The mom of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” star Phoebe Cates testified yesterday that fallen money manager Alberto Vilar threatened to sue her into poverty after she found her signature on a document transferring $175,000 from one of his tech-stock funds.
Heiress Lily Cates, 70, said she was tipped to the August 2004 money maneuver by her broker at Bear Stearns.
The two of them then went to Vilar’s Park Avenue office to demand an explanation. Cates said Vilar grew “angrier and angrier and angrier” until his partner, Gary Tanaka, let slip that the firm was about to close a deal with Bear Stearns and that it might be ruined by her questions about the transfer – prompting her broker to walk out.
At that point, Cates said Vilar “basically looked at me, pointed his finger at me and said, ‘If you screw this up for me, you will never hear the end of it . . . I will sue you. You won’t have a penny left.’ ”
Vilar and Tanaka are on trial in Manhattan Federal Court, accused of stealing $5 million from Cates.
The feds allege that opera patron Vilar swiped the cash in part to fund a donation to his alma mater.