Jury: Billionaire Looted Mining Firm MagCorp; Trial Eyed Huge Home

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - Jurors have found that billionaire Ira Rennert plundered a now-bankrupt mining company to pay for personal luxuries, including a Hamptons mansion that's one of the world's biggest private homes.

A Manhattan federal court on Friday ordered Rennert and his Renco Group Inc. to pay $118 million in damages.

Rennert was sued by a bankruptcy trustee for the former Magnesium Corp. of America, or MagCorp. It filed for bankruptcy in 2001, a few years after Renco acquired it.

The creditors' trustee said MagCorp. went under because Rennert took about $120 million in dividends. The trustee said Rennert used some of that to build his 100,000-square-foot, 29-bedroom beachfront complex in Sagaponack.

Rennert's defense said MagCorp. failed because of the early 2000s recession. It said the dividends didn't connect to the Hamptons spread.

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