April 16, 2026 • 56 mins
It takes money to make money. And sometimes, you take someone else's money to make your money. You know how that goes. Marc Dreier was a flashy lawyer with a cash problem. Luckily, he had rich clients to impersonate. Problem solved!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zarens.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Elizabeth, how are you? I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I have a really important question for you.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm all yours.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Do you know what is ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Ah, I'm so glad you asked. You came to the
right source. Figured so in Kentucky, Elizabeth, ridiculous. These cops
they were sitting there outside like a liquor store, and
they noticed a man who had just come out of
the liquor store was down the ways and he was
slumped over like looks like he passed out, you know,
(00:33):
as the story put it, at the controls of his
brown vehicle. And as a result, the man forty eight
year old, he was arrested for being under the influence.
Since he was not in on a vehicle, they arrested
him for galloping under the influence because his vehicle was
a horse.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
When you said behind the controls of his brown vehicle,
I was like, did someone take the Wiener mobile out
while drunk? But this is even better a horse.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It was at six pm on a thursdayar I So
apparently he got off work maybe, but it was like
around the off work hours and uh, he was spotted
riding on the sidewalk, and then the cops performed a
traffic stop of the man on horseback and he was
apparently smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot eyes, speech slurred,
all the classic signs. Yeah, he told police he just
(01:24):
left the liquor store and was just headed home. And
then you know, the horse's saddle was like sitting there.
He's got the liquor bag near the saddle with them,
and apparently they performed a series of field sobriety tests.
Now I didn't know this, but it seemed to me
that it would have to be the horse was drunk,
since the horse is the only one doing the operating.
I mean, really, what can you do? I guess you
(01:45):
can use the reins to steer the horse into traffic,
but the words ain't an idiot. He's not going to
go running an oncoming traffic anyways. Ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
That is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else
is ridiculous? I live for it, trying to get one
over on Canadian teachers.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Ooh ooh, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder. Free in one hundred
percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I know you heard that.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
There's really nothing like those eighties, nineties corporate raider, finance lawyer,
party boys. Am I right?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Are cocaine dealers. They're totally the best thing I'm making
money off of this.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
You're a coke dealer, They're the best I'm talking about,
like slick back hair, sharp suits, expensive colonne, like a
big old watch. Yeah, no moral compass.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So Junior Gordon Gecko's Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Those dudes. And there's a certain strata of them, like
a certain circle of hell inhabited by a flavor of
these guys. The Ponzi schemers.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh wow, the Bernie.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Madoff, Mark Stewart Dryer, Wayne, who let me drop some
knowledge on you, buddy. He's our guy for today.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Oh nice. So I'm gonna learn who.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
You're gonna learn. You're gonna learn, So you must learn
Mark Dryer right. He was born in nineteen fifty grew
up on the south shore of Long Island in this
like tony area known as Five Towns. His dad was
a refugee from Poland who came here, you know, escaping
(03:45):
the war. He owned a chain of movie theaters total
American success story and mark. He wanted to take after
his dad. You know he could. From an early age.
He was super ambitious. He was voted most likely to
succeed in high school. He had charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Wow, the mafia would call him an earner.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Charisma, uniqueness, nerve, talent. I heard so he was a
super smart kid. Yes, he went to Yale for undergrad Yes,
graduated from Harvard Law in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I have you know your drag queen references. Don't go
past me, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I'm just seeing you.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Little RuPaul.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
This guy was a superstar and he was hired by
Rosenman and Colin friend Lewis and Cohen. Just say so, right,
I could just be making half that up as a
good size litigation.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Firm, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And he made his name there like being like super
hard worker, super likable, like quick thinker.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Oh yeah, and he's lucky to be like in his
early thirties and the eighties Kke office.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I mean yeah, yes, he was really well regarded. Someone
said quote, he was a very smart, hardworking guy, funny, personable,
part of the social mix. But like it's that quick thinking.
They really did it for people, charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.
So he made partner in short order, like just fast
(05:11):
tracking it. He married an associate. In nineteen eighty nine,
he jumped Ship and he went to the New York
office of Fulbright and Jawarski and he became co head
of litigation there.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Okay, once again, if you say if.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You say so same, I'm reading it. I'm like, bo Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Six years later, I know he was a quarterback of
the Eagles.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, and Fulbright that's the scholarship.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh yeah, there's that.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So he six years later, he's like, I'm out of here.
He moves firms again. Now this is kind of like
that's a little bouncing around. This time he does about
two years at Duker and Barrett. I say so, the
founding partner, William Duker. He later wound up pleading guilty
to four counts of fraud, called quote one of the
(05:55):
most serious cases of legal fraud ever prosecuted them. Duker boy,
right it so like doesn't matter. Nineteen ninety six, Dryer
and a lawyer buddy of his in Florida named Neil Barrett's.
They founded a firm Dryer and Barrett's and then Dryer.
He later went solo with Dryer LLP. So by the
(06:16):
early two thousands, Dryer had restructured this firm like over
and over again into this weird beast that people hadn't
seen before. He became the sole master. So partners in
the firm weren't really partners. Yeah to LLP righters right,
(06:37):
So he ran the joint and they did the legal
work without saying anything. Yeah, And he told him this
was this was a feature, not a bug, Like, don't
worry your pretty little heads about the business side of things.
Just get to lawyering.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I got that covered.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Get your lawyer and get in those courtrooms and work.
And so the lawyers they came on for three year contracts.
What Yeah, and they had fixed salaries.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So no one's trying to make partner here.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
No, well, I mean I think you could though, but
so you can maybe extend your three years, like, I
don't know, it does nothing makes sense. So they had
fixed salaries, sounds like churn and burn. They can make
bonuses like if they did real rain making and like
brought in all these clients.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
If they have fixed salaries and they're not working off
of their hours.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
The billables. No, it doesn't sound like it. The money
that some of them were making tho was like stunning,
like fifty thousand dollars every two weeks, what one hundred
grand a month?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
How lawyer in due a year essentially?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, yeah, so this is in the early aus. Yeah,
in exchange. Dryer was the only one who knew what
was up with the money side of things. But they're
not complaining. They're like, look to me pulling all this cashion.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I don't ask the hand that fed me.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And the thing is, it doesn't matter. This didn't attract
side eyes. It attracted heavy hitters in the legal community.
They wanted in on this. Larry Stein was this major
entertainment lawyer. He joined, He came from Hollywood, brought all
his current clients with him, Wow, luliminaries of stage and screen,
(08:17):
like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and Hillary duff As
and so. In addition though like so then he has
all these other clients that either he Dryer rakes in
or all of his little minions, right, Harry Connick Junior,
Maria Sharapova, Elvis Costello, what an interested John bon Jovi,
(08:40):
John bon Jovi.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
John bon Jovi. F What that surprises metis Curtis Jackson,
you know better than this.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And hes he likely connected in the next group, Echo
and the Bunnymen. He brought them in what the hell
Bill Cosby? Yeah, and then justin Timberlake, so.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
People who needed lawyers. So you're telling me.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Justin Timberlake tiger Wood. Likely they likely kept the cops
from ruining the tour paid which tour the world tour.
So by two thousand and seven, Dryer LLP occupied ten
floors of a Park Avenue building. They had more than
two hundred and fifty lawyers all over the country working
(09:25):
for them. Okay, the firm had ninety million dollars in
revenue in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
All right, and they're not an investment time lawyer. They're
just doing like.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
They're doing everything and stuff. They're doing BK's doing bankruptcies,
they're doing entertainment, they're doing mergers and acquisitions. So they
were Also they were showing at the same time losses
of about a million bucks a month in that same year.
Does not good.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's not good.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
So let's go back to two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay, please, I know that this is when yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
We can. Okay, I feel firmly on the ground now,
I'm no longer floating in the air. This is when
he established the firm, and it's unorthodox structure. Uh huh.
How could he pay these lawyers what he was paying them? Saren.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I do not know, Elizabeth, but I'm guessing that there
was some hinky crime involved.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Well, you know, you need money to grow the business totally.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
You need a cash for it takes.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Money to make money totally. Income out here, he later said,
quote the banks all turned me down. I had no assets,
no credit history. So he took a.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Gamble drug money.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
He did something called factoring receivables factoring, and that's when
you borrow money against future.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Income an annuity.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
No, I don't think that's the same thing. So he
was getting loans not on like physical collateral, but on
what could possibly be.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh, what Mary Kate could earn next year.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
What you may charge Mary Kate in the next year. Okay,
So it's not with like an annuity, you know there's
going to be a specific payout. This is like I
think I can drum up enough business for X amount
of time.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I think Elvis Costello is going to be worth five million.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Costello might shoplift and I'll get to represent him, and
then I'm just going to rack up the chart.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They do have a lot of clients have had legal troubles,
so I can this may play out if you're going
to turn that into essentially a bond.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, so it's it's it's a betting on what could
possibly be that comes with really steep interest rates. Oh obviously,
I mean, sure, it's a risk, it's a gamble, I'm though. Yeah.
So in the summer of two thousand and three, Mark
Dryer he's walking on a beach in the Hamptons, you know,
as you do, and he had an epiphany.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
According to Vanity Fair, he found himself staring at a
palatial beach front home. His own house was inland. He'd
always wanted one right on the beach. It was in
that moment Dryer says that he came to two conclusions.
He would buy himself a big house on this beach,
(11:59):
and he would get the money by dramatically expanding his firm. Okay,
it's not inspiring, Sarah. Didn't you have an epiphany hearing that?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Dude, I'm over here rising and grinding. Look at you.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
That's really that is illegal, all right. So then at
this time one of his biggest, most reliable clients was
a guy named Sheldon Slow.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Don't know that one.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
He was a fully self made man. His dad had
been a bricklayer, and Sheldon he went to NYU and
he was another son of Jewish immigrants, like hard Scrabble.
He went to NYU studied architecture, but dropped out. This
is like just after World War Two. He realized that
he could make a fortune without getting a degree, because
(12:45):
they're all these opportunities bubbling up at that time in
New York.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
City post World War two.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Okay, so he his dad helped him get alone and
he bought a big apartment building and then that was
generating money, and so he developed to shopping center and
from there it was just one project after suburbs exactly.
And they're building post war buildings like that. There's more
(13:11):
development within Manhattan, and so he's just projects projects, luxury
apartments on the Upper east Side. That's where he really
started to focus.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Okay, he's not doing Lettown, he's doing inside.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Manhattan exactly, and focusing on the Upper east Side. He
became a real estate magnate in Manhattan, and eventually he
found himself worth four point four billion dollars b Elizabeth
with a b son of a bricklayer, DOUHD Bliss. And
he was a serious art collector too. But the real
detail about him, the one that is super relevant to
(13:45):
this story, is that he was crazy litigious. Like he
loved lawsuits, like sue me, sue you. So by the
time he was.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Working with business move for him.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Okay, both, So he's working with as his attorney. By
that point, he hadn't been involved in more than two
hundred lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Oh wow, how many lawsuits have you involved in? Zero?
I've been involved in I think one?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, zero For me, he's like that that Jackson five
can you Feel It video where they're spreading the gold
over the land. That's him with lawsuits. Can you feel it?
