Goldman Sachs Charged With Hiring Prostitute For Middle Eastern Client

Goldman Sachs executive Youssef Kabbaj paid for Haitem Zarti to fly business class to Dubai, put him up at a five-star hotel and paid £425 for a night with two women, to impress his brother Mustafa (right, next to Saif al Islam, General Gaddafi's son).

[From article]

The prostitute who was allegedly hired by a Goldman Sachs banker to sleep with a Middle Eastern client has been identified as a 25-year-old Russian who earns £500,000 a year.
The hooker, known only as Michella, is said to have been booked by Goldman Sachs executive Youssef Kabbaj in a bid to impress a Libyan investor before securing a deal.
An advert for her online reads: 'I have sexy shapes and great appetite for naughty games.'
She featured in a High Court case this week where the Libyan investment Authority is claiming £846million from Goldman Sachs after a series of disastrous trades made in 2008.
It claims Goldman abused a relationship of trust and took advantage of 'naïve and vulnerable' funds officials to persuade them to invest.
It was alleged in court that Mr Kabbaj paid for his contact Haitem Zarti to fly business class to Dubai, put him up at a five-star hotel and paid £425 for a night with two women.
He was under pressure to impress Mr Zarti's older brother Mustafa, a senior official with the Gaddafi-era Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the High Court heard.
One of those women was named as Michella, and there is only one sex worker by that name in Dubai at the time, according to the Sun.
She charges the same rates as were quoted in court and advertises herself as 'an appealing young lady.'

The hooker, known only as Michella, is said to have been booked by Goldman Sachs executive Youssef Kabbaj in a bid to impress a Libyan investor before securing a deal.

An online advert on an escort website read: 'I am Michella, very appealing young lady.
'I am often complimented I am very beautiful with angelic smile.
'I have amazing refined body with sexy shapes.
'I am tender, very passionate and I am, guilty of having great appetite for naughty games.
'I love romantic and sensual dates, unforgettable moments, hours full of passion where all fantasies become real.'
Last night Michella was approached by a reporter for the Sun who showed her a pictured of Mr Kabbaj.
She said: 'Even if we met I don’t remember what happened eight years ago.
'I have five clients every day so you can count how many it is for eight years.'
In a statement earlier this week Mr Kabbaj said: 'Goldman Sachs or myself never paid for any LIA employee any improper entertainment.
'At the time of the event, I was one out of 5,000 vice-presidents of the firm.
'All my expenses relating to LIA have been reimbursed and signed off by at least two Goldman Sachs partners.
'I am under a strong confidentiality agreement but I expect Goldman Sachs to correct the facts and protect my reputation.'
Goldman Sachs denies wrongdoing. The case continues.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3648934/The-500-000-year-hooker-hired-Goldman-Sachs-banker-sleep-Middle-Eastern-client.html

Revealed: The £500,000-a-year hooker who 'was hired by a Goldman Sachs banker to sleep with a Middle Eastern client'
Russian Michella, 25, is said to have been booked by Goldman banker
Youssef Kabbaj was allegedly trying to impress a Libyan investor
Advert for her online reads: 'I have a great appetite for naughty games'
By CHARLIE MOORE FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 04:01 EST, 19 June 2016 | UPDATED: 06:05 EST, 19 June 2016

Supreme Court Says Puerto Rico's $72 billion Debt Cannot Be Restructured, U.S. Congress To Act

[From article]
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Puerto Rico can't restructure the debts of its public utilities to avoid a financial crisis, closing off one of the island's last remaining options for avoiding default without help from Congress.
In a 5-2 ruling, the justices said that although the government and people of Puerto Rico should not have to wait for possible congressional action to avert a financial crisis, the Constitution does not allow them to rewrite a statute that Congress enacted in 1984.
While states can allow municipalities to seek such debt relief, the lower court said, Congress had not given Puerto Rico that right.
“The plain text of the Bankruptcy Code begin and ends our analysis,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. “Resolving whether Puerto Rico is a ‘state’ for purposes of the pre-emption provisions begins ‘with the language of the statute itself,’ and that ‘is also where the inquiry should end’ for ‘the statute’s language is plain.’ ”
Puerto Rico had long been included as a state under the bankruptcy code, but Congress amended that definition in 1984 to exclude the territory.
The island has more than $72 billion in outstanding debt, with public utilities accounting for $20 billion of the total. Seeking to alleviate that burden, Puerto Rico enacted legislation in 2014 that would have provided the island's electric and water utilities an alternative way to restructure their debts.
Investors filed a legal challenge to that measure, citing the 1984 law. The Supreme Court on Monday affirmed a lower court ruling that found the utilities cannot restructure the debt under federal bankruptcy rules.
Financial reform advocates said they hope the court's decision will motivate Congress to finish a bill addressing Puerto Rico's debt before the island territory defaults on a $2 billion payment on July 1.
[. . .]



