狂野派对之后的惊天大案│一位华尔街大佬的欺诈人生

华尔街的故事往往情节惊险刺激，吊起围观群众的胃口。今夏又有新案例：7月初汉普顿宅邸开了一场“疯狂”派对。《纽约邮报》是这么描述的，“派对上满是香槟，几十个穿着暴露的女郎穿梭其间，还有穿戏服别着枪的侏儒，”参加这场饮酒狂欢，又称为 “喝酒马拉松”派对的多达上千人，据称派对结束后一座价值2000万美元的豪宅被折腾得一塌糊涂。豪宅主人非常愤怒，《纽约邮报》并未提及此人姓名，但称他计划提起诉讼，要求赔偿100万美元。

这场派对搅动了国内外媒体圈，从《名利场》到彭博通讯社再到英国电讯报都上了头条，舆论纷纷指责派对主持人布雷特·巴纳（Brett Bana）。事件后又爆出很多料，两个星期后《纽约时报》也正式介入，发表了一篇从巴纳角度出发的事件描述，并指出派对宅邸的主人是奥马尔·阿马纳（Omar Amanat）。

Tales of Wall Street excess reliably outrage—and titillate—readers. This summer’s exemplar so far: a “wild” Hamptons party earlier this month. “Awash,” as the New York Post put it, “with champagne, scores of bikini-clad women and costumed gun-toting midgets,” 1,000 boisterous attendees of a bacchanal known as “Sprayathon” allegedly “wrecked a $20 million mansion.” The mansion’s furious owner, who the Post didn’t name, was reportedly planning to file a $1 million suit.

The party generated headlines in publications ranging from Vanity Fair to Bloomberg to U.K.’s the Telegraph and resulted in the firing of a Moore Capital hedge fund trader, Brett Barna, who hosted the affair. The story had enough legs that the New York Times published an article two weeks later offering Barna’s side of the imbroglio and identifying the owner of the party house as Omar Amanat.

对《财富》杂志的读者来说，阿马纳这个名字应该不陌生，他的经历比汉普顿豪宅夜宴来劲多了。上一次他出现在媒体的视野里还是2014年9月，彼时他正与俄罗斯房地产大亨弗拉迪斯拉夫·多洛宁（Vladislav Doronin）就超豪华酒店连锁安缦（Aman）酒店的归属打得不可开交。二人联合买下安缦酒店后，没几个星期就一拍两散。后续各种纠纷倒是养肥了三个国家马不停蹄上法庭的律师。

2016年7月13日的清早6点。联邦探员闯入阿马纳租住的房子将他逮捕，他的住处位于新泽西州肖特山，价值475万美元。第二天，一位联邦法官宣布陪审团指控，称阿马纳涉汇款诈骗、协助并教唆投资顾问欺诈，以及合谋实施证券诈骗等。根据指控书，阿马纳曾协助一家投资公司掩盖亏损，还帮一家已破产的视频科技公司Kit Digital哄抬股价。在一份新闻稿中，美国律师普利特·巴拉拉指控阿马纳“多年来靠谎言和诡计骗取了投资者上亿美元”。

阿马纳被捕后，不少人幸灾乐祸。多洛宁在一份发给《财富》的声明中称，“阿马纳的过往终于要公诸于世了，挺不错。我吃惊的只是，居然要等这么长时间。”因内幕交易要坐15个月牢的迈克尔·基梅尔曼发了一条推特称，“随便扔只猫都能砸到他的债主：奥马尔·阿马纳根本没钱保释，骗子这下遭报应了。”

阿马纳辩称无罪，在一家联邦惩戒中心呆了6天便被释放了，保释金250万美元。联邦法官发现阿马纳“很有可能潜逃”，所以勒令他交出护照，并且限制旅行，还命令他随身携带电子跟踪设备。（《财富》杂志曾发邮件列出一系列问题发给阿马纳的律师们和他本人，但律师并无回应。《财富》杂志也曾联系之前阿马纳的媒体联络人，但他们都表示如今已不为他工作。）