And it's just spread. That's all I see in my
head on a loop? Okay. So in nine, here's give
me some examples.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Here.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Nineteen seventy five, he sued Avon.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
The makeup company.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah yeah wow. So they had offices in his building
on West fifty seventh Street.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Was not paying their rent.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, the reason that he filed suit is because they
had been calling the building the Avon building. They didn't
own it. He did, and so he was like, you
got to stop doing this. They're like what and that
is it even matter dude? And he sued them. Well
then of course, like that gets dismissed because it's silly.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Then he sued them again for what because their lease
expired and they were like, we don't want to deal
with you anymore, and they left for bred contract. No,
they just said the lease is expired and you're horrible
and we're going to find a new Well. No, he
says that they left the place in worse condition than
when they moved in. Oh wow, and so cattle for
(15:22):
six point two million they settled.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
They're like, we don't want to deal with this.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
This is this Will you shut up?
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You go away, like and a lot of coral lipstick.
But it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, they probably had it because they weren't like Mary
Kay giving out the pink cadillacs. They're like, we got
a little few money.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
They're like all these little high school girls running around
the magazines in the lunch room. I mean I may
have seen some of them, like the Contraman Avon magazine.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I really, you know you gave me.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Well, part of it is I was not allowed to
wear makeup.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
At school or at home.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
At home, like my mom and my grandma were like,
I have this whole thing like, well, the point of
makeup is to look young, and you already look you
look way younger than you are. You look like you're
eight and you're in high school. So let's not do that.
That's creepy. So I mean I could, like, I remember
begging for clear mask Era and they're like, whatever, freak,
(16:21):
yeah you can wear clear mask are But yeah, they
didn't want me wearing makeup.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I didn't know the gold of makeup look young. I
thought it was to like enhanced features.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Well for those two Arnold Laslow devotes the whole point
of makeup is to look young, a young, refreshed version
of yourself. And guess what I I'm that now, course
of course. But also it's like the the notion I
like the kind of French makeup, no makeup makeup, so
(16:52):
I didn't need that when I had you know, youthful
skin and anyway Avon Okay, so yeah I didn't any
but I'm guessing you.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Bought a lot of mostly eyeliners.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So okay, So another lawsuit. This dude sued his friend,
a real estate tycoon named Peter Calikow okay or Calico
k A l I ko W whatever. I want to
be known as a tycoon. I'm a podcast tycoon. He
loaned solo loaned his buddy Peter seven million dollars in
(17:29):
the mid nineties, and Peter was like, great, thank you,
and then turned around and paid it back early. Was like,
that's I just needed you to spot me. That's great
and no. So I was like, no, that's not great
because I was counting on the nine percent interest that
I get when the loan went to the end of term.
(17:50):
Suit him.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He sued him him for paying back early alone early. Yeah,
there's a level of business I will never understand. That's
right now.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, that suit got dismissed. So there's solo in his
lawyer Dryer. Dryer is one of his principal litigators at
this point, and that's good business obviously.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Clearly.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
From ninety eight to two thousand and six, Dryer handles
most of his lawsuits and they have this extensive working relationship.
Dryer gets like a super deep familiarity with Solow's company,
with his finances, even like the office layouts.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Because he's doing all this legal work for him, so
he knows the time those where the bodies are buried.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
But then Dryer later told Vanity Fair that quote his
work for Solow damaged Dryer's reputation and left him deeply resentful. Oh,
because he filing all these like stupid losses.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I got you.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So then one evening in two thousand and four, Dryer
had an adventure in Excel spreadsheets.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That sounds nice.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I can't stand Excel. I mean it's useful, and I
know people who know all manner of tricks and like
they can make life easier. But like Excel, PowerPoint and
teams can all die in a fire.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Do you know that. I think I can count on
one hand how many times I've used.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
All of those.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You're a very lucky Massa River Teams videos.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I do the Microsoft Teams videos. I had to do
that because people sent me invites and then spreadsheets. When
you send me spreadsheets, I looked at them.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Well, it's like the case log and the that's there's
one spreadsheet you look at. That's what all of the
episodes if.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You only say that I use that one, I'm still
on my handful.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, so Dryer made a spreadsheet, we've all done it
for you, So for me, it's nothing to be ashamed of. No,
except his was full of falsehoods. He built up a
fake sallow realty financial statement and it wasn't just like
for fantasizing. He wanted to show it to a hedge fund,
and he looked at statements of other firms and basically
(19:51):
just use those as a template. And since he had
a bunch of documents for slow thanks to all the lawsuits,
he mocked up a state under Salo's auditor's letterhead, okay,
and then drew up a promisory note one for twenty
million dollars. Oh no, let's take a break. When we
(20:12):
come back, we're going to find out what he did
with that note, zaren. Okay. So when we left off,
(20:38):
Mark Dryer sitting in his office on the spreadsheet, tinking around,
flicking around on the on the Excel spreadsheet, sliding into
the sheets, and he makes up a fake, fake a statement,
promisory note twenty million dollars. So then he goes through
a friend to this hedge fund called Amaranth, and he said, Hey,
(21:01):
it's me Murk Dreyer. I work for Sheldon Sallow. Okay,
and that's not unusual. They're used to getting these calls.
And he's like, yeah, Sheldon wants to sell this note
to fund some expansions. Amaret's like, okay, cool, do you
want it in the twenties fifties?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Hundreds?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Really?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, and there was a big interest payment after a year.
Dryer's like, okay, that sounds fine. So there's that was
so easy, the easiest twenty million ever. So this from
this two thousand and nine interview with Vanity Fair quote,
you rationalize your behavior. He says, mister Sallow was a
difficult client whom I had served with enormous hours, with
(21:40):
enormous stress and sacrifice. I felt, for good reason, underappreciated.
I felt a little victimized. I'd gone out on a
limb for him, and I felt like he cut off
the limb for a moment. It appears Dryer will lose
his composure. That's childish to say. It doesn't justify anything
he goes on. But at the time I didn't believe
(22:02):
I was being treated fairly. He takes a deep breath,
I had a good relationship with mister Sallow. I had
a lot of affection for mister Sollo. Obviously I exploited
that I'd betrayed mister Sallow. That's a terrible thing to do, sir.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
You're right. It is childish and it doesn't just and.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
It doesn't just bry it so well, good good observation.
So you know Slon needn't know anything about the note,
Oh my goodness knows nothing has Yeah, I'm looking to
get sued. So since the first one was so easy,
Dryer went for another, and then another.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
From Slow Yeah. Not other clients, no, oh man.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And he because this guy is this billionaire and he's
just like.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So he sees them as like he'll never know, he's
never noticed billionaire.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And and he was so deep in without organization. Yeah.
So he pushed fake notes in amounts anywhere from forty
million dollars to sixty million dollars. Wow, and he starts
he gets to like two hundred million in total at
this point. And it wasn't just fake letterhead like, he
drew up all sorts of materials and documents. He had
fake emails, fake signatures.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Is he basically now pushing paper for Slow to sign.
He's not looking into the details. He's just burying it.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
He's signing it as oh geez. According to New York Magazine, quote,
if anyone asked to meet someone in the Salo organization,
Dryer would arrange conference calls with people posing as Slow executives.
He set up phone lines at his law firm. He
created fake email addresses. He kept hard to trace no
contact cell phones. Quote. Burners like Tony Soprano used in
(23:40):
a box in his office. Yes, he's got right, He's
got some soprano burners in this office. The first twenty
million dollar forgery was, in Dryer's own later words, the
original sin from which everything else cascaded, He told sixty Minutes. Quote,
I recognize in the last couple of years that what
(24:01):
I saw as a twenty million dollar mistake had grown
into a mistake of a few hundred million dollars. And
then I did some increasingly irrational things because I wasn't
thinking clearly rational.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
So you're two hundred million.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Deep, that's right. So the fraud grew more and more elaborate,
more multi layered. Between two thousand and four and two
thousand and eight, he raised like seven hundred million dollars
from this ruse.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Okay, mistakes were made, you know. I got a.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Little yeah, I don't know. My head was just buzzing.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I got excited your music.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
But in order to keep things moving, he had to
pay back some of the earlier deals.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, so you think of like a faulty credit line.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, he did it up Ponzi style. So when you
factor in the repayments to earlier participants so they get
made whole, then the net losses inflicted on victims comes
to like four hundred million.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
So this one, he's got other clients. He's doing the
same solid thing with solo.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But yeah, he's going to different hedge funds and investors.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
All the people who he's selling the promise.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Saying that like sallows, got to get new ones. So
he's spreading it wide and then when they're like, oh,
it's about time to pay up, he's like, oh, here you.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Go, sold round to somebody else. He's just kicking it down. Okay,
I got it. I don't have a head for he.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Was putting all the money to use, and not just
in paying the lawyers on staff. He bought an eleven
million dollar home right on the water in the Hampton's,
just like he'd wanted, Zara, look at him. It was
seven thousand square feet check out a half bakers right,
eight bedrooms, eight baths, tennis court, beach access. And then
(25:38):
it had like a little cottage behind it that's larger
than most people's homes. Three thousand square feet, four beds,
five baths, direct beach access in a pool.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So he had a mansion behind his man.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yes, he toodled around in an Aston Martin during the week.
He rode in a chauffeur driven Mercedes five hundred.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
He had a ten point four million dollar penthouse apartment
overlooking the cirque.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
And then there was Seascape, his one and twenty foot yacht,
of course, and that set him back eighteen million.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
How did I not see that coming?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
He kept it docked in Saint Martin, had a crew
of ten on retainer there all the time.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
For his ship.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah. He co hosted annual charity events with like a
former New York Giant star Michael Strahan and none. And
then they would bring in all these performers Diana Ross, Client,
John Bon, Jovie, Alicia Keys.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Oh, Empire, State of Mind, but the.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Most culturally significant dimension of all of these fraudulent assets
was the world class art collection that he assembled, forty
million dollars worth of art.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And there was a good art you like in respect.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yes, there were more than one hundred works, including Chair
with Books Gone Red Carpet by David Hockney, First Painting
with Bottle by Roy Lichtenstein, Blue Jackie, White Jackie, and
Jackie Profile looking Down by Andy Warhol, Portrait of a
Girl by Pablo Picasso, Grand Mosque by Henri Matisse, Big
(27:17):
Thief by tom Otderness, as well as this one is
just killing me. Oh, you had like a bunch of
Damien her stuff. A two thousand and six high definition
Slama Hyek video by Soho photographer Robert Wilson. Okaytun Yeah,
(27:37):
and that brings us up to two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Was it like this time? Is she doing like free
to callo?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Is it like a Matthew Barney style.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Is rolling around in the oil?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
She's got like large horns? I don't know. So, okay,
two thousand and eight, that's where we are now. We
had a bit of a financial crisis that year. I
don't know if you heard about it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I remember things were.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Rough, particularly in New York finance.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Or in my case, construction.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
They're rough all over, really honest, both those eye flyers
in New York City, they took quite a hit. Credit
lines tightened up, hedge funds were forced to call in
the money owed to them.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
It was horrible. Oh yeah, no, I took the whole off.
