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But with the end of the market bubble in 2000, Mr. Vilar and his investors experienced three difficult years, watching helplessly as his primary technology fund lost more than 80 percent of its value. His philanthropic reputation also took a hit, as financial troubles led him to renege on or postpone tens of millions of dollars of pledges to the Met and other organizations.

Then, salvation – or so it appeared. The technology fund roared back with the stock market, and Mr. Vilar began making rumblings about – and taking steps toward – a comeback to the highest circles of New York philanthropy.

But it all came crashing down Thursday. That night, Mr. Vilar, 64, flew to Newark Liberty International Airport from Las Vegas, where he spoke at an investor conference. At the airport, federal agents arrested him on fraud charges, accusing him of stealing $5 million from a client – and using the money to make good on charitable pledges. As he was led away in handcuffs, there was no doubt that the Vilar bubble had burst once more – perhaps irreparably.

People involved in the case said and court documents in the complaint suggested that prosecutors had evidence indicating that financial wrongdoing by Mr. Vilar might have begun in the late 1980′s and involved several accounts, including at least one for a Panamanian entity he controlled called Amerindo Management Inc.

At a hearing on Friday, a federal prosecutor, David Esseks, said the government suspected that the $5 million theft described in the criminal complaint was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Mr. Vilar has pleaded not guilty and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, after being unable to pay $10 million in cash for bail on Friday. Another bail hearing will be tomorrow. Gary Tanaka, who co-founded Mr. Vilar’s investment advisory firm, was charged separately in a similar complaint of theft of client funds.

In an interview yesterday, Frederick P. Hafetz, a lawyer for Mr. Vilar, said his client “maintains that there is no basis for the charge, and he is confident that he will be exonerated.”

The rise and fall – and rise and fall – of Alberto Vilar is a tale of transforming eras, of a time when heroes and gurus borne on a wave of economic exuberance came crashing down as the market tides turned. But unlike other business sachems of the 1990′s who have emerged as the widely perceived scoundrels for the new millennium – like Kenneth L. Lay of Enron, Bernard J. Ebbers of WorldCom or L. Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco – Mr. Vilar lived a life that is less confined to the strictures of business, playing out instead at the intersection of cash and culture.

His story blends the passions of an esthete with the tactics of an investment strategist. It is the tale, associates of Mr. Vilar said, of a self-described Cuban refugee who sought adulation and acceptance in exclusive strata, yet who remained so solitary, so on the outside, that even when he attended his beloved operas at the Met, he usually came alone, taking his reserved seat, A-101.

For those who have known Mr. Vilar, the events that led to his arrest underscored the unease – and at times discomfort – he created as he battled for his opera, his music, his accolades and his beliefs.

“He was not, how shall I say, quiet, about his giving,” said Beverly Sills, the soprano and a former chairwoman of the Met. “I think that was a turn-off for other members of the board, the fact that he wanted more attention.”

While many people in the world of the arts say that there was no doubt that Mr. Vilar was genuinely generous, even some executives who clashed with Mr. Vilar in business dealings walked away perplexed.

“He spent money like it was water,” said Donald Trump, the real estate developer who tussled successfully with him in court over plans to put up a 90-story building across the street from Mr. Vilar’s 11,000-square-foot apartment at United Nations Plaza. “Many people have fought me over the years, but there was something really missing with this guy.”

Associates of Mr. Vilar had long heard from him the story of his past: The son of a Cuban businessman who traveled frequently, Mr. Vilar was born in New Jersey. He returned to Cuba, he told associates, where he lived until his family moved to Puerto Rico when he was 9. His love of the arts began early, instilled primarily by his paternal grandmother, a classical music aficionado.

He graduated in 1962 from Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. Afterwards, he landed a job with Citibank before obtaining a master’s degree in economics from Iona College. But his big turn came as the bull market of the early 1980′s was getting under way, when he and Mr. Tanaka opened their firm, Amerindo Investment Advisors. The firm was soon offering an array of services to institutional investors and wealthy individuals, including hedge funds and fixed-rate deposit accounts.

A specialist in emerging technology stocks, Mr. Vilar and his firm invested heavily in companies that were blazing the digital trail – including Apple, Microsoft and Cisco.

