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Big-shot real-estate lawyer Steven Simkin sued to redo his 2006 divorce deal. He had bought out his ex's share of a $5.4M Madoff fund that turned out to be worthless. He sued so she could shoulder "her share." A Manhattan judge said a deal's a deal, and threw the suit out.

DURHAM, NC -- A source tells ABC11 Eyewitness News that disgraced financier Bernie Madoff is being treated for serious injuries after he fell out of his prison bed. ABC11 Eyewitness News first reported that Madoff had injuries consistent with an assault. Now, the source says Madoff was not attacked in prison, but that he fell off a bed onto his face. The source said there was a lot of facial bleeding. Sources also confirmed Madoff was treated at Duke University Medical Center in Durham last Friday and discharged earlier this week. He is serving a life sentence at the federal...

DURHAM, NC -- A source tells ABC11 Eyewitness News that disgraced financier Bernie Madoff is being treated for serious injuries after he fell out of his prison bed. Now, the source says Madoff was not attacked in prison, but that he fell off a bed onto his face. The source said there was a lot of facial bleeding. (snip) According to the sources, Madoff came to Duke with facial fractures, broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

The Securities and Exchange Commission approved final rules yesterday requiring some investment advisers who manage customer funds to undergo annual surprise audits.The rule is prompted by the Bernard Madoff scandal, requiring certain SEC-registered advisers who have custody of clients' assets to retain an independent public accountant to conduct an annual exam. .....

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...

This was less like an auction and more like a seven-car garage sale. The spoils and other superfluous purchases of Bernard L. Madoff, the notorious Ponzi schemer, were on the blocks at the United States Marshals Service Jewelry auction on Saturday at the New York Sheraton Hotel and Towers.

Junk Science: The oracle of climate disaster has a new book out on global warming that should be on the fiction list. He asks us to commit economic suicide while he rakes in millions from his green investments. 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," Al Gore's sequel to his 2006 tome "An Inconvenient Truth," came out Tuesday. Printed on recycled paper using low-VOC (volatile organic compound) ink, it will undoubtedly be a best-seller and on the desk of every attendee at next month's climate change conference in Copenhagen. In a press release announcing the book, the Oscar-...

Tonight the Inspector General of the Securities & Exchange Commission gives us Bernie Madoff in his own words — A jailhouse interview that Madoff granted to the SEC’s watchdog during his stay at Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan on June 17. Madoff spent much of the interview slamming the SEC: “Everything the SEC did prior to 2006 was a waste.” He said that the inspectors who combed through his books found only “ridiculous violations.” Madoff adds that he never supplied false documents to the SEC, but that it was “amazing to me” that he didn’t get caught.

Madoff: It's 'Amazing' I Didn't Get Caught Sooner Posted By: Scott Cohn Senior Correspondent, CNBC 30 Oct 2009 | 07:26 PM ET Jailed swindler Bernie Madoff said it was "amazing" that he didn't get caught sooner in his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, and that everything the SEC did to investigate him prior to 2006 was a waste of time, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz. Madoff also told Kotz that SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro was a "dear friend," although she "probably thinks, 'I wish I never knew this guy.'" For the SEC's Full...

GMAC, the former lending arm of General Motors Co., is in talks with the Treasury Department for a third injection of taxpayer aid, a further sign of the U.S. government's entrenchment in the U.S. auto industry. The Treasury Department mandated earlier this year that GMAC Financial Services raise an additional $11.5 billion in capital after undergoing a "stress test" along with 18 other banks. While other banks deemed undercapitalized have been able to raise funds from private investors, GMAC has been forced to go back to the government.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A man accused of making more than $7 billion off the investment schemes of jailed financial manager Bernard Madoff drowned after having a heart attack, authorities said Monday. Jeffry Picower, 67, was found at about noon Sunday by his wife, Barbara, at the bottom of a pool at their oceanside mansion. She pulled him from the water with help from a housekeeper. He died a short time later at a nearby hospital. An autopsy conducted Monday found he suffered a heart attack and drowned, said Dr. Michael Bell, chief medical examiner for Palm Beach County....

