The party didn’t stop when “The Wolf of Wall Street” was arrested for scamming $200 million from clueless investors.
Martin Scorsese’s wildly entertaining movie ended with Jordan Belfort’s bust in 1998, but the party kept going while Belfort was under house arrest in an oceanfront mansion on Dune Road in Southampton.
And despite an ankle monitor, Belfort was also able to charter helicopter rides to Atlantic City, or borrow a Ferrari to take a girl to the movies.
Nightlife impresario Rocco Ancarola told me, “I got a call one day from Hampton magazine founder Randy Schindler, and Randy said, ‘I know this guy who has a big mansion. He just got divorced. Why don’t you stay at his place this summer with all your girls?’”
Ancarola, who was running Boom Bistro in Sag Harbor, said he loaded up a minivan, and arrived at the palatial house with 14 or 15 girls. “Jordan had rooms for everyone. He was very accommodating.”
Nightclub veteran Mark Baker soon arrived for the summer with a posse of women known for their long legs and short resumes.
“Jordan was living the high life, entertaining models and Russian call girls, and all sorts of hangers-on. The party didn’t stop,” Ancarola said.
Hells Angel Chuck Zito, who would shortly be famous as an actor on “Oz,” sometimes cooked marinara sauce for pasta diners. Yulia Sukhanova, Miss Soviet Union of 1989, arrived one day and was suddenly Belfort’s new girlfriend.
When summer ended, Belfort moved into a rented penthouse at the Galleria on East 57th Street. Soon, he was doing 22 months in prison.
Ancarola bumped into Belfort when he got out, and he was busy brokering mortgages with plans to make a new fortune. “I thought to myself, ‘Those poor people. They don’t know who they are dealing with.’”