Jeffry Picower, the only Madoff investor to wind up on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, was found dead at the bottom of his pool Sunday, says the AP. He is accused of making more than $7 billion off of Madoff’s ponzi scheme.
An autopsy is scheduled for today in Palm Beach County. Picower was #371 on the 2009 Forbes list. It was his debut.
From the AP:
Some victims of Madoff’s vast Ponzi scheme say Picower was the fraud’s biggest beneficiary. In a lawsuit to recover assets, trustee Irving Picard demands he return the allegedly bogus profits.
UPDATE: The word from Palm Beach County is heart attack.
Autopsy set for dead Madoff associate in Florida [AP]
(Photo:C. Barr)
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Seems like he was in a bit over his head.
@The Ghost of SirNotAppearing: His contention that the funds were gained legitimately don’t hold water.
@The Ghost of SirNotAppearing: The plaintiffs in the class action suit were confused when they were told to pool their resources.
I heard all of his assets were underwater…
@Notsewfast: At least he wasn’t drowning in debt…
@Notsewfast: What did Terri Schiavo have that Jeffry Picower could have used?
Someone who would have pulled the plug.
Ok, that was tasteless. My bad.
@Notsewfast: This economy isn’t exactly smooth sailing.
@Notsewfast: Something about this seems fishy.
Even with all that money, you can still get in over your head.
@Notsewfast: He’ll never be the head of a major corp- aw shoot, that doesn’t work.
@Notsewfast: Guess that settles the question of the liquidity of his investments.
Things that make you go.. Hmmm…..
@Evil Otto – sleep deprived ftl: Yep, the stories behind this whole thing gets stranger, and stranger…
@Evil Otto – sleep deprived ftl: He was pretty old, with Parkinson’s and a heart condition. It might, regrettably, be natural causes rather than evidence that 3,000 year old Harpies came up from Hades to wreck divine, hubris-slaying, flesh-ripping, eyes-gouging vengeance.
Sounds like a suicide.
@FatLynn:
Jewish Mafia? You know, “swimming with the Gefilte fish”
@TheMonkeyKing: gefilte fish isn’t a real … it’s a mix of …
ah, forget it.
@FatLynn:
Yeah, sounds like he was suicided by the Mossad
@FatLynn: He committed suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head twice out by his pool.
You would think he would make a raft out of money.
@angryneo: or at the very least, pay for some swimming lessons…
@angryneo: I figured he just swam in a large vault of money, like Uncle Scrooge McDuck.
@HFC: I could say about five hundred different things to indicate how win this is.
… And I also wonder how many pennies it would take to fill a decent pool like that…
@Nekoincardine: cubic dimensions of a penny = .360 cubic centimeters – I’ll let you take it from there.
Kind of like the CEO of Enron offing himself before he could be forced to testify shady things about his ties to Bush… things that make you go hmmmm….
@JGKojak: Are you thinking of Ken Lay? While he managed to end up dead rather suddenly and mysteriously, no one has figured out a way to easily self-induce a heart attack. Of course, someone could have used CIA-like techniques to kill him.
@RandomHookup: No one? Doctors can induce a heart attack.
@rocketbear79: You’ll note I said “self-induce”.
@RandomHookup:
With the right combination of chemicals or medication, I would imagine its not that hard.
@dfens42: Yea, but they leave a trail that rules out heart attack.
@RandomHookup: Actually I think Nitrates and ED meds can cause severe cardiac problems. I mean according to the ME they found nothing out of the ordinary on Lay’s toxicology report. but I certainly think the whole thing deserved a second look.
Going by Occam’s razer, the simplest solution is that Ken Lay (being an older male) under alot of stress had a freaking heart attack. It happens to plenty of old guys who are under tons of stress.
@JGKojak: Or maybe you are thinking of this guy: [archives.cnn.com]
@RandomHookup: My first thought was Cliff Baxter too.
@JGKojak: Or Pinochet who died before he could be convicted in a war crimes trial, and the same for Milosevic who died during his war crimes trial of a heart attack!
See, filling a swimming pool with money is a bad idea, no matter what the cartoons show you.
@ohnoes: God damn you, Scrooge McDuck. I hope you burn in hell, you quazy old miser.
@lincolnparadox: also, diving into piles of gold coins is not “fun”. it’s painful.
It’s way too likely a suicide. He was being sued by the bankruptcy trustee to take back (most of) the money he made from Madoff. You don’t get money like this back very easily without a LOT of pain on the person who has it.
And yes, the bankruptcy court does have the legal power to take back money going back a certain amount of time, which is longer when a crime is involved as compared to a shorter time for otherwise legitimate payments.
@Skaperen: You’re probably right. Anything liquid is going to be hidden or already invested. So, the court would start carving up his home, holdings and belongings, until they reached $7 million.
*looks up*
Oh, $7 BILLION. Oh. Yeah, unless it’s hidden in Pago Pago, he’s losing everything he has.
@lincolnparadox: I donno. Those Florida retirees can clip coupons like nobody’s business.
@lincolnparadox: Pago Pago is in American Samoa so I’m not at all sure it’d be safe there. Probably more likely the Caymans.
Yeah I know, “Pago Pago” was just shorthand for “where the feds won’t find it.”
@Skaperen: Maybe he could have done the smart thing and invested as much as he could in one house in Florida and then clung to that property. In Florida, it’s damned near impossible to seize your house, even if it’s the result of criminal enterprise.
Did he know Madoff was doing illegal things? Then yes, he should give the money back. If he did not know his money was being used illegally, he should keep the money. That is unfair, but if you want everyone to be equal, go to a communist country where everyone is equal(ly poor).
