February 27, 2009 | 4:53 pm

Wiesel to Madoff: This Should Be Your Punishment

Posted by Rob Eshman

Elie Wiesel

Bernie Madoff should spend the rest of his life in a prison cell watching video screen testimonies of the people he has defrauded, bankrupted, ruined.

So says one of his mosty famous victims, Elie Wiesel.  The Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate and moral conscience of Western civilization was mugged by Madoff both personally—he and his wife lost their life savings—and also professionally—his Wiesel Foundation lost its entire endowment.

At a panel discussion in New York City this week, Wiesel spoke about his losses, and his preferred punishment for Madoff:

Asked what punishment he would like to see for Mr. Madoff, Mr. Wiesel said: “I would like him to be in a solitary cell with only a screen, and on that screen for at least five years of his life, every day and every night, there should be pictures of his victims, one after the other after the other, all the time a voice saying, ‘Look what you have done to this old lady, look what you have done to that child, look what you have done,’ nothing else.

Our thoughts: Wiesel is letting the bum off the hook too easily. Is it too late for President Obama to change his mind about torture?

Read the whole article here.

Even better, the brilliant Mark Pearlman at jinsider.com posted the whole transcript here.

February 19, 2009 | 5:22 pm

The first Madoff settlements come in

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I guess litigation was going to be more expensive for Banco Santander than settling with 70 percent of it’s clients:

“About 70 percent have already executed exchange agreements,” a lawyer, Sam Danon, told Judge Paul Huck of Federal District Court. “I believe somewhere in the area of 7 or 9 percent have rejected it. There’s a percentage that are still considering the agreement.”

The two sides in the Miami lawsuit also told the court that they had agreed to send a notice to Santander clients that outlines details of the pending Miami class action.

The final version of the notice, which explains that the lawsuit demands clients be made whole for their losses and that the compensation agreement releases all parties from further liability, should be ready in a week, lawyers said.

The notice will go to the about 30 percent of clients who have not yet settled, the lawyers said.

Santander offered to compensate all individual clients through the issuance of 1.38 billion euros ($1.75 billion) in preferential shares with an annual coupon of 2 percent.

The offer would cost Santander, the euro zone’s biggest bank, less than the 2.33 billion euros ($2.96 billion) it has acknowledged its clients may have lost to Mr. Madoff, lawyers for the plaintiffs have argued.

The lawsuit asked the court to halt the compensation plan, saying the settlement was “coercive” and fell far short of the compensation sought by the class-action suit.

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February 17, 2009 | 2:12 pm

Smashing good time with Madoff

Posted by Adam Wills

Got a spare $100 that wasn’t lost in the Ponzi scheme?

Consider Smash-Me Bernie, a devilish Bernard Madoff mini-me doll sporting a red suit, tail and pitchfork that comes with its own golden hammer, which you can use to smash the thing to pieces, The New York Daily News reports.

The maker hopes its “Smash-Me Bernie” doll—available online at minimemodelworks.com—could become a “Tickle Me Elmo” for grownups.

“A lot of people have been asking about it,” Graeme Warring of ModelWorks said Sunday at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

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February 16, 2009 | 3:03 pm

More fun with Madoff maps

Posted by Adam Wills

More interactive fun from the 13,000+ Madoff client list to indulge your schadenfreude. MapLarge.com has launched the Madoff Victim Map, an interactive heat map that shows the locations and density of Madoff clients.

Client locations are mapped with an icon showing the density of nearby Madoff clients (within 10 miles). The density of the clients is reflected in colors that range from from green (less density) to red (intense density). A look at the overall map of the United States shows the greatest density of Madoff clients is in Florida, New York and California (Los Angeles and the Bay Area).

The L.A. map, as would be expected, finds a heavy orange concentration in the affluent but geographically dense areas of Beverly Hills and Brentwood/Santa Monica. An orange cluster worth noting is the one rooted in the Encino and Sherman Oaks hills of the San Fernando Valley.

The map is also searchable by client name. You can enter keywords like “Jewish,” “Israel” and “trust,” which will give you a list of clients that meet your search request.

