Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - MURDER: The Billionaire Boys Club Pt. 1

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

On the surface, the Billionaire Boys Club was an investment group/social club for LA's wealthy young men. In reality, it was an ambitious Ponzi scheme. But as the plan unraveled, its members turned to increasingly desperate measures... including murder. For more content, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. Los Angeles has always been a place for dreamers. For over a century, people from all over the world have flocked to L.A., hoping to make it in the entertainment industry. But in the 1980s, a different sort of dreamer popped up in Southern California. These young men, boys really, weren't transplants from the Midwest stepping off a bus with nothing more than a suitcase and a dream. No, the people I'm talking about today were homegrown Angelenos who grew up in the manicured mansions of Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills.

These kids grew up with everything they ever wanted. And once they got older, they expected to keep getting it. But as they entered adulthood, they learned a difficult lesson. They actually had to work for it. But for some of them, that lesson fell on deaf ears. They didn't want to earn that money. They wanted to take it. As the saying goes, those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it. That's especially true when it comes to money. If you want to make the right decisions when it comes to managing your assets, you need to know what mistakes to avoid and how to spot a trap. This is Money Crimes, a crime house original powered

by Pave Studios. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. One of my biggest passions is financial wellness, giving people advice on how to make money, invest it, and most importantly, protect it. And on this show, I'll be doing all of that with a twist, because this advice will be intertwined with the stories of history's biggest financial crimes. These stories are full of real-world pitfalls that can happen to you, but I'm going to tell you how to spot them. This episode is the first of two parts on Joe Hunt and the Billionaire Boys Club, a social club slash investment group based in Los Angeles that conned people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the early 1980s and were involved in the brutal deaths of two people.

Today, I'll introduce you to Joe Hunt, the founder of the Billionaire Boys Club. I'll go through how the group was formed, how it targeted vulnerable investors, and how it all eventually fell apart. In the next episode, I'll focus on the club's downfall and the increasingly desperate steps Joe Hunt and his friends took to strike it rich by any means necessary. What's the feeling of fall? It's finally catching the sunrise. And not because you woke up early.

No, you woke up nice and late. And you know what? The sun waited. Then you went and got what you love from Starbucks. The new pecan crunch oat latte and new baked apple croissant. And enjoyed that warm apple filling and those nutty flavors with rich brown buttery notes while the sun rose just for you. That's the feeling of fall, and it's only at Starbucks.

Take back your free time with PC Express Online Grocery Delivery and Pickup. Get in-store promos, PC Optimum points, and more free time. And still get groceries. Shop now at pcexpress.ca. For young L.A. trendsetters in the 80s, Westwood Village was the place to be. Nestled between the campus of UCLA and Beverly Hills, it was the perfect intersection of fashionable young people and Hollywood royalty. And back in the 80s, it was definitely the kind of place you hung around if you wanted to make a name for yourself. And in the spring of 1980, that's exactly what 21-year-old Dean Carney and 19-year-old Ben

Dosti were doing. Dean and Ben were both college students at UCLA and basically LA Blue Bloods. They had grown up in the city and known each other from their days attending the Harvard School. No relation to the University in Boston, by the way. This one was a private elite high school at the mouth of Coldwater Canyon. Anyone who was anyone in LA sent their kids to the Harvard School at the time. It's where Ronald Reagan, possibly one of the most famous Californians ever, sent his son. In fact, Ronald Jr. had graduated just ahead of Dean and Ben. So these guys knew their way around money and power. And at this point, they were trying to figure out how to get both for themselves.

Both of them had vague plans for the future. Dean wanted to go to law school and Ben was studying business, but neither of them were hard work, nose to the grindstone type of guys. They grew up surrounded by money and never considered that it would ever be a problem. They probably assumed that one day, the perfect opportunity would just fall into their laps. And that's just what happened when they ran into a former classmate on the streets of Westwood Village. Or so they thought.

His name was Joe Gamsky. See, Joe had gone to the Harvard School too and was part of Dean's graduating class. But unlike Dean and Ben, Joe was a scholarship kid, aka he wasn't rich. He had grown up on the wrong side of Coldwater Canyon, the valley side. But that's not what set Joe apart from the other kids. He was equally known for his sharp intellect as his social awkwardness. He was obsessed with seeking out conflict, whether it was with other students or his teachers. Basically, he was known for being a pain in the ass. But these days, Joe was hardly recognizable to Dean and Ben.