说说阿马纳其人，此前他属于颇具文艺气息的企业家，随口就能引用鲁米的诗，还身兼电影制片人，投资领域包括媒体、金融和科技行业，然而法庭起诉书仿若当众一棒击落所有伪装。他习惯了全球到处飞，谈大生意，时而在创新者和行业颠覆者的新闻中出现，跟各色名人超模（其中一位超模叫海伦娜·乌杜娃，是他的第二任妻子）谈笑风生。阿马纳曾经吹嘘说29岁时就体验到“各种成功”的感觉，还号称自己被评为华尔街“十大最有影响力的技术专家之一”。15年后的今天，他面临的或是牢狱之灾。

Amanat’s name may be familiar to readers of Fortune—and his tale is far wilder than the goings-on at a Hampton’s party mansion. When he last appeared in the publication, it was September 2014 and Amanat was embroiled in a bitter and colorful fight with Russian property mogul Vladislav Doronin over the ownership of the ultra-luxury hotel chain Aman Resorts. Within weeks of joining forces to buy the chain, the pair’s business partnership had shattered in spectacular fashion. The resulting conflict necessitated a small population of lawyers, spanning courtrooms in three countries.

Fast-forward to July 13, 2016. At 6:00 AM, federal agents arrested Amanat at the $4.75 million home he was renting in Short Hills, N.J. The following day, a federal judge unsealed a grand jury indictment. It charged Amanat with wire fraud, aiding and abetting investment adviser fraud, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. According to the indictment, Amanat helped an investment firm hide losses, and helped inflate the value of shares of Kit Digital, a bankrupt video technology company. In a press release, U.S. attorney Preet Bharara charged that Amanat cheated investors “of millions of dollars through years of lies and deceit.”

Amanat’s arrest triggered considerable schadenfreude. “It is very satisfying to see that Omar Amanat’s chequered past is catching up with him, although I am surprised it has taken this long,” Doronin said in a statement to Fortune. Michael Kimelman, who served 15 months for insider trading, tweeted: “I could swing a cat & hit half a dozen people he owes money: Omar Amanat can’t afford to make bail #conman #karma.”

Amanat has pleaded not guilty and, after sitting in a federal correctional center for six days, he was released on $2.5 million bail. Finding there was a “significant risk of flight here,” a judge ordered Amanat to surrender his passport, restricted his travel, and ordered him to wear an electronic monitoring device. (Amanat’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions emailed to them and to Amanat. Fortune also contacted the press representatives for Amanat in the past, but they said they no longer represent him.)

For Amanat, a Rumi-quoting entrepreneur, film producer, and investor in media, finance, and technology, his indictment was a humiliating public bludgeoning. He is accustomed to gallivanting around the globe, talking big deals, dropping the names of headline-making movers and shakers, and rubbing elbows with celebrities and supermodels (one of whom, Helena Houdova, was his second wife). Amanat was someone who boasted that at age 29, he had “already experienced a heady amount of worldly success” and touted that he had been named one of Wall Street’s “Top Ten Most Influential Technologists.” Now, a decade and a half later, he is facing possible prison time.

就在阿马纳以诈骗罪名被起诉一周前，有关派对豪宅的故事传得沸沸扬扬。正如巴纳告诉《财富》的一样，这件事的开头其实很单纯。他想租个地方办场慈善宴会，一个经纪人就介绍他找阿马纳，因为阿马纳在新泽西州肖特山有套豪宅出租（实际上只是靠近汉普顿，并不在汉普顿）。巴纳说阿马纳自称人脉超广又多金的企业家，但据巴纳的描述他仿佛“非常缺钱”。巴纳明确表示阿马纳开价25000美元现金出租5天（其实据房产证明，这栋房子并不属于阿马纳！）。巴纳告诉阿马纳身上没那么多现金，希望能通过Airbnb用信用卡支付。巴纳称，谈判过程中阿马纳要求他找个自动柜员机先取出4000美元现金垫上。

