Tag: Ponzi Travel

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Even Ruth Madoff Gets the TSA Theater Blues

July 23, 2009 at 9:05 AM | by | Comments (0)

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.

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

April 4, 2009 at 2:30 PM | by | Comment (1)

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.

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Palm Beach Society Tour Gets New Stop: Madoff Mansion!

January 28, 2009 at 11:55 AM | by | Comments (0)

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]

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Weekday At Bernie's

Where: 133 E. 64th St. [map], New York, NY, United States
January 16, 2009 at 12:00 PM | by | Comment (1)

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.

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