Oct. 25, 2009— The man who made $7 billion in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, Jeffry Picower, was found dead in his Palm Beach, Fla., swimming pool Sunday. The Palm Beach Fire Department told ABC News that Picower had no pulse when fire rescue workers arrived at his oceanfront mansion after his wife called 911. She and his housekeeper pulled his body from the pool shortly after noon. No one benefited more from the Madoff scheme that Picower, according to bankruptcy lawyers who sued him and alleged he had taken out $7 billion more than he had put in. Click...

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Jeffry Picower, a Florida philanthropist alleged to have extracted billions from Bernard Madoff's investment scheme, drowned in his pool Sunday, police said. He was 67. The former New York lawyer and accountant had been a friend of Madoff for decades. A statement from Palm Beach police said Picower's wife and a maid found the body at the bottom of the pool Sunday afternoon and rescue workers could not revive him. Picower was transported to Good Samaritan Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at about 1:30 p.m.

Authorities say he was found at the bottom of his Palm Beach home's pool Sunday afternoon by his wife and could not be revived...

AUSTIN — The Texas treasury lost $19.5 million through an investment in the Ponzi scheme run by convicted financial swindler Bernard Madoff. The money was part of a $224.5 million investment the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co. had with a Texas-based hedge fund called Austin Capital Safe Harbor. Austin Capital closed in May due to losses it suffered in one of Madoff's scam investment funds. Comptroller Susan Combs chairs the Treasury Safekeeping Trust, which manages $50 billion in tobacco lawsuit settlement funds, TexPool investments for 2,000 local governments and Treasury Pool for managing state funds. Combs spokesman R.J. DeSilva said...

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission tapped Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Adam Storch on Friday to serve as the agency's first-ever chief operating officer of the enforcement division. The new hire represents the latest personnel change at the SEC in its effort to improve its operations following its failure to detect Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. Enforcement Division Director Robert Khuzami created Mr. Storch's position of managing executive as part of the major re-structuring effort he announced earlier this year. Mr. Storch will oversee division operations that include budget, information technology and administrative services. He will also supervise...

Bernard Madoff's life behind bars revealed Bernard Madoff reportedly sleeps in the lower bunk in his cell and he eats pizza cooked by an inmate convicted of child molestation Christine Seib in New York Bernard Madoff shares a jail cell with a 21-year-old drug dealer and socialises with a former crime boss and an Israeli spy, according to a legal action filed yesterday in New York. Attorneys who interviewed Madoff in jail in July used information obtained from the fraudster to file a series of claims against major banks and accountancy firms, in an action that also throws light on...

Ponzi schemer's son storms off after bitter fight Cops were searching for one of Bernie Madoff's sons yesterday, but not for the reason you may think. Mark Madoff, the frazzled former trader at his father's firm, disappeared yesterday after an acrimonious argument with his wife, who, fearing for his safety, desperately called the cops, according to a published report. That frantic call prompted a police search, which ended when Mark came back home, saying he had spent the night in a fancy hotel and planned to get help for his issues from a doctor, reports The New York Post. The...

Two former investors are suing the Securities and Exchange Commission for $2.4 billion in damages, claiming the agency acted with negligence while examining Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff's investment business. The 63-page complaint, filed by Phyllis Molchatsky and Dr. Steven Schneider, claims the agency engaged in "serial, gross negligence" over the course of 16 years. It alleges that because the SEC's negligence occurred during the course of its regular functions, rather than when crafting policy, the agency is not shielded by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. .....

Bernie's bruising battle -- over stocks! Brawls with inmate By RICH CALDER Last Updated: 6:27 AM, October 13, 2009 Posted: 2:44 AM, October 13, 2009 Bernie "The Bruiser" Madoff got into a prison-yard tussle with a fellow inmate over -- of all things -- the stock market, eyewitnesses told The Post. And, by inmates' accounts, the 71-year-old Ponzi schemer came out the winner. Madoff, serving 150 years at the Butner, NC, federal prison, was heard last week getting into a heated debate over the state of the market with another senior-citizen jailbird.