他表示，最后双方同意巴纳在Airbnb上用美国运通卡支付。巴纳还补充道，后来阿马纳开了辆宾利去房子里跟他见面。“事后看，这（阿马纳并不住在房子里）明显是个危险信号。”巴纳说。

情况立即变糟。巴纳说花27000美元租的房子（包括押金）里竟然有别人在住。他只好跟租客商量在后院办慈善活动。阿马纳还向他提出了一系列需求，包括慈善活动的收入分成。

派对结束后两人关系进一步恶化。巴纳透露，阿马纳更说房屋受损，如果得不到赔偿就威胁他。他还说，阿马纳发给过他一条信息（发送人的手机号与之前阿马纳向《财富》提供的号码一致），内容是：

“哪天晚上你毫无防备的时候，没准会倒大霉（也许是因果报应，也说不准我哪个朋友听说这事帮我出头），我自己不会把你怎么样。”

7月6号，《纽约邮报》报道了这场派对。文章称房主要求巴纳赔偿100万美元修房子，还要告他。第二天Moore Capital公司就炒了巴纳。后来巴纳一边报警称阿马纳威胁他，一边找媒体解释自己的遭遇。虽然巴纳的说辞基本上是对阿马纳的攻击，不过有一个人基本证实了他的话，就是本事件所涉及的大宅的前任物业经理理查德·布莱克。布莱克表示，找阿马纳收费经常碰钉子，最后只能放弃。“我入行30年，从来没见过他这么难缠的，”布莱克说，他还表示阿马纳为了钱，“骗人勒索什么都能干出来”。

现在的联邦法院的起诉书是个更有力的证明。起诉书称，阿马纳协助顾问公司梅登资本的老板史蒂芬·梅登（Stephen Maiden）欺诈投资者：“2009年2月左右至2012年6月左右，阿马纳伙同梅登等人设计并实施了一出骗局，向梅登资本的客户隐瞒了一件事实：客户在投资工具Enable上的投资已经血本无归，而Enable正是阿马纳的融资渠道（融资理由中有部分存在虚假陈述和误导）。”起诉书还称，“为了维系这一骗局，梅登在阿马纳知情和许可的情况下，炮制了虚假的客户账户报表，不披露Enable亏损的事实。此外，阿马纳还曾向梅登资本的银行账户汇入数十万美元，应付客户的赎回请求，以继续向梅登资本的投资者隐瞒Enable亏损的秘密。”

7月1日，梅登承认合谋实施证券和汇款诈骗；阿马纳涉嫌炒高股价的Kit Digital公司的前首席财务官也承认有罪。7月14日，Kit Digital前首席执行官卡雷尔·伊萨·图兹曼从哥伦比亚被引渡回美国，2015年9月他就已被哥伦比亚警方控制，面临的指控是操纵市场和做假账。他辩称无罪。检方称此案还有个名叫瑞玛·杰米的律师一同被指控，不过仍然在逃。阿马纳也于7月16日被捕。

《财富》杂志2014年的文章曾经介绍阿马纳与多洛宁如何争夺安缦酒店。事情的开端是，阿马纳去伦敦最高法院状告多洛宁违反合同。多洛宁则辩称阿马纳编织了一个巧妙的谎言。多洛宁在一份法律文件中称阿马纳不仅隐瞒了自己的财务状况，还阴险地用多洛宁的钱为酒店收购中自己应付的3.58亿美元买单。此外，多洛宁还指称阿马纳行骗已有成熟的套路，称其为“连环诈骗犯”。《财富》文章中按时间列出了一系列针对阿马纳的指控和诉讼，包括与E*Trade之间经年的法律纠纷，E*Trade曾从阿马纳手中收购业务。（不管是面对多洛宁还是E*Trade，阿马纳都坚称无罪，还表示有个卷入这两起纠纷的人威胁要取他的性命。）。此外，2008年美国金融业监管局（FINRA）曾宣布永久禁止阿马纳与FINRA所有成员公司合作，因为他“一再蓄意”隐瞒法律判决和美国证券交易委员会对其的调查。尽管阿马纳总是自称成功的企业家和资本掮客，但过去十年里一直处于破产状态。