He had filled out his lanky frame and was dressed in a sharp suit. Joe told the other guys that after high school, he went to USC, where he'd graduated early with distinction. He said he went on to become the youngest person in the history of California to pass the CPA exam. He'd tried his hand at corporate life, but he found it boring and restrictive. So now he had struck out on his own, trading commodities. Unlike stocks, which put a value on a company, commodities track the value of basic goods, like energy, food, and metals. Just like stocks, commodities can be traded at an exchange. And according to Joe, he was killing it. He told Dean and Ben that he'd discovered a foolproof plan when it came to trading commodities that allowed him to limit

risk and maximize profits. Of course, there's no way to guarantee anything when it comes to trading stocks or commodities. But Dean and Ben ate it up. To them, he was living proof that if you were smart enough, you could game the system to your advantage. And over the next few months, Dean, Joe, and Ben became inseparable. They quickly settled into a routine. They'd meet up once Dean and Ben were done with classes,

maybe they'd go see a movie or grab some dinner, and then they'd hit the local arcade. Of course, Joe always picked up the tab. With him splashing money around like this, how could he not be legit? Of all the guys, Dean especially thought the world of Joe. The two became practically like brothers. Joe spent so much time with Dean at his childhood home that the spare bed in his room became known as Joe's bed. And Dean's parents loved Joe. They admired his ambition and appreciated how it was rubbing off on their son. And the three boys had

made big plans. After Joe soured on corporate life, he dreamed of creating a group of like-minded guys with big ideas, the type who didn't need to rely on traditional power structures to turn their visions into reality. In his mind, it would be half a social club and half an investment group. And with Joe's talents as a commodities trader and Dean and Ben's connections to the city's richest families, why couldn't something like this work? It seemed possible there was just one hurdle, getting the funds they needed to get a venture like this off the ground. So they decided that Joe would move to Chicago, where one of the main commodities exchanges was located. It's also the exchange where I got my start.

Joe would be in the thick of the action and could maximize his profits better than he could in L.A. But to make it work, they needed much larger sums of money than they currently had available. That's where Dean and Ben came in. On top of their social connections, they had access to a giant cash reserve. Their families. But in order to convince Dean and Ben's parents to invest with Joe, he had to prove he had the goods. So in the fall of 1980, Joe moved to Chicago. He passed the licensing test for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in October and started trading in November. By the end of his first week, he told Dean and Ben that his profits were in the five-figure range.

And when Joe came back to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving, the three boys decided it was time to strike. Ben's parents weren't quite ready to commit yet, but Dean's parents were more than happy to hear Joe's pitch. According to the book The Price of Experience, Money, Power, Image, and murder in Los Angeles, Joe told the Carney's that he had, quote, designed a virtually fail-safe investment, a system that tied together four or five spread positions, creating a cross-index calibration of market plays that permitted him to adjust risk to the point of non-existence. Sounds good, doesn't it? But also, it sounds complicated.

And that's how Joe fooled them. It's easy to look at this situation and say, well, they should have just asked Joe a few basic questions. But that's easier said than done. We've all been in a situation like this. Someone with a lot of expertise explains some complicated idea to you, and when they ask you, does it make sense? You can't help but smile and nod. After all, no one wants to look like a fool, especially not in front of someone they respect. That being said, there is a way you can protect yourself in a situation like this.

And it may sound callous, but when it comes to your money, don't trust anyone. Yes, I know, it seems simple, but it takes a lot of guts to stand up to someone in a situation like this. Remember, you are your own best advocate, and anyone who knows what they're doing will be happy to answer your questions. So remember, if you're ever meeting with someone who wants to handle your money, don't ever sign anything until you understand exactly what you're getting into. Unfortunately, Dean's mom fell for Joe's overcomplicated gibberish hook, line, and sinker. She gave Joe $150,000 of her own money right then and there. And that wasn't all. Dean's mom also looped in some of her other wealthy friends to invest with Joe, and those friends convinced their friends too. By the time it was all said and done,

Joe was heading back to Chicago with somewhere around $700,000. His investors would never see that money again. But what happens when the best drink and the best cookie in the world get together? The best becomes Besties. Try the new Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Oreo Limited Edition. Besties for a limited time. Taste it while it lasts. Copyright 2024. The Coca-Cola Company. Copyright 2024.

