Ira Sorkin, Bernie Madoff's miracle-making attorney--he has kept Bernie out of jail since December 11--is now asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to allow another of his clients, none other than Bernie's Missus, to retain the $45 million in municipal bonds she holds with Cohmad Securities, an entity owned in part by Bernie, with offices surprise, surprise, in the Lipstick Building, as well as the cash vested in her $17 million Wachovia account.

Sorkin has not informed the court as to how Ruth could have accumulated her $62 million cache--a tidy sum that does not include the Madoff's East 64th Street duplex, valued for the purposes of Bernie's bail at $7 million and held in her name.

Let us recall that in November and December Ruth made withdrawals totaling $15.5 million from her Cohmad account, the last being $10 million just before her husband's arrest.

Should the court grant Sorkin's request, Ruth will be sitting on a $69 million fortune--not bad for a kid from Queens who, apart from sharing in Bernie's ill-gotten gains, is not known to have amassed any real money save for her advance for co-authoring a cookbook.

Given that book adances for relatively unknown cookbook writers were relatively modest even before the publishing industry tanked, Chef Ruth would have had to have come up with a real spicy meatball of a tome to have earned those millions.

Is it possible, even in this jaded, troubled society that Ruth will be allowed to keep her fortune--garnered, obviously, via Bernie's criminal enterprise--as some of his victims struggle to pay for the bare necessities of life?

Justice may be blind. But it can't be that uncaring.

So why doesn't Judge Louis Stanton just tear up Sorkin's brief and run him out of his courtrrom for having had the chutzpah to make such a motion?

In our last posting, we mentioned that we were awaiting Baker & Hostetler's response concerning the process whereby the firm chose Eugene F. Collins Solicitors in Dublin, and Lovells LLP in London, to assist in Madoff-related activity in Ireland, the United Kingdom and on the European continent.

Having not yet received a response from Baker & Hostetler, we decided to send e-mails and/or to telephone the retained firms directly.

To that end, on Wednesday we called and left a message for David Cantrell, the managing partner of Eugene Collins, following up yesterday with an e-mail.

We also called Lovells, where we spoke briefly to Joe Bannister, a London-based partner with expertise, according to his biography, in "financial services insolvencies."

Responding to our query as to how Lovells had been selected by Baker & Hostetler, Bannister replied, "I'm not in a position to comment on Lovells' position in relation to that. Could I ask you to speak to Cary Kochberg please?"

Of course he could ask.

We then put in a call to Kochberg at Lovells' London office and were informed by his P.A. that he was in a meeting. Leaving our telephone number, we followed up with an e-mail. Calling again today, we were informed by Kochberg's P.A. that he was again in a meeting.

Was this the continuation of yesterday's meeting?

It is increasingly clear that neither Baker & Hostetler nor the firms it has retained have any interest in answering questions regarding the process by which these firms were selected.

While this may be standard procedure in the world of high-profile law firms dealing with high stakes cases, neither the victims' nor the the publics' need to know exactly how Irving Picard and his counsel, Baker & Hostetler, operate, is being satisfied.

What is known is that Picard, Baker, Eugene Collins, Lovells, Lazard Freres and any other entity to be retained in the future will share--likely substantially--in the nearly $1 billion already recovered by Picard.

To date, neither Picard nor Baker & Hostetler--the firm he joined as a partner one week after the court awarded them their plums--has shown serious interest in transparency.

That does not bode well for Bernard Madoff's victims.

We are checking our e-mails day and night--but not holding our breaths for--Baker & Hostetler partner Richard Bernard's response to our query of February 17.

Yesterday, seeking clarification concerning yet another issue, namely the hiring of law firms in Ireland, and the United Kingdom to assist Baker & Hostetler in its role as counsel to Irving Picard, the court-appointed Madoff bankruptcy trustee, we e-mailed David Sheehan, another of the firm's partners involved in the Madoff case as one of Picard's counsels.

We are advised by attorneys familiar with bankruptcy proceedings that it is common practice for law firms serving as trustees' counsels to retain additional firms to deal with specific aspects of those cases.

Given that the Madoff case is highly unusual, however, we sought clarification from partners of the firms thus far retained by Baker & Hostetler concerning the process by which the above-mentioned firms were retained.

