Bernie Madoff 'Doing Fine' in Prison Despite Heart Issues, Few Visitors

ABC News ^ | Feb 2, 2016 | BRIAN ROSS RHONDA SCHWARTZ MEGAN CHRISTIE

[nickcarraway]

Despite an issue with his heart, 77-year old Bernard Madoff is “doing as well as can be expected” serving a 150 year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina, according to Ira Sorkin, the lawyer who represented him when he pleaded guilty to the largest financial crime in American history.

“I think he’s had a little bout, little bit of a heart problem,” Sorkin told ABC News.

Most troubling to Madoff, according to Sorkin and several inmates who served time with him, is that his wife Ruth stopped visiting him years ago and none of his grandchildren have come to see him either.

He has “regret at what he put his family through,” said Sorkin.

But Madoff has done little to express his remorse or regret to the estimated 20,000 investors in his scheme, many of whom lost their life savings in the $64 billion fraud.

Other than a brief reference to his victims during his sentencing hearing, Madoff has spent a lot of his time behind bars in an effort to rehabilitate his own image and actually shift the blame to the investors for expecting unrealistic returns which he claims is why he set up his fraud.

“I’m not a horrible person,” he told a reporter for New York magazine, Steve Fishman, in a telephone call. “I just allowed myself to be talked into something and that’s my fault.”

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[Liz]

When he went to jail, investigators found Ponzi King Bernie Madoff had stashed billions offshore---into a labyrinth of financial entities.

COLLUSION AND CONSPIRACIES GALORE Some $8.9 billion was funneled to Madoff through a dozen so-called feeder funds based in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America......a labyrinth of hedge funds, management companies and service providers that, to unsuspecting outsiders, seemed to compose a formidable system of checks and balances.

But the purpose of this complex architecture was just the opposite: the feeder funds provided different modes for directing money to Madoff in order to avoid scrutiny.

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WIKI.COM NAILS THE MADOFF OPERATION Stanley Chais, a philanthropist who invested heavily with Mr. Madoff, and Carl J. Shapiro, one of the money manager's oldest friends, are among at least eight Madoff investors and associates being scrutinized by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. Prosecutors are continuing to probe Madoff family members and employees.

Others include: Frank Avellino, a Florida accountant who ran an investment fund that invested client money; Noel Levine, a real-estate investor who works out of a two-room office on the 17th floor, next door to Madoff's fraudulent investment operation, and Palm Beach investor Robert Jaffe, a son-in-law of Mr. Shapiro who referred potential investors to Madoff.

Entity called Madoff Securities International Ltd.----In 2008, about $1 billion was transferred between Madoff’s U.S. firm and Madoff Securities International Ltd. in London. On March 24, 2009 Judge Louis L. Stanton granted power of attorney to Irving Picard, trustee, over Madoff's controlling stake in London.

Authorities in the U.K. are seeking evidence of money laundering involving the London business, Madoff Securities International Ltd., which opened in 1983 as a separate legal entity from Mr. Madoff's U.S. New York office. He allegedly sent more than $250 million beginning as early as 2002, from his New York-based firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to the U.K. office and then back to accounts in the U.S.

In 2000, Madoff began to add staff and expand the operation, and loaned the business $62.5 million. He had a staff of 25, including traders, managers and support. Instructions to staff was that they communicate with Madoff Securities through personal e-mail accounts, not through company e-mail.

There were nine directors. Family members with shares included Mark and Andrew Madoff, Peter Madoff, and Bernard himself. Ruth Madoff, Bernard Madoff's wife, also held shares. [8] Non-family members with shares included Maurice J. "Sonny" Cohn. Madoff and Cohn were shareholders in Cohmad Securities, which steered investors to Mr. Madoff's advisory business.

In 1987, Mr. Cohn had shares of Madoff Holdings Ltd., a predecessor to the current London firm. In 1998, Mr. Cohn held 35,624 non-voting shares, some of which he transferred to "BL Madoff" in 1998, and the rest that he "disposed of" in 2004.

