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Embezzler Bernard Madoff, who swindled clients out of at least $50 billion, was sentenced to 150 years imprisonment Monday. Very few media reports have focused on the damage that Madoff did to left-leaning foundations and political causes. I wrote about this topic in the American Spectator in January. The record-breaking fraud is forcing the closing of the JEHT and Picower foundations, longtime supporters of leftist groups. Left-wing groups funded by those charities include ACORN (known for its massive voter-fraud campaigns), the Center for Constitutional Rights (a pro-Castro member of the open borders lobby), and Alliance for Justice (which supports habeas...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The lawyer for Bernard Madoff, the confessed Ponzi scammer who faces a maximum of 150 years in prison, requested a 12-year sentence from the judge set to mete out his sentence on Monday. Madoff defense attorney Ira Lee Sorkin made the request in a letter to Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Sorkin focused on the age of his septuagenarian client, as well as his "non-violent nature" and his "voluntary surrender" to authorities. "Mr. Madoff is currently 71 years old and has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years," wrote Sorkin, whose letter...

Right now, it’s unclear what rules apply. There is a new regime. What seemed prudent earlier has disappeared. I’m surprised Americans aren’t more panicked. Americans seem to accept a level of insecurity in their lives that Europeans wouldn’t tolerate. Paralysis is one response to this level of insecurity.” This might explain why my wife and I have taken no action to fix our finances. Although it’s also the case that we haven’t heard from our Merrill broker in nine months. The last time he called was well before the day in September when the government encouraged the shotgun sale of...

The Prince of Wales was allegedly targeted as a potential investor by agents working for the alleged fraudster Bernard Madoff's £34 billion Ponzi scheme. The heir to the throne is named alongside European aristocracy in documents supplied to US prosecutors. He was allegedly approached by Prince Michael of Yugoslavia at a Polo tournament in 2002 which was also attended by Prince William and Prince Harry. Prince Michael, a distant cousin of Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, was an investment executive of Access International Advisors, which was a Madoff feeder fund. But the Prince of Wales declined to become involved with...

Just two days after a copy of his new book, "Annals of Gullibility," arrived at his south Jefferson County home in December, Stephen Greenspan received shocking news. The 67-year-old University of Colorado psychiatry professor had fallen for the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. A third of his retirement savings had been invested with Bernard Madoff. Even in his disbelief, Greenspan recognized the irony. The subtitle of his book practically screamed it: "Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It." "I had been scammed," Greenspan said. "In a way it was funny, though I didn't think so at the...

The top cop at the Securities and Exchange Commission is leaving the government less than a week after receiving an angry dressing-down before Congress over the agency's failure to detect a massive alleged fraud scheme. Thomsen was front and center at a Feb. 4 hearing by a House subcommittee investigating the Madoff affair and the enforcement breakdown at the SEC. She was put on the defensive by lawmakers and forced to defend the SEC's position that she and other officials couldn't publicly discuss details of the matter because of an ongoing investigation by the agency's inspector general.

Brandeis University president Jehuda Reinharz issued a public mea culpa to the university community yesterday, admitting that he mishandled last week's announcement about the planned closing of the school's Rose Art Museum. "To quote President Obama, 'I screwed up,' " Reinharz wrote in a letter e-mailed to the faculty and students. In yesterday's attempt to quell a public outcry, Reinharz walked a fine semantic line, saying in his letter that "the museum will remain open" and "be more fully integrated into the university's central educational mission." In reality, the Rose will eventually cease to operate as a public art museum....

Mr. Markopolos Regrets His Failure to Persuade Investors; Tips for the SEC Harry Markopolos, the Boston-based investor-turned-investigator who for years warned regulators that Bernard Madoff was running a huge Ponzi scheme, has received pitches to appear on television shows, make movies and write books elaborating on his experience. Later this month, he is scheduled to appear before Congress to present recommendations to improve the Securities and Exchange Commission. But rather than enjoy a sense of vindication, Mr. Markopolos says he is miserable. He has trouble sleeping and is haunted by the apparent suicide of Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, a...

