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KF5JRV > TODAY 11.12.18 14:26l 64 Lines 3440 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 26744_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 11
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<VE2PKT<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 181211/1220Z 26744@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.17
On this day in 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New
York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi
scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of
the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.
Madoff, who was born in Queens, New York, in 1938, founded a small
trading firm bearing his name in 1960. The business was established, in
part, with money he earned working as a lifeguard. Two decades later,
Madoff’s firm, which helped revolutionize the way stocks are traded, had
grown into one of the largest independent trading operations in the
securities industry, and he and his family lived a life of luxury,
owning multiple homes, boats and expensive artwork and jewelry.
Based on the success of his legitimate operations, Madoff launched an
investment-advisory business as part of his firm, and it was this
business that by the 1990s had become a Ponzi scheme, in which he paid
his earlier investors with funds received from more recent investors.
For years, clients of this business were sent account statements showing
consistently high—and fraudulent—returns. Potential new customers
clamored for Madoff to invest their money. However, in 2008, with the
U.S. economy in crisis, Madoff’s financial swindle began to fall apart
as his clients took money out faster than he could bring in fresh cash.
On December 10, 2008, Madoff revealed to his brother and two sons, who
worked for the legitimate arm of his firm, that his investment-advisory
business was a fraud and nearly bankrupt. Madoff’s sons turned in their
father to federal authorities, who arrested him the next day. Madoff was
freed on $10 million bail, and placed under 24-hour house arrest at his
penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
The fallout from Madoff’s scam was widespread: The victims included
everyone from his wealthy country-club acquaintances, Hollywood
celebrities, banks and hedge funds to universities, charities and
ordinary individual investors, some of whom lost their life savings. The
charitable foundation of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Elie Wiesel lost more than $15 million, and Wiesel also lost his
personal savings. Public outrage was further stoked when it was revealed
that since the late 1990s a private financial fraud investigator, Harry
Markopolos, had repeatedly warned the Securities and Exchange Commission
about his suspicion that Madoff was operating a massive investment scam.
On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to the 11 felony counts against
him, including securities fraud, money laundering and perjury. On June
29 of that year, a federal district court judge in Manhattan sentenced
Madoff to 150 years behind bars, calling his actions “extraordinary
evil.ö
On December 11, 2010, the second anniversary of Madoff’s arrest, his
46-year-old son Mark was found dead in his Manhattan apartment after
committing suicide. Bernard Madoff, who is serving his sentence at the
Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina, has maintained
that his family members knew nothing about his crimes and although they
have faced intense scrutiny, none have been charged with any wrongdoing.
Several of Madoff’s former employees, including his accountant and chief
financial officer, have pleaded guilty in connection with the
long-running fraud.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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