In 1986 at age 21, Barry Minkow was the youngest person ever to take a company public in the stock market. But his ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning Company in Los Angeles, California, was mostly funded by a $100 million Ponzi fraud scheme, and the company collapsed in 1987. Minkow was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In 1995 he was released after a jailhouse conversion to Christianity, and he became a pastor at the San Diego Community Bible Church. On the side, Minkow helped the FBI investigate fraud schemes — and profited by shorting the stock of the companies being investigated just before the reports come out. He has been sentenced to five years in prison for that scheme.
Meanwhile, Minkow has also pleaded guilty to embezzling $3 million from his church, at least some of which went to fund his fraud investigations. Minkow, now 46, has not fully paid the ordered restitution for his original scam; he has been ordered to pay $580 million more in the stock fraud.
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Press of Atlantic City
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #31147]