Thus we put in a call to David Cantrell, the managing partner of Eugene F. Collins Solicitors, a firm in Dublin, Ireland, dealing with at least three Madoff-related cases, leaving an explicit message.

We're still awaiting his reply.

We also called Robin Keller, a New York-based partner at Lovells LLP, the firm hired by Baker & Hostetler to handle cases in the United Kingdom and on the European continent. When informed as to why we were calling, she replied that another of her firm's attorneys would be in touch with us.

We're still awaiting that attorney's reply.

In our e-mail to David Sheehan we inquired about the process by which Baker & Hostetler had retained Eugene F. Collins Solicitors and Lovells: Had competitive bidding been involved? Did either firm have a prior professional relationship with Picard and/or Baker & Hostetler?

We're still awaiting his reply too.

Oh, and we copied Kevin McCue, Baker & Hostetler's spokesperson for the Madoff account.

But it's downright Kafkaesque: Keven McCue does not answer the telephone number to which media calls are directed, instructing the caller instead, via voice mail message, to e-mail him.

Needless to say, we're still awaiting Kevin McCue's return e-mail.

To those in the legal profession such evasion may be commonplace. To us and, very likely, to many of Bernie Madoff's victims, the attorneys' wall of silence is quite disturbing.

This is hardly your typical bankruptcy case. The predicted "substantial to very substantial" monies [according to a bankruptcy expert] to be paid Picard and Baker & Hostetler, as well as the hourly remuneration to Eugene F. Collins--$575 per hour for partners, representing a ten percent discount from the firm's normal rate--and Lovells--$875 per hour for partners for work in the U.K. and $640 per hour for work in Europe--will come out of the victims' pockets via funds already secured or to be recovered by Picard from Madoff's criminal enterprise.

Surely Bernard Madoff's many victims deserve answers to the questions we have posed to the various attorneys and to Baker & Hostetler's elusive spokesperson. And they also have the need to be assured that those retained are the ones best eqipped to deal with the enormous complexities of the Madoff case, as well as to zealously protect their interests.

We fear, however, that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York; trustee Irving Picard; and Baker & Hostetler, his counsel, see this case as just business as usual and do not seem to grasp that Bernard Madoff's victims, as well as the concerned public, have the right to, deserve and cry out for total disclosure.  

On February 16, we emailed George Stamboulidis, the managing parter of Baker and Hostetler's New York office, reiterating our question of February 11: Did he or anyone else at the firm know prior to December 15, when Irving Picard became the court appointed trustee for BMIS, that he was planning to leave the Gibbons firm for a partnership at Baker & Hostetler?

While Mr. Stamboulidis has not responded to either of our emails, on December 22, the day Mr. Picard joined Baker & Hostetler, he issued a statement that "Irving's depth of knowledge in complicated restructurings and experience as a trustee in major security cases is widely recognized."

On that day, Mr. Stamboulidis was likely savoring Baker & Hostetler's coup in obtaining control over the Madoff bankruptcy, along with the dividend of its power to grant assignments to other law firms and financial asset management companies.

Regarding monetary remuneration sought by Mr. Picard, on February 17, we emailed Richard Bernard, one of the two Baker partners who filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York: Could he estimate the likely monthly fee due Mr. Picard? And, as Mr. Picard is now a partner at Baker & Hostetler, would said fee be paid to that firm? Let us also remember that as Mr. Picard's counsel, Baker will receive a separate fee for its Madoff related work.

It's now Friday, February 20, and we're still waiting for Mr. Bernard's response.

Our conversation with Sammy Antar, the former chief financial officer of Crazy Eddie, Inc., and self-confessed possessor of a criminal mind, is so far-ranging that we are sharing it with our web readers in installments.

In today's installment, Sammy tells about the "Fraud Triangle," which, as you will soon learn, actually has four sides!

"It was developed by criminologists trying to study white collar crime," Sammy explains. "The first element is incentive. You may think that money is the incentive for economic crime; money is a byproduct of it. There is always a spectrum of reasons for crime.

