Free Republic

........more high-profile names emerged from the 163-page Madoff investor list....developers William Achenbaum and Edward Blumenfeld, the late hardware-chain founder Murray Pergament, WTC developer Larry Silverstein..... Morris Talansky who operates an investment firm and tax-exempt foundation "lost over a million dollars," said his criminal-defense lawyer.....Talansky's alleged payments to Israeli PM Ehud Olmert led to Olmert's resignation last year. Madoff's defense lawyer said he was listed because a relative who invested (had apparently used Ira Lee Sorkin's mailing address).

July 04, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Ground Zero of National ParalysisRebuild the Towers, privately. By Deroy Murdock In olden days, Americans needed just 13 and a half months to erect the Empire State Building, four and a half years to build Hoover Dam, and six years, four months to install the Transcontinental Railroad. And yet this Independence Day, six years, nine months, and three weeks have elapsed since September 11, and Ground Zero remains an 80-foot-deep international embarrassment for the United States. The government functionaries who fathered this fiasco should yield immediately and assign private developer Larry Silverstein to arrange...

Larry A. Silverstein, who has won nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments to cover his losses and help him rebuild at the World Trade Center site, is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from airlines and airport security companies for the 9/11 attack. Mr. Silverstein, the developer of ground zero, sought the damages, whose amount was not previously known, in a claim filed in 2004, that says the airlines and airport security companies failed to prevent terrorists from hijacking the planes used to destroy the buildings. His case was consolidated last week with similar, earlier lawsuits brought by families of some...

Larry Silverstein began spending every morning at the World Trade Center shortly after he inked a 99-year deal to operate the complex in July 2001. The New York developer would have breakfast at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North tower, and then meet for several hours with tenants. But on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was at home, dressing for a doctor's appointment his wife had made for him, instead of at his usual table at Windows. "I had said to my wife, sweetheart, cancel my doctor's appointment. I have so...

9/11 Victims Received $38.1 Billion in Compensation Payments Came From Insurance, Government, Charities By DEVLIN BARRETT, AP WASHINGTON (Nov. 8) - Victims of the Sept. 11 attacks received $38.1 billion in compensation, with insurance companies picking up the largest portion of the tab, according to a study released Monday. The report by Rand Institute for Social Justice found that civilians killed or injured have received an average of $3.1 million per person from the government, charities and insurance companies, or $8.7 billion. Emergency personnel killed or injured were given a total of about $1.9 billion. First responders received an average...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Larry Silverstein, developer of the World Trade Center site, says he is building the safest building in America. He has to. The 52-story skyscraper will be the first new building on the site where attacks by two hijacked planes felled the Twin Towers, killing nearly 3,000, including four Silverstein employees, on Sept. 11, 2001. The fire that engulfed the Twin Towers spread to the No. 7 World Trade Center building nearby and destroyed it, too. "Jeez, what a hunk of building that is," Silverstein, 73, said, approaching the new No. 7 WTC structure four days before...

Developer Larry Silverstein has lost the majority of his insurance claims in court regarding the attacks on the World Trade Center. A Federal Jury in Manhattan Monday ruled that the attacks on the Twin Towers constituted only one attack, and therefore the majority of Silverstein’s insurers only owed one payout. Therefore Silverstein’s insurance payout, which he had hoped would be as much as $7 billion, will be much closer to the $3.5 billion one attack would have paid. The final payout is pending a final court case late this summer. Silverstein purchased the lease on the World Trade Center just...

<p>May 8, 2003 -- The future of Ground Zero became mired in deeper legal troubles yesterday, as trade center leaseholder Larry Silverstein went to court to force an insurance company to pay up on the destroyed No. 7 World Trade Center. The litigation around the building, which Silverstein once declared would be the first to rise again at Ground Zero, also raises questions about Gov. Pataki's plan to have Silverstein break ground next summer on the world's tallest building.</p>

NEW YORK (Feb. 26) - A cluster of sloping, angular buildings with a 1,776-foot spire that would be the tallest in the world was chosen Wednesday as the blueprint to redevelop the World Trade Center site, The Associated Press has learned. Architect Daniel Libeskind's design beat a plan by an international design team known as THINK, which envisioned two 1,665-foot latticework towers straddling the footprints of the original towers, said a source familiar with the selection. An official announcement is expected Thursday. The choice of the soaring design, which pays homage to the year America declared its independence, was made...