RUTH IN CROSSHAIR$; FEDS' FEVERED BID TO FREEZE MRS. MADOFF'S $93M

Ruth also has $17,010,000 in a Wachovia cash account and $45 million in muni bonds with Cohmad Securities.

THE RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL, AND BUSINESS LABYRINTH OF
4800 INVESTORS MADOFF USED TO RAKE IN BILLIONS.

MAP IS INTERACTIVE AT WEB SITE

WEB SITE http://news.muckety.com/2008/12/28/madoff-used-social-family-networks-to-rake-in-billions/9031

MADOFF FEEDER FUND Brighton Co Investments is headed by Stanley Chais, a Beverly Hills "philanthropist" who served on "charitable" boards with Madoff. Chais (pronounced Chase) told the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles that he personally invested with Madoff but also "facilitated" others who wished to do likewise. However, spokesmen for the SEC and the California Dept of Corporations said they could find no record of Chais registering as an investment advisor or a broker.

Stanley Chais offers remarks at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

COMMENTS AND PICS COMPILED FROM PREVIOUS NEWS STORIES For decades, SEC investigations were waved off, as the Madoffs wallowed in the high life .

The office rented by Madoff's firm in the Israeli-owned famous Lipstick Building, where rents command about $3-5 million annually is also "the epitome of luxury."

Madoff's Mellon bank accounts are under investigation and show signs of offshore activity. Accounts in family members' names are a possibility.

"A lot of people have doubts about the family," said a Garden City, NY, attorney representing 10 Madoff investors. "We don't know to what extent his wife benefited. She certainly benefited. She lived a Gatsby-style life." Ruth Madoff mailed $1 million in watches and jewelry, including jewel-encrusted Tiffany and Cartier watches, a diamond necklace, and other pieces of precious gems to relatives in December after a court prohibited dispersal of assets.

In 2006, Ruth Madoff took steps to protect their Florida property from seizure under homestead laws. A 2006 homestead application was denied by the Palm Beach Property Appraiser's office. She reapplied September 2007 and was granted an exemption on Jan. 12, CBS reported.

An Atlanta law firm that has represented clients in previous Ponzi scheme cases, noted that a good portion of Madoff's business was done internationally, and said some of the money could have been moved there. "The auditors will have a field day with this, trying to trace the bank accounts."

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Madoff's Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous (all with other people's money)

Bernard Madoff, the man behind an alleged $50 billion fraud, has a yacht named 'Bull,' owns several luxurious homes and may even have had two private planes on call.

Upper East Side apartment---Before being jailed, Madoff was under house arrest at his co-op apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side where he lived with his wife, Ruth. Apartments in the building, just blocks away from his firm's offices, usually go for upwards of $5 million. One neighbor: CBS' Matt Lauer, who scooped up a unit for $5.9 million in 2004.

A yacht named 'Bull' Madoff's 55.5-foot yacht was built in 1969 by Rybovich and Sons, an 80-year-old Florida boatyard whose client roster includes Ernest Hemingway and Chicago mobster Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo. A Rybovich employee confirmed Madoff was a customer but declined to comment. This yacht--one of four boats owned, was docked on the Riviera in Cap D'Antibes, France, outside Madoff's Riviera "bungalow," when news broke of the fraud.

Madoff may have had two private planes on call through BLM Air Charter, a company registered at the same address as his Bernard Madoff Investment Securities firm. According to federal aviation records, BLM Air Charter is one of seven owners of a Cessna Citation X with NetJets, the Berkshire Hathaway company that sells shares of private planes. (NetJets spokesperson Maryann Aarseth declined to comment, saying only that "Part of flying with NetJets is flying privately, so we don't talk about who our NetJet owners are.") BLM Air Charter's second plane, a 2008 Embraer business jet, is co-owned with a Long Island company.

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Madoff will likely accept life in prison hoping to help his wife Ruth and son Andrew (above) avoid a criminal rap. Ruth withdrew $15.5 million right before her husband's Dec 11 arrest, and is now trying to protect $69M of assets in her name from being attached by thousands of claimants. "Where does Mrs. Madoff get millions of dollars from? Mrs. Madoff was not known as the genius of Wall Street independently," a lawyer for some of Bernie's customers, told Reuters. "What did she do to earn that money?"

AND THEN THERE'S BERNIE'S BROTHER. Whistleblower Harry Markopolos says Madoff’s Brother Audited Firm’s Investments and that ONLY Peter Madoff was "authorized to audit" fund performance "for reasons of secrecy".

