Durham operated companies in Indianapolis, Obsidian Enterprises and Fair Finance, that specialized in buying debt-ridden companies. The FBI did not give a reason for the raid, or for picking up Durham in LA, but the Indianapolis Business Journal has an idea:

...since Durham, 47, bought Fair in 2002, he had used it almost like a personal bank to fund a range of business interests, some of them unsuccessful... he and related parties owe Fair more than $168 million.

Oops! Let's take a look how he spent that, or whatever other, money he had! A BusinessInsider story notes that:

Durham's page on MySpace, a social networking site, revealed an R-rated pajama party in 2007. The page showed two naked women kissing and reported that Penthouse magazine model Martina Warren was in attendance.

The MySpace page is gone (although if any kind people have pictures of the gathering, send them here) but click through for a gallery and a field guide to a truly obnoxious man who boasted he sometimes forgets how many cars he owns. Or should that be owned?

Durham, who is a big Republican fundraiser, as if you couldn't tell by looking at his corpulent face, had a 100-foot yacht called Obsidian and homes in LA, Miami and Indianapolis (the big three of glamor, as they're known). Here's a picture of him and his close friend Ludacris on said yacht, courtesy of his Facebook page.

He apparently loved talking about how much money he had, because he gave interviews, and access for pictures like this, to Indianapolis Monthly ("Durham's sinewy girlfriend Jami Ferrell — a former Playboy playmate — sunbathes in the 90 degree heat") and CNBC in 2008 before everyone was revealed to be broke. Highlights from the latter next.

From CNBC: "Durham's main residence is a 30,000 square foot, 8 bedroom home in Indiana. The house has a pool, 2 state of the art kitchens, 3 bars, an exercise room, home theater and about 20 TV's — including 2 in the master bathroom's mirror."

From CNBC: "Tim Durham has a major weakness for cars. On any given day he can drive off in a Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, or Dusenberg. Durham owns almost 70 cars...but sometimes loses count."

From CNBC: "In the past the wealthy had private railroad cars....today they have jets. Tim Durham frequently uses his private jet to go where ever he'd like, even on very short notice. Durham says "it's a nice convenience to have."

And here are some more pictures from his Facebook account. This one is provisionally titled: 'leering mouth-breather.'

This is the lady his Facebook account says he's 'in a relationship' with. Obviously we know nothing about these people and they may be deeply in love. But the odds on her visiting him in jail, should he be charged and prosecuted with anything, seem slim judging by the company he keeps.

You probably know Christina Ambers' feet from such ads as "Rescue Me," "Maybelline," and "Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear." She is only considered the hottest foot model around these days, that's all. And her hands aren't too shabby either!

Anyhow she married the doorman at her building on E. 74 St., and now she's alleging in a $10 million lawsuit that the co-op board is trying to evict her because they simply can't stand the sight of the doorman, a poor, rubbing all up on the precious rich sexxxy feet of Ambers, a non-poor. Other residents in her building say the couple had a tumultuous relationship, made noise, and had the cops called to their apartment. The Post, predictably, ignores that angle in favor of class war without mercy, leading its story with "Stick to taking out the recyclables, Angel."

The most interesting part of this story, of course, is not actual facts. It's the question of whether the New York Post can stir up a decent amount of class-based outrage amongst its readers on behalf of a couple that is one-half Latino man from the Bronx. If Ambers had married, say, a poor but proud firefighter from Bay Ridge, this would be an easy layup. But can the Post's faux-populism overcome its real racism? We shall see.

There's always the sexxxy feet pics to fall back on!
[Pic: Christina Ambers' Flickr]

The Observer is, at heart, a small little paper written by very smart people. It's not really the ideal pawn in a game of New York media mogul social climbing. Which will not stop Jared Kushner and his new bride from using it for that purpose!

Ivanka (who declined to give Crain's an interview for their story, although her dad did) twitted conspiratorially, "Do you think it's because of late Jared's new paper, The Commercial Observer, has stolen the last of Crains' few remaining advertisers?" Somehow we doubt that is the case! The story is mostly a pedestrian and factual recounting of the last few years of Kushner's and Trump's uniformly laughable rise to DIZZYING HEIGHTS of business moguldom or something, despite the fact that both of them are silver spoon kids with no discernible talent for actually making money, apart from slapping the "Trump" brand on various shitty baubles. Jared is actually astoundingly good at losing money, so far.

