The end is nigh for Cohmad, the securities firm with an office in Boston that employed Robert Jaffe and helped solicit investors for Bernie Madoff.

Secretary of State Bill Galvin filed a complaint (go here for the pdf) that seeks to shut the company down, as well as provide an accounting of all the investors Cohmad funneled to Madoff. The complaint makes clear that Cohmad has been less than forthcoming with Galvin’s requests, if not downright obstructionist. (more…)

Our old friend Robert Jaffe, he of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme variety, finally appeared yesterday for a meeting with Secretary of State William Galvin—all it took was a month-long delay and a subpoena. The Globe’s story on the matter quotes Galvin as saying the meeting was “not long.”

Substantially longer is the list of victims involved in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, which was made public made public late yesterday in a bankruptcy court filing in New York.

The list contains celebrities, such as Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and actor Kevin Bacon, but the 162-page document also lists well over 13,000 more accounts of people, companies, and foundations that invested with Madoff. (Many names are listed more than once, so it’s likey that these people or organizations had multiple accounts invested with Madoff.) Alix Partners LLP compiled the list.

It does not include figures, only names and addresses. You can read the entire list here, but you’d need a roomful of interns to make it through the whole thing. (more…)

It must be terrifying to be the one man crying out in the wilderness in a den of wolves. That was the case for Harry Markopolos, the man who says he knew about Bernie Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme for more than a decade and was fearful for his life.

The independent investigator at the center of one of the great financial unravellings of all time, paints a picture of an SEC that was dysfunctional at best, and in Madoff’s pocket at worst. And of Madoff, Markopolos says he:

“was one of the most powerful men on Wall Street and in a position to easily end our careers or worse,” and that his fund “posed great danger” to those who investigated it. (more…)

If there’s one thing we know about alleged Ponzi kingpin Bernard Madoff is that nobody around him wants to talk about anything. Secretary of State William Galvin has been trying to get Madoff associate Robert Jaffe to give some answers, but Jaffe has been reluctant to show.

The reasons he has given include: illness, possible change of legal counsel, and a desire to limit his testimony to a one-time only affair. This has not made Galvin happy. This will, though.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel has ordered Jaffe to appear before the Massachusetts Securities Division to testify about his role in Madoff’s schemes. Jaffe still doesn’t sound like he wants to comply, however. (more…)

Being rich means never having to say you’re sorry, or show up for subpoenas, apparently. Robert Jaffe, Boston middleman to alleged Ponzi kingpin Bernie Madoff, told Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin thanks, but not thanks (again) in regards to his subpoena.

Jaffe’s lawyer Stanley Arkin said, in effect, that 1) Galvin overshot his bounds and 2) his client only wants to testify once in front of federal and various state officials who are likely to request his company.

“(We want) to allow time for the Massachusetts court to resolve serious questions concerning the validity of Mr. Galvin’s subpoena,” Jaffe lawyer Stanley Arkin said in a statement that also expressed “our varied concerns about Mr. Galvin’s behavior and actions.”

Arkin claimed that Galvin made, “negative comments about Mr. Jaffe to the press, (which) suggest that Mr. Galvin has violated several rules of the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct. . . . These are serious concerns that we will take to the court.”

Funny, but whenever we’ve called Galvin’s office all we’ve gotten are a lot of no comments. (more…)

Just when we thought the $50 billion Madoff saga couldn’t get any dumber… it totally redeemed itself!

The Globe reported that Bernie Madoff may not have made any trades with the funds invested in his company. That’s right, not a single, solitary trade was executed by his brokerage firm, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. If he was making any trades, it was solely by placing his trades through other investors, not through his own brokerage firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

So if he wasn’t making every trade through other firms—which would be highly unusual—then he was fictionalizing entire statements to his investors. Beth Healy, of the Globe, writes, “Statements were often so complicated that investors had to call representatives of the firm for explanations.” Um, no comment?

One of those representatives could have been Robert Jaffe, whose own role in the scandal deepened today. Jaffe, the VP of Madoff’s Cohmad Securities subsidiary, served as his point man in Boston, recruiting investors for the scheme. The Newton native failed to show for a subpoenaed meeting with regulators in the Bay State Securities Division on Tuesday. Yesterday, Secretary of State William Galvin, who oversees the Securities Division, sued Jaffe for failing to appear. (more…)

Harry Markopolos, the man who called bullspit on Bernard Madoff should be ready for his close-up. In some quarters, Markopolis is a hero, a man of the people. The only honest man in finance.

If he wanted, Markopolos could be bigger than Jeffrey Wigand, the tobacco company whistleblower immortalized on the big screen by Russell Crowe in The Insider. The only question is who would play him? Robert DeNiro, maybe could bring a sort of somber intensity to the part. Or, if we’re not going for subtlety, maybe Al Pacino.

IT”S WRONG. AND YOU KNOW IT’S WRONG! Etc, etc.

But the portrait of Markopolos that was nicely fleshed out in the Globe this morning is that of a reluctant hero. “They’ll just add in sex and violence,” Markopolos told the paper. (more…)

This is how the Boston Globe described the scene at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club Saturday night:

One guest was Robert Jaffe, 64, who had recruited investors for Bernard L. Madoff, the money manager who last week admitted to a Ponzi scheme in which he lost $50 billion of his clients’ money. Another was 78-year-old Jerome Fisher, founder of the upscale shoe store chain 9 West, who reportedly lost millions with Madoff and was upset by Jaffe’s presence at the club Saturday night.

This is how the NY Post described it… (more…)

Secretary of the Commonwealth, Bill Galvin announced his intention to subpoena all Massachusetts-related records pertaining to Bernard Madoff, which is interesting on a couple of levels.

Galvin says that as many as 10 Massachusetts victims of Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme have already contacted his office. Among the reported Bay State links are Carl Shapiro’s philanthropic organization, the state’s pension fund, and a hedge fund owned by Mass Mutual Insurance.

But Galvin is not stopping there. (more…)

It doesn’t look like we’re going to get to the end of the Bernard Madoff scandal any time soon, but a key participant broke his silence last night when Boston philanthropist Carl Shapiro issued a statement saying he intended to meet his charitable foundations committments despite losing $145 million with Madoff.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Shapiro also lost $400 million of his personal fortune. (more…)