"People commit crimes for a whole host of reasons. In Madoff's case, it could have been sheer ego--he didn't want people to know he was a failure--and, of course, the byproduct was money. It could have been because he liked the stature of being successful--some people commit crimes to get in the sack with someone."

The second element:

"Opportunity; your code of ethics limits your behavior but it doesn't limit ours. In Madoff's case, that came from lack of checks and balances. lack of effective oversight by the SEC.

The third element:

"It's called 'rationalization'--the idea that criminals rationalize their crimes. In white collar crime you're dealing with a highly intelligent individual. Studies show that between ninety-two and ninety-six percent of white collar criminals have no prior criminal record. You can estimate that the higher the economic value of a white collar crime, the less likely that the person has a criminal record."

Now Sammy tells us that this "triangle" has a fourth element:

"Capability--the experts went beyond the triangle: to be capable you have to be intelligent, to be intelligent you have to know right from wrong. We look at our criminal behavior as being no different from what everyday people do. There's no moral differentiation. We enjoy doing the crime; it's challenging. And, of course, the money is good. But that doesn't mean that money is always the primary factor. I knew what I was doing. I enjoyed it. It was fun!

Our conversation with Sammy Antar, the former chief financial officer of Crazy Eddie, Inc., and self-confessed possessor of a criminal mind, is so far-ranging that we are sharing it with our web readers in installments.

In today's installment, Sammy explores the nature of Bernard Madoff's criminality while continuing to burnish his own credentials as an unrepentant bad guy.

"Was Bernie Madoff category one, like me, or [the less sinister seeming] category two? My guess is that he is probably category two," Sammy says. "We all live with criminal temptation every day: some people jaywalk. Of course, I'm not equating that with a large crime, but we all have our levels of temptation. Some of them don't rise to the level of criminality, as they do for me."

Now Sammy, who an hour ago ran ahead of us as we entered the coffee shop, excusing his gaffe by saying, "I'm hyper," and immediately on sitting down at our table downed a cup of Java, summons a waiter, politely asks for a refill, and continues his assessment of the Ponzi King: "I don't think Madoff started out to be a criminal," he theorizes. "I believe that he succumbed to temptation. He may have had a bad quarter or had borrowed from one person to pay the other."

Madoff's success at convincing seemingly savvy movers and shakers to invest with him:

"Madoff increased the comfort level by building a wall of false integrity around him. How did he do it? He donated to charities; he was a fiduciary to these charities by managing their money; he was even on the board of NASD. As a criminal, I did these sorts of things too."

All in the family:

"Look at why Madoff was successful. Madoff and his people shared common backgrounds, religion, and family loyalty, as do the Russian Mob, the Mafia, and our family of Crazy Eddie's. Those are the cohesive groups--the toughest groups to crack. I'm not saying the other family members were involved, but it was his family's cohesiveness that enabled him to be successful for a long period of time."

The con man's appeal for the rest of us:

"Most white collar criminals are charming, likeable people; that's why we're called 'confidence men'--we gain the confidence of our victims." Then, leaning mock-menacingly toward us again, Sammy adds, "We can pick your pocket as we are talking to you."

We criminal are different:

"What you have to understand is that you are dealing with an element of society that doesn't play by your rules: we are economic predators, no different than serial killers. The only difference is that we commit our crimes with a smile while serial killers do it with weapons. The effects of our crimes are just as brutal as violent crime.

"Madoff was almost the classic white collar criminal. He didn't kill twenty or thirty people, but you have fifty billion dollars in damages: he wiped out peoples homes, their life savings; there are probably thousands of people out of work as a result of his crime. He got caught in his old age and will probaby be dead by the time he goes to jail."

Log on tomorrow for the next installment of "Dinner with Sammy," his explanation of the "Fraud Triangle," criteria developed by criminologists to better understand what makes people like Bernie Madoff--and, of course, himself, tick.

Is Bernie Madoff a born criminal or an opportunist?

What motivates one possessed of a true criminal mind? Greed? The thrill of getting away with fraud? Conning innocent people? All of the above?

Once punished, can a born criminal become one of the good guys?

These are but a few of the questions we posed to Sam E. "Sammy" Antar, an extremely vocal, self-confessed possessor of a criminal mind, during a conversation on a cold evening last week in a midtown Manhattan coffee shop.

