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money talk · billionaires · fraudsters · whistleblowers · stars

[Hugo @hugotide]

Jared Kushner's father paid $25,000 to have a prostitute seduce his sister's husband on a hidden camera. Then he had the sex tape mailed to his sister.

His sister had been cooperating with federal investigators looking into his taxes and campaign donations. Charles Kushner, a wealthy New Jersey real estate developer, wanted leverage.

According to the FBI complaint, the men he hired couldn't find a woman willing to do it. So Kushner personally recruited a call girl in New York and promised her $7,000 to $10,000.

She met the brother-in-law outside a diner and said her car had broken down. The next day, a hidden camera in her motel room recorded them having sex.

Kushner watched the tape in a conference room at his office and "expressed satisfaction," the complaint says. He asked for copies with her face pixelled out, and still photos.

He tried the same thing on another witness, a former employee, and advanced $10,000 to $12,000 for it. That man turned the woman down twice.

In May 2004 he ordered the tape mailed to his sister and to her children, timed to arrive right before a family party. The investigator he hired talked him out of sending it to the kids. His sister opened the envelope and gave it to federal agents.

In the video below, Chris Christie, the US attorney who prosecuted him, says it was her son's engagement party, one Kushner was going to attend. He calls him "the most disgusting defendant" he prosecuted in his seven years there.

Kushner pleaded guilty and got 2 years. In 2020, Trump pardoned him. In 2025, the Senate confirmed him as US ambassador to France, 51-45.

At his hearing he said: "I made a very, very, very serious mistake." And: "There's only one accountant I trust that I believe in, and it's God."

Should a man who did this to his own sister represent America in Paris, or did 2 years in prison settle it?

[Hugo @hugotide]

In his own magazine, Swaggart backed a one-year preaching ban for any "fallen churchman". When it was his turn, he refused it, and his church dismissed him. Second chance or ...?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Jimmy Swaggart was caught with a prostitute and wept "I have sinned" before 7,000 worshipers. In 1991 police stopped him with another woman, who said he had picked her up for sex. This time he told his church: "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business."

The first time was October 1987. A photographer hired by a rival preacher caught him outside a New Orleans motel with a prostitute named Debra Murphree. His ministry took in $150 million that year. She says he paid her $20.

The rival was Marvin Gorman. A year earlier Swaggart had accused Gorman of adultery, and Gorman's TV ministry collapsed. Swaggart had also pushed his church to investigate Jim Bakker, calling the PTL scandal a "cancer" that had to be cut out.

In the video below, Swaggart takes a shot at Bakker in 1987: "I'm not in the water slide business." In February 1988 he weeps: "I have sinned against you, my Lord." Then Murphree tells her side on a talk show.

The money: over $500,000 every working day in 1987, per the LA Times. A 20-acre "parsonage," a Jacuzzi with golden swan faucets, a Gulfstream jet once owned by the Rockefellers.

Her side: "When I first met him, he offered me $10, and I told him no." He came back with $20. "I could never get any more money out of him."

Penthouse paid $210,000 for her story. Her lawyer said she would keep about $54,000 after agents, lawyers and the IRS. Asked about a reported quarter of a million: "That was something my lawyer advised me not to discuss."

The case for Murphree: "If I hadn't come out, he'd still be in the ministry." The case against her: she was paid, Swaggart told church elders he met her "one time only," and the price varies: $20 on this show, $30 to $40 a visit in UPI's report on Penthouse.

Was Debra Murphree a whistleblower who brought down a $150 million ministry, or one more person who cashed in on Jimmy Swaggart?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Jessica Hahn was promised $265,000 to stay quiet about a sex scandal with TV preacher Jim Bakker. Playboy paid a reported $1 million for the story. Then Joan Rivers told her: "Your brother should worry about who you slept your way to the middle with."

Hahn: "You're a dried up old prune."

She was a 21-year-old church secretary when she met Bakker in a Florida hotel room in 1980. He later described a brief affair. She told Playboy he forced himself on her.

The deal came five years later: $115,000 up front and $150,000 in a trust she would get after 20 years of silence. The money came from viewers. It was hidden in a builder's construction invoices.

Of the $115,000, about $20,000 reached Hahn.

In 1987 the story broke and Bakker resigned from a $172 million ministry.

Then a judge ordered the trust money back. She didn't fight it.

"I never wanted that money," she said. "All I ever wanted was an apology."

