By Al Lewis Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Home-building company Lennar Corp. (LEN) has won a $584 million judgment against convicted felon Barry Minkow, who is likely to be headed to prison yet again. Minkow is slated to be sentenced on July 7 after pleading guilty to a federal charge of manipulating Lennar's stock. The stipulated judgment that Lennar won was entered on June 1 in the Circuit Court for the 11th Judicial District in Miami, Fla. Lennar had sued Minkow and California developer Nicolas Marsch for extortion and defamation. Minkow declined comment. Lennar didn't return messages. Marsch had several business disputes with Lennar and hired Minkow, a self-styled fraud investigator, to smear Lennar, according to the judgment. "In and around November 2008, the Minkow Defendants entered into an agreement with the Marsch Defendants to extort Lennar," the judgment said under the heading "stipulated facts." The defendants also "agreed to manipulate the public securities markets to harm the Lennar Plaintiffs' business," the document said. In January 2009, Minkow likened Lennar to Enron and called it a "financial crime in progress" in a press release and online. His efforts drove down the price of Lennar stock by more than 20%. But Minkow has since stipulated in court that his statements were false and malicious. The half-billion-plus judgment marks another turn in the career of a renowned con-man. Minkow, now 44, was sentenced at age 23 for the text-book case fraud known as the ZZZZ Best Co., a carpet-cleaning company that he took public. Minkow had claimed a net worth of $90 million, drove a red Ferrari with a "ZZZZ BEST" license plate and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show as a Wall Street wunderkind. When ZZZZ Best was exposed as a massive Ponzi scheme, Minkow was sentenced to prison for nearly eight years. Following his release, he earned a master's degree in divinity from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Then he became pastor of Community Bible Church in San Diego, Calif. He also became a corporate-fraud investigator, establishing the "Fraud Discovery Institute," where he uncovered instances of deceit at publicly traded companies and investigated Ponzi schemes. For several years, he was an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a tipster to journalists. Members of his church have said they found his story of transformation inspiring. He was also working on an unreleased movie about his rehabilitative journey from convicted conman to minister and fraud detector, called "Minkow." -By Al Lewis, Dow Jones Newswires; al.lewis@dowjones.com
