Meeting James Couri triggered a disastrous plunge in Eddie Gilber's business life in the months to come.

"It was a night in 1975 that Gilbert, sitting in a banquet at El Morocco, unknowingly became involved in what would trigger another disastrous plunge in his business life in the months to come. At the request of his daughter Robin, Eddie and Turid had joined Robin and her new boyfriend, a 36-year-old named James Couri, for dinner that night. The 20-year-old Robin had promised to introduce her new amour – known by most as a Wall Street wheeler-dealer wannabe – to her father whom Couri had already known about." Boy Wonder of Wall Street - The Life and Times of Financier Eddie Gilbert, by Richard Whittingham, 2004, Texare, page 314.