Not on purpose, not on purpose.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah, I mean I know people who lost everything, but
you know, the hedge funds had to call in the money.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I really had a hard time. And then in their Manchester.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Those hedge funds, those are the ones that, like Mark
Dryer had been.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Right, they can they call in their stuff early.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah. They didn't want more paper, they wanted cash. And
the problem is that Dryer was in no way liquid,
doesn't sound like it. And he couldn't get liquid because
he'd been floating more notes.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah he's not like he can sell a boat to
get well, and he.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Can't keep Now they're not taking the notes, they're not buying.
So he dipped into his client's escrow account I know,
I know, to repay his debts. And then that got it.
Like he he pulls in another like seven hundred million
October of two thousand and eight, one of the hedge
(29:13):
funds wants its money back. He begs for an extension
until the end of the year. The fund was like,
we'll give you a few weeks, but there's a catch.
I want to meet with the big wigs at Solo Realty.
They'd only met with with Dryer. They want to speak
to the bosses, Zaren.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Because they wanted to get like, basically a promise from
them face to face.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, exactly, like, and I'm going to like, you know,
this is your Like, I want to deal directly with
the guy who's making.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I don't want to talk to his lawyer. I want
to talk to him.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, okay, Zaren closure. Oh, I want you to picture
it with these ones I had to slay in this.
You are Costa Kovachev, the son of two doctors who
immigrated from Serbia in nineteen sixty four and set up
practices in New York City. You were born in Belgrade,
(30:04):
educated at Columbia University and Harvard Business School. You joined
Morgan Stanley in nineteen eighty seven. On paper, your background
is distinguished. In real life, you operate on the margins
of the financial world. You left Morgan Stanley after five years,
and eventually voluntarily gave up your broker's license in two
(30:25):
thousand and two. By the mid two thousands, you were unemployed.
You had no fixed address. In two thousand and six,
the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against you,
accusing you and a bunch of other dudes from pulling
a Ponzi scheme. You did not cooperate with investigators, and
as a result, you eventually paid over three hundred and
(30:45):
fifty thousand dollars in penalties and interests to settle.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
The whole thing.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Make it go away, your lawyer for that, Mark Dreyer.
So now you are a semi permanent fixture in Dryer's orbit.
You're his off the book sky you get things done today.
It's October fifteenth, two thousand and eight. You're sitting in
the back of a Mercedes five hundred, idling outside of
(31:09):
nine West fifty seventh Street, the offices of Solo Reality.
Beside you sits Mark Dryer. He gets out of the
car and heads for the glossy revolving doors that lead
to the tastefully opulent lobbyist. The driver's listening to classical
music on a low volume, The New York Times Crossword
in his lap. You know that Dryer's on his way
(31:31):
to the forty fifth floor to Sheldon's office.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
The plan is for.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Him to go to the receptionist and say he has
an appointment. He doesn't, but everyone in the office knows
him and they won't doubt him. They'll work him into
the calendar. Then he's going to ask to wait in
the conference room so he can get some work done.
As soon as that happens, you're Nokia phone chimes. It's Dryer.
He tells you to come on up meet him at
(31:56):
the reception area on the forty fifth floor. You hop
out of the Mercedes into the bustle of the street
and walk into the building. You ride the elevator up
to the forty fifth floor, smoothing your suit. When it
dings open, you see Dryer and exchange formal handshakes. He
guides you into the conference room. You get settled while
Dryer goes back out to the reception area and waits.
(32:19):
You look through the glass panel walls and see Dryer
stand to greet two guys in suits, expensive suits. They
head for the conference room and walk in. You stand
and extend your hand. Stephen Cherniac, CEO of Sallow Realty.
Thanks for coming in, you say. They shake your hand
and introduce themselves. You all take seats around the large
(32:40):
wooden table. It's reflective surface, mirroring back the fluorescent light
panels above it. Okay, you say, let's talk Turkey. Papers
are passed back and forth. Dryer explains some nonsense to
these schools, these marks. You glance out at the lobby
and your blood runs cold. Walking by is none other
(33:00):
than Stephen Cherniac, CEO of Solo Realty. Crap. He looks
over at the conference room. Dryer looks at your face,
now drained of color, and then follows your gaze to
the reception area. He and the real Cherniac make eye contact.
Dryer smiles, Churniac nods, and keeps walking.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
You exhale.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Twenty minutes later, you and Dryer stand in the lobby
of the building, having bid the investor's farewell and thank you.
When they're safely out of sight, the two of you
scurry out to the Mercedes and tell the driver to go.
You zip off into the mayhem of West fifty seventh Street.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
God, unbelievable, Yeah, this is two thousand and eight, like
they have the Internet with images and everything's like we
can look up Steve Cherniac.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah no, no, so uh November two thousand and eight,
they got away with it. They got that money.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Like the next month, my heart would have came out
of my throat.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Could you imagine? Uh, so you're supposed to be One
month later, the US Attorney's office starts an investigation on
a Dryer. One of the hedge funds that he'd sold
a note to had started to do finally a bit.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Of due diligence.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Oh they remembered.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, And according to Vanity Fair, they quote contacted Salo
Realties auditor Burden LLP to obtain financial data. Burden executives
were confused. They didn't know anything about any Salow Realty notes.
They called Sheldon Salow himself, who didn't either. A Burden
attorney named Thomas Mancierro began investigating. One of the hedge
(34:35):
funds turned over a sallow financial statement Dryer had supplied.
It was clearly forged. So Mancierro he reaches out to
Dryer and now Dryers like, oh, they're closing in on me.
Because he's like, what's the deal with this.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
We found this smoke and gun and your hands prints
all over it.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Somehow, while this is going down, he goes to sell
another does this one for fifty million?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
I am not cut out for this world.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
He is so stressful.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
How the fact that that's not only is his thought,
but then he carries it out I understand having the thought. Yeah,
I got like, what does he need like traveling?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
He he he's got a boat. So he told the
new Hedge Fund that the note was issued by the
Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan OTPPA, a former client of his. Sure,
this is down low, right, So the deal goes forward,
but the Hedge Fund wanted a representative from OTPP to
(35:35):
sign the papers in person.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I'm glad somebody. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
And so, in a moment of charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent,
Tryer flew to Toronto to pull off what would be
his final deception. Really yeah. So, while all of this
is going on, one of the bankruptcy lawyers at his
firm was like, Hey, I need to get some money
out of the escrow account. How much thirty eight and
(35:59):
a half million dollar. I've got a client he wants
to pay. Use some of the s road funds to
pay his creditors. Zaren There was not even twenty million
in it, let alone thirty eight point five, which should
have only been.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
A Porsche, which was the client's money.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yes, and so that that gets filed under oof. Can
you imagine thirty eight half million and that's not He's
going to pay some of the creditors not all. Oh yeah,
it makes me like I'm getting sweaty. Anyway, this really
put the pressure on the OTPP deal needing to go through.
(36:33):
He's got to get that fifty million from them. Sure, So,
according to c NBC, Dryer flew to Toronto to meet the
hedge fund rep at the OTPP offices. He first met
with an OTPP lawyer named Michael Padfield and took his
business card, and then he asked to use a conference
room while waiting for his private jet. So like, note
(36:57):
to self, that's a great excuse to use a room.
I got to sit somewhere while I wait for my
private jet.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
They're still jets.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Dryer pulled the same sort of switch through as he
had with Solo, but he didn't have Coasta COVID check
with him this time.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
He just used the business Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
So he hung out in the OTPP lobby until he
saw Howard Steinberg, the hedge fund executive, arrive. He goes
up to him, introduces himself as Michael Padfield, gives him
Padfield's car like hot chats the car like it's his own,
and it's like follow me to the conference room right
this way. But there was a problem. No see uh,
(37:41):
as Vanity Fair tells it quote. Seinberg suddenly asked if
Dryer knew another OTTP lawyer's extension. Apparently the two men
were acquainted. Dryer reluctantly read off the number, at which
point Steinberg rose asked for a moment and stepped outside.
Dryer real he was about to call this other lawyer,
(38:02):
who of course knew nothing about the meeting or the note.
If the two men spoke, it was all over. Dryer
watched as Steinberg began dialing a phone in the lobby.
As he did, Dryer yanked up a conference room phone and,
in a bid to somehow prevent the two from speaking,
dialed the other lawyer as well. He called the guy.
I called the guy, Dreyer recalls with a sigh. He
(38:25):
beat me to it. Dryer cut off his call, knowing
the end was near. When Steinberg returned to the conference room,
Dryer says, I could see he was suspicious. It was
the questions he asked me and the look he gave me.
He asked several questions about personnel at Ontario Teachers, which
indicated he was suspicious. And then the article goes on.
(38:48):
Sensing the worst, Dryer hurriedly signed the legal papers, then
excused himself for a moment, but instead of returning, he
headed for the elevator and left the building.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
He phoned a bomb for when.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
He was gone. Steinberg approached the receptionist and asked her
a simple question was that Michael Padfield. No, said the receptionist.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Let's take a break. Let's take a break. When we
get back, We're going to find out about how OTPP
handles their business, Zaren Elizabeth. Okay, so we got Dryer.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Is he like on the way to his boat at
this point and just sat Kitts.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Don't forget he's waiting for the Yeah, the private jet.
I don't know. So uh now, okay, everyone knows he's
faking it. Y OTPP was not playing. They called the cops,
so they didn't just like, oh, this is this is
so stunning, and call other legal.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
But did they call like the police in Canada or
do they.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Call it Toronto. They're like, hello, Toronto police, are creeper up?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Are they gonna like shut down the airports?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
And they showed up and they arrested him for criminal impersonation.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
He was still in the building.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
So the big dog at Dryer LLP has been arrested
up Canada.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Way uh huh.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Whole places under investigation by the FEDS already already. Yeah,
And since Dryer was the only one who really knew
the financial workings of the firm, things started to fall apart,
like they couldn't make payroll, they couldn't make the rent
on the office space. And then, in what is probably
the most shocking, disgusting development of this whole saga. I mean,
(40:44):
I don't even know how to tell you this. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I bet you can try.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
The office Christmas party at the Waldorf Astoria was canceled.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
I knew you could do it.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
When I read that. I went into the bathroom and
I turned off the lights and I played painted Black
at full volume on my phone and I just scribbled
on my face with a sharpie. I'll never be the
same after hearing that news.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Aren you see changed?
Speaker 3 (41:09):
The Waldorf Astoria? Chris Chris party canceled?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Is there no justice, no peace in this world?
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Shambles. Everything's in a shambles. So don't worry though, because
Dryer's nineteen year old son, Spencer, was there to calm
the waters.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
He do like magic.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
He was an illusionist.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I consider myself more of a mental work.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
This is even better. He went to the firm to
deliver a message on behalf of his father, nineteen year
old named Spencer Spencer per New York Magazine quote, he
said no one should be deserting his father because his
father gave them so much, says someone who was there.
It was bizarre. The lawyers in the room were livid.
(41:54):
One even started shouting, I'm not going to listen to you.
You have no place in here. This is a partnership meeting.
