How much trouble are the Wilpons in? The Mets owners, who were investors in Bernard Madoff's huge multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme and are being targeted by the trustee trying to recover money for Madoff victims, are trying to sell part of the team to raise some money and now the Post reports that JPMorgan Chase "is trying to recruit other institutions to join a syndicate to put together a new loan that would tide the Mets over until they sell a minority stake in the ballclub." more ›

This is how Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of the Bernard Madoff bankruptcy and locating funds for victims, is earning his fee: Suing JPMorgan Chase for $6.4 billion by way of accusing the bank of being complicit in Madoff's huge Ponzi scheme and ignoring any warnings. The lawsuit, filed last year, was recently unsealed and the NY Times reports, "Senior executives at JPMorgan Chase expressed serious doubts about the legitimacy of Bernard L. Madoff’s investment business more than 18 months before his Ponzi scheme collapsed but continued to do business with him." more ›

Now that President Obama has already blamed oil company British Petroleum for the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, activists are demanding action. Today, "Seize BP!" protesters will be gathering around the country to advocate "seizure of BP's assets to provide comprehensive compensation and relief for all affected people and for cleaning up the environment." In New York at 5 p.m., they'll be gathering at JP Morgan Chase headquarters on 48th Street, since the company owns 30% of BP's public stock. The group is also urging supporters to sign an online petition advocating the seizure of BPs assets and placing "those funds in trust to begin providing immediate relief to the working people throughout the Gulf states." more ›

Former Met Lenny Dykstra has filed a $100 million lawsuit to win back money he claims he lost after a bank tricked him into taking out loans he couldn't afford. The Twizzler lover, car-wash owner, and magazine publisher says an overly friendly loan officer at Washington Mutual convinced him to take out loans that were "untenable" when he was trying to buy former hockey star Wayne Gretsky's $17.2 million California mansion. more ›

A network of earth-loving organizations (Waterkeeper Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth) descended upon 270 Park Avenue early this morning with a bevy of costumed demonstrators. more ›

The daughter of a 44-year-old construction-safety inspector who was killed in a suspicious Flushing apartment fire earlier this week is vowing to continue her mother’s fight in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed months before her death. more ›

A former Bear Stearns banker is suing his former firm and its new owners, JP Morgan Chase, for a bonus he feels is owed to him despite the firm's collapse last year. Now that the storm has settled over bonuses going out to employees of failed Wall Street giants, Gary Reback is suing for $2 million in bonus money and in additional $1.1 million for a severance offer he says was inexplicably pulled off the table in the eleventh hour. The Scarsdale man was one of the top twenty highest paid employees at Bear in 2007, when he earned a bonus of $4 million. His lawyer told the Post, "Gary had nothing to do with losses. He traded different products completely outside the subprime-mortgage mess. They offered him a severance and now they're reneging—it's shocking, bad faith behavior." more ›

At a Crain's New York forum this morning, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told the audience that his bank had made $100 billion in loans since getting bailed out: "He immediately added, however, that banks have tightened credit because the recession has chilled demand for new loans. He also said banks are wary because of the huge losses they still face, reminding the audience that J.P. Morgan expects to lose $10 billion next year just from dud credit card loans." Dimon thinks the Fed should regulate all parts of the financial system and also defended bonuses to executives, pointing out many of his execs were given bonuses in JPMorgan stock, whose value has plummeted. Wonder what he thought of Paul Krugman's Bailouts for Bunglers column in the Times yesterday. more ›

During testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, executives from Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase promised not to use bailout funds "to pay their executives and employees," according to the AP. These four institutions account for $75 billion of the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program. AIG received $40 billion from TARP on Monday--just after it was revealed the company went forward with a $343,000 conference in Phoenix. AIG claims there was important training and that its sponsors paid for 90% of the event--still, there's nothing like seeing men in suits enjoying hotel patios. more ›

JP Morgan Chase announced yesterday that it will take a break from leaving Americans in the cold and hold off on foreclosures for the next ninety days. A JP Morgan executive told the press, "We felt it is our responsibility to provide additional help to homeowners during these challenging times. We will work with families who want to save their homes but are struggling to make their payments." In the interim, the company will attempt to find ways to make payments easier on the $110 billion of problem mortgages. Meanwhile in Washington yesterday, Barney Frank complained that banks thus far are using their portion of the $700 million government bailout for "bonuses, dividends and acquisitions." more ›

