Uma Thurman helps crack alleged Ponzi scheme

The actress Uma Thurman is allegedly one of the victims of the first big Ponzi scheme to be revealed since the notorious Bernie Madoff case of 2009. She was allegedly defrauded of $1m by Kenneth Starr, an "investment advisor to the stars", who was arrested yesterday in New York and charged with fraud to the tune of at least $30 million.

This is only a fraction of the $65 billion involved in the Madoff scandal, for which the financier is serving 150 years in jail. But once again, it is a headline-grabber mainly because 66-year-old Starr, like Madoff, has so many celebrity clients. The identity of his victims is now the subject of a guessing game in New York and Hollywood.

The Kill Bill actress Uma Thurman is the first to emerge after court documents described two anonymous clients allegedly defrauded by Starr and his associates. 'Client No 2' is identified as "an actress" who hired Starr (pictured above with his wife) to pay her bills and do her taxes. After complaining about $1m going missing, she was repaid within a day. But - typical of a Ponzi scheme - she was repaid with someone else's money, that of 'Client No 3', described as a former talent agent executive and his wife.

Yesterday, Jacob Bernstein, writing on the Daily Beast website, revealed the identity of "the actress" as Thurman and disclosed that "the talent agent" is strongly believed to be Jim Wiatt, a former head of the William Morris talent agency.

According to Bernstein, Thurman had become suspicious about the confusing financial statements received from Starr and had shown them to a friend. It turned out her assets had dropped significantly, but no one had notified her.

Thurman marched into Starr's offices on April 26 demanding to know where $1 million of her money had gone. Starr "hemmed and hawed" saying he could not reach "Associate 4", the man who he said held the money. After Starr had failed to reach Associate 4 several times, Thurman apparently demanded to try herself.

According to court papers, she was put right through right away. "She informed Associate 4 that she had a problem because a large portion of her savings was in his account. [Associate 4] replied that he did not know the money belonged to her and that he thought it belonged to Starr. He further said that he got really mad at Starr and told him 'you bungled me up on this'. He promised to get the money back to her."

Within a day, the money had been returned to her, but the case against Starr alleges that it was not her money, but that of "Client No 3".

Thurman and Wiatt are likely to be just the first of a wave of names revealed as Starr faces prosecution. He is said to have managed the finances of film directors Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, actor Wesley Snipes and JFK's daughter Caroline Kennedy.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz said yesterday "News of Ken Starr's arrest does not come as a complete surprise to me, and I will follow this story with great interest. Ken Starr no longer represents me and has not for some time."

What Starr did with his allegedly ill-gotten gains will also be on the media agenda. Early reports say his $7.5 million Upper East Side condo, complete with 32ft lap pool, was paid for with his clients' money.

It was there that he was arrested yesterday, after being found by agents of the Internal Revenue Services criminal investigation division hiding in a cupboard. It is not yet clear whether his young wife, an ex-stripper called Dawn Passage, was with him at the time. ·