Madoff Programmers Indicted And
Arrested
November 14. 2009
Bernard Madoff
Two computer programmers,
Jerome O’Hara and George Perez, that aided incarcerated
ponzi schemer, Bernard Madoff, with defrauding thousands out of billions of
dollars, were indicted and arrested by the FBI, for helping the
former investment broker cover up his crimes for almost 20 years.
In other Madoff news, his personal possessions were auctioned off
this week. A number of items such as couture clothes, diamond cuff
links, fur coats and 17 Rolex watches, to name a few, were put on
the auction block. He really lived a decadent life and damaged so
many in the process.
MADOFF AUCTION ITEMS:
Two Are Charged With Helping Madoff Falsify
Records
Published: November 13, 2009 - The two men — Jerome O’Hara of Malverne, N.Y.,
and George Perez of East Brunswick, N.J. — were also named in a civil case filed
on Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Securities regulators said that the two men created the computer software that
generated the elaborate paper trail that Mr. Madoff used to conceal his fraud
from investors and regulators for more than 15 years.
According to the complaints, both men grew uneasy about their role in the fraud
three years ago and closed their own Madoff accounts in April 2006, withdrawing
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
After a confrontation with Mr. Madoff in September 2006, they demanded pay
raises and bonuses — what securities regulators called “hush money” — and agreed
to remain silent about the fraud, according to the complaints...
http://www.nytimes.com
Crying Over Madoff’s 17 Rolexes at Auction
This was less like an auction and more like a seven-car garage sale. The spoils
and other superfluous purchases of Bernard L. Madoff, the notorious Ponzi
schemer, were on the blocks at the United States Marshals Service Jewelry
auction on Saturday at the New York Sheraton Hotel and Towers.
By the time Lot 196 was cried at 1:57 p.m.— a yellow-gold charm bracelet that
was the first of hundreds of items seized from Mr. Madoff’s three houses — there
were about 500 people sitting in a cavernous blue-carpeted ballroom, and another
1,000 people registered online.
Mr. Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina
for committing fraud. He went there without his “prisoner watch,” modeled on
those worn by World War II airmen, valued at $87,500 and the most expensive of
his 17 Rolex watches on the blocks.
Among the other ill-gotten gains — cufflinks, fur coats, Louis Vitton handbags
and necklaces, belonging to his wife, Ruth — there were also the kitschier items
more often found on card tables in a driveway sale:
Seven Swatch watches, two three-legged milk stools, two pairs of rubber fishing
waders, the size 9 brown ones with suspenders, two Igloo coolers, one life
preserver with the words, “Bullship, N.Y.” (his 55-foot yacht, “Bull” was not on
this block) and three wooden duck decoys...
http://www.nytimes.com