The story of the party house emerged a week before Amanat’s arrest on fraud changes. As Barna describes it to Fortune, the tale began innocently. He was seeking a rental house at which to hold a charity bash. A broker introduced him to Amanat, who was offering a large property in Sag Harbor, N.Y. (which is actually near, rather than in, the Hamptons). Barna says Amanat presented himself as a hyper-connected, wealthy entrepreneur, but then expressed what Barna describes as “an extreme need for money.” He asserts that Amanat asked for $25,000 in cash to rent the house (which, according to property records, is owned by someone other than Amanat) for five days. Barna says he told Amanat that he didn’t have that sort of cash on him and planned to pay for the rental with a credit card through Airbnb. At one point in their negotiations, he asserts, Amanat responded by asking whether Barna could go to an ATM, withdraw $4,000, and pay that portion in cash.

Eventually they agreed Barna would charge his American Express card through Airbnb, he says. Amanat, he adds, later turned up at the house in a Bentley. “In hindsight, this should have been a big red flag,” Barna says.

Things went sour immediately. Barna says the house he’d spent $27,000 to rent (including a security deposit) turned out to be occupied. He ended up making an agreement with the tenants to use the backyard only for the duration of the charity event. Amanat, he alleges, then gave him a list of demands, including a cut of the charity proceeds.

Relations worsened after the party. Barna says Amanat insisted he damaged the house and threatened him if he didn’t pay up. One text Barna says he received from Amanat (which appeared to come from the same phone number that Amanat had previously provided to Fortune) stated:

“When you least expect it one night something so unspeakably bad is going to happen to you (maybe it’s karmic law maybe it’s a friend of mine who heard what you did to me) Personally I won’t do a thing to you.”

On July 6, the Post first reported on the party. The story stated that the house’s owner had accused Barna of $1 million in damages and planned to sue him. The next day Moore Capital fired Barna. Barna has since filed a police report against Amanat for harassment and has been making the rounds explaining his side of the story. Though much of Barna’s account boils down to his word against Amanat’s, one person—the former property manager for the house in question—offers a view that is consistent with Barna’s. Richard Black says he regularly had to fight to get paid by Amanat and eventually quit. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years and never met anyone like him,” Black says, adding that Amanat would “swindle and shake people down.”

And now there’s the federal indictment, which blames Amanat for helping Stephen Maiden, who ran an investment advisory firm called Maiden Capital, defraud investors. According to the indictment, “between in or about February 2009 and in or about June 2012, Amanat, along with Maiden and others, devised and carried out a scheme to hide the fact that investments by Maiden Capital clients in Enable, an investment vehicle for which Amanat raised money (based, in part, on false and misleading representations), had been lost. To facilitate the scheme,” the indictment continues, “Maiden, with the knowledge and approval of Amanat, generated fictitious client account statements that failed to disclose the Enable losses. In addition, Amanat wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Maiden Capital bank account to support Maiden Capital, including to allow Maiden to repay investors whose redemption requests could not be forestalled and thus to continue to keep secret from Maiden Capital investors the Enable losses.”

On July 1, Maiden pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud; the former CFO for Kit Digital, whose stock Amanat allegedly helped inflate, also pleaded guilty. On July 14, former Kit Digital CEO Kaleil Isaza Tuzman was extradited to the U.S. from Colombia, where he’d been held since September 2015, to face market manipulation and accounting fraud charges. He has pleaded not guilty. Jameel, a lawyer indicted in the case, remains a fugitive, according to prosecutors.