You're not a partner. So it looks like charisma, uniqueness, nerve,
and talent run in the family. I'm going to saund that.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Can you imagine being there? Some nineteen year old comes
in and say, you know, my father is you need
to respect You need to respect he put food on
your table, and your table.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
He has robbed you all blind and you need to
thank him for it. So Dryer posted bail. Dryer Papa,
he posted bail in Canada, flew back to New York,
and then he got arrested on the tarmac in charge
with fraud zing and he's placed.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Under house arrest airport.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
So then the legal collapse was like swift and complete.
Dryer pleaded guilty in May of that year to one
count of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, one
count of securities fraud, five counts of wire fraud, one
count of money laundering, and he appeared before this judge,
Judge Jed Rakeoff for sentencing, and the language for the
(43:04):
bench was damning, like I love when they go they
go yes.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Like all literary crad hit him Rakeoff.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
He said, he has disgraced the honorable profession of law.
There are one hundred good reasons why mister Dryer should
be jailed. By his own admission here today he has
shown that he is to be ranked with those who
have committed some of the most egregious frauds in history.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
And then he sentenced them to twelve months well prosecutors.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Prosecutors wanted one hundred and forty five years right, consecutive
maximum sentences on all accounts.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
That's the most I've ever heard for financial crime.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
And they're the reasoning was first sacrificing a quote rewarding
and productive life as a lawyer for a life of
fraud that built hedge funds and doomed his parked Avenue.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Law Firmtle piss, you know. They were kind of looking
at to punish somebody.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Yeah, And the judge was like, that's a little rough,
you guys, of course. And so in his assessment he
concluded that Dryer was quote no mister made off and
sentenced him to twenty years twenty yeah, I thought, and
he had to go in immediately twenty twenty years.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
And so Dryer addressed the court directly, he's a real sentence,
that's a seriously yeah, but he's no mister maide on.
He's Dryer said, quote, I'm sorry, deeply sorry for the
harm and the sadness that I have caused to so
many people. That sounds hollow. So the judge said of
the fraud, quote, it is a huge fraud by any
(44:43):
standard other than the madeoff standard.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
He's always bringing him made Off him.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
The comparison to Madeoff was like repeatedly invoked at sentence
from the headlines, and the prosecutors were like, look, it
was smaller than Madeoffs in its operational brazenness, but like
he had all these other things, personal impersonation, he went
to foreign countries, he forged signature. They're like, he has
(45:10):
criminal creativity that made Oft didn't have to. So they
put a Dryer on house arrest before sentencing, and that
became the subject of a documentary arrested called Unraveled, and
I did not watch it, so I apologized for that.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Documentary Home.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
It was directed by Mark Simons. I just knew that
I would like get I'm already so easily angered.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
I didn't need.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So it was directed by Mark Simon, who's a former
Dryer ll P lawyer. He was captured Dryer on film
during the last two months of home confinement, you know,
because they've known each other for six years.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Okay and Dryer, so it's kind of like Michael Jordan
in the Last Dance or he's just sitting in his
couch talk and being real.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Dryer, according to Simon, also needed money to pay for
the twenty four hour armed guards that were part of
his agreement with the federal court. And he also he
kind of saw the documentary as his last chance to
like get his side of the story out to the
public and make people think that he wasn't a bad person. Oh,
good luck with that, And so it aired in the
(46:30):
UK under the title The seven hundred and fifty million
Dollar Thief on BBC four in September of twenty twelve.
Dryer served his sentence at FCI Federal Correctional Institute Sandstone
in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
In twenty twelve. So we're now into like the the
Zukkati Park one percent to like Occupy Wall Street era.
If people are really mad.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
They're mad.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Oh, this is seven hundred and fifty million dollars thief.
I can see this section playing in BBC four.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
So he was supposed to get out in thirtieth twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Wait, oh well, yeah, twenty years years.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
But he got released on December twelfth, twenty twenty four,
six months early, when President Joe Biden commuted the sentences
of almost fifteen hundred federal prisoners who had served home confinement.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Oh, he just got in thrown in on the list.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Why Joe, that is some malarkey if I've ever heard it.
Come on, dude, six more months. Let him stew for
another six.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, I mean, like Spenser, I guess he didn't do
his full twenty Suspenser's not forty years old. But I
mean he's like getting up there. Huh.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, he's like much child does just like me.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
So.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Dreyer himself offered the like the most candid assessment of
his own psychology in his two thousand and nine interview
with Sixty Minutes. Quote, I had an ambition that I
needed to feed. I think I fell into the trap
of wanting to be more successful than I was. I
really wanted to distinguish myself. I wanted to be as
(47:59):
as important as I thought I was deserved to be.
And then he talks about how the image was tactical. Quote,
it was clear to me that the more you showed
people that you didn't need money, the easier it was
to attract money. So having the trappings of success was
a very important part of the plan.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
He should have become a mob lawyer, right, They would
have appreciated his skills. He could have run like you know,
stock bust outs or whatever the hell he wants to do.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
But so then, like, what about all that stuff, all
the trappings.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Right, yeah, that beach house, the mansion behind the mansion.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Court appointed receivers, private investigators, government prosecutors. They all went
to work tracking it down. The art collection was a
cake walk.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, imagine it was.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
It was spread between the firm's offices on Park Avenue
and his various homes. They got the Mercedes SL five
hundred and a BMW six fifty I at the Hampton's house, well,
one of the Hampton's houses, because it wound up. He
had three. They got that Manhattan pent house. He had
land in the Lesser Antilles, okay, why not? And then
(49:05):
there was Seascape, the yacht. They found that in a
Caribbean port, the crew hadn't been paid in weeks. They
were an unhappy bunch downright, muteness. Two investigators went to
the yacht and they paid the crew. But when they
tried to get the captain to sail the boat back
to the US. According to the New York Times quote,
there was a hitch. Mister Dryer's teenage son Spencer, had
(49:30):
called the captain and forbade him at Pops had to
call down go aheads, you know, sailing the investigators. Was like, no,
all my friends are coming down here.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
I was planning a party.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Spencer. March twenty six, two thousand and nine, the court
appointed receiver disclosed that he had recovered more than one
hundred million dollars in assets. But even with that, there's
still three hundred million dollars in investor funds miss millionaire accounts. Yeah. Probably.
(50:05):
Do you want to know my takeaways?
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (50:08):
This whole thing is a story about the distance between
image and reality. So there's like the formality in the
gravitas of Park Avenue offices and like high degrees looking
over their Yeah, and then the Ford loan lowness of
forged documents. You got like a forty million dollar art collection,
and then you're just left with like bare hooks on
(50:31):
a wall. And you got a guy he goes to
Yale Harvard, but he's also in handcuffs at LaGuardia. Then
there's the image of what he thought his life was
going to be like when he had tons of money,
and then the reality of never being able to fully
enjoy it because it wasn't his and it didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yes, and he had not earned it or.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
And then my favorite part is the art because there's
that tom Odernist sculpture called Big Thief he owned.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Did you look at it?
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (51:01):
It is.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
The whole thing is so darkly ironic because like Oderness
is known for these cartoonish bronze figures that satirize capitalism,
greed and power. And like a lot of his sculptures
are public. They're in the subway system, a lot of
public spaces, spaces that Dryer would like never inhabit in
New York. He would think he was too good for that.
(51:25):
But he owned a work literally titled Big Thief by
an artist who spent decades mocking financial access and the
exploitation of the week by the powerful.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Don't you think that amused him? Though?
Speaker 3 (51:38):
I think that it was like I think it was
a lack of self awareness. I don't think he crossed
his mind. I think it was like an investment thing.
I don't think that it was anything that like, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Like a ride. Joe amusing moment every time he looked
at it.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
What's your takeaway?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Oh my goodness, I'm over here. Surprised. I like to
keep your my other ridiculous take away, Elizabeth is. I
think the real victim is Spencer, because that poor kid,
he thought he was going to be a rich prick
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
I know.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Do you know who my dad is? You can't take
our boat? And then what happened all of a sudden,
Now he has to live off that three hundred million.
That's secret.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
Yeah, ig, I don't I don't want to know, because
I have a feeling he's doing just fine.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
You know what. You know what we need?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Now what's that?
Speaker 5 (52:32):
But oh god, I.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Hey, rude dudes, this is your exhausted high school teacher
and exhausted mother of teenagers.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Coming at you.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Thank you for your Mandelbom episode. I had a student
flip out on me today because I asked her to
put away her phone's phone side note, breaking the law
in Ohio where I live, and I was frustrated and
I needed a good laugh. Got in and belly laughed
the whole way home.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Thank you for what to do?
Speaker 3 (53:14):
Bye, oh, oh my god, thank you for your service.
No joke, that is. And yeah, seriously, I couldn't stand
when I was teaching and they would have their phones out.
That drove me nuts. But the worst I found the
one way I could nip it in the bud with
guys is because they'd put it in their laps to text.
(53:35):
And where I was in like stadium seating in a
in a lecture hall, I'd be like, hold on and
I'd stop the class. I'm going to hope and pray
there's a phone in your lap right now.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
They were jerking it in class, Okay.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
I yeah, and so for high school stuff.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
But I don't think.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
But like to go through all of that and like
have have be disrespected while you're doing your job and
trying to do something.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Good for people, totally important.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
Glad we could like help you let off some steam
on the way home.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yes, deserve it. Thank you for what you do on
all on a very very greatly appreciate you and you
know them kids.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
I don't know how teachers are doing it. Honestly, every
teacher I know, every friend of mine who teaches, is
like really pushed to the limit. And yeah, it's such
an honor.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Also without backup, it's not like the administration's taking their side,
and it's like but which was very different.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
They take it so seriously what they do that they
won't fall asleep on the job with it.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
They're still paying for supply. They're paying money to do this,
you know what I mean. If I was a teacher,
I'd be there with like a you remember that bag
that Jack White had outside the show and we went
to see him and we had to put our phones
in and I was like, what's what is this?
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Apparently they do that at a lot of schools now
are enjoying. Yeah, they start they're like, oh, look, books,
you know, like are our social benefits?
Speaker 2 (55:01):
They realize teachers who are now making their students take
their like write their essays in class on typewriters literal
old school typewriters like click click clack.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
I you know when the parents talk about how but
what if something happens and I want, you know what, Like.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
That's what the school nurses for. They can come but
then get you out of class right to work. For decades,
we did just fine with that. Yeah, no one missed
any too.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
You're not raising a bunch of dinguses anyway. Teachers, we
applaud you. Every teacher hearing our voices, we applaud you.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
You're the best, Thank you all.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
That's it for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on
Blue Ski and in Stagram YouTube. You can find us
there at Ridiculous Crime Pod, Little Animations and such. Email
us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then
leave a talk back on the heart app reach out.
(56:06):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Saren Burnett,
produced and edited by Captain of the Seascape Dave Cousten,
starring Amalie Rutger as Judith. Research is by Ontario Teachers
Union and for ser Marisa Brown and fraudulent art dealer
Jabari Davis. The theme song is by Senior Partners at
Dryer LLP, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is
(56:28):
provided by Botany five hundred. Guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot
and mister Andre. Executive producers are Alert Receptionist Ben Bollen
and Discreete Chauffeur No.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Browns QUI say It one More time?
