Roger
Steinmann
Madoff, Andrew:
DIED FROM ACCELERATED CANCER, AT 48
Madoff, Bernie:
IN JAIL FOR LIFE
Madoff, Ruth:
Madoff, Mark:
SUICIDE AT 46
PITIFUL VICTIM
or...
RUTHLESS
GANGSTER's MOLL...??
THE
MADOFF SCANDAL
Who is
Bernard L. Madoff ?
Bernie Madoff is responsible for the largest `Ponzi Scheme` in history. He has left behind a legacy of deception and financial ruin.
Operating under the disguise of a successful investment firm, Madoff defrauded thousands of investors out of an estimated $65 billion. His fraudulent scheme promised consistent high returns, unraveled in 2008 during the financial crisis, when he could no longer cover investor withdrawals.
Arrested in December of that year, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and was eventually sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009, where he died aged 82.
How could a humble bookkeeper
manage to embezzle 65 billions ?
Bernie Madoff´s education was meager bookkeeping. But in his early 20s, he became aware that deceiving and lying to clients translated to faster profit than diligent, consistent work.
Subsequently, his firm 'Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities' created an illusion of stability and success by promising steady, high returns - though, instead of legitimate investing, it run a `Ponzi scheme`. By using incoming funds from new investors, Bernie simply paid off earlier ones, and settled the supposed profits to others.
Soon, Bernie attracted clients ranging from individual retirees to major hedge fund managers - all of them, of course, were unsuspecting of the fraudster's true intention of one sided profit.
When, at an eraly stage, the authorities noticed unregularities and that Bernie’s business was yet unregistered. Swiftly, Bernie made his employees fake the last three years of records to match up with the money he had pretended to have. Thus: Bernie had turned his first confrontation with the authorites to his favor!
His ability to save his business made his status soar - rather than highlight his weakness.
The King of Wall Street
On another occasion, the authorities scrutinized Bernies associates and money-feeders, Avellino & Bienes. When they detected irregularities, they ordered them to close down and to withdraw all their $440 million-investments - what lied with Bernie. Though, as the Ponzi-schemer was blank, he shrewdly used a client`s borrowed stock to secure a bank loan - and paid out the $440 million. Thus: Bernie again got away with the swindle!
So, for decades, Madoff's fraud went on, greased by falsified records and sloppy regulatory oversight. And - by having created a second, a legitimate trading, company which was officially registered and made ordinary profits with ordinary deals, he perfectly shielded his Ponzi company. He shrewdly employed his two sons to front for him as directors of the legitimate company.
By the time Madoff turned 50, he had leveraged his reputation as a trusted Wall Streeter to its highest extent - and became for 3 years chairman of the worlds larges technology stock exchange NASDAQ!
Dark Clouds at Bernie`s Horizon
Through the 90s, Madoff’s reputation was at an all time high - in eternal sunshine.
Then came 2001: Publications started questioning Bernie Madoff`s doings, as his ‘side business’, with a portfolio of $7 billion, had the best returns on Wall Street. But: Considering that investment advisory business wasn’t registred - it wasn`t meant to exist. Thuse the publications questioned if the whole thing was a fraud.
Now alerted, the `Security and Exchanges Commission` began to believe Madoff was using insider information from his clients stocks in his legitimate business to make his own personal trades, investing his clients money after his own to make a profit. But Madoff had made his his small circle of trusted - read corrupt - employees to create fake documents for Every. Single. Trade. In addition, Bernie succeded to assign random European companies to his stock purchases in the hope the SEC wouldn’t bother to check foreign companies.
And he was right: They didn’t!
Though the rumors remained, and Bernie`s lies increased in order that his business - and life - kept going.
It All Comes Crashing Down
Then came the financial crash of 2008, and Wall Street was collapsing. The government gave out loans, and businesses merged - but miraculously, Bernie`s business generated profits as usual.
But, due to the crisis, more and more investors panicked and wanted out suddenly a total of $1.5 billion - while off-guard caught Bernie only having $300 million in the bank! He yelled for cover - but the bankers were reluctant.
A first for Wunderkind Bernard L. Madoff...
...who now himself panicked. His two sons noticed and confronted him.
It was at Christmas 2008, when the Wunderkind revealed to them, and to their mother Ruth, that he was running a massive Ponzi scheme, that he was the wizard of lies, all life long.
His sons immediately reported Bernie to the authorities.
When the FBI came knocking, he didn’t protest his innocence at all. He pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies. Thus, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison....
...where he died, incarcerated and lonely - with his two sons already having deceased in their 40s, and having forced his Ruth to live in miserable destitutness.
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Ruth Madoff's life
Ruth Madoff's Tragic Life - How is she getting by today?
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Bernie Madoff's life
A look back on Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme
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Ruth and Andrew Madoff interviewed by Matt Lauer, Oct. 31, 2011
Matt Lauer Interviews Ruth and Andrew Madoff
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Ruth and Andrew Madoff interviewed by Morley Safer
2011: The Madoff family speaks to 60 Minutes
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Details about Ruth Madoff’s involvement in the scam
Blythe Danner Says She Doesn't Believe Ruth Madoff
was an Accomplice in Ponzi Scheme
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Bernie Madoff in front of the nonprofit group Philoctetes, which he lied to.
Played out in RUTHLESS, scene II/4.
60 Minutes Archive: The man who figured out Madoff's Ponzi scheme (at 8'03''+)
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Ruth Madoff leaves NYC Jail, Bernie's U.S. Detention, June 2009
Currently, I am in preparation of the political `correct` theater-satire OUT OF ORDER, a three person play with a Marie-Antoinette-Imelda Marcos-Melania Trump-like main protagonist who is disguised in her outer beauty, thus her toxic influence on her corrupt dictator-husband is widely underestimated…
The broad social media marketing of this project has already started, see my posts (pictured on Facebook). Its general results will be decisive of where the production eventually will be taken place.