I had more clients that I could ever
wish for
I made friends with a lot of my clients
which were amazing creative partnerships
obviously we made millions and lost
millions and at the height of the
madness there were certainly lots of sex
with partners and a lot of drugs and
when I went to jail it all went away
what I can say is that I flew too close
to the Sun I guess everyone knows from
Icarus what happens when you do that you
lose it all and you fall back to earth
and now I'm trying to bring it all back
you
the oscar-nominated movie wolf of
wallstreet was famously based on the
story of Jordan Belfort a crooked
investment banker who made his money
selling worthless stocks at a high price
but according to some the original
inspiration behind Leonardo DiCaprio's
arranged the world of unfathomable
excess twinned with 1990s tailoring
apparently didn't come from Bell for
himself but from a man named Dana jikido
people close to Dana including Emily
white a former friend who wrote a
critical book about him and Dana himself
say Leo became interested in the idea of
making this film because he had lived it
with Dana Steves to newest Dana's friend
and Leo's former bodyguard says their
social scene was mirrored in the film
what did it look like when you walked
into Dana's apartment on one of the
biggest party nights so thanks to see
there was sex whose escorts basically
like the wolf of Wall Street Danny G of
Quetta was managing my savings and he
took half my account and put it in his
own account he somehow wanted to make
sure they knew they were making money so
he would take the poor person's money
and give it to the richer person and he
was living an extremely lavish lifestyle
which he either paid himself very very
well or some of that money got spent
Dena was the money manager to a-listers
in the 90s an apparently Leo's best
friend during the pinnacle of his fame
until he misappropriated nearly ten
million dollars
back in 1988 Dana used a $200,000 loan
from his mom to start a company called
Cassandra group he had already worked as
an account executive and used this
credential to convince his friends to
invest money with him tell me how you
first of all came up with the name
Cassandra well Cassandra was a Greek
mythological figure right Gianna and she
was never believed so she knew the
future but was never believed and in
investment circles a Cassandra is a
contrarian so Lissa foreshadowing yeah
so so I like the fact that Cassandra was
a foreshadowing of doom which is not
great but I also like the fact that she
she was a powerful figure who was never
believed so I thought that was
interesting and in investment circles
like Cassandra is as someone who was
actually the prophet of doom a
prophetess Atun so pretty kind what do
you make of that I mean it's I know it's
gonna go weird yeah it's it's a strange
thing that I picked that name and maybe
it was was it foreshadowing anything no
I think I'd liked it cuz it was said of
edgy and made sense for an advisor who
was working with artists Dana snagged an
up-and-coming client early Sub Pop
Records they were at that time
the sort of the premiere a list in the
indie music world they had Nirvana they
had Soundgarden Bruce Pavan and John
Portman created this scene and you know
in Seattle almost got a whole cloth
which was called grunge so having worked
with that and then at a very young age
selling 49% of Sub Pop at a forty
million dollar valuation we got twenty
million dollars for 49% of the company
this big deal
it was after Kurt Cobain's death so it
gave the Cassandra Group a lot of cachet
at the time in the music world this was
a massive deal and put dana on the map
as a young guy who can make artists big
money
soon after the a-listers were flocking
dana says leo would apparently spend
months living at his apartment
they even had matching cockatoos and
their parties were legendary two three
four five six seven eight to see where
the plants are yeah so that's what that
was my trading floor for Cassandra Gert
okay and so that was the trading floor
and then you live in that house the
penthouse where the light is on with the
five archers yeah this is the Prince
Street side and then when we go to
Broadway you can see those sides a giant
owl it's about 8,000 square feet and
then the room was mine as well
massive and who used to crash with you
at your place well as it's been told you
know Leonardo Toby Maguire
Matt Damon Ben Affleck Robert Downey jr.
