Bernie Madoff Recovering From Heart Attack, Battling Kidney Cancer As He Rots in Federal Prison

The 75-year-old mastermind behind the epic Ponzi scheme has stage four kidney cancer, meaning it could have spread to the tissue and other parts of the body.

The convicted Ponzi prince who ripped off thousands of investors is reportedly recovering from a heart attack and battling kidney cancer, according to CNBC.

The imprisoned fraudster spent much of December in the hospital, the business channel reported.

CNBC described Madoff's kidney cancer as stage four, which could be very bad news for the epic swindler who masterminded a $65 billion scheme.

That means Madoff's cancer may have spread to tissues around the kidney or to other parts of the body, according to cancer experts.

Madoff, who is 75 and hails from Queens, is serving a 150-year federal prison sentence in North Carolina.

His brother, Peter, who helped run the office, is serving a 10-year sentence. His wife, Ruth, was stripped of most of the family assets but not charged with a crime.

One of his two sons committed suicide on the two-year anniversary of his father's arrest. The other, Andrew Madoff, is also battling cancer.

When he went to jail, investigators found Ponzi King Bernie Madoff had stashed billions offshore---into a labyrinth of financial entities.

COLLUSION AND CONSPIRACIES GALORE Some $8.9 billion was funneled to Madoff through a dozen so-called feeder funds based in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America......a labyrinth of hedge funds, management companies and service providers that, to unsuspecting outsiders, seemed to compose a formidable system of checks and balances.

But the purpose of this complex architecture was just the opposite: the feeder funds provided different modes for directing money to Madoff in order to avoid scrutiny and generate more fees.

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WIKI.COM Stanley Chais, a philanthropist who invested heavily with Mr. Madoff, and Carl J. Shapiro, one of the money manager's oldest friends, are among at least eight Madoff investors and associates being scrutinized by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. Prosecutors are continuing to probe Madoff family members and employees.

Others include: Frank Avellino, a Florida accountant who ran an investment fund that invested client money; Noel Levine, a real-estate investor who works out of a two-room office on the 17th floor, next door to Madoff's fraudulent investment operation, and Palm Beach investor Robert Jaffe, a son-in-law of Mr. Shapiro who referred potential investors to Madoff. [4]

Madoff Securities International Ltd.----In 2008, about $1 billion was transferred last between Madoff’s U.S. firm and Madoff Securities International Ltd. in London. [5][6] On March 24, 2009 Judge Louis L. Stanton granted power of attorney to Irving Picard, trustee, over Madoff's controlling stake in London.[7]

Authorities in the U.K. are seeking evidence of money laundering involving the London business, Madoff Securities International Ltd., which opened in 1983 as a separate legal entity from Mr. Madoff's U.S. New York office. He allegedly sent more than $250 million beginning as early as 2002, from his New York-based firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to the U.K. office and then back to accounts in the U.S.[5][6]

In 2000, Madoff began to add staff and expand the operation, and loaned the business $62.5 million. He had a staff of 25, including traders, managers and support. Instructions to staff was that they communicate with Madoff Securities through personal e-mail accounts, not through company e-mail.[5]

There were nine directors. Family members with shares included Mark and Andrew Madoff, Peter Madoff, and Bernard himself. Ruth Madoff, Bernard Madoff's wife, also held shares. [8] Non-family members with shares included Maurice J. "Sonny" Cohn. Madoff and Cohn were shareholders in Cohmad Securities, which steered investors to Mr. Madoff's advisory business.

In 1987, Mr. Cohn had shares of Madoff Holdings Ltd., a predecessor to the current London firm. In 1998, Mr. Cohn held 35,624 non-voting shares, some of which he transferred to "BL Madoff" in 1998, and the rest that he "disposed of" in 2004.[8]

Paul Konigsberg, a New York City accountant and a longtime friend for more than 25 years, prepared two Madoff Family Foundation tax returns, and received the non-voting shares, valued at $35,000. He did work for the London office when it was first opened. [8] A general ledger of Madoff accounts listed Konigsberg, of the reputable accounting firm of Konigsberg, Wolf & Co., as receiving $30,000 a month to advise the MSIL operations, and funnel client checks to the London office for Madoff's own use.[9]

Clients were often directed to Mr. Konigsberg by Mr. Madoff and his family. Mr. Konigsberg prepared the tax returns of foundations of six other families, many of which have lost millions, even hundreds of millions, of dollars. He also represented scores of individual Madoff investors.

Mr. Konigsberg's firm has received a civil subpoena from the SEC. His Madoff-related clients included Carl and Ruth Shapiro, Boston philanthropists whose foundation lost $145 million, and whose son-in-law, Robert M. Jaffe, under investigation, is a Madoff business partner.[9][10]

Konigsberg held Madoff accounts under his name including two in the name of the Westlake Foundation. Paul J. and Judith Konigsberg are officers and directors of the foundation. He owns homes in his wife, Judith's name in Greenwich, Connecticut and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.[11]

On April 20, 2009, Steven Leber filed a $4 million lawsuit against Konigsberg and his accounting firm for negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty.[12] Konigsberg answered the charges with affirmative defenses.[13]

Evidence is being gathered by investigators on a U.S.-U.K. task force that Konigsberg and Levy, a real-estate mogul and philanthropist are believed to be involved in an international transfer of money. Levy is believed to have helped Paul Konigsberg funnel checks to London. And investigators in New York say there were billions of dollars worth of checks going back and forth between Madoff and Levy.[9]

Ruth and Bernie Madoff had an intimate relationship with Levy and his wife, Betty. Madoff was long known to have been Levy's "fixer," obtaining everything from choice restaurant reservations to emergency medical care. Levy had offices one floor below Madoff's in New York’s Lipstick Building. It was Levy who introduced high-profile investors to Madoff.

Jeanne Levy-Church's losses forced her to shut her JEHT Foundation and her parents’ foundation, the Betty and Norman F. Levy Foundation, lost $244 million. JEH helped the less fortunate, especially ex-convicts.[9][10]

NY POST REPORT--1/21/14---A former operations chief for Bernie Madoff, on trial for aiding the epic Ponzi schemer in his historic fraud, once pulled strings to have his son put on the company payroll despite not working there, a Manhattan jury learned Monday.

Craig Kugel, a former Human Resources staffer at Madoff Securities, testified in Manhattan federal court that the son of Daniel Bonventre was handed a “no show” job so he could collect health benefits after graduating from college.

Kugel, who copped a plea in 2012 to giving salaries and benefits to people who weren’t employees, said Madoff approached him about the idea in 2007. According to Kugel, Madoff said that Bonventre had asked him how his son, Daniel Jr., could stay on the plan. Madoff then called the elder Bonventre a “key employee,” adding “we need to help him out and do something for his son,” recalled Kugel.

This is not the first time that Daniel Bonventre Jr. – who has not be charged with any wrongdoing – has been thrown under the bus by an ex-Madoff staffer seeking a better plea deal with the feds.

When copping a plea in June 2011 to falsifying records, former Madoff payroll manager Eric Lipkin also said the younger Bonventre – along with others – received salaries and benefits from the firm despite not working there. Lipkin claimed he was instructed by Bonventre to give his son the “no show” job.

The elder Bonventre is one of five former key Madoff staffers currently on trial for fraud. Kugel’s father, David, a supervisory trader at Madoff Securities, pleaded guilty to fraud in 2011.

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