Speaker 4 (56:49):
QUI?
Speaker 1 (56:50):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zarens.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Elizabeth, how are you? I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I have a really important question for you.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm all yours.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Do you know what is ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Ah, I'm so glad you asked. You came to the
right source. Figured so in Kentucky, Elizabeth, ridiculous. These cops
they were sitting there outside like a liquor store, and
they noticed a man who had just come out of
the liquor store was down the ways and he was
slumped over like looks like he passed out, you know,
(00:33):
as the story put it, at the controls of his
brown vehicle. And as a result, the man forty eight
year old, he was arrested for being under the influence.
Since he was not in on a vehicle, they arrested
him for galloping under the influence because his vehicle was
a horse.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
When you said behind the controls of his brown vehicle,
I was like, did someone take the Wiener mobile out
while drunk? But this is even better a horse.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It was at six pm on a thursdayar I So
apparently he got off work maybe, but it was like
around the off work hours and uh, he was spotted
riding on the sidewalk, and then the cops performed a
traffic stop of the man on horseback and he was
apparently smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot eyes, speech slurred,
all the classic signs. Yeah, he told police he just
(01:24):
left the liquor store and was just headed home. And
then you know, the horse's saddle was like sitting there.
He's got the liquor bag near the saddle with them,
and apparently they performed a series of field sobriety tests.
Now I didn't know this, but it seemed to me
that it would have to be the horse was drunk,
since the horse is the only one doing the operating.
I mean, really, what can you do? I guess you
(01:45):
can use the reins to steer the horse into traffic,
but the words ain't an idiot. He's not going to
go running an oncoming traffic anyways. Ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
That is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else
is ridiculous? I live for it, trying to get one
over on Canadian teachers.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Ooh ooh, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder. Free in one hundred
percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I know you heard that.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
There's really nothing like those eighties, nineties corporate raider, finance lawyer,
party boys. Am I right?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Are cocaine dealers. They're totally the best thing I'm making
money off of this.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
You're a coke dealer, They're the best I'm talking about,
like slick back hair, sharp suits, expensive colonne, like a
big old watch. Yeah, no moral compass.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So Junior Gordon Gecko's Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Those dudes. And there's a certain strata of them, like
a certain circle of hell inhabited by a flavor of
these guys. The Ponzi schemers.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh wow, the Bernie.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Madoff, Mark Stewart Dryer, Wayne, who let me drop some
knowledge on you, buddy. He's our guy for today.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Oh nice. So I'm gonna learn who.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
You're gonna learn. You're gonna learn, So you must learn
Mark Dryer right. He was born in nineteen fifty grew
up on the south shore of Long Island in this
like tony area known as Five Towns. His dad was
a refugee from Poland who came here, you know, escaping
(03:45):
the war. He owned a chain of movie theaters total
American success story and mark. He wanted to take after
his dad. You know he could. From an early age.
He was super ambitious. He was voted most likely to
succeed in high school. He had charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Wow, the mafia would call him an earner.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Charisma, uniqueness, nerve, talent. I heard so he was a
super smart kid. Yes, he went to Yale for undergrad Yes,
graduated from Harvard Law in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I have you know your drag queen references. Don't go
past me, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I'm just seeing you.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Little RuPaul.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
This guy was a superstar and he was hired by
Rosenman and Colin friend Lewis and Cohen. Just say so, right,
I could just be making half that up as a
good size litigation.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Firm, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And he made his name there like being like super
hard worker, super likable, like quick thinker.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Oh yeah, and he's lucky to be like in his
early thirties and the eighties Kke office.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I mean yeah, yes, he was really well regarded. Someone
said quote, he was a very smart, hardworking guy, funny, personable,
part of the social mix. But like it's that quick thinking.
They really did it for people, charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.
So he made partner in short order, like just fast
(05:11):
tracking it. He married an associate. In nineteen eighty nine,
he jumped Ship and he went to the New York
office of Fulbright and Jawarski and he became co head
of litigation there.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Okay, once again, if you say if.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You say so same, I'm reading it. I'm like, bo Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Six years later, I know he was a quarterback of
the Eagles.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, and Fulbright that's the scholarship.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh yeah, there's that.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So he six years later, he's like, I'm out of here.
He moves firms again. Now this is kind of like
that's a little bouncing around. This time he does about
two years at Duker and Barrett. I say so, the
founding partner, William Duker. He later wound up pleading guilty
to four counts of fraud, called quote one of the
(05:55):
most serious cases of legal fraud ever prosecuted them. Duker boy,
right it so like doesn't matter. Nineteen ninety six, Dryer
and a lawyer buddy of his in Florida named Neil Barrett's.
They founded a firm Dryer and Barrett's and then Dryer.
He later went solo with Dryer LLP. So by the
(06:16):
early two thousands, Dryer had restructured this firm like over
and over again into this weird beast that people hadn't
seen before. He became the sole master. So partners in
the firm weren't really partners. Yeah to LLP righters right,
(06:37):
So he ran the joint and they did the legal
work without saying anything. Yeah, And he told him this
was this was a feature, not a bug, Like, don't
worry your pretty little heads about the business side of things.
Just get to lawyering.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I got that covered.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Get your lawyer and get in those courtrooms and work.
And so the lawyers they came on for three year contracts.
What Yeah, and they had fixed salaries.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So no one's trying to make partner here.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
No, well, I mean I think you could though, but
so you can maybe extend your three years, like, I
don't know, it does nothing makes sense. So they had
fixed salaries, sounds like churn and burn. They can make
bonuses like if they did real rain making and like
brought in all these clients.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
If they have fixed salaries and they're not working off
of their hours.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
The billables. No, it doesn't sound like it. The money
that some of them were making tho was like stunning,
like fifty thousand dollars every two weeks, what one hundred
grand a month?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
How lawyer in due a year essentially?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, yeah, so this is in the early aus. Yeah,
in exchange. Dryer was the only one who knew what
was up with the money side of things. But they're
not complaining. They're like, look to me pulling all this cashion.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I don't ask the hand that fed me.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And the thing is, it doesn't matter. This didn't attract
side eyes. It attracted heavy hitters in the legal community.
They wanted in on this. Larry Stein was this major
entertainment lawyer. He joined, He came from Hollywood, brought all
his current clients with him, Wow, luliminaries of stage and screen,
(08:17):
like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and Hillary duff As
and so. In addition though like so then he has
all these other clients that either he Dryer rakes in
or all of his little minions, right, Harry Connick Junior,
Maria Sharapova, Elvis Costello, what an interested John bon Jovi,
(08:40):
John bon Jovi.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
John bon Jovi. F What that surprises metis Curtis Jackson,
you know better than this.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And hes he likely connected in the next group, Echo
and the Bunnymen. He brought them in what the hell
Bill Cosby? Yeah, and then justin Timberlake, so.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
People who needed lawyers. So you're telling me.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Justin Timberlake tiger Wood. Likely they likely kept the cops
from ruining the tour paid which tour the world tour.
So by two thousand and seven, Dryer LLP occupied ten
floors of a Park Avenue building. They had more than
two hundred and fifty lawyers all over the country working
(09:25):
for them. Okay, the firm had ninety million dollars in
revenue in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
All right, and they're not an investment time lawyer. They're
just doing like.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
They're doing everything and stuff. They're doing BK's doing bankruptcies,
they're doing entertainment, they're doing mergers and acquisitions. So they
were Also they were showing at the same time losses
of about a million bucks a month in that same year.
Does not good.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's not good.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
So let's go back to two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay, please, I know that this is when yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
We can. Okay, I feel firmly on the ground now,
I'm no longer floating in the air. This is when
he established the firm, and it's unorthodox structure. Uh huh.
How could he pay these lawyers what he was paying them? Saren.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I do not know, Elizabeth, but I'm guessing that there
was some hinky crime involved.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Well, you know, you need money to grow the business totally.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
You need a cash for it takes.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Money to make money totally. Income out here, he later said,
quote the banks all turned me down. I had no assets,
no credit history. So he took a.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Gamble drug money.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
He did something called factoring receivables factoring, and that's when
you borrow money against future.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Income an annuity.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
No, I don't think that's the same thing. So he
was getting loans not on like physical collateral, but on
what could possibly be.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh, what Mary Kate could earn next year.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
What you may charge Mary Kate in the next year. Okay,
So it's not with like an annuity, you know there's
going to be a specific payout. This is like I
think I can drum up enough business for X amount
of time.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I think Elvis Costello is going to be worth five million.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Costello might shoplift and I'll get to represent him, and
then I'm just going to rack up the chart.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They do have a lot of clients have had legal troubles,
so I can this may play out if you're going
to turn that into essentially a bond.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, so it's it's it's a betting on what could
possibly be that comes with really steep interest rates. Oh obviously,
I mean, sure, it's a risk, it's a gamble, I'm though. Yeah.
So in the summer of two thousand and three, Mark
Dryer he's walking on a beach in the Hamptons, you know,
as you do, and he had an epiphany.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
According to Vanity Fair, he found himself staring at a
palatial beach front home. His own house was inland. He'd
always wanted one right on the beach. It was in
that moment Dryer says that he came to two conclusions.
He would buy himself a big house on this beach,
(11:59):
and he would get the money by dramatically expanding his firm. Okay,
it's not inspiring, Sarah. Didn't you have an epiphany hearing that?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Dude, I'm over here rising and grinding. Look at you.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
That's really that is illegal, all right. So then at
this time one of his biggest, most reliable clients was
a guy named Sheldon Slow.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Don't know that one.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
He was a fully self made man. His dad had
been a bricklayer, and Sheldon he went to NYU and
he was another son of Jewish immigrants, like hard Scrabble.
He went to NYU studied architecture, but dropped out. This
is like just after World War Two. He realized that
he could make a fortune without getting a degree, because
(12:45):
they're all these opportunities bubbling up at that time in
New York.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
City post World War two.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Okay, so he his dad helped him get alone and
he bought a big apartment building and then that was
generating money, and so he developed to shopping center and
from there it was just one project after suburbs exactly.
And they're building post war buildings like that. There's more
(13:11):
development within Manhattan, and so he's just projects projects, luxury
apartments on the Upper east Side. That's where he really
started to focus.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Okay, he's not doing Lettown, he's doing inside.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Manhattan exactly, and focusing on the Upper east Side. He
became a real estate magnate in Manhattan, and eventually he
found himself worth four point four billion dollars b Elizabeth
with a b son of a bricklayer, DOUHD Bliss. And
he was a serious art collector too. But the real
detail about him, the one that is super relevant to
(13:45):
this story, is that he was crazy litigious. Like he
loved lawsuits, like sue me, sue you. So by the
time he was.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Working with business move for him.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Okay, both, So he's working with as his attorney. By
that point, he hadn't been involved in more than two
hundred lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Oh wow, how many lawsuits have you involved in? Zero?
I've been involved in I think one?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, zero For me, he's like that that Jackson five
can you Feel It video where they're spreading the gold
over the land. That's him with lawsuits. Can you feel it?