The timing was right: the rapidly increasing popularity of technology stocks was an underlying force pushing up market values.

As the market bubble grew in the late 1990′s, so did Mr. Vilar’s profile. In 1996, his firm created its primary high-tech investment vehicle, the Amerindo Technology Fund. Assets in the fund soared from nearly $24 million in its first year to $598 million in 1999, a year when it returned almost 249 percent, according to Morningstar Inc.

At its peak, the firm had about $8 billion in assets under management in assorted vehicles, including the technology fund. The fees Mr. Vilar collected propelled him onto Fortune magazine’s list of wealthiest people.

He used that wealth as an entree into the international world of culture. He spoke of spending 100 nights a year at the opera, which was said by at least one close acquaintance to be an exaggeration. His operatic tastes were conservative – straightforward productions of Wagner and Verdi, with a preference for lavish stagings like those of the director Franco Zeffirelli.

His love of the operatic stage was echoed in his life. Mr. Vilar lives in a vast, mirror- and art-filled apartment at 860 United Nations Plaza, a combination of four condominiums where he planned to build a concert hall and had a reproduction of the inner façade of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, said the acquaintance, who declined to be identified to avoid being seen as saying damaging things about Mr. Vilar.

His financial success gave Mr. Vilar the opportunity to pursue his more erudite interests. “When money started coming in,” he said in an interview in March. “I wanted to take care of the first love of my life, music.”

And so he did, pledging $225 million in the last several decades, although actually providing half the amount so far, he has said. Mr. Vilar liked the big gesture – he gave with a flourish, calling philanthropy an “art form,” and demanded recognition, more so than most big donors.

Hence the Vilar Grand Tier at the Metropolitan Opera, the Vilar young artists program at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the Vilar Center for the Arts in Avon, Colo., to name a few. The name was writ large on walls and programs.

Giving money away was “emotional, cultural and intellectual fun,” Mr. Vilar said in the March interview. “It’s part of your moral and intellectual legacy,”

Ms. Sills said Mr. Vilar once proposed putting the names of donors, including his own name, on the subtitle readout screens that are installed on the backs of seats at the house, and even bringing donors on stage at the end of a performance. The ideas were rejected.

“His reasons that more-public donations give more encouragement to other people was not really accepted,” she said. “They felt it was a little bit of an ego trip.”

But the Met tolerated Mr. Vilar’s quests for recognition, and were happy to maintain the relationship while it was fruitful. “He was giving large sums of money,” Ms. Sills pointed out.

Not for long. When technology stocks crashed, Mr. Vilar’s fortunes were hit hard. The technology fund he controlled fell 64.8 percent in 2000, and declined another 50.8 percent in 2001 and 31.0 percent in 2002.

His finances shaky, Mr. Vilar failed to meet payments on $20 million in pledges over five years. The Met has declined to say how much he paid, but Mr. Vilar said he provided about half of the amount. He also was said to have failed to come up with $2 million each to the Washington and Los Angeles operas, which both had Mr. Vilar’s friend, the tenor Placido Domingo, as general director. The Lyric Opera of Chicago also cited failed payments by Mr. Vilar.

With its longtime cash machine malfunctioning, the arts world turned on its onetime benefactor. The Met removed foot-high metal letters spelling his name from the wall of the Grand Tier. Menu covers with his name in the tier’s restaurant were discarded. Next month, when his term expires, Mr. Vilar will no longer be on the Met board, the house said, a decision made before his legal troubles emerged.

In the March interview, Mr. Vilar said the Met showed unjust impatience with his financial troubles. “I had a record,” he said. “How about reverse philanthropy?”

Even Mr. Vilar’s critics found the episode unseemly. “I think the institutions treated him terribly,” Mr. Trump said. “Here’s a guy who gave millions and pledged more, and they came after him rather than let him get back on his feet.”

As he struggled, Mr. Vilar had the help of wealthy friends. Mr. Domingo said he personally put up money promised by Mr. Vilar. In 2002, Lorin Maazel, the music director of the New York Philharmonic, replaced a $700,000 pledge that Mr. Vilar had made to their Maazel/Vilar Conductors’ Competition in 2002.

