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Chameleon
The Real Eddie: His Scamming Is Insaaaaane!
00:29:43
The rise and spectacular fall of Eddie Antar, the electronics mogul behind the Crazy Eddie brand. Who scammed his way from the streets of Brooklyn to Wall Street and then vanished without a trace.
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- [00:00]
Narrator/Advertiser
If you walk into a room and can't remember why, it could be nothing or something more. If you confuse a familiar recipe, it could be a slip up or it could be associated with amyloid plaque buildup in the brain. Amyloid is a protein that your body produces naturally, but a buildup in the brain could lead to memory and thinking issues. To see what may be behind your memory and thinking issues, talk to your doctor about getting a full assessment. It's never too early to start the conversation. Visit amyloid.com to learn more.
- [00:32]
Commercial Announcer
For my family, I'm always at my best. That's why I also want the best in my kitchen. And that means only Egglin's best eggs. They're always so fresh tasting and delicious with 6 times more vitamin D, 10 times more vitamin E, and 25% less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. So why give your family less when they can have the best Egglands best Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs. For added convenience, look for our hard cooked peeled eggs. Need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips, or manage payroll. OnDeck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds up to $200,000 exactly when your business needs it. With flexible draws, transparent pricing and full control over repayment, you can tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. Apply today@ondeck.com and funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender. Approv Campsite Media
- [01:35]
Gary Weiss
hello. What is.
- [01:37]
Josh Dean
What do you want me to say?
- [01:40]
Gary Weiss
Chameleon Chameleon Chameleon Weekly oh,
- [01:45]
Josh Dean
if you lived in the New York City Tri State area in the 70s and 80s, you might remember turning on the TV and hearing this. It's a crazy. Any blowout blitz will not be undersold.
- [01:55]
Gary Weiss
We cannot be undersold and we mean it.
- [01:57]
Josh Dean
His Blowout Blitz sale prices are insane. That raving madman was the mascot of an electronics chain called Crazy Eddie. The commercials were everywhere.
- [02:11]
Gary Weiss
It was sort of a multicultural phenomenon.
- [02:14]
Josh Dean
This is Gary Weiss. He's a New York based journalist who wrote the literal book on this infamous Brooklynite. It's called Retail Gangster the Insane Real Life Story of Crazy Eddie.
- [02:27]
Gary Weiss
You see, my father was an electronics engineer. He did not shop at Crazy Eddie. He didn't like that kind of store. He never went there, never set foot inside a Crazy Eddie store.
- [02:36]
Josh Dean
And neither did gary. But in 2006, someone named Sam E. Antar left a comment on a blog he was writing at the time. It turned out Sam E. Was the former CFO of Crazy Eddie. They met in person and he started to tell Gary all about the company.
- [02:54]
Gary Weiss
He knows a lot of journalists and he knows a lot of cops and there's a lot of people in the white collar crime business. And he was good to know. And we were talking about this, the possibility of my, you know, talking to him. And he had voluminous resources, you know, documentation. So one thing led to another and I wound up writing the book.
- [03:15]
Josh Dean
Despite never shopping at Crazy Eddie's himself. His father's background in electronics piqued Gary's interest. And those wild advertising campaigns had seared themselves into his mind from a very young age.
- [03:28]
Gary Weiss
It was just but a small child watching those famous commercials that they had on late night tv.
- [03:36]
Josh Dean
The ads were so inescapable that Jerry Carroll, the radio DJ who played Evie, would get recognized on the street and such a phenomenon that they were referenced all over pop culture. They were parodied on Saturday Night Live twice. First by dan Aykroyd in 1976. Crazy Ernie. Boy, is Ernie crazy. He's been at it again, folks. Slashing crisis solo, you won't believe it. Then by Joe Piscopo in 1983. Hi, I'm Crazy Edelman, the discount psychiatrist. And my prices are absolutely insane. Crazy Eddie kept popping up even years after their stores closed in 1989. Like as a character on the animated show Futurama, I'm malfunctioning Eddie, and I malfunction so badly, I'm practically giving these cars away. Crazy Eddie was even referenced in a Beastie Boys lyric, which basically enshrines a thing as a New York institution. The actual Crazy Eddy stores were huge, filled floor to ceiling with electronics, stereos, air conditioners and VCRs, which is how a lot of us used to watch movies. This kind of store doesn't really exist anymore, but think Best Buy. Just more crowded with stuff and with salesmen who prowl the floors trying to talk you into a larger and more expensive model of whatever you're in the market for. These Crazy Eddie salesmen were known for their technique.
