Breaking Point

2 minute read
TIME

In his glory days, John Mulheren Jr. was one of Wall Street’s most eccentric and puzzling figures. The 38-year-old investment whiz, who headed his own arbitrage firm, reportedly earned up to $25 million a year but sometimes wore leather pants and hockey jerseys to the office. His acquaintances ranged from former Treasury Secretary and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan to Rock Star Bruce Springsteen, who lives near Mulheren in Rumson, N.J. All along, though, there were, inevitable questions about Mulheren’s success. As a risk arbitrager who speculated in volatile takeover stocks, he was a member of a tight clique of operators that included Ivan Boesky. When Boesky was caught up 15 months ago in history’s biggest insider-trading scandal, investigators started to close in on Mulheren.

Even so, Wall Street was stunned by the strange behavior that landed Mulheren in jail on Feb. 18. Alerted by his wife that he was acting irrationally, police stopped him as he drove from his Rumson mansion and arrested him for carrying a semiautomatic rifle. The police said Mulheren, who has been treated for manic depression, seemed intent on killing Boesky and Boesky’s former head trader, Michael Davidoff. Mulheren apparently thought they were linking him to the insider-trading scandal.

No charges of securities violations have yet been filed against Mulheren, but authorities are reportedly investigating whether he helped Boesky through an illegal practice known as “parking.” The allegation is that when Boesky wanted to secretly accumulate large blocks of stock in a company, he would funnel money to Mulheren and other associates, who would buy and hold the securities; no one would know that Boesky was the real owner of the parked stock. Mulheren, who stayed in jail last week after failing to post $17,500 bail, has denied that his dealings with Boesky were improper.

Whatever his business faults, Mulheren’s personal life was in most ways exemplary before his arrest. He was close to his wife Nancy and their five adopted children, and donated at least $2.5 million to Roanoke College, his alma mater. Above all, he was loyal to family and friends, including Boesky. Mulheren gave generously to Boesky’s favorite charities and helped bail out the speculator when he ran into financial trouble in 1982. Mulheren may have been feeling totally betrayed when he apparently gave in to rage and desperation.

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