Preet Bharara: Wall Street's Biggest Enemy! Obama Appointee

Under George W. Bush's Administration Insider Trading & Securities Fraud Peaked (i.e., Bernie Madoff Among Others).

Due To The Republican Party's Bitter Revulsion Of Regulation & In Exchange For Fat Campaign Checks, GOP Lawmakers Turned A Blind Eye & Deaf Ear To Corporate/ Financial Crimes.

Then Comes The Nov. 2008 Election Which Ushers In Pres. Obama!

He Comes In Smiling Like A Subservient Lamb, Fooling Everyone!

This Smiling, Shrewd, "Subservient" Lamb Delivers A Powerful Blow To Wall Street By Appointing U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara To The Manhattan Office.

Mr. Bharara Is Now Wall Street's Biggest ENEMY!

Ha Ha Ha!

CAUTION:

I Strongly Advise Mr. Bharara To Watch His Back!

Former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer Once Went After Wall Street's Crooks And Look What Happened To Him.

Let Me Be Clear Despite My Disagreements With Pres. Obama's Administration In The Past On Some Issues, I Am Without A Doubt, Boldly Endorsing Pres. Barack Obama For Re-election In 2012!

Its NOT Unusual For A Politician's Constituents To Disagree With Them On Certain Issues Because Human Beings Are Individuals.

However At The End of The Day Its About Who's STILL Standing By Their Side.

I Stand By Pres. Obama's Side!

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U.S. Attorney Sends a Message to Wall Street

Every few days during the trial of Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group’s co-founder, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, would quietly enter the courtroom and take a seat in the last row of the gallery.

From that unassuming vantage point, Mr. Bharara watched his colleagues try to persuade a jury to convict the former hedge fund titan of securities fraud and conspiracy.

The consistent presence of Mr. Bharara at the largest insider trading case in a generation — and the office’s resounding victory on Wednesday — signaled that the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan was back as the sheriff of Wall Street.

Over the last decade, the New York attorney general, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, the Manhattan district attorney and even the Justice Department in Washington angled for their share of financial fraud cases, an area traditionally dominated by the Southern District. For example, Eliot Spitzer grabbed headlines when he was New York attorney general by focusing on malfeasance at investment banks.

But Mr. Bharara has not-so-quietly reaffirmed his office’s leading role in pursuing corporate crime with this landmark insider trading case, which relied on aggressive prosecutorial methods and unprecedented tactics. For the first time, federal authorities used wiretaps to listen in on stock traders swapping illegal tips.

“What this case has done,” said Neil M. Barofsky, a former Southern District prosecutor who recently served as the special inspector general for the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, “goes well beyond simply putting a billionaire hedge fund manager behind bars.”

“The case will impact an entire industry,” Mr. Barofsky said. He said that Mr. Bharara “did more than just oversee and support the prosecution — he made sure that the target audience, traders on Wall Street, fully understood the extraordinary lengths that his office will go to discover these crimes, and that justice will be served.”

It has been 21 months since Mr. Bharara, 42, was appointed United States attorney by President Obama.

In that short tenure, his staff has ventured far beyond Wall Street, prosecuting some of the nation’s — and the world’s — most prominent defendants. Among them: Faisal Shahzad in the Times Square bomb plot; agents in a Russian spy ring; Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first Guantánamo Bay detainee to be tried in the civilian system; Viktor Bout, a Russian accused of being an arms trafficker; a Somali man charged with piracy; and four men charged in a plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx.

Not every case has gone smoothly. In Mr. Ghailani’s trial, the jury acquitted him of more than 280 counts of murder and conspiracy and convicting him of a single count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. Nonetheless, Mr. Ghailani received a life sentence.

Some academics and newspaper columnists have also criticized Mr. Bharara for not filing criminal charges against senior executives at the center of the financial crisis. Last week, when his office filed a civil mortgage-fraud lawsuit against Deutsche Bank, he said there was not enough evidence to justify a criminal complaint.

Mr. Bharara was an infant in 1970 when he came to the United States from India with his parents. He grew up in Eatontown, N.J., and earned degrees from Harvard and Columbia Law School.

After several years in private practice, including a stint at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in New York, Mr. Bharara became a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, handling organized crime, narcotics and securities fraud cases. In 2005, he became chief counsel to Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, leading a Congressional inquiry into the firings of United States attorneys.

