Madoff's secretary not doing too badly

My FOX New York:

Annette Agrese, Bongiorno's maiden name, had humble beginnings. At John Adams High, a young Annette was a member of the business club.

Fast forward 40 years, she's a secretary married to Rudy Bongiorno -- a former New York City worker on permanent disability. But clearly the couple is living well.

She has a $2.6 million mansion in Manhasset on Long Island and the $1.25 million home in Boca, or as Annette calls it: Casa di Bongiorno.

She has some fancy cars, too, in her three-car garage: Two 2007 Mercedes-Benzes and a 2005 Bentley.

"Annette Bongiorno has millions of dollars of assets that the prosecutors have viewed as a red flag," Heim says. "Her luxury homes, her luxury cars are certainly going to be an item for close scrutiny by the prosecutors because she was a secretary and she's going to have to answer why she was making so much money from the Madoff firm and how she could not have known it was a criminal fraud."

For now Bongiorno continues to enjoy a millionaire lifestyle, secluded behind the walls and gates of her upscale Florida neighborhood.

Annette Bongiorno has not been charged with any crime. Fox 5 News has no direct evidence she committed any crime or that she knew about the Ponzi scheme. What we do know is that she was a loyal Madoff aide for many years

Catherine Austin Fitts puts Madoff in Perspective

Putting Madoff in Perspective

Catherine, Daily Musings and News & Commentary,

December 31, 2008 at 10:12 am

These days I am wondering if Madoff’s biggest problem is that he stole from the rich. Feels to me like when you steal from ordinary people, particularly when it makes the rich much richer, it is called “policy” rather than “ponzi.”

For example, let’s review actions of the NY Fed and its member banks, such as JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citibank. The NY Fed serves as the depository for the US government. The US government has refused to comply with the laws regarding financial management and is missing over $4 trillion (or $14,000 per American.) Whatever money is missing would have to leave through the accounts managed by the government’s depository.

These member banks are also at the heart of the gold suppression scheme documented by GATA.org . They are leaders in the derivatives and mortgage markets and - I believe — related collateral fraud. They were present in the pump and dump of the Internet stocks, the telecom stocks and/or the Enron fraud.

Clearly, they have not prevented the problems with naked short selling or stopped the $1 trillion annual money laundering in the US financial system. And, yet, the media would have us believe that Bernard Madoff is the scandal du jour because he produced above market returns for wealthy clients until it turned out that $50 billion was gone. We are told that rich people lost money. We don’t know who got it. After all it could have been richer people who have exhausted opportunities to steal from ordinary people.

We are told that the moral of the story is that we need more regulation. Which means we give more power to the private and public institutions that are operated, staffed and financed by these bankers and which used existing enforcement to create rather than prevent these problems. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

I say the moral of the story is that we need to find out where the $4 trillion and the $50 billion is and get it back. Crime that pays is crime that stays.

Madsen inspects Madoff-invested charity

Wayne Madsen:

Madoff's investors listed.One is of interest: "Chais Family Foundation, a charity that gives away about $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes, the California-based charity group invested entirely with Madoff, and was forced to shut down operations on Sunday after years of donating some $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel and Eastern Europe." Jewish, Eastern Europe, Israel, and a sudden operational shut down? WMR found an interesting link: Chais donated to an entity called the Washington Institute in McLean, Virginia, which also received funding from the Monterey Fund of Brooklyn, NY, which lists its address as BEAR STEARNS & CO., 1 METROTECH CENTERN 9TH FL., BROOKLYN, NY 11201-3831. Chais was active in marshaling support for Israel among 18-25 year old Jews in the former Soviet Union (also recruitment for Israeli syndicate and Mossad activities, perhaps?) and fighting pro-Palestinian and pro-Iranian attitudes on U.S. college campuses. In other words, Chais was engaged in blatant political activities disguised as 501(c)3 "educational purposes." Recipients of Chais funds also attacked former President Jimmy Carter, as well as Professors Mearsheimer and Walt over their book "The Israel Lobby." There is a Chais Family Auditorium at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, is the headquarters for the Mossad.

SEC told of Madoff's Ponzi Scheme in 2005

Ms Supkis comes through with the goods. She put the first part of this in her blog. I found the last paragraph here to be most interesting.

This is from page one and two of nineteen pages total in this document.

The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud

November 7, 2005 Submission to the SeC
Madoff Investment securities, LLC
www.madoff.com

Opening Remarks:
I am the original source for the information presented herein having first presented my rationale, both verbally and in writing, to the SEC's Boston office in May, 1999 before any public information doubting Madoff Investment Securities, LLC appeared in the press. There was no whistleblower or insider involved in compiling this report. I used the Mosaic Theory to assemble my set of observations. My observations were collected first-hand by listening to fund of fund investors talk about their investments in a hedge fund run by Madoff investment Securities, LLC, a SEC registered firm. I have also spoken to the heads of various Wall Street equity derivative trading desks and every single one of the senior managers I spoke with told me that Bernie Madoff was a fraud. Of course, no one wants to take undue career risk by sticking their head up and saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes but...

I am a derivatives expert and have traded or assisted in the trading of several billion $US in options strategies for hedge funds and institutional clients. I have experience managing split-strike conversion products both using index options and using individual stock options, both with and without index puts. Very few people in the world have the mathematical background needed to manage these types of products but I am one of them. I have outlined a detailed set of Red Flags that make me very suspicious that Bernie Madoff's returns arn't real and, if they are real, then they would almost certainly have to be generated by front-running customer order flow from the broker-dealer arm of Madoff Investment Securities, LLC.

Due to the sensitive nature of the case I detail below, its dissemination within the SEC must be limited to those with a need to know. The firm involved is located in the New York Region.

As a result of this case, several careers on Wall Street and in Europe will be ruined. Therefore, I have not signed nor put my name on this report. I request that my name not be released to anyone other than the Branch Chief and Team Leader in the New York Region who are assigned to the case, without my express written permission. The fewer people who know who wrote this report the better. I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family. Under no circumstances is this report or its contents to be shared with any other regulatory body without my express permission. This report has been written solely for the SEC's internal use.

As far as I know, none of the hedge fund, fund of funds *FOF's) mentioned in my report are engaged in a a conspiracy to commit fraud. I believe they are naîve men and women with a notable lack of derivatives expertise and possessing little or no quantitative finance ability.

There are 2 possible scenarios that involve fraud by Madoff Securities:

1. Scenario #1 (Unlikely): I am submitting this case under Section 21A(e) of the 1934 Act in the event that the broker-dealer and ECN depicted is actually providing the stated returns to the investors but is earning those returns by front-running customer order flow. Front running qualifies as insider-trading since it relies on material, non-public information that is acted upon for the benefit of one party to the detriment of another party. Section 21A(e) of the 1934 Act allows the SEC to pay up to 10% of the total fines levied for insider-trading. We have obtained approval from the SEC's Office of General Counsel, the Chairman's Office, and the bounty program administrator that the Sec is able and willing to pay Section 21A(e) rewards. This case should qualify if insider-trading is involved.

2. Scenario #2 (Highly likely) Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme. In this case there is no SEC reward payment due the whistle-blower so basically I'm turning this case in because it's the right thing to do. Far better that the SEC s proactive in shutting down a Ponzi Scheme of this size rather than reactive.

Is this document for real? (Looks real to me, but how would I know?) If so, why isn't it front page news?