Madoff with the Money (35 page)

Before his fall, Friehling had been on the board of the Rockland County, New York, chapter of the New York Society of Certified Public Accountants, and had once served as its president.

The day Jeremy Horowitz died in Florida, his son, Irwin, posted the following tale of woe on a web site:

No investor with Bernie appeared to have been left unscathed—not even Ruth's own older sister, Joan Alpern Roman, and her husband, Bob Roman. He also swindled his own sister, Sondra (Sonnie) Wiener, and her son, Charlie, the head of administration at BLMIS.

In mid-June 2009, with Bernie's sentencing looming, the Romans filed claims in the Madoff bankruptcy case—Joan for $2.7 million, and her husband, Madoff 's one-time insurance agent, for $8.7 million. Three of the Romans' daughters also had Madoff accounts, according to the BLMIS victims list, but they hadn't filed any claims. It was possible, since the list covered all past and present investors in Madoff, that they had taken their money out. Whether Joan and Bob Roman had taken money out through the years was not revealed. Also of interest was whether it was Ruth rather than Bernie who had enlisted her sister into Bernie's investment advisory-cum-Ponzi scheme.

“Joan's very nice and
totally
unlike Ruth,” observes a Madoff family intimate.

The Romans were among the blood relatives, like Mark and Andy Madoff, who had received those bizarre packages of gifts that Bernie had sent out on Christmas Eve 2008 after his arrest—care packages supposedly set aside by Ruth during their marriage that included what his attorney described as “sentimental personal items.” The goody bags included about $1 million in jewelry—Cartier and Tiffany watches, a ring, a diamond necklace, and other bling. When the prosecutors learned what Bernie had done, they charged that it was a way for him to “dissipate” assets, while Bernie's lawyer contended it was all done in innocence as a way for Bernie to “reach out” to beloved family members.

The Romans, in their early 70s, young-looking, sprightly, in very good health, and living the snowbird Florida lifestyle, were in desperate straits after Bernie was arrested, according to a close Madoff family friend who grew up in Laurelton and also knew the Romans in Florida. Until the time of Bernie's arrest the Romans didn't have a worry in the world, living quite comfortably in a beautiful Boca Raton condominium.

Says the friend:

If he financially wiped out his sister-in-law, he seemed to have had no qualms about taking his own 74-year-old sister for at least the $3 million she had invested with him. Sondra Madoff Wiener and her husband, Marvin, now a retired dentist, had even been introduced to each other back in Laurelton by Bernie and his high school friend, Elliott Olin. Because of her brother's scam, the Wieners were forced to put their gated 3,409-square-foot, three-bedroom home in the very upscale Ballen Isles Country Club area of Palm Beach—the same exclusive water-view enclave where Serena and Venus Williams lived—on the market.

Like the Romans, the Wieners also reportedly received Bernie's Hanukkah gift package and were forced to return it. Afterward, they put their home up for sale at $950,000 in a dreadful south Florida real estate market. Their real estate listing said the house had a pool and spa, included a golf cart, and offered the “best water view” with sun-sets every evening. Country club membership in the Wieners' complex ranged from $35,000 to $115,000—and was a requirement when they bought the property in 2003 for $650,000.

The
New York Post
, under the headline “Madoff Blistered His Sister,” quoted her son, David, as saying, “My family's a victim. More so than anybody else. It's very painful.”

His brother, Charlie Wiener, the 30-year veteran BLMIS executive, was also victimized by his boss. Having lost an investment in the millions, he and his wife, Carolyn, were forced to put their four-bedroom, ranch-style Centerport, Long Island, home with a dock on the market for $1.3 million. “I can't afford it anymore,” he told a reporter. “We have to move.” He called what Bernie did to him “emotionally devastating to our entire family. . . . [We suffered] a devastating financial loss. It's been a painful experience.”

Around the time Peter Madoff 's son, Roger, was struck down by leukemia, the Wieners' daughter was stricken with a form of blood cancer, but fortunately recovered.

As with regard to his sister-in-law, Joan, his brother-in-law, Bob, and his nephew, Charlie; Bernie didn't appear to care much for his own sister, Sondra.

“Charlie told me that he felt Bernie didn't like his mother,” says a former BLMIS veteran. “When Sondra would call Charlie at the office and after they chatted for a while, she'd ask his secretary to be transferred to Bernie. She'd be switched and Bernie could see on caller ID that his sister was on the line, and he would tell Eleanor [Squillari] to tell her he wasn't available, that he was in a meeting or out of the office. He'd just ignore her. He didn't want to deal with her. He had no time for her.”

A number of Madoff employees, an estimated 20 percent of the 180 or so who worked for the firm, were wiped out by Bernie's swindle. Some lost more than $1 million, their life savings. Moreover, most couldn't find jobs because of the dark cloud of the Madoff name that was now part of their resumes. The only bit of luck they caught was that their 401(k)s had been transferred to a third party outside of BLMIS to be administered, so they at least had those—although much of their savings in the 401(k)s had been devastated in the stock market crash.

While Bill Nasi wasn't invested in Madoff, he says his 401(k) had lost $30,000. “But thank God someone in that company had the foresight to say that the pension plan would not be handled in-house. Thank God they farmed them out to Fidelity. But I told the guys at work, ‘Why couldn't Bernie get arrested back in June or July before the great Wall Street meltdown? We wouldn't have lost as much.'”

Nasi offers that he wouldn't know what to say to Bernie if he was given the opportunity to sit down with him face-to-face in prison. “That would be very difficult to do,” he observes, “because I think I would just start crying. Here's a guy who just destroyed all of us, all my friends, all my co-workers. Forget about the nameless, faceless charities and the people that have really big money. He screwed up the lives of everyone who worked for him, all my friends there, even the ones that didn't have any money invested. I considered these people almost like family members, and he screwed all their fucking lives up.”

Some fell into deep depression because of their losses, and others went into hiding. Still others had to find jobs—and that was not easy. Besides the recession with few companies doing any hiring, they carried the toxic stain of the infamous Bernie Madoff.

Toniann Astuto, who had a newborn and a five-year-old, went job hunting and was greeted with outright contempt and disdain.

Stanley Shapiro wasn't a full-time Madoff employee, but he showed up on the firm's list of employees as being one, had the use of a desk and a phone, and enjoyed being around the action. A multimillionaire who had made a fortune in the women's apparel business, he was in his 80s, owned a Park Avenue co-op, had a place in the Hamptons, and wintered in Palm Beach. He was a high roller, and one of Bernie's loyal cronies going back many years.

“Bernie used to come into the office and say, ‘Where's that
alta kocker
? Send him to me so we can kibbitz,'” recalls a Madoff insider. “He and Bernie hobnobbed all the time—dinners in Palm Beach, lunches together in New York. Stanley wasn't on salary. I think Bernie may have had him listed as an employee for insurance purposes—so Stanley could get insurance. He used to come in every day and pay his bills and schmooze about the stock market. Bernie just wanted one of his old friends to feel young.”