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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BDR who wrote (204927)	11/14/2002 11:10:38 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Applied Materials: Beat or Miss? news.cnet.com Japan fortune.com

To: BDR who wrote (204927)	11/15/2002 9:21:57 AM
From: JHP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

on the subject of Dopes Following the money down river by Cosmo Macero Jr. Friday, November 15, 2002 What is it about Marlboro that makes biotech executives do crazy things? Or maybe the common denominator is something else. Like the actual address: 84 Waterford Drive. That would be home to Sepracor - the once high-flying drug developer with a promising pipeline, but nary a profit to show for it since day one. Sepracor takes rejection badly. The FDA dropped the hammer on the company's allergy drug last March, sending the stock into a sharp and steady decline. But not before their longtime research chief dumped nearly $1 million worth of shares - clearing a $511,000 profit while other investors took a beating. Explanation: His ex-wife made him do it, and she took all the dough, to boot. It's been a tough road to recovery for Sepracor, though enough investors have felt good recently to nearly double the stock price from $5 on Sept. 30 to $9.54 yesterday. Still, in the age of full disclosure, you can't beat a company's own words for a good reality check, even if it is stock legalese. ``We have never been profitable and we may not be able to generate revenues sufficient to achieve profitability,'' Sepracor says in its most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing. ``We have not been profitable since inception. Our net loss in fiscal 2002 will exceed that incurred in fiscal 2001. We cannot assure you that we will . . . ever achieve profitability. Even if we do achieve profitability, we cannot assure you that we can sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.'' A little redundant, but you get the point. Now comes Timothy Barberich, chairman and chief executive of Sepracor. Of all the places you might have expected Barberich to invest his free cash (annual compensation: $550,000), I'm guessing a mobbed-up casino boat with a leaky bank account was not one of them. But there he is, Tim Barberich, with a 35 percent interest in Hardate LLC - the bankroll for Atlantic Casino Cruises in Gloucester. His partner: Dr. Paul Rubin - a former Sepracor executive vice president. Rubin left the company in July to ``pursue other opportunities'' - ostensibly the chief executive's post at Critical Therapeutics. But opportunity, as it turns out, comes in all shapes and sizes. Casino boat operator Adam Kidan, as reported this week by the Herald, launched the enterprise last year through an outfit controlled by an associate of the late Gambino family crime boss John Gotti. Kidan later signed up Rubin and Barberich as principal investors in Atlantic Casino Cruises. And it's worth pausing here to ponder how the Sepracor board of directors will react to this bit of news. Consider: In a company where Barberich and Rubin hold a combined 70 percent interest, how is it that neither man - both of them sophisticated executives - spotted the red flags dotting Kidan's personal history from here to Florida? He's the target of a boatload of lawsuits charging him with embezzling money from his family and bouncing huge checks - one for as much as $2.5 million. Kidan's partners in a Florida casino boat accused him of fraud and misappropriation of funds, according to court records cited by the Herald. He bounced $5 million worth of checks to the Florida boat's former owner, Konstantinos Boulis. Boulis accused Kidan of stiffing him on a $147 million deal for the casino business. Then Boulis turned up dead in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Feb. 6, 2001, after a gunman sprayed his car with bullets. Now Kidan is back in business - thanks, in large part, to the strange behavior of two guys from Sepracor. And the red flags are going up again. Bad checks are flying everywhere to Atlantic Casino vendors. Bills are being paid late, if at all. And wire transfers are being made from the company's accounts to cover expenses that have nothing to do with the business. Paul Rubin told the Herald's Jonathan Wells that he has ``no knowledge'' of the siphoned money. Timothy Barberich - who answers to Sepracor investors, his fellow board members and the SEC - has so far not answered calls about the casino boat. Mr. Barberich is obviously a betting man. So what are the odds that the casino boat becomes a topic of discussion at the next board meeting? Or Sepracor's next annual meeting? Because if this is the kind of judgment he uses when it comes to his own money, what should investors expect when it comes to theirs? Send e-mail to cosmo@cosmomacero.com