By Adam Nichols
DNAinfo News Editor
Manhattan - The financial wizard accused of masterminding a $30 million celebrity swindle was a straight-laced, hugely successful business nerd who sacrificed everything to woo a stripper half his age, according to friends.
Kenneth Starr had already made a fortune when he dumped his second wife to hook up with Scores dancer Diane Passage - who turned his life “upside down,” a source told the Daily News.
The now 66-year-old accountant started showering his new love, 33, with fabulous gifts – watches and baubles worth tens of thousands of dollars, and even a boob job – which he paid for with other people’s money, the News reported.
“He bought her all the latest fashion and really expensive jewelry,” the source told the newspaper. He sank money into her unfulfilled dreams to make it in the music and movie businesses.
And three years ago, he married her.
His downfall came when he bought her an Upper East Side pad fit for a queen, court papers claim.
The $7.5 million East 74th Street condo, complete with five bedrooms, a 32-foot granite lap pool and 1,500 square foot garden, cost $7.5 million.
The cash for it came from unauthorized transfers from three of his clients’ accounts, according to the legal complaint.
Starr was charged with ripping off clients to the tune of $30 million. The list of his alleged victims include Uma Thurman, jeweler-to-the-stars Jacob Arabov and heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon.
Starr also wooed Wesley Snipes, Martin Scorsese, Sylvester Stallone, Natalie Portman, Nora Ephron and Jack Nicholson, according to reports.
Some of the cash allegedly was siphoned into bank accounts controlled by Starr's friends, including City Council President Andrew Stein who is accused of spending $1.6 million of the money.
Other clients had already grown suspicious of Starr’s business and severed links with the moneyman, the New York Post reported.
They include “Godfather” star Al Pacino, who took his cash out of Starr’s firm just weeks before the businessman was arrested, the Post reported.
And “The View” host Barbara Walters stopped dealings with him six months earlier, according to the Post.
