Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous...Criminals

If you sell your soul to the devil, you might as well have something nice and shiny to show for it, right? If these dirty dealers didn't know how to live good, they sure knew how to live well.

1. Leona Helmsley (1920"“2007)

The famous New York real estate mogul and class A witch lived the American Dream. Well, except for the whole prison thing. Leona was a divorced sewing factory worker with mouths to feed before she met and married real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley (the fact that he was already married mattered little). In 1980, Harry named Leona president of his opulent Helmsley Palace Hotel, which she ruled like a despot. Her tendency to explode at employees for the smallest infraction (like a crooked lampshade) earned her the title "Queen of Mean." But the tyranny didn't exactly last.

In 1988, Leona and Harry were indicted for a smorgasbord of crimes, including tax fraud, mail fraud, and extortion. And after numerous appeals, Leona served 18 months in prison and was forced to pay the government $7 million in back taxes. A healthy dose of irony for the woman who once said, "Only the little people pay taxes." Of course, that doesn't mean things turned out that badly for poor Leona. At the time of her death, her estate was worth over $4 billion "“ $12 million of which she left to her white Maltese, Trouble.

2. Mother Mandelbaum (1818"“1894)

3. Pablo Escobar (1949"“1993)

Of course, incarceration didn't stop him from living the lush life. Escobar used some of his loot to convert his prison into a personal fortress, even remodeling all the bathrooms and strengthening the walls. Once he left, he was a fugitive again, but he wasn't hard to track down. An obsessive misophobe, Escobar left a conspicuous trail of dilapidated hideouts with shiny, expensive new bathrooms. In the end, the cocaine kingpin was killed when the secret police tracked his cell phone to an apartment, stormed the building, and shot him. Many, many times.

4. L. Dennis Kozlowski (1946"“ )

5. Al Capone (1899"“1947)

That Geraldo clip never gets old:

This list was taken from Forbidden Knowledge.