Bernard L Madoff

Santa Monica retiree Bob Braslau considers himself a victim of accused fraud mastermind Bernard L. Madoff. But the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, he fears, might consider him a beneficiary. Braslau was among the thousands who lost money when the Madoff fund collapsed amid allegations that it was a $50-billion Ponzi scheme.

Stanley Chais, a Beverly Hills money manager and philanthropist who steered hundreds of millions of dollars into investments overseen by Bernard L. Madoff, has fallen ill, relocated to New York and wants to move lawsuits against him from state court to federal court in Los Angeles. Investors have filed at least three lawsuits against Chais, accusing him of failing to properly safeguard their money and of not disclosing that he was investing with the disgraced New York swindler.

With Bernard L. Madoff sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison, his massive Ponzi scheme is likely to be felt for years as victims struggle to recoup their money, investors treat Wall Street with new suspicion and regulators scramble to crack down on all manner of financial wrongdoing. Closing a chapter in the Madoff melodrama, a federal judge unexpectedly imposed the maximum possible sentence, jolting the legal community and electrifying many of those who had entrusted Madoff with their money.

For years, the investment funds run by Wall Street legend Bernard L. Madoff turned in such consistently strong results that they seemed unbelievable. It turns out that they were, federal authorities say. As details of one of the largest alleged frauds ever to rock Wall Street began trickling out Friday, it became clear that warning signs about Madoff's funds had abounded for years.

Already fuming over a worldwide financial crisis they blame on Wall Street, European banks are alarmed that U.S. investment manager Bernard L. Madoff could have cost them billions more dollars through fraud. Some of the biggest banks in Spain, France and Britain acknowledged Monday that they had significant exposure to funds tied to Madoff. U.S.

Wall Street financier Bernard L. Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme appears to have extended deeply into Southern California's Jewish community, with millions of dollars in losses tallied Monday by charitable organizations, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and a foundation bankrolled by director Steven Spielberg.

"Good news, bad news" probably doesn't begin to describe the day Hollywood screenwriter Eric Roth had last week. Roth was nominated Thursday for a Golden Globe award as screenwriter of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." And that same day, he learned that he lost all his retirement money to Bernard Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme. "I'm the biggest sucker who ever walked the face of the Earth," Roth said Tuesday.

Investors have barely had time to tally their losses from Bernard Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme, but securities attorneys aren't wasting a moment in laying claim to their piece of the scandal. Some lawyers are aggressively prospecting for clients, and a few firms already have taken cases to court -- one less than 24 hours after the revelation of Madoff's alleged wrongdoing. Several more cases were filed Tuesday.

In one of his more melancholy moods, Isaac Newton mused that he could measure the movement of distant celestial bodies but could not gauge the magnitude of human folly. It's a reflection with a certain compelling relevance given the stunning news that one of the country's most respected securities traders, Bernard L. Madoff, allegedly has swindled investors out of at least $50 billion.

The Madoff scandal is shining a new light on what critics deride as years of toothless enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission -- and heightening calls for major changes. Already under fire for its regulatory performance during the financial crisis, the reputation of the federal government's Wall Street watchdog is now in tatters after it failed to stop Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme before it had wiped out as much as $50 billion in investors' money.