- [05:02]
Gary Weiss
It was, it was a very high intensity experience. You go in and they grab you.
- [05:07]
Josh Dean
It was a strategy Eddie Antar, the Crazy Eddie owner and founder, picked up as a young man selling overpriced electronics on the streets of Times Square. Unlike the Crazy Eddie played by Jerry Carroll in the commercials, the real Eddie was a fairly low key person who kept away from the spotlight. He was also everyone Agreed. A huge jerk.
- [05:26]
Gary Weiss
He had a drinking problem. He was a philanderer. He was no prince, believe me, no prince at all.
- [05:34]
Josh Dean
Eddie was a tough negotiator and an unrelenting salesman. And it paid off. Because in the early 80s, business was booming. But it wouldn't last. And when it all came crashing down, the business, the family, the notoriety, Eddie was nowhere to be found. This is Chameleon the Weekly and I'm Josh Dean. This week, the story of an American electronics chain that seemed like a massive success, but was actually a massive fraud.
- [06:21]
Narrator/Advertiser
If you walk into a room and can't remember why, it could be nothing or something more. If you confuse a familiar recipe, it could be a slip up or it could be associated with amyloid plaque buildup in the brain. Amyloid is a protein that your body produces naturally. But a buildup in the brain could lead to memory and thinking issues. To see what may be behind your memory and thinking issues, talk to your doctor about getting a full assessment. It's never too early to start the conversation, visit amyloid.com to learn more.
- [06:52]
Commercial Announcer
For my family, I'm always at my best. That's why I also want the best in my kitchen. And that means only Eggland's best eggs. They're always so fresh tasting and delicious with 6 times more vitamin D, 10 times more vitamin E and 25% less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. So why give your family less when they can have the best Egglands best? Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs. For added convenience, look for our hard cooked peeled eggs.
- [07:22]
Gary Weiss
Chameleon.
- [07:23]
Narrator/Advertiser
Chameleon.
- [07:23]
Josh Dean
Chameleon. This is Chameleon Weekly. Eddie Antar was a second generation Syrian Jewish immigrant. Born in Flatbush, Brooklyn into a family of retailers. He showed an early interest in business. And in ninth grade, Eddie quit school and went to work in Times Square at a store known as a clip joint.
- [07:43]
Gary Weiss
They sold overpriced electronic goods to tourists mainly. When I say overpriced, I mean four or five times retail.
- [07:53]
Josh Dean
This was where Eddie learned to sell anything to anyone.
- [07:57]
Gary Weiss
You grab the customer when he comes in. You want to be sure that he buys something. You get a commitment from him. Sort of the art of ripping off customers.
- [08:07]
Josh Dean
When he turned 21, Eddie's father set him up with a store of his own.
- [08:12]
Gary Weiss
It was part of the traditions of the family in the Syrian Jewish community that the father sets up the eldest son in business. And that's what he did with Eddie in 1968 when he set him up in Brooklyn.
- [08:24]
Josh Dean
Now highly skilled in the dark art of Ripping people off. Eddie, with his father's help, opened his very own electronics store on Kings highway in Brooklyn. At first they called it Sights and Sounds, but eventually, with marketing in mind, he renamed it Crazy Eddie. There was just one problem. Kings highway wasn't exactly a popular shopping destination.
- [08:45]
Gary Weiss
It was sort of an out of the way location in Brooklyn, lived in the vicinity. Why would you go to Kings highway in Brooklyn to buy electronics?
- [08:55]
Josh Dean
This was no small problem. How could Eddie draw customers from all over the city to come shop in his remote location? By advertising. Eddie started with print ads targeting the youth market who were generally more excited about electronics in the Village Voice. But soon enough, he moved on to TV commercials. It's Crazy Eddie's greatest stereo sale ever. Get anything and everything in stereo equipment. Get it all now. During Crazy Eddie's greatest stereo sale ever. Crazy Eddie. His prices are insane. The ads had one simple message. Crazy Eddie is cheap.
- [09:27]
Gary Weiss
It's the oldest game in the book. My God, you know, that the retailer is so insane that he's charging less than he's paid.
