[9] At the time of his disappearance, Levin was free on bail and awaiting trial, and Hunt's defense team argued that Levin left the country to escape a pending FBI investigation into his financial misdeeds. Gene Browning asked Joe if he was going to marry Brooke: He said, Shes just a cover, the inventor recalled. [4] Hunt himself came from a single-parent family in the lower-middle-class suburb of Van Nuys, and was able to attend the Harvard School only with the help of scholarships. Thats unlikely to improve anyones mental health, Opinion: Why my Taiwanese American identity has become more complicated, 7 hospitalized after driver in stolen car runs red light in San Bernardino, police say, Barstow police investigating after officer caught on video hitting man with a baton, Northern California town on edge after second fatal stabbing in a week. I had every attorney in town come to see me, Pittman remembered. Olga, a doll-faced, soft-bodied woman with long legs and a breathy voice, gave interviews to local TV stations, and the San Francisco papers picked up the story, leading with the suspicion that Eslaminias disappearance had been the work of a Khomeini hit squad. Vasquez did not mention to the media a second possibility, one already under consideration among law-enforcement officialsthat Eslaminia had been abducted during a drug deal. The BMW led the way, followed by the yellow pickup with the black camper shell. Joe called that one correctly: through Bens mother, Dean said, they learned from a reporter at the Los Angeles Times that the Beverly Hills Police Department had not even bothered to send a detective to the missing mans house. Back in Belmont, the citys tiny police department was bringing both the FBI and the DEA into its investigation of the Eslaminia disappearance. He worked closely with the prisons clergy, acting as a chapel clerk. Due to the reputation of the organization for being composed of young, inexperienced men from moneyed families, it was jokingly referred to as the "Billionaire Boys' Club". After Karny, the only other person with whom Joe discussed the murder was the third Shading, Ben Dosti. Recalled lawyer Holmes: He got them deals.. It is a last-ditch effort to get a shot at walking out the door because he exhausted his appeals, Cooley said. You are not interested in weather. "There is one voice that will never be stifledand that's the voice of an innocent man talking about his innocence," Hunt said in court. One other comparison, however, was made with even greater frequency: A Manson for the Eighties, Gene Browning called Joe. By the end of August, Oscar Breiling had met a state narcotics agent who reported he had been using Reza Eslaminia as an informant for nearly two years. Since criminal charges were pending against other Billionaire Boys Club members, the film changed their names. He began by interviewing Olga Vasquez. Joe said it looked like Tom was going to be a Shading, and so Tom was all happy for a few days.. But when the BBC tried to deposit it, the check bounced. The others were all waiting for him in a room Ben Dosti had rented under the name Davis: Joe and Ben had already changed into the brown UPS outfits Dean bought for them a few days earlier. And,even for those more familiar with it, "there are always new nuggets to find. Mr. Karny, 26, the son of a wealthy Los Angeles real estate developer, said he had believed in Mr. Hunt's abilities and had been intrigued with his desire to put together a group of. Zoeller, however, said he isnt surprised that Hunt hasnt lost any of his powers of persuasion after decades in prison. Investigators were closing in on the BBC from both the north and the south now. Twenty-four-year-old Dean Karny, on summer vacation from law school and still wearing the gray business suit he had put on in Los Angeles that morning, climbed into the back of the truck and sat down. Visions ofpower and prestigedancing in his head, he went to work as a commodities trader in Chicago in 1981, ready to make millions despite not knowing what he was doing. They had almost the same kind of personality, Dean said. I am convinced that he cannot distinguish truth from fiction. The next evening, August 21, two trucks rented with credit cards issued to Dean Karny and Ben Dosti hauled away loads of electronic equipment and machinery from the office on Third Street and the warehouse in Gardena. Joe told Dean to get out and help load the thing into the camper, because now it was very heavy. As they drove back down the hill to El Camino Real Boulevard, he and Joe were alone in the cab of the pickup. Capital formation, Joe would say later, is always a problem, but he had solved it neatly with the help of one of the BBCs first female members, Allison Weiss. One week later, the Shadings held a second meeting on the subject of disclosure. Reza and his associates were seen in Belmont often during the following week. It was a matter of principle, he explained: I felt very strongly about the reasons why we had started the BBC . The detective asked Hunt, What can you tell me about this?. Dean rode alone with the trunk for forty minutes, listening to the pleading and pounding of the man inside. "Was I a catastrophic, world-class jackass in 1984? 