Mark Madoff, 46, the son of convicted Ponzi scheme author Bernard Madoff, was found dead Saturday 11 December, hanging from a pipe in his living room in Soho, Manhattan in New York. He was found by his father-in-law at 07:30, after his wife, in Florida with one of their children, received disturbing e-mails. Their two-year-old son was sleeping in a nearby room. His death has been ruled a suicide. He took his life two years to the day after his father was arrested on charges of stealing $50-plus billion from investors and just three days after being sued by court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, along with his younger brother Andrew and others. Picard has been filing lawsuits against a large number of banks and individuals to try to recover assets for victims.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - UBS denies as “completely unfounded and without merit” charges 24 November by Bernard Madoff’s trustee, says Bloomberg, which quotes an e-mail received from the bank. Bernard Madoff’s court-appointed trustee Irving Picard filed a sealed complaint against the bank in Manhattan, New York in the US Tuesday. The lawyer is seeking $2 billion from the Swiss bank and several others, “alleging 23 counts of financial fraud and misconduct against UBS AG and related entities and individuals for collaboration in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.”
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 for fraudulent activities that stole more than $65 billion from investors around the world.
Picard’s court complaint is sealed, he says on the Madoff Investment Securities Liquidation web site, because of UBS’s insistence on confidentiality.
Convicted mass fraudster Bernard Madoff, sentenced to 150 years prison for defrauding investors around the world of $65 billion, is reportedly very ill with cancer of the pancreas, according to a report 24 August by the New York Post. Basing its information on fellow inmates at the North Carolina prison, the Post says that Madoff is taking up to 20 pills a day for his illness. He has been invited by Native American inmates to participate in traditional ritual sweat lodge cleansings.
Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison in New York, USA. The judge called his crimes “extraordinarily evil” and handed him the sentence asked for by prosecutors, for fraud charges that grew out of his massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff pleaded guilty to the charges: securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the SEC, theft from an employee benefit plan. Bloomberg, New York Times
Bernard Madoff, the disgraced investor and former SEC chairman who will be sentenced in a court in New York Monday, has been ordered by the judge to forfeit his fortune of $170 billion, including all real estate, and his houses and apartment in New York will now be sold. Madoff’s wife Ruth will be allowed to keep $2.5 million in cash. Bloomberg
Texas billionnaire and Antigua cricket team backer Allen Stanford was arrested in Virginia, USA, on a charge related to investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that he and his companies have been running a $9.2 billion Ponzi scheme. His companies are based in Antigua, where he revived cricket as a popular sport, but in early 2009, after the financial investigations came to light, the game’s governing body cut ties with him and canceled further matches. Stanford and his wife owe the US more than $225 million in back taxes, according to the IRS, reports CNN.
Other officials in the company, including chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt, are likely to be indicted on related charges, possibly 19 June. Pendergest-Holt has already been charged with lying and obsruction of justice. The Houston Chronicle carries a series of articles and video.
New York, USA and Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps and 20 Minutes/afp, Fre) – The latest financial fraud scheme to be discovered by the SEC, it reports, appears to have involved a Geneva financial group, United Trust of Switzerland, with US clients as the target and some $68 million lost in the a Ponzi scheme similar to the one created by Bernard Madoff. The bank offers only an address in the Caribbean despite its wholly-owned subsidiary, Millennium Bank, saying it has been in business since 1931.
Government prosecutors in New York, USA, Monday asked that Bernard Madoff be sent to jail rather than remain free on $10 million bond, saying he is a flight risk after sending gifts of jewelry worth $1 million to family and friends last month. His attorneys argue that his wife tried to recover the valuables once the couple talked to attorneys and realized this could be seen as a violation of bail terms. A judge will rule on the bail case Wednesday but in the meantime Madoff’s attorney now says he never said his client was cooperating with government officials – and the New York Times story is more guarded in its language than it has been about Madoff, “who is said to have confessed to a huge Ponzi scheme.”