Mondelez International Group. After coming back to Chicago, Joe Gamsky got to work. He wasn't afraid to put his investors' money on the line. Joe quickly gained a reputation for being a bold trader who liked to take on big risks in favor of even bigger rewards. Joe also decided it was time to take on a new name. Now he was known as Joe Hunt. But besides the new name, not much had changed about him. Joe was still generous to a fault, and the first thing he did after landing in LA Christmas, was take Dean Carney and Ben Dostey out to a fancy dinner

at the Beverly Hills Hilton. He also invited his buddies on a completely paid vacation to New York City for the holidays. Dean and Ben asked Joe in early 1981 to help them pay for a lease on an apartment in Beverly Hills. He said, no problem. As long as they could cover the down payment, he'd send the money for the rest by March. But March came and went. And no word from Joe. Dean and Ben kept trying to call him, but he wouldn't answer. Eventually, his answering machine was turned off.

Then his phone was disconnected. Dean and Ben were in a complete panic. If Joe didn't send them the money soon, they'd have to go to their parents and ask for help. Thankfully, Joe finally got back to them at the beginning of April. But the news wasn't good. He couldn't help them out after all. The money was gone. According to Joe, his trading account had ballooned up to $14 million, but someone who had lost out on a lot of money got angry and squeezed him out of his positions. The account was practically down to zero. Whether Joe was telling the truth or not, the money really was gone. But he assured everyone that it was just a temporary setback. He promised he'd make it all back and then some. That was all

they needed to hear. Joe had never led them astray before, and why should they doubt him now? But the compliance authorities at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange weren't as trusting, and they rightfully had some questions. At least one of Joe's investors wanted to understand where the money had gone. That led to an internal investigation, and it revealed some very interesting things about Joe. It turns out that Joe hadn't graduated from USC early. In fact, he hadn't even graduated at all. He had dropped out halfway through his sophomore year, and although he did pass the CPA exam at 19, he wasn't the youngest person in California to have done it. He also wasn't registered as a CPA. He had passed the test, but he never put in the required training

to be licensed. If that was all Joe Hunt had lied about, then sure, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. But it didn't stop there. Joe had been sending his investors fraudulent trading statements, and he wasn't even registered to trade their money. Unsurprisingly, Joe was suspended from trading in September of 1981, and after a formal hearing in February of 1982, he was officially banned from trading at the Chicago Merc. He tried to work around with Ben Dosti trading from the floor of the exchange while Joe called in the instructions, but it didn't take long for them to get caught.

So Joe moved back to L.A. in October of 1982. He was half a million dollars in debt and with few prospects. But that didn't stop him. Even though Joe wasn't allowed to trade commodities in Chicago, he could still do it remotely from LA. So he told Dean and Ben that he was ready to turn their social slash investment club into a reality. Any profits Joe made on the market would be used to invest in business ventures. There would be no red tape and the only limit would be their ambition and imagination.

They decided to call this group the BBC, named after a bar in Chicago Joe liked called the Bombay Bicycle Club. And in time, it would be known by a different name, the Billionaire Boys Club. These guys were facing the same problem from before. They needed money. So it was time to go fishing for new investors. Over the holiday season, they schmoozed across town, reconnecting with old high school and college classmates, they sold the idea of gaming the system and generating profit without really having to work for it. It went better than expected. They had their first meeting in March of 1983, and around 30 other young guys showed up. It yielded immediate results. They got investments from Dave and Tom May, a pair of identical twins who were heirs to a sizable department store fortune.

