He is a mentor of sorts to burgeoning scammers Joe Hunt (Elgort) and Dean Karny (Egerton) in their get-rich-quick scheme, delivering ham-handed platitudes like "Billionaire or bust" and "You're a . Fifteen feet farther down they discovered radius and humerus bones. Pittman recalled: Hed, put it in, but hed take it back out. He has defused violence and helped start a project at Folsom State Prison to address how trauma in inmates past can lead to violent behavior. "They cannot charge me for the murder of Ron Levin because they dropped it," Pittman said. It was a big white stucco-and-red-tile hacienda with a tennis court out back, barricaded in front by a ten-foot hedge and screened from the street by a forest of flowering trees. With the money skimmed from Financial Futures, Joe had raised the pitch of life in the BBC by another octave. Both ended in hung juries. Hunt acted as his own attorney during this trial and contended that star witness Karny had killed Eslaminia. Joes mother had disappeared when he was in high school. During the celebration, Joe called the Bank of America to ask how long it would take to cash a Swiss check. Les Zoeller and his partner Dennis Decuir were en route to the Manning that afternoon when they spotted Hunt driving his Jeep in the opposite direction, eastbound on Wilshire. Joe thought that it was a symbolic gesture of guilt, Dean said. D61863 quickly rattles off half a dozen names of people who claimed to have seen Levin after the con mans disappearance. On June 8, 1984, Levin's mother reported him missing to the Beverly Hills Police Department. Judge Carl Holm ruled that Reza Eslaminia was entitled to know Dean Karny's - who was now in wit-ness protection and the prosecution's star witness - current name and where-abouts so that the defendants could investigate Karny's possible criminality since 1984 for impeachment purposes. While Hunt is seeking a shot at freedom, he still maintains he didnt kill Levin. The Karnys put up $150,000 to stake Joes trading account, and persuaded friends to add another $250,000. One week later, the Shadings held a second meeting on the subject of disclosure. Levin was a truly incredible character, Joe said, a professed graduate of Harvard College, number one in his class, with a 186 IQ, whod taken a $200,000 inheritance and run it up to $25 million, and knew everything about everyone in town. For young Joe Hunt, Levin would remain a figure who not only fascinated, but also frustrated him. From the minute you started telling them about it, everybody wanted to believe, Mary Brown said. Other cast members included Frederic Lehne, John Stockwell, Barry Tubb, Raphael Sbarge, Jill Schoelen, Stan Shaw, John Dye, and James Sloyan. At graduation, each member of the senior class was given one full page in the Harvard School yearbook. His aphorisms were delivered now as public proclamations, codes of conduct for true believers. Before he left Chicago, he changed his last name. Gamsky had entered the prep school on a scholarship, one of the few poor boys on the twenty-three-acre campus. It was time, perhaps, to cease counting the zeros in Hedayat Eslaminias $30-million fortune and to consider the prospect of a day when outsiders might look into their little band. Dean Kearney. And the bonds were very strong as long as Joe appeared to have the answers to things, both in terms of philosophies and in terms of coming up with money to keep people happy and activities to keep them busy.. Joe asked most of the questions, nearly all of them about money, Dean recalled, and led the group to the conclusion that the idea was plausible: they could force Eslaminia to surrender property titles and bankbooks, coerce his signature onto loan documents and contracts with BBC companies. As one of his new duties, Pittman went to the bank with Hunt several times a week, riding shotgun in the black Jeep Joe drove when he wished to remain inconspicuous. .. A group of wealthy boys in Los Angeles during the early 1980s establish a 'get-rich-quick' scam that turns deadly. Hunt handled the pressure from without by closing the ranks from within, drawing the committed nearer, pushing recalcitrants to the periphery. Jim and Ben went north with Reza to perform surveillance on the condo in San Mateo County. A story so remarkable, and such an indictment of the greed, excess materialism, it could only have happened in L.A. during the 80's. . She said it was important for me to make a statement that contradicted other statements, or Joe might not get bail set. He would discuss the matter with his attorney, Dean told Brooke. In Tehran, Eslaminias name had been written on walls with blood. And not only because he rode his bike there and back. Mr. Karny, 26, the son of a wealthy Los Angeles real estate developer, said he had believed in Mr. Hunt's abilities and had been intrigued with his desire to put together a group of. For