Picard to Continue With Suits Against Mark Madoff - Wall Street Journal

The court-appointed trustee recovering assets for victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme will move ahead with lawsuits brought against his elder son Mark Madoff, who killed himself Saturday morning, a lawyer for the trustee said.

"The litigation will take its course and the death of Mark Madoff will not impact that fact," the lawyer, David Sheehan, said in an email Sunday.

That the trustee intends to pursue the suits is not surprising. Among the hundreds targeted in suits by the trustee, Irving Picard, in recent weeks are estates of former Madoff investors.

After the September death of Stanley Chais, a California money manager who fed clients' funds to Mr. Madoff, for example, Mr. Picard said he would continue litigation that sought $1.1 billion from Mr. Chais and related entities. Mr. Chais had denied any wrongdoing.

On Saturday, Mr. Picard said: "This is a tragic development, and my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff's family."

Almost a year after the multi-billion dollar fraud conducted by his father, Bernard Madoff, was publicly revealed on Dec. 11, 2008, both Mark and his brother Andrew Madoff were sued by Mr. Picard. Mr. Picard accused Mark Madoff in the October 2009 lawsuit of receiving at least $66.9 million improperly through Bernard Madoff's investment company.

His lawyer has called the suit baseless and has sought to have it dismissed.

Last week, Mark and Andrew Madoff were also named in an $80 million lawsuit filed in London against them and other former directors of Madoff Securities International Ltd. by Mr. Picard and Stephen J. Akers, a joint liquidator of the that business, Mr. Picard said. The suit was filed in the United Kingdom's High Court of Justice Commercial Court, he said.

According to Mr. Picard, the lawsuit, which has not been made public under English law, accuses directors and officers of violating their duties to the company by making fraudulent payments, including some that benefited Mr. Madoff and his family.

"The directors had duties, among others, to be honest in recording the purposes and activities of the business," Mr. Akers said in a statement. But instead, he said, they allegedly signed off on false documents and misrepresented the true nature of transactions, "all of which assisted Madoff's fraudulent scheme."

"These are baseless claims against Mark and Andrew Madoff, who were not involved in the financial operations of Madoff Securities International. They were outside directors with [minimal] ownership interests," said Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer for Mr. Madoff's sons. "They had no knowledge of their father's crimes, including any fraudulent activity related to the London entity."

Also last week, Mr. Picard sued children of Andrew and Mark, alleging that Ruth and Bernard Madoff transferred funds to them. A spokesman for the brothers and their wives declined to comment, as did Susan Elkin, Mark Madoff's former wife, who was also sued.

In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Flumenbaum called Mr. Madoff's suicide "a terrible and unnecessary tragedy. Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo. We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events."

Write to Michael Rothfeld at michael.rothfeld@wsj.com

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Why the White House Will Continue Its War with the Chamber of Commerce - CBS News

October 12, 2010 4:02 PM President Obama, senatorial candidate Alexi Giannoulias, center, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., look at people in the crowd during a fundraiser for Giannoulias at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Oct. 7, 2010.

(Credit: AP) The president's remarks at two fundraisers in Miami on Monday night were less notable for what he said, than for what he did NOT say.

For days President Obama has pounded away at the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove and others for raising money for their campaign ads that may come from foreign sources. Since last Thursday he's made it an impassioned part of his speeches at fundrasiers and rallies, strongly suggesting something sinister, even illegal, is going on. But at last night's fundraisers the president didn't even mention the charge.

Some critics and political analysts quickly concluded that the strategy must be backfiring, and the White House had decided to cut its losses. A logical response, they said, after a slew of editorial writers, even some from liberal leaning papers like the Washington Post, sharply criticized the White House for making the charge without proof.

Can DNC Backup Foreign Funds Claim?

Some compared the White House campaign to the smear tactics of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. The non -partisan group FactCheck.org concluded that "Accusing anybody of violating the law is a serious matter requiring serious evidence to back it up. So far Democrats have produced none." Even some Democrats said the attacks were back-firing, making the president look like he's engaged in the kind of unsubstantiated attacks he so sharply criticized in the 2008 campaign.

But today Robert Gibbs said people are reading way too much into something the president didn't say. He waved off last night's failure to bring it up, suggesting that the president was simply giving an abbreviated version of his fundraiser stump speech.

Gibbs went on to ratchet up the White House attacks. If the Chamber really isn't using foreign money, all they have to do is open up their books, he said, and prove it. And he accused Rove of engaging in a "Rovian trick" by comparing his organization to the liberal Center for American Progress which also doesn't release the identities of its donors. Gibbs said the difference is that CAP doesn't use the money to pay for political campaign ads. Gibbs suggested the president will return to the attack in the coming days, when he has a long list of campaign events, mostly fundraisers.

So why would the White House stick with a strategy that's been so roundly criticized? First, because they've determined that at this point in the campaign the most urgent quest is to fire up the base, even if it means further antagonizing independent voters, fact-checkers and some in the mainstream media. Also, the White House believes that Karl Rove is an excellent bogeyman, a man liberals love to hate.

