March 12, 2009 • 2:54 pmComments Off on Bernard Madoff, Scumbag Extraordinaire, Pleads Guilty to All 11 Criminal Charges, Could be Sentenced to 150 Years Behind Bars
Judge Chin orders Madoff jailed until sentencing. Bond revoked. Amen!
Finally, scumbag extraordinaire has to step up and plead guilty for massive fraud he has perpetrated to the tune of $65 billion against his clients, many of whom lost their entire life savings. He pleaded guilty today to all 11 eleven criminal charges and faces up to 150 years in prison. Yeah, the scumbag will almost certainly die behind bars.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Denny Chin will decide if the dirtbag goes directly to jail for pulling off the biggest swindle in history – or is allowed to stay in his luxurious E. 64th St. duplex until sentencing. He should be sent to prison right away.
According to the NY Daily News, Madoff wore a bulletproof vest under his jacket, but the wife who has been by his side for 45 years was not with him. Yeah, she may have some brewing trouble of her own. Before Judge Chin decides what to do with him, Madoff will get an earful from at least 25 of his victims. He should be put in general population right away. Hey, had that been you or I, we’d by sent up the river without a paddle. So, too should Bernie Madoff. He doesn’t need to sit in his swanky $7 million pad until he is sentenced. Metropolitan Correctional Center is where he should be today.
Boohoo, Ruth Madoff, the wife of scumbag extraordinaire Bernard Madoff, is crying about their precious money. Never mind that fact that her husband robbed thousands of investors to the tune of $50 billion, she’s scratching and kicking for the $62 million she supposedly squirreled away, saying that that doesn’t belong to them. The question I have is why hasn’t she been investigated for this mess?
Lawyers for accused swindler Bernie Madoff claim the money and a penthouse apartment are his wife’s, have nothing to do with any scheme and shouldn’t be subject to forfeiture, according to documents filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
“They maintain that some of the assets … are unrelated to the alleged Madoff fraud and only Ruth Madoff has a beneficial ownership interest in these assets,” wrote Manhattan Federal Judge Louis Stanton on Monday after reviewing the documents.
Bernie Madoff’s lawyers yesterday agreed to lift a freeze on some of the disgraced investment guru’s assets so that the trustee hunting for lost Madoff cash can pay back ripped-off customers. But the lawyers refused to let go of Ruth Madoff’s interest in the E. 64th St. apartment, valued at $7 million, as well as $45 million in municipal bonds controlled by Cohmad Securities and $17 million in a Wachovia account.
On Feb. 11, a Massachusetts state regulator revealed that Ruth Madoff withdrew some $15 million from a Cohmad Securities account in the weeks and days before her husband’s Dec. 11 arrest.
Cohmad is partially owned by Madoff and regulators claim he paid brokers who raised money for him through Cohmad. Over the past eight years, Madoff’s New York investment firm paid Cohmad $67 million, nearly 84% of the firm’s income over that period, Massachusetts regulators say. Source: NY Daily News
As you know, she has not been criminally charged in this financial debacle and it is being reported that federal regulators continue to probe others who may have been involved in this Ponzi scheme. You see, Mrs. Madoff doesn’t care one bit about the people her husband made penniless and her actions should not be taken lightly. She enjoyed the spoils of her husband’s actions and all their money should be taken away, much like what happened to that 90-year old man who had to go back to work after losing all his retirement savings at the hands of Bernie Madoff. Ruth Madoff is just being greedy and selfish. Why she isn’t charged with being an accessory to this crime is beyond me. Of course, she will claim complete ignorance in the matter.
According to ABC News, Mr. Stanford, who is accused of cheating 50,000 customers out of $8 billion dollars, is reportedly missing. Federal authorities raided his financial empire in Houston, Memphis, and Tupelo, Miss., and have said that they do not know his current whereabouts.
