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Madoff was born on April 29, 1938, in Queens, New York City, to Sylvia (Muntner) and Ralph Madoff, who was a plumber and stockbroker.[34][31][35][36] His family was Jewish. Madoff's grandparents were emigrants from Poland, Romania, and Austria.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Accused Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff was not the first person in his close-knit family to run afoul of federal authorities. A broker-dealer firm registered in the name of Madoff's mother, Sylvia, was effectively forced to close by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission more than 40 years ago.

In August 1963, the SEC announced it was "instituting proceedings...to determine whether" 48 broker-dealers, including "Sylvia R. Madoff [doing business as] Gibraltar Securities," had "failed to file reports of their financial condition...and if so, whether their registrations should be revoked."

An SEC litigation release a month later announced hearings in the case of Madoff and many of the other firms in question.

Then, in January 1964, the SEC dismissed administrative proceedings against a number of the firms, including Madoff's, in what appeared to be a deal: No penalties if you promise to stay out of business...

Despite Sylvia Madoff's SEC registration as a broker-dealer, three high school classmates of Bernard Madoff say they don't recall her being a stockbroker (something that would have been unusual, and memorable, in that era - not to mention theoretically easy to spot given that the firm's address was the Madoff family home in the Laurelton neighborhood of Queens, N.Y.).

But a fourth high-school classmate of Bernard Madoff, Ed Heiberger, says he recalls that it was Madoff's father, Ralph, who "was either a stockbroker or a customer's man" (the latter is the equivalent of a client or account representative)...

Both Sylvia and Ralph Madoff died in the 1970s, according to Social Security records.

This wouldn't be the first Madoff mystery, of course. It's possible that Sylvia Madoff was running a securities business even as her son launched his own in 1960. Another possible explanation is suggested by property records for the Madoff's house. The "grantor/mortgagor" was listed as Sylvia R. Madoff, according to Queens property records.

But the property had tax liens totaling $13,245.28 (about $100,000 in today's dollars) for unpaid federal taxes owed by Ralph Z. Madoff and three other people. The taxes were assessed in 1956, but the lien was not paid off until 1965, when the house was sold, suggesting that the Madoffs were either fighting the tax bill or unable to pay it.

Ralph Z. Madoff, now deceased, was Bernard Madoff's father. He was known as "Zorro" and was a plumber before becoming a stockbroker.

According to Teri Ryan, the whole Madoff family is to blame.. she and her husband Larry became involved with Madoff when a family friend referred them to Sol Alpern.. they joined Madoff's investment pool under Sol Alpern's name...

Ruth's paternal grandmother, Beile Alpern, hailed from a town called Jedwadne , then part of tsarist-era Russia. Beile arrived in New York in 1905 with son (Ruth's father) Israel .. also known as Sol , just 1 year old..

Sol Alpern founded his accounting company with partner Sherman Heller and they operated out of 10 East 40th Street

10 East 40th Street or the Mercantile Building is a skyscraper on 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, in the middle of the block between Fifth and Madison avenues, extending back to 39th Street. Designed by Ludlow and Peabody and built by Jesse H. Jones, it was finished in 1929 and is an example of Renaissance Revival architecture

It was previously known as the Chase Tower, after its first tenant, Chase Brass & Copper. Its owner until his death in 1938 was Frederick William Vanderbilt

Q : Did you ever think it was odd that Bernie Madoff gets you an attorney, that Bernie Madoff has been coaching you in previous months or years not to worry about the fact that you were dealing in unregistered securities, and that you go through all these hearings, and all the paperwork is all about you and Frank, but nothing about Bernie? And Bernie gets off scot-free, continues doing what he's doing? That seem odd to you?

Bienes: No. I wasn't even following it. I didn't care. I didn't even think about it.

Q: Now, you had these [other accountants, Edward] Glantz [and Steven] Mendelow, involved in this other sort of feeder fund that's feeding money [to Avellino & Bienes]. How did that work? How did Telfran work?

Bienes: Telfran was formed by Glantz & Levey, the accounting firm. We always shared office space with them when we were practicing accounting. When I first met Alpern, the two firms were in a suite at 10 East 40th Street. Then we went over to, I think it was the Young & Rubicam building. Again, we shared a suite. Then we moved to 535 Fifth, and we shared a suite.