2,448 posts. On her own, Brooke claimed, she won a part on the TV series Diffrent Strokes, but when her father found out, he made a single phone call, and the next day the job was no longer hers. Hunt faces an uphill battle, despite the criminal justice reform movement sweeping California. When Weiss received a profit disbursement of $4,000 one month later, he added $30,000 to his portfolio, and passed the good news to friends. There are endless galaxies which are yours. You can find every Esquire story ever published at .css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}Esquire Classic. [24], The true-crime podcast series Hollywood & Crime, narrated by actor Timothy Olyphant, covered the subject in the summer of 2020. The governors policy seems to be consistent with a philosophy of commuting sentences for those with exemplary behavior who show remorse, she said. More than two hundred people attended, taking chairs in rows that faced the table where Hunt sat flanked by the BBC. When they put the handcuffs on him, Ron lost all his energy. Pittman forced Levin to lie facedown on the bed, and Ron began to whimper. Handsome and charismatic with a boyish charm, Hunt led the Billionaire Boys Club, a social and investment fraternity. Before O.J. Three days after the June 24 meeting, Browning said, he had met Hunt for breakfast in Westwood. The Billionaire Boys Club was real. The club enticed the sons of wealthy families from the Harvard School for Boys (now Harvard-Westlake School; not affiliated with Harvard University) in the Los Angeles area with get-rich-quick schemes. Four days later, Evan Dicker reported that the BBC office had been burglarized and filed an insurance claim in excess of $100,000. A BBC attorney volunteered that he had a friend at the World Trade Bank, which maintained excellent contacts with the Swiss. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The boys could afford to travel first class now, because the money was pouring into Joe Hunts new commodities-trading fund, Financial Futures. Joes the kind of person who can pick up very quickly the person who is dissatisfied with his lot in life, Dean explained. Jeff Raymond, Steve Taglianetti, and Evan Dicker have agreed to testify against Joe Hunt. Whatever it was, Joe was like this rock.". Several former disciples testified that they believed Hunt was still attempting to have them killed. In his appeal, Hunt's defense counsel argued that key facts were withheld from jurors during his original trial for Levin's murder. In 2018with the support of a Free Joe Hunt campaign started by friends and family onlinehe petitioned then-California Gov. As the two of them walked back to their cars, Browning told the Mays, he had mentioned some problems he was having with a former business partner. Brown in recent months has commuted 18 life sentences, giving the inmates a chance at freedom. They traveled only a short distance together, Dean remembered, before Joe noticed that the sounds from the trunk had ceased. [10] One witness, Nadia Ghaleb, who was acquainted with Levin, testified that she saw him getting into a car on San Vicente Boulevard in West Los Angeles; another, Ivan Werner, who worked as a funeral director at Pierce Brothers Funeral Home in Westwood, testified that he saw Levin attending a funeral.[11]. Without money for new materials, work was brought to a virtual standstill at the Microgenesis plant in Gardena. Tall, good-looking, a surfer from Newport Beach, Raymond had been brought to the BBC by the Mays. Within the hour, however, Browning decided that Joe Hunt was the most articulate person I had ever met. A biochemist, Browning had invested eighteen years of evenings and weekendsplus $480,000 of his own moneyin the development of a machine he called the Attrition Mill, an enormous metal cylinder capable of reducing ore to ultrafine powder to separate precious metals. So they would have to employ a little harmless deception. The mans eyes were closed and there was drool on his chin. . On August 16, California Department of Justice agent Oscar Breiling arrived on the scene to take over control of the case. I dont know the purpose of all that. Weiss would bring in many of Financial