Good News: Schumer Pal Bernie Madoff Wants to Teach Ethics Courses

Bernie Madoff teaching ethics would be akin to his good buddy Chuck Schumer teaching a course at charm school.

Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff claims academia is calling him - for help with ethics.

In a prison interview published in the Financial Times, Madoff said several business schools have approached him to "work on ethics courses."

He said his sights were set on Harvard and Northwestern.

A spokesman for Harvard told the Daily News that "it seems unlikely" Madoff meant the institution had reached out to him. Northwestern didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

For now, he'll have to stick to his job at the FCI Butner commissary, which inmates call the "money management department."

Madoff, prisoner 61727-054, began serving 150 years at the federal prison on July 14, 2009, after his $65 billion swindle unraveled.

After setting "ground rules," Madoff, 72, told his interviewers that he accepted responsibility for his shocking financial crime.

But Madoff - who also revealed that he passed the time by reading Danielle Steel romances - then went on to cite pressure from forces he couldn't control and to blame investors who should have known better.

Up until the 1987 market crash, Madoff told the magazine, he was getting legitimate returns on investments.

"The long-term gains started to evaporate," he said. "But they refused to close it out - they were greedy."

So was his extremist buddy Schumer, who greedily took over $100,000 from Madoff while he was running the DSCC. It's curious how a shameless media whore like Schumer never faced a minute of scrutiny for that.

Financial Times link here.

'Not a Day Goes By That I Don't Suffer'

Poor Bernie Madoff. Now he's the victim. The guy was just an innocent bystander as he scammed billions.

Bernie Madoff, the reviled Ponzi schemer who ruined so many people, thinks he's the one you should feel sorry for.

Turns out, keeping the whole billion-dollar scheme secret from his family was a major burden.

"It was a nightmare for me," he said. "Even the regulators felt sorry for me...They said, 'How did you live with this? Not being able to tell anybody?'"

In a series of phone interviews with New York magazine, Madoff repeatedly said he wasn't trying to justify what he did - and then he repeatedly tried to justify what he did.

"These people probably would've lost all that money in the market," he said from prison in Butner, N.C., where he just wrapped up the first year of his 150-year sentence.

He blamed his clients - the fat cats and charities and foundations who lost billions in his bogus investment fund - for failing to question how he kept making steady profits even in down years.

"These banks and these funds had to know there were problems," Madoff said.

He noted that he never explained his strategies or methods.

"I absolutely refused to do it. I said, 'You don't like it, take your money out,' which of course they never did," he said.

He says he told all of his investors not to risk any money they couldn't afford to lose. But, he said, "everyone was greedy."

When they begged him to invest their money, "I just went along," Madoff said.

He just went along. One day he woke up and realized what he'd done, but just went along.

His surviving son, Andrew, won't speak to either of his parents. The New York magazine writer said he suspected Madoff granted the interview as a way of speaking to Andrew.

Madoff said he cried for two weeks over his son's suicide.

"Not a day goes by that I don't suffer," he said.

Madoff pal Chuckie Schumer was unavailable for comment. He's busy with more pressing concerns, like WiFi.

Maybe He Gave it to Some Democrats

Considering how much money Bernie Madoff lavished upon Democrats, and Chuckie Schumer in particular, if there is a stash of money out there maybe investigators ought to go quiz those greedy Democrats.

Ponzi king Bernard Madoff is telling fellow jailbirds that he secretly funneled $9 billion in swiped funds to three people before he was nabbed, an inmate told The Post.

Madoff says that his partner in crime Frank DiPascali knows who the recipients are -- and that he suspects DiPascali is using that information to cut a better deal with the feds, according to the inmate at the medium-security prison in Butner, NC.

"I think it was personal friends," the inmate said of the recipients of the mega-bucks.

DiPascali, 52, pleaded guilty last year to 10 felonies in connection with helping Madoff swindle investors out of more than $60 billion at his Manhattan financial firm.

