Who was Dean Karny and where is he now? All about Billionaire Boyrs club founder Joe Hunt’s best friend

The Billionaire Boys Club (BBC) was a club started by Joe Hunt in the early 80s. What started as a glamorous gang of wealthy young men had quickly become a criminal enterprise employing fraud, kidnapping, and murder. Its core members included Dean Karny, Hunt’s most intimate adviser, until he betrayed him.

Dean Karny was among Joe Hunt’s earliest and most loyal followers. The son of a wealthy real estate developer, Karny befriended Hunt at the upscale Harvard School in Los Angeles.

Initially a skeptic, Karny was attracted by Hunt’s charisma and intelligence and became a mainstay of the BBC.

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As Hunt’s top deputy, Dean Karny helped run the club’s financial scams, among them a Ponzi-style commodities trading business that promised investors huge returns that were sheer fabrication.

According to SF Gate, after the murder trial of Joe Hunt, Karny was supposedly placed in the Witness Protection Program as his life was threatened. According to reports, he went on to become a licensed attorney and a member of the California State Bar. But his complete whereabouts is still unknown.

A look into Dean Karny's alleged betrayal against Joe Hunt

The Billionaire Boys Club’s downfall came as Hunt and his colleagues went from partaking in fraud to violence and crime.

Dean Karny, in a murder trial, testified that Hunt plotted the killings of two men: Ron Levin, a Beverly Hills con man who had tricked the BBC, and Hedayat Eslaminia, the father of BBC member Reza Eslaminia.

Hunt thought the BBC had lost millions because of Levin, Karny said, and had therefore killed him. Karny also revealed that Eslaminia, an Iranian exile with a fortune, was abducted and suffocated in the trunk of a car in a failed ransom scheme (Esquire).

For months, Dean Karny stayed loyal, even when Hunt admitted that he had killed Levin. But as the law closed in on him, with his own legal exposure in mind, he cut a deal with prosecutors, offering up crucial testimony for immunity.

His cooperation was pivotal. Karny supposedly took detectives to Eslaminia’s remains in Soledad Canyon, describing how Joe Hunt had participated in both killings. He testified against Hunt, who was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life for Levin’s killing.

While Hunt is still appealing his imprisonment, the story of the Billionaire Boys Club has influenced several TV shows and movies over the years, with CNN just recently announcing a new series relating to the club.