Mark Yagalla, 37, just released his tell-all book ‘Wall Street Joyride — The Prodigy, The Playmate and the Missing $50 Million’. In the book Yagalla he discusses everything from how he stole Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend by giving her a $100,000 monthly allowance and an Amex with an unlimited spending limit to how he was in prison by the age of 24 for scamming investors out of $50 million.
There’s plenty in there I don’t care about reading, what I DO care about however is how this former Wall Street scammer managed to steal a chick from the world’s most powerful bachelor, Hugh Hefner.
As the King of the Playboy Empire, Hugh Hefner’s had his pick of the sexiest women in the world for generations, yet Mark Yagalla was able to swoop in and steal Playboy cover model Sandy Bentley away from Hef by starting her off on a $50K/month allowance (compared to Hef’s measly $1,000-per-mont) which was later upped to $100,000/month, in addition to an American Express Platinum Card with an unlimited spending amount, private jet rides, and the most posh hotel rooms in the world. This was all while Mark Yagalla was skimming millions from the funds of Ashbury Capital Partners to pay for his own homes, Bentleys, a helicopter, and all sorts of ridiculously extravagant gifts for himself and his girlfriend.
Page Six has some revelations from Mark’s tell all book:
Yagalla, 37, recalls: “When I could have been setting myself up for life, I was spending it as fast as it came in.” He was busted in 2000 by the feds for draining millions from his Ashbury Capital Partners to buy himself Bentleys, a helicopter, oil wells, furs, Rolexes and homes. A report at the time said: “His offenses left investors, many of them in their twilight years, wiped out.”
But while Hefner was giving Bentley a measly $1,000 a month, Yagalla swept her off her feet, and “she got bumped up to $50,000 a month, and then $100,000,” he writes. “Plus, she got her own platinum American Express card with no limit. She was averaging another $100,000 a month on the Amex. Between Sandy, the plane and the casinos, I was going through a minimum of $1 million a month.” Her room-service bill “typically ran over $1,000 each time Sandy ordered.”
How in the hell does a Playboy cover model rack up a $1,000 room service bill? For you or me a bill like that at a nice hotel wouldn’t be a problem at all, we’d go all out with scotch, champagne, steak, and lobster. Before you know it we’d be hitting a $20k/room bill. But this is a woman who had to watch her figure at all times, meaning no drinking booze and no eating indulgent foods. So how in the hell was she spending so much money?
I am impressed that this dude was able to swoop in there and jack Hugh Hefner’s woman away though, considering Hef can offer any woman in the world the sky.
Yagalla also spoke with the Daily Mail about his crazy life, wanting to emulate Hugh Hefner, and how he had the world within his grasp before losing it all:
‘It was like, that’s who I want to be. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, they have millions of dollars and are married to the same woman and have no fun’, he said.
The book talks about Yagalla’s sex addiction and his 14-month relationship with Hefner’s girlfriend.
As a teenager he told Daily Mail Australia last year he was a dateless, ridiculed kid, before he began working as a trader and entered a life of call girls, strippers, models and porn stars.
He paid for his and girlfriend Bentley’s lifestyle with a fraudulent investment operation known as a Ponzi scheme, in which the operator pays returns to its investors from new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned.
Yagalla showered the Playmate with cars, furs, houses, luxury holidays, designer clothes and hundreds and thousands of dollars in diamond jewelry.
The last present, however, backfired when jewellery connected Yagalla to the gruesome 2002 double murder of Michael Tardio and Christopher Monson, who were found shot to death, in a burning Mercedes 2002 in California.
Yagalla’s arrest for embezzling millions from the investors who trusted him as a Wall Street whizkid ended him up in a Federal prison, after he pleaded guilty to securities fraud and was sentenced to five years and five months. The government recovered $1.3 million from an auction of his assets.
Yagalla now lives quietly with a girlfriend just outside Bangkok, Thailand, and in his book apologizes to his victims.
Maybe I’m crazy, but 5 years in prison seems like a pretty steep price to pay for millions of dollars and life with a Playboy centerfold. What say you bros?
For more on Mark Yagalla, his book, his former life and his new life in Thailand, you can head on over to his website.