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The Madoff Family Splinters
Saul and Sara Alpern also figure in another way in the ongoing investigation of Ruth Madoff. She had been claiming—as her own money not related to Bernie's fraud—nearly $85 million. That's $84.6 million, including $40 million in cash and securities in bank accounts, $22 million in real estate, and the remainder in boats and personal property, including $2.6 million in jewelry.
Late Friday, Ruth reached an agreement with prosecutors that forfeits all but $2.5 million.
Outside of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, Ruth Madoff never really had a job. So investigators are looking at the estates left by Saul and Sara Alpern to their two daughters—Ruth and Joan—and the Alpern grandchildren.
As one investigator tells The Daily Beast: “The major question for Ruth is how much money did mommy and daddy leave her? If the money is not from mommy and daddy, this is a problem.”
Florida probate court records, first examined by Newsday, show that Ruth and Joan each got $600,000 from trusts left by their mother in 1996 while perhaps an additional $2 million may have been left in trust for grandchildren.
ABC News has also reported that Saul Alpern’s 1999 will left only $60,000 in probate and that he left Pitney Bowes stock worth $39,000 to Ruth, which she turned over to her sister Joan.
While there is no public accounting of gifts the Alperns may have given left their daughters, the discrepancy in wealth is stark. Joan and Robert Roman, who retired as an insurance agent, claim total losses of $11.4 million. Ruthie's claim that she was entitled to nearly eight times that much has been suspect. The $2.5 million the prosecutors are letting her keep may be much closer to her real inheritance.
So while Madoff’s wife, sons, and brother Peter receive no sympathy in New York, in South Florida, many victims are ready to accept that Ruth’s sister—Joan—is one of them, an innocent bystander.
Joan and her husband, these people say, are welcome to commiserate at their secret meetings for victims, where people who thought they had inherited “The Jewish T-bill”—a Madoff account—now gather to fight for $500,000 restitution checks from the SIPC. After all, says Helen Chaitman, “In the eyes of the law, Joan Alpern is no different a victim just because she is a relative.”
Allan Dodds Frank is a business investigative correspondent who specializes in white-collar crime.
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Allan Dodds Frank is a business investigative correspondent who specializes in white collar crime. He also is President of the Overseas Press Club of America, one of the many journalism organizations that protests the arrests of journalists abroad and repression of freedom of speech.
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Allan Dodds Frank is a business investigative correspondent who specializes in white collar crime. He also is President of the Overseas Press Club of America, one of the many journalism organizations that protests the arrests of journalists abroad and repression of freedom of speech.
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Allan Dodds Frank is a business investigative correspondent who specializes in white collar crime. He also is President of the Overseas Press Club of America, one of the many journalism organizations that protests the arrests of journalists abroad and repression of freedom of speech.
oliverckerr
I want a spoon.
thankulord13
That's what some of these people get. The only reason why some of them were going to him was because he was Jewish like them and one of their own would not do that to them. Well guess what... surprise! The moral of the story is, just because some one looks like you, doesn't mean they think like you.
elliekatz
Oh of course, pull out the "d%$n Jews" fangs...there are a lot more gentiles in the world than Jews, and I'll bet there's at least as high a percentage of con-artists among 'em too. If the Judaism of the Torah had been a daily concern of Madoff, he and his clients wouldn't be where they are today. And that goes for everyone who decided to ignore the ethics of the Scriptures....
poltergasm
or ethics period. just about everyone i know was somehow invested w/ bernie madoff & they are just working people of many ethnicities. he was in EVERYones retirement fund. the antisemitism business here is even more deluded than it is ordinarily.
thankulord13
The point is from the interviews most of those people went to him because he was one of them. That's what they get for being so stupid.
elliekatz
BS"D
Most people go on recommendations. That necessarily means they go to people who are often quite similar to them. Makes for an easier working relationship. You brought up the "Jewish" factor, and you get to live with that. Whether the Madoffs were Jewish by birth (probably not in practice) is immaterial.
StellaRay
"Today, it appears to be one of the first times SEC officials were out-smarted by Madoff."
B fricking S. Apparently the author of this article has never heard of Harry Markopolos. Markopolos is the ultimate whistle blower on Madoff. He started sounding his alarm in 2000. It took him close to a decade to get the SEC's attention, after being blown off many times, which are all well documented for anyone who cares to google Markopolos--- who testified before congress months ago about his long and difficult road in trying to get the SEC to pay attention to what he knew at first glance was a ponzi scheme.
The truth is the SEC was asleep at the wheel for the last decade, fed Ambian by the GOP regime. They could have stopped Madoff years ago if they had ever once paid any attention to the many well documented submissions that Markopolos presented.
As for Madoff's investors, I have very limited sympathy. I believe that Ruth's sister has to believe her own sister wouldn't hang her out to dry. I can't say what Ruth knew and what she didn't.
But I'll say what I think regarding all investors with Madoff---including one who I know personally who considers herself a victim beyond all other victims. Who was so happy with her unexplainable returns from her Madoff fund that she eventually ignored the oldest and most staunch financial wisdom to keep her funds diversified, and in the end transferred everything she had to her Madoff account.
These people got returns of 10% and over for decades, come rain, shine, or economic tumult. It tickled their greed button beyond common sense. Can't say I'd have done better myself---hard not to turn a blind eye and keep on wishing on returns like that.
But I can say that at least in retrospect I'd have the honesty to kick my self in the butt and call myself an idiot for not answering to my instincts that something was rotten in Denmark. But greed never wants to be educated as long as the wind is blowing its way.
Willful ignorance is no excuse.
