WORLD> America
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WORLD> America
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Alleged Madoff fraud has worldwide exposure
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-16 09:59 But the list of people and organizations allegedly taken by Madoff reached into the ranks of the little guy, too.
The town's employees board and police and fire board - which cover 971 workers - had $41.9 million invested with Madoff, said Paul Hiller, Fairfield's chief fiscal officer. Town officials immediately notified their investment fund to liquidate. "At that point, it was too late," he said. "We obviously didn't ask enough questions," Hiller said. Without the Madoff funds, the town's pension funds remain safe, officials said, but the loss mean they've lost their cushion. Others, though, have no such comfort zone. Officials at the New York-based JEHT Foundation, a nonprofit focused on juvenile justice and fair elections, said it was freezing all its grants and would shut down at the end of January. The group gets all its fundings from a couple, Jeanne and Kenneth Levy-Church, whose personal investments were managed by Madoff. "The impact is really quite deep because we're talking about $25 to $30 million in funding to organizations that are no longer going to be getting that money," Robert Crane, the president of the foundation said. "So it's a very significant ripple effect." Another New York nonprofit, the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination, may be forced to close, spokesman Adam Ludwig said. In Palm Beach., Fla. - a denizen of the very wealthy where Madoff found many investors - news of his arrest continued to reverberate. "Ever since Thursday, I've been getting these phone calls. Levi, I need your help," said jeweler Levi Touger, who had just returned to his office after seeing a yacht one customer wanted to use as collateral for a loan. He said people seeking money were offering a variety of collateral, from four-carat diamonds to a Lamborghini. "There are people who have been hurt by this and they need a quick fix and they need right now to send to their broker X amount of money," Touger said. New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, entrusted his family's charitable foundation to Madoff. Lautenberg's attorney, Michael Griffinger, said they weren't yet sure the extent of the foundation's losses, but that the bulk of its investments had been handled by Madoff. Reports from Florida to Minnesota included profiles of ordinary investors who gave Madoff their money. Some had been friends with him for decades, others were able to invest because they were a friend of a friend. They told stories of losing everything from $40,000 to an entire nest egg worth well over $1 million. |
