Ep 151: The Myth of Michael Milken with Richard Sandler

“They started financing companies that could never get financing before. This is sort of where the term democratization of capital came from. So the market grew tremendously because you now had a firm in the market that was doing original issues of bonds for companies and companies such as Ted Turner, Steve Wynn, MCI Communications, Pulte Homes, all these companies that could never have gotten financing before were now able to get financing and grow.”

“Here they were basically taking market share. They were a disruptor. If you use today's term, they were a disruptor... People didn't like Bill Gates and Microsoft because they're a disruptor. Number one, he was taking market share. Number two, because he developed a market and people believe in what he was doing, he was able to finance people who wanted to acquire other companies that they thought were undervalued in the market.”

“RICO stands for Rocket Carrying Influence Corruption Organization. It was a statute, it was passed by Congress, it's a federal law, to give prosecutors extra powers and to be able to impose very severe penalties on people in organized crime. And under the RICO statute, if you have two, what they call predicate acts within a certain period of time, you could be deemed a racketeering enterprise. And those two acts could be anything from two mail frauds.”

“Lowell had almost no contact with Mr. Bowsky or the Trans Act, can say we're looking at. But he was Mike's brother. And it was interesting in that as I talk about in the book, years later when I taught a class at Stanford Law School about this case and what happened, I brought in the young prosecutor who worked with Mr. Giuliani at the time to talk about his perspective years later on the case and upon the process. And when we asked him specifically about the dive in Lowell Milken, he acknowledged the fact that Lowell would not have been indicted if it wasn't to bring pressure on his brother.”

“And we actually found things that they would accept that Mike could plead to, none of which, and this is why I go in great detail in the book so people understand how in many ways ridiculous it is, none of which had ever been the subject of a criminal prosecution before or since. I mean, if you want me to drive you an example... technically, I guess you could make an argument since the 13D is supposed to disclose everybody who has an interest in the stock that you own, that when Mike said, I would make it up to you, Boeske theoretically should have amended this 13D to indicate that Mike had made this promise.”

“Not only did President Trump grant him a pardon, but when he called Mike to tell him that he was getting a pardon, he said, you know, and this is a real pardon, you've never done anything for me. Okay, you know, there's no quo here, it's a pardon. And then the White House issued a press release that went in great detail on the fact of what Mike has done in his life, in the world of finance, for companies to get capital that couldn't get capital, what Mike had done in philanthropy, in cancer research to save lives.”

“The media has tremendous power. Get out there and tell your story. Let people hear from you, who you are and what you're doing. My true was he was considered reclusive. He did not want not want to talk to the media. So people wanted to interview him because they were getting more and more successful. He let people at Drexel do it. He did not want to be part of the media out there. So I think that pertained a lot in that who Mike was was defined by the government through this process.”