Financial Villains: Where Are They Now?

Fact checked by Suzanne KvilhaugReviewed by Erika RasureFact checked by Suzanne KvilhaugReviewed by Erika Rasure

Milken, Boesky, Pickens, Rigas, Ebbers, Madoff: Their names were once celebrated, back in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, but no longer. These were financial fraudsters who lived the high life until their crimes (or purported crimes) brought them down.

Let’s check and see how these individuals have fared since.

Key Takeaways

• Michael Milken received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in 2020.
• Ivan Boesky died on May 20, 2024, at the age of 87.
• T. Boone Pickens died in 2019, at the age of 91.
• John Rigas died on Sept. 30, 2021, at the age of 96.
• Bernard Ebbers died in 2020, at the age of 78.
• Bernie Madoff died in prison in 2021, at the age of 82.

Michael Milken

The crime:

“The Junk Bond King,” as he was known in the 1980s, Michael Milken was indicted on 98 charges of securities fraud in 1989. Pleading guilty in 1990 to six felony counts of securities fraud and conspiracy, he was sentenced to 10 years at a federal minimum-security prison and was barred for life by the SEC from working in the securities field. He served nearly two years before being released with a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Milken was awarded the first Ig Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991. This satirical award, which honors achievements that make people laugh and then think, recognized Milken as the “father of the junk bond, to whom the world is indebted.” The Ig Nobel Prize often highlights unusual or trivial research and achievements in a humorous light.

Today:

Despite his criminal conviction, Milken has since become a prominent philanthropist, focusing on medical research and education through the Milken Institute, a think tank he founded. Milken is a prostate cancer survivor, and the institute has donated significantly to cancer research.

After his release, Milken reinvented himself as a leader in business education and a crusader against cancer. His website describes him as a medical research innovator, philanthropist, and financier. He completed several business deals, negotiating CNN’s $7.5 billion sale to Time Warner in 1996, which sparked an SEC complaint that he’d violated the ban. (It was dropped after Milken paid a $47 million fine.) He helped initiate Bizmore, a website dedicated to educating executives at small and medium-sized companies on topics relevant to today’s growing companies.

On Feb. 18, 2020, President Trump granted him a full pardon.

Ivan Boesky

The crime:

Considered one of America’s richest stock market speculators in the late 1970s and early ’80s, “Ivan the Terrible” was arrested in 1986 for insider trading. Ivan Boesky paid $100 million in penalties and served three years in prison for betting on corporate takeovers using inside information and illegally manipulating the stock. He was also barred by the Securities and Exchange Commission from the world of trading and acted as a government informant on other financial industry malefactors, including Milken.

The purported inspiration for the fictional Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street, Boesky was also notorious for a commencement speech he gave at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Business Administration, in which he stated: “Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”

Today:

After he left prison, Boesky enrolled in rabbinical studies and became involved in projects helping people experiencing homelessness. He stayed out of the spotlight, living quietly in La Jolla, Calif., on a $23 million payout he received in a 1991 divorce settlement from his wife, Seema Silberstein. Boesky died on May 20, 2024, at the age of 87.

T. Boone Pickens

The controversy:

Pickens got his start in the oil and gas industry in the 1950s, founding the company that became Mesa Petroleum. But he soon realized the potential in acquiring oil companies, and by the 1980s, Pickens was known as a takeover specialist and corporate raider. His business tactics were said to put many independent oil producers out of business, throwing thousands of people out of work. He was also accused of greenmail: He would launch a takeover bid, then get companies to buy back their shares from him at a premium in exchange for promises that he would just go away.

Unlike the others on our list, Pickens was never charged with any actual crime. But his arguably unscrupulous ways caught up with him in the mid-1990s. Mesa Petroleum ran into financial trouble, ironically became a target of corporate raiders, and was finally sold. The new management promptly ousted Pickens in 1997.