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February 11, 2009 | 5:07 pm

Israeli nonprofits honor Stanley Chais for years of charity

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: Weizmann

For decades, Stanley Chais was a deeply respected Beverly Hills investment manager and a major Jewish philanthropist. His Chais Family Foundation gave $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes here, in the former Soviet Union and in Israel. But then Bernard Madoff was arrested for the biggest Ponzi in history. Chais’ foundation had to close and suddenly he was being sued for $250 million by clients angry that he had invested their money with Madoff.

But on Monday night, some of Chais’ biggest Israeli beneficiaries remembered him for his years of charity. From the JPost:

Far from abandoning him, some 50 of the beneficiaries of his charitable endeavors took up the mantra that has guided his giving. Chais firmly believes that all Jews are responsible for each other. So the leaders of the organizations and institutions in which Chais vested some of that responsibility decided it was payback time; although they couldn’t give him back his money, they could certainly restore his dignity and pride.

In Israel, Chais sits on the boards of the Technion, the Weizmann Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has supported numerous other educational projects and has helped establish start-up companies, especially those that give immigrant scientists an opportunity to realize their potential. His son Mark, who lives in Israel and heads his own venture-capital company, joined Chais in several start-up ventures.

Now ailing, the senior Chais was unable to attend the tribute organized for him at the Jerusalem Music Academy on HU’s Givat Ram campus. But his son was there to hear the outpouring of appreciation, admiration and concern for a man who has done so much not only for higher education and start-up companies, but also for hospitals, museums, cultural institutions and individuals who have been awarded scholarships that he established.

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February 11, 2009 | 5:00 pm

Madoff’s wife reportedly withdrew $15.5 million before his arrest

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Ruth Madoff, the wife of Bernard Madoff, withdrew $15.5 million from a Madoff-related brokerage firm in the weeks before Mr. Madoff’s arrest, according to the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

A complaint filed Wednesday by Secretary William Galvin’s office said Ruth Madoff withdrew $5.5 million on Nov. 25 and $10 million on Dec. 10, according to documents from Cohmad Securities, which was co-owned by Mr. Madoff and which the Massachusetts office is investigating. Mr. Madoff was arrested Dec. 11 on allegations of perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme.

Mrs. Madoff’s attorney, Ira Sorkin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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February 6, 2009 | 2:45 pm

Mapping Madoff’s victims

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Wall Street Journal

Adam mentioned yesterday that you can now search the 162-page list filed in New York court that names some 13,000 Madoff victims. What’s surprising is, actually, how few of them live here in Los Angeles.

Based on talk at places like Hillcrest and all the attention paid to Stanley Chais as one of Madoff’s primary feeders, I would have thought that L.A.‘s Madoff hangover was behind only New York and South Florida. In fact, Madoff’s body count in Minneapolis rivaled that in Los Angeles. Dollars and cents is unclear, but considering the the Twin Cities’ populations, the proportion of investors must have been dramatically higher.

The oddest image on the map? Denver. Seriously. Look at it. The red-dot of pain covers almost the entire state of Colorado.

For more, check out the Wall Street Journal’s map and list here.

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February 5, 2009 | 9:44 pm

Local Madoff victims revealed online

Posted by Adam Wills

About 13,500 former Madoff clients were named today in the first official filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. As the God Blog reported earlier, Sandy Koufax was added to the growing list of celebrity clients—Kyra Sedgwick, Larry King, Kevin Bacon, Steven Spielberg—swindled in the $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

But the same 162-page list that outed the Dodger great also spilled details about ordinary folk, including those who live here in Southern California. The L.A. Daily News has posted a searchable database of California Madoff victims. The searches list only names, cities and zip codes; no amounts were given in today’s court filing.

If you’re still craving more detail (sans dollar figures), you can download all of Exhibit A here, titled simply “Customers.” The list includes mostly individuals, trusts and funds—few charities and institutions—with some names repeated multiple times, which could indicate multiple accounts with Madoff.

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