What Ivanka calls "misinformed and pointless" is actually just a roundup of the various inanities and business failures she and Jared have racked up in the recent past. The worrying thing here is not that Ivanka (who, her dad says, "loves the public, she loves to be out there") is upset; it's that she and her husband seem to be totally enveloping the New York Observer in the Trump Brand. Ivanka's book ads were just the beginning. The fact that it's now impossible to discuss one of New York's most literary weeklies without being one degree of separation from discussing Donald Trump does not portend a happy future.

And get off Twitter, Ivanka. That will be one million dollars.
[Pic via]

Like so: A few short decades ago, the area above Tribeca ("Hudson Square," said the realtor) was a fucking dump. Now, it's populated by De Niro and Jay-Z and, you know, a plethora of other rich and famous Manhattanites. The city wants to put a garage for garbage trucks on the far West side of the neighborhood. So a group of concerned average citizens including Roger Sterling from Mad Men and various artists—presumably drawn to the neighborhood for its wonderful halo of long-gone industrial grit—are fighting the plan. For the good of everyone.

"We're no Nimbys," said Jana Haimsohn, a performance artist and neighborhood advocate. "Always in our dealings we look at the needs of the broader community."

Did you know that Louisville, Kentucky, has its very own version of the Meatpacking District, called Butchertown? Same story: former butchering district close to downtown that's now "being spruced up with art galleries and fancy shops," according to the Wall Street Journal. Now the Butchertown Neighborhood Association is working to move the last slaughterhouse out of the neighborhood, "Butchertown," with its wonderful halo of long-gone industrial grit.

"It's been an ongoing nuisance for people in the area," says Jonathan Salomon, a 34-year-old Butchertown resident and attorney representing the group. "We don't want to see anybody, especially during these times, put out on the street. But...we have to look at what kind of economic growth is good for the neighborhood."

Look, we're not against these people having jobs. But let's be honest—this neighborhood is not the place for those kinds of people. We're not against the city parking its garbage trucks somewhere—but they don't really fit in with the character of this neighborhood.

This is for the good of everyone. Reversals of gentrification will not be tolerated.
[Pic via]

Under the old rules of Twitter tradition, you "re-tweeted" another user by placing the letters "RT" before the quote and after any commentary you yourself added, like so:

If you use the new built-in re-tweet system, the original tweet would be copied into your stream under the byline of the original tweeter, like so:

The obvious problem: You lose the ability to actually say anything about what you're quoting if you use the new system. Also, all your followers are going to get a strange and potentially confusing avatar of someone they're not subscribed to in their stream.

On the bright side, this system is great for Twitter Inc. "Retweets potentially reveal very interesting data," Twitter CEO Evan Williams writes in a blog post about the new re-tweeting feature. Indeed, the feature offers a metric with which to rank tweets and thereby the results of Twitter searches and Twitter users themselves. Twitter could sell this data, provided free by its users, to the richest and most favored bidders, just like the microblogging startup did with the actual content of tweets.

The feature also helps Twitter's celebrity power users. Writes Williams:

RTs can actually be easily faked, which has become a form of spam, wherein well-known people are shown to be promoting something they never twittered about.

But, hey, if you don't like this new re-tweet thing that is so awesome for celebrities and Twitter Inc., you can always opt out. As Williams writes (emphasis from original), "you can turn off Retweets for everyone you follow (individually)." So just click "OFF" 200 times? Sounds super-easy!

(Top pic: Twitter co-founders Williams and Biz Stone, by Mathieu Thouvenin.)

Paul Joegriner hasn't worked since March 2008, when he was laid off from his $200,000-a-year job as chief executive officer of a small bank. But you wouldn't know it by appearances.

His wife, Marzena, shuttles their two young children to private school every morning. The family recently vacationed in Virginia Beach, Va., and likes to dine on Porterhouse steaks

Steaks! Sunny Virginia Beach! It is all just as fleeting as the pleasure afforded by a soothing shot of heroin. Because as Mary "Intern Mary" Pilon ably points out in the WSJ today, all those fat, funemployment-funding severance checks are running out after months of joblessness. Regular old unemployment checks will be running out soon enough, too! So if you're a typical bitter struggling member of the creative underclass for whom both "severance" and "Funemployment" are both rage-inducing, untouchable fantasies, take heart in the schadenfreude provided by the stories of the once-affluent who fell so fast, so hard, so dumb. One 50 year-old ad exec married a 32 year-old woman in a $40k wedding, had a baby on the way, and was promptly laid off. So he did the prudent thing:

Although their rent was cheaper, Mr. Hipsher says the family continued to spend like before. They moved with three cars — two BMWs and a Chevy Silverado. They continued to buy cases of $36-a-bottle wine. They spent $250 a month on a cleaning lady, and Mr. Hipsher dropped $50 a week on flowers for his wife. The couple still dined out regularly.

