February 23, 2006 | Read Time: 3 minutes
PRESS CLIPPINGS
When he was arrested for mail fraud last May, Alberto Vilar, the opera enthusiast and arts patron, was on his way to Austria to attend a new production of Wagner’s Parsifal, according to an article in The New Yorker (February 13 and 20).
It turned out that the events that led up to his arrest were a tale of almost Wagnerian proportions — in which Mr. Vilar pledged unprecedented sums of money to the Metropolitan Opera, in New York, and other arts institutions and then reneged on many of the commitments.
After Mr. Vilar was taken into custody, the “onetime billionaire was unable to produce bail, and remained in jail for almost four weeks,” the magazine notes. He and his business partner, Gary Tanaka, co-founders of Amerindo, an investment company, were charged with defrauding investors and embezzling $5-million from an heiress who had been a close friend of Mr. Vilar’s. (Both Mr. Vilar and Mr. Tanaka deny the charges.)
It is unclear whether Mr. Vilar failed to pay the pledges because of financial woes tied largely to the dot-com bust — in 2000 Forbes estimated his personal wealth as $1-billion, while the New Yorker article estimates his current net worth to be in negative figures — or because he simply couldn’t resist the accolades, friendships, and social prominence that came with such largess.
One such friend was Placido Domingo, director of the Los Angeles Opera, to which Mr. Vilar pledged $10-million. Edgar Vincent, Mr. Domingo’s manager, told The New Yorker: “My whole feeling is that this man was insecure and wanted to have the love and respect of as many people as possible. You’re never feted as much for the second $10-million as you are for the first. Therefore he was constantly thinking of new donations, new pledges. …He needed the adulation.”
Mr. Vilar “never really knew his own net worth, even at its peak,” and when he needed funds for donations or other expenses, he asked Mr. Tanaka to deposit funds into his personal account, the magazine says. In fact, in 2001, the worst year in Amerindo’s financial performance, Mr. Vilar — whose net worth was invested almost exclusively in the company — made pledges totaling more than $150-million. According to the magazine, from 2002 on Amerindo staff members and Tony Knerr, a philanthropy consultant, warned Mr. Vilar on multiple occasions against making new commitments at a time when he was defaulting on pledges he had already made, but he didn’t heed their warnings.
It became increasingly clear to the Metropolitan Opera and other institutions that Mr. Vilar was in severe financial straits. When contacted by his creditors, Mr. Vilar fumed about the lack of “courtesy, understanding, and flexibility” shown him by the Metropolitan and other recipients of his philanthropy.
The New Yorker writes that “Vilar is slowly being erased from the annals of philanthropy,” as his name is removed from facilities he supported, including the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden, in London. And the trial of Mr. Vilar and Mr. Tanaka is scheduled to begin April 17; if convicted on all charges, they could be fined more than $10-million and sentenced to prison terms of up to 155 years.
Yet the thoughts of Mr. Vilar, who contends that he was on the verge of a “financial comeback” at the time of his arrest, continue to turn restlessly toward philanthropy. “We’ll sort this out. I’ll get beyond this,” he told the magazine. “Lately my mind and heart have shifted toward medical science…I’d like to finance breakthroughs in cancer and neurological diseases. I still love opera and classical music…the Met is not going to get my money, but it will not kill my love of music.”
