One-time dotcom success story Jennifer Sultan, who sold her company Live On Line in 2000 for $70 million, has completed an incredible fall from grace after being arrested in New York for allegedly trafficking guns and prescription pills.
Having spent all the cash, she partnered with a Queens-based drug and gun dealer, Ivan Chavez, who she has allegedly supplied with pills from her 10-room, four-bedroom penthouse. Behind all of this, however, is a New York City police officer, Nicholas Mina, who is the focal point of the story. Mina admitted to stealing guns from his fellow officers to settle drug debts. Just twenty four hours earlier, Mina was in a police uniform.
Just 12 years after selling her web streaming company, Sultan has hit rock bottom and left few feeling sorry for her…even her own father.
“What an idiot!” David Sultan told the NY Post.
“She had a great life, and she just f–ked it up…I don’t know what the hell she’s doing,” he said.
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Sultan who lives with her boyfriend, co-founder of Live On Line, and former Chief Media Officer, Adam Cohen, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Manhattan federal court.
“They’re now penniless.” said her father.
So whatever happened to Live On Line? After being acquired by Digital Island in 2000, the company’s assets, employees and intellectual property went through a series of owners and joint ventures including an acquisition by Cable & Wireless. Most recently, in its latest incarnation Origin Digital, it was acquired by Accenture, the global management consultancy firm, to help its clients grow their expertise in online, mobile and video.
In 2003, Sultan and Cohen found another Internet company, Global Media Services. The company eventually merged with Grid Networks, and although terms of the deal were not made public, Grid Networks assumed Global Media Services’ name. Global Media Services appears to be up and running but a search of Linkedin, Google News, Facebook and others brings up no quality mentions of the company or its employees.
It’s both saddening and shocking to see just how fast and far someone can fall from the heights of financial wealth to the depths of crime, drugs and bankruptcy. Let this be a lesson for every successful entrepreneur who finds themselves with more money than they know what to do with. Spend a little, invest small and wisely, tuck the majority away and get working on your next solution.
Image Credit / NY Daily News
Featured Image Credit / stevendepolo
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