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It took a long time for anyone to point out an obvious phenomenon about the $60 billion Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. It was that Madoff victimized thousands upon thousands of his fellow American Jews. By the time that phenomenon was recognized, it was too late for Americans to properly digest the intellectual nutrients it offered. The story was over. But now it turns out that another Madoff-like Ponzi operation, this one the world’s second largest, also laid financial waste to Jews. This clearly is no one-off phenomenon. As a story, the Stanford Financial Group of banks...

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority didn't fully probe Bernard Madoff's firm and repeatedly failed to investigate tips about R. Allen Stanford's alleged $7 billion fraud, an internal report found.

Madoff Family Members Sued For $198 Million Published: Saturday, 3 Oct 2009 | 1:37 AM ET By: Scott Cohn Senior Correspondent, CNBC The bankruptcy trustee trying to recover assets from the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme says Madoff's relatives used the firm "as if it were the family piggy bank." Irving Picard is suing Bernard Madoff's sons Mark and Andrew, his brother Peter, and his niece Shana for $198.7 million. That is the amount Picard says the family members received from Madoff's investment advisory business — $141 million of it in the last six years. All four of the family members...

It was recently uncovered that Madoff kept detailed notes about his activites and that some "investors" made deals, demanding specific returns on investments.....meaning they were in on the scam. Some investors also wrote Madoff personal checks......evidence of tax evasion and money laundering. Jeffrey Picower and Stanley Chais, two philanthropists who are the target of lawsuits brought by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating the Madoff firm. Garmento Carl Shapiro, a close friend of Madoff, is also under criminal investigation....... Authorities are going after these people under the legal concept of "fraudulent conveyance"----meaning one cannot profit from a fraud. REFERENCE CBS'...

Madoff Victims Still Demanding That Taxpayers Reimburse Them For Fake Returns Yael BizouatiSep. 24, 2009, 5:15 PMMadoff’s victims will finally get their day in court Feb. 2. The victims have been fighting with Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee, about the right way to determine their losses. Now a judge will decide. The victims say their losses should be measured by the fictitious amount they thought they had in their accounts when the Ponzi scheme collapsed.[snip]

Many of Bernard Madoff’s victims have moved beyond the jailed Ponzi schemer himself and targeted their anger toward the trustee and investigators charged with uncovering and distributing Madoff’s ill-gotten assets. That anger has only sharpened now that federal prosecutors have filed papers stating as many as half of Madoff’s customers at the time of his arrest didn’t actually lose any money because over the years they withdrew more cash from their accounts than they originally invested. In the same court filing, prosecutors told a judge there is no need to order restitution because all of Madoff's assets will be distributed...

Bernard Madoff once slept there. Soon, someone else will. The imprisoned swindler's Montauk, New York, home, located on a beach with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean, has been sold for more than the $8.75 million asking price, a spokeswoman for broker Corcoran Group said on Thursday. The name of the buyer and the purchase price were not immediately disclosed. Several buyers submitted bids for the four-bedroom, three-bath, 3,000-square-foot home, which was on the market for two weeks. Sale proceeds will go toward reimbursing victims of Madoff's estimated $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The government is also selling two other U.S....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After bungling five probes that should have uncovered Bernard Madoff's $65 billion fraud, regulators must learn to aggressively investigate tips and complaints to catch wrongdoers, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's internal watchdog said on Thursday. A scathing report issued last week by SEC Inspector General David Kotz found that the agency missed numerous red flags, did not properly follow up on leads and dismissed tips and complaints that might have uncovered Madoff's investment sham. At a congressional hearing to examine the SEC's shortcomings, Kotz outlined dozens of recommendations to improve SEC procedures for handling tips and...

