A federal jury ordered billionaire Ira Rennert and his company to pay $118 million for looting his mining firm partially to help pay for a Hamptons megamansion.
The verdict brings to a close a month-long trial in which Rennert stood accused of driving his mining company, MagCorp, into bankruptcy by improperly diverting company funds for his own personal use, including building a massive estate in Sagaponack on Long Island. That property has recently been valued at $500 million, and is the country’s largest inhabited residence, Crain’s reported.
Rennert’s industrial conglomerate Renco Group must pay $101 million and he will personally be responsible for $16.2 million. The plaintiffs, a group of creditors, could also be awarded $200 million in interest at a later date.
“After years of pursuing the defendants, we are pleased with the jury’s verdict and look forward to making a distribution to long-suffering creditors,” said Nicholas Kajon, an attorney for the bankruptcy trustee who brought the suit. [Crain’s] — Tess Hofmann