the first time, though, the others saw signs of stress in Hunt. The organization was run as a Ponzi scheme,[6] and money contributed by investors was spent on supporting lavish lifestyles for young members of the club. I have tried to contribute to the welfare of my fellow human beings ever since.. . Within weeks of the BBCs first meeting, Joe led a caravan of Porsches, Mercedeses, a Rolls-Royce, and a BMWWe all borrowed our parents cars, Dean rememberedto a demonstration at Gene Brownings desert plant in Hesperia. Levins luggage was lined up in front of his closet, but the suitcases were all empty. After Hunt's conviction, eight witnesses came forward stating that they had seen Ron Levin alive in various locations in 1986 and 1987, including Greece and Los Angeles. It contains outdated and potentially offensive descriptions of race, gender, and class. His body would never be found, but a Santa Monica jury convicted Hunt in 1987 of murdering Levin. Hunt flew to New York the next afternoon, to get Jim out of jail. When Joe arrived back in Los Angeles on the evening of June 16, Dean and Ben had to tell him it appeared as if Ron Levin had taken him for one last ride, because the World Trade Bank was unable to cash the Swiss check. Financial Futures quarterly disbursement was due in June, and he had close to 150 investors to pay off now. He said that you could find out anything in a library.. In recent years, though, instruction in the responsibilities of Christian brotherhood had given way to an emphasis on personal success. Hunt and club security director Jim Pittman were charged with the murder of Levin, a con artist[7] who had allegedly swindled the BBC out of over $4million. Within the week, Reza was arrested in San Francisco as he attempted to pick up a passport issued to Christopher Potter. Vegas units caught the gentleman in front of the Palm Court, Vega said, but it had taken all five of them to subdue him. Ron had good reasons of his own for disappearing: under criminal indictment for illegally purchasing $300,000 worth of computer goods and photography equipment, Levin faced almost certain conviction and a state-prison sentence of up to seven years. Vegas units escorted the gentleman through a crowd of gawking guests, but when they reached the center of the lobby, the gentleman broke loose and bolted toward the Fifty-ninth Street exit. Look, I am innocent. Club members, clad in Armani suits and driving high-end BMWs, dined at Spago and partied with supermodels. There was a strong odor of urine as he lifted the lid, Dean remembered, and he opened and shut the trunk five times, assembling a mosaic of glimpses that arranged themselves into the picture of a stocky, gray-haired man wearing handcuffs and lying motionless in a fetal position. After a series of lane changes, the detectives caught the Jeep at Santa Monica Boulevard. Despite noteven testifyingin the Levin trial, Hunt, who had no formal legal training, chose to defend himselfandhe pinned the whole thing on Karny, again the prosecution's star witness in exchange for immunity. The two of themDean and Joe Hunthad given their Beverly Hills real estate agent the same story they told at Lake Arrowhead and in Palm Springs: Joe was a writer on politics and economics facing a very tight deadline and in need of a quiet place to work for the next six weeks. Two months before his twentieth birthday, he went to work full-time as a junior accountant in the Arco Tower downtown, but had discovered almost immediately that the corporate world stifled capable people. Hunt is the only person in California legal history to represent himself in a capital case and not receive the death penalty. Things got weird fast, Opinion: California wants more psychiatric detentions. . Ben is currently working in a Los Angeles law office. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? As Hunt drew the others in, the BBC began to assume the shape of concentric circles, or layers of understanding, as Joe called them. In the center of the room sat two navy-blue trunks, each big enough for an adult human being, Dean said. Three days after the June 24 meeting, Browning said, he had met Hunt for breakfast in Westwood. . Those who dwelled in the gray areas Joe called Shadings. Known as @lacrimes on Twitter, during almost 30 years at The Times he also has been part of the breaking news staff that won Pulitzers in 1998, 2004 and 2016. A credit check revealed that he had registered with an American Express card showing thousands of dollars in past-due charges. In September 2018, Hunt's family and friends launched the website FreeJoeHunt.com in support of his release. At the time, searches were still being conducted for Levin's body. Within hours, Jim Pittman was in a holding cell at Manhattans Midtown North precinct, where he was printed, photographed, and booked under the name Ronald Levin. He is a