Some lawyers have wondered aloud whether Mr. Bharara may have political aspirations like his predecessors, including former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who filled the post in the 1980s. As with Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Bharara is a charismatic figure who is comfortable in front of cameras, can talk tough and has a knack for the witty sound bite. At a news conference announcing Mr. Rajaratnam’s arrest, Mr. Bharara riffed off a famous line from the movie “Wall Street.”

“Greed, sometimes, is not good,” he said.

Unlike Mr. Giuliani, whose political ambitions seemed barely hidden while he led the prosecutor’s office, Mr. Bharara has told friends he has no interest in elected office.

“Everything about Preet’s record suggests that he’s a federal prosecutor for all the right reasons,” said Randy Mastro, a lawyer at Gibson Dunn and a former top deputy under Mayor Giuliani. “The best prosecutors are often those who don’t have political ambitions.”

Mr. Mastro, who overlapped for a time with Mr. Bharara at Gibson Dunn, added, “But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be drafted into running.”

Ellen Davis, Mr. Bharara’s spokeswoman, said in a statement on Thursday: “Preet loves his job and has no desire to run for public office now or ever.”

Mr. Bharara has not commented publicly on the Rajaratnam verdict, other than a short statement in a news release. But in a series of speeches, he has explained his aggressive approach to corporate crime.

“When sophisticated business people begin to adopt the methods of common criminals, we have no choice but to treat them as such,” Mr. Bharara said weeks after revealing the use of wiretaps in building a case against Mr. Rajaratnam. “To use tough tactics in these circumstances is not being heavy-handed; it is being even-handed.”

He has taken that approach in other areas of financial crime.

His office secured convictions in two high-profile criminal cases against bank executives accused of stealing proprietary computer code related to high-frequency trading businesses, including a case against a former programmer at Goldman Sachs. More recently, Mr. Bharara’s prosecutors charged the operators of three popular online poker sites with fraud and money laundering.

And Mr. Bharara continues to pursue insider trading cases. Over the last 18 months, his office has charged 47 individuals with insider trading crimes, 36 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted. At a recent news conference, he indicated there was more to come.

“I wish I could say we were just about finished, but sadly we are not.”




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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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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 Sentenced To 150 Years In Prison!

MSNBC----

NEW YORK - Bernard Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years for the multibillion-dollar fraud scheme he perpetrated.

Before the sentencing, Madoff apologized to his family and to the victims of his multibillion-dollar fraud scheme Monday at a hearing for his sentencing for the investment swindle.

The 71-year-old financier said at the hearing that he “will live with this pain, this torment, for the rest of my life.”

Madoff says that he dug himself “deeper into a hole” as the scheme progressed. He also said he cannot offer an excuse for his behavior.

Attorney Ira Sorkin says the 150 years in prison recommended by prosecutors or the 50 years recommended by the federal probation department are excessive.

Madoff has pleaded guilty to securities fraud and other charges in March and has been jailed ever since.

Earlier, victims of the fraud described their ruined lives Monday to the judge sentencing the 71-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman.

Several hundred spectators crowded the courtroom in Manhattan to witness the sentencing of Madoff for the fraud scheme that wiped out fortunes, ruined charities and foundations and pushed some investors to commit suicide.

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.

“Life has been a living hell. It feels like the nightmare we can’t wake from,” said Carla Hirshhorn.

“He stole from the rich. He stole from the poor. He stole from the in between. He had no values,” said Tom Fitzmaurice. “He cheated his victims out of their money so he and his wife Ruth could live a life of luxury beyond belief.”

Dominic Ambrosino called it an “indescribably heinous crime” and urged a long prison sentence so “will know he is imprisoned in much the same way he imprisoned us and others.”

He added: “In a sense, I would like somebody in the court today to tell me how long is my sentence.”

Chin said the Probation Department had recommended a 50-year sentence be given Madoff.

Madoff’s lawyer has asked a judge to give his client 12 years behind bars. Prosecutors sought a 150-year prison term.

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.

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, he 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.

Sources: MSNBC, Huffington Post

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

MSNBC----

(Sentencing day for Madoff)

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(A Madoff Victim Speaks.)

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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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