11-175 2012-03-28 viridian response to staff inquiry of affiliate status
10-252 2012-04-17 comment-m petras
huberfeld
UPDATED: 1.22.19
The Huberfeld 45 Pages of Fluff and Madoff’s Charities
We begin with a preface. We have been accused of having a “vendetta” against Murray Huberfeld. We do not know him personally, have no reason to have a “vendetta” and find that assertion to be absurd. Our comments come not from malice but from a desire for justice, justice for all of those who have lost over the years at the hands of Murray Huberfeld and his various partnerships.
We feel that anyone who commits a crime against another, who deprives others of property, integrity, hard-earned money, trust, confidence and peace of mind deserves to be exposed and punished. We believe that the integrity of Judaism depends upon the honesty of its overtly practicing members. those like Murray Huberfeld who hold themselves out there as examples of spiritual enlightenment. We believe that the reliability of our financial systems and legal regulatory entities hinges on its enforceability and enforcement; and we steadfastly hold that the worldview of Judaism depends upon the integrity of its members and Jewish run enterprises, upon the honesty and transparency of their leaders.
That’s where Murray Huberfeld and Platinum Partners, along with all of its executives and co-conspirators comes in.
Despite what his friends and family may contrive in their own collective or individual consciousness, Platinum investors relied on the Huberfeld run funds, particularly Platinum and its historic returns. Whether that was out of stupidity or naivete, we cannot say. Many people put their savings into Platinum, and placed their trust into the names behind it, which included Huberfeld’s name and quite frankly the names of his friends. He used them as references, shows of good-faith and good-will. He betrayed his friends, along with his investors, each and every one of them.
Huberfeld’s friends and family can stand behind him, an admirable trait on their part, as did those of Madoff. We see little difference between the two. In fact, Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was vast in the totality of its financial numbers because it spanned unnoticed for so many years. However, contrary to Huberfeld, Madoff seems to have spent his early years as an honest businessman, someone who was trusted and trustworthy. Madoff passed his SEC licensing exams to go on and be the chairman of NASDAQ. That he then used that influence to create goodwill and trust, which was then instrumental to the ease with which he was able to bilk investors is tragic. He was an old-school genius. People who knew him in his early years referred to him as a mensch, the old-school version, not one cloaked in a kipa, ultra-religious organizations and quasi religious worldviews. He did not couch his business in G-d, nor did he ask for leniency by citing religious enlightenment. While Madoff was just as much a Jew as Huberfeld, he is to date far less the hypocrite. How Madoff’s sense of the ethical codes of business flipped is a question we continue to ask. We are still looking for Huberfeld’s business morality which appears nowhere obvious in his historical rise.
We do not believe, an opinion based upon years of research and reports, that Huberfeld earned an honest dollar in all of the years since Kosher Delight. Nor cam we ascribe to the belief that a criminal can be judged by the charities to which he gives; unless perhaps he, himself, lives a pauper’s life post “remorse.” Madoff’s charitable giving means nothing when ultimately it came and may now continue to be coming from money he stole, whether directly or indirectly, from his investors. Similarly, Murray Huberfeld’s charitable giving is meaningless if it comes at the expense of those who were deprived of their money, their trust, their livelihoods, pension funds, their families’ futures, need we say more?
Murray Huberfeld’s returns to his COBA victims is a slap in the face to each and every one of his victims over the years; and it amounts to a pittance compared to the money in family trusts, both his own and those shared with other families including the Bodner family. And in reality, given his exposure and his admissions, we cannot seem to match the return of COBA funds with the crime to which he admitted. Was he complicit in defrauding COBA? Was he a conspirator in the Platinum fraud? Both the 45 pages from his lawyers waxing poetic about him and the $7M he has agreed to return seem to speak to a different crime than that to which he admitted. We are a bit perplexed.
