Gary Winnick, Global Crossing founder and once L.A.'s richest man, dies at 76
Gary Winnick, who rode the dot-com boom to briefly become the wealthiest businessman in Los Angeles before his star imploded in a scandal that came to represent the era's excesses, has died. He was 76.
Winnick died unexpectedly Saturday at his historic and extravagant Bel-Air home, which he had recently put on the market for $250 million, making it the most expensive residential listing in the United States.
Winnick started out in furniture sales and worked with investment banker Michael Milken, the junk bond pioneer, before he came up with the idea for Global Crossing amid the dot-com boom.
The Beverly Hills company had an audacious plan to lay fiber optic cable under the ocean to feed the
