Jeffry Picower, Madoff Investor, Found Dead at Home
October 26th, 2009For the first time, I’m preemptively adding a story, this story, to the Assassination category.
—The Desperate Final Hours of the World’s Biggest Ever Financial Fraud
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Via: Bloomberg:
Jeffry Picower, the philanthropist alleged to have withdrawn more than $7.2 billion from Bernard Madoff’s investment company, was found dead today at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, according to police. He was 67.
Picower’s wife Barbara told dispatchers at 12:09 local time that she had “just found her husband at the bottom of their swimming pool” at their oceanfront estate, police said. He was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 80 minutes later, the police said.
“As standard operating procedure in any drowning, the Palm Beach Police Department is conducting an investigation into Mr. Picower’s death,” police said in a statement.
Picower benefited more from Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme than any other investor, according to Irving Picard, the lawyer liquidating Madoff’s investment business. Picard sued Picower, his foundation and related entities, claiming they withdrew more than $7.2 billion over 20 years, including more than $5 billion in fake profits.
Picower’s attorney, William Zabel, didn’t immediately respond to a call and e-mail seeking comment.
Huge Returns
Zabel, in a court filing, said Picower was a victim of Madoff’s fraud rather than a beneficiary, as Picard claimed in his civil complaint in bankruptcy court in New York.
“Rather than recognizing Mr. Picower and the other defendants as victims of Madoff’s fraud, the trustee instead casts them as villains in history’s largest Ponzi scheme,” Zabel said in the July 31 filing seeking dismissal of Picard’s so-called clawback complaint.
The complaint claims Picower, his Palm Beach-based foundation, and related defendants should have known that the annual returns they were getting from Madoff — including some allegedly as high as 950 percent — were the result of fraud. Picower had said those figures are wrong.
Picard said that Picower received more than $2.4 billion from the fraud during the past six years alone, and that his accounts “were riddled with blatant and obvious fraud.”
Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty in March and is serving a 150- year prison term for using money from new clients to pay earlier investors. Picard is suing Madoff’s biggest investors and beneficiaries, including offshore hedge funds.
‘Highly Successful’
The Picower Foundation, run by Barbara Picower, gave away $163.9 million from 2002 to 2008, according to the July 31 filing in response to the Picard lawsuit.
Among the institutions that benefited from Picower’s giving were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which used a $50 million donation from Picower in 2002 to fund a brain-research center under Nobel prize-winner Susumu Tonegawa.
The Zabel filing described Picower as a “highly successful businessman and private investor who also is an inactive certified public accountant and retired attorney.”
Picower and related entities netted nearly $1 billion in 2004 on the sale of Alaris Medical Systems Inc., where he had been chairman, according to the filing.
He also was chairman of Decisions Inc., the principal entity through which he transacted his investment business and a defendant in the Picard complaint, according to the filing.
Over 30 years, Picower invested “huge sums of money” with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC on behalf of himself, his business, his family and his charitable foundation, according to the filing.
‘Ugly Truth’
“Mr. Picower invested with BLMIS because he trusted Bernie Madoff, who he — and the world — believed to be a brilliant trader, a successful businessman, an industry leader, and a pillar of the financial community,” according to the filing.
Picower only learned the “ugly truth” upon Madoff’s arrest on Dec. 11, 2008, according to the filing.
“The consequences of Madoff’s betrayal to all BLMIS investors, including Mr. Picower and the other defendants, was devastating,” according to the filing.
“For Mr. Picower’s wife, Barbara, the consequences of Madoff’s fraud were immeasurable, as it caused the closure of the Picower Foundation, which Mrs. Picower had nurtured and to which she had devoted herself over many years,” it said.
“The Foundation’s grantmaking areas are in education, medical innovation and an equitable and inclusive society. With the goal of promoting healthy, academically prepared and socially competent young people, the Foundation’s education grantmaking supports quality improvements in early childhood, K-12 and out-of-school time, and health projects that have a bearing on children’s educational outcomes. The Foundation places emphasis on professional development of the workforce and strengthening the leadership, performance and programmatic quality of organizations that serve children, youth and families. The Foundation’s primary interests in medical innovation focus on biomedical research and brain and cognitive sciences. Grants are made to leading scientists in the U.S. and their research institutes. The Foundation’s efforts to achieve a more equitable and inclusive society consists of supporting projects in human rights, reproductive rights and Jewish continuity.
Source
The teeth really come out when billions are at stake. It’s ironic the way they will shy away from any violence or impropriety on MSM but when the cameras are turned away, THERE WILL BE BLOOD! Joining a biker gang looks pretty tame compared to these guys; when you threaten to take their gated communities and private jets; LOOK OUT!