A Raider’s Days Of Reckoning

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.

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.

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.

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.