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- <text id=89TT1776>
- <title>
- July 10, 1989: A Raider's Days Of Reckoning
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- July 10, 1989 You Bet Your Life:Pete Rose
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 45
- A Raider's Days Of Reckoning
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Nearly everybody wants a crack at Paul Bilzerian
- </p>
- <p> Just when corporate raider Paul Bilzerian seems to have hit
- rock bottom, his fall from grace goes even farther. Last month
- Bilzerian, 39, was convicted by a Manhattan jury on nine counts
- of securities fraud, which carry a potential 45-year prison
- sentence and $2.25 million in fines. Then last week the
- Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit
- accusing him of illegal stock transactions involving seven
- companies, including his 1988 takeover of Singer. The charges
- range from lying to the SEC about how he financed his raids to
- trying to hide the number of shares he owned. In its suit, the
- SEC asks for repayment of more than $31 million in allegedly
- illegal profits. While denying the new charges, Bilzerian last
- week resigned as chairman of Singer, a post he had held for just
- 18 months.
- </p>
- <p> The SEC accuses four of Bilzerian's associates of helping
- him conceal his financial dealings. Three of them, including
- shopping-mall magnate Edward DeBartolo Sr. of Youngstown, Ohio,
- have already settled without admitting guilt.
- </p>
- <p> Bilzerian is leaving Singer, a defense contractor that
- manufactures weapons-control systems, in poor financial shape.
- To pay off more than $1 billion he borrowed to acquire the
- company, Bilzerian sold eight of the company's twelve divisions.
- A group of 9,000 retirees has filed a $235 million lawsuit
- against the company, accusing Bilzerian of plundering Singer's
- pension plan. The U.S. Government is suing the company for
- defense-contract fraud, seeking $231 million in damages.
- </p>
- <p> None of that has slowed construction on Bilzerian's new
- eleven-bedroom, 21-bath house in an exclusive suburb north of
- Tampa. Expected to cost as much as $10 million, the
- 36,866-sq.-ft. home will include a basketball court complete
- with bleachers and electronic scoreboards.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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