Porn scandal rubs salt in the wounds of Madoff victim
While some of the federal regulators charged with protecting investors were surfing porn sites on the Internet, Donald Benjamin and his wife were losing $11 million, he says, to now-jailed swindler Bernard Madoff.
He says it broke his heart - again - to read Friday morning that the inspector general's office of the Securities and Exchange Commission had found more than 30 senior commission officials had been spending hours looking at porn on the Internet - on government computers - while the nation's financial system was nearing a meltdown and Madoff was still bamboozling investors in his phony scheme.
"How do you think someone who lost his life's savings and his wife's life savings feels about it?" Benjamin, who is 77 and lives in Manhasset and Florida, asked rhetorically when telephoned by a reporter. "I no longer believe in the United States government, and I no longer believe there is justice for victims."
He said he recently was forced to sell a White Castle restaurant he owned in Brooklyn - on land he bought in 1957 - to raise money to save his sister-in-law in Raleigh, N.C., another Madoff victim, from having to sell her home. "I hope the whole SEC one day is disbanded because they're useless," he said.
Other Madoff victims contacted yesterday declined to comment.
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
