Who is Clifford Popper?

Clifford Popper, a bond portfolio manager from Boca Raton, Fla., has rented a stretch Bentley - complete with lamb's-wool carpeting - to take clients to the Hawaiian Tropic model party on Friday night before the game. He said the limousine rental accounted for $2,000 of a $15,000 Super Bowl package he purchased, and that he has no regrets about the Bentley's cost. "It makes a statement," he said.... [more]

Clifford Popper, a bond portfolio manager from Boca Raton, Fla., has rented a stretch Bentley - complete with lamb's-wool carpeting - to take clients to the Hawaiian Tropic model party on Friday night before the game. He said the limousine rental accounted for $2,000 of a $15,000 Super Bowl package he purchased, and that he has no regrets about the Bentley's cost. "It makes a statement," he said. "It turns heads and it's equated with being successful." "It's the premier event in this country in terms of visibility," he said of the Super Bowl, "so you want to be in sync with that." Mr. Popper will have lots of company on the open road. Robert Carle, the chief of the parking facilities and enforcement division of the city of Jacksonville, whose department inspects and issues medallions to limousines in Jacksonville, said that usually the city had around 200 active limousines; as of Friday, he said, his agency had issued 1,084 medallions, many for monster vehicles - stretch Mercedes-Benzes, BMW S.U.V.'s, Jaguars, Chrysler 300's and, of course, Hummers, the biggest you've ever seen. While Mr. Carle normally deals with local limousine companies, for the Super Bowl he has had applicants from all over the South and as far away as Omaha. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/fashion/30humm.html A disgraced securities broker who was one of the subprime mortgage market's chief magicians was found dead of an apparent suicide in his South Florida condo this week. Cliff Popper seemingly created wealth out of thin air — until it all collapsed in 2007. His firm pocketed commissions of more than $16 million in just three years, but when investments backed by risky mortgages turned sour, Popper lost $100 million of investors' money. When he died, Popper was waiting for a federal judge to hand down a decision in a civil fraud trial brought by the the Securities and Exchange Commission. Brookstreet Securities, where Popper was a head trader, imploded when the subprime mortgage market crashed. Investors, many of whom had sunk their life savings into the subprime mortgage-backed securities Popper peddled, were left with nothing. Two years later, the SEC charged Popper and nine of his former colleagues with fraud, and he declared bankruptcy in July of that year. "Many... customers lost their savings, their homes, and/or their ability to retire or stay retired," the SEC said in its complaint. http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/06/10005256-subprime-suicide-notorious-broker-found-dead [less]