Jeffry Picower, a Madoff Castmember, Found Dead

This development is sure to ignite a torrent of speculation and conspiracizing this week…

From the New York Times:

Jeffry M. Picower, a prominent philanthropist accused of reaping about $7 billion in profit from Bernard L. Madoff’s vast Ponzi scheme, was found dead on Sunday afternoon in a swimming pool at his mansion in Palm Beach, Fla.

Colombian Cartel?  The Russians?  The Mossad?  Kevin Bacon?

The interesting thing about Picower’s involvement with Madoff was that he was a highly sophisticated professional investor who had experienced difficulty withdrawing from Madoff over the years, according to the investigators.  That would be the very definition of Red Flag as in theory and in practice, an investment advisor involved in stocks and options should be able to liquidate and send funds within 3 days based on Regulation T settlement rules.

On May 12, the bankruptcy trustee seeking assets for Madoff victims sued the Picowers in federal court to recover at least $6 billion they withdrew from their Madoff accounts over the years.

The lawsuit claimed that the Picower accounts with the Madoff firm were “riddled with blatant and obvious fraud” that a finance professional like Mr. Picower should have detected immediately.

This story may get a whole lot messier, too much money involved…

Source:

Investor With Madoff is Found Dead in his Pool  (NYT)

P.S. – yes I made up the word “conspiracizing”, but you knew exactly what it meant, which means it should be a real word.