Editing Is Jordan Belfort Really A "Wolf"?

The tales of what's wrong with Wall Street, and how to fix it, is incomplete without mentioning Jordan Belfort, a motivational speaker who lived a flashy lifestyle in the early 1990s and was convicted of fraud as the world welcomed the second millennium. 

Born in July, 1962, Jordan Belfort was the son of Max and Leah Belfort---Jewish accountants living in the Bronx and later Long Island. Max Belfort was a major influence in Jordan's life, even going on to become the CEO of one of the most successful, grand and eventually fraudulent Wall Street brokerage firms, Stratton Oakmont. While 'Mad' Max Belfort was at the helm of the firm, Leah Belfort moved away from being an accountant and established herself as a lawyer.

Before he quit college to create his wealth, Jordan Belfort was studying to be a dentist. After working as a salesman for several years, Jordan Belfort started a profitable yet somewhat illegal business of brokering in penny stocks. As the business expanded, he established Stratton Oakmont, a boiler room firm that defrauded investors of more than 200 million dollars. Stratton Oakmont perfected the art of selling huge amounts of penny stocks to unsuspecting buyers, inflating their prices and selling them at a huge profit margin -- in what is known as 'pump and dump' schemes -- raking up over 50 million per year for himself. Mr. Belfort is considered by finance executives and analysts to be the artificer of the modern Ponzi scheme. At one time, Stratton Oakmont had a staff of over one thousand brokers handling over a billion dollars worth of stocks.

The illegal conglomerate of Jordan Belfort soon appeared on the radar of FBI's Financial Crimes Unit as well as the office of Alabama's Securities Commissioner. After being charged and convicted for white-collar law-breaking, Bertfort spent close to two years in a Federal prison for the criminal acts of securities fraud and money laundering. While in prison, Belfort wrote a manuscript that would later become a 2008 bestseller titled 'The Wolf of Wall Street' followed by the sequel 'Catching the Wolf of Wall Street'. In addition to Federal prison time, Belfort was ordered to pay back over 110 million dollars that were obtained fraudulently. As of 2013, Belfort, has been accused of being delayed in paying back the money he obtained fraudulently and some people claim that he is seeking relief from the ruling that ordered him to pay back half of what he stole from investors.

Nowadays, Jordan has somewhat patched his tarnished reputation, and has now made a name for himself as a motivational speaker and a consultant. He has written widely on corporate morals and his essays and articles have been published in many American and international magazines and newspapers. Jordan's firm Straight Line now educates corporate executives about how to employ high-return sales tactics in an ethical way. He has also been present as a speaker at many CXO-level seminars and conferences around the world. Leonardo DiCaprio has portrayed Jordan in the 2013 biopic, 'The Wolf of Wall Street', a film based on Jordan's life story. [http://www.wolfofwallstreetbook.com/the-wolf-of-wall-street-book-review-is-the-wolf-of-wall-street-book-any-good The Wolf Of Wall Street book review]