Wild, Wild West

Once convicted of fraud and in debt to the IRS for a cool million, Steven West is some kind of businessman

A A A Comments (2) By Rebekah Gleaves Thursday, Aug 29 2002

...continued from page 5

Even in divorce, it seems, Steven West tried to do business. Sherri filed more than two years ago. Not long after that, in July 2000, Steven offered his wife $1.25 million to reconcile. She didn't accept. (Sherri West also declined comment.)

Those who claim they've been taken by West marvel that he continues to hustle. His resilience may be due to his choice of business associates. "The people he beats are regular people," Egitto says. "They're not mafia. They're not lowlifes. They're more hurt than they are angry. He took food out of their families' mouths."

Jordin Isip

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It's been 25 years since Steven West set the business world abuzz with his bold attempts at entrepreneurship and 25 years since he penned five books telling readers how to have happy, wealthy, healthy, long, sex-filled lives. The cocky, confident Steven West has given way to a cautious man, saddled with huge amounts of debt. As Murray Kempton, among the greatest of American journalists, wrote for Newsday in 1992: “The good fairy at the young Steven West’s cradle blessed him with a narrow but profound genius for catching the transient delusions of his time. His bad fairy then ruined his timing.”

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12/29/2011 11:55:00 PM

I remember going to the Federals in Southgate, Michigan to get one of those free TVs...and it was out of business. Happened overnight, practically.

Gabriel 12/08/2010 8:47:00 PM

This Steven/Steve West AKA Steven Watstein is a complete but very well disguised charlatan, scam artist and thief, to mention a few. I can tall with all truth and detail as I worked for him, and so did many others. West Investment Banking, and a few other ventures he uses to scam honest and hardworking people and business owners out of their cash, is just one of them. He claims he has "investors" that are interested in buying and merging companies, nation wide, and has (or had) a number of telemarketers call all kinds of bought leads. Once the company owner is on the phone and interested, he is told the lie that an investor is interested in buying his company etc... Often owners sent in a $ 20,000 retainer check to "initiate negotiations" and "have skin in the game", money he used to pay salaries, past due rent at 1000 W. McNab Rd., just off I-95 in Pompano Beach, Florida, personal expenses, his 3 19 to 21 year old mistresses, his psychedelic and drug addicted son Derek's $3,000 rent for a luxury apartment just off the Inter-coastal right in front of Las Olas Boulevard which is high end prime beachfront real estate, and the list goes on and on...negotiations never even happened, only after West could find out if the company was highly profitable...all other owners who sent in $ 20,000 ??? he laughed at them and thanked them for so foolishly finance his "fake millionaire lifestyle"....He often shows up in stretch limos or his old Rolls Royce to fake the impression of "entrepreneur" and successful business man....DONT LET NO ONE BE FOOLED BY THIS MAN!!!!