In 2017 she told a reporter she had read that Bakker was sorry, because he wrote a whole book about it. He had never said it to her.

Jim Bakker died last month at 86.

In the video below she asks Joan Rivers for that same word, over a joke she says Joan made on Howard Stern. Joan denies it. Hahn says she has the tape.

Then Hahn holds up her Playboy, and it gets worse.

Who went too far here, Joan or Jessica?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Farrah Abraham says Teen Mom paid her $25,000. In 2013 she sold her sex tape to Vivid for what she called a "seven figure settlement."

That same April, she sat down with Dr. Phil and called the tape "my own video."

In the video below, Dr. Phil asks if $2 million would get her to release it. Then, 13 years later, she tells a podcast host what MTV really paid.

Her answer to Dr. Phil: "I think it would have to be more than that." She told Us Weekly she would not settle for less than "a couple million."

On April 29, Vivid announced it had bought the tape. TMZ put the price at nearly $1 million. Her statement: "I am happy with the seven figure settlement I have reached."

On the We Need To Talk podcast in August 2026, she said 16 and Pregnant paid her $3,500. Co-stars Catelynn and Tyler, she says, told her they made $10,000 an episode. She told them she got $15,000 an episode. "I just made it up out of spite."

The tape? The host said the rumor was over a million. "Yeah, but that's not accurate. I still own it till this day."

She says she later signed two live cam deals at $50,000 apiece to talk to fans for an hour. "I just said yes, I needed the money." In October 2017 she said MTV fired her from Teen Mom OG for being an adult performer. She sued Viacom for $5 million and settled a month later.

The case for Farrah: by her account, a single mom on a hit show got $25,000, then set her own price. The case against: she called the tape private, sold it within weeks, and in 2013 said she had given the rights to Vivid.

Was Farrah Abraham a teen mom MTV underpaid, or the best dealmaker the franchise ever had?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Chris Rock was 49 when he filed for divorce from Malaak, his wife of 19 years. The terms were sealed, but her share is estimated at around $40 million.

This week, at 61, he told GQ what kind of husband he had been: "I was not a great husband. I watched a lot of porn."

In the video below, GQ's Zach Baron has just asked why 12 years passed between the last two films he directed. Rock starts with the divorce. "Nobody has a successful divorce," he says. "You're not sitting on the money you had before. So now you got to really make some money."

The divorce was final in August 2016. That October, Netflix reportedly agreed to pay him $40 million for two stand-up specials.

The first one, Tamborine, was about the divorce. On stage he said he was addicted to porn and cheated with three different women on the road. "I thought, 'Ah, I pay for everything. I could do what I want,'" he told the crowd. The bigger earner pays the other side's legal fees, he explained: "I had to pay for a lawyer to divorce me. That's like hiring a hit man to kill you."

Baron reads the list back to him. Rock doesn't argue. "I haven't watched porn in five, six years," he says. "It's not anything I'm proud of, but it's something I had to go through." His verdict on the man he was: "I was severely humbled, as I should have been."

The case for Rock: nobody forced the confession. He put the porn and the cheating in his own special and owned it again on camera this week. The case against him: that confession was part of a deal Netflix reportedly paid $40 million for.

Did Chris Rock's divorce cost him $40 million, or earn him $40 million?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Hunter Moore said his website made up to $30,000 a month. It posted nude photos of women sent in without their permission.

He didn't count on one mother. Charlotte Laws spent two years building a case against him and led the FBI to his front door.

In the video below, Moore sits on Anderson Cooper's couch in 2011, then faces Laws herself on HLN's Dr. Drew in 2012.

The site was IsAnyoneUp. Photos went up with full names, locations and links to the women's social media. Moore called himself "a professional life ruiner." He told Nightline the site brought in an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 a month in ads.

On Anderson, a woman whose photos were on the site asks him: is this about money? "No," he says. "There's definitely a market for it." Cooper tells him he doesn't have to profit off it. "I mean, but I want to," Moore says. "Why wouldn't I?"

In 2012 a topless photo of Laws's daughter Kayla, then 24, went up on IsAnyoneUp with her name. Kayla had never sent it to anyone. Her email had been hacked. The LA police, Laws says, basically said Kayla shouldn't have taken the photo. So Laws gathered evidence from more than 40 victims and went to the FBI.

On Dr. Drew, Moore said of her daughter: "I'm sure she sent the pictures to a million different guys."