"The Puerto Rican people are our fellow Americans. They pay our taxes. They fight in our wars," Ryan said. "We cannot allow this to happen."
[. . .]
“There is no plan B for Puerto Rico right now,” LeCompte said. “There’s only two viable options: the legislation pending and the other is direct negotiations between the creditors and the government of Puerto Rico.”
LeCompte, however, doubts the territory would be able to reach an agreement with its creditors in time.
“We’re not going to see a negotiated solution by July 1,” he said. “That’s just not in the cards.”
Frank Shafroth, director of the Center for State and Local Leadership at George Mason University, argued that Puerto Rico’s Recovery Act would have given the island greater leverage in handling the $72 billion it owes.
“The [Supreme Court] decision, however, leaves Puerto Rico more dependent than ever on Congress to authorize means for the U.S. territory to avoid insolvency,” he said in an email to The Hill. “Puerto Rico and its public agencies face a $2 billion payment due July 1st, after defaulting May 1st on $370 million of Government Development Bank debt.”

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/283249-supreme-court-puerto-rico-cant-restructure-debt

Supreme Court rules Puerto Rico can't restructure debt
By Lydia Wheeler -
06/13/16 10:23 AM EDT

Israeli Job Creation and Innovation

[From article]
EU’s Horizon 2020, the world’s largest public research program with which Israel has been associated since June 2014. This has meant both Israeli cooperation with European researchers and support for individual Israeli researchers.
This relationship is a testimony to the common language of science and intellectual interchange. It is a devastating commentary on the state of universities and professional organizations today, not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere, that so many, even if a minority, of the faculties and members reject this basic academic principle of free exchange of ideas. It is shameful and disgraceful that groups, such as the American Studies Association in 2013, the American Anthropological Association in 2014, and the American Historical Association in 2016, have passed or have taken seriously resolutions calling for boycott of academic institutions in Israel or making false allegations about the Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians in the field of education.
[. . .]



amid the turmoil in the Muslim world in the Middle East, Israel’s economy, according to Bloomberg News, continues to grow and is expected to be one of the fastest growing among developed countries? Certainly the EU is aware that Israel is prominent in the high tech field with innovative companies involved in cybersecurity, medical technology, information, and defense technology.
[. . .]
Chinese businessmen are not only investing heavily in Israeli technological companies, but also every year rapidly increasing that investment. Major companies such as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing and Bosch are establishing research and development centers in Israel.
[. . .]



Scientific progress and intellectual advancement depend on truth. They are hindered by the lies and deceptions perpetrated by Palestinian organizations and supporters. The supposedly moderate Palestinian group Fatah disseminates the information that Israel steals and harvests the body parts and organs of dead Palestinian terrorists and sells them before giving the bodies to the Palestinian Authority.
The tragedy is that absurdities of this kind are not uttered by ignorant Palestinians and their friends but by officials such as Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, in a letter to UN President Ben Ki-moon on November 5, 2015.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/israel_innovation_and_development.html

January 10, 2016
Israel: Innovation and Development
By Michael Curtis

BioTech Firms Enthusiastic About Gene Editing Potential To Cure Disease

This announcement is exciting and inspiring. Without guidelines, what prevents use of gene editing on persons, diagnosed as having a disease, which may change brain functions? Psychiatry has a benevolent image, which allows corrupt doctors working for politicians or businessmen to designate a law abiding person insane and taking his freedom, forcing drugs on him. What barrier is there to prevent abuses using gene editing? Has technology outrun human understanding and morality? It is now two or three generations ahead of the law, which is useless controlling technological abuses available now to criminals and corrupt officials. The evolved politicians remain focused on getting re-elected and not offending anyone. 


Editing the brain

[From article]
The research being done at the Stanford School of Medicine, led by Dr. Matthew Porteus, is part of an accelerating research movement made possible using the new technique to try to cure genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and muscular dystrophy. These labs are steadily advancing through cell-based and animal trials, as fledgling biotech companies raise large sums of money needed to bring the therapies to market.
"Now, with lots of people -- hundreds or thousands of labs -- working with CRISPR, this means the possibility of actually finding a way to cure patients of disease increases dramatically," said Porteus, an associate professor of pediatrics and a pioneer in gene editing.
Using the campus's first-ever cell manufacturing plant, to be completed this spring, the Stanford team aims to start human trials in 2018. The researchers are targeting two severe blood diseases -- sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia -- and several diseases that ravage the immune system.
[. . .]