Now that's all gone (including the wedding ring), and the couple is $70k in debt. Feel better now? Funemployment is for the weak. Bask in your poverty. It makes you tough. For when shit really gets bad. Like now!
[Pic via]

LOT 276- JACKET: [1] Blue satin with orange trim jacket labeled and stitched with: NY Mets, 'MADF', '25' and 'Madoff'

LOT 278- SCREEN: [1] Chinese Chippendale Mahogany Two Panel Table Top Screen, English, 19th century, restorations, 44 x 19 inches (each panel) watercolor inserts

LOT 271- FUR: Ladys Bill Blass brown mink coat; no collar, hook front; 3/4 strait sleeves; 36" length x 48" sweep; strip sections; Bill Blass label.

LOT 293- DECOY: Wooden duck decoy w/ black body, natural wood head; green painted beak; black eyes (black w/brown pupil is a replacement); 21"L x 9 3/4" diameter. Note: yellow is coming through bill paint.

LOT 296- GOLF BAG: Belding Sports Golf Bagging Co. South Fork Country Club embroidered golf bag; fine black leather. GOLF CLUBS: Odyssey White Hot putter (Ruth Madoff South Fork CC shaft label). GOLF CLUBS: Three (3) Kasco Power Tornado FG drivers (Ruth Madoff South Fork CC shaft labels); 3, 5, 7. GOLF CLUBS: Great Big Bertha Hawkeye 11 degree titanium driver (Ruth Madoff South Fork CC shaft label). GOLF CLUB: Alien sand wedge. GOLF CLUBS: Diawa Hi-Trac TC5 iron set (Ruth Madoff South Fork CC shaft label); 4 to 11. MISC.: Three (3) leather golf gloves; Thirty (30) misc. used golf balls (incl Volvic Crystal). MISC.: Ruth Madoff South Fork Country Club member tag.

LOT 312- ART: Photograph print rendering of an Indian on bareback; copyright photographer E. Curtis, unsigned; Image: 27cm x 34cm; frame: 20 1/2 " x 23".

LOT 314- PURSE: Ladys Zagliani brand black crocodile leather hand bag; tan suede & silk lined interior; removable shoulder strap; zipper top; rect. shape, 8.5"T x 10"W x 2"D.

LOT 321- PURSE: Ladys Louis Vuitton brown monogram canvas logo hand bag; Trocadero; rect. shape, tan piping; LV logo side hand strap; zipper top; brown leather interior; 6"T x 9.55"W x 2.0"D., PURSE: Ladys Louis Vuitton brown monogram canvas hand bag; rect. shape, tan leather shoulder strap; zipper top; brown material interior; 5.5"T x 8.25"W x 1.5"D., PURSE: Ladys Louis Vuitton brown Monogram canvas travel bag; Neverfull MM; rect. shape, twin tan leather hand straps; open top; brown striped material interior; 11"T x 14"W x 6"D.

LOT 339- SHIRTS: [3] Polo Golf style shirts with 2 signal flags over 'BULL' on front upper left; 1 is L, 2 are XL

LOT 347- TOYS: Three (3) boogie boards; including one 1 pink/white, and 2 yellow; 40" long; "Madoff" written in black marker., FISHING: Tackle box and contents w/ "B.L. Madoff" plastic label on box outside; including 5 fly fishing lures, 1 Medalist Fishing reel, FLUGER Supreme #577 reel; Medalist Pfluger reel, 24 fly fishing lures; pliers & other misc. fishing accessories.

LOT 346- DECORATIVE: White water rescue ring bouy painted w/ "Bullship NY"; 18" diameter, black & gold hand-painted lettering; outer cable knit nylon cord; mfg Carlon Rubber Products, Inc., Derby CT, KOROSEAL PVC foam, model no. KS-18. E25-160.064/012/0.

LOT 350- UMBRELLA: Nylon golf umbrella; w/ MADF insignia & Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, New York and London; black & white color., DUFFLE BAGS: Three (3) monogrammed beige canvas duffle bags; w/ "Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities Montauk 1993" & sun emblem., MISC.: Six (6) vinyl letters in wood cigar box; black on yellow 3" initials B, L, & M (2 each); Macanudo cigar box w/ hinged lid.

The AdMob deal announced today is the third largest acquisition in Google's history, behind only DoubleClick ($3.1 billion) and YouTube ($1.7 billion). But no one's really been talking about the mobile advertising network or its early-thirtysomething founder Omar Hamoui until now. Hamoui is downright anonymous.