That year, according to the criminal complaint, Mr. Vilar resorted to less-reputable meaning of obtaining money. On June 20, 2002, a friend who had invested with Mr. Vilar for about two decades gave him $5 million to invest in a government-backed investment company intended to attract venture capital for small businesses.

But, to qualify, the managers of such funds must be approved by the government; the Amerindo fund, despite repeated efforts, was not. The friend was not identified in the complaint.

Instead, the complaint says, the money was deposited in the brokerage account of Amerindo Management Inc, Mr. Vilar’s Panamanian entity.

Within six days, the complaint says, a million dollars of that was wired to the account of “A.W. Vilar” at Chase Manhattan Bank. Approximately another million dollars was wired to other bank accounts.

Within two weeks, the money sent to Chase was gone. Amounts were wired and sent to various recipients, including Washington & Jefferson College; the American Academy in Berlin, an institute for advanced studies; a catering service; dishwasher repair service and to Mr. Vilar himself, the complaint says.

By the following month, another $3.1 million was wired from the Panamanian entity’s brokerage account to an overseas financial institution in Luxemburg, it says.

Over the following two years, the complaint says, Mr. Vilar took extraordinary steps to hide the theft, sending bogus account statements and letters to the investor, claiming the $5 million was on deposit with the Small Business Administration.

In 2003, the complaint says, Mr. Vilar funneled the last of the remaining cash into personal and offshore accounts. That same year, after a reorganization that pooled several funds, his technology fund rebounded, gaining 85.1 percent, according to Morningstar. The next year, 2004, strong performance continued with a 23.8 percent return.

While the fund struggled this year, Mr. Vilar sounded confident in March of his return. “I want to continue to work,” he said. “We’ve been through good and bad times – 20 good years, 4 bad.”

As for his contributions, he seemed prepared to snub the former recipients of his largesse who had treated him roughly. “When you are lucky enough to get a big fish, you better keep them alive,” he said of those organizations. “Some day they are going to wake up and say, ‘What about Alberto?’ “

May 28, 2005

Jail on Fraud Charge for Legendary Opera Patron
By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Alberto Vilar, who built a fortune after arriving in America as a refugee from the Cuban revolution, loved the opera more than anything. And he loved giving his money away almost as much.

Mr. Vilar, a wealthy investor, became a legendary benefactor, donating hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it to opera houses and orchestras. His name was linked with those of Daniel Barenboim, Lorin Maazel and Plácido Domingo. But in recent years, some of his pledges went unfulfilled and his reputation was tarnished.

Now Mr. Vilar’s generosity has helped get him into real trouble.

This weekend Mr. Vilar is in jail, charged with defrauding a client of $5 million and using some of the money to make good on his charitable promises, according to a complaint unsealed yesterday in United States District Court in Manhattan.

Federal authorities accuse him of putting the money in an account he used as a “personal piggy bank” and spending more than $700,000 of it on the gifts that made him beloved in nonprofit boardrooms around the world.

He also used it to pay a caterer and fix the dishwasher in his apartment, according to the complaint. Mr. Vilar resides in an 11,000-square-foot, 30-room apartment at 860 United Nations Plaza that is filled with art.

He was arrested on Thursday night at Newark Liberty International Airport while returning from an investment conference in Las Vegas, said Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office. He appeared in United States District Court yesterday afternoon and was ordered jailed until a bail hearing on Tuesday.

Mr. Vilar’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, said in an interview that he denied any wrongdoing. “It’s just not true,” she said. “We think that it will be cleared up.”

Ms. Necheles said the government had sought a delay in the bail hearing because it was unprepared after making a “premature” arrest. “They asked for continuance over Memorial Day weekend, which is extraordinarily unfair,” she said. Mr. Vilar, 64, was in poor health with back problems, she added.

In court, she said Mr. Vilar had less than $10,000 in the bank.

“I suspect his maintenance is more than that,” said the magistrate, Henry B. Pitman, referring to Mr. Vilar’s apartment fees.

Ms. Necheles also said the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating the company Mr. Vilar controlled, Amerindo Investment Advisors Inc. Federal authorities searched the company’s offices on Thursday and ferried out more than 100 boxes.