@easy2panic: So if someone come in your house and steals all of your stuff, and I buy it from them at a flea market, then it’s just OK for me to kkep it??
HELLLOOOOO..have you ever heard of receiving stolen property?
Whether he knew it or not it goes back to rightful owners if it was gained illegally.
@easy2panic: It’s widely known that “Bernie’s Thing” was doing something to get those unreal rates. Those in on it thought that Bernie was ripping OTHER people off, rather than themselves.
Boy, THAT must suck.
@easy2panic:I wish I could find the article again, but back in March or so I read a fascinating account of the relationship between Madoff’s and Picower’s operations.
The salient point the article made was that Picower’s firm could and did dictate the rate of return they wanted from Madoff Securities on any given day. It was a total sweetheart relationship, as evidence by the billions sluiced off to Picower over many years. And while Picower benefited more than any of Madoff’s other clients, it’s highly unlikely that he was the only one that was in on the game.
@easy2panic: “Did he know Madoff was doing illegal things? Then yes, he should give the money back. If he did not know his money was being used illegally, he should keep the money. That is unfair, but if you want everyone to be equal, go to a communist country where everyone is equal(ly poor).”
Yes, he knew. But receiving stolen goods is illegal, even in capitalist nations.
@chao: Not if the goods were bought in good faith from a vendor of those types of goods (read, not a pawn shop) Good faith purchaser can recieve title, then it is the seller who must pay back the original owner.
@Taelech: “@chao: Not if the goods were bought in good faith from a vendor of those types of goods (read, not a pawn shop) Good faith purchaser can recieve title, then it is the seller who must pay back the original owner.”
Ponzi schemes are not ever treated as good faith.
Is that the swimming pool where the tiles were imported from Pompeii?
I’ve apparently seen one-too-many previews for “The Men Who Stare at Goats.”
I read the sentence, “An autopsy is scheduled for today in Palm Beach County,” as ‘an Auto-Psy is scheduled…’
It took me at least two minutes to stop wondering why they were bringing in a psychic to help figure out if this was a homicide or not.
@TheRedSeven:
I’ve seen too many previews of it, too. Unfortunately, none of them have made me want to see the movie.
I cannot say I feel badly for the bastard, and that this has not happened sooner. Somewhere in the legion of people swindled by Madoff and his cronies are those with whom should not have been fucked with.
This man may be a singular example of what we can expect in the weeks to come as more companies use tactics Caligula would find repugnant.
May your fat crackle in the pits of hell for eternity, you son of a bitch.
Could be muckduck.
This is totally a CSI episode. The perp is whoever they ruled out in the first 5 minutes.
I love that 7 BILLION dollars only puts you at number 371.
@ExtraCelestial: I’d be content at 371…
@Xerloq says Can I has Friday?: I’d be content to be somewhere off the list but in a much better position, like number 1000 or so.
@Xerloq says Can I has Friday?: Yeah it’s definitely not a bad position at all.
@ExtraCelestial: Or he’s faking his death to escape the legal system and is shacked up on some tiny island drinking millions in coconut rum.
The mistress ends up blowing his cover.
@ExtraCelestial: No he had more than 7 billion. 7 bil was only what he made off Madoff.
@ExtraCelestial: Looks like this guy… was drowning in debt…
(puts on sunglasses)
YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
A better picture for the story would be the Nirvana album cover with the submerged baby chasing the dollar bill.
Symbolism!
Sounds like that suicide from up in new york where that one guy stabbed and shot himself three times in the back. I say there was no funny business here either, so no more investigating, capice?
Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won’t another minute buy.
better dead than poor? alrighty then. you go ahead with that.
Drowning is a weird way to commit suicide. He was a beneficiary of the $7 billion of profits..I would think there are thousands of people who had motive to seek revenge.
Looks like even money couldn’t keep this guy afloat ::Puts on glasses:: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I’m sure someone took care of this guy, it’s a little too weird for him to just drown.
@TheOrtega: Actually they probably would’ve done the wife as well in that case.
Actually, this is looking a lot more like suicide. This guy was only worth $1 billion dollars. He and his wife ran a charitable foundation (which is going bye-bye).
He doesn’t seem like a POS. He seems like every other rich guy who worked with Madoff. Only this one gave millions to charity.
[www.npr.org]
He knew what he was involved in. Besides, why not give that money back to the investors?
@lincolnparadox: “This guy was only worth $1 billion dollars.”
Oh nooooooooooo how could someone ever live on that!
I think I’ll wait for the toxicology report or at least the autopsy. Suicide by drowning is pretty tough. It could be that someone wanted this guy to sleep with the fishes and thought the pool was a fish tank.
Pfft. It’s like that German guy who stepped in front of the train and committed suicide when he found out he made bad deals and lost a bunch of money. Even then he still had more money than many of us.
Boo fucking hoo. I have *no* sympathy for “victims” of this type of suicide. Aww, you can’t handle living like a regular person, or even like a moderately rich person? People throughout history have crashed financially and then made it back on top, or at least to a reasonable financial level.
If a person commits suicide, I can understand if they have problems for years and years. Live in poverty for years, have girlfriend/boyfriend/marital issues constantly, be infirm and unable to do anything for yourself, this I can understand. But to commit suicide just for losing most of your fortune when you’ve been living the high life for years? Good riddance to this kind of parasite on human society, that’s what I say.
reminds me of the parable Jesus taught about the rich man who worries and frets about his riches, only to die that night in bed and leave all his assets to … others. there is only one way to win in this finite race we run, and it is NOT by gathering up pathetically temporary assets.
Soooo!….Everybody out there that feels even a tinge of sadness about this, please raise your hands…..oookay…….that’s what I thought too.
A good start.