by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

February 12, 2009

A Union County man died three weeks after learning he had lost his entire savings to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The man’s daughter said her father, a quadriplegic, used to spend time calculating how many years he could live on the money he had saved.

His daughter said she and the rest of her family believe the crushing financial news drove her father to his death.

“He used to go to a wound clinic for bedsores,” she told NJJN. “After he found out [about his financial losses], he wouldn’t go. Then he developed double pneumonia. He needed 24-hour care. It took at least $200,000 a year just to keep him alive.”

(His daughter asked that the family name not be used, since a relative runs a hedge fund and does not want his name associated with Madoff, even tangentially.)

Whether or not his death can be blamed on Madoff’s scheme, the story hints at the pain and even despair behind what has become known as The List — the 162 pages of names released Feb. 4 by the United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The list contains over 13,500 entries — including 445 New Jerseyans — who invested with Madoff before he acknowledged to federal authorities that his multibillion-dollar hedge fund was a “big lie.” (Some entries are duplicates, presumably because the investors had multiple accounts.)

The star-studded list is heavily Jewish, with larger-than-life names like Sandy Koufax and Henry Kissinger and well-known figures like U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and NJ State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Dist. 37). But it also includes non-Jewish celebrities, like actors Kevin Bacon and John Malkovich.

In the areas covered by the editions of this newspaper, 249 names appear on the list. These include Morris County (48), Essex (81), Warren (one), Union (35), Middlesex (45), Monmouth (21), Princeton/Mercer/ Bucks (seven), and Somerset (11).

Plenty of not-for-profits were also hit hard, from institutions of higher learning like Yeshiva University and Brandeis University, to such organizations as Hadassah and American Jewish Committee. Of 147 foundations on a separate list compiled for New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff, 102 were started by Jewish families or give to Jewish causes, according to JTA reporter Jacob Berkman.

Among the ordinary people affected was the disabled man, formerly a member of Temple Israel in Union. He was 79 when he died. He is survived by his wife, who is 73, his daughter, and two sons.

He wasn’t always a quadriplegic. He owned a textile manufacturing company in New York until one day in 1997 when, as a pedestrian, he was hit by a car. According to his daughter, all of his money was invested with Madoff. She declined to say how much he had invested.

Papers from Madoff are still sitting on a table, she said, showing every investment and the return her father received each and every month. The family never saw any red flags.

When her father first found out about the fallout from the Ponzi scheme, she said, he “was up all night worrying. He went through all of his money after the accident. All he had left is what was invested with Madoff. Now my mother has very, very little money to live on.”

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