Among other things, Peter Madoff was a Chief Compliance Officer at his brother Bernie's firm. Peter was also a director of several securities associations and exchanges. Peter's daughter Shana, was Bernie' firm's compliance officer.

Here's Peter Madoff's house.

As the No. 2 executive at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, Peter Madoff worked side by side with his older brother Bernard for nearly 40 years. Peter was viewed as Bernie's heir apparent so the brothers tried to avoid flying together when they went on skiing trips together. Now, they are keeping their distance. Peter has stopped coming into the office and isn't talking publicly about his role at the securities firm, where he headed trading operations.

Peter's daughter Shana (married to a SEC exec who now works elsewhere) also joined the family business. She worked primarily as a "compliance lawyer" at Madoff Securities' market-making arm at the time of her uncle's arrest.

Sadly, I understand that the Redemptorist Priests of Florida and New York also lost a bunch of money with Madoff.

Hey, I am Series 7 licensed and all of this makes me angry as hell.

I waste hours and hours of work, every month, doing stupid, useless paperwork that really does not protect anyone -—

And a guy like Madoff can just walk in to an office and, because of his name, walk out with a check and hardly any documentation?

Wouldn’t that be considered fraudulent transfer, and wouldn’t it be easily accessible?

Look at it this way. Who did the Madoffs take money from? The rich! They were just spreading the wealth around. Getting the rich to pay their fair share as it were. And what did they spend the money on? Overpriced boats, aircraft and buildings. Then they used shoddy accounting to hide it all. Hey that sounds like some other folks I know. No wonder the Feds are pissed a Madoff. He probably fell behind on his franchise payments.

DESERVES A REPEAT----FREEPER JUSTMYTHOUGHTS' INCISIVE ASSESSEMENT OF THE MADOFF FRAUD:

I do not recall the US taxpayers bailing out ENRON investors. Madoff ran a private club of investors and not just anybody or everybody had an opportunity to invest.

And given that liberals want their sticky fingers on all 401ks and solvent pension funds..... those that invested with Madoff should not get another advantage off US taxpayers.

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These comments are particularly relevant b/c Madoff's investors are itching for the goverment (THAT'S US---THE TAXPAYERS) to step in.

They say the SEC played a big role in not detecting the fraud. And that the US tax code should be changed so that Madoff victims can recoup taxes they paid on profits that turned out to be illusory — no matter how far in the past those taxes were paid (there is currently a 3-year limit to apply for IRS overpayment).

The investors want to increase Securities Investor Protection Corporation payouts----(SIPC is funded by the securities indistry to compensate investors whose firms have gone under)......gives $500,000 maximum.....SIPC also has access to the US Treasury.

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Note well that the SEC received complaints only from Madoff's competitors. Not one Madoff investor ever filed a complaint.

The legal principle of “condonation” --- meaning implied forgiveness for certain behavior should foreclose any ideas that taxpayers are gonna bailout these mega-millionaires (who most assuredly have money stashed offshore).

Investors implicitly “condoned” Madoff’s actions over a period of time--sometimes for decades---- willingly acquiescing to Madoff's activities in several ways:

(1) Sending Madoff enormous sums of money, sums that were spread out over time (some families invested for generations), even AFTER they had the opportunity to assess their investments;

(2) Referring other investors to Madoff (if the investment was so bad, why did they bring in other investors?);

(3) Taking profits out of the investment, rolling it over, or putting more money in;

(4) Writing PERSONAL checks to Madoff's subrosa spinoff vehicle that was not listed on the SEC (which could be construed as a tax evasion--money laundering scheme).

When his wife and children are in the street living on food
stamps,then justice will be done!

If these family members still have access to all that cash, I would think that by now they would have stashed it before the Feds. could get their hands on it. If not, I would think they aren’t very smart.

$17,010,000 in a Wachovia cash account

$17 million in CASH???? WOW

Wouldn’t that be considered fraudulent transfer....

OPERATING LEGAL PRINCIPLE Under the legal doctrine of "fraudulent conveyance" investors who withdrew their money before the fraud was revealed, must return their profits or even part of their initial investments. Legally, one cannot profit from a fraud. The recovery process identifies remaining assets that are then redustributed to those who were defrauded.

