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GET A GRIP PICARD.  STOP VICTIMIZING THESE PEOPLE A 2ND TIME.  EVERYONE KNOWS THE MONEY YOU WILL RECOVER WILL GO TO PAD YOUR POCKETS AND THE REST OF YOUR TEAM.  YOU MAKE OUT THE BEST IN THIS SITUATION AND THOSE INVESTORS WILL ONLY GET PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR.

Comment by RK on 5/04/09 at 9:14 am

I am a former Madoff investor. We have a proactive group of over 400 other investors that have come together in an effort to find recovery. Together, we offer support and knowledge. This is a secure group that empowers victims to change the system that allowed this fraud to happen and allows them to unite in restitution. This effort will help us go from victims to victors.
If you are a victim, or know someone who is, please go to: bernardmadoffvictims.org. We feel there is strength in numbers and as such, have made contact with many legislators in an effort to get fair and just recovery.
For more information about the group, visit the following websites:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Bernard-Madoff-Victims-Get-by-Ronnie-Sue-Ambrosi-090502-800.html  and
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100601125  and
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/personal-finance/financial-planning/mad...          and
http://www.foxbusiness.com/video-search/m/21941880/tax-break-for-madoff-...      and
http://www.wowowow.com/politics/madoff-victims-come-together-find-justice-or-least-little-relief-232446>           
We know that together we will prevail.
Ronnie Sue Ambrosino
Bernardmadoffvictims org

Comment by Ronnie Sue Ambrosino on 5/04/09 at 9:32 am

I’m surprised to see commenters showing up in many news stories, attacking the Trustee.  I wonder who they really are.

The Trustee seems to be doing his job, and earning his money, by locating significant funds that can go to the real victims.  Though it’s not entirely clear, the Trustee seems to have indicated that they will try to deal fairly in the end with those who can show that they were actually net losers in the scheme.

Chais’ complaints about losses aside, I have yet to see any clear accounting about whether they might have actually come out ahead - and it may be that it is going to take this lawsuit to reveal the truth.  Even if losses are hundreds of millions, if they don’t amount to the full billion or so of profit, then most or all of the remaining difference should go to the real victims of the scheme.

Chais’ role in this is looking more and more curious; at a minimum, he appears to have been rewarded amazingly for doing little more than being a glib cashier for Madoff.  And it’s interesting to see that Madoff’s scheme had higher payouts for favored individuals.

Comment by J Goldstein on 5/04/09 at 10:08 am

Mr. Goldstein,
This information from Milberg LLP—Seeger Weiss,dated
January 27, 2009 may explain the roll of the trustee.
“SIPC cases generally proceed in essentially two broad phases. In the first phase, the Trustee obtains information about the case and the bankrupt entity, obtains information about
customers and assets, seeks to identify and find assets including hidden assets, analyzes and
investigates possible claims against third parties, and liquidates the assets as quickly as possible.
Press reports that the Trustee is trying to sell the brokerage business reflect the Trustee’s
activities in this phase. Normally, during this phase, the Trustee does not even consider, let alone attempt to deal with, creditor (customer) claims against third parties or matters connected with the distribution of assets. This phase could be called the collection phase. The SIPC statute suggests that SIPC insured claims should be paid quickly and should not await the completion of the first phase, but such payments could be delayed by the complexity of the Trustee’s task and
legal uncertainties.
The second phase deals with questions of distribution of assets, payment of claims and possible litigation of claims belonging to the estate. Here, this phase would include reviewing the SIPC claims (unless done earlier), allocating any assets of existing accounts to those accounts, rights against customers and other parties, and payment of claims of customers. For
various reasons, claims of customers, other than the amount covered by SIPC insurance, are not likely to be paid until all or most claims are determined. Also, before paying claims, the Trustee is likely to seek a determination of any litigation claims against customers. In short, any prediction of the timing of insured payments is premature, and any payments of customer claims other than SIPC insured claims are unlikely for several years or longer.”

From the bernardmadoffvictims.org website:
“SIPC’s been narrowing the definition of customers, narrowing the definition of securities, and now they’re trying to change the definition of net equity so essentially it won’t cover any broker ponzi scheme - even tho SIPA is supposed to cover broker theft.

