
136
The Ten Roads to Riches
As a
Lehman
Brothers branch manager
m Cleveland, Gruttadauria basically ran a
Ponzi scheme, targeting mostly elderly cli-
ent
s. Clients deposited money
that
he trans-
ferred to accounts
under
fictitious names
-for
15 years! Clients
never knew because
Frank
doctored fake statements, inflating
account values.
Who
complains when statements show huge growth
and no losses?
When
clients wanted withdrawals,
Frank
wrote
checks from
other
clients' accounts. Meanwhile,
Frank
enjoyed
country clubs, a ski condo, a private jet, and a mistress
.P
The
Internet
Age did
Frank
in.
He
told elderly clients
Lehman
had no online access.
One
relatively
Web
-savvy grandma won-
dered why
her
account wasn't being impacted by the tech crash .i"
She led clients in an online charge and they found their accounts
empty-despite
mont
hly statements showing, in some cases, mil-
lions. Because
Frank
had faked documents for so long it was hard to
know how
much
he stole
-investigators
estimate at least $40 mil-
lion from 50 different clients. But because
of
the doctored returns,
clients believed they lost much more.
27
He's now serving seven
years.
28
Orange
ain't beautiful.
Seriously.
Don't
break
the
law.
LOVE
CAPITALISM,
NOT
SOCIAL
ACCEPTANCE
Warning
:
Th
is road can make you
unpopu
lar. Sensational stories
like Vilar and Gruttadauria are fortunately exceptions
-but
their
existence is a reason this road's big bucks make it a
hot
Hollywood
target, proliferating the bad-guy