» For comparison’s sake, Bernie Madoff got 150 years. Stanford, who was convicted of 13 of 14 fraud counts in March, lived a lavish life, and was at one point personally worth $2 billion. (His scheme, half the size of Madoff’s, was nonetheless massive.) But his assets were frozen and he was so broke that he had to rely on court-appointed lawyers. Said lawyers have no sense of gravity, apparently — they seriously thought he’d get jailed for less than four years? Perhaps, though, it was Stanford himself who screwed up his chances, telling the judge this on Thursday: “I’m not here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness or to throw myself at your mercy. I did not run a Ponzi scheme. I didn’t defraud anybody.” He spoke for 40 minutes. He claimed the U.S. used “gestapo tactics” on him. In return, he got a huge sentence.
Follow ShortFormBlog • Find us on Twitter & Facebook
» And now they’re being pressured to give it up: Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of the insanely massive Bernie Madoff account, claims in a lawsuit that the Mets organization, represented by Sterling Equities, turned a blind eye to Madoff’s scheme and had plenty of opportunities to see red flags pop up. ”The Sterling partners were simply in too deep – having substantially supported their businesses with Madoff money – to do anything but ignore the gathering clouds,” says the complaint first made public on Friday. Officials for the team call the claims ”an outrageous strong-arm effort” at getting money out of them, and deny any wrongdoing.
» Not every victim is getting helped: Only around $5.9 billion in losses has been recognized by the trustee so far, which much of the rest of the money owed indirectly by hedge funds that need to pay back the money they withdrew first.
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
