![]() If he did not appease the New York state attorney general’s office, he was looking at up to four years in prison. Wissman obeyed, but he faced bigger problems than winning back the good graces of his staff. “And then,” she added, “you are going to ask the staff for forgiveness.” Sobol demanded that he assemble the New York staff for a morning meeting, get on the speakerphone and explain what his guilty plea meant for the company’s future. “You couldn’t even give me a heads up this was coming?” she said. Wissman had personally made millions from the pay-to-play scheme and was awaiting sentencing.Īngry and incredulous, Sobol picked up the phone and called Wissman at his home in Dallas. He and two New York state political operatives had conspired to direct billions of dollars from the state’s pension fund to private investment firms in return for kickbacks. ![]() He seemed ideal - a wealthy financier with musical talent.īut, as Sobol learned from the Times, Wissman had lately enhanced his wealth by illegitimate means. Wissman, a fashionably stubbled bon vivant with a taste for linen suits and fine wines, had been welcomed by the staff of IMG as a savior. But McCormack’s unexpected death had thrown the company’s future into jeopardy. Originally a division of parent company IMG, which also operated businesses in sports, media and modeling, IMG Artists was an international firm with an A-list roster that included conductor André Previn, pianist Evgeny Kissin, violinist Itzhak Perlman, soprano Renée Fleming and flutist James Galway. Sobol, managing director of IMG Artists, one of the world’s premier classical music talent agencies, was looking at a picture of the agency’s 47-year-old chairman, Barrett Wissman, in a story titled, “ Hedge Fund Executive Guilty of Securities Fraud.” Wissman, a Texas financier and classical pianist, had purchased IMG Artists for $7.5 million in July 2003, two months after the death of the previous owner, legendary sports impresario Mark McCormack. On the morning of April 15, 2009, Elizabeth Sobol was flipping through The New York Times in her Miami Beach apartment when a headline and photo stopped her cold.
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