Family caught in Madoff swindle forced to sell Jewish heirlooms

[IndianaGreen]

Source: CNN

Family caught in Madoff swindle forced to sell Jewish heirlooms

By Mary Snow
CNN



NEW YORK -- Elisa Schindler says she is relieved her father, the late Rabbi Alexander Schindler, didn't live to see the destruction caused by Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff.

"Here's a man who dedicated his entire life to making the world a better place and contrast that with a man who didn't do that," she says.

Rabbi Schindler, who died in 2000, was a prominent clergyman who was a leader of Reform Judaism in the U.S. His eldest of five children, Elisa, says he invested his life savings with Madoff in 1996 but never met him.

With everything wiped out, Schindler's widow, Rhea, now must sell their family home in Connecticut. The family also is selling two sacred pieces of Judaica given to the rabbi as a retirement gift. Pieces, say Schindler, that would have been passed down to her sister who is a rabbi in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"It probably would have ended up with her, so it was sad that we had to break the chain of history and not be able to pass on that legacy," says Schindler, who calls Westport, Connecticut, home.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/03/13/madoff.victim.heirloom/index.html

---

Most of Madoff's victims were small investors. There was a septuagenarian couple that lost $700,000, their entire life savings. The husband had to back to work as a store greeter.

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Now that the filthy bastard is in prison, can't they seize his assets and give it back

to the rightful owners like these people. If the government can get away with taking everything from pot dealers, without even evidence that it's "drug related", they certainly should be able to do the same to an actual criminal like this piece of shit Madoff.

[elleng]

2. 'His' assets may not exist,

or be apparent. His wife has a lot.

[960]

4. I think it could be easily proven that the source of "her" money was his scheme.

[elleng]

24. Probably,

but it DOES have to be proven before her assets could be used for those he cheated.

[christx30]

10. She benefited from the deal

And don't half of Madoff's assets belong to her anyway? I mean... they are married and all. Therefore, wouldn't it follow that half of her stuff belongs to him? Shouldn't at least half of everything she has be subject to seizure by the Feds and given to the small time investors that lost so much in the deal? Somewhere, on some computer hard drive, or in some filing cabinet there exists a record of what she knew, and when she knew it. And if she let it go on more than a day without saying anything or even giving the evil bastard the stink eye about it... or if she participated, or joked about the "suckers" that were responsible for their wealth, she deserves to lose everything she has, including her freedom. I don't have a lot of faith in a lot that goes on with something like that, but there are enough angry people in this thing, with so much pressure being put on investigators by people like us, as well as higher ups... Something will be done about this. <raises a glass> Here's to hope.

And I think some good may come out of this. Between the Madoff thing and Cramer, a trillion watt spotlight is being shone on Wall Street and the corrupt bankers. Madoff will not be the last investigated before all of this is over. Maybe this story will also teach people to be more careful with their investments. As a wise man once said "The best way to double your money is to fold it up and put it in your pocket."

[elleng]

25. In order to reach her assets for his victims,

a legal process would have to be undertaken.

The SEC screwed up for years by ignoring the evidence they were being handed by 'whistleblowers,' and that's where this should/will go henceforth.

[960]

3. Agree. He's supposedly got almost a billion dollars (and I'm sure there's more stashed around)

That should be seized and paid to his "small time" investors.
That fucker wants out of jail too... I don't know how much longer we're supposed to put up with the banks and super rich soaking everyone else.

[No Elephants]

5. At least the widow has a home to sell. I know people who got involved with a smaller

scale Madoff who re-mortgaged their home in order to invest with the guy. In this market, they'd have had to bring money to the table in order to deliver clear title to a buyer.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Saw this on the news... heartbreaking.

;(

[proud patriot]

7. This brought a tear to my eye

Just shouldn't be :(

[Behind the Aegis]

8. I am sure this will bring a smile to some faces.

[ret5hd]

14. Yeah, yours!

As soon as you saw the chance to get a jab in.

[Behind the Aegis]

18. No smiles here.

[mikelgb]

16. you are trapped in a really sad place

[Behind the Aegis]

19. Not at all. Reality is sad; it is what it is.

[IndianaGreen]

21. Expecting the worse in people is in itself a pathology.

As is schadenfreude, deriving pleasure from people's misfortunes.

Very sad!

