Faking It in America: Barry Minkow and the Great Zzzz Best Scam

Only in the acquisitive 1980s could a business scam such as 22-year-old Minkow's succeed, asserts Domanick, who covered the story for Los Angeles magazine. The author's carefully researched, grudgingly admiring account is enlivened with vivid sketches of Minkow's fellow con men and those they deceived. Domanick adroitly disentangles the complex web spun by Minkow, the brazenly confident, persuasive Los Angeleno who founded a rug-cleaning and restoration company which he parlayed illegally into a multimillion-dollar business, drumming up loans and support from major Wall Street investment bankers and underwriters, accounting and legal firms and a public relations company--and wooing the media with his plush offices and glamorous personal aura. Minkow's caper ended when a Los Angeles Times story and subsequent revelations exposed him, leading to a trial where his lawyers' attempt to portray him as a mob ``puppet'' failed and he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)