Biggest U.S. bank failure ever: Washington Mutual, which struggled to find a buyer, was closed by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC, for "insufficient liquidity" and being "unsound." The government orchestrated JPMorgan Chase's purchase of WaMu deposits for just $1.9 billion. WaMu's is the country's biggest savings and loan and has $310 billion in assets, but was affected by the mortgage crisis. Also, while shareholders and bondholds will be wiped out, the NY Times says Wamu customers "are unlikely to be affected." (Also, the FDIC insures deposits up to $100,000). Earlier this year, WaMu rejected JPMorgan's takeover at $4/share--an analyst told Bloomberg News, "JPMorgan is getting a steal compared with what they were going to pay. It's very tragic.'' 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 ›

Anthony Marshall has not only been indicted for alleged criminal mishandling of his mother Brooke Astor's estate - he's being called a "STONE COLD HEIR" by the Post for not properly maintaining his mother's grave. Ouch! A public spat with his own son over Astor's care led to an ultimate court settlement where Marshall ceded guardianship of Astor and her estate to JP Morgan Chase and Astor's friend Annette de la Renta. But after Astor... more ›

Dare we say that Brooke Astor is rolling in her grave? Yesterday, it was reported that her son Anthony Marshall and his former lawyer Francis Morrissey would be indicted for criminal activity over the handling of her will. And this morning, Marshall turned himself in at the Manhattan DA's offices, to face charges of fraud, forgery and grand larceny. Or, as DA Robert Morgenthau said, "The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of... more ›

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't. Madison Square Garden isn't going to move, and there's no reason to justify that." more ›

"I feel I’m losing my mind. I wish I knew what was the matter with me. It would be better to die than go on feeling this way." more ›

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The Fire Department is investigating whether standpipes failed to bring firefighters water to help fight a seven-alarm fire that broke out on the 17th floor of the Deutsche Bank building on Saturday. The cause of the fire, which spread between the 14th and 26th floors of the lower Manhattan building, is also unclear, though the FDNY suspects it may have been caused by a cigarette or a faulty electrical panel. more ›

Maybe there is good reason to try to stay off Forbes' list of 400 wealthiest people. The Manhattan DA's office charged a 24-year-old Russian national with an elaborate identity ring that targeted rich Americans. more ›

Brooke Astor's funeral service will be held tomorrow afternoon at Saint Thomas Church in Manhattan, but legal papers have already been filed contesting the doyenne of NYC philanthropy's will. Family and friends have been arguing about the legitimacy of Mrs. Astor's final will and testament for a while now, after major adjustments were made to the document in 2002 - a time when Astor was allegedly suffering from reduced competency - as well in the following years. more ›

After months of negotiations, JP Morgan Chase will announce plans to build a 42-story tower at Ground Zero. Government officials had been trying to entice the third-largest bank in the world to move downtown, as a sign the area would flourish once all the construction is complete. Chase wanted incentives and subsidies, much like the $650 million Goldman Sachs incentive deal, in order to be convinced to move downtown, but officials were wary. From the NY Times:

Officials in both the Spitzer and Bloomberg administrations have privately renounced the Goldman deal, blaming former Gov. George E. Pataki. They wanted to avoid similar recriminations in coming to an agreement with Chase. more ›

The demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building next to Ground Zero has been halted after officials are still unable to determine how a several-foot-long section of pipe fell from the deconstruction site and crashed through the roof of a neighborhing firehouse, injuring two firefighters. The incident occurred yesterday morning and investigators are still wondering how a 15-foot section of steam pipe from the irreperably damaged office tower fell through the roof of the firehouse, and two men inside suffered minor injuries. It does seem puzzling, since the 40-story office tower's been enshrouded in black netting since shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

“The Buildings Department will review the contractor’s means and methods to ensure that public safety is upheld,” said Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the department, which issued a stop-work order yesterday and cited a subcontractor at the site, the John Galt Corporation, for failure to “safeguard the public and property.” She said the company could be fined up to $5,000.

Former president Bill Clinton announced the Clinton Climate Initiative during the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit yesterday. The CCI is an ambitious program to help 15 cities (Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto) renovate/retrofit buildings with more energy efficient products. Clinton has managed to get ABN AMRO, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS to each put up $1 billion "to finance cities and private building owners to undertake these retrofits at no net cost, doubling the global market for energy retrofit in buildings." From the press release:

As part of the Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program, cities have agreed to develop a program to make their municipal buildings more energy efficient and provide incentives for private building owners to retrofit their buildings with energy saving technologies. The retrofit program will be consistent with, and work within, city procurement and tendering rules. Participation in the program will be open to local banks and companies, who will be invited to contribute to the funding pool and to expand the list of green products used in retrofits. This is the first of many programs that CCI is organizing with partner cities in the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, an association of large cities that have agreed to work together to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Jeremy Olshan created this map, the Twin Towers Diaspora, which gives an interesting overview of where former tenants of the World Trade Center have moved after September 11, 2001. Some have stayed in Manhattan, but others have moved to the outer-boroughs and out of the state. You can click on the markers to see the company name and where the company was originally located in the WTC. more ›