Here's what we've learned about him based on his low internet profile and scant press clippings:

• Has all of 441 followers on Twitter. In contrast, Jason Calacanis, who sold his weblogging company for less than 1/20th as much, has 77,000 followers.
  
• 32 years old as of May.
  
• Earned a bachelor's in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles and dropped out of the MBA program at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
  
• Ran computer programming company Vertical Blue for almost four years.
  
• Senior program manager at Sony Pictures Digital, about two years.
  
• COO of startup called GoPix.
  
• Started HerBabyShower.com.
  
• Started FotoChatter, for sharing pictures between cell phones, but left the venture behind after becoming frustrated with the inefficiency of advertising his site to mobile users.
  
• Came up with AdMob as a solution to the FotoChatter advertising headaches while at Wharton, at age 28.
  
• In 2007, Bill Gates personally asked Omar Hamoui to speak at Microsoft's annual gathering of journalists, according to a July 207 Ad Age article. Gates had just bought one of Hamoui's competitors.
  
• Last year, toured Kara Swisher of All Things D through his cramped headquarters in San Mateo, a town on the San Francisco Peninsula not exactly famous as a startup hotbed. (See below).
  
• Google bought AdMob after attempting to launch a mobile ad network of its own (AdSense Mobile).

(Pic: Hamoui by Rodrigo SEPÚLVEDA SCHULZ )

The report said that no-one knows how Taek Jho Low, a 20-something Wharton grad, has so much money. Reliable sources say that despite his cuddly appearance, he is actually quite a dangerous character. More when I get it/do not fear death. As well as racking up $160k in one night at Avenue, he bought Lindsay Lohan 23 bottles of Cristal on her birthday, and regularly drops $50k in Pink Elephant - after one party he flew eight waitresses back to Malaysia with him. He also rolls with an entourage of 12 and pays about $150k a month in rent in Diddy's old building, the Park Imperial on 56th Street (where his fleet of Escalades annoys the neighbors.)

As well as spending 2006-levels of money on an average Tuesday, he joined the ranks of the hyper-rich who (allegedly) pay to get up close and personal with women they see on the TV when he flew Fox out to his party. Ron Burkle was accused, in a book earlier this year, of paying to watch Paris Hilton get some girl-on-girl action. And British model/magazine cover regular Sophie Anderton admitted recently that she'd been a high-end hooker, selling her services for about $25,000.

There is, of course, no evidence that Fox did anything but discuss the weather with Low.

Time Warner's jets have been on the market since at least December 2008, nearly a year ago. That was just after Time Warner's Time Inc. announced the layoff of 600 staff. In February, we called on the media conglomerate to sell its four Gulfstreams, which we estimated were worth a combined $124 million, roughly, based on used jet listings at the time.

But all those jets are still registered in the company's name, according to FAA records; CityFile is reporting that the company still owns at least three of them, and has now echoed our suggestion that they be sold. Sure, it's a buyer's market for corporate jets, but Time Warner can't cut prices enough to move one of these? We wonder if the company isn't keeping prices high on purpose, a trick described by the Economist:

According to analysts at JPMorgan, asking prices for used jets actually rose by 3.4% in the year to November [2008]. Jonathan Breeze, chief executive of Jet Republic, a private-jet operator, suggests that some announcements that firms are selling their jets are "elaborate window dressing". By putting jets up for sale at a high price that ensures nobody will buy, companies can appear frugal-even as their bosses continue to fly as usual.

But we are having a hard time imagining media moguls putting their own personal status-symbol luxuries ahead of the welfare of their workers. Ha ha, kidding!

The WSJ reports:

The evening's top price went to Alberto Giacometti's 1950 bronze of a toppling man, "L'Homme Qui Chavire," which an Eastern European collector bidding over the telephone got for $19.3 million, well over its $12 million high estimate.

Macroeconomic win! Bring back Gourmet!

CityFile reports that Newhouse paid $20 million for this fancy spindly-looking sculpture, "L'Homme Qui Chavire" by Alberto Giacometti, and now he's selling it at Sotheby's, where it's estimated to go for about half that. This, after he tried and failed to sell it at $20 million and $16 million.

Regular Americans know this move as "Desperately taking shit to the pawn shop, to pay the bills."

Conde Nast! Glamor!
[Cityfile]

Vanity Fair caught up with the freedom fighter himself in London:

What could happen to him if he went back today? "I don't know," he says. "There are enough lawyers working on it. So I let them work." He blames a lot of what happened to him in America on the eight George W. Bush years. "America has always been a country of dreams, and it became a country of hate."

