white men with money and hot dogs

Report: Hedge-Fund Billionaire Steve Cohen Shelled Out $100,000 to Hang With Guy Fieri

Photo: Scott Eells/Bloomberg; Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Through all of the damning allegations against SAC Capital billionaire Steve Cohen — that he turned a blind eye to insider trading within his own firm, that he deliberately fostered a culture of rule breaking, that he’s a terrible art collector — I’ve thought that maybe there was the possibility that the haters had it all wrong. Maybe Cohen is just misunderstood, a prisoner of his own success, a too-bright star for a dreary world.

But I’m done defending him. Because it turns out that in addition to employing convicted felons, Cohen has also paid good American money to someone much, much worse than an insider trader — one Guy Vincenze Fieri.*

Page Six” reports:

Embattled hedge-fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen, whose SAC Capital Advisors is charged with insider trading, paid spiky-haired chef Guy Fieri $100,000 “to be his friend for a day,” a new book reveals.

Cohen paid Fieri to drive around Connecticut with him to reenact a fantasy episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” reveals Allen Salkin in his book, “From Scratch: Inside the Food Network.” But after “Cohen paid Guy Fieri $100,000 to be his friend for a day,” Salkin writes the odd couple became so close that the chef’s top-rated show even featured Cohen’s favorite hot-dog spot, the (perhaps appropriately titled) Super Duper Weenie.

The very same Super Duper Weenie, you may recall, whose weenie mobile Cohen enlisted as a pick-me-up for his embattled hedge fund earlier this year.

Assuming the Cohen-Fieri friendship checks out, this seems like enough evidence to lock Cohen up and throw away the key. Due process be damned.

* Cohen’s spokesman denies that he paid Fieri the $100K, though he admitted that the two do know each other. Also, I made up Fieri’s middle name.

Steve Cohen and Guy Fieri: BFF?