Mark Madoff Found Dead In Manhattan On Dad's Arrest Anniversary! Assumed Suicide

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Mark Madoff, Oldest Son Of Bernie Madoff, Hangs Himself With Dog Leash In His SoHo Apartment



The eldest son of disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff hung himself Saturday with a dog leash on the second anniversary of his dad's arrest in the stunning $65 billion ripoff.

Mark Madoff, in desperate early morning e-mails to his wife, said he could no longer live with the curse put on the family by his disgraced dad, sources told the Daily News.

"At one point he said something like, 'You'll have a better life if I'm not around ... I love you ... Our son needs someone here,'" one source told the News.

Madoff, 46, was discovered hanging from a pipe inside the living room of his luxurious Mercer St. home in Soho around 7:30 a.m. by his father-in-law, who immediately called 911, the sources indicated.

Mark Madoff's 2-year-old son was asleep in another room, sources said, and his pet labradoodle was also in the home.

A despondent Madoff wrote his wife Stephanie that their family "would be better off without 'this' hanging over them all, forever," a second source said.

"He all but said he was going to kill himself - pointed enough for the wife to fear for his safety, and their child's safety."

Madoff's wife, who was out of town, was so upset that she called her father and sent him to the condo. The couple had two children, son Nicholas and older daughter Audrey.

The blood of the son was on the hands of his father, according to Mark Madoff's lawyer.

"Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime, who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo," said his attorney, Martin Flumenbaum.

"We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events."

NYPD detectives stood outside the family home as an SUV from the medical examiner's office arrived Saturday morning.

A police source describing the crime scene said Mark Madoff wore khaki pants, a dark blue pullover and white socks when he took his life.

Madoff's body was brought out of the posh building, where the condo owners include Jon Bon Jovi, at 12:22 p.m.

Mark Madoff joined his father's crooked business in 1986 and is a defendant in numerous civil suits, but he faces no criminal charges.

A law enforcement source said Mark Madoff was becoming increasingly concerned that would change.

"The son knew he was in the cross hairs," the source said. "At first he thought he would somehow skate, but once \[the trustee recovering assets for investors\] detailed the family theft, he knew his time was limited."

One day before his body was discovered, Madoff stopped by the garage where he parked his 2008 black Land Rover to drop off a Christmas card and a $400 tip.





Mark Madoff Had It All Before Dad's Billion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme Was Exposed


Mark Madoff, the handsome prince of Bernie Madoff's ill-gotten kingdom, lived the sweet life before his father's $65 billion scam imploded.

During one three-month period in 2008, he racked up more than $77,000 chartering private jets to hopscotch around the country.

He vacationed at his $6.5 million, 3.3 acre retreat in Nantucket and a stately farmhouse in tony Greenwich, Conn. The seasoned fly fishermen also frequently planned outdoor excursions.

"Mark loved his lifestyle, loved the fact he could fly on a private jet or walk into Dunhill and spend $200 on an umbrella," a trader told Vanity Fair in 2009.

His family life seemed just as enviable.

The 46-year-old had been happily married since 2003 to his second wife, Stephanie, a stunning blonde who was a rising star in the fashion industry. The couple had two young children and raised them in an exclusive SoHo building that rocker Jon Bon Jovi also called home.

At the Madoff firm, where he was an executive known for his charming salesmanship, Mark Madoff loved working closely with his younger brother, Andrew, and his father.

"What makes it fun for all of us is to walk into the office in the morning and see the rest of your family sitting there. That's a good feeling to have," Mark Madoff said in an interview in 2000 with Wall Street & Technology.

But the high life vanished exactly two years ago Saturday, when he and his brother turned their father in to the feds.

After his dad's arrest, Mark Madoff and his family became pariahs, and many victims believed he was complicit in the Ponzi scheme.

He and his family suffered death threats. A fusillade of lawsuits - including a $200 million claim by Bernie Madoff's bankruptcy trustee - has also restricted his spending and movement of finances.

The Madoff stigma became so bad that even his wife turned her back on his family's name. Last February, she petitioned a Manhattan judge to change her last name to Morgan.