Siouxie921
My comment pertains to Ruth Madoff in particular. Did anyone see last night's 20/20. They did a story on Bernard Madoff, and a photographer was pursuing Ruth on the street. They asked her "Did you know about your husband's fraud?" She just blew him off with a F U. Her arrogance is just like her husband's.
What's the matter, Ruth? Don't you think the good citizens of New York City deserve an answer?
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n--Y--weedySeadragonkeepakeeper43
An elegant sociopath, a murderer.
Dustin Hoffman will play Bernie.
Frances McDormand will play Ruth.
Laura Linney will play Joan.
hidflect
I call B.S. These people are cunning and relentless. It's too obvious to hide the money in Ruth's Tel Aviv accounts so they go the next step... get a more distant family member to play "victim" and channel the money through her. Apart from the obvious Bernie, none of these people have suffered a day's inconvenience and still seem to be living their upscale NY lifestyles despite this enormous "hardship". People who've done a lot, lot less wrong are sitting on the curbside in their sneakers with a box of their possessions next to them. Yet we still see the whole Madoff circus swaning around with fur coats and designer glasses and handbags. I call BULLSH1T!
walkman56
If anybody thinks that Ruth Madoff was not involved in this somehow,they have it so far up their backside that they'll never get it out.
CitizenBloggerX
Unless you get to look these people in the eye , You can't realize their arrogance, A wife of one of my wifes clients a Billionarious told my wife " If it wasn't for people like us there wouldn't be people like you " It is sickening, They throw away clothing costing several thousand dollars simply because one of their friends wore a similar piece in public first !!
Plantagenet
Investors should have
laid off
Bernie Madoff
Before he made off
with all their money
JoshAus
Yes Madoff is bad and stole a lot of money, but by and large he stole it from very wealthy people who should have been protecting themselves more effectively. (ie diversification)
When are we going to see prosecutions of the real scum, those companies and their employees that were out there lying to and encouraging poorly educated minorities to sign up for sub-prime mortgages that they had no way of paying back, just so that could on sell the mortgages to investors on wall street and in the process destroy the US financial system. Madoff's crimes are bad but we the taxpayer are not losing a lot of money over it, unlike with AIG, Bank of America etc etc etc.
bkeelstx
i have a question that i have not seen reported. Did madoff issue 1099's to all his clients on this money that they received before the scheme blew up?
if so, the federal treasury winds up as the only benefactor....any comments out there?
exploora
[ In fact, there's nothing unusual about investors paying tax on hedge-fund or private-equity income that they don't receive in the year it's reported. Funds commonly issue K-1 tax forms reporting that an individual earned income when the money has been reinvested in the partnership rather than distributed to the person.
"What's different in this case is that people paid taxes on money that was never there," said Ameek Ashok Ponda, a partner in the Boston office of law firm Sullivan & Worcester LLP and an adjunct professor in Boston University's Graduate Tax Program.
Richard Oppenheim, an accountant in Holmdel, N.J., who prepared tax returns for Madoff investors, said his clients received detailed statements including 1099 and 1099-DIV forms that appeared to show total proceeds from sales during the tax year. Many investors believed they were earning 12% returns on their money and paid taxes accordingly. ] excerpted from http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/americas/100031251-1-update%253A-get ting-personal%253A-tax-rules.html,
[Legal »
Another View: The Government Is Madoff's Biggest Winner
March 12, 2009, 9:30 am
Andrew N. Lerman, a certified public accountant in White Plains, N.Y., argues that the biggest beneficiary of the Bernard L. Madoff scandal was the federal government through the taxes it collected. Mr. Lerman, who is working for several victims of the fraud, has spoken to several United States senators, including Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York.
Over the last two months, Congressional committees have held three hearings to address and investigate Mr. Madoff's fraud. The overwhelming majority of these hearings have been focused on some of possible lapses by government regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and potential changes that were proposed to prevent fraud of this nature. ] excerpted from http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/another-view-the-government-is -madoffs-biggest-winner/
TrueRed
I am a modest amateur investor and have been for many years. Here is the thing: One will do well to get a 5% return. The Madoff victims got 10-12% return year after year, good times and bad. Even I would know that is too good to be true. Thus I give the victims some of the blame for not paying attention.
TierraDelFuego
Listen Dahlings! The SEC was not asleep at the switch. They were paid off in the layers of freebie stocks and trips to Bermuda. The biggest Ponzi scheme in history has happened in front of our faces and did we even blink? Think about the banks, the US Treasury, and the Congress announcing that if we, the people of the United States, do not give congress the authority, within 3 days, to give the banking system 700 billion dollars, the entire financial system of the world will collapse. Now bobbykins, if that wasn't the biggest load of financial ponzi crap in the history of the world, and we fell for it! Bernie is a taking a big media fall. Interesting how everybody knows Bernie and his downfall but nobody is talking about the biggest screwjob in history. And look, the banks, credit card companies, and the rest of the financial sharks are back in business, doing the same thing they did before. Wall street is back in the biz and we paid for the fake movie with the end of the world scare. Bernie was just a clown to focus laughs away from the main horror story. I keep asking why people are not rioting in front of Wall Street,
why the real story is taking so long to sink in to the great American mind. Is it because the people at the top have created a new system of keeping the great unwashed happy by offering them a cell phone and cable TV and let the future collapse be viewed as a free HBO smash called, Greed.
exploora
The current situation is more interesting than this old stuff.
[The court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of the Bernard Madoff firm recently stated that he will not issue IRS 1099 forms for the 2008 fiscal year, because "there are questions about the accuracy of the BLMIS [Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC] financial records and the Trustee's experts and staff has been unable to assure the Trustee of the complete accuracy of those records."
Apparently the forensic accountants assigned to Madoff's client assets department don't know which set of books is the right one.] excerpted from http://www.ajwnews.com/archives/979.
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