- [09:36]
Josh Dean
But in reality, Crazy Eddie's prices weren't so low because he was insane. They were low because he was stealing the sales tax, you know, back on
- [09:45]
Gary Weiss
an 8.5% or so sales tax. And he would charge the tax and he'd put it in his pocket. He wouldn't send it on to the state. It was a tax avoidance.
- [09:58]
Josh Dean
This was of course illegal. Although Eddie never got nailed for it.
- [10:02]
Gary Weiss
The state tax people, they didn't seem to care. You know, they could let him get away with it.
- [10:07]
Josh Dean
With its memorable ads and low, low prices, Crazy Eddie became a hit and stores started popping up all around the Tri state area. It was a real family affair. Eddie's father, Sam M. And brother Mitchell were VPs. His cousin Solomon was the company's general counsel. Eddie paid for another cousin, Sam E. That's the guy who was one of Gary's sources to go to college and then made him the CFO.
- [10:31]
Sam E. Antar
I started when I was 14. I was a nerdy kid. I used to read the Wall Street Journal as a kid and Barron's and the Wall street transcript. My cousin put me through college to major in accounting to get a cpa. So I would have that implied credibility to be the future CFO of the company so he can steal more money.
- [10:50]
Josh Dean
That's Sam e. In a 2019 interview with the Odd Lots podcast. Sam E. Was a star accounting student, but he was looking at the things he learned in school from an unintended perspective. That of a Criminal.
- [11:02]
Sam E. Antar
When I took an ethics course, I learned that ethics limits your behavior didn't limit mine as a criminal. I was learning things from the vantage point of how do you take advantage of human nature? How do you take advantage of accounting rules? How do you take advantage of the limitations of audits?
- [11:18]
Josh Dean
After graduating, Sam E. Joined crazy Eddie in 1971. According to him, fraud was baked into the company's business plan from the start.
- [11:26]
Sam E. Antar
You have to understand something about Crazy Eddies is that we were not businessmen turned criminals. We were criminals running businesses up front. We didn't have this momentary lapse in judgment where we fell into crime. Crime was part of the business plan.
- [11:42]
Josh Dean
A business plan they picked up from Eddie's dad. Eddie's father, Sam M. Was a pretty successful business owner and window decorator who got paid strictly in cash. Most of that cash was hidden around the house. Everything he did was off the books and therefore tax free. So naturally, when Eddie started a business of his own, he followed suit. Paying taxes was optional. But Eddie and Sammy didn't stop at tax avoidance. Crazy Eddie thrived on scams and tricks of all kinds of like insurance fraud.
- [12:12]
Gary Weiss
They might get a flood or burglary and he would inflate the damages in putting into claim to the insurance companies and skimming, they were skimming profits from the stores and sending it overseas, mainly to Israel, but also to Panama and some other places like that.
- [12:35]
Josh Dean
Sam E. Explained it in an interview on cnbc.
- [12:38]
Sam E. Antar
Customer comes in, you make the sale,
- [12:40]
Gary Weiss
give them a receipt.
- [12:40]
Sam E. Antar
Your copy you throw away and that's it.
- [12:43]
Josh Dean
There's no record of the sale on the company's books.
- [12:46]
Sam E. Antar
You take the cash, you put it
- [12:47]
Josh Dean
in your pocket and nobody knows anything. Whenever auditors paid them a visit, Sam and Eddie would throw documents in the trash and distract them.
- [12:54]
Sam E. Antar
Remember, these are young males doing the legwork on audits. What's the best way to distract a young male? Women. So we picked out very, very beautiful, lovely, sexy ladies to work, work side by side with our auditors and they would end up being distracted.
- [13:12]
Josh Dean
These auditors, he said, would miss very clear mistakes every single time. But despite all the schemes, it still wasn't enough. And in the early 80s, Sam E. Had an idea for how they could make it really big.
- [13:24]
Gary Weiss
Sam said, look, you know, you want to really make money, you need to get go public. You need to have an initial public offering. And in order to persuade people to buy into your initial public offering, you want to show profits. And of course, these people being crooks, they were able to fabricate Profits. By reducing the amount of skim in advance of going public, Eddie and his
- [13:56]
Josh Dean
co conspirators began to gradually reduce the amount of money they were skimming from the company. The money they continued to take off the top, they funneled through Panama and back into the stores, making it look like their sales numbers were even bigger. They called this scheme the Panama Pump and it's featured in the 2016 movie the Accountant where Ben Affleck plays a CPA for criminals. In the film, he has a breakthrough in the case he's working on when he remembers the scam Eddie pulled. Confused. I'll let Ben explain. Well, initially he was just stealing and garden variety tax evasion. But then he came up with a better idea. You see, by taking his own money, stealing it and putting it back on
- [14:34]
Narrator/Advertiser
his books, it was raining cash.