Today:

Undaunted, Pickens founded the BP Energy Fund, later renamed BP Capital Management, a natural gas-oriented hedge fund. He also reinvented himself as an environmentalist who believed in pushing green power while also focusing on philanthropic duties, such as the T. Boone Pickens Foundation. BP Capital closed in January 2018, ostensibly because of Pickens’ poor health. He died in September 2019, at the age of 91. His net worth, once estimated at $3 billion, had fallen to $600 million.

John Rigas

The crime:

John Rigas was the founder of Adelphia Communications Corp., the fifth-largest cable company in the U.S. He was forced to retire as CEO in 2002 after being indicted for securities, bank, and wire fraud. Prosecutors charged him with hiding $2.3 billion in debt and using corporate funds for personal, luxurious use. Adelphia filed for bankruptcy.

He was convicted, along with his son Timothy, in 2004 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was released early in 2016 due to a diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Today:

After his own release, Rigas fought to get his son’s sentence commuted. He finally succeeded in 2019. They lived quietly in Coudersport, Pa., once the seat of Adelphia, until John Rigas died on Sept. 30, 2021, at the age of 96.

Bernard Ebbers

The crime:

Ebbers was the CEO of WorldCom, the nation’s second-largest long-distance telecommunications company around the turn of the 21^st century. Ebbers owned hundreds of millions of dollars in WorldCom stock, which he borrowed against to invest in other business ventures. But after WorldCom’s stock price plummeted in 2000, Ebbers had to cover more than $400 million in margin calls, and he began producing fraudulent accounting statements to prop up the company’s finances and share price.

Tipped off by the company’s internal audit department, the SEC investigated. Ebbers was eventually charged with nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, and making false regulatory filings. He was convicted on March 15, 2005.

Today:

Ebbers began a 25-year sentence in federal prison in 2006. After he’d served 13 years of his term, a federal judge ordered his release due to health reasons. He died shortly thereafter in February 2020, at the age of 78.

Bernie Madoff

The crime:

Bernard Madoff was infamous for carrying out the largest financial Ponzi scheme in history. It is reported that over two decades, Madoff fleeced investors out of tens of billions of dollars before the fraud was revealed in 2008. Madoff had made a name for himself as one of the early adopters of electronic trading in the late 1980s, rising to prominence and becoming the chairman of the Nasdaq from 1990 to 1993. After that, he launched his own investment firm, bringing in billions from wealthy and affluent investors as well as tens of thousands of smaller, indirect investors from various feeder funds. Regulators and auditors, however, became suspicious after Madoff’s fund consistently returned high returns, even when markets tumbled. In 2008, with markets falling amid the financial crisis, Madoff could no longer keep up the Ponzi scheme and ultimately confessed.

Today:

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 and died there in 2021, at the age of 82. Madoff always insisted that he carried out his fraud alone and that nobody else, not even his family who worked closely with him, knew.

What Is Considered a Financial Crime?

Financial crime encompasses a wide range of illegal activities involving money or assets. These crimes typically involve deceit, fraud, or theft to gain financial benefit. Examples include fraud, money laundering, insider trading, embezzlement, tax evasion, counterfeiting, and some instances of identity theft.

Which Financial Crimes Are Most Common?

According to a 2023 report by the FBI, the most common financial crimes in America are:

1. phishing/spoofing
2. data theft
3. refusal to pay/refusal to deliver
4. extortion
5. stock fraud

Who Handles Financial Crimes?

Financial crimes are investigated and prosecuted by various governmental agencies, depending on the jurisdiction and nature of the crime. In the United States, these agencies include the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Department of Justice. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is a multi-agency organization that collects and analyzes information about financial transactions to detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. FinCEN collaborates with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, regulators, and international counterparts to combat financial crimes.

The Bottom Line

Of this group of notorious financial villains, most have suffered consequences for their actions in one way or another, serving time in prison, paying fines, or losing their jobs. Whether they’ve fully repaid their debt to society remains a question mark on their bottom line.

Read the original article on Investopedia.