stayed Smashing Pumpkins Cameron Alanis
Kate Moss q-tip Janet Jackson everyone
knows the story of I guess in Gilbert
Grape you know Leo climbs the water
tower
so they him and Toby did that on my roof
and we filmed it and then we almost got
thrown out of the apartment yeah well on
this shoot Dana offered to show us the
mountains of photos he had from the good
old days hanging out with his celebrity
friends I'm just gonna go through some
of these photos and think about where
they were this is Toby Maguire at a club
and this is right before Wonderboys that
he shot was from the set of the beach
where danny boyle directed amazing film
which could have been more amazing i
think if it was edited differently this
is me after doing like as many cocktails
as I could and taking lots of opiates
here it is a unhappy fish caught on the
side of the beach with stripes that we
were all think it was pretty cool you
can see my bird Angel really smart
animals it's like you know you put
cocaine in a little and in a nozzle here
and the parrot will say you know coke
and get the cocaine versus water angel
by the way for everyone's worried is
living in the Pennsylvania woods very
happy she's very happy his Jay Ferguson
on Naomi Campbell in Leonardo I'm at a
party in my house
a lot of these are from a party that we
had basically while Titanic was showing
at the Academy Awards we wanted to like
piss off the director deliberately so we
had a big party at the exact same time
that Titanic was running at the CAD
awards and it was a lot of fun as you
can see here's a remarkable meeting
where Bob Dylan played for the Pope and
Bologna the Pope was a little bit
intimidating because I thought he was
also frail and he was dying's Kevin
Connolly Leonardo DiCaprio and Jay
Ferguson and I were all in these really
heavy ritz-carlton bathrobes so walking
around naked except for the bathrobes
you could eat wherever you wanted you
could fly wherever you wanted it was a
sense of unbelievable freedom that and I
think a lot of us felt that it's a
really sexy feeling thing today I
can do anything I want I can go wherever
I want and that's gonna be okay and no
one's gonna say no and I think that was
yeah that's a good question
definitely the sex and the drugs and the
orgies were part of my life not because
it was instrumental in running a
merchant bank or an investment bank but
because it was just part of the culture
of the entertainment community right so
it was about access but it was also like
we talked about power and how that
convened and in Hollywood where it's all
artifice and mystical all right in
fantasy I think those things get
elevated so so the sacks the drugs all
of that is part and parcel to that
lifestyle which is about creating a
solid Cystic world in some senses or a
world in which pleasure and civic
lifestyle is accepted and it's actually
sometimes reveled in or even admired and
I think in the sense of Scorsese's with
Wall Street like you was saying that's
what you found compelling which is that
you're interested in the financial crime
you're interested in the excesses that
that crime created right and that was
what propelled that so yes I think my
lifestyle drugs and sex definitely not
the financial stuff has nothing to do my
life in 2000 Dana was convicted of fraud
under the Investment Advisers act after
his clients lost a total of nearly 10
million dollars he was sentenced to up
to 57 months in federal prison what do
you think you did wrong well I know what
I did wrong and I admitted it in court I
mean what we what I did that was wrong
was that violation of the advisors Act
we had a discreet fund called chase
Cassandra Entertainment Partners which
was doing private equity deals and for
15 years primarily what I did with my
clients was invest in blue chip stocks
and we made money we lost money but then
I started to get involved in a lot of
private placement deals and which were
like very very small sums of money I had
trusted these people to invest the money
for my clients I gave a lot of these
people my clients money
and moved it into them and then it
wasn't coming back so I had to move it
back into the accounts and that looked
like I was stealing money and that's why
people say well it was a Ponzi scheme
because he had money coming in to buy
this investment money going out to buy
the investment that's actually what
happened at the time to be clear
Dana would take one asset to fill the
emptiness of another once it was lost
despite Dana's casual explanation this
is a major criminal offense did you at
any point try to cover it up tell your
clients listen we are making money it's
just not in your account yet now I never
tried to cover it up I didn't I didn't
know what was going on myself so I tried
to figure out what was actually going on
before I told my clients anything I
realized that some of those deals had
gone south I told my clients look I
don't think you're gonna get your money
out still Dana would tap into his
clients accounts and make checks out to
himself he was also able to cash checks
made out to his clients he continued to
