Although he hailed from California, the Mecca of high-tech entrepreneurship, he made his mark not in silicon chips or spliced genes but in the mundane business of steam cleaning carpets and draperies. Nonetheless, Barry Minkow was touted as a genuine hero of the '80s -- a cocky, self-made overachiever who at age 15 started a garage-shop carpet-cleaning operation called ZZZZ Best (pronounced zeee best) and within six years built it into a $200 million empire. He was a millionaire at 18, and by the time he turned 21 last March, he was the darling of Wall Street, the toast of his hometown, Los Angeles, the subject of flattering magazine profiles and a guest on TV's Oprah Winfrey Show.
Last week Minkow's bubble suddenly and shockingly burst. ZZZZ Best officials filed for bankruptcy protection and sued Minkow for allegedly misappropriating more than $23 million in company funds. The Los Angeles police, meanwhile, raided Minkow's office and home, and the police chief publicly linked him with mobsters who allegedly used his business to launder millions of dollars earned through the sale of illegal drugs.
Minkow's attorney Arthur Barens dismissed the allegations as preposterous: "Barry does not know anyone who is a coke dealer, and he knows nothing about organized crime." In an interview published in a local paper, Minkow went further, suggesting that he was being unjustly singled out because of his ^ notoriety. Said he: "They're trying to lay it on the star."
But by week's end it was clear that the star had fallen. The surprise was particularly rude in Los Angeles, where Minkow had won some influential admirers -- including Mayor Tom Bradley -- for his community involvement. The entrepreneur coached a local softball team, campaigned against alcohol abuse and spoke out against the use of drugs. Indeed, the charge of drug-money laundering was especially strange, since he had asked his employees to take drug tests and adopted the motto "My act is clean, how's yours?"
Born in a lower-middle-class subdivision in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Minkow discovered early on that money was the magic carpet by which he could escape his humble origins. His family could not afford a baby-sitter, so after school the youngster did odd jobs for his mother at the local carpet- cleaning shop she managed. By the time he was ten years old, he was soliciting business over the phone. Five years later, in 1981, he bought some steam- cleaning equipment and set up shop in his family's garage. Unlike many entrepreneurs who give their companies names like AAAA Best, Minkow gave his firm a name that put it near the end of the telephone book. When the business boomed, he hired his parents, making his mother an office manager and putting his father into sales.
Minkow made himself over too. A scrawny, hyperactive youth, he became a body builder to attract girls. "I was no James Bond in high school," he told an interviewer. "I wanted the attention." He drove a bright red Ferrari, lived a bachelor's life in a million-dollar home and lolled around in a backyard swimming pool with a big black Z on the bottom.