When SIPA was passed, there were no hedge funds or IRA’s really, which is why all of these laws have to be updated. Realistically, updating may be possible, given the Madoff scandal, the other scandals bound to emerge and the new administration.

But right now, we’ve had an uphill battle just trying to get SIPC not to cheat people obviously covered by the law.”

I hope this explains why the trustee is NOT doing his job.
To that end, the victims are trying to work with the SEC, which has oversight for SIPC, to make them enforce their own rules.
We have received support from Cong Klein (FL) and Cong Wexler (FL) in this effort.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Bernard-Madoff-Victims-Get-by-Ronnie-Sue-Ambrosi-090502-800.html

I hope this explains some of the issues the investors are forced to deal with, in addition to trying to pay their bills and survive.

Comment by Ronnie Sue Ambrosino on 5/04/09 at 10:29 am

I don’t think Picard is victimizing the investors a second time.  He is showing direct evidence that Chais and his family were backdating stock buys and sells to evade taxes.  If a person reads Picard suit that he filed, Chais and his family in the most beguiling case, backdated the selling of Dell Stock in the 1997 or around that time, and didn’t realize that Dell stock split during the allege selling.  There are other dubious backdating of stock purchases and selling.  Besides implausible gains in Chais Families’ trust, and miraculous losses when tax filings came around.

What Picard is showing through these public filings, it wasn’t just Bernie Madoff who ran this ponzi scam.  There were many benefactors of the scam including Stanley Chais.

Comment by Ferret on 5/04/09 at 3:32 pm

Oh my, I am sorry for the confusing. I am not saying that Chais and others knowingly involved with the fraud and who were benefactors shouldn’t be clawbacked and prosecuted. I wholeheartedly agree that anyone involved in perpetrating this mess should be made accountable and punished.

However, the investors (those who were unknowing of the fraud)should not be held in the same category as a knowing benefactor.

The investors who may have benefited (innocently) did so because we were told by the SEC that Madoff was a viable dealer-broker. There should be no penalty for us due to the negligence of the SEC.

Comment by Ronnie Sue Ambrosino on 5/04/09 at 3:46 pm

Mr.Chais and members of his family are well educated and of course they knew what was going on!! The charities were funded not be his $ but that of the other innocent victims/investors who never saw anywhere near the returns he and other friends of Madoff received.Mr. Picard is doing the best he can in a situation where it is becoming more obvious that he needs to protect some big political fish, not to mention the SEC and the fools that ran/run that organization and allowed this to continue warning after warning. While we wait to find the $ and the truth, the victims seek work and housing and a way to survive.  Not all of us were “big time” most were little guys who thought their life savings was in a safe place. There is no safe place on this earth…........

Comment by KW on 5/05/09 at 7:57 am

Ms. Ambrosino was enjoying double-digit returns while the unwashed were treading water with 5% CD’s.

Now her ilk is demanding the taxpayer pay for their hubris.

Comment by Ed on 5/05/09 at 11:54 am

ED, I can only assume you are uninformed and not totally ignorant or bigoted….....how do you define “ilk”??? and lets be honest if you could have invested your money and received 10-12% vs 5% would not you have done so?  Also, SIPC is insurance, just as if you had your house burn down and you had fire insurance wouldnt you be entilted to that?  What are you so angry about at least you still have you 5% CD how would you like to have 0, nada , nothing?????

Comment by KW on 5/05/09 at 6:14 pm

In response to ED.

Half of the fraud was gaining investors’ confidence.  Madoff work for years crafting and shaping his sales pitch.  He also had underlings do the sales pitch as well.  I think it is very sad and painful that Madoff clients have to give back money to the Bankruptcy court, but it is probably the best way to for the SIPC insurance program to work.  Clawback appears to be unfair, but in some ways it is the best way in an awful situation to reclaim as much money.  Besides any money withdrawn was other investors/victims’ money.

Stanley Chais’s clients/victims, I have no idea what they can reclaim.  Chais’s wasn’t a licensed broker or his funds weren’t under the SIPC program.  There may be SIPC protection because Madoff control all their funds, but Chais’s investors can probably only do civil suits to reclaim any funds.

