Photograph-Illustration: Intelligencer; Pictures: Getty Photographs
Calvin Darden Jr. was dwelling it up in New York Metropolis and different individuals had been paying for it. It was the early 2000s and Darden, a graduate of Howard College, was rising as a dealer in high monetary establishments like Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Wachovia. He had an residence on Wall Avenue and an uncanny capability to make enterprise offers and get near celebrities.
“I used to be attempting to hook him up with my sister as a result of he was a younger entrepreneur,” mentioned Cheryl James, the Salt in Salt-N-Pepa. He was additionally mates with Star Jones’s boyfriend, a dealer at Merrill Lynch who helped him acquire entry to star-studded weddings and the enterprise that adopted. He knew publicists who related him with massive names within the NBA. He was six-foot-three and knew easy methods to work a room.
“He was charming,” mentioned Mystik Dasilva. “He had an awesome persona. He was enjoyable.”
Dasilva, working as a dancer at Goldfingers in Queens, met Darden Jr. within the late ’90s at a membership in Manhattan and the 2 began courting. “You may inform that he got here from cash,” she mentioned. Darden Jr.’s father, Calvin Sr., had risen from the loading dock to change into a senior vice-president at UPS, all the best way into positions on the board of Coca-Cola and Goal. In 1999, when UPS went public, he and his government colleagues grew to become millionaires many instances over — giving his son a ready-made group of purchasers to solicit.
Dasilva requested Darden if he might assist her along with her earnings. “I had plenty of money that was underneath my mattress and I wanted it to not be underneath my mattress,” she mentioned. “I used to be like, ‘You become profitable. You’re sensible. What do I do?’” Darden instructed her to speculate her life financial savings of round $100,000 with him.
His Rolodex of celeb buyers was Entourage worthy: Nelly, Angela Bassett, New York Knicks legend Latrell Sprewell. He moved from Wall Avenue to a seven-bathroom mansion close to the water in Glen Cove, extra Mar-a-Lago than Lengthy Island. “There was an precise shark tank,” mentioned Dasilva. The tank price $210,000 and, because the New York Instances famous in 2005, he fed salmon fillets to the black-tip reef sharks that lived in it.
Sadly, the monetary establishments that gave him six-figure sums upfront on becoming a member of discovered they weren’t benefiting. Wachovia mentioned that Darden solely delivered $423 in commissions in his first six months on the financial institution, far lower than his seven-figure purpose. Extra significantly, the financial institution claimed that he had cast paperwork suggesting his property underneath administration had been far higher than they appeared.
His celeb buyers additionally discovered one thing was very mistaken.
“The cash was supposed to come back again on a sure day,” mentioned Cheryl “Salt” James. “And on today I went to test and one thing in my spirit was like, It’s not going to be there. You simply obtained jacked. And after I went to look, it wasn’t there.” Her funding, which she recalled was $500,000, was gone. In hindsight, she mentioned, the curiosity he was providing was “ridiculous” and she or he has since discovered to carry out “due diligence” since persons are attempting to rip-off celebs like her “on a regular basis.”
In 2004, Darden confronted larceny and fraud expenses in state court docket in New York. Prosecutors mentioned he pocketed round $6 million from his buyers and employers and spent it on unique fish, furnishings, and luxurious automobiles that he drove poorly. (One story in King journal claimed his license had been suspended or revoked 17 instances by that time.) When earlier buyers tried to tug their cash out, prosecutors mentioned he gave them a runaround of excuses earlier than reducing off contact. Generally he would take new cash to pay again the individuals banging on his door. Sources concerned within the investigation instructed the Instances again then {that a} $3 million mortgage from the Canadian mutual-fund firm AIC went partly to pay again James. A $300,000 funding from Latrell Sprewell went to repay a girl named Catherine Aldridge. She was 87 years outdated when Darden Jr. ripped her off.
“I would really like the individuals I damage on this case to know the way really sorry I’m,” Darden mentioned at sentencing, following his responsible plea on a grand-larceny cost. He was not sorry sufficient to give up doing it.
Along with his mates, Darden Jr. normally glided by Ramarro, his center identify. “Till it was enterprise,” mentioned Dasilva. “Then it was Calvin Darden.”
