New court papers have been filed in a suit by Madoff victims, and they provide a window into the world of Bernie.
The Daily News has posted two versions of the the news, one from the A.P. and one by their own reporter. The original A.P. story, which is no longer up on the web site, described the diminished circumstances of Madoff’s life in jail (“sleeps on the lower bunk of a cell he shares with a drug offender”). The second focuses instead on his sordid past, when he presided over a coke-fueled office (“it was known as the ‘North Pole'”) and partied with strippers (“topless waitresses who wore little more than G-strings”).
The Post‘s account deftly combines the two narratives:
Newly filed court papers paint a bleak picture of Bernard Madoff‘s present life — and a strippers- and drug-filled portrait of his past.
The one detail that no story omits: Madoff now eats pizza cooked by a child molester.
In news of other potentially criminal Bernards, former police commissioner Kerik—about to be tried for corruption, conspiracy and tax fraud—has had his bail revoked. The judge offered an assessment of Kerik that The Times called “withering” and the Post recounted thus:
“He has a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance. And I fear that that confidence leads him to believe that the ends justify the means, that the rules that apply to all don’t necessarily apply to him in the same way.
“He sees the court’s rulings as an inconvenience, something to be ignored, an obstacle to be circumvented.”
Which is just the mindset you want in a top law-enforcement official.
But fraud is not only for powerful Bernards; it is also for ordinary appartment-seeking New Yorkers. Six women have been arrested after pretending to be domestic abuse victims in order to avoid the wait for subsidized housing. The New York Times calls their scheme “particularly imaginative.”
