Madoff list: Celebs, athletes and ordinary people

NEW YORK - The scope of Bernard Madoff's alleged fraud is detailed in 162 pages of minuscule type — a list of the disgraced money manager's once-trusting customers, including a bevy of the rich, famous and powerful.

In between, though, are all the others — the names you've never heard. A retired teacher from the San Francisco Bay area. An emergency room doctor in Oregon. A carpenter from upstate New York. Thousands of mostly ordinary people, until now all but overlooked. Their voices reveal the true toll of Madoff's scheme, one that cannot be measured in dollars alone.

To do so, would overlook the anger, despair and silent shame they share.

"My wife says, 'keep yourself busy and get your mind off it,'" said Alan English, a Florida business owner whose life savings were lost to Madoff. "But how can I take my mind off something that has destroyed my whole life?"

English is one of thousands of Madoff customers whose names were made public late Wednesday in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, and serves as testament to the sweeping nature of Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud.

The list includes scores of famous names, from Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, to World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein to actor John Malkovich and CNN host Larry King.

But on a list with 13,000 entries, they are the exceptions. Run a finger down the list and what's most noteworthy is that so many of the names are people who might be just another neighbor or co-worker or friend.

They are people like Dr. Bonnie Sidoff, 56, an emergency room physician in West Linn, Ore. Years ago, her mother told her if she ever wanted to invest some money, she couldn't do much better than Bernie Madoff. Evelyn Rosen had never met Madoff personally, but in her circle of Florida country club friends, having money with the New Yorker was "considered an honor," Sidoff said Thursday.

So when Rosen died in April 2006 at the age of 80, her daughter left the $100,000 or so in her account with Madoff. Not only that, she took the money her mother left her in other accounts and invested that with Madoff.

In December, the day before the Madoff scandal broke, Sidoff and her husband Mike, both emergency room doctors, wired another $150,000 for Madoff to invest. The day after they learned the devastating news, the couple received a letter confirming the deposit.

"That was pretty heartbreaking," Sidoff said.

An analysis of the list shows that the people come from 44 states and at least 40 countries, from the Cayman Islands to Kenya to Switzerland. Florida has nearly 2,200 entries.

Not everyone on the list was a Madoff victim; some ended up in the document simply because they are lawyers or accountants whose clients are connected to Madoff, for example. Some had no dealings with Madoff whatsoever. But the sheer volume of the list demonstrates the reach of Madoff's world.

Bob Finkin, a lawyer from Queens, is one of the victims.

Finkin, who is 80, said he lost $350,000 of his own money with Madoff. But his family's foundation lost nearly $2.5 million, money that would've been used to support drug rehabilitation and mental health programs.

As a young lawyer, Finkin said he was introduced to Madoff in 1966 by a wealthy friend at a gathering at a local hospital.

Finkin's investment started out with $10,000, but then over the years "it grew, grew, grew." Seeing his personal investment's success, Finkin decided to entrust the family foundation to Madoff. As recently as August, he gave Madoff an additional $500,000 in foundation money to invest.

"And along the way, we felt comfortable with him," he said. "I laugh at it."

English, 65, never met Madoff personally, but everyone he knew on Wall Street vouched for the investor. So when a business partner arranged for him to invest with Madoff's firm, English was thrilled.

The son of a shoe salesman, who grew up in a one-roomed apartment in Brooklyn, English had carved out a comfortable middle-class life after building a successful personnel agency on Wall Street. He and his wife, Rita, raised two daughters on Long Island.

It was Madoff money that helped English realize a dream of selling his business and moving to Pembroke Pines, Fla., where he bought his dream home and started a small woman's clothing business.

It was Madoff money that made him feel secure about retiring after back pain and an arm injury meant English could no longer work.

Now, after nearly two decades of investing with Madoff, English says he has lost everything. His last statement said he had $1.25 million. "Phantom money," he snorts, angry as much at the regulators as Madoff himself. English has filed claims and is working with an Internet support group to hire a lawyer, but he holds out little hope of ever getting much money back.

"I feel like my whole life has fallen apart," he said. "Forty years of working and saving all that money, and there's nothing there."

Nearly two months after Madoff's scheme collapsed, investors said they are still struggling to come to terms with what has happened.

Teri Ryan, a retired middle school teacher from the San Francisco Bay area, and her late husband had more than $6 million invested with Madoff. Ryan's loss has left her "incredibly embarrassed" and in a "state of disbelief" about having to start over, her attorney, Nancy Fineman said Thursday.

Lynn Lazarus Serper, an author and brain injury therapist from Brookline, Mass., said she'd invested with Madoff since the early 1990s on the advice of a friend, and considered herself lucky to have invested with such a successful company.

The revelations of a scam has left her outraged, she said.

"I still am in a state of shock," Serper said. "I'm outraged that this was allowed to continue over these many years ... I think I'm more angry at the system that allowed this to happen."

Some distraught investors said the losses with Madoff have forced tough choices.

Ryan, who is 65, can no longer afford retirement and is looking for work as a substitute teacher.

An Oceanside, N.Y., couple in their mid-seventies who lost $500,000 said they're getting by entirely on social security, foregoing the evenings at the symphony and dinners out that were a highlight of retirement. A 64-year-old carpenter from New York says he is "crippled financially."

Some investors said having their names bared in the court documents was one more blow in what has been an emotionally devastating experience.

In Danbury, Conn., Patricia Brown recalls that she drew on the interest from her Madoff investments to put her two children through college. Now, with the $800,000 she entrusted him apparently gone, she will probably have to abandon retirement and return to work at 62. But the toll is greatly amplified because her mother, brother and sister-in-law also entrusted their money with Madoff.

Her mother was forced to give up her house and car and move in with her. Her sister-in-law has had to go back to work full-time. Her brother, who is retired, has a new part-time job.

"We're all just trying to survive," Brown said.

She is now looking at what she can do next, as she realizes the extent of what she's lost.

"We're not among the rich and famous; I'm sure they lost a lot more than us. But it was everybody's life savings. It's especially hard when you are at the age when you can't earn it back — you just don't have those years. It cost hardworking people our lives."

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Associated Press writers Samantha Bomkamp, Allen G. Breed, Sharon Cohen, Helen O'Neill and Jordan Robertson contributed to this story.

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