BILL ROSENZWEIG C/O E D LOEWENWARTER
ERNEST D LOEWENWARTER & CO ATTN: BILL ROSENSWEG
MR WILLIAM ROSENWEIG ERNEST D LOEWENWARTER & CO
ROSENZWEIG,LOEWENWARTER & CO 10 EAST 40TH STREET ROOM 1910

Ernest D. Loewenwarter, senior partner in Ernest D. Loewenwarter & Co., public accountants here, died yesterday, at his home, 765 East 18th Street, Brooklyn. He was 73 years old.

Mr. Loewenwarter had lectured at the New York University School of Business. He was treasurer of Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn, and trustee of the Jewish Family Service. He was chairman of several committees of the State Society of Certified Public Accountants.

He was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Pace Institute.

Lindsay Pollock reports on Bloomberg that Ben Heller, Art Consultant, was paid a $26.5 million commission for the $310 million bulk sale of Mark Rothko Paintings, owned by J. Ezra Merkin, whose Ascot Partners LP invested with convicted felon Bernard Madoff.

In a Bloomberg News interview earlier this year, Mr. Heller said he suffered losses in excess of $13 million from investing in Madoff Funds; $3.4 million invested in a charitable trust and $10 million in personal funds.

Ben Heller was art consultant to Mr. & Mrs. Merkin from 2003 to 2008; Mr. Heller helped the Merkins assemble one of the largest private Mark Rothko collections in the world.

"The sale was approved by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who froze Merkin’s assets and is suing him for concealing his $2.4 billion investment with Madoff. If Cuomo wins, funds from the art sale will go toward recouping investor losses."

"The sale produced $191 million, after fees, taxes and legal expenses, to be held in escrow."

Ben Heller, an influential New York art collector and dealer best known for his early embrace of Abstract Expressionism and the sale of one of its masterworks to an Australian museum, which caused an international furor, died on April 24 2019 in Sharon, Conn. He was 93. The cause was a stroke, his son-in-law Peter Adler said. Benjamin Theodore Heller, the youngest of three children, was born in Manhattan on Oct. 16, 1925, to William and Rose (Landa) Heller. His mother was a schoolteacher. His father, who started out selling razors on the street, founded Heller Jersey, a small but successful textile manufacturing company. In 1953, Mr. Heller succeeded his father as president and expanded the company into a major firm; it was one of the first to produce double-knit jersey and synthetic polyester-cotton blends. He sold it to Uniroyal in 1970 and thereafter concentrated on real estate. The family was well off, with a farm in Connecticut, where Mr. Heller rode horses on weekends. He attended the Ethical Culture School in New York and then its high school, Fieldston, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He graduated from Fieldston in 1943, attended Yale for a semester and then enlisted in the Army, serving as a Morse code radio operator and sharpshooter. He was injured and earned two bronze stars. Upon discharge, he enrolled in Bard College and graduated in 1948 with a degree in philosophy. His firest wife, Judith Heller, died in a car accident in 1970. The next year Mr. Heller married Patricia Rosenwald Sedgwick, a psychotherapist. He is survived by his wife; his daughters, Patti Adler, a retired professor of sociology, and Deedy Mishler, a web designer; his son, Woody, a Manhattan realtor; his sister, Naomi Heller Rosenbloom; his stepchildren, Nico Sedgwick, a painter, and the actors Rob Sedgwick and Kyra Sedgwick; 11 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He had homes in Sharon and Manhattan.

René-Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet (23 April 1943 – 22 December 2008) was a French aristocrat, money manager, and businessman. He was one of the founders of Access International Advisors (AIA Group), a company caught and subsumed in the Madoff investment scandal in 2008. He killed himself after losing an estimated $1.4 billion in the Madoff scheme

René-Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet was born in Saint-Malo, into the Magon family, wealthy Breton shipbuilders. In 1978, he earned his MBA from HEC Paris. He moved to New York City in 1982

In New York, Villehuchet was head of Interfinance, a brokerage firm, before becoming chairman and CEO of Crédit Lyonnais Securities USA in 1987. He also contributed to the founding of Apollo Management, financial management firm established by financier Leon Black..

nvestigators also identified a number of prominent investors who gave money to Villehuchet that was tied to the Madoff scandal: Philippe Junot, former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and Prince Michael of Yugoslavia, as partner and investor-relations executive, respectively, in the firm; and Liliane Bettencourt, the world's wealthiest woman at the time (d. ⁠2017), the 86-year-old daughter of L'Oréal founder Eugène Schueller ..

Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet resided in New Rochelle, New York. He was also a member of New York Yacht Club, the Larchmont Yacht Club—a racer in the Star and Shields sailboat classes—and the St. Malo Bay Nautical Club in France

In 2005, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com (OSTK) and future Deep Capture investigative reporter, began a public crusade against illegal naked short selling (hedge funds and brokers creating phantom stock to manipulate stock prices down). ..

Soon after, I began to investigate a network of short sellers, journalists, and miscreants. I concluded that many of the people in this network were connected to two famous criminals – “junk bond king” Michael Milken and his associate, Ivan Boesky. I also began taking a close look at the Mafia’s involvement in naked short selling.

In my last installment (click here to read), I described some of the strange occurrences that attended this investigation. Where the story left off, I’d recently been threatened in a bookstore, and then ambushed by three thugs who told me to stay away from this story. My unwitting employer had been bribed by short sellers, Patrick had been told by a U.S. Senator that his life was in danger, and a Russian matryoshka doll had appeared on the desk of an offshore businessman.

Inside this matryoshka doll was a slip of paper marked with the letter “F”…



.......

Soon after receiving the matryoshka doll, the offshore businessman invited Patrick Byrne to a greasy spoon diner in Long Island. Over the previous year, the businessman had provided Patrick with some information about the naked short selling scam, and the hope was that he might have something more to say.

But that day at the diner, all he had was a message.

“I’ll make this quick,” the businessman said, with two other witnesses present. “I have a message for you from Russia. The message is, ‘We are about to kill you. We are about to kill you.’ Patrick, they are going to kill you. If you do not stop this crusade [against naked short selling], they will kill you. Normally they’d have already hurt someone close to you as a warning, but you’re so weird, they don’t know how you’d react.”

In a later conversation with a colleague of Patrick’s the businessman said [verbatim]: “These things don’t happen to me anymore. I mean, I’ve been out of that world [the world of Mafia stock manipulation] for a dozen years or more. These…there are defined signals here that lead me to believe that they [the Mafia] have been disturbed. The only way they coulda been disturbed is if they own Rocker or if he is using them for leverage.”

Rocker. That’s David Rocker.

At the time, David Rocker was a “prominent” hedge fund manager specialized in short selling (betting that stock prices will fall). It was also the case that Rocker had spent the last couple decades insinuating to people on Wall Street that he was somehow tied to the Mob.

But Rocker was probably full of it. He didn’t have ties to the Mob. Perhaps he merely believed that his insinuations lent him a certain cachet.

* * * * * * * *

From 1973 to 1981, Rocker was a general partner in a short selling hedge fund managed by Michael Steinhardt, who is one of Wall Street’s most “prominent” investors, regularly hailed by The Wall Street Journal and CNBC as a genius and a font of wisdom.

Some years ago, Steinhardt belatedly acknowledged that he is the son of Sol “Red” Steinhardt, who was once a major player in the Genovese Mafia organization. Steinhardt, Sr. spent several years in Sing-Sing prison after a New York City prosecutor described him as the “biggest Mafia fence in America.”

Incidentally, experts concur that the Genovese Mafia family brought the Russian Mob to America.

* * * * * * * *

The largest investors in Steinhardt Jr.’s first hedge fund were associates of the Genovese Mafia (whose investments came in large sacks of cash), Marty Peretz (future founder, with Jim Cramer, of TheStreet.com [TSCM]), Marc Rich (future fugitive charged with tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran and Libya), and Ivan Boesky (later imprisoned on multiple counts, most of them involving stock manipulation schemes orchestrated with “junk bond king” Michael Milken).

By 1991, Steinhardt owned another hedge fund — JGM Management – with a “prominent investor” named James Marquez. The star employee at JGM was “prominent investor” Samuel Israel III.

A few years later, Israel and Marquez founded the Bayou Group, one of the biggest hedge fund frauds in history. A significant part of the Bayou fraud involved Israel “feeding” his investors’ money into a Ponzi scheme run by Robert Booth Nichols, who has been targeted by authorities as a business associate of the Genovese Mafia family.

