LANCER BIGS GET BITTEN BY SHOW BIZ BUG By CHRISTOPHER BYRON
April 11, 2003 --
Bigwigs at a troubled Park Avenue hedge fund have gotten involved in a string of low-budget Hollywood movies, The Post has learned.
Four low-budget Hollywood movies show one or more officials of the struggling Lancer Group as screen credit "producers" or "executive producers." None of the films show Lancer as a backer.
The federal inquiry into Lancer's investing activities began following reports in The Post and elsewhere that Lancer has regularly taken large positions in penny stocks linked to white-collar criminals and investors with histories of regulatory problems on Wall Street.
At least one top official is believed to be cooperating with federal investigators in a probe of the fund's investing activities.
Lancer, which is suing The Post for its coverage of the fund's troubles, claimed last autumn to have roughly $1 billion of assets under management.
But the group's troubles multiplied after federal agents in Miami arrested a man identified in government documents as a Lancer "managing director" named Bruce Cowen and charged him with attempting to bribe an undercover FBI agent in a $5 million kickback scheme involving shares in a Lancer-controlled penny stock.
Cowen now appears as a co-producer, along with Lancer's founder and managing director, Michael Lauer, in several recently released low-budget movies.
A Los Angeles businessman and investor named Scott Zacky, who is suing Lauer for fraud, says Cowen worked as Lauer's right-hand-man at Los Angeles motion picture company called Total Film Group, in which Lancer held the controlling block of stock.
A search of movie industry records shows that following Total Film Group's collapse, Cowen and Lauer stayed active in the Hollywood scene, and along with two other Lancer officials began appearing with screen credits as producers or executive producers in a series of low-budget Hollywood movies produced by a Holbrook, L.I., company called Holedigger Films.
The Holedigger productions in which Lauer has served as a producer include "Cabin Fever," set for release later this year, with Lauer and Cowen as co-producers, and Total Film group's CEO, Jeffrey D. Hoffman, as "co-executive producer" with an on-screen part as a "bowling-alley victim."
In another Holedigger production, "Roger Dodger," which stars Campbell Scott, and features performances by Isabella Rossellini and Jennifer Beals, the executive producers are listed as Lauer, Cowen, and another Lancer official, Martin Garvey.
Phone calls to Lancer and its executives were not returned |