Friends said Mark Madoff buckled under the infamy, withdrawing socially, obsessing over news accounts and fearing the possibility he would be criminally charged one day.

The stress exacerbated a chronic stomach-pain condition and frayed his marriage, according to reports.

On Oct. 15, 2009, NYPD cops searched for Mark Madoff after his wife frantically called to say he went missing and feared for his safety. The couple had argued earlier in the evening, prompting her husband - who apparently suffered from depression - to take off on his Vespa.

The next morning he returned home, telling cops he had spent the night at a hotel and that he would seek help from his doctor at Weill Cornell Medical Center.

But people who knew Mark Madoff said his father's disgrace continued to engulf him, leading to his suicide on Saturday.

"The pressure was mounting. The Picard suit, the anniversary. He's been upset for two years," a source said. "He's been trying to move on with his life but he wasn't successful."


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Charlotte Leaders Pay $2M For Park At Harry Jones' Church (Vote Buying Scheme)

Folks if this isn't an example of a Charlotte, NC Vote Buying Scheme (Black voters) I don't know what is.

Check out the video and article below.






Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Leaders Spend $2M In Tax Money For Park On Harry Jones' Church Land (Vote Buying Scheme)



At a time when Mecklenburg County is forced to cut almost 200 jobs from its Park and Recreation Department, the county budget sets aside $60,000 to plan a park that it cannot afford to build.

The NewsChannel 36 I-Team found Mecklenburg County set aside $2 million in a one-of-a-kind deal to build the park on property owned by a church, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church on Beatties Ford Road.

Few debate that the county could use more ball fields along Beatties Ford Road. But some fiscal conservatives have questioned how the church won the one-of-a-kind deal and why it is still funded in a time of sharp cutbacks.

Former Charlotte City Councilman Don Reid is one.

"I don't know how we can invest taxpayer money on a piece of property owned by a church," said Reid, who calls the process used to award the park "a good ole boy network again."

But Reid's so-called "good ole boy" network included an up-and-coming woman -- Mary E. Wilson.

Since the summer of 2008 Wilson has served as the director of Mecklenburg County's Department of Social Services. And the I-Team has raised questions about Wilson mixing state funds with her church -- Friendship Missionary Baptist.

In December 2008, Wilson spent $20,000 of public funds on caterers, entertainment and door prizes for a holiday party for all 1,200 DSS staff held at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. When questioned, a DSS spokeswoman said the county did not pay for the use of the church facility. She said it had been paid for by an anonymous donor.

But before her county job, Wilson earned more than $86,000 a year as the executive director of Friendship's Community Development Corporation.

And as executive director in 2006 she helped the church pitch its park plan to the county's Park and Recreation Commission. But in the summer of 2006, Wilson joined the very same Park and Rec Commission.

"Connect the dots," said Reid. "Friendship Baptist Church. Mary Wilson. Mary Wilson goes to the park board and the board then decides to fund the church's project."

Wilson abstained from voting on the Friendship Sportsplex and did not participate in discussion at the board meeting where the board approved the park. Experts in state conflict of interest law at the UNC School of Government tell the I-Team that Wilson apparently did not violate any rule or law.

"Personally, I wouldn't allow that to happen," said Park Director Jim Garges, who joined the department after the Friendship Park had passed the board but before it passed the County Commission. "There wasn't anything she (Wilson) did or anything I was aware of I would consider a conflict of interest."

But e-mails obtained by the I-Team show Wilson advocated for the park in March 2008 when it was pending before the County Commission.

When Park Commissioner Brad Pearce e-mailed staff that he was frustrated with the lack of information about the Friendship park, a project which he supported, it was Wilson who responded in less than an hour.

"Let's be reasonable and work together," Wilson wrote. "I am sensing a less than positive partnership tone."

While they may have had their differences on the way the park was handled, Pearce now says he believes Wilson handled her conflict of interest appropriately.

"Certainly no one at the church ever contacted me and asked for special treatment," Pearce said.

