London in New York

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, in denying Presidential aspirations and having said no to a Presidential run in 2012 despite  the rumblings in the press to the contrary, and the widespread belief that he is right about the need to build America’s future, has gone on record that he wants to be remembered as ‘the greatest Mayor ever’ in the history of New York City, even despite the questionable wisdom of making such a statement.  The sheer confidence of Boss Bloomberg at the helm is as reassuring to the vast majority of New Yorkers as it is troubling to his detractors.  His record during a time of extraordinary upheaval and structural change in the history of the metropolis has been exemplary on many levels, and a mixed bag on others. On those occasions, despite voting for the Mayor three times, I have taken the opportunity to critique the Mayor on issues where I disagree with him.  One need only consider the symbolism of preemptively dismissing the idea of rebuilding of the iconic Twin Towers while exhibiting tremendous chutzpah in the fight for a west side sports stadium and then without hesitance using every ounce of his political will in his voracious over the top support of  Ground Zero Mosque; for a majority of New Yorkers this was all quite troubling.  Initially I thought  the symbolism was lost on him, but it has come to light that his judgment in assisting the establishment of one religion vs. another may have been influenced or clouded by self interest.

One might wish to consider 1970’s New York City during the administration of Mayor Abraham (”Abe”) Beame who came into office after the tumultuous years and in some quarters the perceived failures despite once great promise of the Lindsay administration and the liberal policies which left Beame with a fiscal crisis which consumed his tenure in office, a time period under which the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy, after being flipped off by then President Ford. Beame was a competent administrator, but not a visionary, who finally left with a surplus to incoming Mayor Ed Koch. It is important to consider this period of  time in New York history, a place once referred to as ungovernable (see: Vincent J. Cannato. The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York ),  as a lens with which to evaluate the Bloomberg Administration. On many indices and evaluative data, including the most important one, the appearance of being a model of managerial competence and efficiency, Bloomberg can make a strong case.   His vision has in many respects been bigger and bolder on a number of key fronts in advancing the interests of New York City, than a number of his politician predecessors who prior to Rudy Giuliani seemed rather consumed with simple administration, oversight and/or maintenance of the metropolis in its pre-existing state or composition. Even critics not inclined to give the Mayor an inch, however, were they to view the state of the city through the lens of the times, might have to concede that New York would not be where it is today absent the Bloomberg Administration building, at least in part, on the legacy of the Prince of the City, Rudy Giuliani and his administration.

Fast forward to the last week of December 2010. The snowstorm of 2010 and the administration’s response to the weekend blizzard may, however, have been his Waterloo, with the NY Times evoking the image of Mayor John Lindsay’s handling of another storm. One could  argue from looking at the troubling pictures that even an idiot with a tripod, could see that this ‘Napoleon did surrender’ (you will have to excuse the reference, I am an Abba fan). If nothing else, it seems to have empowered his critics and emboldened political opportunists positioning themselves for the post Bloomberg era, even if others are more forgiving.  Nuance would remind folks that here  at the close of the decade, nine years after 9/11, 2 years after the financial collapse and in the midst of the most troubling economic data and highest levels of unemployment in post WW II America, New York City remains one of the most vibrant and important cities in the world. The world still wants to visit New York City.  Simply put:

New Yorkers have the highest standards. We expect so much and can be the most critical and unforgiving; a people willing to rip our heroes off their mantle, put some ketchup on them as we eat them for lunch with a bag of chips and wash them down with a Diet Coke.

The administration certainly has a lot of explaining to do why this snowstorm, despite the ominous warnings of its potentially historic magnitude, has crippled the metropolis.  Questions remain why better pre-storm planning, including salting and plowing the roads, more useful and instructive emergency alerts beyond ’stay home’ and engaging municipal workers sooner might have led to a smoother outcome rather than a slow recovery with many roadways blocked, train lines shut down and countless citizens literally snowed in. Some folks in the boroughs outside Manhattan still literally feel forgotten about.  The only perk seems  to have been endless overtime for municipal employees, who according to sources in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, were not even skimming the snow and leaving questions about overtime scams (Update See: New York sanitation workers union sabotaged snow cleanup & Sanitationmen tell their side of Christmas Blizzard – 15-hour shifts, faulty equipment, politics) .  I am not happy either as my eldest sibling found himself stuck in Detroit unable to get a flight to visit me before New Year’s Eve. As a Bridge & Tunnel New Yorker who grew up in Queens and Brooklyn, trust me, I feel your pain. And since the buck stops at City Hall, the Mayor will ultimately be the one held accountable as he should.

To the Mayor’s credit, he has not deflected criticism entirely but rather acknowledged that he is dissatisfied with the emergency response, even as the focus for his team is now on clearing the unplowed streets and “we’ll do the post-mortem afterwards”.  Should a future post-mortem on this blizzard lead to some uncomfortable questions about the efforts and overtime of municipal employees, consider that in an economic malaise a billionaire Mayor, painted as an elitist by some of the the very forces who may be to blame for the murky clean up effort, would place himself in  an uncomfortable position should he have decided to point fingers rather than wait for conclusive evidence of wrongdoing.  With all due respect to the elected officials who questioned publicly the preparedness of the Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Sanitation, they need to balance their public advocacy vs. political opportunism, in terms of their future mayoral ambitions, before getting up on a soapbox.