:-(

[Behind the Aegis]

22. So is projectionism.

[The abyss]

27. Aegis – are you totally deranged?!?

Indiana posted a story on the LBN noting more sadness in the debacle revolving the Madoff swindles.

This was a good update on the continuing saga of raped investors. It does not matter if those investors were Catholics, Protestants, Jews or Satanists! They all got the shaft.

This story had not been posted at DU until Indiana brought it in. You come along and attempt to spin it into what?? Some sort of attack against people of the Jewish faith? An attack against Israel? What?

Wow!

[Behind the Aegis]

30. Perhaps you are deranged or maybe just lazy.

Read, especially in GD, and you will see what I said is very, very true.

"It does not matter if those investors were Catholics, Protestants, Jews or Satanists!" Did I say ANYTHING about religion? NO! If I can remember the thread, I will look for it, but I made a similar comment when the victim was Republican or something along those lines (it is in LBN, I think) and not one poster COMMENTED; NOT ONE! The ones with the issues here are you and the others who made this into something it wasn't.

Check out: Madoff Had Accomplices: His Victims and I am having a very hard time feeling sorry for the people who were scammed by Madoff (the one which inspired the comment)

[The abyss]

31. Thanks for the reply.

Seriously – I hope the orderlies keep you away from the computer housed in the day room.

Indiana posted an updated article to an ongoing horror story in LBN, one that has taken out countless people.

Please ask your doctor about Thorazine levels.

[Behind the Aegis]

32. Pathetic response, but totally expected from your kind.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

34. Don't........

Don't post stuff like that. There's no call for it, none whatsoever.

It was just mean.

[silverojo]

9. So very sad!

But thank God they at least had assets to sell, in order to recoup some of their losses. So many people who get swindled end up losing everything. :(

[dcindian]

11. What a real shame.

So many lives and so much hard work destroyed by greed. Madoff and the other thieves of wall street deserve so much worse then what they are getting for punishment. Of course in our two tiered justice system they never will.

[Jefferson23]

12. I hope the authorities can retrieve most of the money, but it appears

that may be impossible. Horrible and tragic for so many.

[4dsc]

13. Why put all your eggs into one basket??

I don't get it.. Isn't the 1st rule of investing not to put all your eggs into on basket to avoid situation like this??

[Johnyawl]

15. Greed, pure and simply.

These small investors(as well as the large ones) put their money with Madoff because he was showing yearly returns of 10-12%, far greater than most investment firms. They wanted those above average returns. I've read elsewhere that many of the knowledgeable investors knew that the returns were too good to be true; they knew something was wrong, they assumed he was using insider information to get those returns. So they didn't really care that he was cheating, and breaking the law, as long as they were benefiting from it.

Now they care.

[Jefferson23]

17. Yes, but what seems to have happened is that Madoff had an excellent

reputation, that may have been one reason people trusted all they had. I listened to Elie Wiesel speak about Madoff, and he said he was referred to him by a friend, and that he also asked about Bernie to some of the best minds on Wall Street and they basically gave Madoff a 5 star rating. His friend who recommended Bernie lost $50 million, this entire event has been a nightmare that never had to happen.

My ex-sister in law, she is a realtor, 58 years old, a much smaller investor, all things being relative, most of her money is gone, close to $200,000 due to Madoff. For her this has been devastating as you can well imagine.

[IndianaGreen]

20. And Madoff was the former chair of NASDAQ

He was the personification of mainstream capitalism. The financial pundits gave him high marks.

For the past two decades, Wall Street watchers could count on four U.S. firms to land in the middle of every securities scandal. From Nasdaq price fixing to fake research to rigging the IPO markets to peddling toxic subprime assets, one could rest assured that Citigroup’s Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs would be heading the lineup. Their complete absence from the greatest Ponzi scheme in history raises the question: what did they know and when did they know it?

The answer may reside in a pentagonal structure created in 1999 to serve the interests of a Wall Street cartel.

On September 14, 1999, it was officially announced that Citigroup’s Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs had partnered with Bernard Madoff to compete head on with the New York Stock Exchange in a venture called Primex Trading.