CRISPR has been in the crosshairs of controversy because of its profound potential to rearrange the basic building blocks of life. In December, experts gathered in Washington, D.C., to urge limits to its use in creating dangerous new organisms or "designer babies."
[. . .]
CRISPR -- which stands for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats," or clusters of brief DNA sequences that read similarly forward and backward -- is the game changer. Only 3 years old, it works like the search-and-replace function of a computer.
A Palo Alto native who was educated at Harvard and Stanford, Porteus, 51, has spent his lifetime watching helplessly as patients declined from blood and immune system diseases such as sickle cell anemia, beta thalassemia and severe combined immunodeficiency disease.
These are very different diseases, he said. But they have this in common: All are caused by a single mutation in a single gene of a single cell type.
More than 10,000 human diseases are caused by a single gene defect, according to Dr. Maria Grazia Roncarolo, co-director of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
[. . .]


Snoop, snoop.

In November, the Cambridge, Mass., biotech startup Editas Medicine, co-founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Dr. Feng Zhang, announced that it planned to test a CRISPR-based gene therapy technique in hopes of curing a rare form of blindness by fixing a gene that controls the eye's photoreceptor cells. It has raised $120 million from investors, including Bill Gates and Google Ventures, on top of $43 million raised in 2013.
In December, the biotech firm CRISPR Therapeutics of Cambridge received an eye-popping $335 million investment from German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG to form a joint venture that will research CRISPR-based treatments.
More sobering are the challenges posed by many of the world's more common diseases, such as autism, diabetes, heart disease or cancer, which involve multiple genes. And diseases that involve hard-to-reach tissues, such as Alzheimer's, are also daunting.

https://www.arcamax.com/currentnews/newsheadlines/s-1783024

JANUARY 10, 2016 12:00 AM
Researchers bring gene editing to patients with deadly diseases
BY LISA M. KRIEGER
San Jose Mercury News

MIT Dean and Son To Serve Prison Time For Bernie Madoff Scam

Gabriel Bitran, 70

[From article]

A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology associate dean and his son have been sentenced to prison for a hedge fund scam that cost investors over $140 million.



Federal prosecutors say 70-year-old Gabriel Bitran and 40-year-old Marco Bitran were sentenced Monday to 45 months in prison and over $11 million in restitution.


MIT Dome

The two pleaded guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and obstruction of justice last year in connection with their hedge fund businesses, GMB Capital Management and GMB Capital Partners.
Prosecutors say the men claimed they could produce annual returns of 16 to 23 percent based on the elder Bitran's investment theories.


Bernie Madoff

But authorities say some of the $500 million invested with them was put into Bernard Madoff-connected funds.

http://www.wcvb.com/news/former-mit-dean-son-to-serve-prison-time-for-hedge-fund-scam/37001724

Former MIT dean, son to serve prison time for hedge fund scam
Gabriel Bitran, 70, and Marco Bitran, 40, sentenced Monday to 45 months in prison
UPDATED 9:36 PM EST Dec 16, 2015

Ex Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick and Pals, Traveled Well Using Secret Trust Fund and State Credit Cards

Former Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick

[From article]
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and his wife put taxpayers on the hook for nearly $17,000 in airfare on a single trade mission to Israel, part of an often lavish worldwide tour funded by a tucked-away trust the Patrick administration never revealed to the public, new records obtained by the Herald reveal.
State records tracking the trade mission costs also showed Deval and Diane Patrick took a three-day trip to Colombia in 2013 on the taxpayer dime, ringing up a $8,342 bill for flights that far exceeded what other state officials paid.
Patrick’s airfare on other overseas junkets sometimes tripled that of his traveling contingent, such as a round-trip flight to Ireland reported in state records as costing $5,751. The former governor also racked up a $2,400 tab for a three-day stay at the five-star Merrion Hotel, which bills itself as the most “luxurious” hotel in the city, according to records.
Patrick saved the most expensive flight bill for his last trade mission — $12,356 for just a five-day trade mission to France, Denmark and England, according to records compiled by the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, which oversaw the travel trust fund.
The records also list a one-way flight from Hong Kong to Singapore under Patrick’s name costing a hefty $1,640.
One of Patrick’s traveling companions on several trips was Richard Davey, former Department of Transportation chief and current CEO of the Boston 2024 Olympic bid.
[. . .]
The former governor’s 10 international trade missions have come under new scrutiny by government watchdogs and lawmakers since the Herald first reported that the Patrick administration funneled $27 million from state quasi-public government agencies into trust funds kept separate from budgetary constraints and hidden from public scrutiny.
The Herald first reported that one of the trusts, funded by Massport and the Mass Tech Collaborative, paid for the $1.4 million trade mission costs from 2009 to 2014.
A former Patrick administration aide, Alec Loftus, said the trips were well worth the cost, citing new international flights that the former governor pushed for in the countries he visited.
[. . .]
The $21,141 hotel bill for the Colombia trip was simply charged to a “state credit card,” according to records.
But it’s clear that the former governor and his aides traveled in style. In Tel Aviv, Patrick bedded down at the InterContinental and was charged $1,005, while the room for Richard Elam, the former executive director of the international trade office, cost $1,550, according to records.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/joe_battenfeld/2015/07/battenfeld_deval_patrick_was_flying_high_on_taxpayers