Well, we are on to Bernie Madoff No. 2. The Securities and Exchange is investigating what it calls “massive ongoing fraud,” as it accused Robert Allen Stanford, the chief of the Stanford Financial Group, of fraud in the sale of about $8 billion of high-yielding certificates of deposit held in the firm’s bank in Antigua. Also named in the suit were two other executives and some affiliates of the financial group. Fi fie fo fum, the smell of a prison cell is in the air! This is big because federal agents with the U.S. Marshals Service entered the Houston office of the company this morning.
In the complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Dallas, the SEC accused Mr. Stanford and two associates — James M. Davis, a director and chief financial officer of Stanford Group and the Antigua-based bank affiliate, and Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of both organizations — with misrepresenting the safety and liquidity of the uninsured CDs. The CDs were sold by Stanford International Bank through the firm’s registered broker-dealer and investment adviser, which are in Houston. Both the bank, which claims $8.5 billion in assets and 30,000 clients in 131 countries, and the brokerage unit, which operates about 30 offices in the United States, were named in the SEC suit. Stanford Financial asserts that it advises about $50 billion in assets.
In its complaint, the S.E.C. said it could not account for the $8 billion in assets that were housed in the Antigua bank after issuing subpoenas for bank records and to various witnesses. Most witnesses, including Mr. Stanford, Mr. Davis, and the Antigua-based bank’s president, failed to appear to testify nor did they produce documents shedding light on the assets.
The S.E.C. accused the bank and its affiliates of falsely stating in marketing materials that client funds were placed in liquid financial instruments, when in fact they were invested in private equity funds and real estate. On Nov. 28, Stanford International Bank quoted a rate of 5.375 percent on a $100,000 three-year CD, compared with rates of less than 3.2 percent at American banks. The bank recently has offered rates of more than 10 percent on five-year CDs, the filing stated. Source: Wall Street Journal
These people need to go to prison for a long, long time. Sheriff Leon in Richland County, South Carolina, was so worried about Michael Phelps’ alleged marijuana use, law enforcement everywhere need to worry about these criminals dressed in suits and running these financial corporations. They need to be locked away for 15 to life or whatever. Sorry, but as the economic meltdown continues, more of these dirt bags will come out of the woodwork.
February 14, 2009 • 7:58 pmComments Off on William Foxton, Former British Army Major, Commits Suicide After Losing Life Savings in Mammoth Pyramid Scheme Masterminded by Bernard Madoff
Another victim for financier Bernard Madoff has committed suicide. Retired British army major William Foxton killed himself after losing his life savings in scumbag Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. It’s amazing that the mainstream media managed to bury this for a few days, since it happened on Tuesday.
Here’s my issue with this whole Bernie Madoff scandal — if you steal a $10 item from a store and you are caught with it, you don’t get house arrest. You get jail time, no questions asked. But here we have this dirtbag, who literally robbed his investors blind and he gets house arrest. What’s wrong with this picture? I am also wondering why charges were not brought against Martha Madoff, who moved millions around right before her husband was arrested. Had that been you or I, you know what the outcome would be — clang, clang, the sound of a prison cell.
Police in the English town of Southampton say William Foxton, 65, died from a single gunshot to head on Tuesday and that a pistol was recovered at the scene. An inquest still needs to determine the cause of death, but police in the town, 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of London, say the shooting was not suspicious. Willard Foxton said it was suicide.
William Foxton, who served in the French Foreign Legion and rose to the rank of major in the British army, lost an arm during service in the military. He retired in the 1970s. His son said he did not know the exact circumstances of the injury, explaining that his father told him little about his time in the army.
William later threw himself into humanitarian work, spending the 1990s and early 2000s in the Balkans, where he was a member of the European Commission Monitoring Mission and spent time as a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He also did work for the German charity Arbeiter Samariter Bund, his son Willard Foxton said. Source: Huffington Post
Well, I have no sympathy for Mr. Foxton. He took the selfish and easy way out. I do agree that it is virtually impossible for any of the victims to recoup their money, especially those who have already reached retirement age. Still, you cannot tell me that the only alternative Mr. Foxton had was to pull the trigger and end his life. That behavior displayed a selfishness towards the welfare of his wife and the rest of his family. I guess we know who his god was — the money Bernie Madoff stole from him. Simply shameful.