Some of Madoff's clients should be facing serious legal problems----some investors were writing personal checks that were placed with a separate Madoff financial entity that was not listed on the SEC. That might be construed as money-laundering and tax evasion.

Keep in mind Bernie‘s investors were savvy, astute successful business people, accustomed to constructing, picking apart and analyzing financial statements. One investor who spoke to reporters was a stockbroker (her family invested with Bernie for generations---the family's patriarch founded the wildly successful Stop and Shop supermarket chain). Other investors gave Madoff $100-500 millions to "invest" for years and years.

FRepper dennisw turned us on to---"The Bezzle."

As extrapolated by American economist John Kenneth Galbraith: a certain amount of embezzlement is happening at any given time.....which falsely inflates an economy's total wealth.

Madoff's massive Ponzi comes to mind. The embezzler controls substantial resources but those he embezzled do not know they do not have those resources........both phantom figures are factored in, and flaunted as total economic wealth. Madoff operated in the global economy---his fraud impacts the far reaches of places great and small.

The Bezzle also reigned in the Dutch Tulip Mania (bulbs used as currency).......and the infamous buying-on-margin that precipitated the crash of 1929.

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Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago said, “There are, unfortunately, no guideposts to a lot of the market to allow investors to get a better sense of direction of where the market is going, where corporate America is going.”

Balderdash-----this poster maintains that investors would gain confidence if they saw the crooks who cooked the markets do the perp walk----we would see the indexes rise, as a result of making the crooks pay for their misdeeds. Too bad see-no-evil Dems have taken over, and we have an *** like Holder at DOJ.

Obama is not going to allow "judgmental Republicanism," now is he?

that what FOX panel was talking about last night

If/since no trades were made, and the investors were being paid dividends of other investors’ money

the investors may be limited to claiming and recovering the actual cash they put in

if they were collecting 15-20-40% dividends for years, they may already have tapped out their claim for redress. if accounting shows they already were paid more than they put in. It would not be the long time investors who lose - the last guys in the Ponzi scheme, who didn't get any returns or only a fraction of what they put in, are the only ones who really lose

When his wife and children are in the street living on food stamps,then justice will be done!

Bernie and Ruth, need to get the same fate as Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu. That would be justice.

How did this sociopaths wife wind up with almost 100 million dollars? Well, maybe Hillary advised her on futures trading!

who is “the rich” you scorn?

Someone who works in and owns a business for 35 years and sells it, then invests the proceeds for retirement income?

Someone who lives frugally for 30 years and saves and invests for retirement?

a couple who pay off and sell their home they owned for 30 years and invest the money for their retirement needs?

universities investing their endowment funds?

a group of doctors who pool a portion of their practice income and invest it as a pension plan for 144 employees?

all of the above are examples of “rich” madoff investors, listen to the panels featuring them telling their stories

....a guy like Madoff can just walk in, and, because of his name, walk out with a check and hardly any documentation?

Madoff used his status and position to ward off investigations. Whistle-blower Markopolis reported Madoff to the SEC several times, raising fraud issues and yet the SEC "turned a blind eye."

It must be considered that the SEC backed-off investigating Madoff NOT because they are incompetent, but because SEC investigators risked losing their jobs if they zeroed in on Madoff.

CAREER KILLER In the ranks of L/E, it is NOT advisable to imply people of Jewish heritage are doing something illegal---even moreso, it is a career killer to suggest it. FBI agents have been lacerated and condemned----even losing their jobs.

In fact, the cunning Madoff seemed to know L/E dared not suggest he was doing something illegal and he may have colluded to use scary charges of anti-Semitism to forestall investigations into his operation.

Madoff AND HIS INVESTORS had a lot to lose if he was investigated. He was operating a massive fraud that subsidized lavish lifestyles; posh homes all over the world, yachts, private planes, country club memberships, and endless high-end shopping.

If we went barbarian in this country and overseas once in a
while,we’d scare a lot of people straight!

It must be considered that the SEC backed-off investigating Madoff NOT because they are incompetent, but because SEC investigators risked losing their jobs if they zeroed in on Madoff.

Also that Madoff paid off many SEC investigators.

Madoff took money from charities, churches, & retirement funds, as well as rich people.

Fox news had a doctor on the other day. He said his medical group invested the group retirement plan with Madoff. 140 employees lost their retirement.

So, it was NOT just rich people who lost money!

