Ivan Boesky, ex-Wall Street tycoon who inspired 'Gordon Gekko' character, dies at 87

The infamous Wall Street trader Ivan Boesky, inspiration behind the "Wall Street" movie character Gordon Gekko, died Monday in his California home at age 87, his family confirmed.

Boesky reportedly died in his sleep at home in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, his daughter Marianne Bosky told The New York Times.

Boesky, born in 1937 in Detroit, Mich., to Russian Jewish immigrants, was Wall Street's richest and best-known stock speculator when he pleaded guilty in November 1986 to insider trading and agreed to pay $100 million in penalties.

After cooperating with then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, Boesky was the central figure in the government's crackdown on insider trading after he pleaded guilty to a criminal count of conspiracy to violate securities laws.

Barred from the securities industry for life, Boesky, then age 50 in April 1987, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate securities laws.

At the time he faced a maximum prison term of five years and $250,000 in fines, but got a three year prison sentence at the minimum security section of the Federal Prison Camp at Lompoc, 150 miles north of Los Angeles, but was not fined as part of a plea-bargaining agreement.

After his 1990 divorce after 30 years of marriage, Boesky got a $20 million cash divorce settlement and a yearly $180,000 alimony payment from his ex-wife's $100 million estate, in addition to the $2.5 million La Jolla home where he reportedly died that he lived in with a childhood friend, Houshang Wekili.