. Cohen investigated and prosecuted Jordan Belfort and Stratton Oakmont. He is a trial lawyer and partner at a major international law firm.