And there's another reason this strategy could help Democrats, who are deeply nervous about the flood of money coming from super-wealthy, anonymous contributors: maybe it will frighten some of them. The last thing they want is for their names to appear in print. If the White House can make them worry that their names might eventually become public, it could, perhaps, convince some of them to close their checkbooks.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Election 2010

Chip Reid is CBS News' chief White House correspondent. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here. Tags:Chamber of Commerice ,Campaign Finance ,Barack Obama Topics:Campaign 2010 ,White House

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Abbas on talks: 'We will continue to search for solutions' - Jerusalem Post

 
Photo by: Ariel Jerozolimski/The Jerusalem Post) By JPOST.COM STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS 
10/03/2010 19:34 Talkbacks (16) Peace between Israel and the Palestinians within a year is possible, said Tony Blair on Sunday in an interview with Italian network RAI TV.

The Quartet envoy to the Middle East and former British prime minister outlined the reasons for his belief, saying that he felt people want peace and that US President Obama has made the issue an absolute priority.

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Following a meeting Sunday between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah II and US envoy George Mitchell, Abbas told reporters in Amman that despite serious issues blighting the peace talks, he would continue to "search for solutions."

According to news agency reports, he also reiterated that Israel's refusal to extend the settlement construction freeze was holding up negotiations, but that he would not stop discussions with the US as a result.

Of course, we are not going to sever ties with the Americans, and we will continue to have contacts with them to search for solutions, but the settlement building should stop and then we will return to the negotiating table," he said.

Earlier on Sunday during a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, US envoy George Mitchell said that the Palestinians are interested in peace talks with Israel continuing.

"Despite their differences, both the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have asked us to continue these discussions in an effort to establish the conditions under which they can continue direct negotiations," Mitchell told reporters after his meeting with Mubarak.

"They both want to continue these negotiations, they do not want to stop the talks," he added.

Directly after the meeting in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit backed the Palestinians' refusal to negotiate with Israel as long as it continues to build West Bank settlements, even as officials urged continued diplomacy Sunday to salvage the month-old talks.

"We understand the Palestinian position which calls for setting the appropriate environment and circumstances for negotiations to take place and continue," Aboul Gheit said. "The current conditions are not favorable."

Aboul Gheit said the focus now should be on continued US and international efforts to pressure Israel into agreeing to extending the settlement moratorium.

        Author:   RaoulCountry:   USA10/03/2010   23:15
Abbas is nothing more than Arafat in a suit and should be treated the same.

15. settlement actvity obsceneAuthor:   m. d'agostinoCountry:   italy10/03/2010   22:57
the continued settlement activity is obscene, and so is the the thousands of palestinians held in israeli jails. if palestinians and israelis cannot agree a peace deal, then one must be imposed with borders defined once and for all, and jerusalem shared.

Author:   H.AliCountry:   M.E.10/03/2010   22:13
If the world had guts and did not have double standards, it wouldn't have just told Israel to stop settlements but it would have asked it the following question: Who gave you the right to establish a state based on any racial or ethnic basis depriving thousands and millions of non-Jews of their homeland and locking them out of what used to be Palestine? No it isn't a question of settlements , the whole idea needs to be revisited, the whole concept. Lord Balfour or Harry Truman are no reference when it comes to basic human principles!nor is the holocaust a valid excuse!

13. it is entirely israel's fault.Author:   m. d'agostinoCountry:   italy10/03/2010   22:08
mr netanyahu thought it would have been an easy ride. he thought he would have easily got mr abbas inside his sleeve. not so, though. mr abbas is quite right to stand firm in his position, insisting, quite rightly, that if mr netanyahu is as genuine as he has publically claimed to be about a settled solution, he must stand firm against anyone trying to stop him from keeping his face. if mr netanyahu is genuine about a palestinian state, he must also consider on what land this state has to be established, and if he intends to leave any for the palestinians.the settlers are already there to take the lot.

Author:   steveCountry:   Israel10/03/2010   22:08
If the Arab League makes Abbas' decisions, shouldn't Israel be negotiating with it directly?

11. Continue the Search East of Jordan RiverAuthor:   Marc J. RauchCountry:   US10/03/2010   22:07
They could search all they want in Jordan or Syria or the Sinai, where there's plenty of land...muslim land. But there should be no muslims west of the Jordan River. Israel is for Jews.

Author:   SueCountry:   USA10/03/2010   21:34
In "peace" talks, it is not supposed to be that "the world" exert pressure on Israel so that the Palestinians get what they want. That is not peace. That is coersion.

Author:   PaulmaximusCountry:   10/03/2010   21:15
International Law is clear, the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are illegal. The only issue for the 'peace' talks is to agree to a timetable where the illegal seyttlers leave the occupied territory and return to Israel or the USA according to their desire.

Author:   Mickey ObermanCountry:   Canada10/03/2010   20:52
Once again as Abba Eban once said, "The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Abbas remains steadfast in maintaining a long standing Arab tradition.

7. Abbas on talks: 'We will continue to search for sAuthor:   By JPOST.COM STAFFCountry:   Canada10/03/2010   20:40
If Abbas had not broken the talks with Israel, it would have been as if one is talking to the thief asking him to return the stolen property while the thief is continuing to steal. Such talks do not make sense.

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