Once, Paul Wasserman was a legendary publicist in Hollywood. The rumpled man everyone knew as "Wasso" handled the media for such musical giants as the Rolling Stones, the Who, U2, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor, and actors such as Jack Nicholson, Lee Marvin and Dennis Hopper. Now, he's in jail.
For nearly 30 years, Wasserman ruled. An old-school strategist who read a dozen newspapers a day, he knew how to defuse the bad press and cultivate the good. While on tour with his bands, he kept journals of their on-the-road antics and mailed them to the nation's top music critics and writers. Once, he stood outside a San Antonio hotel room until 4 a.m. to make sure Mick Jagger didn't miss an important interview.
Wasserman was persuasive and well-connected, and that, perversely, is what got him in trouble. For more than a decade, Wasserman, 66, had been using his connections to the rich and famous to swindle some of his dearest noncelebrity friends. Falsely claiming to be selling shares in investment schemes that he said were backed by clients Nicholson, U2 and Internet powerhouse Yahoo!, Wasserman cajoled friends and acquaintances out of cash, usually in $10,000 and $25,000 chunks. Then, three months ago, his lies took him down.
"I've always liked living on the edge. But I guess I realize I don't have the ability to kill myself, so I'm facing the music," Wasserman said last month in an exclusive interview with The Times at the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail, his home since August. Looking wan and fragile in his brown jail jumpsuit, the gray-bearded publicist acknowledged swindling more than 20 people, but insisted he repaid a few who badly needed the money.
"I'm benevolent, you know. I'm a good guy. . . . There are two mes. Here, I'm stealing from a friend. Here, I'm a guy that's helping a friend."
Wasserman's descent from first-class hotel suites and private jets to a dank, six-man jail cell is a distinctly Hollywood story about the corrupting power of fame. At its root, it is the tale of a great publicist who resented that he would never shine as brightly as his clients, and who decided to get even.
But Wasso wasn't the only one who was undone by envy and avarice. His scams played on a kind of star-is-born fantasy, clung to by many in Los Angeles, that one's fate can change overnight. Wasserman trafficked in the idea that the right connections could solve life's problems and get you rich quick. And the people he robbed wanted to believe.
