Madoff Investors Brace for Lawsuits (Look who dupes daily American Citizens...)

WSJ ^ | July 26, 2010 | MICHAEL ROTHFELD

[yoe]

The court-appointed trustee recovering money for Bernard L. Madoff's victims is preparing a wave of new lawsuits seeking to wrest funds away from investors who also were duped by the Ponzi scheme.

In an interview, Irving Picard said he could wind up suing about half the estimated 2,000 individual investors he has called "net winners" from their dealings with Mr. Madoff. Such investors withdrew more from Mr. Madoff's firm than the amount of principal they invested.

"The people who made money, who got more, have made money at the expense of the people who didn't," said Mr. Picard, who has the power under federal bankruptcy provisions to pursue money with drawn from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC before it collapsed in December 2008 and redistribute the funds fairly among victims.....

[yoe]

The Madoff caper is a drop in the bucket compared to our United States Congress and Mr. Obama who has paid off the Unions with taxpayer money....the congress steals from us daily...ask them about Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac...Barney Frank and Chris Dodd make Bernard Madoff look like a Sunday School teacher!

[equalitybeforethelaw]

Is this the model for rectifying a Ponzi scheme? Shoosh, pay attention folks, we may learn how to steal our money back from Social Security.

[PGR88]

I’m 40 years old.

Who can I sue when Social Security goes bankrupt, or pays me in monopoly money?

[buffyt]

I am 59 and worked from age 12 - age 28. I paid in to SS for all those years. Back when I was a kid you could work part time, no problem, age didn’t matter. I worked at a drug store after school. I had various jobs over the years after that, including working at a glass factory in the summers to pay my way through college. Yet when I get a SS statement it says I qualify for ZERO SS payments when I reach retirement age. I wonder WHO gets MY money?

[Malsua]

I wonder WHO gets MY money?

Your money was already disbursed.

However, from 28-59, you're either independently wealthy or worked in some other retirement system or were disabled and have been getting money all along.

At any rate, you didn't work inside the system for 40 quarters to qualify compelling younger generations to pay you so you're out of luck. Why not put in the next 6 years towards it? That would surely qualify you with at least something from pre-28 going towards it.

[Sgt_Schultze]

The recovery efforts are likely to disproportionately impact obama voters. Ergo, it is a racist and politically discriminatory taking.

[Gay State Conservative]

Sounds like a simple redistribution of wealth plan to me.Unless an investor that “won” is shown to have *known* that it was all a scam then he/she should be able to keep the $$$.

[diogenes ghost]

"...compared to our United States Congress...."

WHOAAAA!!!!

If you did not intend to use the article in discussion of it's contents, why post it?

Just post a Congress-bashing vanity & join the crowd.

In the meantime, why is no discussion of the article occurring?

To punish an investor who earned money in good faith because of the criminality of the investment house is just evil. It's akin to you losing all interest income from bank deposits if a bank executive embezzles from the bank.

Sure, some good people got hurt, but it does not make it moral to kill survivors of a plane crash to even out the outcome with those who perished.

[Liz]

TAX EVASION AND MONEY LAUNDERING Picard, who is ID'ing Madoff's assets, unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth...... and assets and businesses in 11 places overseas. No question,tax evasion and money laundering was the name of the game for the wealthiest Madoffians-----businessmen who were funneling income to Madoff to avoid US taxes, acting like "philanthropists."

Madoff was running multiple scams with the knowledge and consent of wealthy businessman who "invested" with him:

(1) a Ponzi fraud that made Madoff and his family personally wealthy;

(2) laundering tax-free money from "foundations and charities" of wealthy "philanthropists,"

(3) IRS fraud facilitation for wealthy businessmen;

(4) a protection racket (shielding his investors from federal scrutiny);

(5) laundering tax-free money that was destined for Democrat candidates (campaign fraud).

EGREGIOUS EXAMPLE: The Florida-based Picower Foundation,a major backer of the abortion industry, was worth $1 billion when invested w/ Madoff.

Barbara and Jeffrey Picower
The Picower Foundation
1410 South Ocean Blvd
Palm Beach, Fla 33480
Tele 561-835-1332
Geographic Focus: Florida; New York;
SOURCE http://www.tgci.com/funding/fdnresultnew.asp?thisID=19499

Jeffry Picower took a startling 950% return from Madoff. Picower's $7.2 billion withdrawal makes the Florida "philanthropist" the biggest beneficiary of Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

REFERENCE CBS' 60 Minutes reported 9/27/09: Madoff's detailed notes reveal Jeffrey Picower---a major Planned Parenthood backer---was receiving a return of some 950%. According to the court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, this indicated Picower was in on the Ponzi scheme and was profiting at the expense of other investors. As a savvy businessman and investor, Picower should have known 950% was an outlandish return.

