Madoff’s friend found dead in his pool
Jeffry M Picower, for years best known as an insanely rich Wall Street investor and philanthropist, as well as being a friend of Bernie Madoff's, was found dead on Sunday night in his ocean-front mansion's pool. Originally it was treated with suspicion, (friends of Madoff's do not have many friends), but the autopsy proved it was just a plain old heart attack. And Picower did have a few too many problems to worry about. His friendship with the owner of the biggest Ponzi scheme ever netted him about $7 billion. Although he was initially seen as one of many victims, the subsequent investigation showed he benefited wildly from the scheme, with one of his accounts being overdrawn a staggering $6 billion. Lawsuits accused him of not realising something was amiss with all the large and stable profits that Madoff was paying him - an accusation that would have probably been difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, had he lived to take the stand, of course.Read more: New York Times, BusinessWeek
