Bernie Madoff's evil twin Sonja Kohn is hit with $19.6B claim tied to scam

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Daily News

A wig-wearing Austrian banker was outed yesterday as Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff's "criminal soul mate."

Vienna-based Sonja Kohn was slapped with a $19.6 billion suit by Irving Picard - the New York lawyer trying to recover the billions Madoff stole from investors.

"For more than 20 years, Kohn masterminded a vast illegal scheme to exploit her privileged relationship with Madoff to feed over $9.1 billion of other people's money into his Ponzi scheme," says the suit, which names the Medici Bank founder and two dozen accomplices.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/12/10/2010-12-10_bernie_madoffs_victims_have_until_midnight_saturday_to_recover_stolen_money.html

[gateley]

1. She looks like Madoff in drag - amazing. nt

[dipsydoodle]

4. Yes - amazing

:rofl:

[reformist2]

5. Oh my! (LOL)

[Gin]

6. OMG...looks exactly like him in drag...how weird is that?

[FarCenter]

7. Yes, Bernie in Dame Edna's makeup.

[tpsbmam]

9. I was prepared to slam you but damn....holy shit you're right! nt

[firehorse]

12. There is no way thats a woman

Look at the nose, the chin. Sonja truly is a man in drag. Seriously. Tootsie looked better. So did Guiliani in drag.

[Skink]

2. I thought he couldn't do this alone. Who new?

interestingly in the suit they go after banks that could actually make restitution. Especially if they just suspend the anual bonus fiasco.

[leveymg]

3. Madoff network also extended to his mistress, Sheryl Weinstein, finance chair of Hadassah

Many Madoff associates were active within the funding community. The missing $60 billion went somewhere - it didn't all get spent on Bernie's dress shirts.

[shanti]

8. hey, wasn't lieberman

(or his wife) affiliated with hadassah?

[tpsbmam]

10. Her name is Hadassah. n/t

[shanti]

11. gotcha

;-)

[Hannah Bell]

13. with big pharma

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hadassah_Lieberman

[Hannah Bell]

14. whoa, that's interesting.

[leveymg]

15. Looks like Bernie gave Sheryl some valuable information, that allowed Hadassah to cash-out just in

time. Hadassah all but acknowledges this by paying back $45 mil to avoid a clawback suit: http://jta.org/news/article/2010/12/09/2742111/hadassah-to-pay-back-45-million-of-madoff-gains

Hadassah to pay back $45 million of Madoff gains

December 9, 2010

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Hadassah: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America will pay back $45 million of the money it made in the Bernard Madoff scam.

Hadassah President Nancy Falchuk in a letter Thursday told the organization’s supporters of the settlement reached by the group with the trustee of Madoff’s estate.

The organization, which began investing with Bernard Madoff Securities in 1988 with a $7 million gift, and then deposited another $33 million in its Madoff accounts, and by April 2007 had withdrawn $137 million. The last account statement showed approximately $90 million at the time the fraud was discovered.

The $45 million is half of what Hadassah earned unwittingly in the scam. With the settlement, Hadassah avoids a lawsuit by the trustee, Irving Picard, who already has sued a number of individuals, organizations and foundations that made money in the Madoff fraud.

[leveymg]

16. Where did the money Madoff made for Hadassah go? A lot went to West Bank settlements and projects

such as Ariel University, here featured in an article in Hadassah's magazine: http://www.hadassahmagazine.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=twI6LmN7IzF&b=5874073&ct=8081849.

March 2010 Web Extra
College of Contention

Joshua Mitnick


Ariel University Center has a diverse student body/ Oded Antman
One of Israel's fastest-growing schools of higher education is situated in a West Bank city. How its future will play out remains to be seen.

Snip

Beyond the campus, Ariel is a mostly secular settlement of 18,000 residents who came here to live in an affordable bedroom community. The fourth largest settlement in the West Bank, it spills over a succession of hilltops onto well-manicured streets. On display at the municipality are national awards for quality of urban life. The university is an important element in bringing income into the city. Thanks to the expanded trans-Samaria highway, the trip to Tel Aviv is about 30 minutes.

But the mobile homes are a telltale sight on any settlement. And the university is a classic example of settler "soft power," a popular concept in international relations that refers to the ability to wield influence and achieve goals through cooption and attraction rather than coercion. (China boosted its profile this way when it hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.)

AUC draws 85 percent of its student body from Israel proper. With its respected engineering, architecture, biochemistry, physics and design departments, the school draws students who might otherwise gravitate toward Tel Aviv. It also caters to those closed out of top universities. AUC likes to note that it has more Ethiopian students than any other Israeli school of higher education; it has also attracted Russian immigrant researchers to its staff.

Chancellor Yigal Cohen Or-Gad, a former Likud finance minister who helped found the university, described the school's two-pronged mission: to make higher education more accessible to Israel's middle and lower classes and reinforce the country's link to the area.

" to ensure our survival in the Land of Israel by strengthening our presence in Samaria and Judea," he said. "So, if we have a chance of combining those two targets in one institute, we will be happy."

SNIP

To accommodate the school's growth, the master plan envisions the campus tripling in size, with clusters for different schools, a hotel and a high-tech park. The estimated investment is $150 to $200 million, but potential underwriters have been hit hard by the financial crisis.