Fortune’s 2014 article explored Amanat’s battle with Doronin over Aman Resorts. Amanat had lobbed the first legal grenade in London’s High Court, accusing Doronin of breach of contract. For his part, Doronin contended that Amanat had engineered an elaborate con game. Doronin claimed in legal filings that Amanat had not only misrepresented his finances, but had underhandedly used Doronin’s money to pay for Amanat’s part of the $358 million hotel deal. What’s more, Doronin alleged that Amanat had an established pattern of such behavior, calling him a “serial swindler.” Fortune’s article chronicled a long list of accusations and lawsuits against Amanat, including a multi-year legal fight with E*Trade , which acquired a business from him. (Amanat denied any wrongdoing in the Doronin and E*Trade cases—and also claimed that his life had been threatened by an adversary in both disputes.) Further, in 2008 the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) permanently banned Amanat “from associating with any FINRA member firm in any capacity” because he “willfully and repeatedly” failed to disclose legal judgments and a past SEC investigation. Moreover, Amanat, who held himself out as a successful entrepreneur and dealmaker, had been in bankruptcy for the better part of the last decade.

2014年《财富》报道阿马纳时就发现很多漏洞。想找到答案就得横跨三大洲采访数十人，还得钻研成千上万页的文件。其实阿马纳身上很多小细节都没人能搞清，比如年龄。一开始他称自己40岁，后来又说41岁。法庭上看到出生证明文件后，阿马纳的媒体联络人表示他其实是42岁。阿马纳在网上的简历称他荣获过艾伯特·P·爱因斯坦科技奖，奖项为杰出企业公民。然而我们找不到这个奖存在的证据（而且爱因斯坦根本没有中间名）。

自从2014年《财富》杂志报道阿马纳后，他面临的法律纠纷越来越多。今年3月伦敦最高法院裁定安缦酒店收购案中阿马纳败诉。他用来收购酒店的公司Peak Hotels & Resorts Limited被迫清算，还要向多洛宁和另一相关人士支付1200万英镑（1570万美元）的诉讼费用。四个月后，同案裁决提到阿马纳“性喜诈骗”，而且“在美国有确凿的欺骗行为。”

不过事件在3月3日曾出现惊人转折。就在伦敦最高法院宣判不到一周前，阿马纳在纽约请求安缦酒店集团强制破产。在一份手写的诉状中，阿马纳称自己和旗下两家公司被拖欠500万美元费用。四天后，阿马纳似乎还赢得了一些 道支持，他的索赔行动中加入了新成员，安缦酒店年过八旬的创始人阿德里安·泽卡（Adrian Zecha），英国对冲基金经理乔治·罗宾森，巴黎投资公司Fonde Investment Capital等表示，它们被拖欠约7000万美元费用。

但这边话音未落，那边又有新转折。包括泽卡在内的三个索赔方突然撤诉。泽卡提交的法律文件称“之前的诉讼请求他并不知情”。（泽卡对此并未置评。）

此后又有一人退出。这次是与阿马纳联合请求安缦酒店强制破产的旗下公司之一代表律师威廉·巴尔迪加。巴尔迪加解释时引用了纽约州约束律师行为的条款，其中称如果客户的法律行为“目的仅是骚扰或恶意伤害他人”，律师可以选择退出。（巴尔迪加拒绝接受采访。）

3月28日，纽约州破产法院法官雪莉·查普曼驳回了阿马纳的让安缦酒店破产的请求。查普曼法官在一场听证会中称，这起诉讼“并未充分遵从破产法律规定。”

在此之前，阿马纳与安缦酒店之争就已涉及不少法律纠纷。Vinland Capital状告阿马纳违反排他协议，协议规定由Vinland Capital独家负责安缦酒店收购案的融资。（Vinland Capital的诉讼已被驳回，目前正在上诉。）去年阿马纳的律师罗纳德·明可夫提交请求，不再担任顾问，称阿马纳“故意不支付款项”，而且虽然几经索要，阿马纳“并不打算支付之前的律师费，将来的更没指望。”

安缦酒店收购案还只是阿马纳身上诸多法律纠纷之一。例如，5月加州法官在缺席审判中裁定，阿马纳应向电视剧《马尔科姆的一家》演员贾斯汀·贝菲尔德支付拖欠的120万美元片酬。根据之前的调解结果，裁定阿马纳的公司支付90万美元的罚金，因其“触犯联邦证券法律，违反合同规定以及无力支付承兑汇票。”另一起案件中，阿马纳旗下电影公司在为小说《疾病解说者》改编电影融资时，因数百万美元资金不翼而飞遭到指控。根据法庭记录，阿马纳第一任妻子也提交诉讼请求，要求前夫履行赡养和监护责任。凡此种种不胜枚举。

