Wall Street Folly

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The latest from the SEC: Surprise inspections may be on tap for money managers; Carlyle making Cuomo probe go away with $20M payment; Morgan Stanley fined $2.1M over rogue trader's overpriced credit derivatives

Madoff investor Jerome Fisher now not-so-quietly (since it's on Bloomberg) unloading a Picasso; NY Art shows gonna feel the pinch

Here's the involuntary bankruptcy petition filed against Bernie Madoff yesterday

Plant your roots elsewhere: Ruth Madoff gets shunned by her colorist; And speaking of roots: Bernie's feeder funds trying to set roots in Florida?; Judge says an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Bernie is good to go, much to the feds chagrin

No cuts, colors and blow drys for you!: Page Six tells us that apparently Bernie's Missus has been uprooted and banned by the Pierre Michel Salon on East 57th Street where she get her tresses done.  Apparently many of the salon's clients were burned by Bernie:

A rep for the salon says, "The Pierre Michel salon's clients are among some of Manhattan's most elite. Unfortunately, some of those clients were victims of Madoff, and therefore Pierre Michel didn't feel comfortable having her in the salon."

Ruth Madoff makes the pilgrimage to visit her jailed convict hubby

Conjugal visit?  We'll guess probably not.   But there's Ruth Madoff,  clutching a cheapo umbrella and chewing gum (or something similar), as she made her way into the prison facility where Bernie Madoff is stuck behind bars. 

Andrew Cuomo's civil lawsuit vs Madoff feeder Ezra Merkin

A peek into Ruth Madoff's private world -- Memo to Madoff estate trustee: Used Birkin bags have big resale values; Ezra Merkin charged with civil fraud by Cuomo; Mort Zuckerman also is suing Merkin

The Madoff asset freeze list keeps on growing. Now Bernie, Ruth, the sons, brother Peter as well as feeder funds and their founders / execs (like Walter Noel, Andres Piedrahita and Sandra Manzke) are on it

This one comes from a Connecticut state judge in a lawsuit filed by the town of Fairfield, CT which lost around $15 million principal in the feeder funds.  It's a temporary freeze order, pending an April 13 hearing. Separately, a NY appeals court refused to overturn an existing freeze of Peter Madoff's assets.

WSJ profile: Andres Piedrahita -- Fairfield Greenwich partner, Walter Noel son-in-law, super salesman and Bernie Madoff enabler; "We are victims of the biggest fraud in the world, as have been major banks and the most important families in the world"

For the past two years, Andrés Piedrahita has acted as the managing partner of Fairfield Greenwich Group, the hedge fund that lost $6.9 billion to Bernard Madoff's pyramid scheme. But Mr. Piedrahita's real job, he once told a friend, was "to live better than any of my clients."

"I've never seen anybody live like him and spend like him, and I know billionaires who are 10 times wealthier than he is," says Fernando Botero, the son of the Colombian artist of the same name. "His job was to live grand."

Married since 1989 to Corina Noel, the daughter of Fairfield Greenwich founder Walter Noel, Mr. Piedrahita was one of four of the five Noel sons-in-law to work in the family business. But his outstanding public-relations skills set him apart from the others. Analysts say Mr. Piedrahita, 50 years old, played a key role in expanding the reach of the Madoff fraud by wooing wealthy Latin Americans and Europeans to invest in Fairfield Greenwich, which had about half its assets with Mr. Madoff...

"I look at myself in the morning, and I'm very proud of what I have done, and so are my partners," says Mr. Piedrahita. Then he adds, referring to the Madoff scam: "Nobody knew anything about anything.

The Charming Mr. Piedrahita Finds Himself Caught in the Madoff Storm - Wall Street Journal