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Posted
Jul 29 2009, 10:39 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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 Bernie Madoff has given his first prison interview, and tells a lawyer that he still can't believe he got away with the massive Ponzi scheme that robbed thousands of people who thought they were making smart investments.
"There were several times that I met with the SEC and thought, 'they got me,'" Madoff reportedly told a lawyer who is representing some of the victims. The lawyer is threatening to sue Madoff and his family on behalf of the victims, reports ABC News. Madoff likely gave the prison interview to try and get the lawyer to back away from his family. The lawyer, Joseph Cotchett, said Madoff is looking good and appears to be working out. Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina prison. Cotchett also said that Madoff cares about his wife, Ruth, but doesn't have much interest in his two sons, Mark and Andrew.
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Posted
Dec 24 2008, 02:55 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
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This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
The grisly discovery of yesterday’s suicide by U.S.-based French banker Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet—co-founder of Access International Advisors who may have incurred as much as $1.5 billion in Madoff-related losses—features prominently in a number of business publications today. But behind that story, new details continue to emerge. The European fallout includes Union Bancaire Privée, a private Swiss bank with $700 million of client money invested. The New York Times reports that representatives of UBP met with Madoff as recently as Nov. 25. The Wall Street Journal has Vienna-based Bank Medici as one of the most exposed European banks, with around $2.1 billion invested with Madoff. The Journal strings together a number of recent findings and suspicions to paint a fuller back story of the missed opportunities to catch the alleged fraud before it swallowed so many investments. The Journal says that “in 1991, a consultant hired to review a corporation's investments with Mr. Madoff made in the late 1980s grew suspicious about his returns.” And the deceit was reportedly quite transparent: “Mr. Madoff claimed to have traded more options than had been traded in the entire market on a given day, meaning his strategy would have been impossible to execute. That pattern was apparent on client statements from as recently as 2006, meaning Mr. Madoff had been making the same improbable claims to his investors for at least 17 years.”
Who’s at fault? A couple of interviews result in the expected finger-pointing. The Financial Times has Bill Brodsky, head of the Chicago board Options Exchange, saying that “inspector-level SEC staff had not received enough training to enable them sufficiently to check for fraud.” The target for much of the reproach, outgoing SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, offers an interview to the Washington Post. He’s proud of SEC’s enforcement record, so don’t expect any Madoff-related second thoughts yet: “That's why Madoff is such a big
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Posted
Mar 12 2009, 03:15 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
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This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Rogue financier Bernard Madoff is expected to plead guilty today to operating a vast decades-long fraud, and details of his elaborate international Ponzi scheme continue to emerge. The Wall Street Journal leads its coverage today with details that Madoff used his London office to launder cash in a type of carousel trade, "transferring client money from the investment-advisory business in New York to London and then back to the U.S. to support the U.S. trading operation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, and also for his personal benefit and for family members and associates." The revelation means British authorities have opened up an investigation of their own into the alleged fraudster's dealings, the newspaper adds.
According to the New York Times, after today's plea hearing in federal court, "there is a strong chance that [Madoff] will not return home." The most suspenseful moment today will come after the plea, the newspaper writes, when Madoff's attorneys will argue that the judge ought to preserve his $10 million bail agreement and let him resume living in his penthouse apartment rather than wait out the next few weeks (or few months) until he's sentenced behind bars. He may be guilty of running the largest financial fraud in history, BusinessWeek notes, but does a potential life sentence for Madoff fit the crime? The magazine talks to a variety of trial attorneys, and their verdict is not heartening for Madoff
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 09:56 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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 Bernard Madoff, the financier whose fraudulent schemes ruined lives and destroyed charities, is set to spend the rest of his life in prison. A judge sentenced Madoff to 150 years Monday -- the maximum sentence allowable for his crimes.
Prosecutors had asked for the maximum, while Madoff's attorneys wanted only 12 years. The judge, who described Madoff's scheme as "extraordinarily evil," clearly wanted to send a message while ensuring that the 71-year-old man will never taste freedom again.
Cheers and applause reportedly broke out in the courtroom after the sentence was announced -- a response that shows how badly people wanted Madoff to pay for his actions. Madoff apologized before the sentencing, saying he “will live with this pain, this torment, for the rest of my life.”