FREEPER maggief posted: Jeffry Picower, a seldom-seen philanthropist, investor and confidant of Bernard Madoff, stands accused by the Madoff bankruptcy trustee of extracting $5.1 billion from Madoff’s enterprises during the last two decades. Now a lawyer representing 100 Madoff victims suggests it was no accident that Picower was one of the few Madoff customers who made a substantial profit. (snip) (snip)

Picower may have deposited $1.6 billion with Madoff, while withdrawing as “profit” more than $6.7 billion, for a net profit of $5.1 billion “of other peoples’ money.” (snip)

While coverage of Picower has been scant, on various occasions, The St. Petersburg Times, Forbes, and most recently Pro Publica have raised the question of whether he used his charities to mine information—especially about the medical developments—that he then used in chasing deals. He was the biggest shareholder in Alaris Medical Systems and collected more than $1 billion when it was bought by Cardinal Health in 2004. (snip)http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-25/did-bernie-madoff-get-a-billion-dollar-kickback/full/

Complex web benefits foundation founder, St. Petersburg Times, July 8, 2001, By MARY JACOBY

A decade ago, a wealthy Palm Beach investor met a world-renowned scientist for dinner at an Italian restaurant on New York’s upper East Side. They were celebrating a promising new partnership. Jeffry M. Picower had decided to endow a non-profit medical research institute. His Florida-based foundation would give $10-million in initial funding to find cures for the maladies that afflict humankind. Dr. Anthony Cerami, internationally acclaimed inventor of a revolutionary diabetes test, would run it.

“My mother suffered from diabetes even before my birth and died at an early age of it,” Picower told the New York Times. He pledged that profits from new drugs discovered at the institute would flow back into its coffers to pay for more discoveries.

“It’s just for the benefit of science, and my family will not get anything back, no matter what happens.” Over the next 10 years, as the assets of the Jeffry M. and Barbara Picower Foundation swelled to $658-million, making it the second largest foundation in Florida, its benefactor was spinning an unusual web of business relationships between it, the Picower Institute for Medical Research and two for-profit pharmaceutical companies.

When the spinning was over, a for-profit drug company owned largely by Picower was left holding license to many of the most important discoveries of the Picower Institute. Humankind, it seems, would not be the only beneficiary of the spending and investments of the non-profit Jeffry M. and Barbara Picower Foundation. Jeffry M. Picower would, too.

=======================================

Because Congress wants to encourage charitable giving, it has given foundations significant tax advantages. Donors can deduct the amount of their gifts from their taxable income, an important incentive for wealthy people to establish foundations. And foundations pay virtually no tax. The law forbids people who create or manage foundations from profiting, even indirectly, from the endowments. “The sweep of the self-dealing rules captures direct as well as indirect business relationships,” said Marcus Owens, former director of the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division. “With private foundations, the self-dealing proscription is very tight.”

The penalty for self-dealing is a 25 percent tax on the amount of money involved in the improper activity and return of the money. But if you are a wealthy person running your own foundation, the chance you will face scrutiny is practically nil. The IRS regularly audits less than 1 percent of private foundation returns; of 61,185 returns filed in 1998 for foundations that held about $390-billion in assets, the IRS audited 191.

Neither is the public likely to question the work of a foundation such as Picower‘s, whose gifts have included $533,000 to the Intracoastal Health Foundation in West Palm Beach, $2.3-million to New York public libraries, and to the Planned Parenthood abortion industry.

=======================================

Picower's wife seeks Madoff deal - NY Post, November 11, 2009 Barbara Picower who received $200 million in cash in a will dated Oct. 15, 2009, wants to "reach promptly a fair and generous settlement with the Madoff trustee," she said in an e-mailed statement. (Mr Picower was found dead in their swimming pool after the Madoff story broke.) He was sued and so was Barbara Picower. "Jeffry was determined that we would put Madoff behind us, reclaim our good name and reverse the damage Madoff's fraud had," Barbara Picower said. Picower left $25 million to his daughter, Gabrielle Picower, and a total of about $15 million to 20 other people. The unspecified remainder will go to charity......