- [14:36]
Josh Dean
By the time Krazy Eddie went public in 1984, it appeared to the market, to potential investors like the chain had experienced a major jump in profit. This growth impressed Wall street enough that the company made a killing. He took the company public at $8 a share. A year later it was trading at 75. Thanks, Ben. Anyway, the scheming didn't stop there.
- [14:58]
Gary Weiss
They engaged in systematic fraud, inflating their inventories, which is one of the things you do if you want to inflate your profits.
- [15:07]
Josh Dean
Eddie was making millions and millions of untaxed cash. At times, the lengths he would go to to keep the share price up was bordering on the comical. What was he doing with all that cash? Strapping it to himself, literally, and flying it overseas.
- [15:23]
Gary Weiss
He had a big plan to abscond from the country.
- [15:29]
Josh Dean
Eddie Antar wasn't stupid. Clearly he knew that this would all catch up with him eventually. So Eddie was slowly sneaking money out and placing it into bank accounts in Switzerland, in Israel. By 1987, he was making arrangements to get Israeli citizenship under a new name. You might be thinking, what about his family? He must have been making arrangements for his loved ones too, right? Wrong.
- [15:53]
Gary Weiss
He treated his father badly. He treated his wife badly, treated everybody.
- [15:57]
Josh Dean
He screwed everybody, even though they worked together. Eddie didn't have a good relationship with his family. He was always cheating on his wife. And when they got divorced, most of the Antars took her side. Not only was his father close with his wife, he also had other personal issues with Eddie.
- [16:13]
Gary Weiss
His father felt marginalized by his eldest son. He felt somewhat humiliated even by the fact that he was sort of pushed aside. He was no longer the head of the family. Eddie was now Ed of the family. His father felt sort of cast aside. It was a very sad thing.
- [16:31]
Josh Dean
Eddie would come to regret not treating his relatives better because he was right. It was only a matter of time before someone would realize that the whole Crazy Eddy operation was was built on lies. That chapter after the break.
- [16:51]
Narrator/Advertiser
If you walk into a room and can't remember why, it could be nothing or something more. If you confuse a familiar recipe, it could be a slip up or it could be associated with amyloid plaque buildup in the brain. Amyloid is a protein that your body produces naturally. Naturally. But a buildup in the brain could lead to memory and thinking issues. To see what may be behind your memory and thinking issues, talk to your doctor about getting a full assessment. It's never too early to start the conversation. Visit amyloid.com to learn more.
- [17:22]
Commercial Announcer
For my family, I'm always at my best. That's why I also want the best in my kitchen. And that means only Egglin's best eggs. They're always so fresh tasting and delicious with 6 times more vitamin D, 10 times more vitamin E, and 25% less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. So why give your family less when they can have the best Egglands best Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs. For added convenience, look for our hard cooked peeled eggs. Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's Small Business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ond ondeck.com, funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes. Your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondac does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.
- [18:23]
Josh Dean
Welcome back to chameleon. In early 1987, Eddie Antar resigned as CEO of Crazy Eddie's Electronics. There were rumors he was sick, rumors that he himself started. In reality, he was traveling between Israel, Montreal, London and the U.S. meanwhile, because the family had stopped skimming Crazy Eddie, the corporation was starting to hemorrhage money. CFO and cousin Sam E. Antar said they had planned for that. As he told Bloomberg, the plan was
- [18:52]
Sam E. Antar
to go public, sell stock at inflated prices. Eventually it would catch up to itself. And then what we would do is use Wall Street's money to take it private again and recycle all over again.
- [19:04]
Josh Dean
But while the Antars were scheming, a young businessman from Houston named Elias Zinn was cooking up a scheme of his own. Zinn, who went by the nickname E. Z, had similarities to Eddie. He had also dropped out of school and went on to start an electronics empire called Entertainment Marketing that impressed Wall Street. But while Eddie was prickly, Eazy was friendly and talkative. He had been watching Crazy Eddie from afar and decided that the company was a gold mine. EZ was determined to buy the company at its peak, or what he thought was its peak. A week after The Antars bid $7 a share to take the company back private, Zinn sauntered in and bid eight bucks. He bought enough stock to vote the Antars out and took over the company. The Antars lost their family business, and someone from the outside was about to have full access to their company and all its secrets. Zinn was in for a rude awakening.