Paul Konigsberg, a New York City accountant and a longtime friend for more than 25 years, prepared two Madoff Family Foundation tax returns, and received the non-voting shares, valued at $35,000. He did work for the London office when it was first opened. [8] A general ledger of Madoff accounts listed Konigsberg, of the reputable accounting firm of Konigsberg, Wolf & Co., as receiving $30,000 a month to advise the MSIL operations, and funnel client checks to the London office for Madoff's own use.[9]

Clients were often directed to Mr. Konigsberg by Mr. Madoff and his family. Mr. Konigsberg prepared the tax returns of foundations of six other families, many of which have lost millions, even hundreds of millions, of dollars. He also represented scores of individual Madoff investors.

Mr. Konigsberg's firm has received a civil subpoena from the SEC. His Madoff-related clients included Carl and Ruth Shapiro, Boston philanthropists whose foundation lost $145 million, and whose son-in-law, Robert M. Jaffe, under investigation, is a Madoff business partner.[9][10]

Konigsberg held Madoff accounts under his name including two in the name of the Westlake Foundation. Paul J. and Judith Konigsberg are officers and directors of the foundation. He owns homes in his wife, Judith's name in Greenwich, Connecticut and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.[11]

On April 20, 2009, Steven Leber filed a $4 million lawsuit against Konigsberg and his accounting firm for negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty.[12] Konigsberg answered the charges with affirmative defenses.[13]

Evidence is being gathered by investigators on a U.S.-U.K. task force that Konigsberg and Levy, a real-estate mogul and philanthropist are believed to be involved in an international transfer of money. Levy is believed to have helped Paul Konigsberg funnel checks to London. And investigators in New York say there were billions of dollars worth of checks going back and forth between Madoff and Levy.

One Levy entity---a "do-good tax-exempt foundation" "says" it lost $224 million "investing" with Madoff. Supposedly the foundations helped the "less fortunate," especially ex-convicts.

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

Looks like Madoff helped himself to his "investors'" money---
they thought Madoff was just doing some money-laundering for them.

[ETL]

“Bernie Madoff ‘Doing Fine’ in Prison Despite Heart Issues, Few Visitors”

I’m sure Satan has visited him.

[gaijin]

I believe his son committed suicide by hanging himself.

[nickcarraway]

One did. The other died of cancer.

[GOPJ]

Hillary’s never shown remorse for any of the damage she’s done to other people either. Can we assume Bernie Madoff’s been a lifelong democrat..

[ken5050]

Big TV series about Madoff starting soon..starring Richard Dreyfus

[sheik yerbouty]

Compared to the 0bama crime family, he’s a piker..

[beelzepug]

He’s had a “little bit of a heart problem”? Seriously? The man has no heart!

[Liz]

A must watch.

[ColdOne]

I am really surprised he hasn’t had a accident while in prison by now.

[nickcarraway]

I heard the inmates love him.

[elcid1970]

When Madoff gets out, he’ll only be 200+ years old. Still time enough to start a new life.

;^)

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

One quirk of his that should be remembered was found in his charitable giving. If anyone set up any kind of “juvenile crime reform” organization that advocated that minors of any age *never* be punished for *any* crime, Madoff would pour money into it.

Any crime at all. Madoff didn’t care if some 17 year old gang banger slaughtered a nursing home with a machete. Madoff thought he shouldn’t even be arrested.

This is a profoundly twisted psychology, and you have to wonder how Madoff justified it.

[lacrew]

This story is no doubt meant to stir interest in the movie coming out soon.

The ‘media’ has very blurred lines these days.

[hinckley buzzard]

It is well known that psychopaths adapt well to any environment, immediately make themselves at home, and begin their games in a new setting. This is why a "life sentence" for such people is no punishment at all, and so no kind of substitute for the death penalty.

In the old Soviet union, those apparatchiks at or above a certain level who were found to be engaged in serious corruption, were executed. Maybe the best idea the Soviets ever had.

[stylin19a]

should anybody be really doing fine in prison ?

[Talisker]

This is a profoundly twisted psychology, and you have to wonder how Madoff justified it.

Quid pro quo to the political left so they would run interference for him against any investigations.

I guess he didn't pay enough, though.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I’m not so sure. He donated to a lot of leftist organizations, including a lot of well known ones, but these ones stood out. Little groups of just a few or only one person, but all with similar focus.