Bizarro World 'My Dinner With Andre'

Headlined "My Lunch With 2 Fraudsters," it's a fascinating account by Herb Greenberg of his breaking bread with convicted felons Barry Minkow (ZZZZ Best) and Sam E. Antar (Crazy Eddie).

Read it and take away the advice of these world-class fraudsters: "Do not trust — verify everything."

The piece, which appeared in the March 3, 2007 Wall Street Journal, follows.

My Lunch With 2 Fraudsters: Food for Thought for Investors

My lunch with two crooks: "Hi Sammy, it's great to see you." Barry Minkow gave Sam E. Antar a hug as we walked to our table at a fish restaurant overlooking the San Diego Bay. It was a Friday, and Mr. Antar made the trek to San Diego from Los Angeles, where he was visiting his son; a few days earlier, this convicted felon had lectured students and faculty at the Stanford Law School on how not to get taken by a crook like him.

Mr. Antar was chief financial officer of Crazy Eddie, A New York electronics retailer that in the 1970s and 1980s claimed "our prices are inSANE" as it bilked investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. He stayed out of jail by turning on several others, including his cousin, Eddie Antar, who was Crazy Eddie's co-founder. Mr. Minkow, on the other hand, spent seven years behind bars after stealing more than $20 million from investors in the 1980s as founder and chief executive of ZZZZ Best, a once-hot rug-cleaning company whose books could've used a good scrubbing.

"He's an orthodox Jew and I'm a Jew who is a pastor," cracks Mr. Minkow, who like Mr. Antar now spends time lecturing and working with cops to bust white-collar financial frauds. Mr. Minkow has reverence for Mr. Antar, who looks like Carla's husband from the sitcom "Cheers" — and who claims to suffer from a bipolar disorder and serious insomnia. (I can vouch for the latter because his emails and postings on various blogs come at all hours, mostly in the middle of the night.) "Criminals don't sleep," he explains.

A former CPA, Mr. Antar makes no excuses for his criminal past, referring to himself in emails, casual discussion and his Web site — whitecollarfraud.com — as a "low life" and "convicted felon." Even the normally loquacious Mr. Minkow appears to enjoy leaving the talking to Mr. Antar, who takes no money for his speeches. "I don't want to be held up on the pedestal of redemption," he says. "I would rather people learn from my vile, ugly and vicious crimes. It is most important that they understand the ugly nature of criminality. My life is a mistake of history."

A mistake, maybe, but one other people can learn from. "Do not trust — verify," was his mantra as the meal began.

Verify what? "Everything."

Even whether Mr. Antar and Mr. Minkow aren't still scamming?

"Everything."

And so it went, with Mr. Antar continuing with emails over several weeks.

"Watch how management handles bad quarters, earnings disappointments, criticism, skepticism and cynicism," he says. "Do they start by saying, 'We take full responsibility and make no excuses' — only to follow by carefully worded innuendos, excuses and deflection? Do they question the integrity of those who ask questions?"

He continues: "Just because a CEO takes a $1 salary doesn't make that person immune to criminality. Just because I travel the country and teach the government, colleges and universities, and professional groups about white-collar crime and never collect a fee and pay out of my own pocket all travel costs, doesn't mean I am not a criminal today. Remember that many crimes are committed without economic gain for reasons of ego, status and sheer arrogance."

Mr. Antar says investors should do a better job "studying" financial reports, especially the footnotes and "risk factor" sections. "Notice that I used the word 'study' and not 'read' since all information is not meant to be read like a novel, but meant to be analyzed like a project."

He adds: "Criminals are scared of skeptics and cynics," he says. "We are petrified when you verify our representations."

Did he ever have remorse? "Never... We simply did not care about any one of our victims. We simply committed crime because we could.

"As criminals we built false walls of integrity around us," he adds. "We walked old ladies across the street. We built wings to hospitals. We gave huge amounts of money to charity. We wanted you to trust us.

"Simply said... if you want to be an investor, you cannot accept information at face value. 'Unexamined acceptance' is the greatest cause of investor losses."

As for Mr. Minkow? He defers to Mr. Antar. "He's the best," he says. Lunch wasn't bad, either.