‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort Now On The Lam From Debt Collectors
The real “Wolf of Wall Street,” Jordan Belfort, still owes much of the $110 million in restitution he was ordered to pay to his victims, but now he has another problem. A New York debt-collecting firm is hot on his trail for money he still owes on various purchases he made back in the era when he was raking in millions as a high-flying Wall Street criminal — the same period of his life portrayed in the recent Leonardo DiCaprio starring film, The Wolf of Wall Street.
The purchases date back to the go-go 1990s, when Belfort threw around cash like it was going out of style. But apparently even during his Wolf of Wall Street days, he managed to get away without paying everything he owed.
According to the scandal-stirring site TMZ, Belfort owes $27,597 on unspecified retail items he bought back when the Wolf of Wall Street was a self-confessed drug-and-sex addict, in addition to running the penny stock “pump and dump” scheme that preyed on middle class investors by offering seemingly affordable investments with promised big payoffs — but that usually turned out worthless.
The debt collecting firm LR Credit obtained a court judgement against the onetime Wolf of Wall Street for the unpaid retail bills. But the 51-year-old Belfort outwitted the collection firm by hiding out in California — in a $4 million oceanfront mansion in swanky Manhattan Beach.
Because the judgement was good only in New York, the credit firm had to go back to court. They company has now filed new papers to make the money collectable in California, where Belfort appears to be living the good life despite still owing roughy $100 million in restitution payments to the unwitting investors swindled by the Wolf of Wall Street.
When he was released from prison after just 22 months of a four-year sentence in 2006, Belfort still had a $110.4 million restitution order hanging over his head. But in the past eight years he has paid all of $11.6 million — a fact not covered in the Oscar-nominated Wolf of Wall Street film.
