Do you see the distinction? Prosecutors say that when glamorous young Renata Shamrakova spent nearly a million bucks last year jet-setting around the world and buying armloads of jewelry, the funds were stolen from her high-society boss, Todd Meister. Wrong, she says. He was my lover. The 26-year-old aspiring actress pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Superior Court Thursday to charges of grand larceny, identity theft and tampering with evidence. "It's not as clean and neat as the DA is saying," said Mark Agnifilo, the sultry Shamrakova's lawyer. "It's a he said-she said. He said this is a theft. She said it is not, because there was a relationship." Meister, 41, a Harvard Business School grad who founded the multibillion-dollar Priderock hedge fund, was not in court to hear the claim that his personal assistant maxed out his credit cards "with his consent." But afterwards, Meister - who has dated some of the richest women in society and was once briefly married to his childhood pal Nicky Hilton - called it a bunch of nonsense. "She didn't work out of my house, she worked out of my office. I've never even had a meal with her - not even a cup of coffee," Meister said. Hope this clears things up. Glamorous assistant to Nicky Hilton's ex says she didn't steal from tycoon - she was his lover [NYDN]

Today we introduce you to the all-stars of my MBA program and yours. We seek only the top tier of characters that can singularly steal the show (and maybe $1.2 billion dollars in segregated customer funds on the side). The Questions Guy

 - The guy that everyone loves to hate. In any setting -- be it the classroom, company-sponsored information session, or networking circle -- The Questions Guy always has something to say. And while it technically always ends with a question mark, we understand the sentence to have the primary purpose of demonstrating some deeper knowledge of the material at hand. Sometimes these “questions” are insightful; however most times, we blame him for wasting classroom time, stealing our thunder, or dumbing everyone down with his trifling. We envy the fact that he’s clearly getting his money’s worth of his tuition … and ours. The Open Mouth Learner - Formerly some kind of nonprofit hero, the Open Mouth Learner’s jaw dropped with his first exposure to supply/demand curves, and he has remained captivated ever since. He brings up his non-traditional background at every opportunity, even if totally irrelevant to the conversation at hand. Professionally, he drops the phrase “non-traditional background” assertively in introductions, in order to ask questions in finance networking circles. At school, he drops the phrase defensively, in order to shirk the number-crunching parts of group assignments. The Open Mouth Learner is quietly both ashamed and proud of the fact that he has gotten through life this far without ever learning fractions.

Apart from finding a job that will justify the hefty price tag of the MBA, the greatest challenge of the modern business school student is financing now the lifestyle that we think we deserve post-MBA. With the average MBA student taking on some $120,000+ in loans over two years, the common strategy entails paying less for the b-school basics (lunch, books, and beer) so that we can afford the real reasons we quit our day jobs: wining and dining at Alinea, re-enacting scenes from Aspen Extreme at a ski resort where beer flows like wine, and lazing on the beaches of Fiji, Brazil, and South Africa on school-organized treks designed to help us make friends before classes begin (aww!). It’s a hard-knock life, to be sure, but thankfully after surviving a year with no income, we’ve learned a trick or two that we’d like to share, on how to spend more than we’re worth. Tip #1: Share everything.