Behaviors indicate a high likelihood of addiction in Ivana Trump, lawyer Scott Rothstein and Al Sharpton’s ex-wife and daughter
In an early 2009 piece on white collar crime, The Economist magazine mentioned something those who have read my books would predict: “Many [Club Fed and other white collar] prisoners suddenly discover, post-conviction, that they had a drinking problem….” I would add that those who haven’t figured this out might benefit from greater introspection. In the spirit of The Economist’s discovery, a litany of recent stories follow for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the behavior itself.
Ivana Trump, 60, ex-wife of The Donald, forcibly removed from a Delta jet after throwing a tantrum. Dr. Keith Williams, his wife Melissa and their children, 2-year-old Hailey and 10-month-old Ethan, were in the row behind her four first-row first-class seats—all purchased for herself. When Hailey and a couple of other toddlers were given a quick tour of the cockpit by the pilot before takeoff, Ivana stood up and screamed, “What is going on with all these kids? I want to leave now. This is bull—-!” After calling the Williams’ kids “little (bleepers)” and repeatedly telling them to “shut the (bleep) up,” the flight attendant gave her a warning. However, the attendant ended up in tears after Ivana told her she’d have her fired. The captain finally came out of the cockpit and told ivana, “You’re disrupting my crew and I’m done with you. Get off my plane.” As sheriff’s deputies escorted her off, fellow passengers broke into applause.
Ivana was not on my radar. However, according to the on-line Thorburn Substance Addiction Recognition Indicator (TSARI), a tirade such as this (“intense mood swings”), combined with an obvious “the rules don’t apply to me” attitude, instantly ups the odds of addiction to 70%. If we knew more about her personal life, we could probably respond positively to several more questions in the first part of the TSARI, which would increase the likelihood to 80%, capped without confirmation of at least one of the physical clues in Part ll of the TSARI. However, clues discussed in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics allow us to easily increase the odds of addiction to 80%, including extraordinary impatience and the fact that her third husband is 24 years her junior (“look at the hot hunk I got a hold of!” can be very ego-inflating). The point is that whenever we witness such behaviors our antennae need to go up, if only to protect ourselves, since we cannot predict how destructive the behaviors of a practicing addict might become or when.
Florida lawyer Scott Rothstein, who is changing his not-guilty plea to guilty for running a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. Reportedly, the judge in the case might look to last year’s prosecution of New York lawyer Marc Dreier, who was sentenced to 20 years and whose case is “eerily similar,” in deciding how long to sentence Rothstein. Interestingly, so were their lifestyles: as reported in the January 2009 and November-December 2009 issues of TAR, Dreier owned three oceanfront homes in the Hamptons; Rothstein owns several mansions overlooking the canals of Fort Lauderdale. Dreier owned an Aston Martin and a 121-foot yacht; Rothstein owns a stable of very expensive cars, including a Bentley, a Rolls and a $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron. Perhaps a stretch, but just for the record, Dreier owned $39 million in art; Rothstein owns alligator shoes, hand-painted ties and dyed-orange Ostrich-skinned boots. We suspect they also were both known for heavy drinking, but as is too common in cases involving lawyers, politicians and CEOs, journalists aren’t telling.
Kathy Jordan and Dominique Sharpton, Al Sharpton’s ex-wife and daughter, who launched an obscenity-laced tirade at police officers when Dominique was stopped after tailgating a slow-moving unmarked police car, which she sped past over a double-yellow line, running a red light and causing another car to swerve out of her way. Dominique, who screamed, “You were driving too slow. I have a play to go to,” called her mother, who arrived on the scene and, with her daughter, cursed at the officers. After ignoring orders to return to their cars, officers apparently proceeded to arrest Dominique, at which point Jordan asked officers, “Why the f— are you locking her up? Get your f—— hands off her.” The two were then charged with resisting arrest. Officers reportedly found no evidence of alcohol or other drugs. Oh? Did they test? In Get Out of the Way!: How to Identify and Avoid a Driver Under the Influence, I recounted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study finding that the odds of DUI are 60% in those making obscene gestures and suggested that since road rage is an even more extreme behavior, such rage probably justifies an estimate of at least an 80% likelihood of DUI. I also reported the landmark Fort Lauderdale, Florida study in which traffic violators cited by police but not suspected of DUI were about to get back on the road. Researchers then administered breath tests. For every 10 DUIs the original citing officers arrested, the researchers found 37 more that the police missed. Again, I ask, did they test?