Sammy, the former chief financial officer of Crazy Eddie, Inc., was a mastermind, along with his cousin Eddie "Crazy Eddie" Antar and an uncle, Sam M. Antar, of one of the largest security frauds of their day, having cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars.

Becoming the government's key witness against his cousin and uncle in both the criminal and civil prosecutions, Sammy pled guilty to three felony counts and was sentenced to six months' house arrest, twelve hundred hours of community service and three years' probation, as well as being fined.

Our conversation with Sammy is so wide-ranging that we are sharing it with our web readers in installments.

"Dinner with Sammy," Part One

In today's installment, Sammy burnishes his own credentials as an unrepentant and confirmed bad guy.

"I solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God!" Sammy exclaims in mock gravity as he tucks into his dinner: a scoop of tuna surrounded by rings of green and red peppers and circles of Bermuda onion.

"Before we talk about Madoff, you have to understand that there are two types of criminals," he explains, "the one that plans to be a criminal and the one that when the opportunity presents itself becomes a criminal. I'm not going to say that one is better than the other; both are evil. I was the worst kind of criminal; I committed my crime simply because I could. I enjoyed it and if I'm not a criminal today, it's only because I got caught."

Cooperating with the Feds:

"The only reason that I cooperated with the United States government is because I didn't want to pick up a bar of soap and worry who my boyfriend was going to be; it just wasn't my style. I did not cooperate because I wanted to do the right thing; I did not cooperate because I believed in God; I did not cooperate because I found God; I did not cooperate for any moral or heroic reasons. The only reason I cooperated is because I got caught--most people cooperate because they got caught."

Rehab for criminals

"The zebra doesn't change its stripes. All of this sorrow, all of this morality, all of this redemption is baloney! I do free speaking engagements all over the country. I pay out of my own pocket. People often ask me if I'm redeemed. I say, 'Just because I do good deeds now that doesn't mean I'm redeemed.' When I was a criminal, I walked old ladies across the street too."

The criminal's attitude toward potential victims:

"The criminal considers your humanity as a weakness to be exploited in the execution of a crime," Sammy confides. Then, staring intently at us across the table, he drives his point home, observing, "You are being nice to me now, sitting down with me. You are having a code of ethics: you believe in innocence until being proven guilty, which is a wonderful thing. I'm not demeaning that. That just gives us the the initiative to commit our crimes."

Sammy's credo:

"Having consumed the mound of tuna at his plate's center, Sammy proceeds to systematically attack the surrounding rings of peppers and onions. Energized, he expands on his theme by invoking the late Ronald Reagan. "He said 'trust and verify.' I say, 'don't trust, just verify,' because when you give me your trust that gives me the initiative. Your code of ethics, your willingness to believe that today Sammy Antar may be a reformed felon; your willingness to sit down with me now, even though I was an economic predator, without checking your pockets"--here Sammy rather playfully leans toward us--"your innate trust limits your behavior and gives me the opportunity as a criminal to exploit it, because we measure our effectiveness by the comfort level of our victims. You can steal more with a smile than you can with a gun."

Log on tomorrow for the next installment of "Dinner with Sammy," his take on the nature of Bernie Madoff's criminality.

We spoke on February 6 with Philip Michael, an attorney for Harry Markopolos, who testified last week before a Congressional committee concerning his warnings to the SEC about Madoff's operations.  In his testimony, Mr. Markopolos stated that he had "feared for the safety of his famiy until the SEC finally acknowledged, after Madoff had been arrested, that it had credible evidence of Madoff's Ponzi scheme." Mr. Markopolos also told the committee members, "For those who ask why we did not go to FINRA and turn in Madoff, the answer is simple. Bernard Madoff was chair of their predecessor organization and his brother was former vice chairman. We were concerned we would have tipped off the target too directly and exposed ourselves to great harm. "

While the media gave significant attention to these statements, Mr. Michael put them in context.