The I-Team tried to reach Wilson last week and this week through a county spokesman and by leaving a message on her cell phone. She did not return repeated calls.

But in a church with thousands of members, Wilson was not the only one with political clout.

County General Manager Bobbie Shields, who oversees the Park and Recreation Department, is also a member of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church.

But County Manager Harry Jones tells the I-Team that Shields turned over all control of the park awards to another general manager, John McGillicuddy. And Garges and Pearce both say Shields had no impact on the decision to locate the park at the church.

"Bobbie Shields had no influence over that decision," said Pearce.

"And, if anything, particularly with Bobbie, he went the other way -- 'Don't show me. Don't tell me. I don't want to know anything about it,'" said Garges.

(Some viewers have written that Harry Jones is also a member of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church but Jones told the I-Team he is not a member of the church.)

Under the terms of the lease agreement between Mecklenburg County and Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, the county leases the land for 40 years for the sum of $1, with the county retaining the right to renew the lease for another 40 years. The county agrees to build ball fields on the property. And the church gets first dibs on selling any concessions at no cost, keeping all the proceeds.

Most county parks sit on county land. Here and there Mecklenburg County has a boat ramp on Duke Energy property. The county once placed a track on the campus of Johnson C. Smith University. But for the most part, county planners envision putting parks on public land.

And when voters OK'd a public bond issue for parks in 2004, the Park and Recreation Commission anticipated allocating $8 million for joint public-private partnerships, but that the parks would be placed on county land.

In the case of two of the three winning projects, for the towns of Huntersville and Matthews, the parks went on public land. But in the case of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, the county entered into a unique lease.

Garges says Friendship was chosen because it had land available for a park and "If anybody else wants a park, give us a call."

But the county doesn't even have the money to build the Friendship Park, let alone take on new parks.

In a time of budget cutbacks, cutting about four out of every 10 park and rec employees, the new county budget contains a capital expense of $60,000 for this year and next to plan for the Friendship park, even though the county does not have the money to build it.


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Spitzer To AIG: "Show Us Company Ponzi Scheme E-mails!"

Show Us the E-Mails

(NY Times Op-Ed By ELIOT SPITZER, FRANK PARTNOY and WILLIAM BLACK)



We end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers’ 80 percent ownership stake in that company. The government recently permitted several banks to break free of its potential oversight by repaying loans made during the rescue. But with respect to A.I.G., the Treasury should not move so fast. There is one job left to do.

A.I.G. was at the center of the web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics and questionable political relationships that set off the economic cataclysm of the past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collapsed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after the rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, and when? Who benefited, and by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?

The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.

Once the documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims and angry citizens have a chance to piece together the story. In past cases of financial fraud — from the complex swaps that Bankers Trust sold to Procter & Gamble in the early 1990s to the I.P.O. kickback schemes of the late 1990s to the fall of Enron — e-mail messages and internal documents became the central exhibits in our collective understanding of what happened, and why.

So far, prosecutors and regulators have been unable to build such evidence into anything resembling a persuasive case against any financial institution. Most recently, a jury acquitted Bear Stearns employees of fraud related to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, in part because available e-mail messages suggested the employees had done nothing wrong.

Perhaps A.I.G.’s employees would also be judged not guilty. But we would like to see the record to find out. As fraud investigators, we would like to examine the trading patterns of A.I.G.’s financial products division, and its communications with Goldman Sachs and other bank counterparties who benefited from the bailout. We would like to understand whether the leaders of A.I.G. understood that they were approaching a financial Armageddon, and whether they alerted their counterparties, regulators and shareholders to the impending calamity.

We would like to see how A.I.G. was able to pay huge bonuses to its officers based on the short-term income they received from counterparties for selling guarantees that, lacking adequate loss reserves, the companies would never be able to honor. We would also like to know what regulators knew, and what they did with the information they had obtained.

Congress wants answers, too. This month, during hearings on Ben Bernanke’s nomination to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, several senators fumed about being denied access to his A.I.G.-related documents.

