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Bernie’s Sons, Brother, Face Lawsuit

According to CBS News, Irving Picard, the trustee who is handling convicted $65 billion swindler Bernard Madoff’s case, is ready to sue Bernie’s brother and two sons for over $50 million. While this is less than 1% of the scammed money, I guess the trustee has to find it where he can. If he can.

The news report suggests that, as with Picard’s case against Bernie’s wife Ruth (she is now having to deal with a new book by a woman who says she had a 20-year affair with Bernie and now even she has lost everything thanks to BM), whether or not Bernie’s brother Peter and sons Mark and Andrew knew about the fraud is not relevant. He alleges that they received monies from the Madoff investment firm that were effectively stolen funds and must be returned. For example, Mark and his wife bought a $6.5 million Nantucket home with all cash wired directly from the Madoff firm.

There remains this gnawing feeling that so many of us have. How could these very smart men not be aware of what was going on around them? Maybe, just maybe, Ruth did not know. After all it appears she did not know he had an affair with a married woman, allegedly, for over 20 years. Well, who knows, maybe she did know? She denies it though. But these guys worked at the firm. His brother was head of compliance! So the question is, if they did not know, should they have known? One wonders whether the investors should be thinking about ways to craft a case against these guys.