===================================

ANALYSIS The number of tax-exempt "foundations and charities" attached to Madoff's scam is VERY fishy. NOTE: the IRS has targeted tax-exempt "foundations and charities" as the locus classicus for money laundering and tax evasion--- the BIGGEST fraud is one charity writing checks to another charity---the way these "altruistic philanthropists" siphon off funds for themselves--all tax-free.

[Liz]

ping

[CutePuppy]

Greenwich pillage [Fairfield Greenwich - Walter Noel] - NYP, 2010 July 22, by Kaja Whitehouse

The onetime toast of Greenwich society was tossed on the grill yesterday -- accused of being part of a group of hedge fund executives that pocketed $1 billion in Bernie Madoff profits.

Walter Noel, the founder of formerly high-flying hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich, personally pocketed as much as $114 million of wrongfully rung-up Madoff profits, according to the new, blockbuster charges filed by Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of cleaning up the mess left by Ponzi King Madoff.

In a move that dramatically turns up the heat on Noel, the former socialite and jet-setter, Picard claims Noel and other brass at the hedge fund "purposefully turned a blind eye" to Madoff's shenanigans and used ill-gotten gains from the $7 billion in client funds they invested with the fraudster to fuel a lavish lifestyle. .....

If successful in proving that Noel did know about the Madoff scam, Picard could force the sales of these assets to recoup the money for Madoff victims. .....

Picard, who originally sued Fairfield Greenwich in May 2009, also hit Jeff Tucker, Noel's former business partner; Noel's eldest daughter, Corina; her yachting husband, Andres Piedrahita; two other sons-in-law and 13 others. All are accused of multiple counts of fraud.

Fairfield Greenwich, in a statement, called the amended complaint "replete with false, misleading and rehashed accusations." The firm also called the filing "incomprehensible" at a time when the parties were "in the midst of constructive, good-faith negotiations" with Picard.

"The filing can only add further delay and expense to the considerable costs already incurred by all parties, including the trustee," Fairfield said in the statement.

Picard says Noel and his main business partner Tucker, a former SEC attorney, each wrongfully earned $114 million in partnership distributions from 2002-08, in addition to salaries and bonuses. .....

Tucker has been trying to sell his massive upstate New York horse farm, Stone Bridge Farms, for $10 million -- down from its original $18 million price tag.

[Brugmansian]

The Madoff caper is a drop in the bucket compared to our United States Congress

Some of the non-profits and individuals who fed off Madoff for years or even decades are the ones who put Pelosi and Reid in charge of Congress. They knew he was no good. They just didn't think it would fall apart. I don't think claw-backs are enough. This was a RICO case. But the fix was in. Madoff took the fall to protect others.

[Liz]

Court-appointed trustee Picard, who originally sued Fairfield Greenwich in May 2009, also hit Noel's former business partner Jeff Tucker; Noel's eldest daughter, Corina; her yachting husband, Andres Piedrahita; two other sons-in-law and 13 others. All are accused of multiple counts of fraud.

Heh----now we're getting down to brass tacks.

L/E should get hold of the "investors" tax returns to determine what they claim as income, and compare the returns with Fairfield Greenwich outlays in their names. Of particular interest is what they are claiming as “interest income.”

Fairfield Greenwich insiders may have also integrated illegal schemes such as: (a) misusing Fairfield Greenwich reserve accounts, (b) concealing losses, (c) inflating Fairfield Greenwich asset values and (d) improperly accounting for Fairfield Greenwich transactions, as well as (e) diverting monies into Fairfield Greenwich reserve accounts, (f) improperly shifting funding to other Fairfield Greenwich projects to hide illegal payments, (g) engaging in money laundering schemes, (h) evading IRS, FEC, and US banking laws, and (i) engaging in illegal conversions of Fairfield Greenwich profits.

[Libloather]

Tonight -

8:00pm - 9:00pm, CNBC (30)
Scam of the Century: Bernie Madoff's Crime & Punishment
The case of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, who pleaded guilty in March 2009 to running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of some $65 billio…

9:00pm - 10:00pm, CNBC (30)
American Greed: Madoff Behind Bars
A look at what prison life is like for Bernard Madoff, who's serving a 150-year sentence for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scam in U.S. history. Inc…

[Liz]

Scam of the Century: Bernie Madoff’s Crime & Punishment——has been aired many times...but still great TV.

American Greed: Madoff Behind Bars—is new.

[CutePuppy]

...but still great TV. ...American Greed: Madoff Behind Bars—is new.

