Yesterday, a judge agreed to a Brooklyn Law student's request to freeze the assets of Peter Madoff, brother (and employee) of admitted multi-billion dollar Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Peter Madoff oversaw Andrew Ross Samuels' $480,000 trust fund, which was created in 1997 by Samuels' grandfather who worked for Bernard Madoff. Upon his grandfather's death, Peter Madoff was made the trustee, but of course that disappeared when the scam was revealed. Samuels' father of Peter Madoff, "He's either incompetent or in cahoots." Samuels is suing for breach of fiduciary duty—as well as his trust's money plus $1.5 million in damages—to which we say, that sucks, but get in line. more ›

U.S. prosecutors have filed a "notice of intent to seek forfeiture of certain assets" of Bernard and Ruth Madoff. Bernard Madoff, the investment guru who turned out to be a huge fraud and pleaded guilty to criminal charges last week, has been in jail awaiting sentencing, but his wife Ruth Madoff has been living in their $7 million Upper East Side penthouse (held in her name). Ruth Madoff also reportedly has $62 million in other assets, including other real estate. Naturally the Post calls this "a kick in the assets." more ›

With her multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheming-husband behind bars, Ruth Madoff is now the focus of the federal investigators. An SEC source tells the NY Post, "The US attorneys will be in court in the next week or so to tell a judge that they believe Mrs. Madoff's assets are derived from ill-gotten gains and that they should be frozen for a certain period of time while the investigation is ongoing... You just need to be able to convince the judge that there is a strong probability that the funds in question came from crime." Bernard Madoff is worth around $823 million, and that $92 million, such as multi-million dollar real estate, is in his wife's name (the "financier" had asked that Ruth keep "her" assets). Ruth Madoff reportedly agreed to freeze her assets earlier but that verbal agreement was non-binding. more ›

Prosecutors say that (alleged) $50 billion Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff should be in jail after violating his bail conditions by sending packages to relatives. The feds say he's transferring his assets, but Madoff's defense lawyer Ira Sorkin claims they were just innocent gifts—the Post describes some objects as "expensive watches, pens, cufflinks and a $200 pair of mittens meant as a Hanukkah gift" and the Daily News adds there was jewelry and that the packages were apparently worth $1 million. more ›

Earlier this week, the scamming investor Bernard Madoff's housekeeper reported that a $10,000 statue was stolen from his Palm Beach estate. Yesterday, the Palm Beach police found it—near the Palm Beach Country Club, where Madoff reportedly wooed many investors to join his Ponzi scheme—and the statue had a note attached. more ›

It's the New York banking equivalent of the Enron meltdown: Bear Stearns has agreed to sell itself to JP Morgan Chase at a fire sale price. When Bear Stearns' 14,000 employees left work Friday afternoon, the bank's stock had already plunged almost 50% in value, closing at $30 a share. But today they found out something much, much, much worse: their company has been purchased for a piddling $2 a share. That's $236MM for a company that was "worth" $3.54 billion on Friday. That's a 93% discount on Friday's closing price, and a 99% discount off January 2007's price of $170/share. Given that Bear Stearns' midtown headquarters had been valued as high as $1.5 billion, the firm's liabilities must have been enormous. more ›