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.

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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February 4, 2009 | 10:34 pm

Did Madoff cost this guy more in his divorce?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This makes sense. Whether the man will prevail in court, we’ll have to see.

From Reuters:

A New York lawyer who invested millions of dollars with accused swindler Bernard Madoff sued his ex-wife on Tuesday for the return of part of their divorce settlement, saying he was misled about his actual worth.

Steven Simkin and Laura Blank held $5.4 million in a Madoff account, according to a statement provided by Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities at the time of the couple’s separation in 2004, the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court said.

Simkin paid Blank, his wife of 30 years, half as part of their uncontested divorce settlement, the lawsuit said. That meant she avoided losses caused by Madoff’s alleged fraud.

“Unknown to Steven and Laura, the ‘account,’ whose valuation was critical to the parties’ agreement, was a sham and fiction,” the lawsuit said.

“Laura obtained a windfall and Steven did not receive an equitable share of the couple’s joint assets ... It is only fair and equitable for Laura to shoulder some of that harm.”

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February 4, 2009 | 1:56 pm

Wall Street Journal missed Madoff fraud three years ago

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Harry Markopolos, the now-famous accountant who years ago tried to blow the whistle on Madoff, testified before a House panel today. Turns out the SEC wasn’t the only regulator of the free markets that dropped the ball and couldn’t see what Markopolos saw. Three years ago, he contacted the Wall Street Journal too.

He told the panel:

“[Pat Burns, communications director at Taxpayers Against Fraud] put me in contact with John Wilke, senior investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau. Mr. Wilke and I would become friends over the next three years. Unfortunately, as eager as Mr. Wilke was to investigate the Madoff story, it appears that the Wall Street Journal’s editors never gave him approval to start investigating. As you will see from my extensive e-mail correspondence with him over the next several months, there were several points in time in which he was getting ready to book air travel to start the story and then would get called off at the last minute. I never determined if the senior editors at the Wall Street Journal failed to authorize this investigation.”

Those e-mails can be read here.

(Hat tip: Jay Rosen)

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February 2, 2009 | 8:51 pm

Madoff’s Kin Change Their Names

Posted by Rob Eshman

The New York Post reports today that some family members of self-confessed swindler Bernard Madoff are considering a name change:

UNLESS you’re Bernie Madoff and living under house arrest in a luxurious penthouse, it’s not easy being a Madoff these days. That’s why some family members are considering changing the last names of Bernie’s grandkids, who go to one of the more prestigious prep schools uptown, sources say. There is also buzz that Deborah Madoff, wife of the alleged Ponzi scammer’s son, Andrew, didn’t move fast enough when she filed for divorce the day before the scheme collapsed. “Whatever she negotiates in a divorce settlement, she won’t be able to collect,” said one insider. “She’ll be treated like all the other creditors.” Lawyers for Andrew, Deborah and Bernie had no comment.

One comment: We would too.

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February 2, 2009 | 5:17 pm

‘The Talented Mr. Madoff’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I made the mistake in high school of taking a date to see “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” If you’ve seen the film, you know it isn’t exactly “Serendipity.” Worse yet, we got there just before showtime and had to sit in the front section—for two and a half hours. And I wear glasses, which meant I had to cock my neck back even farther. All that to say my impression of Mr. Ripley was that he was a bad dude, though I didn’t really need the movie-going experience to tell me that; it could have been gleaned from the scene in which he bludgeons Jude Law with an oar.

Clearly Bernard Madoff has done broader damage. But was he as troubled a villain? In its continuing coverage of the Bernard Madoff investment scandal, The New York Times published a lengthy profile last Sunday of “The Talented Mr. Madoff.”  Here’s a bit of the opening:

While he managed billions of dollars for individuals and foundations, he shunned one-on-one meetings with most of his investors, wrapping himself in an Oz-like aura, making him even more desirable to those seeking access.

So who was the real Bernie Madoff? And what could have driven him to choreograph a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, to which he is said to have confessed?

An easy answer is that Mr. Madoff was a charlatan of epic proportions, a greedy manipulator so hungry to accumulate wealth that he did not care whom he hurt to get what he wanted.

But some analysts say that a more complex and layered observation of his actions involves linking the world of white-collar finance to the world of serial criminals.

They wonder whether good old Bernie Madoff might have stolen simply for the fun of it, exploiting every relationship in his life for decades while studiously manipulating financial regulators.

“Some of the characteristics you see in psychopaths are lying, manipulation, the ability to deceive, feelings of grandiosity and callousness toward their victims,” says Gregg O. McCrary, a former special agent with the F.B.I. who spent years constructing criminal behavioral profiles.

Mr. McCrary cautions that he has never met Mr. Madoff, so he can’t make a diagnosis, but he says Mr. Madoff appears to share many of the destructive traits typically seen in a psychopath. That is why, he says, so many who came into contact with Mr. Madoff have been left reeling and in confusion about his motives.

“People like him become sort of like chameleons. They are very good at impression management,” Mr. McCrary says. “They manage the impression you receive of them. They know what people want, and they give it to them.”

As investigators plow through decades of documents, trying to decipher whether Mr. Madoff was engaged in anything other than an elaborate financial ruse, his friends remain dumbfounded — and feel deeply violated.

“He was a hero to us. The head of Nasdaq. We were proud of everything he had accomplished,” says Diana Goldberg, who once shared the 27-minute train ride with Mr. Madoff from their homes in Laurelton, Queens, to classes at Far Rockaway High School. “Now, the hero has vanished.”

Read the rest here.

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