“He just about used me every day” beginning within the fall of 2020, Posch tells New Instances. “Throughout Artwork Basel, I used to be going nonstop with him.”
Posch is aware of the drill. Because the proprietor of Superior Miami Limo Service, he says he has pushed round numerous celebrities, together with Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, and Formulation One driver Lewis Hamilton.
These individuals, nonetheless, differed from Belfort in a single essential means. In keeping with a just lately filed lawsuit, Belfort’s “luxurious habits proceed to be fueled by benefiting from others.” (The grievance is hooked up under.)
The go well with, a duplicate of which was obtained by New Instances, alleges that Belfort stiffed Posch out of practically $24,000 for driving companies from September 2021 by December 2021.
“He simply principally stopped paying, and I requested numerous occasions for him to pay me,” Posch tells New Instances.
As you may recall, throughout the Nineties, Belfort defrauded greater than 1,500 traders out of $200 million. On the finish of that decade, he pleaded responsible to securities fraud and cash laundering and spent nearly two years in federal jail. After his launch, the Bronx native reinvented himself as a motivational speaker and wrote the memoir that impressed a 2013 Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio that grossed practically $290 million on the field workplace.
Shortly earlier than The Wolf of Wall Road was launched in 2013, Belfort insisted he’d moved on from his scamming methods. He mentioned he was a modified man and wished to “lastly shut out that chapter” in his life.
Then once more, at his sentencing, the choose ordered Belfort to repay $110 million in restitution. As just lately as 2018, prosecutors have been claiming the cash had nonetheless not been paid.
The limo driver Posch claims that “regardless of nonetheless owing his victims over $100 million,” Belfort resides out an “opulent life-style and just lately moved right into a $35,000-per-month rental dwelling on Hibiscus Island in Miami Seaside.”
Posch says the 60-year-old ex-con, who prices 1000’s of {dollars} per look as an occasion speaker and cryptocurrency guru, first employed Superior Limo in October of 2020 on one in all his frequent visits to the Magic Metropolis. The erstwhile Wall Road Wolf finally moved full-time to Miami Seaside from California a yr later and continued to make use of Posch’s companies.
Posch says he would submit month-to-month invoices to Belfort’s assistant that included an itemization of each journey, and that the assistant permitted every bill.
The funds stopped round September 2021, Posch says, although he continued to drive Belfort.
“I used to be nonetheless working with him till about January of this yr,” the motive force tells New Instances. However then I mentioned, ‘Properly, pay attention, mister, we’re 4 months late.’ [He would respond,] ‘What do you are concerned about? I pay everybody.'”
In keeping with Posch’s data, the priciest month was November 2021, throughout which Belfort racked up $8,000 in rides, a lot of which concerned taking Belfort and others to and from Miami-Opa Locka Govt Airport. Different occasions, Posch says, he devoted 12- to 16-hour days driving Belfort throughout Miami-Dade County, leading to payments of $1,000 or extra for the day. He additionally drove Belfort to eating places like Mila and Carbone in Miami Seaside, and to nightclubs like E11even in downtown Miami.
Reached by New Instances, Belfort asserts that the lawsuit is predicated on faux invoices. He contends that his bookkeeper, who’s liable for paying Belfort’s payments, paid Posch on time every month.
“That is the most important rip-off ever,” Belfort retorts. “The man will get fired as a result of he leaves me and my spouse at a restaurant after which all of the sudden months later, he sends again payments from after I moved down right here. Like, I already paid all of those invoices.”
Every week after Miami attorneys David Winker and David Hagen despatched a requirement letter to Belfort on Posch’s behalf on September 7, the recipient bared his figurative fangs by way of return textual content message.
“I do know what you are as much as making up phony invoices going again to the day I moved right here and I [am] going to destroy you on social media,” reads a screenshot of a textual content Posch says Belfort despatched him on September 14. “You’re a fucking crock and searching ahead to studying about you within the Miami Herald and on each web site and social media community. Now we have proof that you are a fucking liar.”
Such animosity stands in stark distinction to a December 2021 video Belfort recorded behind Posch’s Escalade, during which the rich wolf sang the motive force’s praises.
“Pay attention, in case you are occupied with discovering a limo firm in Miami, you must use Superior Miami,” Belfort says within the video, which Posch’s legal professional shared with New Instances. “Robert is my driver personally. He’s the perfect driver ever. He is aware of everybody and every little thing in Miami. He has a good time that is been working for him. Positively the perfect service anyplace in Miami — promise you that, obtained my vote of confidence.”
When Belfort failed to reply formally to the demand letter inside 30 days, Posch and his attorneys moved ahead with the lawsuit.
