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Inmate Accuses Madoff of Defrauding Prisoners

A federal prison inmate in South Carolina has filed a motion seeking to intervene in a Securities Investor Protection Corporation lawsuit against Bernie Madoff. He accuses Madoff of promising inmates a 16.9% return on their investments, but instead sending their money to Switzerland.

Even stranger, the inmate claims he had an intimate relationship with Madoff and that they met at Harmony.com.

That claim, of course, raises a bit of a flag, since eHarmony has refused until this year to match same-sex couples.

But never mind that little fact. Mr. Riches says in his motion that Mr. Madoff was attracted to his identity theft skills and that he schooled the former Nasdaq chairman on how to commit fraud for two years. Mr. Riches also claims he has “documents, photos, exhibits and phone transcripts” that contain “juicy details” about Mr. Madoff, now 70, that he wants to share with the court.

The motion was denied by a bankruptcy judge who told the inmate to file a claim in bankruptcy court like everyone else. He also noted that this particular inmate has filed over 1,000 lawsuits in the past 3 years, mostly against famous people.

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    Can't stand Madoff, but (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by jerry on Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 09:16:38 AM EST
    I have no idea why you would reprint this.

    had to delete a comment with (none / 0) (#1)
    by Jeralyn on Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 08:39:25 PM EST
    a long url. Please put urls in html format so they don't skew the site. Use the link button at the top of the comment box or get a short link at tinyurl.com. Thanks.

    Weird (none / 0) (#2)
    by joanneleon on Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 10:05:33 PM EST
    It almost sounds like the guy filed this just so that he could smear Madoff.  But who knows?  

    It reminds me of a case where, during a divorce, one spouse added complete fiction to the accusations against the other spouse, and of course, it became part of the record.  From what I'm told, the judge told the lawyer and accusing spouse that none of the charges would stand without some kind of proof, and that was the end of it.  Yet, the charges stayed there in the record.

    Typical prisoner lawsuit (none / 0) (#3)
    by daryl herbert on Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 10:17:57 PM EST
    Even if 90% of prisoners will never file a bogus complaint, most never file any.

    So guys like this drive the average.

    He does it just to get attention and waste society's scarce resources--shame you would give it to him.

    Maybe I'm ignorant (none / 0) (#4)
    by jbindc on Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 08:09:40 AM EST
    But where are all these prisoners getting enough money to invest with someone as big as Madoff?  Are these all millionaires in this particular prison?

    But frankly, if the prisoner (in prison for wire fraud) really got cheated, then I laugh and have no sympathy for him.  Karma, baby.

    I was on a big prison rights suit (none / 0) (#6)
    by Joelarama on Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 01:11:39 PM EST
    in Georgia with individual plaintiffs and a class action.

    The number of prisoners we had filing to be let into the case as individual plaintiffs was huge -- and the work to investigate each of them (which I at first set out to do, as I was relatively inexperienced in prison litigatoin) would have been overwhelming.