Local News in Brief : ZZZZ Best Figure Pleads
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A business associate of ZZZZ Best founder Barry Minkow pleaded guilty Wednesday to stock fraud and admitted helping the whiz kid entrepreneur launder funds stolen from the Reseda carpet-cleaning company.
Jerry Polevoi, 41, of Woodland Hills, was the eighth man to plead guilty in a securities fraud case stemming from the July, 1987, collapse of ZZZZ Best.
Minkow, 22, and three other men face trial Aug. 23 for allegedly operating a hoax that garnered $26 million through loans and public stock sales by persuading banks and investors that ZZZZ Best had lucrative contracts to repair office buildings damaged by fire or floods.
Polevoi, a former neighbor of Minkow, pleaded guilty to conspiracies to launder about $500,000 in stolen ZZZZ Best money through Las Vegas casinos in the company’s final hours and to reap about $225,000 in profits by selling short ZZZZ Best stock.
Polevoi also pleaded guilty to under-reporting his taxable income by a total of about $170,000 for the years 1983 and 1984. He faces a maximum of 16 years in prison and an $850,000 fine when he is sentenced Oct. 17 by U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian.
His twin brother, Jack Polevoi, who was a vice president at ZZZZ Best, pleaded guilty last month to similar charges.
“I was taken in by his dynamic personality and youthfulness and his great desire to get ahead,” Jerry Polevoi said of Minkow.
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