- [20:01]
Gary Weiss
They bought this diamond in the rock. They thought, we're gonna. We're gonna turn this into a fabulous, fabulous company.
- [20:09]
Josh Dean
As soon as the deal went through, Zinn and his partners headed to the offices in New Jersey. The new CFO walked into his new office and opened the filing cabinet to get started on this grand adventure.
- [20:19]
Gary Weiss
There was no files. They were all missing. Empty file cabinet.
- [20:25]
Josh Dean
This was a multi million dollar company. There should have been records, invoices, financial statements, but there was absolutely nothing. Their first week on the job, Zinn and his team conducted an inventory of the company's merchandise. They found that Crazy Eddie's inventory was overstated by $65 million. That's 100%. Zinn had no choice but to put out a press release.
- [20:48]
Gary Weiss
Publicity concerning Crazy Eddie had turned sour. There were reports of criminal investigations. It became evidence that this was a fraud.
- [20:58]
Josh Dean
Lawsuits started flying, and the SEC began an investigation. Crazy Eddie's stock plummeted, and despite Zinn's emergency efforts to lower overhead, the company collapsed. It went bankrupt in 1989. And Eddie?
- [21:12]
Gary Weiss
No one knew who Eddie was.
- [21:14]
Josh Dean
Unbeknownst to Zinn and the Feds, Eddy was living the new life he had set up for himself in Israel. He returned to New York for a preliminary ruling in the SEC case. And then in February 1990, he disappeared completely. Eddie had collected six passports that he used to travel and open bank accounts around the world, one of them under an identity he'd stolen from a friend in Israel. Eddie registered as a citizen under two a diamond dealer named Alexander Stewart and a wealthy Brazilian named David Jacob Levi Cohen. For years, Eddie moved his money around, using 20 different bank accounts and dummy corporations, trying to create an unfollowable money trail. And while Eddie was mia, the SEC had their hands full sorting through the Antar family drama.
- [22:00]
Gary Weiss
There was a certain amount of clashing going on internally among the feds between who's got the real goods?
- [22:06]
Josh Dean
They had witnesses from opposite sides of the Crazy Eddy feud pointing fingers at each other. At first, Sam E. Cousin and CFO Refused to help the feds. But ultimately, Sam realized that the Antars were not on his side.
- [22:20]
Sam E. Antar
Around 1989, I realized that I was being set up by a different faction within the family to take the fall with Eddie.
- [22:28]
Josh Dean
And Eddie, of course, was no help,
- [22:30]
Gary Weiss
because as we refused to help Sam, he wouldn't help Sam with his legal fees.
- [22:36]
Josh Dean
That was the last straw for Sam
- [22:38]
Sam E. Antar
E. So here I am, left alone, facing years in prison, where my mentor, the guy that put me through college, he's going against me. And his own family that was going against him has set me up to take the fall. And I decide at that point that I'm going to cooperate with the feds.
- [22:55]
Josh Dean
Sam E. Flipped and became one of the prosecution's most important witnesses. Gary thinks that if Eddie had just helped his cousin out, Sam wouldn't have said anything to the feds, and maybe nothing would have come from the investigation at all.
- [23:09]
Sam E. Antar
I didn't cooperate with the feds out of any sense of remorse, out of any sense of feeling bad for my crimes. I only did it to save my rear end.
- [23:17]
Josh Dean
But Eddie, like his store, was just too damn cheap.
- [23:21]
Gary Weiss
He was cheap with Sam. He was cheap with his wife. He was cheap with his father. He was cheap, and he was abusive. So kind of planted seeds for his own destruction.
- [23:33]
Josh Dean
Which leads Gary to some useful advice for aspiring criminals.
- [23:37]
Gary Weiss
If you're going to commit illegal acts, don't make enemies of your entire family.
- [23:43]
Josh Dean
Why would anyone want to stay loyal to Eddie when he was such a jerk? One key piece of information that Sam E. Gave the feds the name of one of the banks Eddie was using to store his millions. By following the tangled money trail Eddie left, investigators found a Swiss bank account belonging to a man named David Cohen. We know now that this was one of the identities Eddie was using. But the feds weren't sure of that yet. David Cohen's account happened to have Eddie Antar's second wife and uncle as power of attorney. Still, it wasn't enough for the SEC to prove that the account belonged to Eddie. They asked the bank for help.