tell us that he still didn't believe he
did anything wrong
aside from making bad investments I
thought I was gifted with the ability to
bring these fields together and I could
empower the artist by demystifying the
cap of the markets for them and helping
them and the horrible thing about being
painted the brushes of you know as a
thief is that I'm not a thief and that
the very people that I was trying to
help you know um I was basically the
press said I was actually trying to rip
them off it's a horrible thing do you
think that there's ever say an action
taken in in when you were getting into
trouble where you looked at it you said
that's not wrong and someone else looked
at the exact same action and said that's
pretty wrong actually what I did is I
looked at stuff and said this is really
wrong and when I talked to the my
partners at the bank they said oh don't
don't worry about it
and they you know signed every check
with me so is really problematic but not
problematic enough for him to stop doing
it until the SEC got involved but Dana
had a clear obsession with his celebrity
friends losing their money meant losing
their friendship do you think that
because you form those personal
relationships with your clients you felt
so strongly about not screwing up their
investments that you then made bad
decisions because you didn't want to
tell them that maybe they had been
losing money no I did tell I had lots of
hard conversations with people about
losing money I think the really
difficult thing is I care less about
money than I care about the like getting
patted on the back from the client gives
me a good kiss says thanks good job and
then I know that I no one else had that
ability or very few people have that
ability to realize that dream and to
make that dream a reality that really
turns me on when news of his financial
scams went public all of his celebrity
friends were advised to leave him the
one friend that didn't leave him paid
the price
earlier this year there was a criminal
complaint about me saying that Stevie is
a victim in a case and of course he's
not a victim no no every on but again I
think that was the first rift I had with
Dana yeah because I had called his
attorney I didn't know anything about
what was happening and his attorney was
was being difficult with me and led me
to believe that possibly he did steal my
identity my I think I called a non
pathological liar but thanks although I
was you know what do you do when you led
to believe that your body stole you know
took your credit cards and was wacked up
take I you know at the end of the date
he did not it didn't happen that way it
was purely based on miscommunication
between his attorney night Dana was
recently accused of charging over
$10,000 on Steve's credit card Dana told
us he turned himself in to avoid the bad
press of a trial the settlement details
are confidential
if the elevator guy comes down I'll take
you up and maybe we'll bust some people
that don't want to see me just to see if
it's fun
Dana tried to show us one of his old
hangouts cos on my man's hair
I'm trying to finish this movie cool
is that right get out here to join in I
think so why not
but he got rejected at the door thanks
back uh he's been the doorman here for
since it opened and um this is Mercer
we're great ASSA hotel and um
yeah private and special and secretive
as you can see
do you find that it's difficult for
artists to trust you I think if you
write a lot of the stuff about me you
would find it difficult
yeah but I think once they meet me and
they realize what I'm like and what I'm
about it's not that difficult do you
feel like any clients still hold a
grudge against you I don't think there
are a lot of people in the world that
hate danger Ducato I think a lot of
people in the world that don't know what
happened and so that I was painting with
this brush if they think maybe he was a
thief or maybe hit his head end of the
cookie jar it's not that at all but we
second give me the opportunity to
actually tell you what happened which is
really lovely thank you
incredible in that hatton this is where
I try to create value to people I did it
with Cassandra now I'm doing with D two
consultants but I'll always create value
for those matter the wall street punk
rocker is occupying Fifth Avenue so look
at most people don't live in a world of
extraordinary privilege and what happens
to young middle-class people that become
celebrities and I'm probably one of the
few people in the world that his
experiences over and over again with
young clients who literally were broke
and became extraordinarily wealthy just
forget about the economics not only
wealth but extraordinary worldwide fame
that Fame and that wealth gives you
access to power sex money access
privilege and also people start to
believe well maybe you know maybe I'm
not like everybody else and humility
becomes extraction it's hard to be
humble when you could sleep with anyone
in the room you know or and you can buy
anything in the room right so you know
it's the the idea that it's the abscess
if you know the absence of humility
you