Joe also got connected with the club's first outside investor, a guy named Steve Weiss. The investments were $10,000 from Dave May and $5,000 from Steve Weiss. And that was all Joe needed. After less than a month, he sent Dave May a check for $5,000. He said this was the profit he'd already generated from his account. But is that really possible to make that much money that fast? In short, no. Although it's certainly possible to perfectly time a trade and make huge profits, we're talking about almost doubling your money here. And while this is achievable, I can't imagine any realistic scenario where that could happen in less than a month. In reality, Joe was most likely pulling a classic Ponzi scheme,

taking money from his pool of funds and redistributing it as profits as a way to convince people to give him even more money. After all, why wouldn't you invest with someone who could read the market this well? So let's say this happens to you. Someone you've trusted to invest your money calls you up and says, great news, your profits are through the roof. Is there any way to make sure they're legit? Thankfully, yes. The first thing you need to do is ask for a prospectus. In case you're not familiar with trading, this is a document used in both stocks and commodities that provides details on investments.

It verifies that what's being traded is real and you're actually investing in something. And if Joe Hunt's investors had asked for this, they probably would have realized that these so-called profits were a bunch of baloney. But they didn't. Joe's plan worked perfectly. The May twins immediately invested an additional $150,000. After that, Steve Weiss put in another $15,000, and he also recommended Joe to his large network of family and friends. The billionaire boys club was officially off and running, but Joe was about to meet someone who would change his entire life. His name was Ron Levin and he would show Joe exactly what it meant to be a con man. can happen, like the deal on new running shoes squeal, the deal on a new blender squeal,

or the infamous deal on a new massager squeal. Save big on electronics, fashion, and more this Prime Big Deal Days, October 8th and 9th. In May of 1983, Joe Hunt was introduced to Ron Levin, one of Beverly Hills' most notorious con artists. But his latest venture seemed pretty legit, a video production service that captured grisly footage for news agencies. Ron was flush with cash, and Joe was determined to convince him to part with it. Joe spent the late spring and early summer of 1983 trying to woo Ron with the same promises of huge profits and minimal risk. And in late June, Ron agreed to have Joe manage a commodities account for him worth $5 million. Any profits Joe made would be split 50-50. This was Joe's big chance to prove himself as a commodities trader, but he totally blew it. By the beginning of August, the account was down to less than $500,000.

But suddenly, things started to change. Joe's aggressive investments with Ron's money began to pay off. And by mid-August, his account with Joe had ballooned to almost $14 million. Joe was looking at making $4 million for a couple of months of work. And it was coming just in time because Joe's other investments weren't doing so great. He had been investing at another firm with the money from the May Twins, Dean Carney and Ben Dosti, and a few other guys from the Billionaire Boys Club. Now those investments were completely underwater and the accounts were closed. They owed tens of thousands of dollars. He needed the money from Ron to cover their losses.

But in order to do that, he had to get the money from Ron Levin. And that was easier said than done. Ron repeatedly shrugged Joe off and promised that the money would come soon. Finally, he said he couldn't give Joe the money, but he offered him something better. Ron said he had invested the $14 million in a mall outside Chicago, which could give the billionaire boys club a piece of prime real estate. And for them, that was too good of a deal to pass up. Remember, this was the 80s when malls were a big deal. If they sat on this for a few years,

the profits would be unimaginable. But Joe didn't take Ron at his word. He asked him to see the title to the mall. To no one's surprise, Ron kept making excuses and wouldn't show it to him. Eventually, Joe got fed up with waiting and called the trader who had been running Ron's brokerage accounts in October of 1983. As they chatted, the trader asked when Joe found out that none of it had been real. The $5 million was fake, which meant that the $14 million wasn't real either. As for the mall, who knew? Joe pretended he had known the whole time, but he had no idea. And when he confronted Ron Levin about it, Ron fessed up.

He said that his trader thought it was for a documentary Ron was making about the commodities market. But in reality, he needed to drum up some fake statements in order to buy the shopping mall. And of course, he assured Joe that the deal was totally legit, and the stake he had promised the billionaire boys club was still theirs. Joe said he understood and he backed off. But inside, he was fuming. He suspected that the mall deal was fake too. And without that, the billionaire boys club was essentially bankrupt.