Madoff, 72, is serving a life sentence, but DiPascali has reportedly been trying to avoid that fate by cooperating with prosecutors -- who argued strenuously for his release from jail pending sentencing despite a judge's initial reluctance to grant bail.

DiPascali remains locked up awaiting sentencing, unable to post a $10 million bond.

DiPascali's lawyer, Marc Mukasey, did not return a call seeking comment.

Chutzpah: Biggest Recipient of Madoff Money Calls for SEC Reform

Never let it be said Chuckie Schumer doesn't have the the largest set of onions in politics.

The man who was recipient of the largest amount of political contributions from the disgraced Bernie Madoff actually has the gall to be calling for SEC reform in light of the Madoff scandal.

One day after the Securities and Exchange Commission's inspector general released a scathing report finding that the agency failed to follow up on detailed complaints and missed exposing a $50 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced legislation that would allow the agency use the fees it receives from institutions that register with the commission to fund its operations. "This could help the SEC hire more experienced examiners and keep those good ones they have as well as get better technology to fight fraud," Schumer said.

To date there is zero evidence Schumer has ever returned a nickel of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he received from his pal Bernie.

Yet it doesn't prevent the human press conference from sticking his beak into the news when it comes to chiding the SEC.

That's what we call cast-iron gonads.

'The Players These Days Don't Seem to Know the Basics of the Game'

Finally, help is on the way for the beleaguered New York Mets.

Jerry Manuel's coaching staff just got a lot bigger.

Boasting more than a millennium's worth of experience, a feisty group of elderly Long Island softball players filmed an instructional video yesterday that they hope will re-introduce the not-so-Amazin' Mets to the game's fundamentals.

"I may not be able to get around like I used to, but I know the basics," said Ed Ottinger, 74, of Seaford. "And I think the Mets need a little help with that."

The rangy outfielder with deceptive speed said that he and his crew of septuagenarian swatters had grown tired of the Mets' bumbling ways and hoped that the Tom Emanski-style video might wake them up.

Things came to a head when the group convened for one of their three weekly doubleheaders after Luis Castillo's infamous flub of a pop-up against the Yankees in June.

"They griped that we're 70 and we're better than these guys," said Howard Cannon, a spokesman for the Bristal assisted living company that sponsors their league.

Sonny Richards, 71, said that the Mets season had come to resemble a blooper reel of dropped pop-ups, baserunning atrocities, and inexplicable balks.

"The players these days don't seem to know the basics of the game," he said. "It's all in fun, but we wanted to show them how to do the simple things."

Yes, the simple things. Like catching popups and busting it to first base, the latter of which they've been allergic to for several seasons. The basics that most of us learned in Little League.

Slick gloveman Sal Frosina, 71, lamented the loss of fundamental baseball knowledge that ruled the summertime pickup games of his youth.

The former Brooklyn Dodgers-turned-Mets fan said that the kids who didn't know the basics of tagging up, putting the body in front of grounders, and backing up plays at the plate were left to watch their buddies have all the fun.

"When I was growing up, if you didn't know the game, you didn't play," he said. "It was that simple."

Speaking of the Mets, if you're waiting for real help on the field rather than fielding abuse from retirees, be prepared to wait a long time.

If you're wondering why the Wilpons won't open their wallets, according to this fish-faced freak, it's because Bernie Madoff cleaned them out to the tune of $700 million.

NO wonder the injury-plagued Mets can't hire some hitters, it turns out team owner Fred Wilpon lost $700 million in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Estimates put his loss at below $500 million, but Wilpon's pal Larry King told GQ it was $700 million. "Freddie says he's not angry, he's betrayed," said King, who lost $2.8 million.

Don't expect to see Madoff pal Chuckie Schumer throwing out the first pitch any time soon.

Ten Madoff Associates to Face Fed Charges, NYT Tells Victims to Get Over It

This report doesn't detail who'll be facing charges, but it's likely a safe bet his sons and possibly his wife may be brought up on charges.

Federal authorities are pressing a probe of 10 associates of Bernard Madoff despite a sentence that means the mastermind of one of the biggest financial frauds in history will spend the rest of his days behind bars, The Associated Press has learned.

