Jaunted

Hot Yachts / Yachting / Bernie Madoff / Ships / Crimes / → All Tags

France Has Made Off With Bernie Madoff's 'Bull' Yacht

When we aren't out jetting around or hopping a high-speed train, we like to fantasize about that other form of transportation: the almighty ship. So to allay our own curiosity as much as yours, we're spotlighting yachts with either notorious owners or histories...or both. Know of a bootylicious boat? Let us know.

Anybody in the market for a super deal on a yacht? Because boy oh boy does the harbor in Cap d'Antibes, France have the boat for you: it's Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff's old 88-footer, named Bull. The yacht, only built back in 2007, was seized by French authorities back in April, and now she sits with her propeller chained up and the dock roped off until someone steps up to buy her.

Although she is valued at $7 million dollars, it probably won't take all that much to get off her the yacht broker's hands. Madoff of course registered her in Georgetown, Barbados to tax advantage of their tax haven reputation, but now that she's docked in the South of France, she'll need to be moved by March 2010 or else she'll be liable to French sales tax.

more ›

TSA Theater / Ruth Madoff / US Airways / LGA / Bernie Madoff / Ponzi Travel / → All Tags

Even Ruth Madoff Gets the TSA Theater Blues

There's not a lot of sympathy to be found for anyone bearing the last name Madoff these days. Even though Bernie's stewing in a North Carolina prison, nothing can change the fact that so many folks (collectively) lost billions of dollars in his Ponzi scheme. We're sure the victims have played out many fantasies in their mind as to how they would harm Bernie and co. but there might be a just punishment that's not quite as gruesome.

The Madoff matriarch, Ruth Madoff, recently had to suffer an experience that we would wish only upon some of our worst enemies--a tortured go-round at the security checkpoint at La Guardia Airport in New York.

more ›

Recessionomics / Bernie Madoff / Ponzi Schemes / → All Tags

Bernie Madoff Taking Palm Beach Down With Him

Right now disgraced faux-financier Bernie Madoff is cooling his heels in an undisclosed jail (probably to keep the pitchforked masses from descending). But if he were allowed to walk free, he'd pretty much have nowhere to go anyway: Not only is his Manhattan penthouse on sale and several of his toys seized, he's now being blamed for bringing down his second home of Palm Beach as well. It's true, you can't go home again.

The penthouse was quietly put up for sale in January, around the time Madoff was first confined to house arrest there. (Well, that's gotta be awkward!) But his Palm Beach pad has been seized by the feds to help repay the people he swindled, as was a yacht and an Aston Martin he gave to his brother Peter last year. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Florida mansion has dropped some 20 percent in value since being assessed last year, adding untold hours to the time Madoff will spend making license plates in the clink.

more ›

Bernie Madoff / Yachting / Ponzi Travel / → All Tags

Ponzi Travel: Visit Bernie Madoff's South Florida Stomping Grounds

The gig is up for Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, who is currently in a lower Manhattan jail awaiting sentencing for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars. Unfortunately for his victims, most of the money disappeared into thin air, but authorities are doing what they can to identify and liquidate his remaining assets. The action last week centered on south Florida, where marshals seized his yacht, "the Bull," from Roscioli Yachting Center in Fort Lauderdale, and entered his $10 million Palm Beach Island home to inventory its contents.

more ›

Real Estate Safaris / Bernie Madoff / Ponzi Travel / → All Tags

Palm Beach Society Tour Gets New Stop: Madoff Mansion!

Hoping to spy on Donald Trump's old house or Rod Stewart's unbelievably sexy mansion when cruising down the tony streets of Palm Beach? After you scoped out Mar-A-Lago, the Kennedy compound and other oceanfront manses owned by Europeans with four first names, we have one more house you may want to visit on this real estate safari.

Its owner may be stuck in New York right now, but feel free to stop by Bernie Madoff's fraud fortress -- some angry teenagers already have.

Undoubtedly acting on the orders of their ripped-off parents, some neighborhood kids toilet-papered Bernie Madoff's Palm Beach house over the weekend. Local teens took credit for the prank, allegedly telling local law enforcement that they were upset about their trust funds falling prey to the Ponzi scheme. But they must not have lost that much, otherwise they might be tempted to do some real property damage.

Palm Beach was among the hardest hit communities by the Madoff mess; a New York Times article described the Palm Beach Country Club, from which the faux financier recruited many of his clients, as a rumor mill of whispers, with battle lines drawn between those who had been asked to invest and whose who hadn't.

Related Stories:
· Toilet paper hangs at Madoff mansion [Palm Beach Post]
· A Palm Beach Enclave, Stunned By an Inside Job [NY Times]
· Weekday at Bernie's [Jaunted]
· West Palm Beach Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: Palm Beach Post]

Where Is / Bernie Madoff / Ponzi Travel / → All Tags

Weekday At Bernie's

Jaunted assistant editor Ellen Wernecke went to visit America's least favorite financier.

If you heard a soft fwap emanating from New York City on Tuesday, it may have been the sound of thousands of Upper East Siders unsubscribing from the New York Times, which arguably committed a cardinal sin: It published the city address of one of its own.

That that member was Bernie Madoff, fraud superstar, may not matter much to those who find their East Side co-ops swamped with reporters this week. That Madoff's address is not hard to find on the Internet anyway--photos of said reporters show the building number or, at the very most, 10 minutes of Googling should do it--is separate as well. Maybe instead of sending a note on nice cardstock apologizing for the inconvenience, the disgraced financier should be giving his nearest the jewelry he can no longer send out of the country.

I didn't go to Madoff's penthouse to ruin his neighbors' lives, nor did I honestly expect to see the man himself, famously on house arrest after posting a $10 million bail. I can remember precisely once in the past year where I joined a crowd waiting for someone on the street, and that was Usain Bolt leaving "Letterman," only because I happened to be walking past and saw the commotion.

more ›