Posted on 12/27/2008 3:19:49 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
'Forrest Gump' Eric Roth screenwriter sues over Madoff losses
BY SOO YOUN and OWEN MORITZ
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Saturday, December 27th 2008, 1:21 AM
The writer of a string of Hollywood hits - including "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - sued his investment manager Friday for losing a bundle in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Screenwriter Eric Roth claims his "trusted investment manager," Stanley Chais, "simply handed off" his money to Madoff while collecting "enormous fees."
When he learned of his "heavy" losses last week: Roth exclaimed: "I'm the biggest sucker who ever walked the face of the Earth. The tragedy is the people who lost their life savings and their dreams."
Madoff is accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme on charities, Yeshivas and high-rollers around the world, including New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
In papers filed in Los Angeles, Roth - also authored the screen versions of "Forrest Gump" and "The Horse Whisperer" - claims he suffered "massive losses" at the hands of Chais.
Roth, listing himself as the trustee for Vanessa Productions Ltd. profit-sharing plan, charged Chais "funneled to Madoff the billions of dollars in investment capital that he needed to perpetuate his confessed Ponzi scheme."
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Ping!
Wait until Bernie Madoff’s defense comes out -— “I was bi-polar and taking lots of meds”
This scandal is a real jolt to the Jewish people of which I am one. Too much worshiping of the Golden Calf
“Screenwriter Eric Roth claims his “trusted investment manager,” Stanley Chais, “simply handed off” his money to Madoff while collecting “enormous fees.”
Stupid is as stupid does.
This Roth also wrote the screenplay for “The Horse Whisperer” which was a very nice film. Scarlett Johanson was in it in her pre-ho look days
Yes, this is the blow from the least expected character. Blitzed from the blind side.
Oh-Bama will make it all better after he is inaugurated. /s.
I believe the SEC already laid the groundwork for a bail out declaring, "We were at fault. We didn't do enough."
Too many high rollers in this to fail.
Huh? “...least expected character.”
Least expected by whom?
A gov’t. bailout on the horizon???
We just saw Benjamin Button. Really great movie-a tad long,
but story and acting driven.
OK, let’s back up. These people were making one of two assumptions if they think that Madoff just simply “couldn’t” do something like this to them.
There are really only two perspectives I could see holding sway here:
1. Jews don’t do things like this? This is easily proven a silly assumption by even a cursory examine of US business scandals and crimes in the last 20 years,
or
2. Jews do commit financial crimes and swindles... just not on other Jews.
So, let’s debunk #1: without even thinking hard, I can rattle off the following names:
Sam Israel III (the recent fugitive hedge fund guy who tried to fake is own suicide), Martin Frankel, Kobi Alexander, Marc Rich, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, the whole Antar clan (ie, the Crazy Eddie scam of the 80’s), Barry Minkow (of ZZZ Best fame)...
So it ain’t like Jews are pure as the driven snow where financial scandals are concerned.
Madoff simply raised the stakes a couple orders of magnitude, that’s all.
As to assumption #2 — that’s always a really dangerous assumption. “Oh, he’s in the business of being a crook, but he wouldn’t do that do *me*, because [fill in this blank]...”
Why the hell would anybody allow someone else to MANAGE their $$$$
When I watch those video clips of Bernie Madoff walking to his car, I get the impression that he has a goofy smirk on his face.
Anyone else notice this?
When I watch those videos, I wonder if he’s wearing a kevlar vest.
The majority of Madoff fleecing victims had no idea they were invested with Madoff. Funds parked assets with Madoff to avoid SEC notice that the $$ was actually moving from the Funds to Madoff’s balance sheet. They were never informed, and had no ability to find out, that the money was with Madoff. Even if they knew it, they’d need a PHD in advanced mathmatic theory to figure out what was going on with Madoffs high-volume investment supercomputer programs.
The people who got truly robbed in this were the soft millionaires, people who both earned and were still in the process of earning that money. Newsflash, Freepers: You cant work the 60-80 hrs/week to make that money, then somehow magically invent another 60-80 hrs a week to manage your own investments on a hr-by-hr basis. If you try, you can forget about the whole ‘married with children’ thing.
A lot of these people were robbed of their life savings, outright, while the policing agencies their taxes were removed to fund were playing FreeCell and masterbating to pictures of Alan Greenspan.
For others whose broker ended up parking money at Madoff's outfit, it is of course a different story.
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