To those who will view the snowstorm of 2010 as Bloomberg’s Waterloo, while I may see your point, with trepidation, I beg to differ.   Mike Bloomberg though inconsistent at times has seemed on some level to be a student of history who may have already learned a lesson of Mayor Beame’s mayoralty. Bloomberg  became a Partner at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street shortly before Beame took office. While Beame meticulously managed the books in a manner evading bankruptcy, Bloomberg came in with a broader vision to remake the metropolis; not merely to assume power. He had already tremendous career success on Wall Street and founding and serving as CEO of one of New York’s most prolific home grown companies in Bloomberg LLP.  Bloomberg himself ascended into office shortly after 9/11 and immediately began building upon the legacy of the administration of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, modernizing New York City in a visionary manner that has literally transformed the metropolis. (See:   The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life by Fred Siegel | Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City by Andrew Kirtzman)

Like any politico Bloomberg has had his setbacks and the handling of  the blizzard of 2010 and its full impact of the blizzard, will be remembered as one of them,  but what has often emerged from those setbacks has been a man and an administration even more determined to right the course and prove the naysayers wrong.  Any and all failure(s) or perceived failure(s) become temporary.  This is something that in future administrations charged with managing the metropolis we may come to miss enormously. The Mayor is at his greatest strength when he sheds the cloak of omnipotence and accepts and acknowledges interim failures or learning experiences that will make him and his team more efficient in the future.  Although candidly this is not something he has often been willing to do. Strong leaders recognize that it is not a sign of weakness to admit publicly that in hindsight one would have prepared differently, unless your leader is a bumbling fool in which case such postures taken too frequently will only serve to prove the obvious.  Bloomberg is, however,  not at the risk of being perceived as incompetent even by his greatest detractors. Being perceived as more humble and human can not hurt his standing with citizens, even with those who sometimes question his vision.

In recessionary times, where there is pain and anguish at the middle and lower levels of society there will rarely be sympathy for billionaires who have a lifestyle that most cannot identify with. Nor are we willing to consider perhaps the current economic climate may have left the city with budgetary issues.  When we examine the history of America and New York, robber barons, industrialists, builders and philanthropists 20, 50 and 100 years from now, Mike Bloomberg will be an interesting figure to examine. To not recognize Boss Bloomberg in this context and to consume oneself with class rage against the success of Mike Bloomberg will not advance the interests of the city or of our own individual lives even it if it is an interesting distraction and makes for heated discussions at your favorite watering hole. And even those who say Bloomberg’s ego is too large, you need to ask yourself, when in the history of the world have the people ever wanted a leader who did not have a strong ego and a decided vision for governance? The phrase “grow a pair” has never been rephrased to “your pair is too big”. In the words of Tony Montana, “Amigo, the only thing in this world that gives orders is balls. Balls. You got that?”

New York City gets rarely gets impacted by weather  in the manner that we have with  the snowstorm of 2010 and it has certainly showed some of the cracks in the perceived invincibility of our metropolis and maybe even our fearless leader, but this too shall pass and I suspect this administration and future ones will learn a lesson from it. We must also, however, come to appreciate that there are also limits to financial resources of any government entity and differences of opinion on the productive and efficient use thereof.  Waterloo? For me, its just a song. The best Mayor ever in New York history? The jury is still out, although one could argue that ultimately Bloomberg will be judged on how well he built on the Giuliani legacy, whether he went on a liberal Lindsay’esque walkabout in his efforts to rebuild and renew New York or did something else entirely.

EPILOGUE & REFERENCE LINKS (Updated): The pieces referenced and linked below by major media outlets on the brewing scandal over the Bloomberg administration’s handling of the 2010 snow storm continue to come in since the writing of this blog.

-NY Post by Fred Siegel & Sol Stern: Bloomy’s bubble burst
-Forbes by Jeff Bercovici: Bloomberg Explains Company-Foundation Crossover, Sort of
-NY Times (City Room): Mayor Wasn’t Told About Storm Response Goldsmith Says.
-Wall Street Journal: Bloomberg’s reputation takes a hit.
-NBC New York: Snow Response Puts Mayor’s Vacation Policy Back in Spotlight:NYT report confirms Air Bloomberg was spotted in Bermuda on eve of blizzard
-NY Times (City Room): Blizzard Mystery Solved? Air Bloomberg Was Seen in Bermuda
-NY Daily News: If the Bloomberg administration won’t name names in the blizzard foulup, then we will
-NY Daily News: City Hall refuses to say who was in charge over blizzard weekend, Bloomberg or deputy
-Queens Chronicle (Anne Marie Costella): A blizzard of debate follows snowstorm
-NY Daily News: Sanitationmen tell their side of Christmas Blizzard – 15-hour shifts, faulty equipment, politics
-Reuters: Federal investigation underway on NY snow cleanup
-NY Post (Michael Goodwin): Emperor Mike’s Snow Blindness
-NY Daily News (Chris McKnickle): For Mike Bloomberg, the third-term funk is here: Like Koch, Wagner and LaGuardia, he’s losing focus
-NY Daily News (Erin Einhorn): Mayor Bloomberg Starts 2011 with a prayer and a vow to do better
-The Huffington Post (Dan Collins): Bloomberg’s Third Term Funk
-NY Post (David Seifman): Schedules Reveal Tale Of Two Mayors
-A Voice in the Wilderness: Mayor Bloomberg’s Snow Troubles
-News Real Blog: Mayor Bloomberg’s Snow Job
-NY Daily News (Juan Gonzalez): Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and his flaky ideas doom New York during storm
-NY Daily News (Michael Daly): Clueless Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith deserves blame for fiasco following blizzard
- NY Daily News (Michael Daly): Blizzard baby’s funeral highlights Bloomberg’s failure to effectively manage city during snowstorm
-Frugal Cafe Blog Zone: NYC Blizzard Chaos, Death, & Tragedy: Newborn Baby Dies, Subway Still Stopped, Buses Trapped, Mayor Bloomberg Criticized for Slow Snow Removal (video)
-Ben Smith, Politico: Who to Blame in New York
-The Washington Post (Rachel Weiner):  Sarcastic Michael Bloomberg: ‘I regret everything in the world’
-Capital New York: A Lindsay Moment for Bloomberg but not a Lindsay Legacy
-American Thinker (Pamela Geller): Mayor Bloomberg: An Abject Failure.
-NY Daily News (Mike Lupica): Mayor Bloomberg, intoxicated by power, rides coattails of New York City’s iconic greatness

