On March 10, 2011, Alvin E. Entin, Esquire, counsel to one Barry Minkow, filed with a Florida court a “Motion to Withdraw” as Barry Minkow’s lawyer. Mr. Entin was (unusually for a lawyer) closed-mouth about his reasons, saying only that he and Barry Minkow had reached “irreconcilable differences.” Here is Alvin Entin’s Motion to Withdraw. [...]

The sounds of squealing could be heard over the low hum of the air recirculation machinery in the drab, windowless federal interview room.  “Please!” Sam Antar wimpered. “Let me write one more smear. Let me feel like I’m a player, one last time!” The federal agent spoke sharply: “Silence!”  She turned to look at her [...]

In the summer of 2006  Whitney Tilson took me to lunch, and invited me to speak at his then-upcoming 2nd Annual Value Investing Congress on November 9 – 10, 2006. Here is Whitney’s original announcement: World’s Most Influential Value Investors to Gather This November in New York City The 2nd Annual New York Value Investing [...]

“Minkow’s manipulation of the market … caused a severe drop in the stock prices of a large local corporation. This type of deceit and abuse of trust will not be tolerated… we will investigate and prosecute stock manipulation cases to help protect the integrity of our capital markets…When false statements are disseminated to deceive the [...]

An email Sam Antar sent on May, 2010 puked out of my junk email folder today.  Note that besides addressing it to me,  the board of directors of Overstock,  Overstock’s president Jonathan Johnson,  and our colleague Kevin Moon (who counts IR among his many duties), Sam addressed it to various staff members of the SEC [...]

Barry Minkow spent last week in plea negotiations regarding a federal indictment on which he is hoping to receive only 5 years, says his lawyer. (LA Weekly: Barry Minkow to plead guilty to insider trading).  In December, 2010, a Florida judge threw her proverbial book at Barry Minkow, and it glanced off Sam Antar, who [...]

David Einhorn would have you believe that he is brave crusader against corporate malfeasance. The truth is, he’s a fraud who did serious damage to the markets.

(return to The Story of Deep Capture, Part 2) But America’s leading financial journalists have been busy. In January 2006, just days after The Wall Street Journal’s glowing profile of David Rocker, Tim Mullaney of BusinessWeek emails Patrick with a list of “Just admit it – you slit your girlfriend’s throat” style questions provided to [...]

(return to The Story of Deep Capture, Part 1) It is also important to recognize the role of The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), an organization headquartered in New York City. DTCC is where stock trades are processed — more than $1.5 quadrillion worth of them every year. That’s 30 times larger than the [...]

As will be explored in a subsequent piece, it would be fair to describe my relationship with Bethany McLean of Fortune as “strained”. However, it is not unusual for her to write or call me seeking comment, generally regarding spurious allegations fed her by crony hedge funds which she dutifully regurgitates on command, and sometimes [...]