June 29, 2009 | 11:41 am

Madoff Gets 150 Years in Prison

Posted by JewishJournal.com

Photo courtesy U.S. Dept. of Justice

by Jacob Berkman, JTA

Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail, the maximum sentence allowed for his crimes.

U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin during Monday’s sentencing called Madoff’s crimes “staggering.”

Madoff, 71, confessed to bilking investors of up to $65 billion in his Ponzi scheme.

Prosecutors had sought the 150-year sentence. Madoff’s lawyers had asked for leniency and a 12-year sentence.

Chin noted that not one of Madoff’s friends or family members asked for leniency for Madoff, and that Madoff had not fully cooperated in the investigation into his crimes, according to the Washington Post.

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June 29, 2009 | 11:20 am

The Sentencing of Bernie Madoff

Posted by JewishJournal.com

From HuffingtonPost.com:

Victims who lost millions of dollars in the multibillion-dollar fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff described their ruined lives Monday to the judge sentencing the 71-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman.

Madoff, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and a tie, sat and listened as emotional witnesses described how he spoiled their security, and they urged U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to send him to prison for life. Read the full story at HuffingtonPost.com.

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June 24, 2009 | 2:53 pm

Can You Say “Chutzpah?”

Posted by Rob Eshman

Story just broke that Madoff asked his judge at sentencing for 12 years for committing the LARGEST FRAUD IN HISTORY.

Madoff’s attorney calls it an “effective life sentence” since Madoff is now 71 years old:

Bernard Madoff asked a federal judge this week to sentence him to as little as 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to operating a massive, decades- long Ponzi scheme.

In a letter filed late Monday and made public Tuesday, Ira Sorkin, a lawyer for Madoff, asked U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to sentence his client to less than a life sentence.

“Mr. Madoff is currently 71 years old and has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years,” Sorkin said. “A prison term of 12 years — just short of an effective life sentence — will sufficiently address the goals of deterrence, protecting the public and promoting respect for the law without being greater than necessary to achieve them.”

Sentencing is set for Monday.

I know plenty of healthy, hearty 83 year-old Jewish men.  Madoff’s victims made clear during the sentencing phase that they want him to die in jail—a pnishment that many still consider too kind.

Meanwhile, here’s my big unanswered question:  what’s with his sons? 

Read the rest of the Denver Post story here.

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May 13, 2009 | 12:59 pm

Madoff Revealed

Posted by Susan Freudenheim

For anyone lost in the Madoff mire, who wants a thorough and gripping backgrounder, Frontline‘s report is a must-see. The show explores how the SEC missed all the warnings, and includes lengthy interviews with “feeder” Michael Bienes as well as some victims.

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May 6, 2009 | 4:38 pm

Madoff’s Secretary Squeals…Sorta [VIDEO]

Posted by Susan Freudenheim

Eleanor Squillari, Bernie Madoff’s personal assistant spilled few beans on the Today Show this morning, but she did her best to make it seem like she was.

“I know that he knew it was all going down,” she said, explaining that after Madoff’s office had been searched and before his arrest, he called in to ask her “Did they check my appointment book?” Squillari said that question made her think he’d staged everything. “I believe he is protecting people,” she said. And without pointing direct fingers she added, “Ruth is very sharp,” referring to Madoff’s wife, who she said often came to the office to handle invoices and the personal checkbooks.

Squillari’s also written the lead story in the June Vanity Fair, which the VF website describes as “explosive.” We can hope…But there’s one more obvious question: When’s the book deal announcement?

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April 28, 2009 | 12:33 pm

Bernie Madoff’s business auctioned for $25.5 million

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Only Bernie Madoff makes $25.5 million look like a bad sell. After swindling multiple billions from people all over the country, the sale of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC for $25.5 million won’t do much to compensate victims of his fraud. Worth only a token of its former value, a Boston financial company agreed to purchase the firm by paying $1 million now and the rest in deferred payments to Madoff victims by 2013. A stingy compensation when your bottom line is $60 billion.

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bernard Madoff’s market-making business was sold at an auction on Monday to Castor Pollux Securities LLC for up to $25.5 million, a fraction of what it was worth previously, as part of an increasingly contentious global effort to recover money for the swindler’s defrauded customers.

The court-appointed trustee winding down Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC said in a statement late on Monday that the Boston financial company will pay $1 million at closing and up to $24.5 million in deferred compensation through December 2013.

Three bidders competed in the auction for the trading unit, which was once worth $1 billion. Castor Pollux originally bid $15.5 million in March.

“The auction today yielded a higher and better offer for the market-making business,” trustee Irving Picard said. “The additional consideration that we will receive as a result of the auction will benefit Madoff’s victims.”

He said the deal allows Madoff’s victims to participate in future earnings of the business. The New York lawyer has said he has recovered only about $1 billion in assets of Madoff, who ran a worldwide fraud that drew in as much as $65 billion.

In the protracted process that invariably attends the retrieval of assets in such frauds, 223 individual and institutional investors have been told by Picard to return a total of $735 million in profits or be sued.

The so-called “clawback” has been feared by these direct investors, who withdrew money in the six years before the discovery of the massive fraud last December, the biggest investment scam in Wall Street history.

“People are invited to provide their valid defenses against a potential lawsuit…If they have one, the trustee would not commence any action,” said a source familiar with the position of the trustee.

Other investors continue to use the courts to stake claims, notably one lawsuit in the past week by an investor against Madoff’s banker JP Morgan Chase, which the investor accuses of knowing that the billions it held in Madoff money was part of a fraud.

The bank denied the allegations that if it had shut down the Madoff accounts in September, when it withdrew its own money out of a Madoff “feeder fund” run by Fairfield Greenwich Group, the $12.8 million of Florida plaintiff MLSMK Investments Co would not have been lost.

Fairfield has also been sued by investors for fraud and charged by Massachusetts state regulators.

Madoff, 70, a former nonexecutive chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, was arrested on December 11 and pleaded guilty on March 12 to charges including securities fraud, money-laundering and perjury. He is in jail pending his scheduled June sentencing.

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April 24, 2009 | 12:40 pm

Madoff the movie

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Madoff Insider Interview Edmund Druilhet from edmund druilhet on Vimeo.

Madoff for cable? The Fundermentalist found this report on The Insider about “casting America’s most hated man.” Not sure why they say the “reviled Wall Street greedmonger who was allegedly behind a $65 billion scam.” Um, he pretty much admitted to it. No, wait. He did. In fact, last month he plead guilty.

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April 14, 2009 | 1:16 pm

Madoff Finally Sees Real Returns…on his Mets tickets.

Posted by Jay Firestone

It seems not all of Bernie Madoff’s investments have been crippled by inflated promises and nonexistent profit.  His opening day Mets’ tickets earned a 614 percent return, selling for $7500 for the pair.

From CNBC:

“Bernie Madoff’s two tickets for Opening Day at the Mets new stadium Citi Field have sold on eBay for $7,500.

The tickets for Monday’s game in the Delta Club Platinum level were auctioned off by trustee Irving Picard.

The tickets might have been Madoff’s best investment yet. The face value of the tickets are $525 each, meaning the trustee’s return on investment was 614 percent.

But that profit of course represents only a small percentage of money that will eventually be seen by investors who lost so much in the ponzi scheme.

It appears as though the tickets themselves had a premium value associated with it because of Madoff’s name. A pair of two tickets near the Madoff seats can be had on StubHub for less than $2,000.” more at CNBC.com

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