The mainstream media’s narrative of the Madoff Fraud and the recovery of funds paints a rather incomplete picture of the still untold pain and suffering of a wide swath of Americans who will never see a payment, their retirement funds restored and their short and long term economic security taken off life support.  The narrative has been narrowly framed and compartmentalized to highlight the heroic nature of “the professionals” working at the center of the recovery effort to give the impression that all participants in the fraud who worked in concert with the talented Mr. Madoff are being held criminally and financially accountable and the Madoff Victims are on the verge of having their financial security restored; thus providing an image like Tom Brady marching his team down field with one complete touch down pass after another and to yet another victory.  That is, however, not in fact the case.

The principal architect of the fraud (or the man believed to be), Bernie Madoff, is already behind bars and his investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLP (BLMIS) is in receivership in the hands of the Trustee, Irving Picard.  Irving Picard, a Partner at Baker & Hostetler law firm is working at a pay rate of $1 million per week has launched countless law suits or claw-back actions to get at funds improperly received by insiders and beneficiaries who were winners under or of the  Madoff Fraud. The trustee’s net, however, has also ensnared Madoff investors who were not insiders but rather ordinary investors who became victims many of whom may have had no reason to suspect the fraud but arguably should have under the rubric that it was too good to be true (see also: Too Good to be True by Erin Arvedlund). That they were unable to rely on SEC, FINRA and SIPC to protect them from folks like Madoff is troubling when you consider that ordinary investors have a seemingly higher duty than do the regulatory bodies charged with oversight of folks like Madoff.  Many ordinary people now face claw-back suits for simply having taken out, over the years, more than the principal sum of their investments. Likewise those whose funds were directed into the Ponzi scheme by so called Madoff feeder funds will find themselves on the outside looking in when reimbursements are dispersed. From the reclaimed proceeds, a sizeable pool will be created for Madoff Victims, or at least those who’s claims have not been disqualified for the reasons mentioned above and those who’s investments came in via the feeder funds and not into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLP directly.

Further, if you are to believe the narrative, this is a simple case of one rogue, evil and heartless Jewish Money manager who committed what has been labeled by other journalists as a “Shonda” upon his people.  While there are certainly elements of truth to this, more accurately it can be argued that Bernie Madoff used his mensch like Jewishness, although others found him a schlub and a narcissist, and ties to the Jewish community to serve as a front (for the entire Madoff Criminal family enterprise or syndicate) along with his status as a market maker to create and maintain the perception of trustworthiness; a veritable shield against those who might question the methods of his madness.  In fact,  in certain circles his fund was akin to the “Jewish T-bill” and beyond reproach by the SEC.   With all due respect to Abe Foxman (ADL), however, Madoff’s perceived standing as an honorable man and a veritable pillar of finance and charity in the Jewish community did in fact insulate him to a degree providing a cover for the Madoff criminal family enterprise. Madoff, however, represented no more Jewish values than he did the illusion of them or no more than Charles Manson represents the value of any Christian but that of a sociopath or monster, who hustled a false version of those values which should stop anti-Semites in their tracks.

Despite random deaths and suicides of key people in the Madoff criminal family enterprise from Palm Beach to Soho and Midtown Manhattan, and short of a photo of the inner circle emerging of them holding bags of cash, doing cocaine & partying with hookers at work while holding guns, most family members who held key insider positions of trust and or as officers and directors of BLMIS including:  Andrew Madoff, Mark Madoff (deceased),  Peter Madoff, Ruth Madoff, Shana Madoff Swanson, Carl Shapiro and Robert M. Jaffe, remain at large. Although in fairness to Robert M. Jaffe of Cohmad Securities he was probably just managing Pizza money for the Angiulo Brothers of Boston.  So does Madoff accomplice Sonja Kohn.  The surviving younger son of Bernie Madoff,  Andrew “American Psycho” Madoff  has operatives working behind the scenes to make him  a sympathetic figure in the eyes the public. Even the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) will “give a Madoff the soft touch” with these types of publicist-driven stories.  Journalists like Diana B. Henriques of the New York Times  indulge us with the perspective of how the Madoff name (which carries implicit guilt) became too big a burden to bear for the troubled Mark Madoff providing the opportunuty for the WSJ to contrast that with how the  more optimistic Andrew is simply looking forward to new frontiers under the Black Umbrella, a disaster planning concern founded by his glamrous entrepreneurial fiancé, Catherine Hooper.  Ok, I get it, this falls under can’t a fraudsters son (who was an officer for nearly 20 years in the criminal family enterprise and who faces indictment for criminal fraud and civil lawsuits) catch a break man and move on in life?  Turns out he may not have committed any crimes other than simple tax fraud or at least any that dead men can no longer testify to.  You will have to forgive me if I do not sit around pondering “How Madoff’s son handles grief and scandal”. But I do understand that pieces which focus on “how to explain Mark Madoff’s suicide and Andrew Madoff’s post scandal survival” are in effect trying to cajole the general public to move beyond their focus on Andrew.