No doubt, some of the e-mail messages contain privileged conversations among lawyers. Others probably include private information that is irrelevant to A.I.G.’s role in the crisis. But the vast majority of these documents could be made public without legal concern. So why haven’t the Treasury and the Federal Reserve already made sure the public could see this information? Do they want to protect A.I.G., or do they worry about shining too much sunlight on their own performance leading up to and during the crisis?

A.I.G.’s board of directors, a distinguished group of senior business executives, holds the power to decide whether to publish the e-mail messages and other documents. But those directors serve at the behest of A.I.G.’s shareholders. And while small shareholders of public corporations generally do not have the right to force publication of internal documents, in this case one shareholder — the taxpayer — holds an 80 percent stake. Anyone with such substantial ownership has effective control over corporate decisions, even if the corporation is a large public one.

Our stake is held by something called the A.I.G. Credit Facility Trust, whose three trustees are Jill M. Considine, a former chairman of the Depository Trust Company and a former director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Chester B. Feldberg, a former New York Fed official who was chairman of Barclays Americas from 2000 to 2008; and Douglas L. Foshee, chief executive of the El Paso Corporation and chairman of the Houston branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Ultimately, these three trustees wield all the power at A.I.G., and have the right to vote out the 11 directors if the directors are unwilling to publish the e-mail messages. In other words, if these three people ask A.I.G.’s board to post the messages and other documents, the board will have no choice but to comply. Ms. Considine, Mr. Feldberg and Mr. Foshee have the opportunity to be among the most effective and influential investor advocates in history. Before A.I.G. escapes, they should demand the evidence.

The longer it remains hidden, the less likely we will be to answer many questions about the A.I.G. collapse and the larger economic crisis — including the most important one: how do we prevent a repeat? Time is the enemy of effective investigation; records disappear, memories fade. The documents should be released — without excuses, or delay.



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Madoff's Riches Auctioned Off...A Thief's Gallery

More of Madoff's items up for auction. Items collected from Bernie Madoff's Upper East Side apartment will be auctioned off in New York City. NBC's Jeff Rossen reports.

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Spoils of Madoff's feast go on the auction block


They're the spoils of a feast that's over forever: Bernard Madoff's stuff on a government auction block.

Almost 200 items seized from the fallen financier's homes are being sold Saturday in Manhattan, ranging from dishes, pens and stationery to decoy ducks, furs and a Rolex dubbed the "prisoner watch."

There's even a partly used pad of adhesive notes, personalized with "Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities" — a reminder that Madoff's twisted financial activities were interrupted in action.

The Swiss chronograph watch was modeled on those made for World War II Allied airmen imprisoned in Germany, who used them to time prison patrols and plan a possible escape. This one graced the wrist of a 71-year-old inmate in a North Carolina prison, serving a 150-year sentence for defrauding investors for decades.

Madoff's personal effects were guarded by the U.S. marshals who seized his properties — a penthouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side and houses in Montauk, N.Y., and Palm Beach, Fla.

Scanning the items, auction observer Lark Mason said that despite Madoff's riches, he owned things "that you'd find at a fancy suburban garage sale" — though perhaps with a higher price tag.

Mason, who once worked for Sotheby's, said the artworks collected by Madoff and his wife, Ruth, were mostly reproductions and posters.

The Madoffs "were people without discernment, buying things for their superficial appeal but no real value — except for the gold and diamonds," said Mason, adding, "But that's so obvious. Just greed."

And that was just Saturday's sale.

Next week, Madoff's yachts will hit the block, sold in Florida by an auctioneer billing itself as "The World's Largest Boat and Yacht Liquidation Company."

Madoff's apartment on East 64th Street in Manhattan is on the market for $9.9 million and the Florida home for $7.9 million; the Hamptons house sold last month for $9.41 million.

When he was sentenced in June, the punishment included the forfeiture of almost all of his wealth.

Even if the goods displayed Friday weren't grand enough, the path leading to them was.

Red velvet ropes cordoned off the staircase to the hotel's grand ballroom, where the Madoff belongings shared space under a crystal chandelier with about 400 lots of other people's belongings also seized by the government.

