Rich Guys Club

Kenneth Starr, a New York investment adviser to celebrities such as movie director Martin Scorsese and actor Uma Thurman, was arrested by U.S. agents on Thursday on charges of running an alleged investment fraud of as much as $30 million, prosecutors said.

According to an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court by an Internal Revenue Service agent, Starr ran a complex set of schemes involving his son, his wife, prominent New York Democratic Party politician Andrew Stein and “a former national official of a major political party,” and “a partner at a prominent national law firm.”

The criminal complaint charging Starr with wire fraud, investment adviser fraud and money laundering alludes to a “who’s who” of wealthy New Yorkers as his clients or associates — “an actress,” “an elderly heiress,” a “retired prominent basketball player” and a jeweler. None of them were identified in court documents.

Starr’s son, the complaint said, would ferry checks to and from clients and Starr’s associates, at one point traveling to Venezuela to transfer money on behalf of a client. The son has not been charged, but Stein is accused of lying to the IRS.

Read More: – By Grant McCool and Basil Katz, Reuters

Jay and Dave together? Could it be true?

It is, and there they were, Jay Leno and David Letterman sitting on a couch – with Oprah Winfrey between them — upstairs at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Mr. Letterman tapes his show.

The spot was shot last Tuesday afternoon, under the strictest of secrecy which involved both Mr. Leno and Ms. Winfrey flying in surreptitiously to New York, and arriving incognito at the theater, while Mr. Letterman was in the midst of taping his show for that night. It also involved Jay wearing a disguise: hooded sweatshirt, glasses and faux mustache. If you happened to be on Broadway between 53rd and 54th street last Tuesday about 4:15, you might have seen a man fitting that description slip into the theater by a small entrance under the marquee.

Read More: – by Bill Carter, the New York Times

In the window of Bond No. 9, a perfume shop on Madison Avenue, New York’s most expensive shopping street, a sign lists 10 reasons to come inside and shop for the holidays. Reason No. 1: “It’s OK to open your wallet again.”

At least in this neighborhood, maybe. Just a year after what seemed to be fiscal Armageddon, when the government had to send billions to New York to keep the banking industry solvent, Wall Street will post nearly $59 billion in profits for 2009. Much of that money — the state comptroller estimates more than $18 billion — will be paid to financial industry employees as year-end bonuses.

The rest of the city hopes they’ll run out and spend it, the quicker to ease the recession plaguing most everyone else.

“Amen,” says Katie Grieco, operations chief at Craft, a restaurant group headed by Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio.

“Don’t hold your breath,” says James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute, a New York-based think tank. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get one piece of tinfoil-covered gelt,” the chocolate coins typically given out for Hanukkah.

Banks will pay big bonuses over the objections of Congress, President Obama and much of the nation. Yet in New York, the local economy is so closely tied to the fortunes of Wall Street that people here are in the awkward position of rooting for the fat cats — as Obama called them — even if the ripple of recovery has yet to reach their own wallets.

Read More: -By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY

NEW YORK, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Frank DiPascali, swindler Bernard Madoff’s right-hand man who admitted helping his boss run a decades-long multibillion dollar fraud, was moved from a New York jail to another north of the city five days ago, officials said on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons website lists DiPascali, 53, as having been “released” on Nov. 12 without providing an explanation. He was moved to the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, New York, a spokeswoman for the county said.
“We do get federal prisoners on occasion and there could be a number of reasons… it is not unusual,” said the Westchester County spokeswoman, Victoria Hochman.

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By Oshrat Carmiel

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — The price of Bernard Madoff’s former penthouse apartment in Manhattan was cut by $1 million to $8.9 million after almost two months on the market.
The three-bedroom apartment, at 133 East 64th St., was reduced yesterday and has been offered for sale for 59 days, according to StreetEasy.com, a property listing service. The U.S. Marshals Service, which is in charge of the property disposition, confirmed the reduction.
“Based on the current market and out of the better interests for the sale of the property, it was reduced,” said Roland Ubaldo, a deputy U.S. Marshal in New York.

Read More:

New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers — and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.

More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City — meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

Read the Full Story: -By ANDY SOLTIS

By Erica Pearson, Tanyanika Samuels, Kenneth Lovett and Adam Lisberg, The New York Times

A $200 back-to-school giveaway for needy kids sparked a mad rush for money on the streets of New York on Tuesday.

“It’s free money!” said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx, line 300 people deep for the cash to buy uniforms and book bags for her two kids.

“Thank God for Obama. He’s looking out for us.”

Thousands of people lined up at banks and check-cashing shops to withdraw the cash that magically appeared on their electronic benefit cards.

Some rushed out because of rumors the money would vanish by the end of the day.

“Rumors, there’s always rumors,” said Teresa Medina, who waited four hours at a Pay-O-Matic in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, to get $600 for her three teenagers – just in case they were true.

The no-strings-attached money went to families receiving food stamps or welfare.

Every child between 3 and 17 was eligible for $200, which worked out to 813,845 kids across the state – including 498,866 in the city.

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Filed by Jessica Gusman
The Huffington Post

NEW YORK (AP) — Behind unmarked doors on the 17th floor of a red granite high-rise known as the Lipstick Building, FBI agents still labor to unravel a case like no other.

The agents — already there for more than six months — say the chore is so daunting, they need to stay in the Manhattan skyscraper at least another year.

And by the way: They intend to hang on to the copy machine.

The former headquarters of Bernard Madoff are a home away from home for the FBI and, as of July 1, a leasing opportunity for any potential tenant who can stomach its status as ground zero of the largest securities swindle in history.

“Some people may see a stigma associated with it,” building manager Russell Freeman said on a recent tour of the piece of the three-floor firm that’s been put on the market. “But he’s out of there. His bad karma has gone with him. … Space is space.”

Space once used by Madoff himself — a fishbowl corner office with partial views of the East River — has been emptied of most furniture and paperwork, like the rest of the 19th floor. Only a pair of built-in cabinets and a wall-mounted television, easily 10 years old, remain.

Across the room is a matching corner office where Madoff’s brother Peter worked. Two smaller glass offices were for Madoff sons Andrew and Mark. Two filing cabinet drawers still bear stickers with the name “Andy Madoff.”

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