So one man who abused the system shuffles off to jail, and will probably be forgotten soon. I wonder if anything has changed as a result of his crimes or his sentence.
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Posted
Dec 16 2008, 06:13 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Perhaps the question we all should be asking about the alleged $50 billion Bernard Madoff fraud is: Who hasn't been duped? Reporters from Tokyo to West Palm Beach are still piecing together just how vast the damage will be, who is at risk, and for how much.
The globe-spanning list of Madoff victims keeps growing, the BBC reports this morning. It includes Japan's Nomura; at least four British banks, including possibly HSBC; Spain's biggest banks, Banco Santender and BBVA; plus a group of French banks and Swiss funds. That's just the overseas scalps that we know about. Among the high-profile names in the United States are two from the entertainment industry—Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg are victims of the Madoff fraud, the latter having "suffered millions in Madoff-connected losses," the Wall Street Journal writes. Charities and nonprofit organizations are also highly exposed to Madoff, with several announcing they'll have to either shut down or cut staff imminently, the New York Times reports.
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Posted
Aug 28 2009, 10:27 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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Bernie Madoff is in jail, but the mess he left behind isn't winding down. His victims are outraged, and they want their money back. The question now is how much should they get back? Should they receive just the money they originally invested, or the profits Madoff told them was in their account?
That's the latest drama in the three-ring circus that the bankruptcy trustee in the Madoff case is dealing with. Irving Picard is trying to distribute the Madoff money he's been able to recover. So far, he has been operating on a simple money-in, money-out approach. Whatever money people gave to Madoff is what they get back. But that's not enough for some victims,
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Posted
Jul 02 2009, 11:25 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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Well isn't this interesting: An investor at the Securities and Exchange Commission told her bosses in 2004 that something funny was going on at Bernard Madoff's firm. One of those bosses would later marry Madoff's niece. And what do you know? The investigator was told to focus on other issues, according to The Washington Post. The investigator, Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, sent e-mails to a supervisor saying her review of Madoff's firm raised red flags. But sources tell the Post that the SEC was under pressure to look for fraud in the mutual fund industry, so Walker-Lightfoot had to end her Madoff investigation to focus on mutual funds. The revelation is just going to be more damaging for the SEC,
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 11:50 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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Government negligence pretty much caused the current financial crisis, writes Joe Nocera of The New York Times. Does that mean we can sue the government for our losses? No, he says.
In other words, victims of Bernie Madoff's schemes need to just get over it and stop suing the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to uncover the fraud, Nocera writes. If the SEC were liable for anything here, then taxpayers would be the ones paying Madoff victims. "This is not 9/11," he adds.
It's a pretty tough column saying all kinds of things that Madoff's former clients don't want to hear right now. They are responsible for their own financial gullibility. When something sounds too good to be true -- like the returns Madoff promised investors -- it probably is.
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Posted
Jul 28 2009, 01:10 PM
by
Minyanville
Just what the world needs: 3 books on scam artist Bernie Madoff being rushed into print.
Is there much we don’t know about Madoff’s Ponzi scheme or any devastating news in the offing?
Here’s betting the books will do moderately well before sliding into the remainder bin. But the tabloid reader in all of us now wants to know about Bernie’s life in prison: the yin and yang of making license plates; the proper etiquette when soap is dropped in the shower; how to remain healthy on a starchy prison diet; and whether this bastard has an ounce of remorse for his crime.
It would also be nice to know if Bernie thought he’d get away with it or if he lived it up, knowing the Feds would one day knock at his door, jangling handcuffs. Is it possible that Bernie’s wife and family didn’t know that he ran a criminal enterprise? Is willful ignorance a defense in a criminal case?
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Posted
Jul 20 2009, 01:19 PM
by
Kim Peterson
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Bernie Madoff's new prison mates are eyeing him closely, and some want to beat him a little bit to up their prison rep, the New York Post reports.
"Some of the guys were talking about smacking him around a little, just to get the notoriety of it," the Post reports, quoting someone who has a relative in the same Butner, N.C., lockup.
But others are impressed by Madoff and the way he has handled himself, the Post reports. That's because Madoff didn't rat anyone else out in his massive Ponzi scheme. He took the fall for the whole operation.
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