LA JOLLA (CNS) - Ivan Boesky, the Wall Street financier served 22 months in federal custody for the insider trading scandals of the 1980s, died Monday at his home in La Jolla, a daughter confirmed. He was 87.
Boesky had a net worth of $280 million the equivalent of about $818 million now, and a trading portfolio valued at $3 billion (about $8.7 billion Monday), through buying and selling stocks of companies that appeared to be takeover targets, according to The New York Times.
The stock tips were passed to him illegally in exchange for suitcases filled with cash.
Boesky pleaded guilty in 1987 to conspiracy in a prosecution led by then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, later the mayor of New York City, and sentenced to three years in prison and fined a record $100 million. He spent 18 months at the Lompoc federal prison camp and four months in a halfway house in Brooklyn before being released. He was pardoned by then-President Donald Trump in 2020.
In a story at the time about Boesky's guilty plea, The Wall Street Journal described his downfall as "No one on Wall Street ever flew as high or crashed as hard as Ivan F. Boesky."
Boesky received leniency for cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation and prosecution of junk bond king Michael Milken.
Boesky was an inspiration for Gordon Gekko, the corporate raider portrayed by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film, "Wall Street."
Boesky lived quietly in California for many years. He is survived by his second wife, Ana, their daughter, Blu, three sons from his first marriage along with daughter Marianne, who confirmed the death, and four grandchildren.
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