Alberto Gonzales never could get a decent table.
[Pic: Getty]

Or so we hear from a College Park tipster claiming to be familiar with the residences of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (paper wealth: $2 billion) and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim (estimated wealth: $64 million). Public records confirm that Karim lives in the two-by-twelve-block Palo Alto neighbohood, adjacent to Stanford University; records indicate Zuckerberg has for months occupied property nearby, albeit in the form of Facebook's new headquarters, a short walk away from Karim.

But Zuckerberg is now a neighbor in a much more real sense, according to our tipster, renting a home right next door to Karim (as in side by side) on the same street. The brief commute would be one good reason for living there. Another: It looks like a leafy, laid back area, according to the ample photographs of the street on Google Maps. Based on Karim's address this is the block they share:

Why are Zuckerberg's neighbors ratting out his address? His employees are taking up the parking, and, we're told, residents complain that the fast-growing company is not providing enough spots (they're apparently not mollified by a proposal to begin requiring residential permits in some areas). You should probably get on that, Mark; these people know where you live.

In the meantime, local residents are missing the real outrage: That, in their 'hood, even insanely wealthy startup founders live in what most American suburbanites would consider modest pads.

• "Paul": A 43 year-old "academic who specializes in antiquities," Paul's "partner" (gay) is a law firm partner, and together they bring in more than $2 mil a year, no thanks to academia. They have houses in Hong Kong, NYC, and the Hamptons—and they've poured $1 million into a renovation of the Hamptons place. "There's a perilous, exciting feeling to having zigged when other people zagged," he explains. He's referring to spending lots and lots of money, there.
• "Jon": A 30 year-old commercial real estate broker in NYC, Jon's income has fallen during the recession, but he can't stand to regress from $10,000 watches and $2,000 suits. It's hard not to spend, you see: "Then you go to the pool, and it's another $300 for a cabana-and you want the good cabana, not the one on the second floor where no one can see you."

The autopsy said that Picower had a massive heart attack in his pool, then drowned as a result. And he was reportedly in poor health—thanks to Bernie Madoff!

"We always have been private people, and having all this play out in the media has taken a big toll on our health," the couple wrote in response to questions submitted earlier this month by The New York Times.

Irving Picard, the trustee for the Madoff victims, still wants to get back the $7 billion that Picower made from Madoff over the years. Hell, he can't take it with him, wherever he is. And it ended up killing him. Crime really doesn't pay.
[Pic via]

We asked for attendees of yesterday's nuptials to send us their own pics when we saw the New York Post's exclusive wedding portrait this morning. After we saw the photos pop up on the websites for People, Star and PopSugar, we started making calls to find out how they got the pics, too.

A phone chain commenced. First their wedding photographer Fred Marcus Photography wouldn't tell us anything beyond "No comment." Then Steve Rubenstein (who reps both Jared and the Post) told us to call Ivanka's rep Rona Graf who told us the wedding pics are free handouts and to call Getty, which is distributing the photos. Getty, though, said that we had to promise to only use the photos for a "positive story." (That is how you get headlines like People's "FIRST PHOTO: 'Beautiful and Smart' Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner.") This, Getty said, was on orders of a P.R. representing the couple (they wouldn't say who exactly) and since Gawker doesn't make ludicrous pledges, you'll have to go elsewhere to get your Kushner-Trump nuptial photographic fix.

So, we're starting a Gawker Contest*: We're offering $150 to the best Photoshop job on any of their handout wedding photos. Also, we'll pay the same prize to the person that sends us the best wedding photo that hasn't been released yet. Put your entries in the comments, or email us. The entire KushnerTrump clan anxiously awaits your work.

*Standard contest rules apply.

All we know so far about his death: not much.

The Palm Beach Fire Department told ABC News that Picower had no pulse when fire rescue workers arrived at his oceanfront mansion after his wife called 911. She and his housekeeper pulled his body from the pool shortly after noon.

But (not that you should read anything into this) we do know that Picower inspired a lot of hate. He reportedly made $7 billion in profit off his Madoff investments since the 1970s. That automatically makes him a villain. Irving Picard, the trustee overseeing the recovery of Madoff assets, is trying to get that money back. And, according to the WSJ, federal prosecutors "are looking into whether Mr. Picower or several other longtime Madoff associates had knowledge of or complicity in the fraud."

His $28 million mansion was known as "Casa del Sud," and is pictured above. WHAT A TALE.

[House pic via]