In 2015 he pleaded guilty. He had paid a hacker to break into email accounts for nude photos, once $145.70 over PayPal. The judge called it "particularly reprehensible" and gave him 2.5 years.

The case for Moore: exes usually sent in the photos, and he says he "can't take accountability for what other people have done." The case against him: he paid for the ones nobody sent.

Was Hunter Moore a guy who hosted other people's revenge, or a buyer of stolen photos who called it a business?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Elizabeth Holmes told investors Theranos would make more than $100 million in 2014. The SEC says it made a little more than $100,000.

Theranos raised more than $700 million. Now a documentary about her last weeks before prison, "You Can See Everything," has made more than $60 million in theaters.

In the video below, Tyler Shultz, the former employee who blew the whistle on Theranos in 2015, tells CBS Mornings she knew: "She created this whole web of lies."

The SEC laid out the numbers in 2018. Investor binders projected more than $100 million in revenue for 2014 and about $1 billion for 2015. In August 2015, Holmes showed a potential investor 2014 net revenue of $108 million.

The outside firm Theranos hired to value its stock got a different figure: a little over $100,000.

"If you actually believe the hundred million dollar revenue, why would you then hide the financial statements?" Shultz says. He says she refused to show investors audited statements.

Theranos was his first job out of college. His grandfather, former Secretary of State George Shultz, sat on its board. Tyler says the device the company actually used failed quality controls and was hidden from regulators, and patients were told they had cancer when they did not.

In January 2022, a jury convicted Holmes of defrauding investors: wire fraud and conspiracy. She was sentenced to more than 11 years and has been in federal prison since 2023.

The case for Holmes: she settled with the SEC without admitting the allegations, and she still insists she did nothing wrong. The case against her: $108 million on paper for an investor, a little over $100,000 for the firm valuing Theranos stock.

Was Elizabeth Holmes a founder who believed her own projections, or a CEO who knew which number was real?

[Hugo @hugotide]

Bill Cosby was ordered to pay $59.25 million to a former waitress in March. In August, her lawyers told the court he hadn't paid any of it.

A California civil jury found he drugged and sexually assaulted Donna Motsinger in 1972. She said he gave her wine and what she thought was aspirin. Cosby, 89, denies it and has appealed.

In the video below, an AP reporter asks him about the allegations in 2014. "No, no, we don't answer that," he says. Then he asks that none of it be shown: "I would appreciate it if it was scuttled."

The clip ends in 1991. On CNN's Larry King Live, he joked about the boyhood legend of slipping "Spanish fly" into a girl's drink: "The girl would drink it and... hello, America."

Dozens of women have accused him. He was criminally charged only once and convicted in 2018. In 2021 Pennsylvania's top court overturned it on procedural grounds, citing a prosecutor's earlier promise not to charge him. He had served nearly three years.

In 2022, a civil jury found he sexually assaulted Judy Huth in 1975, when she was 16, at the Playboy Mansion.

Motsinger's lawyers cited bank records: in November 2025, before the verdict, proceeds from the sale of a New York town house were wired into a Cosby account, and within 48 hours $1.29 million went to other accounts, including friends'.

In September, TMZ reported that lawyers for several other women suing him told a judge he had called off his deposition for the third time. His lawyers say he is too sick.

The case for Cosby: he says any sexual contact was consensual, and his only criminal conviction was overturned. The case against him: dozens of accusers, two civil juries, and his own joke on national TV.

Is Bill Cosby an 89-year-old punished for 50-year-old claims, or a man who still owes $59 million?

[Fireside Alpha @firesidealpha]

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei reveals he holds “Dario Vision Quest” talks every two weeks where nothing he says is an actual decision and he is totally honest with the company

“An example I will give is every two weeks, I get up in front of the company and I speak for an hour about what is happening inside the company, what is happening in the AI field, what is happening in the world, how the company thinks strategically."

"The two ironclad rules of these events. I call them DVQs, Dario Vision Quest. That was not my name. I initially resisted the name because it makes it sound like I’m going off and smoking peyote, but everyone kept calling them that. The name stuck, and so now I’m stuck with it."

"The two rules of DVQs are that, one, nothing I say is an actual decision. That allows me to just speak freely, you know, without worrying that if I, you know, if I briefly mentioned doing X, that 20 people will go off and do X, it’s like the CEO said it, we’re going to do X. And then the second is that I’m just, I’m totally honest with the company. It’s a conversation of trust. It’s a relationship of trust.”