A man was arrested for stealing $3.6 million - and the money was from a city bank account! Unemployed social worker Tracy Ball used the money to buy jewelry from TV-and-online retailer Jewelry Television; then he'd pawn the jewelry for cash to pay bills - and some other luxury items. When he was arrested at his Brooklyn home, the AP reported that investigator found him with "two huge plasma televisions, $35,000 in cash, and several expensive sport utility vehicles." more ›

In yet another sign that the state and city government want big business at the redeveloping area near the World Trade Center, the NY Times reports that JPMorgan Chase is "in negotiations...to build a 1.3 million-square foot skyscraper." And not only would thousands of employees move from Midtown (277 Park Ave.; the bank would keep 270 Park), the skyscraper would be at 130 Liberty St. - where the toxic Deutsche Building is being dismantled.

Chase wants a hefty incentive package, or subsidy, to build the 50-story tower on the site of the Deutsche Bank building, the officials said. The building would have to cantilever over a planned park along Liberty Street to accommodate large trading floors, and that could stir community opposition. more ›

How? According to the article, Marshall used his mother's money to pay taxes on gifts (a home in Maine and securities) that she gave him and that he paid bumped up his salary for managing his mother's affairs from $450,000 in 2004 to $2 million in 2005. Marshall's lawyer says that JP Morgan Chase's are without merit and that Astor knew about these dealings, but the bank questions whether she was even competent to make these decisions. It will be difficult to prove Astor's state of mind during certain key moments, but Marshall using his mother's money to maintain his Manhattan apartment (and her old house in Maine that he now owns)? That sounds fishy.
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Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, who has been accused of abusing his guardianship of his mother's millon dollar estate for his gain - while skimping on her medical care - struck back with his own court filings. Marshall denies his care amounted to elder abuse and said he was being victimized by claims. Marshall doesn't want JP Morgan Chase, who along with Astor friend Annette de la Renta was made a temporary guardian of the estate, going through his mother's financial dealings and complaining that the locks on the office were changed. JP Morgan Chase is investigating various gifts to Marshall, while he was in control: "$5 million in stocks and bonds and a $5 million Maine home that Astor gave her son in 2003, as well as a $2 million commission he got for selling his mother's Childe Hassam painting." And the $5 million in stocks and bonds, as well as the $5 million home, ultimately went to Marshall's wife, Charlene (whom people have said Astor never cared much for), and people are suspicious. The Post writes of the $5 million stocks-and-bonds gift, called a note in Marshall's court papers "purportedly from Astor," and the note reads, "I now realize that as the trust terminates on your death, there may not be enough to provide for Charlene. I do want you to have enough money to provide for Charlene." more ›

Now that the media has been able to see the papers in the battle over Brooke Astor's care, it turns out that Supreme Court Justice John Stackhouse has made some decisions about the ailing philanthropist's care. When Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, accused his father, Anthony Marshall, of mishandling Astor's estate - with Anthony spending money on his own dealings, not his 104 year old mother - temporary guardiandship of Astor went to her friend Annette de la Renta and JP Mordan Chase. And Justice Stackhouse told JP Morgan Chase to get rid of the couch that smells like dog urine and to buy Astor "new nightgowns, new outfits, new underwear and new accessories" as well any medicine she might need. And the judge suspended Anthony Marshall's $2.3 million salary, with noting the bank could pay Astor's staff and themselves. more ›

When you read something like that, the last thing you'd expect is that it would describe Brooke Astor, the millionaire philanthropist, but, in fact, it's an affidavit from her grandson about her current, terrible conditions. And what's more, Philip Marshall says his father is behind this treatment. The Daily News lists the different things that's been filed with a court as Marshall tries to remove his father, Anthony Marshall, as the 104 year old's guardian. Such as how nurses weren't allowed to buy Astor "hair bonnets and no-skid socks" (they ended up buying them on their own), Astor cannot see her dogs, and that Anthony Marshall "ordered the staff not to take her to an emergency room or call 911 if she is having a medical emergency without contacting him first." The elder Marshall "pays himself" $2.3 million for taking care of his mother, but his son wants JP Morgan Chase and Annette de la Renta, who bought Astor air purifiers because Marshall refused, to take over as guardian. There must be some other money at stake that's not being reported, but, really, being rich clearly doesn't make you smart or a better person. more ›