The government charged him with three fraud-related counts.

“We fear that they are just the tip of the iceberg,” David Esseks, an assistant United States attorney, said at the hearing.

A statement from Amerindo said company executives were shocked at the charges. “The company is mindful of the presumption of innocence and awaits the outcome of the government’s investigation,” it said. Amerindo is a family of investment funds catering to institutions and wealthy individuals, with an emphasis on technology stocks.

The arrest was a blow to Mr. Vilar as he was seeking to burnish his reputation as philanthropist to arts institutions around the world.

He is said to have pledged more than $225 million to organizations like the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London and the Maryinsky opera and ballet companies in St. Petersburg. Russia.

But two years ago he ran into trouble. His name was pulled off the Metropolitan Opera’s grand tier because he had failed to make good on a portion of $20 million in pledges. In an interview in March, Mr. Vilar said he had paid about half the amount, which was due in January 2003, but would refuse to pay more until there was turnover on the Met board.

He also failed to fulfill a pledge for a conducting competition sponsored by Mr. Maazel, the New York Philharmonic’s music director. Mr. Domingo, the general manager of the Washington and Los Angeles opera companies, said Mr. Vilar had failed to live up to his charitable commitments at those companies.

Mr. Vilar said he meant only to delay payments because the bursting of the technology bubble had reduced the value of his funds from more than $7 billion to $1 billion. Forbes magazine recently put his personal net worth at $950 million, although Ms. Necheles gave the figure as $100 million yesterday. Mr. Esseks, the prosecutor, said Mr. Vilar had a $24 million tax bill outstanding.

Mr. Vilar has spoken proudly of his success after arriving in the United States in 1959 from Cuba, by way of Puerto Rico, after his father lost the family sugar business to Castro’s revolution.

In the March interview, he said that his funds had recouped some value and that he was prepared to start giving again but would replace the arts with health care institutions as his priority. And he said he had started making good on this pledges this year, although he declined to be specific.

“I’ve never walked away from a pledge,” he said. “Everyone who is patient will be paid.”

Mr. Domingo and Mr. Maazel were not immediately available for comment, spokesmen said. The Metropolitan Opera’s chairwoman, Christine Hunter, said she was sorry about the charges.

“He was very generous to the Met for many years,” she said. “You can’t forget those things.” Mr. Vilar is a Met trustee. His term expires at the end of June, but he was not nominated for another three-year term because he failed to contribute funds, she said.

Mr. Vilar made his failed pledges in 2002, the same year the government said he persuaded a longtime investor in his funds to put $5 million toward a new venture. The investor was not identified.

According to the complaint, written by United States Postal Inspector Cynthia M. Fraterrigo, Mr. Vilar talked the investor into putting $5 million into a new Amerindo venture: a government-backed investment company designed to attract venture capital for small businesses.

Mr. Vilar promised a $1 million return each year, the complaint said. But the government denied Amerindo permission to run the fund, which Mr. Vilar lied to the investor about, the complaint said, and instead he put the money into a brokerage account he used “as a personal piggy bank to pay personal expenses and make charitable contributions.”

The complaint said $540,000 went to Mr. Vilar’s alma mater, Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa., where he is also a board member. He pledged $18.1 million for the Vilar Technology Center, which opened last fall at the college, and financed the Vilar Distinguished Artist Series there. A spokeswoman for the college, Lynn Barger, said the series had been suspended since 2003.

The complaint said he had diverted $177,000 to the American Academy in Berlin, where he has also been on the board and underwrote a music fellowship program with a $4 million gift, according to an academy newsletter.

More than $14,000 went to a catering service for a party, and $255.56 was paid to repair his dishwasher, the complaint said; $650,000 went for business expenses.

In the March interview, Mr. Vilar expressed some bitterness toward the Met for being ungrateful about his past pledges.

“When somebody gives you that amount of money and they fall down,” he said, “what you say is, ‘Can I throw you a life raft and help you, because I know when you come back you’re going to be there?’ They didn’t do that.”

He added later, “I think it was a bad bet to bet against me.”

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting for this article.