While they are subject to Trustee’s lawsuits seeking forfeiture of their ill gotten gains, to date, many in the Madoff criminal enterprise are still in possession of most of their trinkets, homes and accounts and apparently under no risk of criminal prosecution but have restricted use of their personal assets (or the personal assets of their victims). Maybe that will change after a decision is made that most of the funds that can be retrieved have been secured. However, one must consider the risk of the class rage that may fuel vigilante justice being pursued against insiders of the Madoff criminal family syndicate. As much as many in the upper classes may have concerns at digging too deeply and thereby opening a Pandora’s Box and risk igniting or stirring class rage which may spread like wild fire across a burning field and potentially ensnare other fraudsters who are currently hiding in plain view, doing nothing is more dangerous. Like a boiling tea kettle left on a hot stove, the risk of doing nothing is a bigger stain on all of our houses, undermines trust of Wall Street and the financial markets and the perceived standing of the non-guilty. There are in fact honest and competent money managers. As long as the guilty roam free with millions in their accounts and walk freely around in their luxury homes at 433 East 74th Street on the Upper East Side, at 57 Tomac Lane in Old Greenwich or in Palm Beach we will never have total security or tranquility in our society again. Candidly, I did not lose any money but its not like I would not cheer if a few more in the Madoff clan met their demise in a similarly “heroic” fashion as Mark Madoff, even if that means Narcisco Rodriguez would lose a big shopper or that attorney Mark Smith would lose a client.  Ok there so I said it.

If you have a conversation or two in this town at a not so random watering hole or in the homes of friends, you will learn as I have that many people are truly and deeply concerned about financial fraudsters and their accomplices and the threat they present to our security and financial welfare (See: Hurt on the Madoff Victim Narrative).  And truth is that many folks might be safer walking after dark in Central Park than they might be in a conference room in the Lipstick Building with their 401(k).  In addition, if you think that some of these folks are not at risk of getting whacked at some point, you are ignoring reality.  So while members of the Madoff clan may want to get on with their life after Bernie’s Big Lie, they may already be Dead Men Walking. A few arrests of long time Madoff employees will not satisfy the anger of victims who see no reason why key insiders have not been arrested and charged.

The media’s portrait of Irving Picard as a veritable Robin Hood working in service of the Bernard Madoff Victims is only partially correct and in fairness it is perhaps the best we can hope for under our existing system.  Truth is that most victims will never see a dime of the proceeds since many victims took out more than their principal investment in the Ponzi scheme. Those who invested indirectly via feeder funds like Walter Noel’s Fairfield Greenwich Group comprise an even more significant number of claimants and the total amount outstanding. The legal rubric for their disparate treatment is that those investors relied on the judgment of Fairfield Greenwich Group and not Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securties, LLP. Walter Noel and his cohorts, like the Madoff family members in positions of trust, remain free at large because all of these MONKEYS did not hear, see or know anything and similarly were victims of the Madoff Fraud. The chutzpah!

The whole Madoff Affair stinks to the high heavens. But fortunately it may seem to fall into a nice, neat clean package with a favorable return for the victims based upon the Trustee’s recent recovery of the biggest settlement yet from the estate of deceased Crimino-Philanthropist, Jeffry Picower (a tax shelter expert and a criminal scumbag of the highest order who took some of the Madoff secrets to the grave),  but before you digest the entire media narrative, you may just want to consider what else might be shielded considering some of the facts put forth in the investigative work of controversial journalist Mark Mitchell of Deep Capture in a piece entitled: “Bernard Madoff, the Mafia, and the Friends of Michael Milken | Deep Capture: exposing the crime of naked short selling”.

Are you mad as hell yet?

Part II After Christmas.

Epilogue: This post is has been re-published by permission on the blog Scallywag & Vagabond.

