Barry Minkow Ordered to Repay $7-Million Loan

ZZZZ Best founder Barry Minkow, serving a 25-year prison term for fraud, was ordered Friday to pay Union Bank a $7-million loan he took out on his now-defunct carpet-cleaning business.

At the prosecutor’s request, Superior Court Judge Sally G. Disco also will consider ordering Minkow, 24, to pay $14 million in damages under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The bank sued Minkow last year over the 1986 loan. It contended that he received millions of dollars from banks and investors by maintaining that his company did restoration work for fire- and water-damaged buildings when in fact no such work was performed.

Minkow, who founded the carpet-cleaning company in his parents’ garage at 15, already has been ordered to repay investors $26 million.

He was sentenced to 26 years in prison in 1988 after his conviction on 57 counts of securities, credit-card and mail fraud in connection with a scheme to bilk investors and banks of more than $100 million.