6 Billionaire Kids Who Had to Pay the Price for Their Crimes

At times, the world's megarich can seem untouchable, even above the law. But as it turns out, money can't buy everything. Although the richest people in the world can afford the best legal representation and PR available, it's not an impenetrable force field against the wheels of justice—or the net-worth-shrinking nature of negative headlines. These are seven children of the ultra-wealthy who had to pay the price—financial or otherwise—for crimes they committed.  

Earlier this month, the daughter-in-law of a British billionaire and conservative politician was sentenced after fatally shooting a police officer in Belize in May 2021. Jasmine Hartin, 34, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by negligence in April. She said that the officer was showing her how to load and unload his firearm when it discharged, striking him in the head.

Hartin is the former partner of Andrew Ashcroft, whose father is the wealthy Tory leader Lord Michael Ashcroft. Hartin was ultimately fined $37,000 and sentenced to 300 hours of community service. But in the two-year run-up to the trial, she lost custody of her children to Ashcroft and the ability to return to her native Canada.

In 2016, Riza Aziz, stepson of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and head of Read Granite Pictures, was accused of embezzling from the state-run investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), to finance the production of the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, among other film projects.

In March 2018, he agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Justice, $60 million to settle claims Red Granite produced Wolf of Wall Street, Daddy's Home, and Dumb and Dumber To with $100 million of embezzled funds. His stepfather has been imprisoned in Malaysia since 2018 on corruption charges.

In 2019, the New York Post reported that the 34-year-old son of Ohio billionaire Jay Schottenstein—a retail mogul who served as chairman of DSW and American Eagle Outfitters—had been sued for threatening to "destroy" a prominent NYC psychiatrist his parents hired to help him.

Dr. Paul Conti claims in a federal lawsuit that the son—identified in court papers only as John Doe—began a "campaign of intimidation" against the doctor after Conti attempted to curb the son's drug use, and theft from his parents. Conti said the abuse by the billionaire's son caused him severe emotional distress and sought at least $75,000 in damages.

The infamous shotgun murder of José and Kitty Menendez—and the subsequent arrest, trial, and conviction of their sons Erik and Lyle—drove months of tabloid headlines in the early '90s and has inspired TV movies for decades since. A key item of intrigue: the Beverly Hills family's wealth. Defense attorneys said José had sexually abused his sons; prosecutors claimed Erik and Lyle killed their parents to cash out.

Going on a $700,000 spending spree after the murders didn't help the brothers' case. After two juries deadlocked, Erik and Lyle were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

In the '80s, a group of young Los Angeles men formed an investing and social club that hatched a Ponzi scheme, duping dozens of wealthy families affiliated with the tony Harvard-Westlake private school into contributing. Their efforts escalated into the murder of Ron Levin, the group's shady main investor, and Hedayat Eslaminia, the father of one of the group's members.

In 1984, Joseph Henry Hunt, the group's ringleader, and member Jim Pittman were convicted of murdering Levin. Hunt, Pittman, Arben Dosti, and Reza Eslaminia were also charged with murdering Hedayat, Reza's father, to acquire his reputed $35 million fortune. Those charges collapsed amid multiple hung juries. Ironically, Hedayat was actually broke, and Hunt came from a single-parent household and attended Harvard-Westlake on scholarship.