Madoff victims feel misled by anger and grief

Victims of fraud Bernard Madoff said Thursday that criminal financier andalusia see go to jail in handcuffs satisfaction generated only a mild and slightly to the feeling of sorrow and deceit.

Madoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud and other criminal charges before a federal court in Manhattan, has left thousands of victims who stole the savings of a lifetime.

Several of them met in the District Court of the United States in downtown Manhattan to express their fears and frustrations, worried about their future and Madoff wondering how he managed to perpetrate the largest financial fraud in the history of Wall Street.

“It’s a pyrrhic victory and bittersweet,” said Miriam Siegman, 65, of New York City, who won a tight grip at the end of the presentation in court Madoff.

The consultant said that he had lost retirement savings of a lifetime with the fraudulent investments and Madoff now receive vouchers for food.

“I have no one to help me. He is in jail does not change anything,” he said. “I still have the rest of my life to live, or try to live is an incredible tension and total poverty. He took everything.”

Outside the court, Madoff victims were dealt with by reporters and photographers eager to hear what felt when they saw Madoff, some for the first time since his arrest in December, others for the first time in his life.

Many who invested with Madoff never met him.

“I wanted to see the faces of some of those who destroyed her life, but makes no difference,” said Cynthia Friedman for 59 years. She and her husband Madoff said they did lose the $ 3 million.

Burt Ross, 65, said he was not considered a survivor and a victim of the plot of Madoff after losing $ 5 million.

In trying to describe how still wakes every morning to see his wife at his side, Ross’s voice broke and he paused for several seconds to dry her tears and regain composure.

“The things that matter, I have and he can not quitármelas,” said Ross.

Brad Friedman, a lawyer representing about 100 victims of Madoff, said his clients were seeking to recover at least part of the money from the hands of family members Madoff.

“We will go after them. This is not over for nothing,” he said.

Madoff wife would have trouble retaining property

NEW YORK (AP) – If you want to stay with Ruth Madoff sumptuous apartment in the living, retain their millions of dollars in cash and jetset life style while her husband is in prison, experts recommend that it is ready for an inquisition . Lawyers and securities experts say that will have difficulty Madoff andalusia want to prove their assertion that the $ 69 million of the couple are not related to fraud pyramid of her husband.

“It will be very difficult to prove that nothing is stained,” noted Alton Abramowitz, vice president of the National Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers of America.

Some angry investors suspect that the money ended up in the hands of Ruth Madoff. At the court hearing that her husband pleaded guilty on Thursday, the mere mention of his name provoked ridicule and laughter.

But although she was not charged with any crime, Ruth Madoff fortunate to be thoroughly investigated by federal prosecutors and civil lawyers.

Investors will want to see receipts for personal bank accounts, credit card receipts, tax returns and checks paid, as well as documents for your business.

“The process gives us the right to look around to try to prove that Mrs. Madoff won not only their money,” noted Jeffrey Sonn, a specialist stock of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who represents dozens of victims of Madoff. “It’s an intrusion, but this is the procedure.”

What these credit card receipts show is a pleasant life, with homes in Palm Beach, Florida, in southern France and at the tip of Long Island, plus a penthouse worth $ 7 million in an exclusive area of Manhattan. Also, include air travel and private yachts.

Ruth Madoff, 67, worked with her husband from the beginning, and reportedly had an office close to him until the end, when he was arrested in December.

The couple had two sons, Mark of 44 years and Andrew, 42, who are talking with investigators.

Now the life of privilege of the couple gradually disintegrates under criminal and civil cases.

A lawyer for Mrs. Madoff, Peter Chavkin, refrained from making statements on Thursday. But your client has to prove that their assets from their own income or their own money, and not mixed with ill-gotten proceeds of crime money from her husband.

Is probably already preparing his defense with the help of her husband.

In a long speech on Thursday, Madoff told the judge that parts of their business was legitimate and successful, apparently in an effort to demonstrate that some of the family assets are separate from the fraud.

