Celebrity Death: Eddie Antar - Crazy Eddie, 68

[Acadmus]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/11/technology/eddie-antar-obituary/index.html

You had to be in New York or get WPIX on your cable package to know who this guy was, but he was an absolutely unforgettable personality. His retail electronics empire collapsed under federal fraud charges and he spent 6 years in prison. I think he went to Israel after that.

2016 rolls on.

Click to read more...

 

[Baby Punisher]

A huge part of anyone who grew up in the late 70's to early 90's in the NYC metro area. Crazy Eddie's prices were so low he was insane! I remember when one opened out here it was a huge event.


http://whitecollarfraud.com/crazy-eddie/crazy-eddie-fraud/


http://www.crainsnewyork.com/articl...adness-the-rise-and-fall-of-crazy-eddie-antar

 

[kdb209]

Such jammed-into-your-head-so-you-can-never-forget-it memories ...

"Prices so low he's practically giving it all away!"





Note that the actor in the commercials was not Crazy Eddy as many assumed, but a NY DJ (Jerry Carroll).

NPR did a radio/podcast piece on the fall of and financial fraud behind Crazy Eddy's:

Inside The Mind Of A Financial Criminal

Before Bernie Madoff, there was the Antar family. In the seventies and eighties, the family ran a popular electronics chain, Crazy Eddie, which was known for its frenetic commercials and low prices. The business was crooked from the start, but the fraud got more serious when the family took the company public in the 1984. Going public earned the Antar family millions of dollars, but infighting and jealousy later led them to turn against each other. In 1987, the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the family and discovered years of inflated profits and overstated income.

Today one of the masterminds of the fraud, Eddie's cousin Sam Antar, explains how they did it and why it worked for so long. Antar now lectures about white collar fraud and says it's a brutal crime.

 

[Know Your Enemy]

Mourning the death of a fraud are we?

 

[Jumptheshark]

NO idea who he is

 

[GarbageGoal]

Yeah, even though I lived in Rhode Island, we got WPIX and listened to WCBS-AM, WNBC-AM and WINS so we always heard Crazy Eddie ads.

But it was really Jerry Carroll everyone marked out for.

 

[Miamipuck]

I will always remember those ads growing up, Xmas in August. However, I couldn't care less about a huckster dying.

 

[Acadmus]

Note that the actor in the commercials was not Crazy Eddy as many assumed, but a NY DJ (Jerry Carroll).

NPR did a radio/podcast piece on the fall of and financial fraud behind Crazy Eddy's:

To be honest, no - I never knew that

 

[Acadmus]

Mourning the death of a fraud are we?

Mourning, no - merely acknowledging But his death also brings to light a false story I'd heard ages ago that when he was accused of fraud he'd fled the country for Israel because they don't extradite Jews. Wonder if his story had gotten crossed over with someone else's.

 

[Ozz]

That's insane.

 

[Acadmus]

That's insane.

That should have been the 2nd post in this thread

 

[kook10]

a true pioneer, without him we wouldn't have had our own local treasure Crazy Gideon.