Jordan Belfort is a man who has seen it all in his relatively young life. He lived through the good and the bad sides of life, although that was what was built later. During these events, he served time in prison for committing a crime against many people whose lives may never be the same. Nevertheless, he now lives a free man who has paid (and is still paying) for his wrongdoings and presents himself as a transformed man.
Although Mr. Belfort may have become famous for less pleasant things, that’s not all he has in his life and in this play we are going to explore another side of him. His family; wife and children, as well as telling you the story of the man called the “Wolf of Wall Street,” his net worth, and what led to his well-known arrest.
Who is Jordan Belfort?
On July 9, 1962, in the Bronx in New YorkCity, the wolf was born into a Jewish family and was named Jordan Ross Belfort. He grew up in Queens, New York, where he likely attended high school and graduated before continuing his education at American University. In college, he studied biology and graduated there. Jordan Belfort then enrolled in the University of Maryland School of Dentistry, where he hoped to train and qualify as a dentist. However, fate had a different plan for him as he soon left the institution after receiving discouraging words from the Dean telling him that “the golden age of dentistry was over”.
Being a business savvy person, the eventual author, motivational speaker, and now former stockbroker, began his sales career in Long Island, New York as a seafood salesman in the early 80s. the revelations he allegedly made, Jordan reportedly said that the business was very successful at the time, as he had a few employees with whom he sold around 2,300 kg of goods per week. However, a time came when things started to go further south for the company, as he soon filed for bankruptcy and closed the establishment.
Still armed with his major know-how (sales), the former entrepreneur started working at LF Rothschild as a trainee broker. Shortly after his engagement, the firm fired him due to financial difficulties they were experiencing at the time. Nevertheless, before his disengagement, he had learned enough to found his own investment company, Stratton Oakmont, in 1989 with his friend Danny Porush.
Behind what the firm was known to be in the public domain consisted of a shady pump and seesaw structure that involved inflating the prices of owned shares and forcing them on unsuspecting investors with positive but misleading statements. These investors often ended up buying the shares at higher prices, but soon after lost their money once the system operators had dumped/sold their overvalued shares. Because of this and other fraudulent activities by Stratton Oakmont, the company and its main operators (Jordan Belfort and others) were constantly under the radar of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (formerly the National Association of Investment Dealers Securities – NASD).
Following investigations by the NASD and the hard evidence they had, the Jordanian online brokerage came crashing down in the air as the authorities assaulted it.
What led to his arrest?
Stratton Oakmont, Inc. At this time, more than 1,000 stockbrokers with which he issued shares totaling up to $1 billion in the late 80s were established. When NASD shut down, it kicked out the company in 1996, which ultimately led to the arrest of Jordan Belfort. He was charged with securities fraud and money laundering in 1999, following which he served 22 months in prison (at Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, California). He did not serve until the usual 4 years, having agreed to plead with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to testify against other operators and senior subordinates of their fraudulent penny stocks firm.
While in prison, he was ordered to pay a total of $110 million in restitution for his crimes. After paying a total of $701,709 from 2007 to 2009, he negotiated a restitution plan with the United States government to pay him $10,000 a month for life. In addition to that, he claimed that profits from his public speaking and media royalties were also included in the restitution.
Net value
Jordan Belfort in his time as co-founder Stratton Oakmont, Inc. led a lavish lifestyle characterized by fancy parties and drug addiction. The money needed to maintain such an extravagant life came entirely from the fraudulent profits of his business. In total, his net worth was estimated to be around $100 million.
Since his release from prison where he met Tommy Chong (prison mate), his life has changed and he now talks about motivation. Jordan is also the author of the memoir The Wolf of Wall Street which was published in 2007 and adapted into a film in 2013. His first book which describes his rise and fall as a stockbroker was followed by the second Catching the Wolf of Wall Street (published 2009) which depicts events in his life after his arrest.
Both books sold well and earned a lot of profit. However, Belfort did not stand to gain, as he still owed thousands of Americans who had invested in his smokescreen brokerage.
Family: wife and children
Jordan Belfort was previously married to DeniseLombardo but they divorced after which he married Nadine Caridi. Their union, formalized in 1981 in the Caribbean, allowed the birth of two children; a daughter named Chandler and her brother named Carter.
The marriage between the pair turned out to be one that won’t last until death tells them the way as they soon went their separate ways following Cardi’s claim that Jordan was physically abusing her. The two separated in 2005 and have remained so ever since.