I’ve spent the last six days “on vacation” and purposefully off the grid with respect to following news stories in any real detail. Back to the grind today, however, and I have returned from my own private cave dwelling (and that’s only partly metaphorical, since I also visited an actual cave during one of those days) to find that Bernard Madoff is being defended by an attorney, Ira Sorkin, with “conflicts of interest” in need of waiving. Hunh?
Sorkin once invested a little under $20,000 with Madoff (in the 1990s). He also previously represented two would-be witnesses in the Madoff case. Moreover, Sorkin’s parents invested almost $1,000,000 with Madoff, money earmarked for their grandchildren’s trust funds. Ira Sorkin is the kids’ father and trustee of their trusts.
Why would Madoff want Sorkin in his corner and pleading his case? Is it supposed to humanize him, to show people that at least one victim is more than willing to forgive his own losses as part of Madoff’s multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme?
Again, I’m just catching up to this story, but I don’t get it. Did Sorkin’s parents not lose their money? Are they just lucky Madoff investors? I know that Sorkin claims that his own investments (by way of a retirement account) were liquidated in the 1990s and, therefore, irrelevant.
Of course, if Madoff’s just pleading guilty anyway, it probably doesn’t matter all that much, right? Or would the point be that a different (and non-conflicted) attorney might have more fight in him for a not-guilty plea? (Unlikely, I know, but I’m just thinking out loud.)
I don’t ask why Sorkin would take the case, but I think that that is slightly less shocking. Though only slightly.
As it stands now, Madoff apears to be looking at a prison term of 150 years, more than twice his current age. And there seems to be a new story popping up almost daily about lower-scale pyramid schemers.
But Madoff is still the big fish. And he is so big that there is hardly anybody left unscathed by his scam artistry. Maybe the judge will need to recuse himself, too. Since Madoff had a disproportionate amount of Jewish victims, some of that, of course, might pivot on whether or not U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is a member of that ethno-spiritual community. And as someone interested in African-American Jews/Hebrews, I know better than to just presume the answer to such a question.
