Do you remember the biggest fraudster in USA history - Madoff. He was the creator of the biggest "ponzi" scheme in history. S o many were taken for a ride - from the famous to his family members to his friends, to charity organizations and etc. He lived a life of one huge lie, lived as a Billionaire, with physical things that only a billionaire could buy ..... I mean he was nutty in ways that you would have thought those close to him would have questioned, like a dozen or more "Rolex" watches, you'd think okay maybe two, but that many ..... somethings got to be a little wacky here. There were about 200 pairs of shoes he had neatly lined up, apparently a freak for having things just so. But I suppose there are other billionaires in the world with all kinds of houses, apartments, and grown-up people toys (boats, planes, and I guess watches). So it would seem many were not looking twice at his physical idiosyncrasy ways like all those Rolex watches.
It was perhaps not surprising that his two sons were thought by many to surely have known what their father was up to, in to, and were themselves part of it all.
ABC 20/20 tonight had an interview with the wife of Madoff's son Mark. SHE'S WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT IT ALL....out right now.
The sons were innocent....they truly had no idea what their Father was into. The sons were running their own business a few stories above Madoff. And he would never tell them about his business, though Mark asked him to tell them. He would just say, "You run your business and I'll run mine."
When 2008 came and Bernie Madoff knew it was all up, over, and his fraud would be soon out in the open, he just up front told his sons he's been doing a con job on everyone - a fraud. The one son fell to his knees crying, and Mark the other sons helped him up and said they better go. The sons immediately turned in their Father...oh yes Madoff wanted them to keep silent for a week about it all, I guess so he could plan a way of escape or something.
Stephanie, Mark's wife of 6 years (and both very much in love with each other), and though living very well from Mark's business, were not the spoilt physical leeches that obviously Bernie Madoff was.
Stephanie says her husband was shattered, more than shattered, broken, and disgusted as disgusted could be at his Dad for destroying so many lives including his and his wife's life, and also their two children, for the law suits etc, that would come upon them.
During the interview Stephanie broken down crying a number of times. Mark grew a beard, wore dark glasses, just tried to look different, they were planning to change their last name. Mark came out from under it all and was back to a more normal self, then came the trial of Madoff two year later, and the confession. Then came the hounding by reporter, people, and law suits. Stephanie went with their daughter about 5 years old to Disney. Mark stayed home with their little son. Stephanie's Mom got the phone call, Stephanie hears her say, "Oh my God, oh my God." Stephanie asks what is wrong, "He's gone Stephanie, Mark is gone, he's dead."
Mark had sent 2 emails to Stephanie: 1) Help, send ....(so and so) over to look after our son; 2) I love you ..... the rest was blank.
The friend went over to the apartment and found Mark hanging from a beam - he had hung himself.
Stephanie has written a book. She wants the world to know the truth, that both her and Mark were 100 percent innocent on anything Bernie Madoff was doing. They had not the slightest inkling as to what this ponzi guy was up to. Mark just could not take it, he was so devastated by what his Father had been doing for decades and all the lives financially ruined, he was so broken he decided he could not live with it any more.
What a sad sad story....Stephanie is raising her two small children and trying to put her life back together, she says the children are doing fine. When asked what she would tell Madoff to his face, she said, "I would tell him I blame him fully for the death of his son and I would spit in his face."
It is a heartbreaking story, I'm sure the book will reveal the joys her and Mark had for 6 years together, and the horrible and terrible pain and mental and emotional suffering they went through, especially as people thought they must have been in on all that Bernie Madoff was doing, which they were not.
So it will be the ups - the highs, and the downs, and showing the road to Stephanie's and the children's recovering.
I'm sure it will clarify things, give the truth, and we'll shed some tears with her, but also find inspiration, that life must go on, and can go on in a good direction even after being hit in the jut with dozens of kicks.
Jesus said that before He returned "evil will abound and the love of many will wax cold" (Matthew 24). Bernie Madoff may have had a certain "outward" love, but it was really ice cold. Somewhere along the line it had become waxed cold.
You need to set in your mind that real love, true love, for God and your fellow mankind will NEVER wax cold......sad to say Jesus said with many it would in the last days, but you need not be in the many. You can have love burning bright. You need to ask each day, "Lord I thank you for another day, for what you provide for me as I serve you and my fellow mankind with truth, honesty, care, concern. Lord help me love you with all my heart, mind, and life, and to love my fellow man as myself. Please help me to use what you've given me to use, my money, my gifts, my talents, my life, to serve others, so they can say at the end of my life, it was such a blessing and pleasure to know me...... and say they sure served people the very best they could with what they had. Lord help me to be as thou would want me to be, so I may hear one day, from the lips of Jesus, 'Come, blessed of my Father, enter into the joy of thy Lord.'"
I guess that's my little sermon for you today folks.
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