But these clients of Bernard L. Madoff had this in common: They chose him to oversee much of their personal wealth.
And now, they fear, they have lost it.
While Mr. Madoff is facing federal criminal charges, accused by federal prosecutors of operating a vast $50 billion Ponzi scheme, many of his clients are facing an abrupt reversal of fortune that is the stuff of nightmares.
“There are people who were very, very well off a few days ago who are now virtually destitute,” said Brad Friedman, a lawyer with the Milberg firm in Manhattan. “They have nothing left but their apartments or homes — which they are going to have to sell to get money to live on.”The news was equally devastating for the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation in Salem, Mass., which works to reverse the dilution of Jewish identity through intermarriage and assimilation by sending teenagers to Israel and supporting other Jewish education efforts.
The foundation was forced on Friday to dismiss its small staff and shut down its programs to cope with its losses in the Madoff funds, according to Deborah Coltin, its executive director.
“We’ve canceled everything as of today, everything,” she said tearfully.
-The New York Times
Note, in the above article, that the charitable foundation that openly works to preserve Jewish racial identity by sending Jewish kids to the openly race-based nation of Israel, is not condemned or reviled.
Quite the opposite, it is referred to casually if not outright sympathetically.
For more on this hypocrisy, see here and here.
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