TAMPA -- After nearly a year in prison -- including some memorable days sharing a cell with a bullet-scarred guy named "Queenie" -- Paul Bilzerian is back inside his family's $5.7-million Tampa mansion.

The former corporate raider was freed from a maximum-security lockup in Miami on Jan. 16 after his wife, Terri Steffen, agreed to hand over millions of dollars in stock and other property to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

But Bilzerian's stay in Steffen Manor, as it is called, will be brief. That's because the agreement calls for Steffen to sell the 11-bedroom, 3.4-acre home and split the proceeds with the SEC.

"They had no right to use me as a hostage to extort money from her," said Bilzerian, who maintained the home and other assets are not his. "They made it clear to me: I'd never get out of prison unless she paid the ransom."

A federal judge imprisoned Bilzerian for contempt of court Jan. 30, 2001, because he failed to reveal his assets in a long-running dispute over what authorities call $33-million in ill-gotten gains. With interest, he reportedly owes the SEC $80-million to $100-million.

Bilzerian says he's broke. But in court pleadings, Deborah Meshulam, a court-appointed receiver from Tampa, and the SEC's attorneys argued that the holdings of his wife and third-party companies were a sham and actually belonged to Bilzerian.

Though some of the agreement remains under seal, the public parts call for Steffen to:

Give the SEC 3.18-million shares, worth nearly $1.2-million at Monday's closing price, and $110,000 of warrants and notes issued by Cimetrix, a Salt Lake City technology company formerly headed by Bilzerian.

Forgo 30 percent of the amount due on a $1-million loan to Tampa Ford dealer Ernest Haire III.

Turn over 50 percent of the funds held in three Wells Fargo bank accounts; the amounts were not revealed.

Release to the Salvation Army the assets of the Loving Spirit Foundation and the Puma Foundation, two family-run charities, pending consent of the IRS, to which Bilzerian owes millions.

Sell the 3.4-acre Tampa home -- which includes a full-scale, indoor replica of the Boston Garden basketball court -- and give half the proceeds to the SEC.

The SEC will deduct the proceeds of the asset sale from the millions it says Bilzerian owes and pursue the rest in the future.

In return, Steffen got two concessions: the government's promise to release Bilzerian from prison and an agreement to leave alone all other family-related assets previously disclosed by her attorneys.

Bilzerian's legal odyssey began with his conviction for securities fraud in 1989. He paid a $1.5-million fine and served 13 months in prison in the early 1990s, only to emerge and fight the SEC.

Judge Stanley Harris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held Bilzerian in contempt of court in the dispute over his assets. But spending almost a year locked up did nothing to soften the 51-year-old Massachusetts native.

Bilzerian, who hasn't worked since getting out of prison, said no one in his right mind would hire or invest with him because they would immediately be subject to federal scrutiny. "Look at poor Cimetrix," he said, whose stock has plummeted from $2.19 on the day of his surrender to 37 cents on Monday. He said the same scrutiny has prevented him from keeping a lawyer for more than several weeks.

Nor does Bilzerian know where he and his nine housemates -- his wife, youngest son, mother, grandmother, brother, sister-in-law, niece, mother-in-law and father-in-law -- will live next. He said they have no other properties left. He would love to stay in Tampa, his home of 24 years, he said, but an early-morning raid in June by the FBI terrorized his wife and persuaded his 18-year-old son not to seek to become a Green Beret after all.

"After that happened, he said, "Dad, I'm never going to work for the government,' " Bilzerian said. "I tried to convince him to stick with it."

So how will the former Singer Co. chairman spend the coming months? He will continue appealing the dismissal of his 2001 bankruptcy filing in Tampa and fighting the SEC in a Washington, D.C., appeals court.

And he said he will write a book about his battle with what he calls a corrupt judiciary system and government agencies bent on revenge, a story he says the biased news media won't tell.

Bilzerian said his most recent stint in prison was "horrifying."

It included a short stay in Tampa Bay area jails, several months at a minimum-security "camp" in Miami and the longest period at a maximum-security lockup there. Bilzerian said he went weeks without a toothbrush, didn't see the light of day for eight of the 12 months he was inside, and was housed with violent criminals.

During one of three periods he spent in special confinement, he shared a cell with "Queenie," who Bilzerian said was there for allegedly "smashing and cracking the skull of another inmate."

Bilzerian said "Queenie" called himself a thug, then "proceeded to demonstrate by showing me his bullet holes and the obituaries of his gang members."

Bilzerian's legal battle dates back to his brief but flashy tenure on Wall Street. A corporate raider who never reached the ranks of a Michael Milken or Ivan Boesky, prosecutors said he illegally profited from failed takeover deals by secretly accumulating stock in target companies, staging a takeover bid, then making millions on his holdings when the stock price shot up before the offer was rejected.

Bilzerian said he paid his dues. He said he not only shouldn't have to pay the SEC but can't because he is penniless. Two bankruptcy filings, one in the early 1990s and one in 2001, attest to that, he said.

But the federal court didn't believe Bilzerian's claims of poverty, arguing he merely transferred his ill-gotten gains to entities run by his wife and family friends.

The SEC did not return calls seeking comment on his release.

-- Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

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