The Wolf of Wall Street in court over royalty row

Jordan Belfort, the real life "Wolf of Wall Street", is in court following a row over royalties from his latest book, Way of the Wolf.

Way of the Wolf is Belfort's second book and explains the steps the former stockbroker took to amass his enormous fortune. His first title, The Wolf of Wall Street (published in the UK by Two Roads) detailed Belfort’s rise and fall in the world of finance and was turned into a film by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

In 1999 Belfort pleaded guilty to fraud and related crimes in connection with stock-market manipulation. He was convicted of defrauding 1,513 investors out of more than $200m (£155m) and sentenced to four years behind bars. He was also ordered to pay 50% of his gross income to victims after he was freed.

According to prosecutors, Belfort owes $97m (£75.2m) to his victims, Bloomberg has reported. He has agreed to pay $19,500 (£15,127) in royalties from Way of the Wolf, published in the US by Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books and in the UK by John Murray, but said half the royalties were owed to his co-author, Sharon Cohen Levin and that an entity called J B Global Inc., which received Belfort’s share of the royalties, was exempt from garnishment.

The government has said, however, that this entity was a sham and that it has a right to garnish a portion of Belfort’s earnings. It has asked Cohen Levin to provide evidence as to why she was entitled to get "tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars" in royalty payments.

The court case is taking place in Brooklyn, New York.