borderline sociopath in my opinion.. According to the governments star witness at trial, Hunt and his bodyguard forced Levin to sign a check for $1.5 million at his Peck Drive home in Beverly Hills. Just before 8:00 that evening, Vega recalled, he observed a gentleman carrying two suitcases down the number 7 stairway. On June 6, 1984, Hunt showed up at the office with a $1.5 million checksigned by Levin. thought he was a good influence on me, Dean said. Olga Vasquez had moved out; all that remained was a pile of documents in one corner. Hunt was the basis for Philip Swann, a character in the Law & Order Season 4 episode "American Dream," which was subsequently adapted into the Law & Order: UK episode "Unsafe". Dean Karny, whose father was a . A few days later, Hunt and Dicker broke into the Mays empty condo, where, by the latters account, they searched in vain for the missing documents. He had known for some time that the younger Eslaminia hated his father, the agent said, adding that before he flew to Europe, Reza had suggested knowledge of his fathers disappearance, claiming he knew two individuals whose principal activity involved kidnapping, torture, and subsequent killing of wealthy individuals, after the individuals had been forced to turn over their assets.. Hedayat Eslaminia had enemies, Olga Vasquez advised the Belmont Police Department when she reported him missing at 5:00 A.M. on July 31. The BBCs overhead was up to more than a quarter million dollars a month, and Joe was promising delivery on a Cyclotron Gene Browning had yet to complete. He had grown up in a Pentecostal congregation, married young, and started a successful cleaning service back in Hampton Beach, Virginia, where he yearned for a more glamorous line of work. When police searched Levin's condo, they found what appeared to be a to-do list in Hunt's handwriting that said things like "close blinds" and "tape mouth.". During his junior year, though, Joe lost even his status as a star debater, dismissed from the team by coach Ted Woods for falsifying evidence during a tournament. Ah, the 1980s, when shoulder pads, hair and egos ran sky high. The Browns brought in more investors. Joes attorneys will argue that Levin arranged his own disappearance and is currently living abroad with a new name and a surgically altered appearance. Recalled one business partner: Daddy May used to tell them, Why dont you get a job at Baskin Robbins? Hunt and Alex Gaon were at their Quotron in Cantor, Fitzgeralds trading room every morning at 6:00, but Joe would never put more than half the money he collected into the commodities market. Browning nearly laughed out loud when the groups gangly, baby-faced twenty-three-year-old leader introduced himself. He was one of Billionaire Boys Club (also known as BBC) founders, Joe Hunt's former best friend and main witness in Joe Hunt's trial. The story was recounted in a 1987 miniseries and a 2018 film. The BBC was going to take some bold steps and achieve greatness, and for those people who wanted to go along with the BBC to achieve these levels of greatness, they must know things and do things, Evan Dicker remembered Joe saying. Jack Nicholson and Warren Beaty, photgraphed in 1976. He was gaunt, often in a distracted state, borrowing money in amounts he would have scoffed at three months earlier$10,000 from Tom May, $5,000 from Evan Dicker. Pittman was right; somebody always talks. The tibia and fibula and a pair of black slacks were nearby, with the femur, skull, and jawbone of Hedayat Eslaminia and a piece of light-colored cloth in a cluster twelve feet away. That same day, in Beverly Hills, Detective Les Zoeller became the first police officer to enter the duplex on Peck Drive since Ron Levins disappearance more than two months earlier. In October 1983, the BBCs core members took up residence at the Wilshire-Manning, a high-rise of luxury condominiums above Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, where their neighbors included Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews, Mr. T, and a young Saudi prince who sent the bellboys scurrying every time he opened his front door, hoping to catch one of the hundred-dollar tips he handed out. Blanche had to go crying to his stepfather, Marvin Levin, to get back even part of the money, $20,000, and Ron arranged to cover the rest of his debt by paying the Sturkeys $900 a month to work as his servants. He continued to insist there were always new contingencies, further possibilities. Within weeks, Joe not only set up West Cars of North America, but provided the company with more than a quarter-million dollars in assets by persuading other BBC members to sign over their own cars as collateral. Actually Jim Pittman asked me once in the lobby if I would be interested in meeting Joe and Dean because he thought that I would fit in with the group. Those who left did so, Dean said, either because their parents had a very strong pull and yanked them out, or because they got scaredscared of Joe., Joe had begun referring to the BBC as his family and to the other members as his children. Mr. Eslaminia was dead, Dean told Joe and Ben. Though he had married several times, the elder May was without children of his own; he not only adopted the twins, but made them his heirs, maintaining the paternal relationship even after their mother divorced him and remarried. 