And it's just spread. That's all I see in my
head on a loop? Okay. So in nine, here's give
me some examples.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Here.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Nineteen seventy five, he sued Avon.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
The makeup company.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah yeah wow. So they had offices in his building
on West fifty seventh Street.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Was not paying their rent.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, the reason that he filed suit is because they
had been calling the building the Avon building. They didn't
own it. He did, and so he was like, you
got to stop doing this. They're like what and that
is it even matter dude? And he sued them. Well
then of course, like that gets dismissed because it's silly.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Then he sued them again for what because their lease
expired and they were like, we don't want to deal
with you anymore, and they left for bred contract. No,
they just said the lease is expired and you're horrible
and we're going to find a new Well. No, he
says that they left the place in worse condition than
when they moved in. Oh wow, and so cattle for
(15:22):
six point two million they settled.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
They're like, we don't want to deal with this.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
This is this Will you shut up?
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You go away, like and a lot of coral lipstick.
But it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, they probably had it because they weren't like Mary
Kay giving out the pink cadillacs. They're like, we got
a little few money.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
They're like all these little high school girls running around
the magazines in the lunch room. I mean I may
have seen some of them, like the Contraman Avon magazine.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I really, you know you gave me.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Well, part of it is I was not allowed to
wear makeup.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
At school or at home.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
At home, like my mom and my grandma were like,
I have this whole thing like, well, the point of
makeup is to look young, and you already look you
look way younger than you are. You look like you're
eight and you're in high school. So let's not do that.
That's creepy. So I mean I could, like, I remember
begging for clear mask Era and they're like, whatever, freak,
(16:21):
yeah you can wear clear mask are But yeah, they
didn't want me wearing makeup.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I didn't know the gold of makeup look young. I
thought it was to like enhanced features.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Well for those two Arnold Laslow devotes the whole point
of makeup is to look young, a young, refreshed version
of yourself. And guess what I I'm that now, course
of course. But also it's like the the notion I
like the kind of French makeup, no makeup makeup, so
(16:52):
I didn't need that when I had you know, youthful
skin and anyway Avon Okay, so yeah I didn't any
but I'm guessing you.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Bought a lot of mostly eyeliners.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So okay, So another lawsuit. This dude sued his friend,
a real estate tycoon named Peter Calikow okay or Calico
k A l I ko W whatever. I want to
be known as a tycoon. I'm a podcast tycoon. He
loaned solo loaned his buddy Peter seven million dollars in
(17:29):
the mid nineties, and Peter was like, great, thank you,
and then turned around and paid it back early. Was like,
that's I just needed you to spot me. That's great
and no. So I was like, no, that's not great
because I was counting on the nine percent interest that
I get when the loan went to the end of term.
(17:50):
Suit him.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He sued him him for paying back early alone early. Yeah,
there's a level of business I will never understand. That's
right now.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, that suit got dismissed. So there's solo in his
lawyer Dryer. Dryer is one of his principal litigators at
this point, and that's good business obviously.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Clearly.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
From ninety eight to two thousand and six, Dryer handles
most of his lawsuits and they have this extensive working relationship.
Dryer gets like a super deep familiarity with Solow's company,
with his finances, even like the office layouts.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Because he's doing all this legal work for him, so
he knows the time those where the bodies are buried.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
But then Dryer later told Vanity Fair that quote his
work for Solow damaged Dryer's reputation and left him deeply resentful. Oh,
because he filing all these like stupid losses.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I got you.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So then one evening in two thousand and four, Dryer
had an adventure in Excel spreadsheets.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That sounds nice.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I can't stand Excel. I mean it's useful, and I
know people who know all manner of tricks and like
they can make life easier. But like Excel, PowerPoint and
teams can all die in a fire.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Do you know that. I think I can count on
one hand how many times I've used.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
All of those.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You're a very lucky Massa River Teams videos.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I do the Microsoft Teams videos. I had to do
that because people sent me invites and then spreadsheets. When
you send me spreadsheets, I looked at them.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Well, it's like the case log and the that's there's
one spreadsheet you look at. That's what all of the
episodes if.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You only say that I use that one, I'm still
on my handful.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, so Dryer made a spreadsheet, we've all done it
for you, So for me, it's nothing to be ashamed of. No,
except his was full of falsehoods. He built up a
fake sallow realty financial statement and it wasn't just like
for fantasizing. He wanted to show it to a hedge fund,
and he looked at statements of other firms and basically
(19:51):
just use those as a template. And since he had
a bunch of documents for slow thanks to all the lawsuits,
he mocked up a state under Salo's auditor's letterhead, okay,
and then drew up a promisory note one for twenty
million dollars. Oh no, let's take a break. When we
(20:12):
come back, we're going to find out what he did
with that note, zaren. Okay. So when we left off,
(20:38):
Mark Dryer sitting in his office on the spreadsheet, tinking around,
flicking around on the on the Excel spreadsheet, sliding into
the sheets, and he makes up a fake, fake a statement,
promisory note twenty million dollars. So then he goes through
a friend to this hedge fund called Amaranth, and he said, Hey,
(21:01):
it's me Murk Dreyer. I work for Sheldon Sallow. Okay,
and that's not unusual. They're used to getting these calls.
And he's like, yeah, Sheldon wants to sell this note
to fund some expansions. Amaret's like, okay, cool, do you
want it in the twenties fifties?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Hundreds?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Really?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, and there was a big interest payment after a year.
Dryer's like, okay, that sounds fine. So there's that was
so easy, the easiest twenty million ever. So this from
this two thousand and nine interview with Vanity Fair quote,
you rationalize your behavior. He says, mister Sallow was a
difficult client whom I had served with enormous hours, with
(21:40):
enormous stress and sacrifice. I felt, for good reason, underappreciated.
I felt a little victimized. I'd gone out on a
limb for him, and I felt like he cut off
the limb for a moment. It appears Dryer will lose
his composure. That's childish to say. It doesn't justify anything
he goes on. But at the time I didn't believe
(22:02):
I was being treated fairly. He takes a deep breath,
I had a good relationship with mister Sallow. I had
a lot of affection for mister Sollo. Obviously I exploited
that I'd betrayed mister Sallow. That's a terrible thing to do, sir.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
You're right. It is childish and it doesn't just and.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
It doesn't just bry it so well, good good observation.
So you know Slon needn't know anything about the note,
Oh my goodness knows nothing has Yeah, I'm looking to
get sued. So since the first one was so easy,
Dryer went for another, and then another.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
From Slow Yeah. Not other clients, no, oh man.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And he because this guy is this billionaire and he's
just like.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So he sees them as like he'll never know, he's
never noticed billionaire.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And and he was so deep in without organization. Yeah.
So he pushed fake notes in amounts anywhere from forty
million dollars to sixty million dollars. Wow, and he starts
he gets to like two hundred million in total at
this point. And it wasn't just fake letterhead like, he
drew up all sorts of materials and documents. He had
fake emails, fake signatures.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Is he basically now pushing paper for Slow to sign.
He's not looking into the details. He's just burying it.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
He's signing it as oh geez. According to New York Magazine, quote,
if anyone asked to meet someone in the Salo organization,
Dryer would arrange conference calls with people posing as Slow executives.
He set up phone lines at his law firm. He
created fake email addresses. He kept hard to trace no
contact cell phones. Quote. Burners like Tony Soprano used in
(23:40):
a box in his office. Yes, he's got right, He's
got some soprano burners in this office. The first twenty
million dollar forgery was, in Dryer's own later words, the
original sin from which everything else cascaded, He told sixty Minutes. Quote,
I recognize in the last couple of years that what
(24:01):
I saw as a twenty million dollar mistake had grown
into a mistake of a few hundred million dollars. And
then I did some increasingly irrational things because I wasn't
thinking clearly rational.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
So you're two hundred million.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Deep, that's right. So the fraud grew more and more elaborate,
more multi layered. Between two thousand and four and two
thousand and eight, he raised like seven hundred million dollars
from this ruse.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Okay, mistakes were made, you know. I got a.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Little yeah, I don't know. My head was just buzzing.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I got excited your music.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
But in order to keep things moving, he had to
pay back some of the earlier deals.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, so you think of like a faulty credit line.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, he did it up Ponzi style. So when you
factor in the repayments to earlier participants so they get
made whole, then the net losses inflicted on victims comes
to like four hundred million.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
So this one, he's got other clients. He's doing the
same solid thing with solo.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But yeah, he's going to different hedge funds and investors.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
All the people who he's selling the promise.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Saying that like sallows, got to get new ones. So
he's spreading it wide and then when they're like, oh,
it's about time to pay up, he's like, oh, here you.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Go, sold round to somebody else. He's just kicking it down. Okay,
I got it. I don't have a head for he.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Was putting all the money to use, and not just
in paying the lawyers on staff. He bought an eleven
million dollar home right on the water in the Hampton's,
just like he'd wanted, Zara, look at him. It was
seven thousand square feet check out a half bakers right,
eight bedrooms, eight baths, tennis court, beach access. And then
(25:38):
it had like a little cottage behind it that's larger
than most people's homes. Three thousand square feet, four beds,
five baths, direct beach access in a pool.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So he had a mansion behind his man.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yes, he toodled around in an Aston Martin during the week.
He rode in a chauffeur driven Mercedes five hundred.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
He had a ten point four million dollar penthouse apartment
overlooking the cirque.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
And then there was Seascape, his one and twenty foot yacht,
of course, and that set him back eighteen million.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
How did I not see that coming?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
He kept it docked in Saint Martin, had a crew
of ten on retainer there all the time.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
For his ship.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah. He co hosted annual charity events with like a
former New York Giant star Michael Strahan and none. And
then they would bring in all these performers Diana Ross, Client,
John Bon, Jovie, Alicia Keys.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Oh, Empire, State of Mind, but the.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Most culturally significant dimension of all of these fraudulent assets
was the world class art collection that he assembled, forty
million dollars worth of art.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And there was a good art you like in respect.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yes, there were more than one hundred works, including Chair
with Books Gone Red Carpet by David Hockney, First Painting
with Bottle by Roy Lichtenstein, Blue Jackie, White Jackie, and
Jackie Profile looking Down by Andy Warhol, Portrait of a
Girl by Pablo Picasso, Grand Mosque by Henri Matisse, Big
(27:17):
Thief by tom Otderness, as well as this one is
just killing me. Oh, you had like a bunch of
Damien her stuff. A two thousand and six high definition
Slama Hyek video by Soho photographer Robert Wilson. Okaytun Yeah,
(27:37):
and that brings us up to two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Was it like this time? Is she doing like free
to callo?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Is it like a Matthew Barney style.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Is rolling around in the oil?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
She's got like large horns? I don't know. So, okay,
two thousand and eight, that's where we are now. We
had a bit of a financial crisis that year. I
don't know if you heard about it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I remember things were.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Rough, particularly in New York finance.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Or in my case, construction.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
They're rough all over, really honest, both those eye flyers
in New York City, they took quite a hit. Credit
lines tightened up, hedge funds were forced to call in
the money owed to them.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
It was horrible. Oh yeah, no, I took the whole off.