Comment by Ferret on 5/05/09 at 6:43 pm

Let me try to explain:
There were different types of investors (aka Customers) with BMIS.
1. Direct Investors-individual investors whose investments and all dealings were done directly with BMIS and his employees.
2. Indirect Investors-individual investors whose investments and all dealings went through a third party in order to invest with BMIS. In this case, the feeder fund is considered to be the customer of BMIS.
Now, indirect investors may or may not have known that their portfolios were invested with BMIS. Some feeder funds were more tansparent than others.
Some of the feeder funds may not have known that BMIS was a fraudulent investment, some may have been complicit in the fraud.
In addition to individual investors, there were family funds, charitable funds, some accounts were Pension funds, some IRA accounts, etc.

I think you can see that this is a tangled web. How does Picard determine who knew and who didn’t know of the fraud? How can he take each customer on an individual basis and determine who is complicit and who is innocent? How long will this futile, subjective action take.
Elderly victims are forced to sell their homes. College students are being forced to quit school.Retirees are trying to reenter the work force. When will it end?

For the sake of a small amount of fraudulent investors, ALL investors are being forced to suffer while waiting for SIPC insurance payments.

The fact that this was all predicated and exasberated by the incompetence (negligence?) of the SEC is a fact that can not be denied or forgotten.

Comment by Ronnie Sue Ambrosino on 5/06/09 at 3:40 am

How does Picard determine who knew and who didn’t know?  Basically those who knew Madoff for years, those who other financial connections with Madoff, like auditing his foundation, those like Robert Jaffe, who got a cut of what clients he brought in, not on the performance..

On people who knew about the fraud, it isn’t Picard’s job to accuse, as much as send his finding to the Federal Prosecutors handling the investigation…

What I have been stating is that indirect investors like those with Stanley Chais funds, sound like they aren’t protected, becasue Chais wasn’t a licensed broker and therefore didn’t contributed to the SIPC fund.  It is up to the Bankruptcy court to decide who has SIPC protection or not.

Picard is going by previous case law, most notably the Bayou Fund fraud.  It is incredible painful to victims, to demand they return money they withdrew, but in Ponzi Schemes, it wasn’t their money they withdrew, it was someone else’s.  The money lost was the initial investment…  I realize being theoretical doesn’t alleviate the pain that Madoff’s victims feel as they are targets of a clawback.

SEC is one of part of incompetence in this saga.  Madoff knew how to evade oversight.  Another part was a retinue of people who helped keep this affinity fraud going, whether it was the accountants in Madoff’s life, Fund Managers who didn’t want to be responsible for the actual investments like Walter Noel or J. Ezra Merkin, and Madoff’s family.    The SEC blew it, and there was enough evidence before the 2006 informal investigation to close Madoff down, but there are many who couldn’t believe that Madoff was actually running a Ponzi scheme.

Comment by ferret on 5/06/09 at 2:07 pm

First, to Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, I was wondering about some of the commenters I’ve seen on several articles who seem to do nothing but attack the Trustee - often in all caps - rather than address issues.

As pointed out, another problem Chais has is that he wasn’t a registered investment advisor (and so not covered by the SIPC), though he probably should have been - a violation that the SEC apparently treats as a minor technical issue, but which seems to indict Chais further as a bad actor and perhaps increase his liability.  The other issue that raises, though, is why smaller and more vulnerable investors placed money with an unregistered advisor with no SIPC coverage, which should have raised red flags about risk in any due diligence examination.

SIPC coverage is not actually insurance, something which apparently wasn’t well enough understood, and which is part of the problem, though the way payments are being calculated is also controversial.  It probably should be more straightforward and reliable like FIDC coverage, for the actual amount an account is stated to hold, but that would have to be addressed by Congress - and financed by the securities industry - and even then individuals would still have to exercise discretion when making investments in accounts and amounts not covered by SIPC.

Comment by J Goldstein on 5/06/09 at 4:01 pm

thanks, For information about retirement investments visit site “www.growingmyira.com”

Comment by growingmyira on 8/25/10 at 1:16 am

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