Yesterday federal prosecutors announced they had arrested 35-year-old ex-Citigroup VP Gary Foster for embezzling $19.2 million from the bank into his personal accounts (at Chase, natch). And now we're getting to hear all the fun details about what Foster, who until January earned $100,000 annually as an assistant V.P. in the bank's treasury finance department, spent his stolen bucks on. Like that Maserati GranTurismo and BMW 550i he bought, and the chauffeur to drive him around in because he is legally blind.
Foster spent a lot of his money on real estate, putting down $12 million on properties in Midtown and New Jersey, buying a modest house for his parents and paying off his ex-wife's mortgage. Last December he spent $3 million on a 10,000-square-foot, six-bedroom mansion in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and $1.93 million on a Rockefeller Center apartment. He also bought two condos worth a total of $2.5 million in a Jersey City high-rise—which he posed in for a Bergen Record article last year in which he explained that it was the view that sold him on the place. We particularly like the zebra carpet.
And what is in those properties—besides zebra carpets? Toys. One of Foster's homes reportedly has "ceilings painted in gold leaf, while another's bathroom mirrors turn into TV screens when a button is pressed."
Foster, a divorced father of two, also reportedly spent his ill-gotten gains on everything from $2,000 bottle services at nightclubs to numerous spa treatments where he would get facials and massages. He was arrested at JFK on Sunday returning from a vacation in Bangkok, and released on $800,000 bail yesterday secured by his parents' Teaneck, N.J., home. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted on fraud charges.