Dec 26, 2008
The Bernie Madoff I Knew
BY Laura Goldman (her first-person account)
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-bernie-madoff-i-knew/

When I heard the news of Bernard Madoff’s arrest, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God, I dodged that bullet” was my first thought. For sure, there was no gloating on my part. Anyone, who has been in the brokerage business for a long time, has been preyed on by con artists more than once. As a broker, you try your best to avoid them, but there is always one that slips through where your guard is down.

Madoff and my paths crossed in Palm Beach over 10 years ago. We were both scouring for clients there, albeit on different rungs of the social and economic ladder. My office was the lunch counter at Green’s Pharmacy while Bernard’s was the much grander Palm Beach Country Club.

Hearing whispers of his investment prowess, I approached “Uncle Bernie” one day and asked to meet him to discuss referring clients to him. Madoff’s clients bragged that he showed consistent returns of 10-18% each year and rarely had a down month.

At the meeting, Bernie, known as the Jewish T-bill, was very charming and low key. Bernard, the former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, did not want to answer questions about his investment business and strategy.

He only grudgingly admitted that he employed a split conversion strategy that used both put and call options. I did not know what to make of his opacity.

I was discomfited by his saying how lucky that I was that he allowed me to invest with him.

The structure of Madoff’s investment also concerned me. Similar investments would have been established as a hedge fund with a separate custodian of the assets. The general partner of a hedge fund takes a management fee and a percent of the profits. Mr. Madoff insisted on keeping the assets in house at his own brokerage firm, but only charged commissions, which meant a lower payout for him.

Madoff, always the salesman, assuaged my doubts about the investment structure. “I make up for the lower fees with the additional volume of investments that my fee structure attracts.”

The consistency in returns, the small size of the auditing firm, and the structure of the investment were troubling, but they were not the deal breaker for me. Since my office had previously been in the same building as the Philadelphia Stock and Options Exchange, I knew many of the employees of the exchange and leading market makers.

When I called them, all of them said that they knew Bernie but did not trade with him. Even though he said that he traded his options over the counter, it still seemed strange to me that none of the giants in the tight-knit options world traded with him. After 45 minutes of detective work, I passed on the investment.

Even with the red flags raised on the investment, I struggled with turning down the investment opportunity. I was worried that my cautiousness was causing me to miss a great opportunity to earn lots of money. The product that Bernie Madoff had “created” would have been as easy to sell as ice water on a hot summer day.

After turning down the opportunity, I frequently encountered clients of Bernard Madoff. Most had the lion’s share of their assets invested with him. My suggestions to diversify their assets fell on deaf ears. Sadly, many Jews believed in Bernie Madoff more than they believed in God and were just as unlikely to forsake him.

Even though the drumbeat of rumors about Bernie’s business eventually grew louder in the financial community, there was nothing that I could do about it. I could not take on someone with the stature of Bernie without proof in black and white.

I wasn’t the only one with doubts. In 2001, Barrons and MAR Hedge Fund Report wrote scathing reviews of Bernie’s investment business.

The title of the MAR article did not pull any punches — “Madoff tops the charts; Skeptics ask how.” Barron’s was also hard-hitting. “The recent MAR Hedge report, for example, cited more than a dozen hedge fund professionals, including current and former Madoff traders, who questioned why no one had been able to duplicate Madoff’s returns using this strategy.

Likewise, three option strategists at major investment banks told Barron’s they couldn’t understand how Madoff churns out such numbers. Adds a former Madoff investor: “Anybody who’s a seasoned hedge-fund investor knows the split-strike conversion is not the whole story. To take it at face value is a bit naïve.”

These articles gave me an excuse to contact Madoff’s clients again.

Instead of being thanked for sending them the articles, I was attacked. “How dare you say anything bad about Bernie.” Some dismissed the attacks on Bernie as anti-Semitism.

Several of those who received my mailing asked me questions. Still, even though I planted the seeds of suspicion, they did not grow. Most decided to continue investing with Bernie. They told me that they did not want to give up a good thing. They did not believe that the music would stop and they would be left without a chair.

Now that the music has stopped, many of Madoff’s clients are finally singing my name. Unfortunately, there is nothing that I can do for them now. I wish that I could say that this type of fraud would not happen again, but unfortunately I can’t. Now that Bernie has proved how easy is to do, one can be sure that con artists will be falling over themselves to imitate him. END

How did this sociopaths wife wind up with almost 100 million dollars? Well, maybe Hillary advised her on futures trading!