Also see: Who is Bernard Madoff?
"Boston donors bilked out of millions; Trader accused of $50 billion con game; One nonprofit closes; others may suffer" by Beth Healy and Steven Syre, Globe Staff | December 13, 2008
Some of Boston's wealthiest and most prominent philanthropists have lost millions of dollars to a Wall Street investor accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, a case that has already shuttered one foundation and could hurt nonprofits in medicine, education, and the arts.
Bernard L. Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested Thursday in Manhattan and charged with securities fraud by federal authorities.
His clients include philanthropists Carl and Ruth Shapiro, major donors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Brandeis University, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The Shapiro family foundation lost almost half its money, or about $145 million, to Madoff. Other clients include Avram and Carol Goldberg, former owners of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain, and Stephen A. Fine, president of Biltrite Corp. in Waltham.
In Salem, the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation, a private family organization that financed trips for Jewish youth to Israel, said it was forced to shut down and lay off seven employees yesterday after losing all of its estimated $8 million to Madoff. The foundation also supports Jewish educational and cultural services on the North Shore. Lappin lost personal funds as well.
Probably why this is the above-the-fold lead today (Saturday, the slowest readership day of the week).
"We are all devastated," said Deborah Coltin, executive director of the Lappin foundation. "You put your faith in someone. It turns out to be a huge scheme." Authorities say Madoff confessed to effectively paying one set of investors with money he took in from others.
Don't I know the feeling!!!!!!!
Another apparent victim is the Massachusetts state pension, whose officials invested in Madoff's company through a hedge fund vehicle and said yesterday that it has lost $12 million.
Oh, NOW I'm PISSED!!! That thing has already taken a huge hit this year!! It didn't need to be cheated by another lying Jew!!!
Madoff, 70, appears to have made inroads in philanthropic circles in Boston and Palm Beach, Fla., as well as in New York. As with the Shapiros, some of the Boston clients maintained homes in Palm Beach and socialized with Madoff there, especially at the country club. Madoff had many clients in the Jewish community in particular, where word of the alleged fraud spread rapidly yesterday....
So HOW DOES IT FEEL to TAKE YOUR OWN MEDICINES?
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Carl Shapiro, 95, and Madoff have been friends for decades. Shapiro was among the original investors in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, according to several people who know them both. And Madoff's chief recruiter of clients in Boston, Robert Jaffe, is married to one of the Shapiros' daughter's, Ellen. Robert Jaffe, a socialite who golfs at Pine Brook Country Club in Weston and at Palm Beach Country Club, drew many clients in the clubby wealthy Jewish circles in which he travels, according to clients and people who know him.
Gee, the sympathy is draining away fast. We got Americans being tossed out of homes and jobs, and yet the lead is some rich Jews being ripped off by their own kind? Pffffffttt!
Jaffe, a former Boston branch manager for brokerage Cowen & Co., operated a company whose sole purpose was to market Madoff investment products, according to a Madoff investor and a Boston investment professional who has known Jaffe for years. Jaffe's firm, Cohmad Securities Corp., is on the same floor of a New York building as Madoff's, according to securities filings.
Jaffe is active with a number of charitable organizations in Boston where the Shapiros have directed their giving. He is an overseer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a member of the President's Council at Brandeis, according to a biography on the website of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His wife, Ellen, is a trustee at the MFA.
People who know Robert Jaffe said that he, too, was fooled by Madoff....
The intellectually superior Jews fooled? I don't believe it!!!!
One Boston businessman who invested in Madoff's fund said it was marketed as an exclusive investment opportunity, where only the wealthy and well connected could gain access. The businessman said it took a full year of lobbying to become a client of Madoff, and only with the input of other large investors who helped persuade Madoff to accept his money....
For years, Madoff produced double-digit returns to his investors - wealthy individuals, endowments, foundations, and hedge funds - with his active-trading strategy. "The word on the street in Palm Beach was that Madoff was a genius," said Frederic A. Sharf, an MFA trustee who has had a home in Palm Beach for more than 30 years, but did not invest with Madoff.
Not everyone was convinced of Madoff's genius. A former Boston investment professional, Harry Markopolos, was quoted in news accounts saying he repeatedly tried to get the SEC to investigate Madoff, first contacting the agency's Boston office more than a decade ago. The SEC yesterday said it conducted two inquiries of Madoff in the last several years and didn't find major problems.
And they never got anywhere, huh? I wish I could believe it was a coincidence!
It was the market's recent crash that finally brought him down.
There are silver linings to everything!
Madoff got into trouble when clients recently asked to withdraw $7 billion from the firm and he had to come up with the cash, according to complaints filed against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US attorney's office in Manhattan. On Wednesday, Madoff told senior executives at his firm that he had been running a Ponzi scheme. Madoff, who was arrested at his Manhattan apartment Thursday, confessed his con to the FBI after his two sons turned him in, and told investigators he had "paid investors with money that wasn't there." He said he expected to go to jail....
Wow!!! His Jewish sons stabbed him in the back, huh?
Heartless!!!
And the Globe sat on the story a day?
Why is that ALSO a NON-SURPRISE!
