Madoff of the Midwest: Hoosier Hugh Hefner Wannabe Gets Disbarred

July 20, 2016

The Indiana Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney who went from the 30,000 square foot high life to decidedly smaller accommodations

In March 2011, Respondent was indicted in federal court on twelve felony counts rooted in a complex scheme of securities and wire fraud. Respondent was convicted on all counts following a jury trial in June 2012 and later was sentenced to fifty years in prison. Respondent’s convictions on ten of the twelve counts were affirmed on appeal. U.S. v. Durham, 766 F.3d 672 (7th Cir. 2014), cert. denied. On remand, the district court again imposed a fifty-year sentence. With his criminal proceedings now having come to rest, Respondent stands convicted of eight counts of wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. All told, over a period of several years Respondent and two co-defendants defrauded thousands of investors of over $200 million…

The Court concludes that Respondent violated the Rules of Professional Conduct by defrauding thousands of investors of over $200 million. Respondent already is under an order of interim suspension in this case as well as a separate suspension order for nonpayment of dues. For Respondent’s professional misconduct, the Court disbars Respondent from the practice of law in this state, effective immediately. Respondent shall fulfill all the duties of a disbarred attorney under Admission and Discipline Rule 23(26). The costs of this proceeding are assessed against Respondent, and the hearing officer appointed in this case is discharged.

Details from WTHR.com

Tim Durham will spend the rest of his life in prison. Durham was convicted of cheating his clients out of $200 million in a Ponzi scheme, and on Friday, a judge sentenced him to 50 years behind bars.

U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson sentenced Durham, a former chief executive of National Lampoon who was profiled in CNBC’s “Rise of the Super-Rich” report in 2008, following his convictions in June on charges of securities fraud, conspiracy and 10 counts of wire fraud.

Durham, who ran the investment business Fair Finance, was sentenced to 50 years. Prosecutors had asked for life, while Durham wanted just three…

Prosecutors wanted life sentences for all three men. They say the three stripped Akron, Ohio-based Fair Finance of its assets and used the money to buy classic cars and other luxury items and to keep another Durham company afloat.

Attorneys for both Cochran and Snow asked the judge for less substantial sentences than Durham claiming they did not have control of operations at Fair Finance.

Bloomberg Business Week called him the Madoff of the Midwest and reported on his 45th birthday party

More than 1,000 people showed up at his 30,000-square-foot mansion in Fortville, an exurb of Indianapolis. Members of the Indianapolis Colts arrived, as did Kato Kaelin. Durham dressed like Hugh Hefner, in a plush robe. When he went to blow out the candles, his cake was frosted with his likeness in the center of a million-dollar bill.

Later, as reported in the Indianapolis Star, Durham posted photographs of the party to his Myspace page, including one of him getting a lap dance and two of the models kissing, nude. He dubbed it his “Fantasy Pajama and Lingerie Party.”

And

Durham had long attracted attention in Indianapolis, and not just for his parties. He was also one of the state’s biggest backers of Republican politicians. “Tim Durham was somebody who came out of nowhere in the late ’90s and kind of declared himself a very rich guy,” says Greg Andrews, managing editor of the Indianapolis Business Journal, who has covered Durham extensively. “He established himself as a player by being a tremendously large donor to candidates.” Those included Governor Mitch Daniels. Durham gave $105,000 to his 2004 campaign, making Durham the governor’s second-biggest individual donor that cycle. Over the years, he made some $800,000 in political donations, according to public records. The perceived gap between Durham’s private behavior and his support for conservative candidates led Matthew Tully, a columnist for the Indianapolis Star, to chastise Durham for his conspicuously libertine lifestyle. The column went viral, likely because of its link to those Myspace photos.

Bloomberg further reports that he made his initial fortune the old fashioned way: he married it.

More here on the hubris before the fall from the Indianapolis Monthly in April 2011 under the title Outrageous Fortune.

Few people have been better at acquiring “stuff” than Durham. The 45-year-old founder of Obsidian Enterprises, a leveraged-buyout firm in Indianapolis, he claims to be worth $75 million. At last count, he owned or co-owned more than 70 classic and exotic cars, three private jets, the yacht, numerous Picassos and Renoirs, two restaurants (Touch and, in Indy, Bella Vita), a nightclub (GELO Ultra Lounge in Castleton), two limousines, a magazine (Car Collector), a plastic-surgery center, a cigar store, and—most strangely—the storied comedy brand National Lampoon. That’s to say nothing of the profitable but less glamorous manufacturing companies that fall under the umbrella of Obsidian…

Durham’s taste for the extravagant has widened his circle of friends lately. He pauses the tour at a photograph of him and Ludacris, rapper and star of the 2004 film Crash. “Luda” stopped by one of Durham’s lavish parties before the Indianapolis 500 last year, and the two instantly became pals. Durham sees nothing strange about a relationship between a rapper and a Hoosier investor, and the feeling is mutual. “Tim can kick it in my crew anytime and blend right in,” Ludacris said by phone from his Atlanta estate this fall. “He knows how to have fun, and we share a lot of the same interests as far as cars and expensive tastes.” Ludacris invited Durham to the 2007 MTV Music Video Awards, where they sat with Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson. Durham’s regular trips to hang out at the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner have led to a few Hollywood friendships as well. “Hef is a smart guy, a real trendsetter,” he says. “He blazes a lot of trails—a lot like I feel I’m blazing here in Indiana.” Durham should know. His current girlfriend, Jami Ferrell, was Miss January 1997 and dated Hefner (and Jack Nicholson) before making it back to her New Castle home.

(Mike Frisch)

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Bar Discipline & Process