REFERENCES
Books
-Too Good to Be True by Erin Ardevelund
-The Club No One Wanted to Join by Twenty-Nine Authors, Erin Arvedlund, Alexandra Roth
-Inside Edition on The Club
-YouTube: Too Good to be True, the Rise & Fall of Bernie Madoff (interview of Erin Ardevlund at Massachusetts School of Law by Dean Lawrence Velvel)

Madoff Victim Links
-Information blog for Families Affected by Bernie Madoff
-Bernard Madoff Fraud Victims Coalition
-Madoff Help, News & Assistance.
-Madoff /Financial Fraud Law
-Madoff (BLMIS) Trustee
 -Legal Theory Blog: Hurt on the Madoff Victim Narrative

Hot Story Links
-Frontline (PBS): the Madoff Affair
-People Magazine: The $50 Billion Swindle: ‘We’re All Wiped Out’
-Madoff /Financial Fraud Law
-Global Research: Turning a Blind Eye: Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme was known to Wall Street Financial Regulators
-Op-Ed News (April 2, 2009) by Lawrence Velvel: Madoff And The Mafia: A Mere Speculation Or Almost A Sure Thing?
-Main Justice: SDNY Criminal Chief’s Father Had Close Ties to Madoff Investor
-Main Justice: Alleged Madoff Accomplice Operated in Open View
-Daily Beast (Allen Dodds Frank): $7.2 Billion Payday for Madoff Victims
-The Big Picture: Mark Madoff Suicide Leaves Unanswered Questions
-Pro Publica: The Madoff Circle: Who Knew What?
-Fierce Finance: Mark Madoff: Bernard’s Link to Sonja Kohn?
-Madoff Memoranda: Mark Madoff Knew About the Fraud

Ongoing Media Manipulation
-Columbia Journalism Review (CJR): The WSJ Gives A Madoff the Soft Touch
-NY Times: Mark Madoff’s Name Became too Big a Burden
-Wall Street Journal: A Madoff Son Looks Forward
-The Independent: How Madoff’s Surviving Son Handles Grief & Scandal
-The Jewish Daily FORWARD: In New Madoff Filings, Largest Beneficiary of Fraud Was Possibly Unaware of Ponzi Scheme
–The Atlantic Wire: Understanding Mark Madoff’s Misery
-WSJ:Madoff Memorial Pops Up on Facebook
-Mark Madoff Memorial Site:Facebook Page

CALLING OLIVER STONE…………………………Was the CIA, Russian Oligarchs, Colombian Drug Lords, the Mossad or the American Illuminati involved in the Madoff Affair?

THESIS:  The Feds/CIA infiltrated the Madoff affair and members of the clan itself.  Bernie Madoff had to be brought down in a symbolic way that garnered massive media attention to make it look to the general public like Wall Street was being truly cleaned up rather than whitewashed; sort of like a safety relief valve on the whole financial crisis and the collapse in confidence in the markets.  The  hope being that a wide swath of America is left with the impression that:  ”We got the bad guys” without further consideration of deeper potentially paridigmatic elements of the scandal, a ‘Shonda’ for the Jews  certainly but with far reaching impact on American investors from all walks of life, not limited exclusively to the Jewish community.   The public trust is restored…or is it?  The Madoff’s have too many secrets on the powerful insiders of Wall Street, the financial community in general that goes to the highest levels of American Society.  And then there is the question of where the money was shuttled off to. Drug Lords? U.S. Military operations in Afghanistan, the Mossad to fund the fight against the the global Islamic crusade or perhaps another coup attempt inside Iran to destroy their nuclear facilities and assassinate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

SCENE: It is 2015, President Sarah Palin having defeated Barack Obama in a close election in 2012,  is coming to the end of her first term;  the economy though stagnant is sufficiently in tact to enable  our protagonist, one critical blogger/lawyer/NY Society documentarian who finally publishes his first book and marries his long time girlfriend, an Italian/American woman (who resembles  a cross between Apollonia Vitelli Corleone from the Godfather and Monica Belluci). In celebration, he decides to go on a much needed vacation with his new wife. Their electic tastes take them to Malta, Cyrpus, Sardinia, and Sicily. After a long walk through the hills of Sardinia, our protagonist stumbles into hillside tavern and bed and breakfast.  He is welcomed by and comes face to face with a man eerily familiar to him who speaks perfect English with an American accent, actually more of a Queens/Long Island accent. Our protagonist recognizes that accent all too well, himself having been born at Jamaica Hospital, raised in Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, Corona before  moving to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn; he recognizes that tone.  He sits down and refreshes himself with a cool drink at the tavern when he realizes the uncanny resemblance the Inn Keeper bears to the scandal plaqued trader son of Ponzi scheming mastermind Bernie Madoff who had committed suicide back in 2010. The writer flashes back to news clips from 2010, the body of Mark Madoff being removed from 158 Mercer in Soho, the conversation with the drunk Real Estate broker at Cipriani Downtown who blurted out, “that Madoff kid…strange thing, they pulled his body out of the wrong building.  He actually lived at 40 Mercer.” And then he remembered, nobody thought it odd that a Jewish kid was cremated  at the Gramercy Park Memorial Chapel within a couple of days of his being “suicided”  when Jewish law generally forbids cremation? Although, to be clear it also forbids suicide. And ironically it was also not the first suspect suicide to come out of the Madoff affair. Consider the case of  Madoff associate,  billionaire investor and philanthropist, Jeffrey Pickower who was found at the bottom of his pool in Palm Beach, Florida.   Notably, however, negotiations with the estate of Jeffrey Picower represented by Superlawyer William Zabel of Schulte Roth & Zabel resulted in an agreement to pay $7.2 billion to U.S. Department of Justice and the Madoff Trustee to recover funds that the late Mr. Picower (Madoff’s largest beneficiary who shared a curious insider relationship with the Ponzi scheming mastermind and had been labeled a crook by some folks) made in the fraud.  The deceased’s widow Barbara Picower was gracious enough to return the, in effect, $7 Billion no-interest loan that her husband gained  to enrich himself on the back of defrauded investors. Despite Ms. Picower’s denial of complicity by her deceased husband in her scheme, doubts forever remained about the true nature of who what actually was Mr. Picower’s relationship with Mr. Madoff.  The Inside Job also made Palm Beach outcasts of long time Madoff insiders,  Carl Shapiro and Robert M. Jaffe.   On the  eve of the settlement speculators flocked like vultures attempting to buy claims from Madoff Victims at discount.

