Alleged Scammer, Stripper Wife: Who Is Kenneth Starr?

The Daily Beast gets the scoop on the man behind the plan
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted May 30, 2010 11:39 AM CDT
Alleged Scammer, Stripper Wife: Who Is Kenneth Starr?
In this file photo taken July 8, 2009, Kenneth Starr attends a media summit in Sun Valley, Idaho.   (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

His client list included the likes of Uma Thurman and Sylvester Stallone; he's been charged with running a $30 million Ponzi scheme. But who is Kenneth Starr? The Daily Beast talked to former clients of the alleged scammer, compiling a portrait of a man with an ex-stripper wife and a knack for convincing his clients to make incredibly risky decisions. Wife Diane Passage (aka @hottubgoddess) reveled in the riches, say friends: A recent Facebook update read, " White mink, White mink, White mink."

It was an over-the-top life of diamonds, shopping along Madison Avenue, and private jets, one that dabbled in the extremes that Starr pushed his clients to go to. “What Ken was really good at it,” says a former client, was that he could convince his clients "that they could buy anything they wanted, that he would find a mortgage for them that was higher than anything they’d ever dreamt of and they’d be able to pay for it because they were so talented, they were bound to make more money. And many of them did. He was a fantastic enabler.” (More Kenneth Starr stories.)

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