There have been many causes for Calvin Darden Jr. to admire his father, a self-made millionaire, household man, and deacon at his church in Georgia. (Makes an attempt to succeed in Darden Sr. by cellphone and by e mail had been unsuccessful.) Darden Jr. mentioned they talked on the cellphone nearly daily. When Jr. was first arrested, his dad put up the collateral for his $1 million bail. When he obtained out in 2008 after three and a half years, he mentioned his father gave him a pair hundred thousand {dollars} to get on his ft. Whereas he was in jail the yr earlier than, he married a girl named Suhaine Pedroso, who was working then at a Sephora in Atlanta. He had two younger children from earlier relationships and would quickly have a daughter together with his spouse. “I don’t like jail and gained’t return for any amount of cash,” Darden Jr. wrote his father in an e mail in 2012.
Earlier than he went to jail, Darden Jr. relied on his father for his shopper checklist and good identify in enterprise. After getting out, he started taking extra liberties with that identify. Prosecutors later claimed that included sending emails from an account he made pretending to be his dad, pursuing purchasers as father and son till he both fumbled the deal or took the cash.
Generally the daddy was left holding the bag. In 2011, a “Darden Sr.” obtained paid to arrange a nonexistent Floyd Mayweather boxing match, and it was Darden Sr. who obtained sued for working off with the cash.
The identical yr, ESPN reported {that a} “Calvin Darden” had someway managed to persuade the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation to allow them to plan a world exhibition tour; stars who had purportedly signed contracts included Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard.
Calvin Darden Jr. with Deborah and Carlos Santana, Angélique Kidjo, and LaTanya Richardson Jackson in 2003 in Los Angeles.
Photograph: Getty Photographs
The information articles selling the tour had been sufficient to persuade an investor in Taiwan named Melvin Yen that the Dardens had the burden to deliver the New York Knicks to Taipei for an exhibition sport. Yen, whose enterprise is bringing top-dollar live performance excursions to Asia, thought he was principally in touch with Darden Sr. for the Knicks deal, which Yen recalled as costing $500,000. Darden Sr. even invited Yen to come back to New York to satisfy Knicks proprietor James Dolan and watch a sport with him in a VIP field at Madison Sq. Backyard.
In April 2012, after wiring over a $200,000 deposit, Yen flew to New York to satisfy Darden Sr. However when he landed within the States, Darden Sr. instructed him that he was sick and couldn’t fly up from Atlanta. His son could be there as an alternative.
“It was the primary time I met Calvin Darden Jr. in particular person, and his accent was utterly completely different from that of the particular person I spoke with throughout the dozens of worldwide calls,” Yen wrote through textual content. “He was a handsome Black man, well-dressed, and drove a luxurious car.”
Darden Jr. defined to Yen that they couldn’t meet Dolan that journey — his dad’s request got here in too late and so they wouldn’t have the ability to get cross to get into the VIP suite. As a substitute, that they had some drinks and apps at a W Resort he was staying at within the metropolis. “We chatted in regards to the future collaborations for 2 hours,” he mentioned. “It was an awesome assembly truly.”
Quickly after the journey, their correspondence slowed, with the Dardens disappearing for a month within the fall. Darden Jr. mentioned his father was significantly ailing and that he could be taking on the deal. Issues fell aside. Yen mentioned that, by mid-2013, he had gone bankrupt from shedding the $500,000 in money move, making a “chain response” that he claimed left him $17 million in debt. Prosecutors later mentioned Darden Jr. purchased a Porsche with Yen’s cash and spent a couple of thousand at a spot referred to as Westchester Puppies.
“I didn’t get any funds again,” Yen wrote me. “If I had the prospect to see them within the States, I’d wish to feed them bullets like Luigi Mangione did to Brian Thompson.”
“Dad, I’m not attempting to benefit from you and I’m not mendacity to you,” Darden Jr. wrote to his father. He was attempting to persuade his father to co-sign a mortgage as a result of he didn’t have the credit score.
“I don’t ever let you know the entire story,” he wrote. “I don’t need you concerned on any degree nor do I would like you to have any data of something.”
It was round July 2013 and the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Administration was trying to promote the lad magazine Maxim. Darden Jr. arrange conferences through which he, his father, and an legal professional would pitch Cerberus on shopping for the journal for $31 million.
Darden Sr. was truly concerned this time, approaching in an advisory capability to assist lend some legitimacy to the deal. Darden Jr. then ran with that involvement, impersonating his father in a since-retracted interview in The Wall Avenue Journal. To his buyers, he went rather a lot additional within the pursuit of changing into his father. He purchased a second cellphone line with an Atlanta space code to impersonate his dad in texts and calls. On e mail and in cast signatures, he took a middle-schooler’s strategy that he thought might restrict his father’s authorized publicity: including an invented center preliminary to his father’s identify.
As they pursued the Maxim deal, the Dardens went on trip collectively at a resort on Paradise Island within the Bahamas. Darden Jr. snuck away together with his Atlanta-area-code cell to ship a private assure to attorneys within the different social gathering. He cast his father’s signature, placing him on the hook for the complete $31 million if they might not safe financing for the acquisition.
By November, Darden Jr. wanted more money to purchase time from Cerberus to place the deal collectively; by means of the dealer Forefront, he discovered a lender named Mark Weinberg. “What I’m recognized for is having the ability to fund offers in a short time,” Weinberg instructed me. “I take advantage of my very own cash so I don’t must get approvals from banks.” Weinberg was prepared to supply round $5 million so long as Darden Sr. put up collateral.
“They obtained signed in a short time,” Weinberg mentioned. “After all, I used to be coping with the mistaken Calvin Darden.”
On November 12, Weinberg hopped on a aircraft from New Jersey to California, when he was attempting to determine if he can purchase the Wi-Fi or benefit from the flight. “I paid for the Wi-Fi,” he mentioned. “Thank goodness I did.” Weinberg says he noticed an e mail despatched from his personal account saying that he had licensed the discharge of his $5 million, though the collateral by no means appeared. “It was spoofed,” he mentioned. “It didn’t come from me.” Weinberg was livid, caught at cruising altitude for hours. He requested the flight attendant if he might use the aircraft’s cellphone; she requested if it was an emergency. “I mentioned, ‘Nicely, it’s a monetary emergency.’ And she or he mentioned, ‘No, you possibly can’t.’” As a substitute, he emailed his assistant explaining the disaster, and as quickly as he landed, referred to as the Secret Service, who contacted the FBI.
The subsequent week, Darden Sr. had sufficient together with his son, telling his lawyer he not wished to be a part of the Maxim deal. The 2 wouldn’t communicate for 2 months.
Lastly being at odds together with his father, even whereas receiving the eye of the Feds, didn’t stop Darden Jr. from pursuing one other line of credit score. Forefront then related Darden Jr. with Shane McMahon, the wrestling-empire scion and son of the present Schooling secretary, who would provide $20 million to safe the Maxim deal.
Darden Jr. went into overdrive. He spoofed emails from his father, from former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, and from the CFO of Goal with a purpose to present that his father was and will safe the mortgage.
As McMahon’s group grew skeptical of Darden Sr.’s reluctance to satisfy in particular person, Darden Jr. additionally impersonated his father’s oncologist with a purpose to present some excuse to McMahon for why Darden Sr. couldn’t meet in New York. He flew to Atlanta to forge and notarize a doctor’s affidavit to persuade McMahon that his father was within the hospital. (Darden Sr. was handled for most cancers round this time however was not within the hospital.)
In February 2014, Darden Jr. was charged in federal court docket in New York with wire fraud. He pleaded responsible and agreed to cooperate in trade for a yr in jail. He mentioned he had impersonated his father in emails and textual content for years.
At sentencing, Darden Jr. apologized once more, admitting to the Maxim fraud that “tore my household aside.” He mentioned was “attempting my finest to form of put it again collectively.”
That was the final anybody heard of him for some time.
On July 7, 2020, Dwight Howard was in a resort room in Disney World fascinated by his future. It was the NBA’s COVID season, when the basketball league pulled off a miracle with its self-contained “bubble” on the Disney megacomplex, the place stars might do little however eat, compete, and watch TV in isolation. Howard, then 34, was an growing older six-foot-ten star relegated to a supporting position on the Los Angeles Lakers, chasing a final shot at a championship ring.
That night time, watching ESPN, he noticed what might be his subsequent profession step: proudly owning a group within the Girls’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation.
Kelly Loeffler, then the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream and the junior senator from Georgia, was going through strain to promote the group for objecting to gamers carrying Black Lives Matter shirts. In a letter to the WNBA earlier that day, she wrote that the motion promoted “destruction throughout the nation.”
Howard texted his agent in regards to the alternative to purchase the Dream on a budget: “It’s going to be a hearth sale,” he wrote.
His agent had an awesome thought to finance the deal. He texted again: “Name me bro, I obtained to let you know this. I simply obtained off with Cal.”
He knew Darden Jr. from one other deal and so they started courting the WNBA along with a $7 million provide. Howard would offer the cash, Darden Jr. and the agent would dealer the deal, and Darden Sr. — apparently keen to assist his son proper his fame — would function the general public chief of a Black possession group that would mark a turnaround following the dangerous press with Loeffler.
The group wasn’t totally onboard. Howard was nonetheless an lively participant within the NBA, which is the most important proprietor of the WNBA, and the league prohibits lively gamers from proudly owning franchises. Additionally they had been apprehensive about Darden Jr.’s previous. Lastly, somebody had appeared him up.
However Darden Jr. wasn’t able to let this one go. In his late 40s, it was perhaps his final shot to have a enterprise that wasn’t scamming wealthy individuals. “Hey bro, I’m undecided you perceive simply how massive of a chance this Atlanta Dream deal will be for us,” Darden Jr. texted Howard’s agent. “We have to preserve this deal alive with Dwight by any means.”
He instructed the group that Darden Sr. was main their bid and made up a good-looking pitch deck with made-up model companions together with Naomi Osaka and Tyler Perry. To Howard, he signaled that every part was on monitor. By December, Howard had wired Darden Jr. the $7 million.
A pair months later, Howard turned on ESPN once more to study that the Dream had been offered to a gaggle of real-estate buyers from Boston. He was livid. And nobody might get Darden Jr. on the cellphone.
Prosecutors mentioned the Dwight Howard cash went a good distance. A down cost on a home outdoors Atlanta the place a scene in Dangerous Boys: Trip or Die and a Teyana Taylor music video had been filmed; a $100,000 Steinway piano; tens of hundreds in jewellery; a pair of six-figure Basquiat prints. One of many Basquiats is nonetheless seen within the dwelling’s itemizing, together with a Robert Indiana rip-off that reads “Dope.” He stocked the storage with a $285,000 Porsche Turbo and a $341,000 Lamborghini Aventador. He had saved up his aquatic style over time, although he modestly went for a $20,000 koi pond within the yard this time.
However one of many first issues Darden Jr. did with the cash — simply six days after he obtained the primary multimillion-dollar cost from Howard — was to jot down a $20,000 test to Mystik Dasilva for “mortgage compensation.”
Dasilva had by no means been in a position to shake Calvin Darden Jr. He would seem unannounced at a bar she was working at or attempt to come over handy her a couple of hundred {dollars} at a time. “He confirmed up and he was carrying a Rolex,” she mentioned, of when she noticed him after his first jail stint. “I might get checks for a demeaning amount of cash, $3 or $5. So how was he carrying a Rolex?” Nonetheless, she needed to choose up the cellphone when he referred to as: “He knew I might reply as a result of I used to be determined for the cash.”
In late 2020, they met up in entrance of her residence in Queens, the place Darden, in a Mercedes G-wagon, handed over the $20,000. “I used to be like, Is that this test going to bounce? Am I going to go to jail for this?” she mentioned. It cleared.
For the third time, Darden Jr. didn’t get away with it. He was convicted in federal court docket in New York in October 2024 on a number of fraud and money-laundering counts, together with for his scheme to defraud Dwight Howard of $7 million. Prosecutors mentioned that Darden had lied time and again about his father’s degree of involvement within the deal.
“I don’t wish to say they condone it, however I don’t know that the household has actually turned their again on him in the best way they need to have,” mentioned Dasilva.
Regardless of figuring out of his son’s enterprise practices — and regardless of being sued over and over once more himself for these practices — Darden Sr. had once more been in his nook for the Dream buy, the largest deal of his son’s profession. Was he a sufferer? Or an enabler? Why not each? Now, based on a letter from Darden Jr.’s legal professional, Darden Sr. is ailing with each most cancers and dementia.
Earlier this month, Darden Jr. was sentenced to 12 years in federal jail. If he serves this third jail sentence in full, he will likely be 62 when he’s launched. “I don’t know the place it got here from, however he has this obsession with some type of standing and cash,” mentioned Dasilva. “I really feel like if he will get out, he’ll do it once more.”
Seen from the skin, Darden Jr.’s life might seem to be an interesting fantasy, grifting celebrities for many years and spending their cash on the stuff he wished. At sentencing, prosecutors argued for the longest time period potential. To make their case, pretty or not, they introduced up not simply his earlier convictions for monetary crimes, but additionally an array of arrests that had by no means led to a conviction. There was shoplifting in 1994; easy battery in 1996; easy assault towards an ex-girlfriend in 2002; a contempt-of-court cost for violating a restraining order towards the identical girl; driving with a suspended license in 2022. They painted an image not of a swindler’s high-end dream, however of a mercenary profession prison.
Additionally they mentioned Darden Jr. violated the phrases of his launch previous to sentencing by attempting to purchase a $4.5 million home in Atlanta. In December, he confirmed as much as tour the house in a Ferrari; his spouse got here individually in a Lamborghini. The Feds mentioned Darden Jr. reached out to a mortgage dealer in regards to the property. The dealer instructed them that he was underneath the impression that the person keen on the home was Calvin Darden Sr.
