Word: giacchetto
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Clearly, DANA GIACCHETTO went into the wrong business. Had he chosen to be a talent agent instead of a money manager, his unscrupulous business practices and knack for attracting famous clients would have augured a bright future. Instead, last week, Giacchetto, 37, was hit with civil and criminal charges for allegedly looting millions of dollars from the accounts of his high-profile roster of actors, artists and musicians. He faces up to 20 years in prison. During the past several years, armed with charm and advantageous connections, Giacchetto managed to accumulate clients such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Courteney...
...TAKEN: According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed fraud charges against Giacchetto, he looted the estimated amounts shown from these celebrities. How much they may have been reimbursed remains unclear. They have declined comment...
...Giacchetto wasn't born in the fast lane. He grew up middle-class outside Boston, the son of a novelist-radio writer and a nurse. As a young money manager in New York City, he befriended Jay Moloney, a fast-rising Hollywood agent and Ovitz protege. (Moloney committed suicide last month, after years of battling drug addiction.) With Moloney's entree, Giacchetto--blond, boyish and exuding a vulnerable aura--charmed his way into the lives and bank accounts of Young Hollywood. His new pals were dazzled by his ability to straddle two worlds. As DiCaprio manager Rick Yorn once said...
...early days, the financial advice Giacchetto doled out was as stodgy as his social life was edgy. He spent hours poring over technical charts, and then steered his clients to blue chips like Merck and AT&T. But somewhere along the way, he was seduced by the adrenaline rush of higher risk. His Cassandra Group investment management company bet heavily on Iridium, the global telephone satellite firm that filed for bankruptcy last summer. He also invested in Paradise Music & Entertainment, which was paying him to serve as a consultant. (Giacchetto says he informed most of his clients of the arrangement...
...Giacchetto's real undoing may have been the ill-fated alliance he made last fall with Jeffrey Sachs, a principal of the Chase Capital Entertainment Partners investment fund. Cassandra-Chase looked perfect on paper: Chase brought the structure to do private equity investment, and Giacchetto brought his high-wattage clients. But friction developed fast. Among the sore points, Cassandra-Chase's investment in Digital Entertainment Network, an Internet start-up whose chairman resigned after the out-of-court settlement of a suit that alleged he had molested a 13-year...