«WASTING MONEY PUTS YOU IN A REAL PARTY MOOD»

Convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff turned his investment firm into his personal “piggy bank,” spending millions in client money to bankroll shopping sprees, real estate purchases and country club memberships for his family and close friends.
Madoff siphoned money from his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to purchase real estate for his sons, hand out loans to his brother and drop $6 million to buy two yachts, according to a bankruptcy court filing by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff Securities. For decades “BLMIS was Bernie Madoff and Bernie Madoff was BLIMS, each the alter ego of the other,” Picard said in the filing. Before he confessed to the fraud, not much was known about Madoff, who was described by many as an aloof, Oz-like character. His scheme -- one of the biggest in U.S. history, with losses likely in the tens of billions of dollars -- has remained one of the hardest to untangle.

Fox business news
May 9 2009