A lot of things about Amanat didn’t add up when Fortune reported on him in 2014. Untangling the answers required interviewing dozens of people across three continents and poring over thousands of pages of documents. Even simple matters such as Amanat’s age were a puzzle. Initially, he said he was 40. Then 41. After being presented with a birth date in court documents, Amanat’s press representative agreed that he was in fact 42 at the time. Amanat’s web bio claimed that he was awarded the Albert P. Einstein Technology Award For Outstanding Corporate Citizenship. However, we could not find any evidence that such an award exists (and Einstein did not have a middle name).

Since Fortune wrote about him in 2014, Amanat’s legal entanglements have been mounting. In March he lost his battle in the London High Court over Aman. Peak Hotels & Resorts Limited, the entity used to purchase the resort, was forced into involuntary liquidation and agreed, in a settlement, to pay Doronin and a second person a total of £12 million ($15.7 million) in court costs. Four months earlier, in the same case, a High Court justice cited Amanat’s “established propensity to fraud,” and his “established record of dishonesty in the USA.”

In a bizarre turn, on March 3, less than a week before the London court made its ruling, Amanat filed a petition in New York to force Aman Resorts Group LTD. into involuntary bankruptcy. In the handwritten petition, Amanat claimed that he and two of his entities were owed $5 million in unpaid fees. Four days after that, Amanat seemed to get some moral support: His claim was amended to include Adrian Zecha, Aman’s octogenarian founder, British hedge fund manager George Robinson, and the Parisian investment firm Fonde Investment Capital, among others, alleging they were owed some $70 million in unpaid fees.

But almost before the ink dried on the new claims, a new twist occurred. Three of the new claimants, including Zecha, suddenly withdrew. Zecha’s legal papers asserted that the “amended petition was filed without his knowledge.” (Zecha did not return a request for comment.)

Then came another withdrawal. This time it was William Baldiga, an attorney representing an entity aligned with Amanat in the involuntary bankruptcy. In his petition, Baldiga cited a New York rule governing lawyers’ conduct that enables them to remove themselves from a case if their client is pursuing legal action “merely for the purpose of harassing or maliciously injuring any person.” (Baldiga declined to be interviewed.)

On March 28, Judge Shelley Chapman of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York dismissed Amanat’s attempts to force Aman into bankruptcy. The judge stated in a hearing that the suit “doesn’t appear to be an appropriate use of the bankruptcy process.”

Other litigation relating to Amanat and Aman Resorts predates that battle. Vinland Capital sued Amanat for allegedly breaching an exclusive agreement to have Vinland raise money for the Aman deal. (Vinland’s suit was dismissed and is on appeal.) Last year Amanat’s lawyer in that case, Ronald Minkoff, filed papers to withdraw as counsel, citing Amanat’s “deliberate failure to pay outstanding invoices,” and that despite “many demands,” Amanat had “not made adequate provision for paying past or future fees.”

And Aman is not the only recent source of litigation for Amanat. For example, in May a California judge ordered a $1.2 million default judgment against him for failing to pay former Malcolm in the Middle actor Justin Berfield and his company $900,000, under the terms of a past mediation, for “federal securities law violations, breaches of contract and failure to pay a promissory note.” Another case, involving financing for a film version of the novel Interpreter of Maladies, led to a suit against Amanat’s film company claiming that several million dollars had gone missing. According to court records, Amanat’s first wife also has several open cases against her ex-husband relating to support and custody. The list goes on.

Amanat’s recent criminal indictment also cites a role by an unnamed co-conspirator. In announcing the indictment, Bharara, who has aggressively prosecuted white-collar crime, said that, “the investigation is continuing,” which leaves open the possibility of another indictment. Numerous interested parties are waiting to see how this all plays out. When it comes to the story of Omar Amanat, the only certainty is that there will be plenty more twists and turns.