But we digress. Were Huberfeld to feel true remorse, he would be returning ALL of the money owed to COBA, amounting to upwards of $19M; and he would be returning the money lost to Platinum’s investors. He would not be trying to apportion blame or to claim lack of knowledge to the well-executed scam that Platinum was perpetrating. Remorse means returning money lost to investors in Platinum entities. His hands were sullied by those schemes over the years. His victims deserve compensation and retribution; and he deserves punishment.
To his attorneys who so very eloquently set forth as an characteristic of his kindness his care of his parents, we say anyone with decency should care for his parents. To his attorneys who look to Kosher Delight, Sha’are Tzedek and the other charities to which he has given for a salve to wash his hands, we say that these were endeavors intended to provide a cover. To his attorneys who quoted the people he has helped with letters and videos (likely all with the dirty money he amassed) we present these two question: a) are the convicted felons in that list of supporters really credible and 2) should Madoff’s charities not have similarly been considered in reducing his sentence?
The following is a list of charities that in 2010 were beneficiaries of Madoff’s “philanthropy.” We stand by how much we hate that word. It represents in so many contexts nothing more than hypocrisy.
Madoff also made large donations to charity like Amway
Shyam
Naive young Trivedi seems to think that giving money to good causes is a mark of honesty. The following is just part of a list of donations made by Bernie Madoff and his wife to numerous charities in the 10 years prior to his arrest.Name of Donor —- Minimum Confirmed Amount—— Recipient Name —-Year
Bernard L. Madoff—— $2,500—–American Liver Foundation-2003-2003
Ruth and Bernard L. Madoff $10,000 Brandeis UniversityNational Women`s Committee 1999-2000
Bernard L. and Ruth
Madoff Foundation $10,000 Center for Jewish History 2006-2006
Ruth and Bernard L. Madoff $10,000 City Harvest 2005-2006
Bernard L. Madoff $10,000 Educational Broadcasting
Corporation 2006-2007
Mr. and Mrs. Bernard L. Madoff$10,000 Fountain House 2005-2006
Ruth and Bernard L. Madoff $25,000 Girls Inc. 2005-2006
Ruth and Bernard Madoff $2,500 Global Camps Africa 2007-2007
Mr. and Mrs. Bernard L.Madoff $5,000 God`s Love We Deliver 2004-2004
Ruth and Bernard Madoff $10,000 Hillel Foundation for
Jewish Campus Life 2006-2007
Ruth and Bernard Madoff $10,000 Hofstra University 2005-2006
Ruth and Bernard Madoff $1,000 Jewish Federation of
Palm Beach County 2006-2007
Ruth & Bernard L. Madoff $10,000 Learning Leaders 2004-2005
Bernard L. Madoff
Investment Securities LLC $5,000 Lower East Side Name
Tenement Museum 2006-2006
The Madoff Family Foundation $1,000,000 Lymphoma Research
Foundation 2007-2007
Bernard L. Madoff $40,000 Metropolitan Museumof Art 2007-2008
Bernard L. Madoff $2,500 Museum of Name
ModernArt (MOMA) 2005-2006
The Bernard L. and Ruth
Madoff Foundation $25,000 New York Public Library 2002-2002
Ruth and Bernard L. Madoff $10,000 New York University,
Harris Obesity Prevention
Effort (HOPE) 2007-2007
Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Madoff $1,000 North Shore – Long Island
Jewish Health System 2003-2003
Bernard L. Madoff Investment
Securities $10,000 Pace University 2002-2003
Bernard Madoff $250 Police Athletic League
of New York 2001-2002 Bernard L. Madoff $25,000 Prostate Cancer Foundation 2007-2007 Bernard L. & Ruth
Alpern Madoff `61 $25,000 Queens College , City
University of New York 2006-2007
Bernard L. Madoff $5,000 Ronald McDonald House
of New York, Inc. 2007-2007
Ruth and Bernard Madoff $1,500 Wildlife Conservation Society 2006-2007It is also interesting to note, that (exactly as in the case of Bernie Madoff) any money given by the ‘Amway’ mob to charity, has actually first come from the victims of a fraud.
David Brear
LOSTMESSIAH 