Texas-based auctioneer Gaston & Sheehan is running the Manhattan sale for the Marshals Service, hoping to raise at least a half-million dollars to be divided among Madoff's victims. That's only a small dent in the tens of billions his Ponzi scheme cost them, wiping out many financially.

Bidders with a photo ID and $250 refundable cash deposit didn't have to be rich to participate in the auction, starting at 10 a.m. Saturday; online bidders must submit a $1,000 refundable deposit.

Some spoils of Madoff's lavish lifestyles came cheap.

The auctioneers estimate that $80 to $90 could probably buy three used boogie boards marked with "Madoff," or a set of wooden duck decoys.

In a glass case were his-and-hers monogrammed stationery and envelopes, going for $90 to $100, along with the pad of adhesive notes.

Across the ballroom hung a blue satin New York Mets jacket with "Madoff" stitched on the back, valued at up to $720.

Ruth Madoff's Brooks Brothers brown pea coat with a raccoon fur collar, with a $300-to-$460 estimate, had an online high bid of $65 on Friday afternoon. And someone offered $180 for three of Bernard Madoff's Polo golf shirts — valued at up to $210 and bearing the word "Bull," the name Madoff gave to one yacht.

Madoff's Rolex — with an estimate of up to $87,000 — was part of his 40-plus watch collection that also included 16 other Rolexes. All were made in Switzerland, where the swindling financier created billions of dollars in losses.

Madoff wanted his watches in impeccable condition, so he had them restored — thereby devaluing them for collectors, experts say.

Still, prospective buyers apparently are bullish on his personal trove. Inquiries are coming from around the world, from as far as Pakistan, said Bob Sheehan, who was to wield the auctioneer's hammer on Saturday.

"There's huge interest," confirmed Marshals Service spokesman Roland Ubaldo. "I've been getting calls from duck-decoy aficionados. People are interested in his fishing rods and his sports memorabilia."

Madoff, sitting behind bars in Butner, N.C., will never enjoy them again.



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Madoff Is Surprised He Wasn't Caught Earlier...Had The SEC Eating Out Of His Hands

Madoff: "I had too much credibility with SEC"


As Bernard Madoff sat in jail a few months after pleading guilty to fraud, he sounded faintly boastful.

The only problem with officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission's Washington headquarters, he said, is that he had "too much credibility with them and they dismissed" the idea that he was scheming people out of billions of dollars.

A document released Friday details a prison interview conducted June 17 by the SEC inspector general in which Madoff says he had the impression that "it never entered the SEC's mind that it was a Ponzi scheme."

Madoff seemed convinced SEC staff did not suspect him, despite the agency's numerous probes of his business. He said in the interview that the SEC examiners "never asked" for basic records to corroborate his operations.

The disgraced financier also confided that he didn't bring an attorney with him when he testified in an inquiry by the SEC's enforcement division because he believed he didn't need one — and he was trying to fool the government investigators into thinking he had nothing to hide.

The details emerged in a summary of Inspector General David Kotz's interview with Madoff at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, released along with hundreds of other documents related to Kotz's extensive investigation of the SEC's stunning failure to detect Madoff's fraudulent scheme for 16 years.

Dear friend of ex-SEC chairman?

Kotz also issued a statement Friday saying his probe found no evidence to support Madoff's claim of having a "close relationship" with SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, who previously headed the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization. In the interview, Madoff called Schapiro a "dear friend," saying she "probably thinks, I wish I never knew this guy."

Like the SEC, FINRA made periodic exams of Madoff's brokerage operation, which functioned separately from his investment business hidden from regulators' view. An internal review by FINRA found a regulatory breakdown on the part of the organization in the Madoff case.

As the SEC inspectors carried out probe after probe of his business, Madoff said in the interview he was "worried every time" that he'd be caught. "It was a nightmare for me," he said. "I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago."

Madoff, 71, a former Nasdaq stock market chairman, pleaded guilty in March to charges that his secretive investment-adviser operation was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that destroyed thousands of people's life savings and wrecked charities. It was possibly the largest-ever Ponzi: the classic scheme in which investors are paid with other investors' money rather than actual profits on their investment.

