With all of their fame and notoriety celebrities are prime targets for many things. They are targeted by the paparazzi to get photos of them in both their public and personal lives. They also have large amounts of money and need people they can trust to help them manage it.
All too often you read about a movie star or athlete that has to file bankruptcy to theft and mismanagement by those entrusted to help them with their money!
Such is the case of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" actress Tamara Tune, according to Google and the AP.
Tunie claims her former business manager exploited her trust to steal more than $1 million she earned by working doggedly at a peak in her career.
Her former manager, Joseph Cilibrasi, was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 7 1/2 years in prison. Her manager insinuated himself into her life by joining in birthday parties, weddings and other family events, only to use that closeness to embezzle from her and leave a lasting hole in her family's finances.
Cilibrasi, 51, pleaded guilty in the fall to stealing from Tunie and other clients, including screenwriter Janet Roach and Kansas City Symphony music director Michael Stern. Cilibrasi used some of the stolen cash to finance his own forays into entertainment, including investing in movies and Broadway shows and hiring a screenwriter to pen a script about a historic building.
In pleading guilty to grand larceny and other charges, Cilibrasi admitted he stole more than $1.4 million from Tunie by writing checks to himself from her accounts without her permission and by secretly opening a credit card account in her name, then getting his own card on the account by falsely listing himself as her husband.
Best known for playing medical examiner Melinda Warner for more than a decade on NBC's "Law & Order: SVU," Tunie also has appeared in Fox's "24" and other series in such films as 1997's "The Peacemaker," starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman.
The moral of this story is the same – people do not steal from one another. The world would be a much better place if we all treated each other humanely.