- [24:18]
Gary Weiss
The Swiss banks are not as secretive as you think they are, so the feds were able to obtain the cooperation
- [24:24]
Josh Dean
of Swiss banks, and they froze the account. Eddie was determined to get his money back. So he did once again what he'd always done best. He lied. Eddie wrote a plea to the bank in Geneva under his alias, David Cohen, explaining that this was all a misunderstanding. He, David, had met a man named Alexander Stewart, another of Eddie's Personas, who he sold a diamond to as a favor to Alexander. David sent the bank the name of two of Alexander's friends who wanted to become clients. But some incompetent bank employee had misread the request and added those two random people as power of attorney over David's account. These people were complete strangers. David Cohen swore he had nothing to do with Eddie Antar or any of his associates. It was all a silly mistake. Shockingly, that totally believable story didn't work. Even after David Cohen went to Switzerland in person to beg the police for help. The Swiss police report was passed over to the sec, who noticed that David Cohen's birthdate was the same as Eddie's, as was the passport photo.
- [25:30]
Gary Weiss
Eddie was sloppy. He made some serious stupid mistakes in terms of money management and in terms
- [25:37]
Josh Dean
of covering his tracks. Now, the feds knew that David Cohen was in fact, Eddie Antar.
- [25:44]
Gary Weiss
He was not a very good fugitive. He was a very good criminal. He was not in a very good fugitive.
- [25:52]
Josh Dean
When David Cohen returned to Israel and filled out a re entry card with his address, police knew exactly where to find him. So in June 1992, Eddie was arrested. Documents were seized, and the feds discovered that he had tens of millions of dollars hidden all over the world. Eddie fought extradition for about a year, during which time he came down with a mysterious, undiagnosable illness.
- [26:15]
Gary Weiss
Poor man was terribly ill. He was at death's door. It was just. It was heartbreaking the way this poor man was ill. Oh, he went to the hospital. It was the saddest thing you've ever seen.
- [26:30]
Josh Dean
But once he was extradited, all his illnesses went away. Back in his home state of New York, Eddie reinvigorated. And now a picture of health gave a rare interview on ABC News proclaiming his innocence.
- [26:43]
Gary Weiss
I know that I'm right. That's why I want to go to trial.
- [26:45]
Josh Dean
I want my day in court.
- [26:46]
Gary Weiss
Like you say, maybe. Maybe I really am crazy. But I'm not.
- [26:52]
Josh Dean
During the trial, cousin Sam, along with some other Crazy Eddy employees, testified against Eddie. He was convicted of racketeering and stock fraud, sentenced to 12 years in prison, and ordered to repay over $120 million. But Eddie, as always found a loophole. In 1995, his conviction was overturned by the court of appeals because they ruled the original judge was biased toward the prosecution.
- [27:17]
Gary Weiss
The case was thrown out. They had it start all over again.
- [27:21]
Josh Dean
Eddie was going to have a brand new trial, but in the end, he ended up pleading guilty anyway.
- [27:27]
Gary Weiss
It was assigned to another judge. And the judge that they assigned him to was not going to be any better than the old judge. So they probably sized up to the judge was a real tough guy. We'll just plead out. Which they did.
- [27:39]
Josh Dean
In 1997, Eddie Antar was sentenced to eight years in prison, most of which he had already served. His brother also went to prison, and Sam E. Served time under house arrest. On top of the criminal charges, Eddie and the rest of the Antars were hit with a barrage of civil lawsuits, some of which stretched into the 2010s. But Crazy Eddie wasn't dead yet. In the early 2000s, after Eddie was released from prison, the Antar started scheming again.
- [28:04]
Gary Weiss
There was all kinds of talk to bringing back the Crazy Eddie brand.
- [28:08]
Josh Dean
Eddie was making a comeback.
- [28:10]
Gary Weiss
He and some of the other people involved in the family attempted to start up Crazy Eddie both as a brick and mortar store and as an online store.
- [28:20]
Josh Dean
Things were different now. It was the age of the Internet. And this time, Eddie promised they were going to do things above board. No tax fraud, no skimming, no Panama pump. They even hired a non family member to be CEO. Eddie's title was director of marketing and strategic relationship. They rented some space in New Jersey and reunited with Jerry Carroll and the old commercial crew to promote the brand new crazy eddy.com. they opened their doors in 2001 and
- [28:48]
Gary Weiss
then it just fizzled out.
