Sam Antar, formerly the CFO of Crazy Eddie, known in the New York area for over-the-top commercials that scared the hell out of kids (well, me at least), knows his way around a questionable balance sheet. For 15 years, he was the executive chef of book-cooking, ultimately taking a guilty plea to conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges. He stayed out of the clink by taking the stand on the government's side at a 1993 trial, ultimately sending his cousin, Eddie Antar to prison for seven years or so.

Crooks make the best cops, so to speak, and Antar is putting his skills to work. He's out hunting for accounting fraud and sending his analyses off to the SEC. On his blog, the former CFO laid out what he called a "bulletproof case" against Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) – a company that the SEC had been investigating since 2006. The inquiry has been reopened.

Danny Devito signed a deal with Eddie Antar to make a movie about the electronics chain turned securities fraud he ran in 1980s. The problem? Eddie's cousin Sam Antar, the former CFO of the company, is upset because he feels that the film will glamorize corporate malfeasance. Howard Sirota, the securities lawyer who won a $700 million settlement for Antar's victims that hasn't been paid off yet, is upset because he wants any money that comes from the film to go to the victims.

A lawyer for Devito told Fox Business that "There was a deal and that deal is terminated. Any script that is written, or movie produced, will be based on public domain events and information."

Sam Antar's advised Devito to "not glamorize an economic predator." Devito has said that Antar loved the "art of the deal more than money" but Antar disagrees: "Eddie Antar loved money more than his own family."

Check out the Fox Business interview below.

Infamous electronics retailer Crazy Eddie is making a comeback, and the company's ex-con former CFO thinks that's INNSAAAANNNNE. Sam Antar told the New York Post "Imagine starting a new investment firm called Bernie Madoff or a corporation by the name of Enron? It's nuts. . . The name has a vile, ugly history - because of the crimes we committed. We lost investors millions of dollars."

But Brooklyn entrepreneur Jack Gemal has acquired the rights to the company name and is on the hunt for retail space near Penn Station, hoping to open a store sometime this year. He dreams of operating 50 Crazy Eddie stores within the next couple years.

The Crazy Eddie fiasco was one of the largest securities fraud cases of its day, with CEO Eddie Antar and his cousin Sam using every old-school accounting charade in the book to bilk investors out of an estimated $200 million. Since then, Eddie has spent time in jail and Sam has made a comeback speaking out against white collar crime.

However bad the karma surrounding Crazy Eddie might be, it looks like a pretty smart brand to acquire -- if you're going to start a new electronics chain in the first place, which probably isn't so smart. Famous or infamous, the Crazy Eddie name is well-known, and certainly provides a marketing advantage over starting from scratch. Gemal said he acquired the Crazy Eddie trademarks for less than the price of a Prius. Check out a few of the original Crazy Eddie's vintage commercials below.

If you're interested in learning about the psychology and methodology of fraud -- and every investor should be -- there are two excellent videos now available on YouTube. I don't know the date on them, or what they were made for, but they're definitely worth watching.

The first is an interview with Barry Minkow, who was in federal prison at the time for the Zzzz Best fraud. The second features former Crazy Eddie CFO, Sam E. Antar.

When I listen to these former crooks explain what they did, it all sounds so easy. While their crimes occurred back in the 1980s, I wonder how much has changed.

The always-insightful Herb Greenberg raises an interesting point in his latest Weekend Investor column for the Wall Street Journal: "Face it: Nobody cares much about accounting scandals anymore."

He uses the situation at International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF) as an example. After the company reported that it had fired its chief financial officer, the stock went up. The shares are currently trading at about the same price they were at before the company reported "accounting irregularities" on April 9.

Investors may have be correctly predicting that the accounting issues aren't huge -- any restatement of earnings may not be material enough to effect the value of the company.

But that's not really the point. As Greenberg writes, "Still, the market's indifference to possible fraud, no matter the size, is astounding -- especially since, at times, aggressive behavior reflects a company's culture."

Now that is precisely the point. I'm with Jim Cramer on this one: When a company's CEO or CFO resigns unexpectedly, sell the stock. If a company announces "accounting irregularities" and the stock doesn't tank on the news, take it as an opportunity to get out: Shooting first and asking questions later would have saved investors a lot of pain at companies like Enron, WorldCom, and, for you history buffs out there, Zzzz Best and Crazy Eddie.

The market appears to have developed an indifference to early warning signs of fraud, and that inefficiency could provide savvy investors with a chance to hop off the bus before it heads into a ditch.

This Wednesday at 10 PM EDT, CNBC will feature an exclusive interview with Eddie Antar, the CEO of the infamous Crazy Eddie fraud of the 1980s. Herb Greenberg will also interview Sam E. Antar, the former CFO of the company turned white-collar crime expert and blogger. The interview will take place on Business Nation, and will include a conversation with Sam and Eddie together for the first time in years. This should be particularly interesting because Sam became a witness against his cousin in the case and, when I asked him about the interview, Sam told me "It nearly came to blows."

In this weekend's Wall Street Journal [subscription required], Herb Greenberg wrote about the interview and offered some advice from Eddie Antar for former Comverse Technology (OTC: CMVT) Chief Executive Jacob "Kobi" Alexander: "All the money in the world is not worth a day in prison -- ain't worth one day." If he hadn't broken the law, he says, "I'd be a Best Buy today, or I would have been sought to be bought out by many companies. I'd be a billionaire today. I had around $100 million that [the government] took from me. That was cash in the bank. It was everything I had. Can you imagine what that would be worth today? I blew it big time."

Be sure to tune in to CNBC's Business Nation on Wednesday. It should be interesting.

Every day, or at least whenever I find a really awesome web page in my trek across the Internet, I will post it here. Today, I'm featuring White Collar Fraud, the official web page of Sam E. Antar, who was the CFO Of Crazy Eddie, a chain of electronic stores that was one of the most flagrant accounting frauds of the 1980s.

According to the website: "I believe that former criminals like me must do more than just express regret for our crimes and pay whatever punishment society imposes upon us. I believe that it is our obligation and responsibility to educate society, so that society can avoid future perils caused by new generations of criminals. I also believe that any person's true test of character comes from overcoming past misdeeds and wrongdoing and trying to do something positive out of it without any personal gain or recognition."

It's a really fascinating website to browse if you're interested in corporate history and crime as much as I am. You can read about the techniques they used in the Crazy Eddie fraud, the psychology of fraud, and other frauds/SEC news.

This is a really amazing website.