“You’re trying to save the rest of his family,” said Judith Welling investor. “We need to know who else was involved, and obviously we need to freeze the assets of all of them to help victims,” he added.

Madoff and his lawyers also assert that the department of Manhattan and an additional $ 62 million in bonds and cash can be exempted from going to the investors because they are on behalf of Ruth Madoff and are not related to fraud.

“We are all skeptics with that because, how she won 70 million dollars?” Asked Sonn. “You need to show the path to establish that comes from another source other than the values of Madoff.

Willie Colon hospitalized in NY

NEW YORK (AP) – The Puerto Rican singer Willie Colon was hospitalized in New York to undergo an operation of the gall bladder and had to cancel a presentation on Thursday in Lima.

The trombonist also could not participate in the concert film of Salsa “with Marc Anthony at the Estadio Monumental in the Peruvian capital, which would bring tribute to the late Hector Lavoe.

Columbus adviser said the situation is not serious, but delicate.

“Because I have witnessed a sharp pain to the doctor, who has advised me not to ride it would risk my life and in fact I will shortly be subjected to surgical intervention,” Colon said through his representatives to the AP in an e-mail address.

“I want you to know that I have a commitment to you and that my representatives and entrepreneurs are working together to find the most appropriate time in the coming weeks so that, once recovered, can meet with you,” the creator of hits as Idilio “and” great man “.

“I am very grateful for your understanding and affection,” the singer finished, the weekend gave two concerts in Mexico.

For its part the company Freelance, producer of the recital, said that he regretted what happened and who sympathizes with him and his entire family. ”

“The maestro Willie Colon has been placed in emergency (on Wednesday) at a clinic in New York due to a calculation of biliary colic caused by stones in the gallbladder,” reported the company press release.

The company confirmed that the concert will go ahead and that people may refrain from going to receive back their money.

Italians dig “vampire” in former pit Venice

Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a “vampire” Female Venice, buried with a brick between his jaws to prevent the feeding of the victims of a plague that swept the city in the sixteenth century.

Borrini Matteo, an anthropologist at the University of Florence, said the discovery in the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, in the Venice lagoon, it supports the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of pests such as the Black Death.

“This is the first time that archeology has managed to reconstruct the ritual of exorcism of a vampire,” Borroni told Reuters by telephone.

“It helps to (…) to test how the myth of vampires,” he added.

The skeleton was unearthed in a mass grave of plague in Venice in 1576 Lazzaretto Nuovo, an island located about three miles northeast of Venice used as a sanatorium for those suffering from the plague.

The succession of plagues that ravaged Europe between 1300 and 1700 promoted the belief in vampires, mainly due to the decomposition of the bodies was not well understood, said Borrini.

The gravediggers who reopened the mass graves are sometimes inflated by the gas bodies, with blood and hair still growing out of their mouths and think they are still alive.

The shrouds used to cover the faces of the dead often rotted by bacteria in the mouth, revealing the teeth of corpses. Vampires are popularly known as “canteens shrouds.”

According to medieval religious and medical texts, “not dead” spreading pestilence to be able to suck the remaining life of the bodies until they gained the strength to return to the streets.

“To kill a vampire you must remove the shroud of his mouth, which was their food and milk for a child, and make something that could not eat there,” said Borrini.

“It is possible that other bodies have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time that the ritual has been recognized,” he added.

While the legends about blood drinkers go back thousands of years ago, the modern figure of the vampire was summarized in the 1897 novel “Dracula,” by Irish author Bram Stoker, based on folk tales from Eastern Europe of the eighteenth century.

Apple launches new iPod Shuffle, that “whispers” the name of the songs

San Francisco, 11 mar (EFE) .- The technology group Apple today announced a new iPod Shuffle, its smallest model, which now will be even more diminutive but will double the capacity and a new provision, to speak.

The new iPod Shuffle, which goes on sale tomorrow, features a system called VoiceOver that compensates for the lack of display of this model and “whispers” the user of the songs that will listen.