- [28:51]
Josh Dean
It didn't matter that Eddie wasn't CEO. People just couldn't trust his brand.
- [28:57]
Gary Weiss
Nobody wanted me to give him money. And justifiably, how could you finance a guy who's that's been convicted of every financial crime in the book?
- [29:07]
Josh Dean
After the failure of Crazy Eddie 2.0, Eddie himself threw in the towel. And he stayed pretty much out of the limelight until 2007 at least, when after two decades of silence, he came out of the shadows to reunite with the man who'd sent him to prison. And they did it on primetime TV. Their prices were insane. Their bookkeeping stole millions. After 20 years to crash Tracy Eddie cousins meet face to face on the CNBC show Business Nation. Sam E. Finally got the chance to confront his cousin.
- [29:40]
Sam E. Antar
He brought us up to be crooks. Eddie, you taught everything I became came from you, Eddie. You're a two bit thug, just like I am.
- [29:48]
Josh Dean
Clearly, Sam had built up some resentment. And Eddie, while slightly more Zen, didn't exactly seem happy to see Sam either.
- [29:55]
Sam E. Antar
I think resumption is a noble course. It's not important between the great scheme of things. Please do not interrupt me. Please do not interrupt me.
- [30:03]
Josh Dean
In the end, the two cousins found some resolution. Sort of.
- [30:07]
Gary Weiss
Can you forgive.
- [30:08]
Josh Dean
Can you forgive Eddie?
- [30:10]
Sam E. Antar
No, because I can't forgive myself.
- [30:15]
Gary Weiss
Can you forgive Sam for turning you in? Yeah, actually, I forgave him a long time ago.
- [30:24]
Josh Dean
But that wasn't the last word of the Antars either. Eddie's nephew, yet another Sam, was seen as the new hope of the family.
- [30:32]
Gary Weiss
He received a tremendous amount of very favorable publicity. This is a great guy. He was described as having a decidedly sweeter disposition than his uncle.
- [30:42]
Josh Dean
In 2011, an investor gave Sam A. Antar more than $200,000 to buy products for an electronics company of his own. But Sam A didn't use the money to buy electronics. He used it to gamble and buy stocks.
- [30:56]
Gary Weiss
This Sam Antar turned out to be just as crooked as any of the older generation of Antars. He wound up in prison.
- [31:05]
Josh Dean
Sam A. Antar was sentenced to 21 months, then in 2019 was put behind bars again for another investment scheme. Sam E. Now a forensic accountant, consultant and blogger, is a controversial figure in his own right. He was back in the news last year for writing a blog post that accused New York Attorney General Letitia James, an adversary of the Trump administration, of mortgage fraud. Trump reposted it on Truth Social and James was charged in October 2025. The case was dismissed a month later, and further efforts to indict James have failed. In 2016, Eddie Antar died of an undisclosed illness. Afterwards, there was a rush of nostalgia for Crazy Eddie from people missing a kind of brash capitalism that seems almost quaint compared to today's. It was messy and full of personality. Nothing was sleek and faceless. Maybe you too missed being yelled at by a TV commercial, getting grabbed by a salesperson determined to upsell you, and lugging a 10 pound VCR home on the subway. This was hard work, but it made you feel like you earned your purchase. Or maybe you're happy to have one click. Shopping that compares prices and shows reviews and already knows your address. It sure is easy, but where's the fun in that? Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audio Chuck. It's hosted by me, Josh Dean, and was written and reported by me and Emma Simonhoff. It was produced by by Joe Barrett. Our associate producer is Emma Simonoff. Sound design and mix by Tiffany Dimac. Themed by Ewin lytramuin and Mark McAdam. Our production manager is Ashley Warren. Campside's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadas, Matt Sher and me, Josh Dean. And finally, if I can ask a few favors before sending you on your way today, please rate, follow and review Chameleon on your favorite podcast platforms to help spread the word. I know everyone says this, but it's true. Ratings and reviews really do help. If you have any feedback, tips or story ideas, you can email us@chameleonpodampsidemedia.com or leave us a message at a special number we've set up. 201-743-8368. Add a plus one if you're outside North America. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
- [33:38]
Narrator/Advertiser
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