January 12, 2009 • 8:52 pmComments Off on Marcus Schrenker Intentionally Crashes Plane in Wake of $533K Federal Judgment Awarded Against his company Heritage Wealth Management
CAUGHT!!!! The punk was caught in Florida with his wrists slit.
UPDATE
This is better than a soap opera. I hope they catch this man before he kills himself.
Another clue has surfaced: Schrenker had apparently parked a red Yamaha motorcycle with packed saddlebags in a storage unit about 7 miles away from Childersburg. By Monday, the motorcycle was gone and Schrenker’s still-damp clothes were in the storage unit when investigators got there, Marty Keely, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Alabama, told The Birmingham News.
Keely said Schrenker rented the unit on Saturday, paying cash, and told the manager that he would be back for his belongings on Monday. Meanwhile, in Indiana, Schrenker’s neighbor Britt said he received an e-mail Monday night from Schrenker claiming the crash was an accident and saying he wanted the companies under investigation to succeed. Britt believes the e-mail is real, but its authenticity hasn’t been verified.
The U.S. Marshals declined to say if they believed the e-mail was authentic. Britt said authorities asked him not to make it public. Britt quoted Schrenker as saying, “I embarrassed my family for the last time.” He turned the e-mail over to authorities, fearing it was a suicide note.
In the e-mail, Britt is asked to set the record straight and Schrenker says he’s stunned after reading coverage of the case on the Internet. According to the e-mail, the accident was caused when the window on the pilot side imploded, spraying him with glass and reducing cabin pressure. “Hypoxia can cause people to make terrible decisions and I simply put on my parachute and survival gear and bailed out,” the e-mail reads.
U.S. Marshals spokesman Michael Richards in Birmingham declined to detail where agents are looking or how the search is being conducted. But investigators in Florida said Schrenker faces a host of possible charges if he deliberately abandoned the plane. “You just can’t let an unmanned aircraft just maliciously fly into a residential area without facing any consequences,” Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Scott Haines said on the CBS “Early Show.”
Schrenker lived a high-flying life as an investment manager and an experienced recreational pilot with the nerves to pull off aerial stunts. In a video posted on YouTube, he is shown boldly completing a daredevil maneuver in the Bahamas, flying underneath a bridge. He bought luxury automobiles, two airplanes and a $4 million house in an upscale neighborhood known as “Cocktail Cove,” where affluent boaters often socialize with cocktails in hand. Source: AJC
This man is a sociopath and he is wasting precious and scarce resources in this massive manhunt for him.
Why rich people will harm themselves when they run into money troubles is beyond me. The latest Madoff knock-off to try bodily harm is Marcus Schrenker, whose company, Heritage Wealth Management Inc. was issued on default federal judgment and ordered to pay OM Financial Life Insurance Company $533,564 . According to the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, Schrenker is president of the company, which is based in Indianapolis. To make matters worse, Schrenker intentionally abandoned his plane Sunday over Alabama.
In May of 2007, Baltimore-based OM Financial Life Insurance Company filed suit against Schrenker and his Heritage Wealth Management company claiming “unjust enrichment.” The company claimed the defendants repeatedly failed to pay back unearned commissions they received relating to OM Financial products. The defendants sold insurance and/or annuity plans for OM Financial.
“Defendants have refused to return, and did not return, the $433,314 in commissions paid to them by OM Financial arising out of products that were surrendered, lapsed, reversed and/or free-looked within the chargeback period,” an amended claim reads. The judge also ordered the company to pay $33,852 in interest and attorneys’ fees of $66,397. Source: Alabama.com
According to media reports, Schrenker’s small plane crashed in the Florida Panhandle Sunday night. He had reported turbulence, and said his windshield was blown out. Authorities said he exited the plane as it flew over Shelby County on Sunday night.
Schrenker, 38, was last seen early this morning when he spoke to Childersburg police at a store there and said he had been in a canoeing accident with some friends. What a scumbag! He was wet from the knees down, and had no other injuries, according to a statement released by Wendell Hall, the sheriff of Santa Rosa County, Fla., where Schrenker’s plane crashed.