Madoff had bought the rights to a new technology called Financial Auction Network (FAN) created by Christopher Keith, a 17-year veteran of technology creation at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Mr. Keith had retired from the NYSE and started a technology think tank in lower Manhattan in the early 1990s called Exchange Lab. FAN was one of the early technology offerings and the rights to develop it were bought by Madoff. The firm that emerged was Primex Trading, a division of Primex Holdings. (Primex Holdings holds two patents and may be part of those secret Madoff assets the court won’t release to the public.)

In addition to harnessing the brains of Mr. Keith from the New York Stock Exchange, Primex hired Glen Shipway, the Executive Vice President of the over the counter stock market, Nasdaq, whose duties had included market surveillance of broker dealers like this gang of five.

The partners made a big splash in the press at the time, extolling altruistic intentions of getting better prices for their customers in an electronic version of the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times on September 19, 1999:

“Primex is aiming to be an electronic version of the New York Stock Exchange. Participants will not only be able to buy and sell stocks at prevailing market prices, as they now do through many traditional and electronic exchanges, but also interact openly with one another — in effect, bargain — to find the best prices possible. ‘I think the fact four of the world’s largest securities firms have backed this system suggests that it brings something new and unique to our ability to obtain the best execution for our customers,’ said Bill Hart, a managing director in equity trading at Salomon Smith Barney.”

In reality, a very different motive was at work. One of the best kept secrets from the public is a benign sounding process on Wall Street called internalization. That’s where broker dealers like Madoff’s Primex partners match their customers’ buy and sell orders in-house rather than sending them off to the New York Stock Exchange or some other transparent stock exchange. The entities that engage in this trading process are called dark pools. (Recall that “pools” were the same secretive creatures that rigged the stock market leading up to the crash of 1929.)

http://www.shadowtraders.com/futuresblog/wall-st-madoff-buddy-buddy/406

[Jefferson23]

23. Organized crime ring, I don't think that is an exaggeration.

Absolutely horrifying but thanks for the info regardless.

[Frank Booth]

28. Madoff would often require them to invest all they had.

You couldn't invest with him unless you were invited, and when he invited you he set a minimum level of investment based on how much you had. So, if someone had $700,000 in life savings he'd require around $700,000, if they had $10,000,000 he'd require around $10,000,000.

He was a predator and a psychopath.

[Fumesucker]

38. Someone who wanted to know all about how much money I had would set off my bullshit detector..

It's none of their damn business how much money I have or do not have if I invest with someone, anyone who wants to know how much money you have "in the bank" is almost certainly a swindler.

I can't believe the level of naivete some of these people have exhibited, have they never lived in the real world?

[NoodleyAppendage]

37. Because Madoff was a confidence man who played upon the Jewish identity.

He got these investors, the vast majority of whom were Jewish, to throw all their money in with him because he played up the "identity" politics and generated a false sense of status and demand for his investment firm. At some point, it became a status symbol for investors to be positioned with Madoff.

J

[The Stranger]

26. He has wrecked so many lives, but we will likely never hear from him as to why or how.

I'm no expert on criminal procedure, but his pleading guilty to every charge without a plea deal was shocking. The only thing I can think of is that he wanted to deprive the prosecution of any chance to use him to proceed against his wife and children. So what they have cannot be reached.

But I would like to hear other theories.

[Frank Booth]

29. The family had a system set up so the others could claim lack of culpability.

This article in Vanity Fair's really interesting: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/madoff200904

In reading it you'll notice that all the family members claim that they worked for divisions other than the one perpetrating the fraud. That's all BS of course since the entire operation was a fraud and they all benefited from the fraud, but it was very well planned out -- it'll at least give their lawyers a (somewhat) credible argument.

[daleo]

33. Maddoff's scheme reminds me of Amway

And I can't believe lots of people who got in early didn't have a damn good idea of what was going on. Like Amway, it was a combination of greed and willingness to believe in the impossible.

[Imagevision]

35. And it looks like there will be no co-conspirators named? this is bigger then they're telling us...

[NoodleyAppendage]

36. Small investors? Come on. They live in Westport, CT., one of the richest areas outside of NYC.

I feel sorry for their loss and general lack of investment sense (e.g., investing all funds with a single source and not diversifying), but these people are not poor like I've seen in my life. Come on down to rural Mississippi or North Carolina, then write about the REAL TRAGEDY of poverty. I'm getting sick of the "woe-woe-is-me" Madoff stories, as if his victims are the true poor in America.

J