As he finishes his first Lemonada,  out of the corner of his eye he sees a man who resembles  Neil Bush discretely checking out of the hotel  but his focus is interrupted as the inkeeper asks “Mr. London are you enjoying your stay with us?” Without flinching yet recognizing that the inkeeper should not know his name….since he had not given it to him, unless maybe he had read our protagonist’s blogs questioning the suicide in the the days and weeks after his death, decides not to ask how or why he is recognized but simply smiles and nods his head.  As he is walking out, he notices that on bicycle heading towards the Inn is none other than Andrew Madoff, who had not been seen inside the United States in several years.

Our protagonist begins to review in his mind THE DEAL or what ultimately happened with the Madoff Clan back circa 2008-2010 as he heads back to his own hotel.

(i) Bernie Madoff was convicted and ultimately landed in Butner Prison, in North Carolina, or Club Fed,  where he lives his final days dining on mac & cheese playing Chess with members of the Italian Mafia who shield him from hit men for Russian Oligarchs and Colombian drug lords.
(ii) Ruth Madoff is taken care of (left with $3 million and homes to stay in Palm Beach)
(iii) Mark Madoff is “suicided” evoking wide spread sympathy and the “Greek Tragedy” of the sins of the father being visited upon the sons. BUT yet the body is cremated in a couple of days after he is found ”suicided” hanging from a pipe in his living on a black dog leash.  The News of his body being removed from 158 Mercer by the NYPD played live on television. But in the days following it turned out that Madoff was actually a resident of 40 Mercer and not 158 Mercer where the body was removed from.  Nevertheless, since the body was quickly cremated, there was never any evidence of his remains for verification purposes.  Those who suspected Mark Madoff was  not really dead theorized that he may have been  shuttled away some where maybe he got constructive facial surgery and placed into a witness protection program.   Mainstream media reports painted a picture of a man who once lived the good life, in agony and despair as the second anniversary of his father’s Ponzi scheme was revealed. According to reports,  Mark Madoff was unstable, depressed, despondent and emotionally erratic in the days leading up to his suicide mostly over the public scrutiny and the Trustee’s lawsuits which placed Mark, his brother and other family members directly in his cross hairs. Conspiracy theorists who believe he was suicided theorized that Mark Madoff became a risk of cracking, speaking or confessing and giving up family secrets and secrets on the powerful to save his own hide. He became not only expendable but necessarily so. Legend in conspiracy circles was that Mark Madoff was forced to do the right thing and hang himself while his brother, CIA, Mossad or Russian mob looked on. Madoff was allegedly given assurances that this act would save his wife and children from a similar fate for having committed a cardinal sin against his people.
(iv) Mark Madoff’s wife Stephanie Morgan becomes a sympathetic figure as a widow and mother. She was left with some financial security but stripped of a portion of the family’s cash wealth and the second and third homes.

(v) Andrew Madoff and his girlfriend, the glamorous entrepreneur Ms. Catherine Hooper blend into obscurity after the spotlight briefly shifted to Andrew after brother Mark’s death. They remained in NYC devoted to their business venture in disaster planning. Andy was framed in the press as the poor victim of his father’s fraud,  a veritable orphan who lost his brother and best friend and no longer speaks to his parents. In the last couple of years he has dropped out of sight.
(vi) TRUSTEE: The public eventually tires of  Irving H. Picard’s, the Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLP clawback lawsuits. His investigation is shut down because of the perception is of unnecessary harassment of some already hard hit Madoff investors.

(vii) MADOFF LAWS: A few new laws are passed to assure Madoff victims who ultimately get back about 35%half of what they originally put in that the system has been repaired.

America finally moves on. The deal that Madoff’s made with the Illuminati or other underworld figures enabled their survival while serving as a distraction for the criminal element that took over American Society. Why would Feds/CIA do this? For at least a couple of reasons.   Bernard L. Madoff Investments Securities LLC and their accomplices, folks like the esteemed Walter Noel,  his Fairfield Greenwich Group and Sonja Kohn (Austrian born founder of Bank of Medici)  ripped off Russian Oligarchs and via their Colombian connection, Colombian Drug Lords as well. In light of the foregoing and  the danger of their  indictment possibly leading to the risk that a family member might testify giving away more than the Madoff family secrets,  secrets about the operation of American Society at the highest levels working in concert with global criminal enterprises might unsettle citizens.

Our protagonist struggles with this as he types away on his laptop back at his hotel room. He emails friends back home saying that he stumbled upon the Madoff brothers in Sardinia. The retort from his friends and family members, is “Hey Chris, it is Easter, tell the Madoff’s that the Easter Bunny wants to know where to invest his chocolate eggs….ha ha ha” “Say hi to Santa Claus and when you turn out the lights…be careful of the boogeyman.” Just then an IM from an unrecognized user pops up on his screen and says “Hello Chris London welcome to Sardinia. Enjoy your brief stay. You have broken the code and violated the terms of the order“.

The lights go off in his hotel room as bullets spray through the window…………

(C)Story by Christopher London

References
-Too Good to Be True by Erin Ardevelund
-Frontline (PBS): the Madoff Affair
-The Club No One Wanted to Join by Twenty-Nine Authors, Erin Arvedlund, Alexandra Roth
-Inside Edition on The Club
-Information blog for Families Affected by Bernie Madoff
-Bernard Madoff Fraud Victims Coalition
-The $50 Billion Swindle: ‘We’re All Wiped Out’, People Magazine

Take a long hot bath like Frank “Frankie Five Angels” Pentangeli

LIFE offers us a choice as to which side of human history we choose to put ourselves on.  In the case of the Madoff Affair, there are far too many unanswered questions, a number of which shall remain unanswered as a result of Mark Madoff’s suicide (the devastated wife and children he leaves behind) Bernie Madoff’s imprisonment and Madoff Insider, Jeffry Picower’s ill timed death (or conveniently timed depending on your perspective) . Andrew Madoff is left with a choice whether to work to restore his citizenship, image and standing in the civilized world or to fall on the sword and preserve the confidences for the members of his clan while using public relations operatives behind the scenes to paint a picture of him as a victim on equal footing with Madoff’s real victims. It is an untenable position and even Andrew must know that.  He stands in the cross hairs of human history. The longer he remains at large the more it undermines confidence in our entire system.

The Madoff Fraud is ongoing. It did not end with the capture, trial and jailing of Bernie Madoff.  Stage two commenced with the Madoff Sons “turning in” their father after his confession to them that the whole thing was “one big lie”. The confession helped to lay the groundwork to begin the process of perpetuating the fiction that managing corporate executive insiders, who received their business training at elite schools like the University of Michigan and The Wharton School who were the sons and family members of the CEO and who lived and breathed the family business 24/7 were somehow “left out of the loop” on the true full nature of their fathers criminal enterprise, thus absolving them of liability as accomplices to the massive fraud, so that if they had to return some money they could have a basis or justification for holding on to part of it.  As printed in New York Magazine’s Daily Intel shortly after “the confession” an interesting anecdote about the family influence in financial technology:

After all, as Mark Madoff told Wall Street + Technology back in 2000: “All of his family members grew up with this being our lives. When it is a family operated business you don’t go home at night and shut everything off.  So you take things home with you, which is how all of us grew up.”

But, this would seem to conflict with a report in the Wall Street Journal:

At the 2009 lunch with his former employee, Mark Madoff talked about how payments or gifts from his family didn’t seem odd to him. “I grew up and my dad had money,” Mark Madoff told the trader. “It was always around. I didn’t ask where it came from.”

Consider today’s Financial Times in an op-ed stating that Madoff was Wall Street’s problem:

“No one knew exactly what Mr Madoff was doing but there were suspicions in parts of Wall Street that he was either front-running his broking customers or operating a Ponzi scheme.”

As further reported in the Wall Street Journal, in a conversation with Kimberly Unger, executive director of the Securities Trading Association of New York:  ”he understood he would have to give up the Nantucket home but hoped that he could keep some of the money he learned from a legitimate career in trading”. The chutzpah,sort of like the guy who drives the car to a murder scene and says, “I had no idea what he was doing in the house but I think I should be able to keep the Rolex I found in the kitchen while I was waiting for him to finish up”.  You think I am kidding? Andrew Madoff has a proof of claim for deferred compensation owed to him filed with the court in the Bankruptcy estate of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLP.

Make no mistake that everything said or done since the date of the confession has been in that vein by anyone with a Madoff name or representing Madoff interests. Any time a Madoff speaks, whether it is Ruth, Bernie or one of his sons, family members, lawyers or surrogates, like a politician they stay on message with the intended goal of eliminating the idea of complicity by other family members.  Consider further Stephanie Morgan’s statement:  “My husband Mark took his own life and regardless of what you feel about my father-in-law and his monstrous crimes, Mark’s children are innocent victims and this is tragic for them,” she said. “I am devastated and now raising two small children alone.” Is this a message to the trustee and victims to leave her alone?

Case in point: According to published reports, Madoff biographer Jerry Oppenheimer, the self serving Ruth Madoff “is totally disgusted and blames Bernie for their son’s death” and she believes “this is the end of the family” and others have thus speculated further that no matter what kind of monster he is, “Madoff  himself has paid the ultimate price. He has his son’s blood on his hands”. Behind bars in Butler, North Carolina where Madoff is serving his 15o year sentence at what has been referred to as Camp Fluffy, “F–k my victims,” Madoff reportedly said. “I carried them for 20 years, and now I’m doing 150 years.” He told other inmates that his only crime was taking money from those who were “rich and greedy and wanted more.” You will have to forgive me for my cynicism when I say that I sincerely believe that Ruth and Bernie are reading from the same script or talking points designed to leave an impression with the public that obfuscates the complicity of the entire family in the fraud. Keep in mind that any time a Madoff speaks and gets press, it is towards that end.  They and those counseling them from Ira Sorkin to Martin Flumenbaum have to recognize that in a reality driven culture, the Greek tragedy that plays out like a soap opera on the blogosphere and in the newspapers covering  Madoff family infighting will some how catch hold rendering some or all of Madoff’s complicit family members sympathetic figures in the eyes of the public.

Mark and Andrew turning in their father Bernie Madoff was but a brilliant ploy, a ruse which has not and will not put them in the clear with Madoff Victims or those of us still watching. Truth is that Andrew Madoff could not have been any more of an insider at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLP than a monkey would be an insider if he climbed into your butt.  Capische?  Andrew Madoff thus stands at a crossroads, a veritable nether world figure without one foot in hell and one in the free world above ground…. for the moment. As I see it, If Andrew Madoff is not gonna come clean about the family business but is going to hide behind the skirt of his Black Umbrella and go to the grave with honor protecting family secrets that destroyed countless American families, then perhaps he may want to take a long hot bath like Frank “Frankie Five Angels” Pentangeli in the The Godfather and do the right thing. This world and this country has no further use for citizens with this kind of character, nor should it. Sweet dreams you sonofabitch.

The curious case of certain media figures, society elites and editors of mainstream media outlets who wax poetic. express sorrow or who are otherwise engaged in exploring or rationalizing sympathy for the sins of the father (Bernie Madoff) being visited upon the sons or the burdens they bear for having the name Madoff is in my estimation a seriously misguided waste of compassion; as for their children or the grandchildren of Bernie Madoff well thats an entirely different story.  By way of repeating points that I have previously made in other blogs (and also made by leading journalists covering the Madoff affair from the very beginning) when you consider assessing the relative culpability of Madoff’s sons and begin to feel sympathetic for the adult children of the criminal mastermind who were managing directors in the family business, ask yourself first the critical question, Did the Madoff Sons Know?  Then ask yourself,  how did they not know?

Mark & Andrew Madoff knew well enough to take their money and personal assets out of the family business in 2000, 8 years before the scheme collapsed, had the foresight to leave $2 million parked in the Mark & Stephanie Madoff Foundation, and held a great portion of their assets (personal and foundation assets) in Real Estate and with banks and investments accounts in other firms. Andrew apparently lost “several million” but what is that in the grand scheme if you are otherwise left in tact financially while the world crumbles around you?  The chutzpah that these ass clowns can sit there and say “oh yeah we lost money too” and even our jobs as if somehow that places them in the sames shoes as the Madoff Victims. All the more ironic considering the phenomenal and consistent returns that their money managing wizard of a father got for their other clients right? And that he did so……with no evidence of having executed any trades for 13 years.  Now that is truly phenomenal. As stated to me by a rather learned and experienced friend who shall remain anonymous:

“What is amazing to me is that all these huge firms who looked at him (for potential investors), and saw that the CUSIP Numbers on the trades did not match (because there were no trades) never blew the whistle on him prior to 2008! One does not need to be a murderer to be a psycopath!”

Bernie Madoff was was creating money and profits out of thin air without having to execute trades and place money at risk. Think about that for a minute. This is not a case of a guy making less than perfect, unreasonable or even negligent or high risk investments subjecting his clients to unforeseen risk; he was simply taking their money and redistributing it among his band of thieves, an inner circle or curious characters operating in New York and Palm Beach,  and having enough on hand to pay out investors who needed to cash out while he continued to operate the Ponzi scheme.  Yet all the while the Madoff Brothers collected salaries, bonuses and no interest, non-repayable loans well in excess of the profits earned by the business that they were running.  They used that money to fund lavish lifestyles without ever considering the source of those funds?  Come on now you know better than that.  Call it creative estate planning or disaster planning for the day when the inevitable happened, the fraud was discovered or had to be revealed. That it took is so many others so long to to realize that it was all just “Too Good to be True”, despite the warnings by knowledgeable investigative journalists and whistle-blowers is not relevant?  The actions of the Madoff Brothers suggested that they implicitly recognized that their critical funds were safer elsewhere.

How these two brothers have credibility or remain in good standing  in anyone’s eyes is baffling when their status was that of highly WELL EDUCATED (University of Michigan and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania) and technically SAVVY, ADULT, INSIDERS in a CRIMINAL FAMILY ENTERPRISE, protected only by the fiction of the proverbial CHINESE WALL between broker dealer and asset management divisions, which the Trustee discovered was largely a fiction. As MANAGING or CHIEF TRADERS at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLP you  think they might have realized that their father had not executed a trade on behalf of client accounts in 13 years.  I guess they missed that while they were busy buying vacation homes, rolexes and assorted other gifts and trinkets for their trophy wives, girlfriends, partying with topless women or fly fishing with their girlfriends.  Simply put, to not recognize that the MADOFF SONS WERE COMPLICIT and accept that MARK MADOFF’S SUICIDE WAS AN ADMISSION OF COMPLICITY one would have to be doing BONG HITS repeatedly for days on end.  It is a little like having Sympathy for the Devil when certain elements in the media and society at large choose instead to focus on expressions of sympathy for the screws tightening on poor Andrew Madoff (Can’t a fraudster catch a break?) or any other family members when many ordinary people, honest hard working Americans were literally wiped out. You will excuse me for having contempt for those seeking sympathy for the misfortunes of the Madoff sons when the misfortunes of Madoff Victims are still very much at issue. If Andrew Madoff is not gonna come  clean about the family business but is gonna go to the grave with honor, then perhaps he may want to take a long hot bath like Frank “Frankie Five Angels Pentangeli in the The Godfather and do the right thing.