1,014 talking about this. I had met very few investors, Mary Brown said, and I was astounded by the caliber of people who had been taken in. Capital formation, Joe would say later, is always a problem, but he had solved it neatly with the help of one of the BBCs first female members, Allison Weiss. They had agreed in advance that the place they chose would have to be remote, Dean explained, so that the screams could not be heard. What convinced them to rent the house, though, was a hidden trapdoor in the hall closet that led directly to the basement. An hour later, Joe, Ben, and Jim entered the condominium complex wearing their brown outfits, Dean said; within ten minutes, the three returned with the loaded truck, and the plan proceeded on schedule through the transfer at the U-Haul agency. Joes the kind of person who can pick up very quickly the person who is dissatisfied with his lot in life, Dean explained. There is basically a point in everybodys life where either you are going to continue on with the company, or just leave, Steve Taglianetti remembered Joe saying. While the young men used Rons computer to make a list of all the things that looked wrong, Blanche called the Beverly Hills police to report a missing person. Dean avoided Hunt for the next couple of days, until the afternoon of June 10, when Joe took him for a walk around the block in Westwood, Karny recalled, and proceeded, kind of against my wishes, to tell me in fairly great detail what he and Jim had done.. Dean Karny, Hunts closest confidant in the Billionaire Boys Club, testified that Hunt told him they handcuffed Levin and shoved him face down on the bed, where the bodyguard put a bullet in the back of his head. This time, Tom was included. "But it's not right that I get to be the garbage dump of everybody's peccadilloes.". There were attorneys and doctors, writers from the studios, producers and directors. Financial Futures assets were frozen, pending the SEC investigation, Joe announced, but he offered his personal promise that every trading partner would receive his or her money before the end of the year. By the end of April 1984, Joe saw his situation coming to a head. The proceedings ended with the jury hung ten to two for conviction. The gentleman flashed a key and kept walking. Together they wrapped the empty blue trunk in heavy brown paper, addressed it to HEDAYAT ESLAMINIA, 400 DAVEY GLEN ROAD, #4322, BELMONT, CA, and carried it to the parking lot. There are endless galaxies which are yours. He was told later that the bank had received his message at the very moment the $127,000 was being counted out for Ben and Reza. After Pittman boasted that he had survived eighty-seven consecutive karate tournaments without a loss, Dean introduced him to Joe. Tom May came by the condo one afternoon while they were practicing Levins signature, and Joe got him to give it a try: when Joe told Tom that Ron had been murdered, Tom received the news with dignity and responsibility, Dean recalled. Gene Browning asked Joe if he was going to marry Brooke: He said, Shes just a cover, the inventor recalled. The Mays and Raymond approached Gene Browning, who decided at once he believed the story was true. As the group began to fray at the edges, Hunt and Pittman grew tighter, the others noticed. [14] However, in a federal habeas proceeding in 2004, Hunt's continuing effort to have his murder conviction overturned was revived, as the Ninth Circuit reversed a dismissal of his habeas petition. Having been in prison for three and a half years, unable to afford bail, Pittman was sentenced to time served and released. BBC members Hunt, Pittman, Karny (before his immunity deal), Arben Dosti, and Reza Eslaminia were charged with the murder of Hedayat Eslaminia, Reza's father. At the Davey Glen Apartments in Belmont, he rented their condo under a friends name, using only his initials on the registry outside and paying his bills with checks drawn on an account that belonged to his sister. While Joe Hunt remains in prison for the murder of Ron Levin, his appeals and legal battles have continued without pause. With just a few thousand in savings, he had earned $35,000 already, Joe said. Her story was that she despised her father, movie producer Bobby Robertscofounder of Dunhill Records and former personal manager for Richard Pryor and Ann-Margretwho was president of Lorimar Records at the time. Finally, Joe called Jack