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That would be Democratic fund raiser and serial billionaire-dater Patricia Duff and her daughter Caleigh by ex-husband Ron Perelman, chairman of Revlon. Then there's the Stewart entry, followed by: "2:07 Could Alan have your Knicks tickets?" No word yet on who Alan is or if he got to the game.
According to a complaint issued by the U.S. Attorney in New York, Waksal owes $80 million to several banks, and $65 million of the debt is secured by ImClone shares. Private investigators say he used 21 of his most prized artworks--by Picasso, Chagall, Giacometti and others--as collateral for one of his dozens of loans. He has been sued several times--for bouncing checks and for unpaid bills--and has been slapped with numerous tax liens.
Erbitux, though, promised to wash those troubles away. Last October Sam and Harlan sold stock for $57 million and $54 million, respectively, as part of a deal with Bristol-Myers. But Harlan followed up with a second sale worth $50 million on Dec. 6--just two days after the FDA first privately indicated to ImClone that there might be problems with the Erbitux application. His attorney told the Los Angeles Times that the timing of that sale was "coincidental."
Few dispute that Erbitux has great potential, and Sam Waksal's supporters say he deserves the credit. "Erbitux would not have gotten this far, this fast, without Sam," says Icahn, who held ImClone shares last year but sold them months before the FDA rejection. It was in April 1999 that Shannon Kellum, 28 and diagnosed with incurable colon cancer, began taking Erbitux. Within months her tumors had shrunk to a fifth their previous size. Much of the hype around ImClone was built on that one success. ImClone was so eager to cash in that, according to the FDA, it mishandled the clinical trials, prompting the agency to deny its application.
The Erbitux controversy raised questions at last week's congressional hearings on ImClone as to whether FDA protocol encourages insider trading. But agency officials contend that frequent communication with applicants is essential. "If a sponsor chooses to act on that information and insider trade, that's his responsibility," says Robert Temple, director of the FDA's oncology-drug evaluation group. And last week, without naming names, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill suggested a solution to the escalating crisis of executives abusing trust. "We ought to hang them from the very highest branches." --With reporting by Andrew Goldstein/Washington and Unmesh Kher and Julie Rawe/New York