Not on purpose, not on purpose.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah, I mean I know people who lost everything, but
you know, the hedge funds had to call in the money.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I really had a hard time. And then in their Manchester.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Those hedge funds, those are the ones that, like Mark
Dryer had been.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Right, they can they call in their stuff early.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah. They didn't want more paper, they wanted cash. And
the problem is that Dryer was in no way liquid,
doesn't sound like it. And he couldn't get liquid because
he'd been floating more notes.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah he's not like he can sell a boat to
get well, and he.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Can't keep Now they're not taking the notes, they're not buying.
So he dipped into his client's escrow account I know,
I know, to repay his debts. And then that got it.
Like he he pulls in another like seven hundred million
October of two thousand and eight, one of the hedge
(29:13):
funds wants its money back. He begs for an extension
until the end of the year. The fund was like,
we'll give you a few weeks, but there's a catch.
I want to meet with the big wigs at Solo Realty.
They'd only met with with Dryer. They want to speak
to the bosses, Zaren.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Because they wanted to get like, basically a promise from
them face to face.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, exactly, like, and I'm going to like, you know,
this is your Like, I want to deal directly with
the guy who's making.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I don't want to talk to his lawyer. I want
to talk to him.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, okay, Zaren closure. Oh, I want you to picture
it with these ones I had to slay in this.
You are Costa Kovachev, the son of two doctors who
immigrated from Serbia in nineteen sixty four and set up
practices in New York City. You were born in Belgrade,
(30:04):
educated at Columbia University and Harvard Business School. You joined
Morgan Stanley in nineteen eighty seven. On paper, your background
is distinguished. In real life, you operate on the margins
of the financial world. You left Morgan Stanley after five years,
and eventually voluntarily gave up your broker's license in two
(30:25):
thousand and two. By the mid two thousands, you were unemployed.
You had no fixed address. In two thousand and six,
the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against you,
accusing you and a bunch of other dudes from pulling
a Ponzi scheme. You did not cooperate with investigators, and
as a result, you eventually paid over three hundred and
(30:45):
fifty thousand dollars in penalties and interests to settle.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
The whole thing.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Make it go away, your lawyer for that, Mark Dreyer.
So now you are a semi permanent fixture in Dryer's orbit.
You're his off the book sky you get things done today.
It's October fifteenth, two thousand and eight. You're sitting in
the back of a Mercedes five hundred, idling outside of
(31:09):
nine West fifty seventh Street, the offices of Solo Reality.
Beside you sits Mark Dryer. He gets out of the
car and heads for the glossy revolving doors that lead
to the tastefully opulent lobbyist. The driver's listening to classical
music on a low volume, The New York Times Crossword
in his lap. You know that Dryer's on his way
(31:31):
to the forty fifth floor to Sheldon's office.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
The plan is for.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Him to go to the receptionist and say he has
an appointment. He doesn't, but everyone in the office knows
him and they won't doubt him. They'll work him into
the calendar. Then he's going to ask to wait in
the conference room so he can get some work done.
As soon as that happens, you're Nokia phone chimes. It's Dryer.
He tells you to come on up meet him at
(31:56):
the reception area on the forty fifth floor. You hop
out of the Mercedes into the bustle of the street
and walk into the building. You ride the elevator up
to the forty fifth floor, smoothing your suit. When it
dings open, you see Dryer and exchange formal handshakes. He
guides you into the conference room. You get settled while
Dryer goes back out to the reception area and waits.
(32:19):
You look through the glass panel walls and see Dryer
stand to greet two guys in suits, expensive suits. They
head for the conference room and walk in. You stand
and extend your hand. Stephen Cherniac, CEO of Sallow Realty.
Thanks for coming in, you say. They shake your hand
and introduce themselves. You all take seats around the large
(32:40):
wooden table. It's reflective surface, mirroring back the fluorescent light
panels above it. Okay, you say, let's talk Turkey. Papers
are passed back and forth. Dryer explains some nonsense to
these schools, these marks. You glance out at the lobby
and your blood runs cold. Walking by is none other
(33:00):
than Stephen Cherniac, CEO of Solo Realty. Crap. He looks
over at the conference room. Dryer looks at your face,
now drained of color, and then follows your gaze to
the reception area. He and the real Cherniac make eye contact.
Dryer smiles, Churniac nods, and keeps walking.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
You exhale.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Twenty minutes later, you and Dryer stand in the lobby
of the building, having bid the investor's farewell and thank you.
When they're safely out of sight, the two of you
scurry out to the Mercedes and tell the driver to go.
You zip off into the mayhem of West fifty seventh Street.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
God, unbelievable, Yeah, this is two thousand and eight, like
they have the Internet with images and everything's like we
can look up Steve Cherniac.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah no, no, so uh November two thousand and eight,
they got away with it. They got that money.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Like the next month, my heart would have came out
of my throat.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Could you imagine? Uh, so you're supposed to be One
month later, the US Attorney's office starts an investigation on
a Dryer. One of the hedge funds that he'd sold
a note to had started to do finally a bit.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Of due diligence.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Oh they remembered.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, And according to Vanity Fair, they quote contacted Salo
Realties auditor Burden LLP to obtain financial data. Burden executives
were confused. They didn't know anything about any Salow Realty notes.
They called Sheldon Salow himself, who didn't either. A Burden
attorney named Thomas Mancierro began investigating. One of the hedge
(34:35):
funds turned over a sallow financial statement Dryer had supplied.
It was clearly forged. So Mancierro he reaches out to
Dryer and now Dryers like, oh, they're closing in on me.
Because he's like, what's the deal with this.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
We found this smoke and gun and your hands prints
all over it.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Somehow, while this is going down, he goes to sell
another does this one for fifty million?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
I am not cut out for this world.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
He is so stressful.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
How the fact that that's not only is his thought,
but then he carries it out I understand having the thought. Yeah,
I got like, what does he need like traveling?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
He he he's got a boat. So he told the
new Hedge Fund that the note was issued by the
Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan OTPPA, a former client of his. Sure,
this is down low, right, So the deal goes forward,
but the Hedge Fund wanted a representative from OTPP to
(35:35):
sign the papers in person.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I'm glad somebody. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
And so, in a moment of charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent,
Tryer flew to Toronto to pull off what would be
his final deception. Really yeah. So, while all of this
is going on, one of the bankruptcy lawyers at his
firm was like, Hey, I need to get some money
out of the escrow account. How much thirty eight and
(35:59):
a half million dollar. I've got a client he wants
to pay. Use some of the s road funds to
pay his creditors. Zaren There was not even twenty million
in it, let alone thirty eight point five, which should
have only been.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
A Porsche, which was the client's money.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yes, and so that that gets filed under oof. Can
you imagine thirty eight half million and that's not He's
going to pay some of the creditors not all. Oh yeah,
it makes me like I'm getting sweaty. Anyway, this really
put the pressure on the OTPP deal needing to go through.
(36:33):
He's got to get that fifty million from them. Sure, So,
according to c NBC, Dryer flew to Toronto to meet the
hedge fund rep at the OTPP offices. He first met
with an OTPP lawyer named Michael Padfield and took his
business card, and then he asked to use a conference
room while waiting for his private jet. So like, note
(36:57):
to self, that's a great excuse to use a room.
I got to sit somewhere while I wait for my
private jet.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
They're still jets.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Dryer pulled the same sort of switch through as he
had with Solo, but he didn't have Coasta COVID check
with him this time.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
He just used the business Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
So he hung out in the OTPP lobby until he
saw Howard Steinberg, the hedge fund executive, arrive. He goes
up to him, introduces himself as Michael Padfield, gives him
Padfield's car like hot chats the car like it's his own,
and it's like follow me to the conference room right
this way. But there was a problem. No see uh,
(37:41):
as Vanity Fair tells it quote. Seinberg suddenly asked if
Dryer knew another OTTP lawyer's extension. Apparently the two men
were acquainted. Dryer reluctantly read off the number, at which
point Steinberg rose asked for a moment and stepped outside.
Dryer real he was about to call this other lawyer,
(38:02):
who of course knew nothing about the meeting or the note.
If the two men spoke, it was all over. Dryer
watched as Steinberg began dialing a phone in the lobby.
As he did, Dryer yanked up a conference room phone and,
in a bid to somehow prevent the two from speaking,
dialed the other lawyer as well. He called the guy.
I called the guy, Dreyer recalls with a sigh. He
(38:25):
beat me to it. Dryer cut off his call, knowing
the end was near. When Steinberg returned to the conference room,
Dryer says, I could see he was suspicious. It was
the questions he asked me and the look he gave me.
He asked several questions about personnel at Ontario Teachers, which
indicated he was suspicious. And then the article goes on.
(38:48):
Sensing the worst, Dryer hurriedly signed the legal papers, then
excused himself for a moment, but instead of returning, he
headed for the elevator and left the building.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
He phoned a bomb for when.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
He was gone. Steinberg approached the receptionist and asked her
a simple question was that Michael Padfield. No, said the receptionist.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Let's take a break. Let's take a break. When we
get back, We're going to find out about how OTPP
handles their business, Zaren Elizabeth. Okay, so we got Dryer.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Is he like on the way to his boat at
this point and just sat Kitts.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Don't forget he's waiting for the Yeah, the private jet.
I don't know. So uh now, okay, everyone knows he's
faking it. Y OTPP was not playing. They called the cops,
so they didn't just like, oh, this is this is
so stunning, and call other legal.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
But did they call like the police in Canada or
do they.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Call it Toronto. They're like, hello, Toronto police, are creeper up?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Are they gonna like shut down the airports?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
And they showed up and they arrested him for criminal impersonation.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
He was still in the building.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
So the big dog at Dryer LLP has been arrested
up Canada.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Way uh huh.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Whole places under investigation by the FEDS already already. Yeah,
And since Dryer was the only one who really knew
the financial workings of the firm, things started to fall apart,
like they couldn't make payroll, they couldn't make the rent
on the office space. And then, in what is probably
the most shocking, disgusting development of this whole saga. I mean,
(40:44):
I don't even know how to tell you this. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I bet you can try.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
The office Christmas party at the Waldorf Astoria was canceled.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
I knew you could do it.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
When I read that. I went into the bathroom and
I turned off the lights and I played painted Black
at full volume on my phone and I just scribbled
on my face with a sharpie. I'll never be the
same after hearing that news.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Aren you see changed?
Speaker 3 (41:09):
The Waldorf Astoria? Chris Chris party canceled?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Is there no justice, no peace in this world?
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Shambles. Everything's in a shambles. So don't worry though, because
Dryer's nineteen year old son, Spencer, was there to calm
the waters.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
He do like magic.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
He was an illusionist.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I consider myself more of a mental work.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
This is even better. He went to the firm to
deliver a message on behalf of his father, nineteen year
old named Spencer Spencer per New York Magazine quote, he
said no one should be deserting his father because his
father gave them so much, says someone who was there.
It was bizarre. The lawyers in the room were livid.
(41:54):
One even started shouting, I'm not going to listen to you.
You have no place in here. This is a partnership meeting.
