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Why Bernie Madoff confessed so quickly

On Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” Ruth Madoff will talk to Morley Safer about her husband, Bernie, and learning about the Ponzi scheme that landed him in prison for life. In excerpts released ahead of the broadcast, Ruth Madoff talked about his confession and said the couple had attempted to commit suicide. Only a few months after his December 2008 arrest, Bernie Madoff took a plea deal. Madoff’s former attorney, Ira Lee Sorkin, stopped by “The Early Show” and explained what motivated his client to make a deal so quickly. Read CBS News report [...]

Texas victims of that other Ponzi scheme wait for justice .

Say the phrase “Ponzi scheme” and Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion fraud comes to mind. Lost in Madoff’s shadow, however, is Texan Allen Stanford. He has yet to go to trial. But the people who invested $7 billion with Stanford have watched their fortunes evaporate while lawyers fight in a federal court in Dallas. Read WFAA News report here. [...]

Settlement with SEC a black eye for Finra (updated)

The SEC’s announcement yesterday that it had threatened to sanction Finra because a senior official doctored minutes from internal staff meetings is an embarrassing black eye to the securities industry’s watchdog as it pushes to expand its authority to regulate investment advisers. In an unusual move, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday took the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. to task for inadequate internal policies and procedures stemming from an SEC inspection of Finra’s Kansas City office in August 2008. Read more in Investment News [...]

SEC Enforcers Frozen as Internal Watchdog Kotz Unleashes ‘Chilling’ Probes

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s internal watchdog has castigated the agency for missing the Bernard Madoff fraud, spotlighted employees who viewed online pornography and called for a criminal probe into the ethics of the SEC’s former top lawyer. His blunt reports have won Inspector General H. David Kotz admiration on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers summon him to testify about his efforts to improve what they have criticized as flawed management and oversight at the regulator. Read more on Bloomberg [...]

10 Things the SEC Won’t Tell You

Wall Street’s watchdog isn’t as fierce as you might think.

1. “We will never live up to your expectations.”

“Occupy Wall Street” protestors aren’t livid with just the financial industry. They’re also mad at the people who were supposed to be policing that sector. On that score, the Securities and Exchange Commission is first in the firing line.
Read more in the Wall Street Journal [...]

Madoffs Aim to Write Their Own Future

For nearly two years after Bernard L. Madoff confessed to running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, Ruth Madoff — who fell in love with him at 13 and married him at 18 — stood by her husband, a man the rest of the world saw as a cold-blooded monster. She stayed despite doubts about his fidelity, hostility from friends who became his victims, and a deepening rift with her two sons, who insisted she cut herself off from him. Read New York Times report here. [...]

Crime, punishment, and the shame of being a Madoff

When news broke that Bernard Madoff had swindled thousands of people out of billions of dollars, many assumed that his family must have known all along. But Madoff’s wife Ruth and son Andrew tell Morley Safer they were blindsided when Madoff finally confessed that he’d been running a giant Ponzi scheme. In their first television interviews, they describe how their once-happy family was completely destroyed. Read CBS News report [...]

Madoff Feeder Fund Seeks $919 Million From Fairfield Greenwich

Fairfield Sentry Ltd., which describes itself as the largest victim of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, is seeking to recover $919 million in fees from its former investment manager, Fairfield Greenwich Ltd., according to a court filing. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report here. [...]

Madoff Investor Asks Appeals Court to Toss Picower Accord

An investor in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme asked a federal appeals court to throw out a lower- court decision barring her from suing over a $7.2 billion settlement by the U.S. with the estate of Jeffry Picower. Giving Madoff trustee Irving Picard priority in dealing with the Picower estate, the district judge denied the investor, Adele Fox, the right to sue the estate herself, she said in a filing yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York. Read Bloomberg report here. [...]

Mets’ win scores $82M for Madoff kin

Still sore over losing his lawsuit against the owners of the New York Mets, the trustee charged with cleaning up Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme warned that upholding the Mets’ victory would allow Madoff’s family to keep $82.3 million in phony profits. In September, Manhattan federal court judge Jed Rakoff tossed nine of 11 counts brought by the trustee, Irving Picard, against Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, and limited him to clawing back money withdrawn by the two to the two years prior to Madoff coming clean.
Read more in the New York Post [...]