He pulled Dean aside and according to Dean, Joe said with a completely straight face, I am going to kill Ron Levin one day. Around this time, the club enlisted the services of a guy named Jim Graham to be their head of security. Joe liked having Jim around. Having a bodyguard gave him authority and power that he didn't have before. And Jim also had skills that no other billionaire boys club member had. Gun skills. And as it turns out, he came to LA to escape a felony charge in Virginia, and his real name was James Pittman. But Joe and the other guys didn't know all of that. Jim quickly became entrenched in their inner circle alongside Joe, Dean, and Ben. And Joe was back to losing money in the commodities market, which he kept a secret. So in early 1984, he sent out fake financial statements to his biggest investors.

So what does that mean exactly? If you're not familiar with the term, a financial statement is a document showing all of the financial ins and outs of a company, like how much income it generated versus how much money it spent or its amount of cash on hand. It helps investors determine a company's health and if it's worth putting money into. For the people investing with Joe Hunt, the financial statement would be a good way to see if he was actually living up to the promises he was making. If it was real, that is. Nowadays, it's pretty easy to check online if a financial statement is legit. But back in the early 1980s, it would require lots of phone calls and manual verifications. And if Joe's investors suspected the statements were fake, they didn't say anything or try to verify it. After all,

it looked like their profits continued to be robust, so why should they complain? For the moment, no one was questioning Joe, except his own lawyer, Jerry Eisenberg. In April of 1984, Jerry calculated the Billionaire Boys Club expenses, a staggering $70,000 a month. He was certain that Joe was using investment money to pay for their lavish lifestyles as opposed to actually making investments. Jerry let his suspicions slip to Jim Graham and another member named Steve Taglianetti. The next day, Joe called Jerry into a meeting.

He revealed a tape recording of Jerry's conversations with Jim and Steve. Turns out, Jim had secretly recorded the whole thing. It was clear that the club's secret struggles were getting to Joe. Ever since the fake trading account, he'd become desperate to get something out of Ron Levin, so he kept things friendly with Ron. But in conversations with Dean Carney, Joe was still talking about killing Ron. At first, Dean thought he was just blowing off steam, but things started to feel more serious. The plan was to plant the seed around the club's office that Ron was going to invest a large sum of money in one of the billionaire boys' club's businesses. Then, when the time was right, Joe would hold Ron at gunpoint and force him to write a massive check. And to escalate things further, Joe would kill him and make it look like Ron skipped town. The plan to kill Ron

was becoming more than just idle talk. Joe was becoming obsessed with guns and took some of the other club members on hunting trips. His favorite thing was to take them to a remote, secluded waterfall in nearby Soledad Canyon that no one else knew about. In early June of 1984, Joe came up with a multi-step plan for how he would convince Ron to sign the check. First, he would find an excuse to go over to Ron's house, where he'd claim that the mob was after him for some money. Then, Jim Graham, pretending to be from the mafia, would show up and hold Ron at gunpoint. Joe would promise him that as long as he signed the check for the money they were owed, that everything would be okay. And the finale would be the most sinister part, that they would kill Ron like they'd planned. Dean didn't know what to think of all of this. He certainly didn't like the idea of murder. But he felt like he was in too deep to stop Joe from going through with it.

Dean promised Joe that when the time came, he'd do whatever was needed to pull it off. That's it for today's episode. But before we go, I'm going to leave you with one final takeaway from today's story. Joe Hunt had a magic power. He could get people to blindly trust him. But when it comes to your money, it literally pays to have a healthy dose of skepticism. No matter how well you think you know your investment manager, you always need to know what they are doing with your money. This may seem like common sense, but if you thought you were making the same profits Joe was promising, it would be understandable if you looked the other way. After all, as the saying goes, what you don't know can't hurt you. But of course, that isn't true. And if you don't know where your money is going, you'll be sure to lose it.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Come back next time as I wrap up the story of the billionaire boys club and give you more tips on how to notice the red flags that their victims tragically couldn't. Money Crimes is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Join me every Thursday for a new episode. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on Instagram, at Crime House Studios on TikTok, and at Crime House Media on X. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Money Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes all the difference. Money Crimes is hosted by me,

Nicole Lappin, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. It is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Money Crimes was produced and directed by Ron Shapiro, written and developed by Alex Benidon, fact-checked by Claire Cronin, and included production assistance from Sarah Carroll.