Authorities said he was identified by the Childersburg officer as Schrenker through his driver’s license and also had some goggles that looked like they were made for “flying,” Hall said. Oops, he just forgot that tiny detail. The truth will always come to light. Schrenker has now found himself in a lot more trouble than he had bargained for. What a shame. To add insult to injury, his wife, Michelle, had filed for divorce Dec. 30. And three companies registered in Indiana by Schrenker, including Heritage Wealth Management Inc., plus Heritage Insurance Services Inc. and Icon Wealth Management, are being investigated by the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, said office spokesman Jim Gavin. These rich scumbags are just coming out of the woodwork, one after the other. Whew. Who’s next?
Shares of Lennar Corp. fell as much as 28 percent in New York trading after Barry Minkow’s Fraud Discovery Institute alleged that the company operates joint ventures “like a Ponzi scheme.” Lennar denied the allegations. Minkow posted his accusations today on a Web site called lenn-ron.com. The company has failed to disclose material transactions, Minkow said on the site. These allegations come on the heels of Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme, Joseph S. Forte, $50 million scheme, and India’s Satyam debacle.
“These are false allegations,” Lennar Chief Financial Officer Bruce Gross said in an interview. He declined to be more specific and said the company will issue a statement later today.
If you recall, Minkow served more than seven years in prison, from 1988 to 1995, after being convicted of fraud while running a company called ZZZZ Best Co. According the company’s web site, it investigates what it suspects to be corporate fraud, according to the Web site. In a video posted on his Web site, Minkow said Lennar is “a financial crime in progress and they have a pattern of behavior that is an environment that is hurting the little guy.”
Minkow accused Lennar of concealing debt off its books and misappropriating funds between joint ventures. Lennar’s approach is “sue me if you want to get paid,” Minkow said. Minkow said in an interview today his report was “based on the public record of multiple claims against Lennar in like situations for breach and fraud.” Source: Bloomberg
Sonja Kohn, Austria’s ‘Woman on Wall Street’ is now out of sight. She is tied to Ponzi scheme criminal Bernard Madoff. She was Madoff’s front-woman. She gathered billions for Madoff from wealthy investors in Russia and across Europe. I guess that’s why she’s missing. Those wealthy Russian Oligarchs are looking for her. I guess with them as clients and their money lost, she ought to be afraid. Very afraid.
According to the NY Times, she left Bank Medici, the firm she founded, in the hands of Austrian regulators who took it over last week. She invested heavily with Madoff and I suspect that her next place of residence will be a prison cell. But another theory widely repeated by those who know Mrs. Kohn is that she may be afraid of some particularly displeased investors: Russian oligarchs whose money made up a chunk of the $2.1 billion that Bank Medici invested with Mr. Madoff.
Isn’t this a stunning fall from grace for this 60 year-old woman? She is the daughter of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who moved to Vienna after World War II. She came to New York in the 1980s and was one of the rare women to found and head a small brokerage firm. At that time, she started a decades-long friendship with Mr. Madoff. Once known here as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street,” she became one of Mr. Madoff’s international conduits for securing billions of dollars from the global rich. Mrs. Kohn owns 75 percent of Bank Medici, with Bank Austria holding the rest.
The fallout from Bernard Madoff is far-reaching and I think we are in store for more surprises and more arrests. Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Kohn, some Russians are looking for you and they’re not happy!
December 23, 2008 • 7:08 pmComments Off on Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, Hedge Fund Manager, Whose Firm Lost $1.4B in Madoff Ponzi Scheme, Commits Suicide
They ought to add murder charges to the fraud charges scumbag Bernard Madoff is facing. The French business daily La Tribune has reported that Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a founder of the hedge fund Access International Advisors, was found dead early Tuesday in his office in Manhattan, after losing as much as $1.4 billion that had been invested with Bernard L. Madoff, the money manager who has been accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
La Tribune reported that Mr. de la Villehuchet had been trying to recover the money that Access International raised in Europe and invested through Mr. Madoff’s business.