When Israel was sentenced to prison last year, he briefly disappeared. His car was found on a bridge. Scrawled in the dust on the hood was a note: “Suicide is Painless.”

Authorities arrested Israel’s girlfriend, whom they suspected of harboring a fugitive. Shortly after, Israel rode a red motor scooter to a Boston police station and turned himself in. Apparently, he was not dead. He had tried to fool us...

* * * * * * * *

In the 1990s, Steinhardt founded another hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners. The co-founder and head trader of Steinhardt Partners was a “prominent investor” named John Lattanzio.

The limited public information about Lattanzio concerns a Russian prostitute.

Apparently, Lattanzio proposed marriage to the prostitute and gave her a diamond ring. Alas, the couple separated, and Lattanzio asked for his ring back. After all, it had cost him $289,275.00.

But the prostitute seemed to believe that the ring was payment for services rendered. The dispute ended up in court, where the prostitute testified that Lattanzio had told her that he had ties to the Mafia.

Yes, said the prostitute, Lattanzio (Steinhardt Partners’ co-founder and head trader) had big-time Mafia connections, and he “would not hesitate to use them to harm me.”..

* * * * * * * *

Rocker left Steinhardt’s hedge fund in 1981 and went to work for an investment management firm called Century Capital Associates.

Information on this firm is limited, but it seems to have been largely owned in the 1980s by the Belzberg brothers — William, Sam and Hymie.

The Belzbergs were among Michael Milken’s closest cronies (family member Mark Belzberg was in fact implicated by the SEC in Milken’s stock manipulation schemes). They were at the inner core of the Milken machine – buying and selling the junk bonds of other Milken cronies. Often, the Belzbergs collaborated with Milken to blackmail, seize, or destroy public companies. .

In the late 1980s, the Belzbergs announced that they were going to take over Crazy Eddie, which was then a famous home electronics retail chain. The Belzbergs joined forces with Crazy Eddie’s founder, Eddie Antar, and the company’s chief financial officer, Sam Antar, in a supposed effort to take the company private...

The base of Milken’s operation was the high-yield debt department of Drexel Burnham Lambert in Beverly Hills. From there, he underwrote and sold billions upon billions of dollars worth of junk bonds. Hence the moniker, “the junk bond king.”

But most observers believe that Milken derived a greater part of his fortune from a web of private partnerships and personal brokerages that traded, and often manipulated, not just the debt, but also the stock of public companies. Most profitable of all Milken’s businesses were two Chicago-based brokerages – Belvedere Securities and EGM partners – that he co-owned with the Genovese Mafia card-counter Edward Thorp.

In 2006, Thorp’s son, Jeffrey, was charged by the SEC with destroying more than 20 companies in a scheme that involved unbridled naked short selling (millions upon millions of phantom shares sold into the market). Jeffrey Thorp also collaborated closely in short selling schemes with Anthony Elgindy, a notorious phantom stock peddler who is now serving an 11 year prison sentence for stock manipulation, extortion, and bribing FBI agents.

In each chapter, Mallaby takes a narrative focus on one individual or company that played an important role in the history of hedge funds. Mallaby then weaves in other people, ideas or companies related to the star of the chapter. The following are some of the major people, institutions and concepts on a per chapter basis. ..

Ch 2 The Block Trader: Michael Steinhardt, Steinhardt, Fine, Berkowitz & Co., Block trade, Monetary policy

Michael Steinhardt (former hedge-fund manager)

In 1991, Wexner formed with billionaire Charles Bronfman *the Study Group, which is more widely known as the Mega Group.[31] The group was a loosely organized club of some of the country's wealthiest and most influential businessmen who were concerned with Jewish issues. Max Fischer, Michael Steinhardt, Leonard Abramson, Edgar Bronfman, and Laurence Tisch were some of the members. The group would meet twice a year for two days of seminars related to the topic of philanthropy and Jewishness. In 1998, Steven Spielberg spoke about his personal religious journey, and later the group discussed Jewish summer camps.[32] The group, which Wexner co-chaired with Charles Bronfman, went on to inspire a number of philanthropic initiatives such as the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, Birthright Israel, and the upgrading of national Hillel.