But don't call it an expansion, because the mere mention of the words is enough to make Halachmi uneasy. Because of its location in the West Bank, controversy is inevitable. AUC grapples with a European boycott; last fall, AUC was one of 20 finalists in an environmental-architecture competition sponsored by Spain's housing ministry, but was disqualified because of its West Bank location. The campaign to discredit it was led by a pro-Palestinian group, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine.

Three years ago, AUC was threatened with sanctions by Israel's Council on Higher Education after it unilaterally changed its name to Ariel University Center of Samaria. "It tried to create a separate status for itself, a status that doesn't exist in Israel," said former Education Minister Yuli Tamir, since there is no such designation as "university center."

In January, the education ministry, now under Likud's Gideon Saar, again recognized the government's five-year-old decision to formally upgrade the status of Ariel from college to university, nevertheless the issue is still not completely resolved and there are other bureaucratic steps left.

Meanwhile, controversy due to the left-right divide remains: Knesset member Tzipi Hotoveli of Likud says that AUC deserves recognition due to its academic excellence, while Jamal Zahalka of the Arab Balad Party calls the decision "a violation of international law," for building on the West Bank, according to an article in Ha'aretz on January 20.

[leveymg]

17. Another major U.S. funder of the Ariel Univ. - Michael Milken, and friends, GW Bush & R Cheney

This from the Ariel University Center website: http://www.ariel.ac.il/site/portals/english/Close_up.aspx#1

AFCJS Honors IBG Chair Moshe Arens

On December 4, 2005, the American Friends of the University Center of Judea & Samaria (AFCJS) paid tribute to Moshe Arens, Chairman of the University Center’s International Board of Governors and Israel's former Defense Minister and Foreign Minister. Mr. Arens was honored with the organization’s first "Living Legacy Award", and feted on his 80th birthday at a gala dinner held at the Milken Family Foundation in Santa Monica, California.

"Education is important everywhere, particularly in Israel. Our natural resources are very limited but our most important is our young people, so investing in their education is key," said Mr. Arens while accepting the award.

The dinner's co-chairmen were Vidal Sassoon and Lou Lenart, who joined Mr. Arens during the course of the evening for a discussion about the events in 1948 that led each to leave their respective homes and come to Israel to fight for the country’s independence. The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Robert Wexler, President of the University of Judaism.


L to R - L.Lenart, L.Milken, M.Arens, V.Sassoon

L to R - L.Lenart, L.Milken, M.Arens, V.Sassoon

Nearly 200 well-wishers came to the event from both American coasts, with all seeking to express their appreciation to Mr Arens for his years of dedicated service on behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The evening’s Master of Ceremonies was Prof. Haim Brown, a Senior Instructor in Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and an Adjunct Professor at the Ariel University Center of Samaria.

After greetings by Lowell Milken, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Milken Family Foundation, and Ehud Danoch, Israel’s Consul General in Los Angeles, Kanubash Talala, a sophomore studying chemical engineering and biotechnology at Ariel University Center of Samaria, and Shanit Hassid, a UCLA graduate who founded "Panim-el-Panim", a program that links L.A. students with their Ariel counterparts, joined Prof. Dan Meyerstein, Ariel University Center of Samaria President, in presenting Mr. Arens with his award. The students and the award emphasized Ariel University Center of Samaria and its graduates as the living legacy to one who has devoted so much to the security and strength of the Jewish state.

Molly Weinberg, a supporter and friend of Ariel University Center of Samaria, helped organize the event, together with AFCJS Executive Director Avery Ellisman, and benefited greatly from the assistance and guidance provided by Lowell Milken and the staff of the Milken Family Foundation.

In addition to attendance by Ariel University Center of Samaria International Board Members Stanley Haar of Boca Raton, FL and Steve Friedman of Philadelphia, PA, and published letters of congratulations to Mr. Arens from President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger . . . SNIP

[leveymg]

18. What a difference two years makes for Hadassah's fortunes: from Madoff "victim" to profiteer

#
VIDEO / Hadassah Women: We lost $90 million in Madoff's Wall ...
Dec 18, 2008 ... Zionist organization joins long list of Jewish charities hit by financial manager's $50 billion fraud.
www.haaretz.com/.../video-hadassah-women-we-lost-90-million-in-madoff-s-wall-street-scam-1.259766 - Cached
#
Hadassah Will Pay Back $45 Mil in Madoff 'Profits' – Forward.com
Dec 9, 2010 ... Hadassah: The Women's Zionist Organization of America will pay back $45 million of the money it made in the Bernard Madoff scam. ...
forward.com/articles/133848/ - Cached
#
Madoff Had Affair With Ex-Hadassah CFO, Her Book Says (Update1 ...
Aug 13, 2009 ... An accountant who has publicly blamed imprisoned con man Bernard Madoff for stealing her family's savings has written a book that will ...
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a23e7n9dndgY

[Hannah Bell]

20. lol. everyone is a crook.

[Hannah Bell]

19. went to build in the west bank, you say? why am i not surprised.

[Frank Booth]

22. You can bet a lot of it went to lobby congress as well.

[leveymg]

23. You mean, like this guy?

[Frank Booth]

21. Seems like "earned unwittingly" should be in quotes.

Either Hadassah's got extremely good luck, or it had inside information.