Luxalpha, a $1.4 billion Luxembourg-based fund sold across Europe, invested in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Access International last week called Mr. Madoff’s arrest a shocking development in a note to investors. Investors in the fund included a unit of Rothschild and several clients of the Swiss bank UBS.
UBS had been the custodian and administrator of the fund until this year when Access International took over. No one answered the phone at Access International’s New York office. UBS has stated that Mr. Madoff was not on the bank’s wealth management recommended list as a direct investment option but it produced and sold funds containing the investment manager’s products. UBS would establish fund of funds structures at clients’ requests. Source: NY Times
To echo the words of Jamaican superstar Buju Banton’s song, I will say of Mr. Madoff:
Murderer! Blood is on your shoulders Kill I today you cannot kill I tomorrow Murderer! Your insides must be hollow How does it feel to take the life of another Yes, you can hide from man but not your conscience You eat the bread of sorrow Drink the wine of violence Allowed yourself to be conquered by the serpent Why did you disobey the first commandment Walk through the valley I fear no pestilence God is my witness and He is my evidence Lift up my eyes from wence cometh help You will never escape this judgement
Of course, some parts of the lyrics are in patois, the broken language of Jamaica. The message is the same, Bernard Madoff is no better than a murderer for what he has done to these people.
Once again, the federal government may come to the rescue of yet another wealthy group. Former NASD chief and disgraced investor Bernard Madoff may have duped his investors out of $50 billion, but a federal judge may be the life line these wealthy people may need through an order of protection. Meanwhile, a federal judge on Monday threw a lifesaver to investors who may have been duped, saying they need the protection of a special government reserve fund set up to help investors at failed brokerage firms. U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton ordered that clients of Madoff’s private investment business seek relief under a federal statute created to rescue cheated investors. Stanton also ordered that business be liquidated under the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court and named attorney Irvin H. Picard as trustee to oversee that process. So, when rich folks get duped, there’s a life line thrown at them, but when Main Street needs help against foreclosure, they are undeserving of any government assistance to stay in their homes.
Stanton signed the order after the Securities Investor Protection Corporation asked that steps be taken to protect investors in the scheme, which has ensnared several major banks and prominent figures as victims and could result in as much as $50 billion in losses.
Congress created the SIPC in 1970 to protect investors when a brokerage firm fails and cash and securities are missing from accounts. Funds can be used to satisfy the remaining claims of each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. The figure includes a maximum of up to $100,000 on claims for cash.
The order came just days after federal prosecutors charged Madoff with securities fraud, saying he had admitted to orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff is free on $10 million bail after he was charged with securities fraud last week. Source: ABC News.
One thing I have learned is that the rich always strive to be richer, no matter what. So, this man comes along and offers them a big return and they fall for his “game.” Yes, he gamed them and they ought to feel really stupid. What about portfolio diversification? Don’t put all your eggs in one basket is the golden rule, but I guess the prospect of big returns clouded the judgments of many of these people. The sad reality is that it will affect the “little people” because many institutions and charities also got burned.
The scheme was operated out of the so-called “Lipstick Building” on Third Avenue. Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC occupies three floors and may have bilked investors of $50 billion. Prosecutors have said that it was a classic Ponzi scheme. The firm paid-off earlier investors with money from new investors. It collapsed amid a nervous economy when some people wanted their money out.
I guess the list of victims could get larger as more people claim they lost millions. The list of victims is quite interesting–Mets owner Fred Wilpon; former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman; investors such as Joan Sinkin who claims to be of modest means and lost her entire life savings; a charitable fund set-up by the family of Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey; several major banks including Spain’s Grupo Santander SA, Britain’s HSBC Holdings PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and Man Group PLC, France’s BNP Paribas and Japan’s Nomura Holdings reported falling victim to Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme.
I would like to know how this man flew under the Securities and Exchange Commission radar for so long. I am pretty sure that there were warning signs, but what is indicative of the lax regulatory oversight on Wall Street, this should come as no surprise. The man is a crook and deserves to be incarcerated in a prison for violent offenders. Since the government is only too happy to help rich folks out, then they ought to help the millions of struggling homeowners across the country get affordable mortgages.
Black Political Thought 
