AS SEEN ON TV - ROBERT VESCO

"[He's] the biggest thief since Robert Vesco."

Charlotte Newcastle

'Murder, She Wrote'

From Wikipedia:

Robert Lee Vesco (December 4, 1935 – November 23, 2007) was a fugitive criminal United States financier. After several years of high-stakes investments and seedy credit dealings, Vesco was alleged guilty of securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuingU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation by living in a number of Central American and Caribbean countries.

Vesco was notorious throughout his life, attempting to buy a Caribbean island from Antigua in order to create an autonomous country and having a national law in Costa Rica made to protect him from extradition. A 2001 Slate.com article labeled Vesco "the undisputed king of the fugitive financiers." After settling in Cuba in 1982, Vesco was charged with drug smuggling in 1989. In the 1990s he was indicted by the Cuban government for "fraud and illicit economic activity" and "acts prejudicial to the economic plans and contracts of the state" in 1996.

Vesco was sentenced to 13 years in jail by Cuba. Five months after his death in November 2007 the New York Times reported he succumbed to lung cancer at a hospital in Havana, Cuba.

At least according to the IMDb, AKA Old Reliable, Vesco was never portrayed by an actor in the main Toobworld, nor in any of the ancillary dimensions.  But I did find him in Skitlandia, thanks to the 1979 Christmas episode of 'Saturday Night Live', hosted by Ted Knight.  (Vesco is seen here playing the piano for Henry Kissinger and the Shah of Iran.)

But the quote listed above may be the only evidence that there was a televersion of Vesco in Earth Prime-Time.  And it's probably doubtful that he would even be mentioned in another TV show as he's basically unknown nowadays by the general public.  So many other crooks have come along since Vesco's hayday.

And many of those are in politics.....

BCnU!