Madoff took fall for New York’s Richest and most powerful politicians

by Wayne Madsen; March 16, 2009,
A reliable source who is close to both the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s Organized Crime Unit tells WMR that Ponzi scammer Bernard Madoff, who was remanded to prison last week by U.S. Judge Denny Chin, took a "fall" for some of New York’s most powerful and wealthiest politicians who were using Madoff’s private investment scheme as a "front" to assist in a major real estate redevelopment plan for New York that stood, and still stand, to make the conspirators super-rich.
Although the federal prosecutors in the case against Madoff claim the former chairman of NASDAQ and chief of Madoff Investment Securities refused to cooperate in their criminal conspiracy investigation of Madoff, the prosecutors have no intention of expanding the case beyond Madoff and possibly some of his family members.
WMR has been informed by a well-informed New York legal source that Madoff is a second-tier player in a major real estate development plan that used some of the money skimmed off by Madoff’s Ponzi scheme to fund some of the real estate development projects. WMR has been told that another second-tier player in the real estate scheme is none other than Madoff’s trial judge, Chin.
The judge, WMR is told, particularly represents the real estate development interests of Tishman Speyer, the real estate firm that owns the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, and the MetLife Building. Chin has been amply rewarded for his "services" with a luxurious penthouse for him and his wife in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. WMR has also been told that Chin has been responsible for destroying important email evidence that points to the involvement of New York’s top political leadership in the Cornerstones project.
Madoff, another second-tier player in the Cornerstones, also stood to gain financially from the proect as a major investor in real estate in his own right.
A branch of the Tishman family, Tishman Construction Company, specializes in the building and operation of entertainment complexes, including casinos projects in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Last July, Tishman and Revel Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City executives were killed in a plane crash in Owatonna, Minnesota, 60 miles south of Minneapolis.
Chin and Madoff were linchpins in a major redevelopment scheme for New York called the "Cornerstones." There are four Cornerstone" redevelopment projects planned for Manhattan that will see the building of major entertainment and gambling casino operations in the city with high-speed rail links between them and to other parts of the city. The four "Cornerstones" are the new World Trade Center site surrounding the future Freedom Tower, Grand Central Station/Times Square, Penn Station, and a floating casino complex on the East River near the Brooklyn Bridge.
WMR has been told that Chin is closely allied in the mega-billion dollar real estate development scheme with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who once served on the same southern district of Manhattan federal circuit with Chin. WMR is told that Chin and Mukasey represented the interests of New York’s "Landlord Lobby" and "West Side Lobby" in major cases involving real estate plans for New York City. Chin and Mukasey failed to recuse themselves from cases in which they had clear conflicts-of-interest, WMR was informed. Mukasey’s son Marc, an attorney for the law firm Bracewell Giuliani, is representing Frank DiPasquale, Madoff’s chief financial officer. Mukasey and Giuliani are also close friends and business associates and both worked for the same law firm Patterson Belknap.
Although the Cornerstones projects are supported by New York interests who represent the middle class and poor, mainly due to the fact that it will create mixed-income housing units and provide money for public education and the city’s increasingly deteriorating public schools, critics point out that the project has been stalled because major players who used Madoff to launder money in New York and abroad for the entertainment and casino operations skimmed some of the proceeds for themselves and have essentially stalled the project. Critics also point out that the planned Freedom Tower complex at the old World Trade Center site has been delayed for seven years due to money, in addition to basic construction materials like concrete and steel, have been siphoned off for other more immediate construction projects.

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1235

wonder why no media mention?