"It got blown out of proportion because of the sexiness of organized crime and Russian mobsters; it sort of sucked the wind out of many other aspects of the story, so there was more emphasis on it than it deserved. In essence, Harry was saying: 'There's no doubt some of the money that ended up with Madoff came from very disreputable sources'--people who were cheating on their taxes or it could have been organized crime money or this woman who had the bank in Vienna. And there was discussion that she was pulling in money from Russians and then forwarding it to Madoff, and then it seemed like she disappeared after the whole thing blew up.

"So Harry's feeling about all that was that Madoff could have figured that [given that these types of people don't take no for an answer] if his scheme were revealed, he, Madoff could really be in danger. Therefore Harry's thinking was: If Madoff knows that I, Harry, reveal what he is doing and that puts Madoff's life in danger, Madoff may try to take care of me so that he won't be put in danger--that if his scheme became known, Madoff might do something very radical because Madoff had to protect himself and his own family from retribution.

"Harry didn't have any actual threats and did not seek protection. But he took the other steps: he tried to remain as much under the radar as he could. That's why he wanted to limit the number of people who knew his name in terms of the information he was providing on Madoff and that's why he concluded that he didn't think there was corruption at the SEC because he said there were people at the SEC who did know his name and if they were corrupt they would tell that to Madoff, and then maybe Madoff would have done something."

 Concerning the attitude of Mr. Markopolos today:

"Elation! That whole burden was lifted off his back. He feels he's finally had his day in court, that he's finally been listened to and taken seriously. He's very grateful for that."

Last evening media outlets posted a 162 page list compiled by Alix Partners for the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of the Madoff firm. The list includes anyone who responded to advertisements placed by the trustee. Thus not everyone on the list is necessarily a victim since the list includes anyone who might have an interest in the bankruptcy case.

Click the link below for the complete list.

http://media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/Sections/News_And_Analysis/_News/__EDIT%20Singapore/madoffryanruggiero1.pdf

If William Shakespeare were around today, he might very well be tempted to chronicle "the slings and arrows of Bernie Madoff's outrageous fortune" as we await the Ponzi King's next court hearing.

Absent the commentary of a latter day Bard, however, we spoke yesterday with the noted attorney Gerald B. Lefcourt, a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and of the New York Criminal Bar Association, who has much to say concerning the many complex issues confronting Madoff and his legal team.

Plea bargain v. going to trial:

"He should definitely try to work out something that would make his existence more palatable. Based on information that has come to light, a trial would be pretty much a waste of time."

Light v. heavy sentence:

"I am sure that considering the scope of his fraud, the government will ask for a gigantic sentence. Many judges would be sympathetic to that. On the other hand, he may come across a judge who thinks that if he has cooperated as best he could, and identified as many assets as possible, that some consideration should be given to him. But since he's seventy years old, any sentence could be a life sentence."

How soon after the ink is dry on a plea agreement would Bernie Madoff  be sent to prison:

"Once he has pled guilty there is very little reason for him to remain out. Normally, if it's a very serious case and there is no purpose between plea and sentencing to stay out, many judges might remand him at the time of his plea since he is certainly going to jail once he pleads guilty to a fraud of this size, although it is conceivable that there may be reasons for him to stay out: he may be cooperating or he may be obtaining assets or turning over other material as part of some agreement with the government.

"The government itself wanted him out when this case first started because they consented to the bail package. It was only later, and it's not clear whether the reasons are his mailing of jewelry or the public hue and cry, that they then changed their minds midstream. At the time of the plea, unless there is something going on that he's needed for, they would be very forceful in arguing that he should be remanded."

The alternative of shooting the dice by going to trial and prolonging all the comforts of home for a time:

"That's a conceivable way of looking at it if he's thinking: There's no way I'll ever see the light of day once I plead guilty, so I might as well refuse to plead guilty and have them set a trial date, and make them select a jury, even though it's only a few more months."

The possibility of an insanity plea:

"There is insanity as we might talk about it in laymen's terms, and there is insanity under the law. I could very well see this guy as being crazy the way we talk about insanity as laypeople. But under the law there are stringent standards, and considering the fact that he was able to so meticulously carry out all of these events over so many years and sit in meetings and be perfectly rational in inducing people to part with millions of dollars, it is just inconceivable to think that he could ever meet the standards of insanity under the law, which is, essentially, not knowing what you are doing."