Madoff's massive paper trail has led investigators to a Queens warehouse used to store old records ....boxes and file cabinets stuffed with documents could reveal more clues....City finance records indicate that Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities leased space in the Queens' Astoria neighborhood........he says he acted alone yet Madoff Securities was a close-knit family business that employed two sons, his brother and benefited his wife..... © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Several top U.S. securities enforcement officials will testify at a Congressional hearing into Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud, the Senate Banking Committee said Monday. The committee has called for testimony by the Securities and Exchange Commission's director of enforcement, Linda Thomsen, and the SEC's director of compliance, inspections and examinations, Lori Richards. It has also asked Stephen Luparello, the interim CEO of broker-dealer watchdog the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, to testify. Both regulators have been criticized for missing one of the largest investment frauds in history. Incoming SEC chairman, Mary Schapiro, who was previously FINRA's chief executive, has said...

The unusual nature of how Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme surfaced -- with a confession from the key figure himself -- is complicating a high-profile investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. ..... Typically, investigators begin with a tip or whistleblower and cut deals with lower-ranking employees to build a case against the suspected mastermind of a fraud. In this case, investigators started with a confession from the mastermind, Mr. Madoff, according to a government affidavit, and they are trying to work backward to piece together what happened. People familiar with the investigation say the Madoff firm's records...

Seventeen years ago, federal investigators questioned for the first time whether Bernard L. Madoff was connected to a Ponzi scheme. Their inquiry centered on Frank Avellino, an accountant who had been funneling investors to Mr. Madoff since the 1960s. The investigators did not get far. Within days, Mr. Avellino agreed to return to investors the money he and his partner had raised and to pay a small fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The inquiry petered out, and Mr. Avellino — represented in the case by Ira Lee Sorkin, the same lawyer who now represents Mr. Madoff — kept...

Bernard L. Madoff was once the chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He was one of the most important market makers on Wall Street. And he managed what was, by some estimates, the largest hedge fund on the planet.

Given what's being called the biggest case of financial fraud ever committed by one person in American history, I figured that things would be different this year during our annual spring break trek to Palm Beach, ground zero of Bernie Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. As a footnote, Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, advertised in 1920 that he could deliver a 50 percent return for investors in 45 days. Within several months, Ponzi had pocketed tens of millions of dollars from people who had turned over their life savings or mortgaged their homes to invest. "If there is an...

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A federal agency that regulates brokerage firms says there is no record of Madoff's investment funds placing trades through his brokerage operation. That leaves only two options - either he was placing trades only through other firms, which would be highly unusual, or he was not placing any trades. "There was no evidence of the Madoff broker-dealer executing trades for the [Madoff] investment adviser," said Herb Perone, spokesman for the regulatory group, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. A broker-dealer is any firm that buys and sells securities. FINRA and its predecessor, the National Association of Securities Dealers, has been examining...

...... US investigators want to know whether hedge fund operator J. Ezra Merkin misled tax-exempt schools and charities about how he invested their money....... authorities have subpoenaed records from three investment funds run by Merkin, who recently chaired GMAC Financial Services LLC, the auto/housing financing arm of General Motors..... 15 tax-exempt nonprofits tied to Merkin are asked to turn over records and other information. Merkin's key fund, Ascot Partners LP, had invested almost all of its $1.5B assets with Madoff. Merkin's funds Gabriel, Ascot, and Ariel Management Corp, already face a string of lawsuits from investors who say they were...

Bernie Madoff's investment fund may never have executed a single trade, industry officials say, suggesting detailed statements mailed to investors each month may have been an elaborate mirage in a $50 billion fraud. An industry-run regulator for brokerage firms said on Thursday there was no record of Madoff's investment fund placing trades through his brokerage operation. That means Madoff either placed trades through other brokerage firms, a move industry officials consider unlikely, or he was not executing trades at all. "Our exams showed no evidence of trading on behalf of the investment advisor, no evidence of any customer statements being...

The $50-billion investment scam allegedly pulled off by Wall Street insider Bernard Madoff has ignited predictable calls for more regulation. The "massive fraud ... was made possible in part because the regulators who were assigned to oversee Wall Street dropped the ball," said President-elect Obama. "This scandal underscores the need for a 21st century regulatory approach," writes Arthur Levitt Jr., former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in The Wall Street Journal. Notice the disconnect. Regulation failed, so we need more regulation. I see it differently. Regulation failed, so let's try free markets. That would be a change....

Bernard Madoff didn't even spare his own family. The Ponzi schemer scammed millions from his sister, who is now desperately selling her Florida home... Sondra Wiener, 74, "has nothing," said one of her neighbors in the BallenIsles Country Club, a gated Palm Beach enclave where she and her husband, Marvin, live alongside such celebrities as Serena and VenusWilliams. "She lost millions in this whole thing," said a source who estimated her loss at $3 million.