A person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, wouldn't detail potential charges or say whether the 10 would include Madoff's family or former employees. So far, only Madoff and an accountant accused of failing to make basic auditing checks have been criminally charged in the multibillion-dollar hoax.

It will be interesting to see if there was anyone at the SEC who was looking the other way all these years.

Meanwhile, a business columnist at the New York Times tells the victims to quit whining. He has a point.

Besides, as I’ve argued before, the S.E.C.’s negligence notwithstanding, shouldn’t the Madoff victims have to bear at least some responsibility for their own gullibility? Mr. Madoff’s supposed results — those steady, positive returns quarter after blessed quarter — is a classic example of the old saw, “when something looks too good to be true, it probably is.” What’s more, most of the people investing with Mr. Madoff thought they had gotten in on something really special; there was a certain smugness that came with thinking they had a special, secret deal not available to everyone else. Of course, it turned they were right — they did have a special deal. It just wasn’t what they expected.

Outside the courthouse today, television reporters interviewed victims, all eager to tell their tales of woe. And their stories, in many cases, truly are heart-wrenching. Hopes and dreams have evaporated. Homes have been lost. Retirees are having to take minimum-wage jobs. Their anger at Mr. Madoff is understandable, to say the least. But to see them lash out at Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee, made me realize that too many of them still seem to think that someone should have to make them whole. The whole point about Ponzi schemes is that there is not enough money to make anybody whole — they were robbed, pure and simple, and the government is not in the business of reimbursing for robberies. Not even when the cops stumble across the robbers and then mistakenly let them go.

I'd suggest they go ask Chuckie Schumer for help, but he's laying low right now.

Headline You Won't See Today: 'Schumer Pal Gets 150 Years'

By now you're aware the loathsome Bernie Madoff has received a 150-year sentence.

Bernard Madoff, the former Wall Street financier that pleaded guilty to defrauding clients out of billions in an unprecedented Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to 150 years in prison Monday.

It was a crime of epic proportions - one that wiped out fortunes, drained retirement nest eggs, ruined charities and foundations, and even pushed some investors to commit suicide.

Several hundred spectators piled into the federal courthouse in Manhattan to hear Judge Denny Chin's ruling on Madoff's fate.

Before the sentencing, Madoff apologized to his family and to the victims of his multibillion-dollar fraud scheme.

The 71-year-old financier said that he "will live with this pain, this torment, for the rest of my life."

Madoff also expects "to live out his years in prison," his lawyer said.

Throughout this case we've repeatedly noted Madoff's close association and enormous contributions to Democrats, notably Chuckie Schumer, who is conveniently unavailable for comment.

Your assignment for today, boys and girls: See if you can find a single news story today that notes Modoff was a Democrat sugar daddy.

Good luck.

Back during the Enron fiasco, it was noted often that Ken Lay and Enron executives had contributed to Republicans (as well as some Democrats). We simply wonder why the same level of scrutiny is applied to Madoff and his coziness with Democrats?

Oh, and for the record, Schumer also received contributions from Enron.

The company backed Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in his successful 1998 campaign to oust Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato. Schumer's views on electricity deregulation dovetailed closely with Enron's. Two years later Schumer, who has advocated deregulation as a way of reducing New York state's high power costs, co-authored a bill to restructure electricity markets along lines favored by Enron.

Feds Seize Madoff's Mansion, Yacht and String of Poloponies

Just couldn't resist spinning off from this headline. Let's see if you folks can remember where that line comes from.

Federal authorities seized disgraced financier Bernard Madoff's Palm Beach mansion, his vintage yacht and a smaller boat Wednesday, part of an effort to recoup assets to pay back investors he swindled. Barry Golden, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said about five marshals arrived at the 8,753-square-foot, five-bedroom mansion late Wednesday afternoon, hours after the boats were seized.

Authorities planned to enter and secure the mansion, change the locks and conduct an inventory of the property, which Palm Beach County records show had a taxable value of $9.3 million last year.