Lock 'Em Up

Welcome to the Business Blunders Hall of Shame commemorating top business leaders convicted of felonies

A lot of kids learn their first business lessons playing Monopoly.

They throw dice, slide game pieces and buy properties. They pay rent, fees, fines and taxes as they go. Inevitably, they land in jail.

This may not seem right to a child. They may know business people from their schools, neighborhoods and places of worship. They may know that business people create jobs, fund charities and support communities. Who would put them in jail?

Wherever there’s a big pot of money, there’s someone in a suit trying to pinch it. (Illustration credit: AI Generated .)

But the Monopoly game, which dates back to 1902, isn’t cynical. Every business is a potential honeypot for criminals. And business leaders who may once have been respected as pillars of their communities can indeed end up in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits.

Welcome to the Business Blunders Hall of Shame

White-collar felons offer cautionary tales for investors, lenders, customers, employees and other stake holders.

They provide object lessons for anyone tempted to cut corners too sharply. And they stand as nauseating examples of just how crooked our economic system can be without adequate controls.

Read about them in the Business Blunders Hall of Shame.

Some of these names you’ll remember, some you may have long forgotten, some you may have never heard about. Have a laugh or a cringe at the follies.

For these folks, there was never any “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

---

Business Blunders maintains awareness of the follies that plague America’s financial system. Please help make the business world a more honest, less reckless, less authoritarian place by:

• Liking and commenting on posts, which boosts the Substack algorithm.

• Sharing this newsletter with friends and associates.

• Subscribing. Free or paid, I’m so glad you’re here.

---

Accepting nominations

The Business Blunders Hall of Shame considers white-collar offenders large and small, famous and obscure, past and present. It is an ongoing effort with new inductees added sporadically, so check back for updates.

Leave your nominations in the comments section:

To qualify, past and present inductees must have:

• Been convicted of a felony.

• Displayed astonishing greed, stupidity, recklessness, hypocrisy or abhorrent behavior.

• Left a trail of tears.

---

Inductees

Here’s a list of who has been included so far. Paid subscribers can skip to an inductee by name using these links below, or keep scrolling to tour the entire ignominious assembly.

• Antar, Eddie - Crazy Eddie

• Bankman-Fried, Sam – FTX

• Belfort, Jordan – Stratton Oakmont

• Blinder, Meyer – Blinder & Robinson

• Boesky, Ivan – Wall Street trader

• Ebbers, Bernie – Worldcom

• Farnsworth, Ted – MoviePass

• Gupta, Rajat – Goldman Sachs

• Helmsely, Leona – Helmsley hotels

• Holmes, Elizabeth – Theranos

• Keating, Charles – Lincoln Savings & Loan

• Kirchner, Chris - Slync

• Kozlowski, Dennis - Tyco

• Lay, Ken – Enron

• Madoff, Bernie – Madoff Securities

• Milken, Michael – Drexel, Burnham, Lambert

• Minkow, Barry – ZZZZ Best

• Nacchio, Joe – Qwest

• Ponzi, Charles – Boston swindler

• Rajaratnam, Raj – Galleon Group

• Rigas, John – Adelphia Communications

• Scrushy, Richard – HealthSouth

• Skilling, Jeffrey – Enron

• Stewart, Martha – Martha Stewart Living

• Waksal, Sam – ImClone Systems

• Watson, Carlos – Ozy Media

• Wiles, Q.T. – Miniscribe

• Wise, Michael – Silverado Savings and Loan

---

Don’t Miss These Blunders

• Blowing A Fartcoin Are meme coins heralding the next market crash?

• Billionaires Are Destroying Everything, And They Know It The World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Risks Report is a roadmap for the devastation to come

• Chicken Soup For The Soulless This Week In Blunders – Jan. 12-18

• Can Musk Single-Handedly Capture A Regulator? A relatively petty case against the multibillionaire may signal who is really running the country

• You Can Plunder, Too Private Equity firms want average Americans to join in the looting

• Florida Man Goes To The Movies This Week In Blunders – Jan. 5-11

• Bigots Fly Free United Airlines may be under fire for its diversity efforts, but it just settled a nasty racial discrimination case

• Lock ‘Em Up Welcome to the Business Blunders Hall of Shame commemorating top business leaders convicted of felonies

• Tip Your Banker? This Week in Blunders – Dec. 29 - Jan. 4

• Unshackling Ponzi Perps It’s a bad idea to let convicted swindlers go free. Biden just gave clemency to a slew of them

• Married To Madoff Victims of a fraud that regulators missed decades ago are finally getting most of their money back

• MAGA Mad About Musk This Week in Blunders – Dec. 22-28

• Biggest Business Blunders of 2024 It was an ignominious year for economic forecasters, CrowdStrike, Boeing, FTX, Mattel, Truth Social, Red Lobster, Fisker, Spirit Airlines, TicketMaster and the dumbest bank embezzler in history

• Go To Zelle This Week in Blunders – Dec. 15-21

• Basketball Jones Former Harlem Globetrotter and NC State point guard gets seven years for a Covid-19 loan scam

• Sorry About That Opiod Thing This Week In Blunders – Dec. 8-14

• Spoiled, Rotten Day Trader Ian G. Bell touted a wealthy background to allegedly dupe investors in his money-losing investment scheme

• Shot In The Back Did maddening back pain drive Luigi Mangione to murder UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson?

• The Killionaire Here's why the man who gunned down UnitedHealthcare's CEO became an instant folk hero

• Enron Was A Parody Of Itself Here's where CEO Ken Lay ate before he died