Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States moved Wednesday to recover more than $1 billion that federal officials say was stolen from a Malaysian economic development fund and that was used for high-end real estate, fancy artwork and production of the Hollywood film, "The Wolf of Wall Street." The diverted funds paid for luxury properties in New York and California, a $35 million private jet and expensive paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, according to federal government complaints that demand the recovery and forfeiture of the ill-gotten assets. The complaints, filed in Los Angeles, allege a complex money laundering...

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kelly Rohrbach have reportedly split. The 41-year-old actor and 25-year-old Sports Illustrated model -- who has recently been signed up to star in a big-screen Baywatch remake with The Rock -- were first linked in June of last year and apparently broke up a month ago. "They've been broken up for over a month. It was mutual. They both have intense work schedules and a lot going on in their lives right now. They both needed to take a break because of that. They are still friends and talking but it's over," a source told Us Weekly....

Hundreds of people (mostly men) packed the house at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan's Upper East Side to see the real-life "Wolf of Wall Street," Jordan Belfort. Belfort is the author of a best-selling tell-all memoir that chronicled his boozy, drug-fueled, high-flying Wall Street lifestyle running 1990s-era boiler room Stratton Oakmont. The convicted felon’s book was adapted into a film directed by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Belfort was arrested in 1998. In 2003, he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering. He served a 22-month prison sentence after being sentenced to four years. He was also ordered...

Inside twisted Tinseltown, Martin Scorsese has marked a new career achievement. His latest film, "The Wolf of Wall Street," includes a mighty 506 uses of the F-bomb in its three-hour running time. That's almost three curse words a minute. Someone has proclaimed this the new record for F-bombs. Another Hollywood high mark. Scorsese often has hundreds of F-bombs in his films about crooks. But this takes the cake. "That was a badge of honor for me, to be in a Martin Scorsese movie and say the F-word," actor-director Rob Reiner told a TMZ.com interviewer in a parking lot. When he...

I went to see Wolf with a friend who has zero investments. As we watched the film, which for all its 3-hour length flew by in a compulsively sickening but sustained high-wire act of what's next?, he commented that he owns no securities. Now, watching this debauchery, he would never invest with this species of human infection. When I spoke with my account manager after the film, I admit that even I -- much more sophisticated than my friend, if far less knowledgeable than almost anyone in finance -- also spoke with some shaded caution, as the film reminded me...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, dear Kings of Hollywood, but you have been conned. Let me introduce myself. My name is Christina McDowell, formerly Christina Prousalis. I am the daughter of Tom Prousalis, a man the Washington Post described as "just some guy on trial for penny-stock fraud." (I had to change my name after my father stole my identity and then threatened to steal it again, but I'll get to that part later.) I was eighteen and a freshman in college when my father and his attorneys forced me to attend his trial at New...