Who Lost Money In The Madoff Ponzi Scheme?

December eleven, 2008, was the first of a financial nightmare for thousands of people afterward word got out that financier Bernie Madoff was arrested for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.South. history.

While the media initially touted Madoff's fraud as having run upward of $l billion, prosecutors would later raise the estimate to $65 billion amidst his 37,000 victims, who ranged from prominent figures in concern and media and hardworking, everyday people to nonprofit charities.

Many of his victims emerged to share their stories as part of a larger narrative of the shocking fraud, information technology was his celebrity clients who made the biggest headlines.

Some public figures chose to stay relatively tranquility about their clan with Madoff. Before her decease in 2016, Hungarian-born actress Zsa Zsa Gabor had reportedly lost between $vii to $10 million from investing with the money managing director, while Hollywood bigwig Steven Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation too took a substantial hit, although the dollar amount was never disclosed.

Withal, other prominent figures decided to speak out about their financial losses and what they learned from the experience. Among them are actors and couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Dreamworks Animation chief executive Jefferey Katzenberg, actor John Malkovich, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and broadcaster Larry King.

Kevin Salary and Kyra Sedgwick

Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon at a screening of "The Edge of Seventeen" on Nov 9, 2016, in Los Angeles, California

Photo: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

Known to be a low-key Hollywood couple, actors Bacon and Sedgwick became front and middle news when the scandal broke, as they had been one of the kickoff celebrities known to accept reportedly lost millions of dollars investing with Madoff.

"I meet him as a sick homo," Sedgwick told Piers Morgan on CNN in 2012. "And I come across us every bit adults who fabricated a option. And I see a lot of people who are so much worse off than nosotros are..."

Years after, Bacon echoed his wife's sentiments well-nigh the scandal. "It was a bad solar day," Bacon admitted to The Guardian during an interview in 2017. "But pretty quickly we were able to see all the things we had as opposed to whatever nosotros lost, and those are the biggest cliches: children, health, dearest, a nice domicile. So we got through it together. I don't think near Madoff, similar, at all."

He also added that the "real victims" were those who lost their entire life savings. "I think at that place'due south a good cautionary tale there, to be cognizant of what'due south happening with your money."

Jeffrey Katzenberg

Jeffrey Katzenberg at the "Megamind" premiere on November 29, 2010, in Paris, French republic

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Just like Bacon and Sedgwick, Dreamworks Animation executive Katzenberg, known for producing hits similar theShrek and Kung Fu Panda franchises, endured a substantial fiscal loss, which he described equally "painful and humiliating." Although he as well refused to hash out the actual dollar corporeality that was taken from him and his charitable organization, Marilyn & Jeffrey Katzenberg Foundation, the charity had estimated assets of over $22 one thousand thousand before the scandal broke.

The Los Angeles Times would afterward uncover that Katzenberg had lost $20 million. Both he and Spielberg shared the same business organization manager, who made investments with Madoff on their behalf.

"The beginning time I heard the name Bernie Madoff was most 3 weeks ago," Katzenberg told reporters in January 2009. "What it has washed to other people is terrible. It's destroyed many people's lives. People that I know."

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel at a printing conference after an Interfaith Leaders delegation meeting at the United nations on October 27, 2004, in New York City

Photograph: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Before his death in 2016, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wiesel was another famous figure taken in past Madoff's criminal enterprise. And when the news hitting, Wiesel didn't have the loss lightly.

Describing Madoff as "i of the greatest scoundrels, thieves, liars, criminals," Wiesel and his wife, Marion, had lost their life savings of $12 million, along with $15 meg from their nonprofit organization, Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

"Could I forgive him? No," Wiesel told a media panel in New York City in 2009 regarding Madoff. "To forgive, start of all, would mean that he would come up on his knees and ask for forgiveness. He wouldn't do that."

Wiesel explained that a wealthy trusted friend, who had been friends with Madoff for five decades, introduced the two of them. Subsequently Wiesel met with Madoff multiple times, he went on to get advice from other fiscal experts before entrusting his personal finances with Madoff.

In 2012 he reflected dorsum on his experience during an interview with Oprah Winfrey. "[My wife and I] looked at each other, and our reaction was, 'Nosotros have seen worse,'" Wiesel said. "Both she and I have seen worse."

In one case news spread most his foundation'due south financial troubles, Wiesel said he was taken ashamed from the public'southward reaction.

"All of a sudden, nosotros began receiving hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters and donations, small donations, from all over America, Jews and non-Jews," Wiesel told Oprah. "The American people are so generous. … We received hundreds of them, and that helped us."

John Malkovich

John Malkovich at Michael Bastian's Fall 2010 testify during Mercedes-Benz Manner Week on Feb fourteen, 2010, in New York Urban center

Photo: Paul Warner/WireImage

When thespian Malkovich lost his investment of $two one thousand thousand dollars to Madoff, he — like fellow actors Bacon and Sedgwick — put his issues into perspective.

"I don't view information technology as a negative experience…," he told Details magazine in 2013. "To me it was, 'You think you have a agglomeration of coin – and y'all don't.' Then what? Most people don't (accept a lot of money). I think it kind of reconnected me to how about people live all the time. And, unlike a lot of people that were involved in the Madoff affair, I could just become back to work, and it was fine."

So would he say anything to Madoff if he had the opportunity? Malkovich told Vanity Off-white, in his classic cool demeanor, non specially.

"I merely met Mr. Madoff once, many years agone. He seemed very pleasant. Just, you know, I don't think I'd take much to impart," he told the magazine in 2013. "For me, in all honesty, information technology was a skillful life lesson."

In the cease, Malkovich reportedly received $670 m of his investment dorsum.

Larry King

Larry Rex

Photo: Grand. Caulfield/WireImage

King met Madoff through his babyhood friend Fred Wilpon, possessor of the New York Mets. At the time, Male monarch and his wife were looking for a reputable investment firm, and Wilpon suggested he look into Madoff just warned King that the coin manager was known for existence selective most his clientele. Rex experienced Madoff's choosiness firsthand, as the latter accepted King into his house but not King's brother.

When Madoff was arrested in 2008, the broadcasting legend suffered a $700K loss but thankfully, was able to recover it within a few years.

"If I could interview one person on the planet, it'd be Bernie Madoff and the obvious [question] would exist 'Why? Why did you do this to people?'" Male monarch said.

King's friend, Wilpon, would come up out of the Madoff scandal much worse off, taking a hit of $500 million.

Source: https://www.biography.com/news/bernie-madoff-famous-victims

Posted by: danielswast1949.blogspot.com

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