Sanctions on Russian oligarch donors hit Israel institutions
Billionaire Moshe Kantor has severed his longstanding ties to Tel Aviv University — joining a growing list of Russian Jewish oligarchs who have scaled back their philanthropic activities after coming under international sanctions for their ties to President Vladimir Putin.
Maxwell's brother says US prosecutors seeking to 'break' her
The brother of a British socialite charged with helping Jeffrey Epstein exploit underage girls says her prosecution is “the most over-hyped trial of the century,” designed to break a woman targeted by authorities who are desperate to blame someone for the late financier’s crimes.
Fallen tech star Elizabeth Holmes prepares to go on trial
A jury is being assembled to decide the fate of Elizabeth Holmes, a former Silicon Valley star facing felony charges of duping her elite financial backers and a high-powered board of directors into believing she had invented a revolutionary blood-testing technology that could detect hundreds of diseases with a finger prick.
EXPLAINER: How could the indictment hurt Trump's company?
The criminal tax fraud charges unsealed Thursday against Donald Trump’s company are a blow to a business already reeling from canceled deals following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its hotels and clubs.
Manhattan courthouses adapt to COVID so trials can return
Castel, who presided over the first two pandemic-era jury trials in the fall, said COVID-19 protocols have become routine. AdThat’s important because some of the nation’s oldest judges are among the 70 or so who sit in the two courthouses. AdOnly nine jury trials were conducted in the fall, but there have been seven since mid-February, including four underway this week. At the Manhattan courthouses, some jurors are rescheduled if they don’t want to attend a trial in person. You forget to sanitize your hands.”AdU.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, who presided over the first two pandemic-era jury trials in the fall, said protocols do become routine, eventually.
Lawyer says he lobbied Mnuchin and a congressman to reduce Bernie Madoff's sentence
It's unlikely President Donald Trump will grant clemency to Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, according to a lawyer who has been trying to get the disgraced financier's sentence commuted. The attorney, James Craven, sent letters to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., to try to get Madoff's 150-year sentence reduced, the lawyer told CNBC in an email. Brandon Sample, Madoff's attorney, referred CNBC to Craven as the "attorney who has been working on clemency for" the former Wall Street tycoon. Craven said there has been "no response to 2 or 3 letters to Mnuchin." "Himes responded because he is Ruth's congressman, and someone in his office said they'd look into it," Craven added.
cnbc.comMets GM Van Wagenen, others out as Cohen takes over team
Special assistant to the general manager Omar Minaya, assistant general managers Allard Baird and Adam Guttridge and executive director of player development Jared Banner also departed. He hired former Mets general manager Sandy Alderson as team president in his first move and ended Jeff Wilpon's tenure as chief operating officer. and Van Wagenen fired manager Mickey Callaway and replaced him with Carlos Beltrán. It is a record price for a baseball team, topping the $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers from Frank McCourt to Guggenheim Baseball Management in 2012. “I hope that your energy, competitiveness and resources will be welcomed by Major League Baseball,” Van Wagenen said.
Innocent Madoff investors must pay back profits, court rules
NEW YORK – Investors who profited from Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme even though they knew nothing of it must still pay back their profits, an appeals court decided Thursday. Thousands of investors lost billions of dollars through his multi-decade fraud. A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit concluded, however, that the investors were not entitled to “fictitious” profits that actually was money belonging to other customers. Picard has reported recovering over $14.3 billion for investors who lost over $17.5 billion that they invested. The collapse of the Ponzi scheme left many investors severely damaged financially because they were told their investments had grown much larger than what they started with.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Cohen agrees to buy Mets
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2020, file photo, Citi Field is viewed at dusk before a baseball game between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles in New York. Billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen has agreed to purchase the Mets from the Wilpon family. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)NEW YORK – Billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen has agreed to buy the New York Mets from the Wilpon and Katz families. Cohen also entered negotiations to buy the Mets last year, but the deal fell apart in February. The limited partnership shares were sold after a proposed $200 million sale of a stake of the Mets to hedge fund manager David Einhorn fell through in 2011.
Judge rejects Ponzi king Madoff's bid for early release
Even at the end, he was trying to send more millions of his ill-gotten gains to family members, friends, and certain employees," Chin wrote. Attorney Brandon Sample, representing Madoff, said in a statement he was disappointed with the ruling. We implore the President to personally consider Madoffs rapidly declining health," Sample said. Prison authorities had determined Madoff was likely to die within 18 months of kidney disease. Prosecutors opposed the request, saying 500 victims opposed early release and only 20 letters were written by victims in support of release.
Supreme Court declines to take Bernard Madoff trustee case
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court is leaving in place a ruling that allows the trustee recovering money for investors in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme to pursue more than $4 billion that went to overseas investors. The high court on Monday declined to get involved in the case. An appeals court said the trustee, Irving Picard, could go after money that went through foreign investment funds back to foreign investors. Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 to orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The court-appointed trustee has recovered approximately $14 billion of about $18 billion that investors put into Madoffs business.
Bernard Madoff wants to make 'dying, personal plea' for freedom
FILE PHOTO: Bernard Madoff exits the Manhattan federal court house in New York in this January 14, 2009 file photo. Chin called Madoffs crimes extraordinarily evil in imposing the 150-year sentence in June 2009. Madoff is seeking compassionate release under the First Step Act, a bipartisan 2018 law affording early freedom to some older prisoners, often for health reasons. Sample has said Madoff is dying of kidney failure, and is also confined to a wheelchair and battling several other illnesses. Prosecutors have said the scope of Madoffs crimes, his refusal to accept responsibility, and his practice of deflecting blame toward victims in interviews from prison justify keeping him behind bars.
feeds.reuters.comBernard Madoff is dying, seeks early release from prison: lawyer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bernard Madoff is dying of kidney failure and has fewer than 18 months to live, and is seeking to end his 150-year prison sentence for masterminding what prosecutors have called the largest Ponzi scheme ever. Prosecutors said Madoff used his firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC to swindle thousands of individuals, charities, pension funds and hedge funds in a $64.8 billion fraud. His lawyer, Brandon Sample, said in an interview that other prisoners referred Madoff to him, and that he visited Madoff at Butner last summer. Bernard Madoff is a broken man, and had a lot of personal loss, Sample said. FILE PHOTO: Bernard Madoff exits the Manhattan federal court house in New York in this January 14, 2009 file photo.
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