Victims of Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme finally started receiving checks yesterday for their lost life savings — too late for at least eight elderly residents of a Queens high-rise who died before their restitution arrived.
Many of the Madoff victims living in North Shore Towers in Floral Park saw their nest eggs wiped out by scams and were forced to move in with their children, dismiss their home health-care aides or get on emergency wait lists for nursing homes.
After years of clawing back profits from the scheme, Irving Picard, the case’s bankruptcy trustee, began mailing payments to 1,230 defrauded account holders Wednesday.
Eleven living Madoff victims — with an average age of 88 — remain in the towers, which was dubbed the Ground Zero of the Ponzi scheme when Madoff’s crimes were discovered in 2008.
Elderly residents of the 1,844-unit complex got sucked in through Edward Glantz, an accountant who lived in a penthouse at North Shore Towers for years, victims said.
The SEC busted Glantz, who died in 2007, for violating federal securities laws by feeding unregistered investor money to an accounting firm tied to Madoff.
“It broke everybody’s hearts,” said the son of elderly tower residents, who declined to reveal his name.
The 70-year-old man’s father died in 2009, just months after the scandal broke. His mother’s $850,000 in savings were erased, forcing her to sell the North Shore Towers apartment, go on Medicaid and check into a Manhattan nursing home.
“She’s suffering from the consequences,” the Sarasota, Fla., resident said.
The $312 million in last week’s disbursements is about 4.6 cents on the dollar of lost investments.
“It’s a beginning. It’s something,” said Judith Welling, a Battery Park City senior, who received a check yesterday for a portion of the $2.5 million she lost.
Future payments will be mailed out once appeals against Picard’s claims have been settled.
Only customers who didn’t withdraw all of their original Madoff investment are eligible for payouts, Picard said.
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3 Responses
The Madoff Victims, should at least partially blame themselves, everyone should know that when “it’s too good to be true” then it’s not true,
It’s hard to feel sad for people who were quite wealthy (Madoff only dealt with the very wealthy) who thought they were getting a good that was “too good to be true” due to their superior connections, and knew it involved a secret formula that of course couldn’t be described in detail because then the hoi polloi would find out (and these people knew they were “elite” which is why they could get in a deal that ordinary people couldn’t). At worse, they’ll have to live out their lives as normal Americans.
It’s easier to feel sorry for the working stiffs who believe thye line “housing always goes up” so they used their house as an ATM machine, and then found out what happened when their speculative investment goes bust. At least these people didn’t think they had an elite special deal, and they’ll often end up virtually homeless as a result.
To simon01 and akuperma, Hope you are never put through this test of becoming richer than you are. THINK BEFORE YOU RESPOND! Put yourselves in their shoes before you respond. It says VAYISHMAN YESHURUN VAYIVAT, The more one has the more one wants. Thats exactly the nisayon of the rich and they were probably happy to become richer from this super mouthed enticer.
Bottom line we can’t judge them even if It’s fun to since we don’t have their riches.
THINK THINK!!