Victims Fight Back as Madoff Sits Behind Bars - CNBC, 2010 August 24. by Jamie Corsi

.....

Madoff's Life Behind Bars

He is now one of 5,200 inmates at Butner Federal Correctional Institution III, 45 miles northwest of Raleigh, North Carolina. According to former Butner inmate, Shawn Evans, Madoff spends time at the prison law library.

Evans says there were other surprises for inmates. "You might hear an announcement, 'Report to the rec yard, 7:30 for popcorn' or something like that. You know, 'Bingo at 8:00'," says Evans. Treats like popcorn and bingo have given the prison the nickname, "Camp Fluffy".

Butner was originally built as an incentive for convicts in other facilities: the better behaved they are, the more likely they are to be transferred to Butner. It is also the first LEED certified, green federal prison in the country.

New York Magazine reporter, Steve Fishman, who recently wrote a cover story on Madoff, tells CNBC that "Butner looks like a college campus. It's got lawns and trimmed hedges. If you've been to other penitentiaries, state penitentiaries, federal penitentiaries, maximum security, you know that Butner is a great place to end up." .....

Reporter's Notebook: Bernard Madoff's Life Behind Bars - CNBC, 2010 August 25, by Scott Cohn

..... Some news outlets have turned to his fellow inmates—and former inmates — to try and learn about Madoff's life in Butner. But as I told the producers of "American Greed: Madoff Behind Bars," those inmates' accounts should be taken with a hunk of salt.

After all, these inmates are convicted criminals. There is even talk that some are demanding payments for themselves or their families for Madoff-related tips.

Here is what we do know about Madoff's life in prison, based on interviews with confidential sources and a general knowledge of how the federal prison system works:

Life in prison is no country club, even in a low- or medium-security facility of the type where Madoff is housed. Every moment there is dictated by the prison authorities, so an inmate's life is not his own. .....

While maddening to his victims and to authorities, the fact that his cooperation has been limited to some help locating assets — he hasn't ratted anyone out — can't hurt him behind bars. One thing that inmates hate is a snitch. And Madoff clearly is not one. In the unwritten inmates' code, that gains him a higher place in the prison pecking order. .....

[Liz]

Madoff is stingy about giving L/E help locating assets he secreted on 2-3 continents......this is maddening to the victims he cheated and to authorities.

L/E should check this out: The Lipstick Building where he did business is owned by the Israeli govt. An ideal scheme would be to charge phony rent, and fees for remodeling, upkeep, housekeeping, etc——tax-free monies that are then laundered and secretly deposited in an Israeli bank.

The govt takes a cut-—the rest is for Madoff.

Israel is the only place in the world where an individual can debark, go to a bank with a suitcase full of cash, and nobody asks where it came from, or if taxes were paid on it.

Israel wants the law changed (not nice to be known as a money laundering haven). But Orthodox political parties balked.

[Condor51]

This gubmint lawsuit against the 'net winners' is exactly what I've been waiting for.

This is what my friend 'Murphy' got hit with around 1998-1999, after he got sucked into a investment ponzi scheme, but was unlucky to be one of the first in.

He lost everything he had - his house, business, and all his money. If it had value the gubmint took it. He had to go back to work at the company he once owned as a sales rep and move into a one bedroom condo.

[Liz]

By not cooperating with L/E, Madoff is STILL engaged in a cover-up....he's protecting the insiders who helped him perpetrate the crimes AND he's protecting his wealthy investors (some of whom who were in on the scam).

Keep in mind that Madoff was running multiple scams with the knowledge and consent of wealthy businessman:

(1) a Ponzi fraud that made him and his family personally wealthy;

(2) laundering tax-free money from "foundations and charities" of wealthy "philanthropists,"

(3) IRS fraud facilitation for wealthy businessmen;

(4) a protection racket (shielding his investors from federal scrutiny);

(5) laundering tax-free money that was donated to Democrat candidates (campaign fraud).

The court appointed trustee looking into Madoff's assets unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth...... with assets and businesses in 11 separate places overseas.

[Condor51]

*** Keep in mind that Madoff was running multiple scams with the knowledge and consent of wealthy businessman: ***

Yep, I don't doubt that a bit.
IMO he should be water-boarded, or outright tortured, to give it all up.

All these rat basturds who pull ponzi schemes deserve no mercy. They know that eventually it'll all blow up and the people they've scammed will be ruined.

The bottom line is they're nothing but thieves. And I HATE thieves. To me they're one step up above child molesters.