Jordan Belfort - Author, Family and Personal Life

Jordan Belfort was born on 9th July, 1962 in New York City to Max and Leah Belfort and was raised in modest apartment in Bayside, Queens. Both his parents were accountants by profession were of Jewish origin.

He completed high school and took admission in ‘Baltimore College of Dental Surgery’ but left the course in between. He eventually completed his graduation with a degree in biology from ‘The American University’.

He operated a sea-food and meat business in the eighties, however after the company had to be closed down, as it lost money, Belfort started selling stocks in the year 1987.

Belfort put his selling expertise to use in a different field altogether when he commenced his work in a brokerage firm, in 1987. This was the time when he learnt the intricacies of being a stock broker.

He then started running his own investment company called ‘Stratton Oakmont’ two years down the line. Jordan, along with his partner Danny Porush became stinking rich after using the infamous ‘pump and dump’ scheme.

As a part of this scheme, his brokers were asked to force certain stocks to the firm’s unsuspecting clients that helped in inflating the prices of those stocks. His company, as a part of this devious scheme, sold its ownership on these stocks and reaped a sky-rocketing profit.

The United States ‘Securities and Exchange Commission’ decided to bring an end to the devious stock operation of ‘Stratton Oakmont’ in 1992 and claimed that the company had been manipulating stock prices and defrauded investors. Belfort was out of his scheming brokerage business just two years later.

In the legal suit that followed, Jordan was asked by the court to pay back an amount of $110.4 million that he had swindled from the several of the stock brokers. While in prison, Belfort was sharing the same cell with Tommy Chang, with who he remained a close friend even after both of them were released.

Chong motivated Belfort to pen down his colorful experiences as a stockbroker with Belfort latter giving complete credits to Chong for his present career as a motivational writer and speaker.

Jordan has been widely acknowledged as one of the finest motivational speakers with several live seminars in Australia that have been widely appreciated by his audiences. He will embark on a live world tour in 2015 and lecturing on motivational topics.

In addition to delivering seminars, Belfort has been a consultant in over 50 public companies and is known for his writings in several major magazines and newspapers in the world.

Some of the newspapers where Jordan has written his columns are ‘The New York Times’, ‘The London Times’, ‘The Los Angeles Times’ and ‘The Herald Tribune’. His writings have also been published in magazines like ‘Business Week’, ‘Forbes’ and many others.

Jordan published his international bestselling memoir titled ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in 2008 where he used his nickname as the memoir’s title. The book unfolds his triumph at the stock market and then his massive crash in the world of finance.

The former stock-broker also released another memoir in the following year, titled ‘Catching the Wolf of Wall Street’, that explored his life after he was arrested.

Belfort became wealthy beyond imagination after defrauding hundreds of investors and lived a lavish life buying sports cars, a huge mansion and various other costly toys.

He started abusing drugs and was extremely fond of using Quaaludes. Jordan met several accidents under the influence of drugs that included his helicopter once getting crashed in his own yard and even sinking his luxury yacht.

Jordan’s first wife was Denise Lombardo who he divorced while he was running the ‘Stratton Oakmont’ investment firm and got married to Nadine Caridi for the second time. Nadine was a British –born model who was raised in Bay-Ridge Brooklyn. Belfort met her at a party and has two children from his second marriage.

Nadine and Belfort however separated after the former claimed that she was a victim of domestic violence in the hands of her infamous husband that were further aggravated due to Belfort’s drug abuse and romantic liaisons with several other women. They were formally divorced in the year 2005 and the couple’s children live with Belfort at present.

He served 22 months of imprisonment due to his involvement defrauding the investors through his investment firm through the sentence was originally for four years.

This famous motivational speaker’s memoir is the source for a film made by Martin Scorsese titled ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, which saw Leonardo Di Caprio playing the lead role.