He is serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison in North Carolina.

Longtime Auditor expected to plead guilty

The new details from Kotz's inquiry came the same day as word that Madoff's longtime auditor is expected to plead guilty next week in a cooperation deal. Prosecutors told a federal judge in New York that accountant David Friehling was expected to offer a guilty plea at a conference Tuesday to revised charges that accuse him of securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, making false filings to the SEC, and obstructing or impeding administration of the Internal Revenue laws.

The charges carry a prison term of up to 108 years, though significant cooperation with prosecutors can bring leniency.

In his interview with Kotz, Madoff said the SEC never asked him about his tiny accounting firm. It seemed incongruous that, with more than $65 billion in private investments he claimed he oversaw for thousands of people, Madoff used what seemed to be a small-time auditor with a minuscule office in suburban New City, N.Y. Authorities say that Friehling appeared to have rubber-stamped Madoff's records.

Kotz's report of his investigation, made public in early September, painstakingly detailed how the agency's investigations of Madoff were bungled, with disputes among inspection staffers over the findings, lack of communication among SEC offices in various cities and repeated failures to act on credible complaints from outsiders forming a sea of red flags.

An inspection of Madoff's operation in 2003-04, for example, "was put on the back burner" even though the exam team still had unresolved questions, Kotz found.

Madoff's former finance chief, Frank DiPascali, is cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty in August to helping Madoff carry out his fraud. Madoff was asked in the interview whether he was concerned about DiPascali's testimony. His answer: "No, he didn't know anything was wrong, either."



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Bernie Madoff's Sentencing Day, He Finally Gets What He Deserves!

MSNBC----

(Sentencing day for Madoff)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(A Madoff Victim Speaks.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

NEW YORK - It was a crime of epic proportions: a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out fortunes, drained retirement nest eggs, ruined charities and foundations, and even pushed some investors to commit suicide.

Six months after the scandal came to light, the battle lines over Bernard Madoff’s punishment have been drawn. His lawyer insists 12 years in prison is enough. Prosecutors demand a 150-year sentence that would guarantee the 71-year-old spends his final days behind bars.

Some victims were expected to call for harsh punishment at the disgraced financier’s sentencing Monday in federal court in Manhattan. Ten have told U.S. District Judge Denny Chin they wish to speak out in court.

Several hundred spectators arrived at the courthouse early Monday morning to witness the sentencing, which is due to start at 10 a.m. ET in a ceremonial courtroom that seats 250 people.

At the hearing, Madoff “will speak to the shame he has felt and to the pain he has caused,” his attorney, Ira Sorkin, said in court papers.

“We seek neither mercy nor sympathy,” Sorkin wrote. But the lawyer urged Chin to “set aside the emotion and hysteria attendant to this case” as he determines the sentence.

There was no shortage of emotion in recent e-mails and letters to the judge by victims.

Carla and Stanley Hirschhorn wrote that they lost their life savings — “a living nightmare that we can’t wake up from.”

Miriam Siegman expressed outrage “at the spectacle of a man playing with his victims — thousands of them — who he knew were facing a kind of death, playing with them as a cat would with a mouse.”

Prosecutors argued in court papers Friday that federal sentencing guidelines allow the 150-year sentence. Any lesser term, they said, should at least be the equivalent of a life sentence.

“The sheer scale of the fraud calls for severe punishment,” the prosecutors wrote.

The jailed Madoff already has taken a severe financial hit: Last week, a judge issued a preliminary $171 billion forfeiture order stripping Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments, and $80 million in assets his wife Ruth had claimed were hers. The order left her with $2.5 million.

The terms require the Madoffs to sell a $7 million Manhattan apartment where Ruth Madoff still lives. An $11 million estate in Palm Beach, Fla., a $4 million home in Montauk and a $2.2 million boat will be put on the market as well.

Before Madoff became a symbol of Wall Street greed, the former Nasdaq chairman had earned a reputation as a trusted money manager with a Midas touch. Even as the market fluctuated, clients of his secretive investment advisory business — from Florida retirees to celebrities such as Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon and Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax — for decades enjoyed steady double-digit returns.

