Stewart - Den of Thieves

Reviewers Praise for Den of Thieves:

A must read.... There is intrigue, suspense, mystery, crime, penance and repentance. Careers rise and fall. The players are fascinating.... James Stewart recounts much that we need to know.

New York Law Journal

Presents in one eye-opening saga what the multitudes of news reports only could hint.

St. Petersburg Times

As good a book on Wall Street as I have ever read.... It is a fine, spicy tale. But to stop at that is to miss the books importance: it at long last gives us a full and true record of systemic criminal behavior in the financial markets.

Michael Thomas, The New York Times

Packed with scenes of high drama, the narrative often moves at breakneck speed... a wealth of fascinating minutiae .

Business Week

Fascinating... the most damning evidence yet compiled about why there will be no heroes among the 80s moneymen... a masterpiece... will stand as the definitive history of the financial depredations of the decade... a work of reportage verging on history.

The New Republic

A rollicking account of the insider trading and market manipulation scandals of the 1980s.

Los Angeles Times

Stewarts tale is like a novel you cant put down but wish would end because it is so disturbing... Its a story of the decadea revealing, disturbing tale of what can happen when greed runs rampant.

The Seattle Times

A fascinating account of the financial scandals that culminated in 1990.... Blends narration and exposition so that we can follow the intricacies of finance and financial law without effort.

The New Yorker

As The Wall Street Journal reporter who covered the story, Stewart was uniquely situated to write this book, which will doubtless become the standard work. He gained an extraordinary grasp of the names, events and mind-numbing complexities.

The Houston Post

The definitive account of the insider-trading scandal.

Chicago Tribune

[Stewart] delivers the collection of oddballs, dirtbags, and greed-heads with a sturdy moral sense, always sensitive to the ambiguities of the events he describes.

Fortune

Den of Thieves is the best book so far on the Whoring Eighties.

Newsweek

Battling through shrouds of secrecy, Mr. Stewart has done a masterful job of linking together the chief players in this lurid drama.

The Economist

If you doubt the culpability of this crew, get thee to a bookstore. Stewarts exhaustive research proves that Levine, Siegel, Boesky, Milken and a busload of their colleagues were nothing more than high-priced thieves.

The Miami Herald

Contents

FOR JANE, MY SISTER;

MICHAEL, MY BROTHER;

AND FOR KATE

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.

And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

MATTHEW 21:12-13

King James Edition

Cast of Characters

As crime on Wall Street neared its climax, late 1985.

AT KIDDER, PEABODY & Co., New York

Martin Siegel, investment banker

Ralph DeNunzio, chief executive

Al Gordon, chairman

John T. Roche, president

Robert Krantz, counsel

Richard Wigton, head of arbitrage

Timothy Tabor, arbitrageur

Peter Goodson, head of M&A

John Gordon, investment banker

Hal Ritch, investment banker

AT IVAN F. BOESKY CORPORATION, New York

Ivan F. Boesky, arbitrageur

Stephen Conway, investment banker

Lance Lessman, head of research

Michael Davidoff, head trader

Reid Nagle, chief financial officer

Setrag Mooradian, chief accountant

AT DREXEL BURNHAM LAMBERT INC., Beverly Hills

Michael R. Milken, head of high-yield securities

Lowell Milken, lawyer

Richard Sandler, lawyer

James Dahl, salesman

Gary Winnick, salesman

Warren Trepp, head trader

Terren Peizer, trader

Cary Maultasch, trader

Bruce Newberg, trader

Charles Thurnher, accountant

Lorraine Spurge, administrator

Lisa Ann Jones, trading assistant

AT DREXEL BURNHAM LAMBERT INC., New York

Dennis B. Levine, investment banker

Fred Joseph, chief executive

Donald Engel, consultant

Stephen Weinroth, investment banker

David Kay, co-head of M&A

Leon Black, co-head of M&A

AT GOLDMAN, SACHS & CO., New York

Robert Freeman, head of arbitrage

Robert Rubin, future co-chief executive

Frank Brosens, arbitrageur

David Brown, investment banker

AT LAZARD FRRES, New York

Robert Wilkis, investment banker

Randall Cecola, analyst

Felix Rohatyn, investment banker

AT SHEARSON LEHMAN BROTHERS, New York

Ira Sokolow, investment banker

J. Tomilson Hill III, co-head of M&A

Steve Waters, co-head of M&A

Peter Solomon, investment banker

AT BANK LEU, Nassau, the Bahamas

Bernhard Meier, banker

Bruno Pletscher, banker

AT MERRILL LYNCH & CO., New York

Stephen Hammerman, general counsel

Richard Drew, vice president, compliance

Major investors

Carl Icahn, corporate raider and future chairman of TWA

John Mulheren, head of Jamie Securities

Henry Kravis, principal, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Inc.

AT WACHTELL, LIPTON, ROSEN & KATZ, New York (counsel for Goldman, Sachs)

Martin Lipton, partner

Ilan Reich, partner

Lawrence Pedowitz, partner

AT PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON, New York (counsel for Michael Milken and Dennis Levine)

Arthur Liman, partner

Martin Flumenbaum, partner

AT WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY, Washington, D.C. (counsel for Michael Milken)

Edward Bennett Williams, partner

Robert Litt, partner

AT CAHILL, GORDON & REINDEL, New York (counsel for Drexel Burnham)

Irwin Schneiderman, partner

Thomas Curnin, partner

AT FRIED, FRANK, HARRIS, SHRIVER & JACOBSON, New York and Washington (counsel for Boesky)

Harvey Pitt, partner

Leon Silverman, partner

AT MUDGE ROSE GUTHRIE ALEXANDER & FERDON, New York (counsel for Siegel; later at Fried Frank)

Jed Rakoff, partner

Audrey Strauss, partner

AT ROBINSON, LAKE, LERER & MONTGOMERY, New York (public relations advisors for Michael Milken)

Linda Robinson, partner

Kenneth Lerer, partner

AT THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS OFFICE, New York

Rudolph Giuliani, U.S. attorney

Benito Romano, deputy to Giuliani, future U.S. attorney

Charles Carberry, assistant U.S. attorney, future head of fraud unit

Bruce Baird, assistant U.S. attorney, future head of fraud unit

John Carroll, assistant U.S. attorney

Jess Fardella, assistant U.S. attorney

AT THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, Washington, D.C.

John Shad, chairman

Gary Lynch, chief of enforcement

John Sturc, assistant chief of enforcement

Leo Wang, attorney

Peter Sonnenthal, attorney

Prologue

Martin A. Siegel hurried through Washington, D.C.s, National Airport and slipped into a phone booth near the Eastern shuttle gates. For years now, phone booths, often at airports, had served as his de facto offices. He complained often about his long hours and frequent absences from his wife and three children, but the truth was that he thrived on his pressure-filled life as one of the countrys leading investment bankers.

May 12, 1986, had begun much like any other day. He had flown that morning from New York to Washington to visit a major client, Martin Marietta, one of the countrys leading defense contractors. A few years earlier, he had helped Marietta fend off a hostile takeover bid from Bendix Corporation, and the deal had launched Siegels star. He became one of the countrys most sought-after takeover strategists.