Stop Your Joking, Leamer

I've got to stop joking around. See the last sentence.


Scribe says, Watch your back, Bernard Madoff

By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa with Simone Press, Boston Herald, January 14

Alleged socialite swindler Bernie Madoff, who continues to live in the lap of luxury while his victims fume, might be better off in jail.
Because as long as the accused chiseler is out walking the street, he might get shot!
So says Laurence Leamer, author of "Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach."
Leamer, who has had an up-close look at the Madoff scandal and its effect on the uber-rich rubes, said Bernie’s victims reportedly include a laundry list of dangerous characters - any one of whom may want revenge on the alleged mastermind of the $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
"There’s a Russian oligarch who six months ago tried to get his money out and Bernie wouldn’t give it to him," he said. "There’s also a report that he had $300 million in Colombian drug money. You don’t want to irritate these people."
True dat.
Madoff is due in court in NYC today where the government will again try to lock him up while prosecutors investigate charges that he bilked scores of investors in a massive, decades-long scam.
Earlier this week, a federal magistrate refused to revoke the 70-year-old’s $10 million bail, enraging his alleged victims - many of whom are from the Boston area. The investors are outraged that Bernie is awaiting trial from the comfort of his $7 million Manhattan apartment, while they’ve lost their shirts.
Leamer, a former Boston resident who winters in Palm Beach, completed "Madness" before the Madoff scandal hit the headlines. It paints an ugly picture of the pampered Palm Beach set - "sad, angry, insecure and frequently nasty people hiding behind empty smiles, luxury cars and socially invisible servants," as Amazon.com described them.
"You read the book and see the inevitability of people like Madoff and how, in the climate of Palm Beach, someone like that can be nurtured," Leamer said.
The author added that the scandal has so rocked the exclusive haunt that it may never recover.
"You have to remember this is the second hit most of these people have taken. They’d already lost half of what they had in the stock market," Leamer said. "There is this billionaire I know who just gave an incredible party for 250 people, but he says he’s not doing that anymore. The elaborately constructed fantasy of this place is finished."
Leamer, who will be prominently featured in an upcoming ABC "20/20" piece on the Madoff scandal, will be back in town later this month at an oh-so-swish soiree at the Mandarin Oriental hotel to celebrate the publication of his new book, which hits stores Jan. 20.
The author of three previous books about the Kennedy clan, Leamer said he’s working on a final chapter for the paperback version of "Madness" about the Madoff mess.
"Somebody has to make money off of this," he joked.