Friedman at Clayton Brokerage, hoping to gain information that would help him trace the $13.5 million. At the International Love Boutique, Dean also purchased two mouth gags, one a large plastic penis with straps that fastened at the back of the neck. The trial lasted for nine months and, in the end, he managed an 8-4 hung jury after 26 days of deliberations. In Los Angeles, he persuaded Lawrence Gamsky to become Ryan Hunt, and later, when asked under oath, Why did you change your name? Joe would answer, I wanted to have the same last name as my father. Dean and Ben were kind of wavering in our faith, Karny said, but Joe would win Dean over once and for all on a ski trip just before Christmas 1982. Joe told Dean to get out and help load the thing into the camper, because now it was very heavy. As they drove back down the hill to El Camino Real Boulevard, he and Joe were alone in the cab of the pickup. He lasted only six months before resigning to trade on the commodities market. So they would have to employ a little harmless deception. . When they were two, their mother had married David May II, who controlled a vast real estate empire accrued from the formerly family-owned May Company department-store chain that made him one of the wealthiest men on the West Coast. Jim Pittman was tried for the murder of Ron Levin (whose body has never been found) during May and June of 1985. Two days later, Dean was in San Francisco talking to Oscar Breiling. [8] In 1987 a Southern California Court found Hunt guilty of Levin's 1984 murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. . 166K followers. Dean was subsequently removed from his parents home and placed under the California Witness Protection Program, which provides him with a $650-per-month living stipend. Before they left, Evan remembered, Joe stopped to play back the messages on the twins answering machine. And in Costa Mesa, uniformed officers twice evacuated Gene Browning and his family from their home after warnings that Hunt had purchased a contract on the inventors life. Editors Note: The drama and intrigue did not stop there. Dean signed a six-week lease on the house the next morning and flew north for a rendezvous at the Villa Hotel. The first house the woman had shown them, just north of Sunset Boulevard in the southeast corner of Bel Air, looked very good from the outside. Sometimes renewed attention on a case can affect public opinion enough that something shakes loosebut treatments of Hunt's story haven't exactly been sympathetic toward the man who became the poster boy for '80s excess run amok. . In 2018with the support of a Free Joe Hunt campaign started by friends and family onlinehe petitioned then-California Gov. The trials for the murder of Hedayat Eslaminia were held in Northern California. ), At Willie Nelson 90, country, rock and rap stars pay tribute, but Willie and Trigger steal the show, Concertgoer lets out a loud full body orgasm while L.A. Phil plays Tchaikovskys 5th, Plaschke: Lakers live up to their legacy with a close-out win for the ages, L.A. Affairs: I had my reasons for not dating white men. The website started on his behalf lists all the ways in which he's been a model prisoner for the past three-plus decades. Karny provided the only direct testimony linking Reza Eslaminia and Arben "Ben" Dosti to the 1984 kidnap-murder of Eslaminia's. "Was I a catastrophic, world-class jackass in 1984? On Wednesday, Hunt questioned Dean Karny, his former prep school chum and fellow club member who has been granted immunity and is in the federal witness protection program. They were of that belief because Hunt hadbasically said as muchin a meeting at the BBC. Dean Karny is the main antagonist of Billionaire Boys Club. box and a phone-answering service, actuallybut Ron called it Network News and with business card in hand paid a visit to a man named Jack Friedman at the Clayton Brokerage office in Beverly Hills, where he identified himself as assignment editor. From a high of about thirty, BBC membership collapsed to a core of sixteen. They were never so influenced by a young man in their life. They are trying to capitalize on a push by various criminal justice groups to end life without parole. Karny knew Gamsky from Joes only extracurricular activity, the debate team. Amid high-tech displays, $200-per-session polo lessons, shotgun shooting safaris in Soledad Canyon, and weekends at the blackjack tables in Vegas, Joe staged some serious demonstrations of power. During the course of their first meeting, Hunt began outlining the machines industrial applications and was already shaping a sales pitch. Atty. That afternoon, Karny led Zoeller and a Los Angeles County coroners team into the Angeles National Forest, to a turnout on a dirt road in Soledad Canyon. One wanted $40,000, one wanted $100,000, one wanted $200,000. Joe continued to solicit Rons respect. And he was.. They pulled the money right off the table in front of their eyes, Breiling said. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The mans eyes were closed and there was drool on his chin. The boys had never met their natural father, and knew only that he now owned a chain of laundries in Mexico and hosted what Tom called a weekly holy-roller show on cable television. Ben Dosti, aka Lansing Lee Potter, was apprehended by the FBI the same day in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Character actor and Golden Globe nominee for his role as Dean Karny in the TV series Billionaire Boys Club. When authorities tried to increase a fellow inmates sentence by two years, citing a sentencing error, Hunt filed a petition that saw the sentence cut by two and a half years. Dean graduated from the Whittier School of Law in 1985 and has applied for admission to the California Bar. Nelsonreturned to the story to play Hunt's father in the more recent film, which was announced in 2010and shot in 2015 in New Orleans with Ansel Elgort as Hunt, Taren Egertonas Karny and Kevin Spacey as Ron Levin. . In the bedroom, Blanche saw that the down comforter and the top sheet were missing. The first rule was, Never feel sorry for anything you do, and the second was, Its all right to lie if you know the truth.. In August 1984, two of Hunt's fed-up associates went to authorities to report that they had been swindledand thatthey had reason to believe Hunt and his bodyguard, Jim Pittman, had something to do with Levin's disappearance. Near the bottom of the hill, the coyotes had left a scrap of white cloth with a label that read JOCKEY CLASSIC BRIEF, SIZE 36. And there are peccadilloes aplenty. Zoeller, however, said he isnt surprised that Hunt hasnt lost any of his powers of persuasion after decades in prison. The state attorney generals office has asked for a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. . The True Story of the Billionaire Boys Club, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Sir, are you a guest at the hotel? Vega asked. It was on a street corner outside the BBC office in West Hollywood that Joe and Ben first described for Dean the fabulous wealth of a man named Hedayat Eslaminia. Some testified at the trials. Half joking at first, they called themselves the Billionaire Boys Club. Reza hated his father, Ben told Dean, and guaranteed that if they could arrange to kidnap the man and force him to sign over his assets, they would split the money equally. Brian McNamara (b. November 21, 1960) is an American actor, known for his portrayal of Dean Karny in the TV Movie Billionaire Boys Club for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a supporting role. "There is one voice that will never be stifledand that's the voice of an innocent man talking about his innocence," Hunt said in court. When it was clear Zoeller wanted only to question him, Dean stepped into the hallway and said he was interested in testifying as a witness for the prosecution if he could get immunity. The two began to refer to a place they called the Ice House, an armed retreat where the BBC was to rendezvous when things got hot, Joe was building a personal library for Jim, a set of how to books with titles like Hit Man: Technical Manual for Independent Contractors and Black Bag Owners Manual II, which began, This pertains to the personalized killing that in peacetime is called murder.. Hunt also indulged Pittmans fetish for electronic surveillance equipment and exotic weapons. He was soon circulating the pages around town, only not at the networks, but at RCA and Panasonic, from which he obtained a loan of some $280,000 in camera equipment after telling the companies the pilot was going into production that month and promising promotional consideration. He had his own production company by thenjust a P.O. Two days later, on June 6, Joe asked Dean to take Brooke to the movies that night. He wasambitious and charismaticand also on scholarship, meaning he didn't have the deep-pocketed parents that so many of his classmates had. After a recent trip to Europe, he had warned Vasquez not to open a package that came to the condo from Germany. Before covering it, he and Jim had disfigured the body with shotgun blasts, Joe said. He seems so believable and exerts such charm that until you start to take the thing apart, he gets a lot of people sympathetic to him., Haggard and homeless, Joe continued to talk in ten figures, but came back to L.A. with four dollars in his pocket. It was important that the subject, Mr. Hunt, behave as if he were trading real money. Several observers in court remarked upon Hunts physical resemblance to a young Andy Griffith. Fred Wapner, who adamantly opposed Hunts release on bail and was visibly upset when Judge Laurence Rittenband granted it, said afterward, This is the one person Ive ever prosecuted who actually scares me..