What is Buddy Fletcher’s Problem?
Posted on March 6th, 2013 in Uncategorized |
Now on at least his third lawyer, he’s continuing to pursue a discrimination lawsuit against the board of the Dakota, his former building (he doesn’t live there any more) that he can’t possibly—and shouldn’t—win.
The New York Post reports that the judge in the case recently admonished Fletcher’s lawyer for all the deadlines Fletcher and his legal “team” were missing.
“[Fletcher] has been missing one deadline after another. It’s enough,” Rakower told lawyer Nathaniel Read, adding that she did not know “if all of these delays have been in good faith.”
Read, who has been representing Fletcher only since Feb. 1, said “hundreds” of lawyers have been working to pull the material together.
Hundreds? That’s interesting, because several other Fletcher lawyers have quit for non-payment or unstated reasons. So Mr. Read is either a liar or an idiot. (He went to Swarthmore and NYU Law School, so…something doesn’t compute here.)
The mystery to me is, Why? Why won’t Fletcher just drop the lawsuit? He can’t afford it, he can’t win it, he doesn’t have a case. So why continue?
14 Responses
3/6/2024 2:36 pm
Perhaps you have a Buddy Fletcher problem — don’t mean to be unkind, but remind us why he’s sufficiently important (no Larry Summers, he) to be a recurring character in your blog.
3/6/2024 3:45 pm
Well, a few reasons. One, I wrote a long story about him, so I’m interested in ongoing developments. Two, I think the media doesn’t cover Fletcher enough (possibly because it covered him so egregiously badly when the news appeared to be good; you read those articles now and they’re just laughable). Three, I believe his charges of racism—both against the Dakota and, many years ago, against Kidder Peabody—were demonstrably false, and I’ve found it hard to believe that even Fletcher believed them. False cries of racism for personal financial gain are a terrible thing. And fourth, I suppose, because I still feel like there’s a lot I don’t understand about Fletcher—like why he’s pursuing this lawsuit, for example. He applies to buy a fifth apartment in a building. The board, which has approved his past purchases, now reviews his financials and determines that he is way over-extended. Subsequent events clearly establish this to be the case. And yet the lawsuit—which, with its loud accusations of racism, attracted lots of attention when it was first filed—continues. It’s puzzling to me.
You know, I interviewed for my Boston magazine article one of the people Fletcher publicly accused of racism at Kidder Peabody back in the early ’90s. That man, who was in human resources, took his work very seriously, and he was deeply pained by the accusation and the damage to his reputation that stemmed from it. As I demonstrated in the article, there was no substance to the racism charge (and the arbitrators who heard the case agreed). But the man I interviewed has been feeling that pain of being labeled a racist for decades; it bothers him still. That bothers me.
Or you could look at the Louisiana firemen whose pension money—money they worked hard for, risked their lives for, for decades—has vanished into the mysterious pockets of Buddy Fletcher’s hedge fund. They’ll probably never see that money again. And these people never lived in the Dakota, or bought a castle in Connecticut, or were driven around Manhattan in a Bentley.
So forgive me if I think this story is important. The shame is that other people don’t.
3/6/2024 4:47 pm
You tiptoed up to the most interesting question but did not broach it: Will Harvard be expected to return the endowment behind the Fletcher chair so that the pensioners can get back part of what they have lost? (Ditto with Alvin Ailey and other Fletcher beneficiaries.) The situation is not exactly parallel to the situation of Madoff and Shapiro, where a Madoff investor had to return investment profits, even though in essence he had given them away philanthropically, but it seems even more direct — the fund manager himself gave the money away. Am I confused about the parallel here?
3/7/2024 1:27 am
I’m totally with Rich on this one. This is fascinating case and I think the media has shamefully not been reporting it. Please keep blogging about it.
3/7/2024 4:04 am
Harry,
I think an even more interesting question is why President Rudenstine (and The Corporation) took Fletcher’s money.
The form that the “money” took, the amount of the gift for a University Professorship, and the investment record of the donor, all called for extreme caution. Why then, when many very smart people at the university said “don’t take it, there are too many problems”, was it taken? We all tiptoe around that question.
