Madoff with the Money

Chapter 8. The Bagel Baker Becomes a Financial Guru, and the Mob Boys from Rockford Pay a Visit

I've known of Bernie my whole life in a messiah kind of way," states Jonny Lieberbaum. "My family regarded Bernie like as a messiah. He was spoken of as if godlike."

All of those intense and respectful feelings evaporated in anger and hate after Jonny Lieberbaum's mother, Carol Ann Lieberbaum, lost most if not all of the millions she and her late husband, Shelley, had invested through the years in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

Other family victims in Madoff, according to the list made publicly available after Bernie was arrested, included Shelley's brother and sister-in-law, Mike and Cynthia Greenberger Lieberbaum, and her two brothers, John Maccabee, the writer of the New York magazine piece about Bernie, and Robert Greenberger, the former Wall Street Journal reporter. Greenberger's wife, the former Phyllis Eileen Morel, a Brooklyn girl and the first president and CEO of the Society for Women's Health Research, was named one of "The 100 Most Powerful Women" alongside then Senator Hillary Clinton and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006 by Washingtonian magazine. One of their sons and a daughter-in-law had been on the staff of the Boston Globe.

As related earlier, Bernie's lifelong close relationship with Mike and Cynthia Lieberbaum started when they became friends at Far Rockaway High School and graduated together. Mike Lieberbaum also was a student at Hofstra. ...