Bernard L. Madoff's massive fraud stunned some of the wealthy denizens of Malibu Colony, especially when a couple devastated by the scheme surrendered their oceanfront home to Wells Fargo Bank. But some neighbors say the real shocker came when they saw one of the bank's top executives spending weekends in the $12-million beach house and hosting eye-catching parties there. What's more, Wells Fargo spurned offers to show the property to prospective buyers, a real estate agent said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's watchdog has recommended "employee-by-employee" action to ensure the agency fixes the breakdowns that allowed Bernard Madoff's colossal fraud to go undetected for years.

If you take a tour of Bernie Madoff's penthouse or check out the furnishings in his Palm Beach digs, his beach home or even his yacht, you'll walk away with one clear, albeit disturbing, thought in your mind: The man apparently has a bull fetish. Madoff's got bull statues in his Upper East Side luxury digs. He's got bull paintings in his Palm Beach house. He's got a yacht named "Bull," a smaller boat named "Little Bull" and has T-shirts decorated with bull logos and motifs. Get this: The disgraced financier even has napkins and glassware engraved with "Bull" --...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bernard Madoff's whistle-blower and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's top enforcer will testify before Congress this week on how the SEC failed to uncover Madoff's $65 billion fraud, a congressional panel said on Monday. Harry Markopolos, a fraud examiner who tried to warn regulators that Madoff's business was a fraud, and the SEC's Director of Enforcement Robert Khuzami are expected to testify at the Senate Banking committee's hearing on Thursday.

• The disgraced financier Bernie Madoff has received a $13,800 (£8,500) tax rebate, angering clients who lost billions in the biggest Ponzi scheme in Wall Street history. The jailed fraudster was sent the money after overpaying the property taxes on his waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, which his wife still owns despite other assets being seized by investigators who unravelled his $65bn investment scam. The rebate cheque was issued last month and made payable to Ruth and Bernard Madoff. Ruth Madoff sent the cheque back to the tax office asking that it be reissued with her husband's name removed....

That Bernard Madoff’s multi-billion dollar fraud flourished for many years under the nose of the Securities & Exchange Commission is a powerful indictment of the SEC as a complicit handmaiden of Wall Street corruption of enormous scale. The SEC Inspector General, who is supposed to be autonomous but strangely must submit his reports directly to the agency he is required to watchdog, has been investigating how this so-called specialty regulator managed to miss such rampant fraud for so long. On September 2, the SEC released an “executive summary” of 22 pages signed by the IG David Kotz August 31. Its...

Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen and directors were generally unaware that staff were probing Bernard Madoff until the former financier was arrested in December 2008 for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, a federal watchdog said in a report released on Friday. The report underscores the disconnection between senior officials and their employees, who often lacked the experience necessary to follow up on leads and understand the magnitude of their investigation. Former Chairmen Christopher Cox, William Donaldson and Arthur Levitt, former director of enforcement Linda Thomsen and former director of examinations and compliance, Lori Richards, did not play...

"In the examination of Madoff, the SEC did not seek records from the Depository Trust Company(DTC)(an independent third-party), but sought copies of such records from Madoff himself..." "Had they sought records from the DTC, there is an excellent chance that they would have uncovered Madoff's Ponzi scheme in 1992." Source: SEC Inspector General

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators fumbled five probes of Bernard Madoff's operations and missed opportunities to uncover the financier's $65 billion investment fraud, a report by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's inspector general said on Wednesday. The SEC received more than ample information over the years to warrant a thorough and comprehensive examination or investigation of Madoff and his firm, the report said.

Securities and Exchange Commission Inspector General David Kotz has issued his long-awaited report on how the agency missed the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. In a statement e-mailed to CNBC Monday afternoon, Kotz said the 450-page report is the result of an exhaustive, eight-month investigation. .....

Does convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard L. Madoff have cancer, as two newspapers are reporting, or not, as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is stating? Under the headline "Bernie's Cancer Cell," the New York Post reported Monday that Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for swindling investors out of as much as $65 billion, wrote: "Bernie Madoff had little to lose by confessing to masterminding the world's biggest Ponzi scheme -- he's dying of cancer, sources told The Post." The story goes on to say that Madoff, 71, has been telling fellow inmates that he doesn't have long...