According to Apple, when you connect your iPod to your computer and open the program iTunes, the new Shuffle creates a voice file stored in the name of the song, artist and the list of items to which it belongs.

The system can even recognize the language and save the voice file in the language concerned. Apple noted that the new Shuffle can recognize 14 languages, including Spanish.

“Imagine your music player talking, saying the title of your song and artist names and playlists,” said Greg Joswiak, vice president of product marketing for Apple iPod and iPhone, in a statement.

The new iPod Shuffle measures only 4.5 centimeters long and 0.7 wide, about half his predecessor and doubles its capacity to 4 gigabytes of memory, enough to store up to 1,000 songs.

To save space, Apple has removed nearly all the buttons on the device and placed in the headphones.

The new iPod Shuffle will be available in silver or black and will cost $ 79 (just over 61 euros at today’s exchange) in U.S..

Apple’s shares reacted to the announcement and rises to 1747 GMT was changed on the Nasdaq at $ 92.36 New York (72.3 euros), 4.2 percent more than at the opening.

Since its launch in 2001, Apple has sold over 200 million units of its popular iPod and now accounts for 70 percent of the market for mp3 players.

New jump on Wall Street, after hours of good news

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average soared 239.66 points in order to make more than 600 units in its profit for the past three days. This is the biggest jump of the main reference in three days since last November.

The rise of 3.5% in the day to put in the Dow Jones 7170.06 points.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 degrees or 4.1 units rose 29.38% to 750.74 and the Nasdaq composite index jumped 54.46 points or 4%, to 1426.10.

The gains came after a special board said that Congress could recommend a relaxation of rules for troubled banks.

The turbulence in the banking industry has preoccupied the market since 2007, and the hope that the banks can finally get relief in the way they value their assets lack liquidity fostered a wave of buying.

“We could find that banks are not so bad or not bad, if these assets are identified in a different way,” said Doreen Mogavero, president of the brokerage Mogavero, Lee & Co.

Figures for retail sales, better than expected, also helped the titles, as well as the positive news of four companies comprising the Dow Jones: Bank of America Corp., General Electric Co., General Motors Corp. and Pfizer.

The CEO of Bank of America said the company has been profitable this year. Citigroup unleashed a wave of highs this week with similar statements.

In addition, General Electric had a less-than-expected reduction in their credit and reported that General Motors would not need a loan of 2,000 million dollars that the government had sought.

Pfizer, meanwhile, reported a successful test of a drug against cancer.

“I do not know how things have been recovered in a week,” said Scott Bleier, president of CreateCapital Advisors. “But there certainly is a better than two weeks ago.”

Nobody believes that they have finished low on Wall Street. The outlook for the economy is too uncertain and much of the highs this week was caused by technical factors. One such factor was the willingness of investors to buy securities to cover bets “in short, betting that some will fall.

But this week has been more positive in the stock market for months. The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, which reflects the performance of almost all shares traded in the U.S., has jumped 11.2% during the last three sessions. This is a gain of 900,000 million dollars.

“There are a lot of money on the sidelines, and many people who have waited to enter the recovery,” said Mogavero. “I think probably people will want to put some money in the market.”

The Russell 2000 index, which measures the performance of smaller companies rose 23.82 points or 6.5%, to 390.12.

After a modest decline observed on Monday and three days of shopping, the Dow has risen 8.2% so far this week. The S & P 500 advanced 9.9% and the Nasdaq 10.2%.

The shares rose by more than exceeded that fell to 10-1 on the Stock Exchange of New York, where trading volume was 1810 million titles.

The prices of government bonds rose, with the performance certificate from the Treasury 10 years to 2.86% on the 2.91% seen on Wednesday.

The dollar strengthened against major currencies, rose gold and crude oil had an increase of $ 4.70, to 47.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In other international markets. The British FTSE 100 rose 0.5%, the German DAX rose 1.1% and French CAC-40 rose 0.8%. The Japanese Nikkei fell 2.4% and Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 0.6%.

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