Of course the investors are appealing but one win at at time, amiright?
The suits were filed in the fall by investors who lost millions in the LuxAlpha Sicav-American Selection fund which had 95% of its fund invested with Bernie Madoff. The fund claims that it had $1.4 billion in net assets a month prior to Madoff’s arrest.
• Panel Admonishes Rangel for Taking Trips as Gifts [NYT]
Charlie Rangel had a Congressional ethics committee rule that he “violated gift rules” when he accepted corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean. While that is certainly bad news for Rangs, the committee is far from finished with its investigation as they continue their inquiries about Chuck’s “fund-raising, his failure to pay federal taxes on rental income from a Dominican villa, and his use of four rent-stabilized apartments provided by a Manhattan real estate developer.”
“If he contacted me and threatened me, I was going to drive down to New York and take him out. At that point it would have come down to him or me; it was as simple as that. The government would have forced me into it by failing to do its job, and failing to protect me. In that situation I felt I had no other options. I was going to kill him.”
~ Harry Markopolos, in his new book, on Bernie Madoff.
Not an idiot
One day after it was reported that fraud detecting superman Harry Markopolos called the Commissioners “idiots” and Mary Schapiro “coldly polite” (that’s a compliment, isn’t it?) the SEC is charging another Madoff associate.
Today the Commission brought charges of “conspiracy, securities fraud, falsifying books and records of a broker-dealer, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and filing false federal tax returns,” against Daniel Bonventre, according to several reports.
By our last count KPMG had been named in ten lawsuits related to Madoff feeder funds. What’s one more?
KPMG, JP Morgan, Bank of New York Mellon, Oppenheimer Acquisition Corp. and Mass Mutual Life Insurance, along with the Tremont founders were all named in an amended lawsuit that was filed yesterday.
Cotchettt, Pitre, & McCarthy, the attorneys for the Plaintiffs, are not mincing words on KPMG’s part in the whole mess. From the firm’s website:
The sheer size and scope of the fraud make it impossible for Madoff to have acted alone. The complaint alleges JP Morgan and the Bank of New York as well as powerhouse accounting firm KPMG LLP and their international counterparts, KPMG UK and KPMG International were primary players responsible for the fraud.
The amended complaint further alleges that the phantom trades “should have been discovered by KPMG UK, the auditor for Madoff’s London based operation, Madoff Securities International Ltd. Instead, KMPG UK never raised any red flags that investors’ money was used by Madoff as his personal piggy bank.”
KPMG declined to comment for the Reuters article but we’ll assume that they don’t take kindly to the complaint.
Madoff investors sue KPMG and major banks [Reuters]
MADOFF_WEXLER_FIRST_AMENDED_COMPLAINT.pdf
UPDATE: The UK Firm issued the following, per Accountancy Age:
KPMG considers the allegations in the complaint to be wholly without merit and will defend them vigorously. The complaint cites KPMG in its capacity as statutory auditor of Madoff Securities International Limited (MSIL), a London based company directly owned by the Madoff family. KPMG acted in this capacity for several years and issued unqualified audit opinions on MSIL’s financial statements. We are not aware of any suggestion that the financial statements of MSIL contain errors.
Finally someone has had enough of the SEC’s new-sheriff-in-town act and is suing their asses for missing Bernie Madoff’s not so subtle Ponzi scheme.
Two victims are suing the House of Schape for their money that just up and disappeared, which amounts to $2.4 million. The suit also serves as a friendly reminder for the Commission that they sucked at their jobs big time for the better part of a decade.
According to the suit, the two victims, Phyllis Molchatsky and Steven Schneider, initially tried playing nice by filing administrative claims with the SEC but the Commission told them to get bent, thus allowing Molcahtsky and Schneider to sue in Federal court.
This may result in other Madoff victims filing suit as well, so our advice to M. Schape would be to call over to the Fed and to see if she can borrow that money printing machine.
Two Madoff victims file lawsuit against the SEC [Reuters]
See also: Madoff Victims Devise Hedging Strategy [DB]
With all the D talk out there re: anything Madoff, and most recently possible hotboxing and manscaping we’d hoped that maybe this whole story had taken a turn towards smut for good. Alas, we find ourselves back to a litigious story, this time it’s P. Dubs of the Canadian variety that are getting their asses sued:
More, after the jump
A woman who was a CFO for a charity that invested with Bernie is claiming, in a book of course, that she not only had all her personal money invested with him that went poof but that she was also bumping uglies with the Master Ponz. Supposedly there will be pictures which obviously begs several questions. Check out Dealbreaker for the debate.
Sleeping with the enemy is certainly a new low for bean counters. She could’ve done us all a favor and gotten down with Dick Cheney and it wouldn’t look nearly as bad.
Madoff Had Affair With Ex-Hadassah Finance Chief, Her Book Says [Bloomberg]
It’s offish. DiPascali pleaded guilty to all ten counts against him and faces 125 years in prison, just quarter century short of Boss Ponz. However, because he is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney, DiPascali may be lucky enough to get a sentence under the century mark.
The bright side for Frank DiPascali is that he gets to spend his last few days as a free man courtesy of a very nice sister who put up her house for the $2.5 million bond. Sentencing is tentatively set for May 2010.
DiPascali was the man that many Madoff investors corresponded with directly so it’s clear to us that he was LYING A LOT.
Per the WSJ:
The former chief financial officer for Bernard Madoff says he helped the disgraced financier and others “carry out a fraud that hurt thousands of people”…Mr. DiPascali said at the plea hearing that the transactions were “all fake. It was all fictitious. It was wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time.”
Okay then, nothing really new there but we will be waiting patiently to hear the other names. Next bean counter up for book throwing is David Friehling, who was kind enough to rubber stamp the Madoff financial statements for around $14k a month. Bright side for Friehling is that he’s looking at 50% less time in jail then Bernie.
As we mentioned last week, Frank DiPascali, the Chief Financial Officer Accounting Officer Number-Maker-Upper is going to be arraigned today on multiple counts of fraud, conspiracy and other bad stuff that will earn him a permanent wardrobe of bright orange or heavy denim jumpsuits. We’ll update you on the sitch after 3 pm EDT.