Apparently died of pancreatic cancer in prison. Just announced on Coast to Coast.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff has told fellow prison inmates that he is dying of cancer, the New York Post reported Monday, citing unnamed prison sources. Madoff, 71, who since June has been serving a 150-year sentence at a North Carolina federal prison, has been telling inmates that he does not have long to live, the newspaper said, citing the unofficial and unusual sources. One inmate at the Butner (North Carolina) Medium Federal Correctional Institution said Madoff was taking "about 20 pills a day" and "not doing very well," the Post wrote. Federal Bureau of Prisons...

Bernie Madoff had little to lose by confessing to masterminding the world's biggest Ponzi scheme -- he's dying of cancer, sources told The Post. Madoff, who is serving 150 years at a North Carolina federal lockup after pleading guilty to swindling more than $65 billion, has been telling fellow inmates he does not have much longer to live. "He's been taking about 20 pills a day for his cancer," said one inmate. "He talks about it all the time. He's not doing very well." There's been much speculation as to why Madoff took the entire fall for the scheme --...

August 23, 2009 My story, by the mistress of Bernard Madoff Sheryl Weinstein gave her life savings and her love to disgraced financier without realising he was world’s biggest swindler [Pics in URL] For almost three months after Bernie Madoff was arrested, I wandered through life in a mental fog. Day after day, I awoke with a weight on me; this total feeling of dread. Not only do I feel like Bernie stole our money, but he also stole our future dreams, a part of my son’s future, the little money my parents had left me, and the money my...

<p>A new book by Barron’s reporter Erin Arvedlund asserts that banking giant JPMorgan Chase became aware of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme months before his arrest, prompting the bank to liquidate its positions in a Madoff-related fund. Yet, the bank continued to accept deposits into Madoff’s main account at the bank from unsuspecting investors who were about to lose everything.</p>

SNIP A female veteran Madoff employee tells Oppenheimer, "He had affairs in the office. There were two women I know of. They were gorgeous. They were blond. They were young. They were like baby Ruths -- the same type as Ruth, with the same hair color and eye color." A different Madoff insider said, "Ruth told him to stop [playing around], but he started having affairs all over the place," adding that Madoff would often give his girls cards with his private cellphone number on them. SNIP

Ex-Hadassah CFO claims in new book she and Madoff got up-close-and-personalFirst Bernie Madoff had an affair with ex-Hadassah CFO Sheryl Weinstein. And then he took her house. Madoff, a former Nasdaq chairman, is currently serving a 150-year prison term for masterminding the $65 billion Ponzi scheme that cost thousands of people, including Weinstein and her family, their life savings, homes and sense of security. Perhaps the accountant is trying to recoup some of her money by publishing a tell-all book – "Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me." Or maybe she's trying to get back at Bernie by revealing...

In pleading guilty, CFO Frank DiPascali has opened the door to a wider investigation of Bernard Madoff's deedsFrom the start, few believed Bernard Madoff's claim that he acted alone in creating and managing his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. On Aug. 11, in a Manhattan courtroom, that claim was revealed to be just another of Madoff's lies. Madoff's former chief financial officer, Frank DiPascali, pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges relating to his involvement in the scam and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. "I was loyal to him. I ended up being loyal to a terrible, terrible fault," he said in...

HARRY Markopolos -- the whistleblower on Bernie Madoff who proved to be much smarter than the SEC -- says there are evildoers out there who will make the Ponzi scum "look like small-time." Markopolos gave a speech to 400 of the faithful at the Greek Orthodox Church in Southampton and predicted major scandals will soon be revealed about the unregulated, $600 trillion, credit-default swap market.

YOUNG, inexperienced government regulators were so wowed by Bernard Madoff's ritzy Midtown headquarters that they asked about job openings and dropped off resumes while missing clear evidence he was running a massive Ponzi scheme, a new book claims. "No wonder they never found anything," Madoff firm secretary Elaine Solomon told author Andrew Kirtzman for his book, "Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff," The Post's Dan Mangan reports.