You're not a partner. So it looks like charisma, uniqueness, nerve,
and talent run in the family. I'm going to saund that.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Can you imagine being there? Some nineteen year old comes
in and say, you know, my father is you need
to respect You need to respect he put food on
your table, and your table.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
He has robbed you all blind and you need to
thank him for it. So Dryer posted bail. Dryer Papa,
he posted bail in Canada, flew back to New York,
and then he got arrested on the tarmac in charge
with fraud zing and he's placed.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Under house arrest airport.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
So then the legal collapse was like swift and complete.
Dryer pleaded guilty in May of that year to one
count of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, one
count of securities fraud, five counts of wire fraud, one
count of money laundering, and he appeared before this judge,
Judge Jed Rakeoff for sentencing, and the language for the
(43:04):
bench was damning, like I love when they go they
go yes.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Like all literary crad hit him Rakeoff.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
He said, he has disgraced the honorable profession of law.
There are one hundred good reasons why mister Dryer should
be jailed. By his own admission here today he has
shown that he is to be ranked with those who
have committed some of the most egregious frauds in history.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
And then he sentenced them to twelve months well prosecutors.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Prosecutors wanted one hundred and forty five years right, consecutive
maximum sentences on all accounts.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
That's the most I've ever heard for financial crime.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
And they're the reasoning was first sacrificing a quote rewarding
and productive life as a lawyer for a life of
fraud that built hedge funds and doomed his parked Avenue.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Law Firmtle piss, you know. They were kind of looking
at to punish somebody.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Yeah, And the judge was like, that's a little rough,
you guys, of course. And so in his assessment he
concluded that Dryer was quote no mister made off and
sentenced him to twenty years twenty yeah, I thought, and
he had to go in immediately twenty twenty years.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
And so Dryer addressed the court directly, he's a real sentence,
that's a seriously yeah, but he's no mister maide on.
He's Dryer said, quote, I'm sorry, deeply sorry for the
harm and the sadness that I have caused to so
many people. That sounds hollow. So the judge said of
the fraud, quote, it is a huge fraud by any
(44:43):
standard other than the madeoff standard.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
He's always bringing him made Off him.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
The comparison to Madeoff was like repeatedly invoked at sentence
from the headlines, and the prosecutors were like, look, it
was smaller than Madeoffs in its operational brazenness, but like
he had all these other things, personal impersonation, he went
to foreign countries, he forged signature. They're like, he has
(45:10):
criminal creativity that made Oft didn't have to. So they
put a Dryer on house arrest before sentencing, and that
became the subject of a documentary arrested called Unraveled, and
I did not watch it, so I apologized for that.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Documentary Home.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
It was directed by Mark Simons. I just knew that
I would like get I'm already so easily angered.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
I didn't need.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So it was directed by Mark Simon, who's a former
Dryer ll P lawyer. He was captured Dryer on film
during the last two months of home confinement, you know,
because they've known each other for six years.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Okay and Dryer, so it's kind of like Michael Jordan
in the Last Dance or he's just sitting in his
couch talk and being real.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Dryer, according to Simon, also needed money to pay for
the twenty four hour armed guards that were part of
his agreement with the federal court. And he also he
kind of saw the documentary as his last chance to
like get his side of the story out to the
public and make people think that he wasn't a bad person. Oh,
good luck with that, And so it aired in the
(46:30):
UK under the title The seven hundred and fifty million
Dollar Thief on BBC four in September of twenty twelve.
Dryer served his sentence at FCI Federal Correctional Institute Sandstone
in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
In twenty twelve. So we're now into like the the
Zukkati Park one percent to like Occupy Wall Street era.
If people are really mad.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
They're mad.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Oh, this is seven hundred and fifty million dollars thief.
I can see this section playing in BBC four.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
So he was supposed to get out in thirtieth twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Wait, oh well, yeah, twenty years years.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
But he got released on December twelfth, twenty twenty four,
six months early, when President Joe Biden commuted the sentences
of almost fifteen hundred federal prisoners who had served home confinement.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Oh, he just got in thrown in on the list.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Why Joe, that is some malarkey if I've ever heard it.
Come on, dude, six more months. Let him stew for
another six.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, I mean, like Spenser, I guess he didn't do
his full twenty Suspenser's not forty years old. But I
mean he's like getting up there. Huh.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, he's like much child does just like me.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
So.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Dreyer himself offered the like the most candid assessment of
his own psychology in his two thousand and nine interview
with Sixty Minutes. Quote, I had an ambition that I
needed to feed. I think I fell into the trap
of wanting to be more successful than I was. I
really wanted to distinguish myself. I wanted to be as
(47:59):
as important as I thought I was deserved to be.
And then he talks about how the image was tactical. Quote,
it was clear to me that the more you showed
people that you didn't need money, the easier it was
to attract money. So having the trappings of success was
a very important part of the plan.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
He should have become a mob lawyer, right, They would
have appreciated his skills. He could have run like you know,
stock bust outs or whatever the hell he wants to do.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
But so then, like, what about all that stuff, all
the trappings.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Right, yeah, that beach house, the mansion behind the mansion.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Court appointed receivers, private investigators, government prosecutors. They all went
to work tracking it down. The art collection was a
cake walk.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, imagine it was.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
It was spread between the firm's offices on Park Avenue
and his various homes. They got the Mercedes SL five
hundred and a BMW six fifty I at the Hampton's house, well,
one of the Hampton's houses, because it wound up. He
had three. They got that Manhattan pent house. He had
land in the Lesser Antilles, okay, why not? And then
(49:05):
there was Seascape, the yacht. They found that in a
Caribbean port, the crew hadn't been paid in weeks. They
were an unhappy bunch downright, muteness. Two investigators went to
the yacht and they paid the crew. But when they
tried to get the captain to sail the boat back
to the US. According to the New York Times quote,
there was a hitch. Mister Dryer's teenage son Spencer, had
(49:30):
called the captain and forbade him at Pops had to
call down go aheads, you know, sailing the investigators. Was like, no,
all my friends are coming down here.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
I was planning a party.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Spencer. March twenty six, two thousand and nine, the court
appointed receiver disclosed that he had recovered more than one
hundred million dollars in assets. But even with that, there's
still three hundred million dollars in investor funds miss millionaire accounts. Yeah. Probably.
(50:05):
Do you want to know my takeaways?
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (50:08):
This whole thing is a story about the distance between
image and reality. So there's like the formality in the
gravitas of Park Avenue offices and like high degrees looking
over their Yeah, and then the Ford loan lowness of
forged documents. You got like a forty million dollar art collection,
and then you're just left with like bare hooks on
(50:31):
a wall. And you got a guy he goes to
Yale Harvard, but he's also in handcuffs at LaGuardia. Then
there's the image of what he thought his life was
going to be like when he had tons of money,
and then the reality of never being able to fully
enjoy it because it wasn't his and it didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yes, and he had not earned it or.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
And then my favorite part is the art because there's
that tom Odernist sculpture called Big Thief he owned.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Did you look at it?
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (51:01):
It is.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
The whole thing is so darkly ironic because like Oderness
is known for these cartoonish bronze figures that satirize capitalism,
greed and power. And like a lot of his sculptures
are public. They're in the subway system, a lot of
public spaces, spaces that Dryer would like never inhabit in
New York. He would think he was too good for that.
(51:25):
But he owned a work literally titled Big Thief by
an artist who spent decades mocking financial access and the
exploitation of the week by the powerful.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Don't you think that amused him? Though?
Speaker 3 (51:38):
I think that it was like I think it was
a lack of self awareness. I don't think he crossed
his mind. I think it was like an investment thing.
I don't think that it was anything that like, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Like a ride. Joe amusing moment every time he looked
at it.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
What's your takeaway?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Oh my goodness, I'm over here. Surprised. I like to
keep your my other ridiculous take away, Elizabeth is. I
think the real victim is Spencer, because that poor kid,
he thought he was going to be a rich prick
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
I know.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Do you know who my dad is? You can't take
our boat? And then what happened all of a sudden,
Now he has to live off that three hundred million.
That's secret.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
Yeah, ig, I don't I don't want to know, because
I have a feeling he's doing just fine.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
You know what. You know what we need?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Now what's that?
Speaker 5 (52:32):
But oh god, I.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Hey, rude dudes, this is your exhausted high school teacher
and exhausted mother of teenagers.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Coming at you.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Thank you for your Mandelbom episode. I had a student
flip out on me today because I asked her to
put away her phone's phone side note, breaking the law
in Ohio where I live, and I was frustrated and
I needed a good laugh. Got in and belly laughed
the whole way home.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Thank you for what to do?
Speaker 3 (53:14):
Bye, oh, oh my god, thank you for your service.
No joke, that is. And yeah, seriously, I couldn't stand
when I was teaching and they would have their phones out.
That drove me nuts. But the worst I found the
one way I could nip it in the bud with
guys is because they'd put it in their laps to text.
(53:35):
And where I was in like stadium seating in a
in a lecture hall, I'd be like, hold on and
I'd stop the class. I'm going to hope and pray
there's a phone in your lap right now.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
They were jerking it in class, Okay.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
I yeah, and so for high school stuff.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
But I don't think.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
But like to go through all of that and like
have have be disrespected while you're doing your job and
trying to do something.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Good for people, totally important.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
Glad we could like help you let off some steam
on the way home.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yes, deserve it. Thank you for what you do on
all on a very very greatly appreciate you and you
know them kids.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
I don't know how teachers are doing it. Honestly, every
teacher I know, every friend of mine who teaches, is
like really pushed to the limit. And yeah, it's such
an honor.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Also without backup, it's not like the administration's taking their side,
and it's like but which was very different.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
They take it so seriously what they do that they
won't fall asleep on the job with it.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
They're still paying for supply. They're paying money to do this,
you know what I mean. If I was a teacher,
I'd be there with like a you remember that bag
that Jack White had outside the show and we went
to see him and we had to put our phones
in and I was like, what's what is this?
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Apparently they do that at a lot of schools now
are enjoying. Yeah, they start they're like, oh, look, books,
you know, like are our social benefits?
Speaker 2 (55:01):
They realize teachers who are now making their students take
their like write their essays in class on typewriters literal
old school typewriters like click click clack.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
I you know when the parents talk about how but
what if something happens and I want, you know what, Like.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
That's what the school nurses for. They can come but
then get you out of class right to work. For decades,
we did just fine with that. Yeah, no one missed
any too.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
You're not raising a bunch of dinguses anyway. Teachers, we
applaud you. Every teacher hearing our voices, we applaud you.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
You're the best, Thank you all.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
That's it for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on
Blue Ski and in Stagram YouTube. You can find us
there at Ridiculous Crime Pod, Little Animations and such. Email
us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then
leave a talk back on the heart app reach out.
(56:06):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Saren Burnett,
produced and edited by Captain of the Seascape Dave Cousten,
starring Amalie Rutger as Judith. Research is by Ontario Teachers
Union and for ser Marisa Brown and fraudulent art dealer
Jabari Davis. The theme song is by Senior Partners at
Dryer LLP, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is
(56:28):
provided by Botany five hundred. Guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot
and mister Andre. Executive producers are Alert Receptionist Ben Bollen
and Discreete Chauffeur No.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Browns QUI say It one More time?
Speaker 4 (56:49):
QUI?
Speaker 1 (56:50):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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