Futures first scores of investors, among them Hunts single largest trading partner, Woodland Hills businessman Chester Brown, who deposited $250,000. It was important that the subject, Mr. Hunt, behave as if he were trading real money. It may have been Levins masterpiece. It was the May brothers, though, who were, in many ways, the making of the BBC. Rons reverse spin was to prepare a three-page treatment as the pilot for a proposed TV series he titled The Reporter. At graduation, each member of the senior class was given one full page in the Harvard School yearbook. At the International Love Boutique, Dean also purchased two mouth gags, one a large plastic penis with straps that fastened at the back of the neck. Joe mentioned in a casual voice that some documents were missing from the office and asked if they knew anything about it. Levin loved to entertain and had dozens of close companions. Ah, the 1980s, when shoulder pads, hair and egos ran sky high. By 1984, despite the Billionaire Boys Clubs trappings of success and dreams of its members becoming more prominent than their wealthy parents, the group had lost nearly $1 million in bad investments. "He had this quality about him. As Hunt's best friend and partner, together they convinced a clique of ex-classmates from the Harvard School for Boys to invest in the BBC. Dean Karny is Hunt's best friend and a professional tennis player. thought he was a good influence on me, Dean said. He began taking us out to lunch, Dean recalled, buying us games at the video arcade. During Deans summer vacation, Joe began spending the night at the Karny estate in the Hollywood Hills. During a hearing in San Mateo County, a police informant testified he had overheard Reza Eslaminia boast that his codefendant, Joe Hunt, was purchasing a contract on Karnys life. Much of Deans problem could be traced back to his parents, Joe suggested. After graduation, he enrolled at USC to study accounting, passing the CPA exam when he was only 19, after which he promptly dropped out. They spent nearly $100,000 on advanced software for the conference room, another $30,000 to stock the BBCs law library. Levin was a truly incredible character, Joe said, a professed graduate of Harvard College, number one in his class, with a 186 IQ, whod taken a $200,000 inheritance and run it up to $25 million, and knew everything about everyone in town. Jim and I knocked off Ron Levin, Joe announced. It would then be a world where only hard assets counted, Joe explained. [14] However, in a federal habeas proceeding in 2004, Hunt's continuing effort to have his murder conviction overturned was revived, as the Ninth Circuit reversed a dismissal of his habeas petition. As the plan grew more definite, each of them was assigned a list of duties. ), At Willie Nelson 90, country, rock and rap stars pay tribute, but Willie and Trigger steal the show, Concertgoer lets out a loud full body orgasm while L.A. Phil plays Tchaikovskys 5th, Plaschke: Lakers live up to their legacy with a close-out win for the ages, L.A. Affairs: I had my reasons for not dating white men. He was one of Billionaire Boys Club (also known as BBC) founders, Joe Hunt's former best friend and main witness in Joe Hunt's trial. "I seeother men similarly situated getting commutations and figured, 'Why not me, too?'" Ron had good reasons of his own for disappearing: under criminal indictment for illegally purchasing $300,000 worth of computer goods and photography equipment, Levin faced almost certain conviction and a state-prison sentence of up to seven years. Within weeks Hunt had fabricated a gangster mystique for Pittman, reinventing him as a Penn State all-American who had run back kicks for the Baltimore Colts, then gone to work for the mob as an enforcer. Pittman recalled: Hed, put it in, but hed take it back out. [citation needed] The Billionaire Boys Club is also the topic of two books: The Billionaire Boys Club by Sue Horton and The Price of Experience by Randall Sullivan. Ben is currently working in a Los Angeles law office. Jim Pittman was a black bodyguard who carried 210 pounds on a five-foot-eight-inch frame, with muscles that shifted like a nest of pythons under his starched white shirts. of Deputy District Attorneys, said she is not surprised that Hunt is making a bid to commute his sentence. . In the center of the room sat two navy-blue trunks, each big enough for an adult human being, Dean said. When the gentleman reached the French doors at the Fifth Avenue entrance, Vega recalled, four of my units were waiting for him. The gentleman then did something that no one had ever done in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel: he dropped his suitcases, let out a yell, and assumed