Poor Stevie Cohen Experiences Worst Nightmare: CRISTINA!

So, possibly the most secretive billionaire in the whole world, a man that hundreds of reporters both in the finance world and the art world have begged for interviews, turns out to have once actually done one, the Post discovers. Downside: It was 18 years ago. Upside: It was with Cristina! YOU KNOW, Cristina Saralegui, the insane Cuban talk-show lady who you can’t turn off even if you don’t speak Spanish and you just happen to be drifting past Telemundo or Univision or whatever. She is like an Almodovar drag queen. So during one brief magical moment, Cristina did a show in English, which I vaguely remember even, and at that time, one of her guests was Stevie Cohen, the hedge fund billionaire behind SAC Capital who buys million-dollar art like it is dime-store candy. He is basically the mythical unicorn of the art world, unless you are Saatchi or Gagosian or whatever, in which case you are all up in him 24/7.

So the chat-show segment has, hmm, mysteriously appeared in this world at this date in time just “a week after [his long-ago first wife] Patricia filed a shocking federal lawsuit against her ex-husband, accusing him of cheating her out of millions and alleging he confessed to insider-trading activities.”

The best part about this video is that it had to have come through a deposition, or through something Patricia kept in a vault from producers, or her lawyers went and somehow dragged it out of the show’s vaults, because it has the original time-codes on the video.

[UPDATE: Lord, never write about these things before coffee. Obviously this didn’t come out in discovery, because the case is too new. The timing quite clearly suggests that this is something the wife dug out, mostly likely with the participation of Cristina’s people. Writes a smart person: “However Patricia/her lawyer/her investigator got the video, it wasn’t through legal process in this case. I would imagine Cristina would be happy to get the English language press… although I am sure given the content of the tape, Patricia got it a long long time ago and probably plays it once a day getting madder and madder.”]

I have no idea how Patricia’s claims are showing up in court now; obviously her complaints are time-barred but, since she’s pursuing this under RICO, if there was an active cover-up on the part of Cohen and his business partners, her claims of fraud and insider trading will be allowed. What a mess.

But my real question is: how did this happen? Was Cristina the person who convinced Stevie Cohen of the perils of ever doing press, thereby frustrating an entire generation of journalists? How did he get booked on this show at all? It’s sort of like JD Salinger having done a “What R U Wearing?” spread in US Weekly.