Stockbroker arrested as a serial window smasher

How do relieve stress if you are a broker with a top flight firm?

Michael Steven Poret, 58, a broker at UBS Financial Services in Los Angeles, had an interesting method. He was arrested recently by the LAPD and accused of vandalizing "numerous businesses along Ventura Boulevard and several private homes in Beverly Hills," according to the LATimes.

"A witness account and private surveillance footage have depicted the vandal as a graying man in white gloves firing marbles at plate glass windows with a slingshot from the driver's seat of his car, then driving away in no apparent hurry. Authorities believe that Poret could be connected to more than 20 vandalism incidents in Beverly Hills and more than 50 in Encino, as well as several other vandalism reports authorities have received in Van Nuys and Topanga Canyon. The vandal appears to target businesses indiscriminately, hitting coffee shops, an autism treatment center and a salon."

Why would a stock broker do this?

The leading theory is that he was simply seeking thrills. I guess the brokerage business just wasn't enough excitement. Poret has apparently been a broker at UBS since 2008. One scary question is whether he would have graduated to other, more serious thrills.

For more:
- here's the article