Will Harvard be expected to return the endowment? Not a chance. Just look around Harvard (and most other universities), and you’ll see that money and names on buildings do not disappear. Just some more hypocrisy.
3/7/2024 7:35 am
So defrauded investors have no right to recover money the fund manager has given away from the parties he gave it to. That was a serious question and I’m glad to know the answer.
3/7/2024 8:43 am
It’s unfortunate, but that seems to be the case. The defrauded investors won’t have much of a case against the institution that receives the money.
For universities, money talks, and institutions will not give it up even when it becomes “dirty.” Just look around this university. A named building here, a building there, funded by felons, or just “bad people” who have not been found guilty of anything.
I feel sorry for the firemen. On the other hand, the people who ran their money (public officials) seem to have been plain greedy, in terms of expected returns, in giving the money to Fletcher.
3/11/2024 7:04 pm
To add to the list of genuine victims of Fletcher that Richard mentions, I would add those of us who were his close friends in school and at Harvard, and had those friendships betrayed and exploited- people like Michael Meade (see this months Vanity Fair) and myself. Most of us stayed quiet out of a sense, I suspect, of foolishness and disbelief that we could have fallen for it. But, if current events in NY are any guide, the end seems to be drawing near. Richard has done stellar work in dealing with his subject honestly and objectively, with none of the fluff that seems to have found its way into so many pieces about Fletcher (such as the aforementioned Vanity Fair piece…what “justice” is it referring to again?)
3/11/2024 7:10 pm
…lest it need stating more clearly, Fletcher’s biggest creditor on the legal side is Proskauer, and the partner concerned is apparently none other than his ex-girlfriend at Harvard, Alicia Batty. It’s one thing to stiff your date, but leaving her with a bill north of $1 mil seems excessive. Let’s hope Mr. Read fares better than Fletcher’s former friends from Harvard. Although to Fletcher’s credit, Ms. Batty (now Batts) is black, so one can certainly not accuse him of racism.
5/30/2013 9:15 am
Today it appears in the New York Post that he not only stiffed his Harvard date…he actually stiffed Harvard! The “Alphonse Fletcher Chair” of whatever appears to have been funded “no money down” according to the article. Now that’s pure class. How can I buy one of those chairs? Oh that’s right, I can’t. I’m white.
Harvard, needs to come clean on this one. How much uglier does this have to get before they act? The article already states that the President of Harvard sat Buddy down for a “negotiation” on what Fletcher himself calls his “non-binding” gift (in fact, where can I buy one of those as well? Got a birthday party to go to and need something cheap
6/3/2024 10:22 pm
This would make a great movie! The other question I have is this: how is Fletcher paying the mortgages/maintenance on the apartments he own in the Dakota? There are so many moving pieces to this story. I’d also like to know if Fletcher defrauded investors, why hasn’t the pertinant regulatory/law enforcement agencies charged him with doing so? This is also a story about a lot of very smart people who obviously were fat asleep at the front counter of the store or saw Fletcher as a “feel good” story. However, if you do a deep Google search, you will see small investors who were raising questions about transactions (investments) Fletcher was making in banks and other entities.
6/6/2024 9:47 am
It would make a great movie…and seeing how Buddy apparently used about $7 mil of Lousiana’s pensioners hard-earned money to fund his brother’s movie project, it shouldn’t be hard to fund…right after Harvard gets its money for Skip Gate’s “installment” chair.
6/6/2024 9:49 am
…and I continue to be amazed that no one has gone after Roger Salquist, the former CEO of Calgene, to ask him about the “gift” that apparently was part of the, uh, inflatable Harvard chair.
10/9/2024 11:49 pm
Its ridiculous what this guy got away with. And why is the press not all over him with negative publicity? Let me guess - they are afraid of some organization coming after them for going after a successful black man. Its shameful that people (black, white, or grey) are able to utilize the legal system for their own personal gain. Its so obvious in this case he’s wrong and created a persona of lies. Glad the Dakota stuck to their guns and fought back. He should get nothing and also damaged in the press so this sort of thing is not allowed and discouraged by others.