a karate stance. Brooke Roberts, Joes last loyal follower, traced Dean to his parents home in the hills. And Joe did, running the $5.2 million up to more than $13.5 million within six weeks. Club members, clad in Armani suits and driving high-end BMWs, dined at Spago and partied with supermodels. The money became a river now. Joe and Dean drove to Beverly Hills, opened a corporate account, and paid a fee of $5,000 to have the check cashed within five days. From the Davey Glen Apartments, they drove directly to a U-Haul dealership, where the blue trunk was transferred from the camper to the back of a twelve-foot truck. Deans mother answered the door. The BBC was going to take some bold steps and achieve greatness, and for those people who wanted to go along with the BBC to achieve these levels of greatness, they must know things and do things, Evan Dicker remembered Joe saying. They found just one, containing only a few hundred dollars. Her story was that she despised her father, movie producer Bobby Robertscofounder of Dunhill Records and former personal manager for Richard Pryor and Ann-Margretwho was president of Lorimar Records at the time. BBC members Hunt, Pittman, Karny (before his immunity deal), Arben Dosti, and Reza Eslaminia were charged with the murder of Hedayat Eslaminia, Reza's father. Hunt's trial for the murder of Levin eventually began in 1987 and was the talk of Beverly Hills, the downfall of the handsome, young, investment wunderkind so much fodder for cocktail party conversation. Joe Hunt was released in September 1985 on a $2-million property bond, the amount secured by a man who earlier had been outspoken in his hatred of Hunt, Bobby Roberts. Behind the cover of his new name, he had begun trading at the Beverly Hills brokerage house of Cantor, Fitzgerald & Company in accounts that had been set up under the names Tom May, Dean Karny, and Alex Gaon. With no word from Ben or Reza, money was growing tight. He wanted to film the trading process as it happened, Levin explained, and the documentary should have a dramatic feel. Things had happened fast after that. Reza is an inmate at the San Mateo County Jail, where he will be held until he comes to trial for the murder of his father. The two began to refer to a place they called the Ice House, an armed retreat where the BBC was to rendezvous when things got hot, Joe was building a personal library for Jim, a set of how to books with titles like Hit Man: Technical Manual for Independent Contractors and Black Bag Owners Manual II, which began, This pertains to the personalized killing that in peacetime is called murder.. On November 26, Les Zoeller visited the Karny home on Outpost Drive. Levin, forty-two, liked to introduce his black maid Blanche Sturkey and her husband Christopher as devoted family retainers whom he had inherited from his grandmother. Hunt tried to undermine Karny's credibility and show that Karny played an active role in the club's plots. No one left. Hunt, 59 at the time, told the Associated Press. No criminal charges have been filed against themor against Alex Gaon, Gene Browning, Jerry Eisenberg, or others whose dealings with the BBC were minimal in the eyes of prosecutors. On May 20, 1993, a few months after all charges were dropped against him in the Eslaminia case, Jim Pittman admitted on the television program A Current Affair to have participated in the Levin murder, confessing that he was the one who shot Levin and bragging that he was now untouchable in court due to the restriction on double jeopardy. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Levin had restructured his already-made bail arrangements to release his parents from liability, and asked one witness for information about Brazilian extradition treaties. If I did a wholesale capitulation, then I would be a perfect candidate for parole, Hunt said. Pittman was right; somebody always talks. Hunt maintains that Levin's con artistry extends to having faked his own death, as no body was found in the case. With the testimony of accomplice Karny, both Dosti and Reza Eslaminia were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In truth, he had met the couple for the first time two years earlier, shortly after the Sturkeys moved to Los Angeles from Detroit. There was a strong odor of urine as he lifted the lid, Dean remembered, and he opened and shut the trunk five times, assembling a mosaic of glimpses that arranged themselves into the picture of a stocky, gray-haired man wearing handcuffs and lying motionless in a fetal position. He had grown up in a Pentecostal congregation, married young, and started a successful cleaning service back in Hampton Beach, Virginia, where he yearned for a more glamorous line of work. This was the perfect crime. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. On June 8, 1984, Levin's mother reported him missing to the Beverly Hills Police Department. Dean signed a six-week lease on the house the next morning and flew north for a rendezvous at the Villa Hotel. He has defused violence and helped start a project at Folsom State Prison to address how trauma in inmates past can lead to violent behavior. Eslaminia, now 38, was first accused of murdering his father in August 1985, when he was arrested by FBI agents investigating the June 30, 1984, disappearance of 57-year- old Hedayat Eslaminia, a. This account is based on hundreds of pages of sworn testimony and police reports taken between December 1983 and June 1985, and on interviews with principals in the story and attorneys working on related cases. . He managed to get a job at a prestigious accounting firm, relying on his CPA exam score and skipping over the part about not having a college degree. Inside were file folders labeled REZA: ASSETS RE CONSERVATORSHIP, SWARTOUT, and one stamped THE MAYS, in which Zoeller found a two-page contract between Microgenesis and Ron Levin. Hunt has long insisted that the list left at Levins duplex was designed to scare him. He manipulated other BBC members, Hunt said. Within the week, Reza was arrested in San Francisco as he attempted to pick up a passport issued to Christopher Potter. He even prepared a prospectus for world domination, describing the inevitable collapse of the global economy as Third World countries defaulted on loans and pulled First World banks under with them. The next target would be human. Joe kept the master list and told the others he would personally conduct the interrogation. Eighteen months later he had lost it alla fortune Joe claimed had grown to $14 million. He was gaunt, often in a distracted state, borrowing money in amounts he would have scoffed at three months earlier$10,000 from Tom May, $5,000 from Evan Dicker. Dean would find happiness, Joe explained, only if he achieved purity of action. The starting point was an understanding that the impediments between what you had and what you wanted were external, not internal. Raymond remained best friends, however, with Dave May, one of the six BBC members excluded as untrustworthy from the June 24 meeting. He was portrayed by Taron Egerton. Joe convened a meeting of the Shadings the next day, including Evan among the inner circle for the first time. Black is white and white is blackthat was the paradox, Joe said. exam the spring after high schoolthe youngest person in the country ever to do soand by challenging finals, he said, had finished at USC in a year and a half. After she told Hedayat that Reza was outside, Olga recalled, he became very upset and told me never to allow him in the apartment.. Editors Note: The drama and intrigue did not stop there. "They cannot charge me for the murder of Ron Levin because they dropped it," Pittman said. So, he tried it again in Beverly Hillschristening himself Joe Hunt and forming an investment club with some of his former classmates, using his bravado and promises of quick, big returns to get them to put up the capitalfor what eventually became known as the Billionaire Boys Club. From the minute you started telling them about it, everybody wanted to believe, Mary Brown said. Detectives never found Levin, but they did find what prosecutors called the recipe for murder, a chilling to-do list scrawled on pages from a yellow legal pad. Karny later played the same prominent role in the state's prosecution of Hunt, Reza Eslaminia and Arben Dosti for the Belmont kidnap-murder. [citation needed]. Not all the defendants consented to interviews with the author. Network News already had arrangements with Merrill Lynch and PaineWebber, Levin said, but needed one other brokerage house for a segment that would be focused on an outside trading adviser, a young man named Joe Hunt. They were of that belief because Hunt hadbasically said as muchin a meeting at the BBC. The brokerage house sued, calling in the principals for depositions. Joe Vega, the Plazas security supervisor, reported for work on June 10 and was immediately asked to accompany the hotels credit manager to room 1071. On the basis of multiple witness statements that Levin had been seen alive, and claims of ineffective assistance of counsel[10] and judicial misconduct,[13] Hunt sought to have his murder conviction overturned and get a new trial. "But it's not right that I get to be the garbage dump of everybody's peccadilloes.". Certain that Hunt knew they had gone to the police, Tom May began carrying a pistol in his own home.
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