But late last year, Madoff made a dramatic confession: Authorities say he pulled his sons aside and told them it was “all just one big lie.”

Madoff pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud and other charges, saying he was “deeply sorry and ashamed.” He insisted that he acted alone, describing a separate wholesale stock-trading firm run by his sons and brother as honest and legitimate.

Aside from an accountant accused of cooking Madoff’s books, no one else has been criminally charged. But the family, including his wife, and brokerage firms who recruited investors have come under intense scrutiny by the FBI, regulators and a court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of Madoff’s assets.

The trustee and prosecutors have sought to go after assets to compensate thousands of burned victims who have filed claims against Madoff. How much is available to pay them remains unknown, though it’s expected to be only a fraction of the astronomical losses associated with the fraud.

The $171 billion forfeiture figure used by prosecutors merely mirrors the amount they estimate that, over decades, “flowed into the principal account to perpetrate the Ponzi scheme.” The statements sent to investors showing their accounts were worth as much as $65 billion were fiction.

The investigation has found that in reality, Madoff never made any investments, instead using the money from new investors to pay returns to existing clients — and to finance a lavish lifestyle for his family.

In bankruptcy filings, Trustee Irving Picard say family members “used customers accounts as though they were their own,” putting Madoff’s maid, boat captain and house-sitter in Florida on the company payroll and paying nearly $1 million in fees at high-end golf clubs on Long Island and in Florida.

Picard has sought to reclaim ill-gotten gains by freezing Madoff’s business bank accounts and selling legitimate portions of his firm. (Its season tickets for the Mets went for $38,100.) He’s also sued big money managers and investors for billions of dollars, claiming they were Madoff cronies who also cashed in on the fraud.

The defendants include leading philanthropists Stanley Chais and Jeffry Picower — from whom Picard is seeking at least $5.1 billion alleged to have come out of victims’ pockets — and hedge fund manager J. Ezra Merkin. All have denied any wrongdoing.


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Billionaire R. Allen Stanford Surrenders To Authorities For His Involvement In A Ponzi Scheme, States He's Innocent

MSNBC----

DALLAS - Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford, chairman of the troubled Stanford Financial Group, is scheduled to appear in federal court Friday on fraud charges after surrendering to FBI agents in Virginia the day before, officials said.

Authorities plan to unseal an indictment charging Stanford, law enforcement officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Stanford surrendered in Stafford, Va., on Thursday and is to appear in federal court in the state capital, Richmond, on Friday morning, the officials said.

A grand jury in Houston has been investigating Stanford Financial Group. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges earlier this year accusing Stanford and his top executives of conducting an $8 billion fraud by advising clients to buy certificates of deposit from the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.

The SEC's lawsuit charged that the bank advertised its CDs in a brochure touting a conservative investment philosophy. But instead the bank's portfolio was "misappropriated by Defendant Allen Stanford and used by him to acquire private equity investments and real estate," the suit says.

An amended complaint by the SEC has accused Stanford and his finance chief, James M. Davis, of conducting a "massive Ponzi scheme" in which early investors were paid returns from money put in by later investors. Davis promised in April to cooperate with federal investigators.

Stanford has maintained his innocence.

Dick DeGuerin, Stanford's attorney in Houston, told The Associated Press that Stanford "surrendered this afternoon to some FBI agents who were hiding out in black SUVs outside the residence where he was staying in Virginia."

"He walked out and asked if they had a warrant," DeGuerin said. He said Stanford told them to arrest him if they had a warrant and said if they didn't he would go back to Houston Friday to turn himself in.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko declined to comment.

Laura Pendergest-Holt, chief investment officer of Stanford's parent company, is facing criminal charges of obstructing the SEC's investigation by lying about her knowledge of the firm's activities and omitting key details.

"We heard the grand jury has been active, and we fully expect indictments," her attorney Jeff Tillotson told the AP. "We obviously deny that our client has committed any crime."

He has said she was "set up" by Stanford.


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Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps