Madoff

Two years now since the collapse of Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, the picture of the largest fraud ever perpetrated is becoming clearer all the time. And while Madoff himself insisted that he acted alone, investigators and prosecutors insist that a fraud of such magnitude would have to have required the complicity and support of an entire team. To that end, indictments have been handed to two additional former Madoff employees, who now await prosecution.

The indictments were reportedly handed to Jo Ann "Jodi" Crupi and Annette Bongiorno, both having been arrested by FBI agents and remain in custody pending $5 million in bail to be posted for each. The number of those indicted in the Madoff case has now reached eight as authorities strive to put the pieces back together.

According to Reuters, today, "Bernard Madoff's bankruptcy trustee and the law firm employing him submitted a $22.1 million legal bill covering five months of work."

Baker & Hostetler LLP wants $21.28 million, and court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, the partner at Baker & Hostetler who is overseeing the liquidation of Madoff's professional and personal assets (that includes the auctions), wants $835,605 separately. Picard has "recovered $1.4 billion of assets, just 7 percent of the $21.2 billion of investor losses he had found."

When lawyers want their clients to get paid, that's one thing. When lawyers their own paycheck, it's another entirely. What do you think? Should they only get 7 percent of their bills paid? Perhaps that would reinvigorate their desire to find out, while liquidating, where the money really went.

[via Reuters]

The three boats that once belonged to Bernie Madoff generated more than a million dollars for victims of his $65 billion Ponzi scheme on Tuesday. Seventy bidders registered with National Liquidators to chase after the boats, along with a Mercedes and another yacht owned by Madoff's CFO, Frak DiPascali.

"Bull," which was Madoff's 55-foot yacht, sold for $700,000, with the 38-foot "Sitting Bull" following at $320,000 and the 24-foot "Little Bull" fetching a mere $21,000. His 1999 Mercedes Benz CLK 320 convertible was good for $30,000, despite the fact that it has only 12,827 miles on it. The top seller was DiPasclai's 61-foot 2003 Viking sport fishing yacht, which sold for $950,000 at the auction.

The sales were helped along by the fact that Madoff took excellent care of his yachts. Bob Toney, president of National Liquidators, told Bloomberg News, "Mr. Madoff has taken better care of his yachts than anyone else I know," continuing, "they were crew-maintained all the time."

The latest "Bull" from Bernie Madoff is about to be unloaded. His yacht, which bears that name, will join two others under the gavel, and the action before the sale is already impressive. So far, 29 people have thrown down the $100,000 deposit needed to gain a ticket to the party, and the U.S. Marshals Service expects more registrations to come.

There's a theme in the both names. His largest yacht, a 55-foot 1969 Rybovitch sportfisher is called "Bull," and the other two, a 38-footer and a 24-footer, are named "Sitting Bull" and "Little Bull," respectively. Also, Frank DiPascali's 61-foot Viking fishing yacht will be auctioned off on Tuesday. DiPascali was Madoff's CFO.

Non-maritime lots to wind up on the block include a 1999 Mercedes-Benz CLK 320 convertible, with only 12,800 miles on it.

The auction has not been given a presale estimate, figuring that the Madoff name can push prices higher. This is exactly what happened over the weekend, when an auction of the felon's personal effects brought in north of $1 million.

Says Jennifer Crane of the asset forfeiture division of the U.S. Marshals Service, "You can't really put a price on this."

Bernie Madoff's last home may have sold strong, but it looks like the momentum is fading. His home in the Hamptons beat the listing price and ultimately moved for more than $9.4 million. Unfortunately for his victims, interest in his Manhattan penthouse and Palm Beach estate isn't as strong. The prices for both have been cut, as the Ponzi schemer moves from news to history. Both homes have been on the market for only two months.

The Manhattan home, on the Upper East Side, offers 4,000 square feet which the broker, Sotheby's International Realty, says is "perched atop a distinguished white-glove prewar cooperative." Originally offered at $9.9 million, the asking price has been slashed by $1 million. So, if you're looking for some new digs in the city, this should be perched atop your list. A 10 percent price drop after only two months in the game means that you could probably work the price down a little bit further. If you were a Madoff investor, think of it as recouping some of what was so wrongly taken from you.

The situation in Palm Beach, Florida isn't much better. The discount is only 7 percent, with the price plunging from $8.49 million to $7.9 million according to the Corcoran Group, which is handling the sale. This home is billed as "a return to classic Florida island living ... when Palm Beach was a less manicured tropical paradise." What does that mean? Does classical Florida island living have anything to do with defrauding the neighbors?

Madoff, now a resident of Butner, North Carolina, believed that the Manhattan apartment was worth only $7 million. He pegged the Palm Beach residence at $11 million.

When both properties move, the proceeds will go to Madoff's victims. Of the $65 million, roughly, that he took, $1.4 billion is said to have been recovered. Even when compared to the investor losses identified, $21.2 billion, it's but a drop in the bucket. The auction scheduled for Saturday may help a little bit, with Bernie's Mets jacket and Ruth's golf clubs going under the gavel.

We've seen the houses and yachts go up for sale, now some of the smaller Madoff effects are ready to hit the auction block in an upcoming U.S. Marshals sale. Many of Madoff's pieces including his Rolex watches and a satin New York Mets jacket with the name 'Madoff' on the back in big orange letters are up for sale this weekend. The auction features flatware, furs, art, golf clubs and Mrs. Madoff's designer purses. Even Madoff's stationery and personalized Post-It notes are up for bid.

The pieces will be auctioned off through Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers Inc. at 10 a.m. EST on November 14 at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers. Bidding will also be available online. The Wall Street Journal added up the over 200 lots which have an estimated value of around $500,000 but could go for more depending on just how badly people want a piece of this epic swindler. Check out CNBC's gallery of some of the items.

The latest in the Bernie Madoff saga is actually a bit of good news for his myriad victims. Reuters reports that they will receive more than $534 million in payouts, according to court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, who is trying to recover Madoff's assets.

The sum is less than one-eighth of the $4.44 billion of claims that Picard has so far deemed valid and is less than 3% of the $21.2 billion of losses suffered by holders of 2,335 Madoff accounts. These losses are up from the $13 billion the government estimated in June, when Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Picard, a partner at the law firm Baker & Hostetler LLP, said he has reviewed 2,861 direct customer claims, allowing 1,558 and rejecting 1,303. He said 15,974 customer claims were submitted and noted that he has recovered $1.4 billion of Madoff assets, an amount that should reach $1.5 billion by year end.

Picard has filed lawsuits to recover $15 billion from Madoff investors he calls "net winners." Of the 4,903 accounts at Madoff's firm on December 11, 2008, when Madoff was arrested, 2,568 received more money than they deposited, he said.

Picard also said he will pursue the recovery of $7.2 billion from the estate of billionaire philanthropist Jeffry Picower, who recently drowned in a swimming pool at his Palm Beach, Fla., home following a heart attack.

The Securities Investor Protection Corp, a federally chartered agency that supervises the liquidation of brokerages, has been "the only source of distributed funds" to victims so far, agency president Stephen Harbeck said, adding that the $534.25 million of committed advances is more than in the SIPC's 321 combined prior liquidations since 1970. Federal law limits SIPC protection to $500,000.

If you were waiting for the bottom, it looks like you just missed it. Home prices in the Hamptons are on their way back up, rising 4.7 percent in the third quarter. Houses priced in the range of $2 million to $5 million led the charge. In fact, the number of properties clocking in at more than $2 million (including the former getaway of Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, which went for $9.41 million) jumped 44 percent -- 46 sales occurred from July through September this year. And, the median price for this part of Long Island increased from $860,000 last year to $900,000 this year.

The action appears to have been driven by buyers who'd normally look for something close to $10 million ... who began to see what they could get for a mere 20 percent of that price. When opportunity knocks ... you know the drill.

Even with this bit of good news, the number of homes sold last quarter fell 2.3 percent, with those fetching less than $500,000 posting the largest decline (22 percent). So, all isn't rosy in the land of the wealthy, unless of course, you're still wealthy.

The world's most accomplished Ponzi schemer -- right up until he got caught, that is -- finally lost his beach home. Bernie Madoff's Montauk house moved for $9.41 million, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, more than the $8.75 million for which it was listed. It sold on Friday, and the buyer is not being named. It only took a month to make the transaction happen.

Joseph Guccione, U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of New York, calls this "another step forward for the government," and though he didn't mention anything about the victims, one assumes that it's progress for them, too. After all, it would be nice if they got even a taste of this cash.

Several bidders tried to get their hands on Madoff's former home, which measures 3,000 square feet and has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The losers can have another shot at Madoff glory, though, as properties in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, are listed. The former is on the market for $9.9 million, and the latter is listed for $8.49 million.

Madoff was unable to take a last walk through the halls of the Long Island residence, of course, because he's otherwise detained committed in Butner, North Carolina. But, he's adapting, having already thrown down on the block and earned himself some props.

Another tiny dent soon will been made in the repayment of the funds owed to those duped by Bernie Madoff. His 3,000-square-foot Montauk, N.Y., beach house sold this week in an all-cash deal for more than the $8.75 million asking price. Neither the buyer's name nor the exact amount of the sale has been released. The four-bedroom, three-bath home is located on 182 feet of prime beach property.

The house was only on the market a few weeks. See more about the house, and more photos, in this story my colleague Deidre did on September 1, and check out this New York Times slideshow.

"Too Good to Be True" is a new book by Erin Arvedlund which chronicles the catastrophic fraud committed by Bernard Madoff over the last no-one-knows-how-many years.

Arvedlund wrote a Barron's article back in 2001 called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" questioning the magical returns of Madoff's so-called "hedge fund," which is now widely accepted to have been the largest, most outrageous, most ginormously craptastic, how-do-I-express-without-cursing Ponzi scheme in history.

"Her article in Barron's, based on more than one hundred interviews, could have prevented a lot of misery, had the SEC followed up," boasts the jacket of her new book "Too Good to be True," which was released August 11.

I didn't know what to make of the book at first; it seemed to read somewhat Biblically -- a lot of begetting (who Madoff knew, how he knew them, etc.) and not a lot of action. For the first 100 pages or so I kept thinking "Arvedlund had better sex this up," especially considering the number of other books on Madoff, including the highly anticipated "Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me" by his mistress, Sheryl Weinstein, released August 25.

Well, if money is your porn, you won't get through this book without removing an article of clothing.

The book slowly becomes a whodunit, naming both names and numbers and ultimately presenting the unsatisfying fact that Madoff got away with one of the oldest tricks in the book -- the same trick relied upon by everyone from white collar criminals to wedding crashers and underage drinkers -- he pretended nothing was wrong, and so nobody asked him any questions.

As the story picks up, it becomes the heroic tale of Harry Markopolos, whom Arvedlund wisely and perhaps correctly dubs an Everyman; "a straightforward American guy who liked numbers." This man practically gift-wrapped red flags and hand-delivered them to the SEC for a decade preceding Bernard Madoff's arrest. Reading, I felt a discouragement with our country's level of corruption I haven't felt since I watched Michael Moore's damning portrait of war and the oil industry, "Fahrenheit 9/11." The SEC was created during the Great Depression to regulate our financial industry, but, according to Arvedlund, it's being run by a bunch of early-career lawyers who don't want to step on anyone's toes -- and who were getting their financial advice from Uncle Bernie himself.

The book has no mercy on Madoff -- there is no point at which we are expected to believe in him. It simply relays the facts like an obituary; one which gets juicier and juicier as it exposes the cyclone of fraud which took place. It was executed in such simple and easily understandable ways -- virtually the whole scheme seems to have relied upon Madoff's refusal to upgrade an archaic computer system which required one to enter stock price data manually. "Entering the data by hand [Robert] MacMahon noted, meant that the person doing it could put in whatever they wanted," writes Arvedlund. As you probably already know, Bernie found himself in the business of making up numbers. The book purports that he created monthly statements by going back over the last month's market and seeing what he would have had to trade to make the profit he claimed to have made (which I'm guessing someone else probably did for him while he was in France, buying his third boat).

The book recounts the aftermath well; the suicides, the testimonials in court (left me wanting more), and delicately suggests other individuals who could be to blame; for example Michael Bienes, who did a lot of recruiting for Madoff -- a pointed final statement in the section about him says "At the time of this writing, no one has sued Bienes over his ties to Madoff."

"Too Good to Be True" will appeal to both the savvier members of the financial community who knew (or should have known) better than to trust Madoff, and to the underdogs and mom-and-pops who were (or might have been) swindled. The lesson is clear: no one should be so well-respected that they don't have to answer questions, and if everyone pretends they understand something they don't so as to appear sophisticated, or they accept being kept in the dark about the means so long as the ends are 10-20+ percent, villains like Madoff will always be able to take advantage of that pride and greed -- not to say that his victims were guilty of either; it's the feeder funds and his recruiters at whom we should all be looking. And, of course, probably his family and everyone else who worked alongside his IBM AS/400.

In these economic times, most of us have had a taste of what it's like to lose money, and it's easy to identify with Madoff's victims. I found myself choked up at the end of the book -- not because the damages will perhaps never be repaid, not because our country seems to constantly wager the well-being of its citizens (I'm speaking of the SEC dot gov's alleged shameless favoritism), but because although he was one of the most well-connected, powerful, and untouchable figures in the world, they got him. It took the collapse of the financial market, but they finally, finally got him.

Well done to Arvedlund for telling the story clearly and with more facts than most of us knew were available. "Too Good to Be True" is available from Amazon for $17.13.

Bernie Madoff's houses haven't hit the market yet but they will soon. Meanwhile another of his luxury possessions, his 90-foot yacht in Antibes, France has been put up for sale. Yacht broker Wyles Hardy has been given the listing. The yacht was built by Arno shipbuilders in 2007. It has six berths including an owner's ensuite stateroom, a VIP cabin, guest cabin and three crew berths. The yacht has a top speed of 42 knots. It is being sold by private treaty on behalf of Grant Thornton UK LLP - the joint provisional liquidators of Madofff's securities firm. No word on a price but based on a search of similar yachts, this one should sell for three or four million euros.

Last month, J. Ezra Merkin Ascot Partners LP sold his art collection, which included a hefty dose of works by Mark Rothko, for $310 million. The buyer still isn't known, which is the norm in the art market. But, there are some breadcrumbs along the way which Bloomberg News considered worth following. Interestingly, Merkin's Ascot Partners LP had invested a considerable amount of cash with Ponzi scam artist Bernie Madoff.

Along the way, Merkin's agent, TLIA, LLC, picked up $26.5 million of the $37.5 million in fees. The company is registered to a retired art collector and advisor, Ben Heller, age 83. He isn't talking. PaceWildenstein, which represents the Rothko estate, nabbed the other $11 million. Again, no comment. Yet, TLIA's piece of the commission is a bit high, according to art advisor Liz Klein, but she notes that answers are impossible without the full set of facts. Given the generally silent art market, we're unlikely to get all the facts anytime soon.

Like Merkin, Heller was a Madoff victim - $3.4 million in a charitable trust and $10 million of his own cash went down the drain.

Bernard Madoff's French yacht joins the long list of his seized property. The London Times reports that French authorities on the French Riviera chained up the propellers on the "Bull." Madoff's Florida yacht also named the Bull was hauled off last week. The 88-foot yacht was moored in the harbor in Cap d'Antibes near Nice, France. The yacht, built by Italian company Leopard, has accomodations for six guests. It can hit speeds of up to 40 knots and is worth $7 million. Madoff and his wife Ruth also own a villa in Cap d'Antibes, which is, like just about everything else in their ample holdings, registered in Mrs Madoff's name.

It was no April Fool's joke for Bernie Madoff. On Wednesday Bernard Madoff's 55-foot yacht "Bull" which is docked at a marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was boarded and confiscated by U.S. marshalls. Madoff is currently in jail pending sentencing in June for running his multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme.

The yacht, a 1969 Rybovich, is valued at around $2 million and was towed while surrounded by federal law enforcement. The yacht is the medium-sized "Bull," Madoff also owns a $7 million yacht with the same name currently located in the South of France. A second boat, the "Little Bull," a 24-foot Pathfinder was also seized.

The yachts were taken to the National Liquidators salvage yard, which is under contract with the federal government. Federal investigators also swooped in on the $9 million Palm Beach mansion owned by Madoff's wife Ruth to inventory the property and change the locks.