Allison, Dean & Henderson, Bruce – Empire of Deciet. Inside the Biggest Sports and Bank Scandal in U.S. History

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Allison, Dean & Henderson, Bruce ‘Empire of Deciet. Inside the Biggest Sports and Bank Scandal in U.S. History’ 1985 1st edition. 177-pages. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York 1985. VG in VG mylar protected dust jacket. Includes the following two-page typewritten release by the Publicity Department of Doubleday: “Harold Smith was on top of the world. Women, yachts, drugs and racehorses were his toys. Muhammad Ali, Tony Orlando, and other stars were his cronies. His company M.A.P.S (Muhammad Ali Professional Sports), had signed boxing’s biggest names, including Thomas Hearns, Earnie Shavers, Aaron Pryor, Gerry Cooney, Ken Norton, Michael Spinks, Scott LeDoux, Matthew Saad Muhammad and Wilfred Benitez, He was about to stage the biggest sporting event in history at Madison Square Garden, with revenues expected to reach 100 million.

Harold Smith had built an empire. There was just one problem: Smith had built that empire using $21,305,000 of the Wells Fargo Bank’s money. And Wells Fargo knew nothing about it. Empire of Deceit, which Doubleday will publish on January 25, 1985, tells the shocking story of how con man “Harold Smith” (actually Ross Fields, wanted by the F.B.I), with the help of Ben Lewis, a Wells Fargo employee, embezzled more than $21 million by bypassing the bank’s “fail-safe” computer system. But for one small slip, the men might have escaped unscathed, with the bank never the wiser about how it had financed the growth of a multi-million-dollar empire.

But that empire did crumble, thanks to the efforts of Dean Allison, Chief of the U.S. Attorney Special Prosecution Unit in Los Angeles, who prosecuted Harold Smith successfully and who convinced Smith’s accomplice, Ben Lewis, to testify for the prosecution…