Battenfeld: Deval Patrick was flying high on taxpayers’ dime
Thursday, July 16, 2015
By: Joe Battenfeld
Boston Herald

Wife Of Deceased Shopping Network Businessman, Sues Investment Counselor For Elder Exploitation

Roy Speer, Founder Home Shopping Network

[From article]
The widow of Roy Speer, who helped start the TV shopping network, claims that Ami Forte and at least one other member of her investment team made 12,000 unauthorized trades and pocketed $40 million in fees during the last five years of Speer’s life — much of that time Speer spent in diapers, bound to a wheelchair, and in a “significant diminished mental capacity,” according to the widow’s lawyers.
The accusations have sent shock waves through Morgan Stanley, which appeared to have taken down Forte’s Morgan Stanley adviser website less than an hour after being contacted by The Post.
[. . .]


Ami Forte, 57, Investment Counselor

But Forte, 57, also had a “a close, intimate relationship” with Speer, and those allegedly unauthorized trades violated Florida’s Elder Exploitation Statute and Florida’s Investor Protection Act, according to a statement from Guy M. Burns, a lawyer for Speer’s widow Lynnda. Business Insider first reported the length of the affair.
[. . .]
Jim Wiggins, a Morgan Stanley spokesman said “We’re saying that that’s a bunch of bulls–t.”

http://nypost.com/2015/05/21/morgan-stanley-adviser-slept-with-client-churned-his-account-widows-lawyers/

‘Morgan Stanley adviser slept with my husband, milked account for fees’
By Kevin Dugan
New York Post
May 21, 2015 | 6:02pm

Cambridge, MA Architect Laments Permit Process For Building Housing

MIT Dormitory, Cambridge, MA

Mr. Boyes-Watson laments difficulty with permit process for new housing. Is it the need to get permits at all, that is a problem, or only some of the process? He does not explain. He does not suggest that any part of the process is corrupt, or can be ignored with due consideration. He does not mention why developers want to build in Cambridge with all of the problems getting permits. Do the high prices of real estate have anything to do with it? Is building in Cambridge a good investment? Is blaming "we in the community" for "loading up housing construction with more and more obligations and fighting each project that is proposed" misguided blame? How much influence do "we in the community" have over decisions by the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals? 

 
Are official requirements too high for low income housing? Shoddy construction, no heat and hot water would lower costs and allow more poor people to live in the city. Allowing flop houses for single room occupancy would get rid of, or at least mitigate the homeless problem. Standards are too high. Look at places like the Sudan, Jordanian and Syrian refugee camps, Gaza, asylum seekers in Italy, for low cost housing of millions who are refugees. The same standards could be used in Cambridge to increase housing and to reduce the homeless problem. Look at the large tent Harvard University erected on city owned land on the overpass near the Fire Department headquarters, which Harvard calls Science Plaza. A great place for low cost housing near a major transit hub. 20 stories of low income housing would go well there. Then there is Cambridge Common where a fifty story building could easily be built, even closer to major transportation and shopping.

[From article]

I can categorically state that it is hard, very hard, to obtain permits to build housing. In my opinion is far too hard, in fact so hard that despite the strong desire of developers to invest in housing in the city not enough new housing is being permitted and built here. This throttling of new housing supply means that well-to-do, moderate-income and low-income folks are all competing for what is a too limited, too static resource.
[. . .]
This is a problem of not permitting enough housing, period. Every unit is very expensive to get permitted and built, so the new housing is, inevitably expensive.
[. . .]
It is disingenuous to suggest we are powerless to slow the rise of housing costs in Cambridge. Those who have control can and should address the rise in housing costs by permitting more housing to be built. We in the community cannot behave like Marie Antoinette and bemoan rising housing costs while loading up housing construction with more and more obligations and fighting each project that is proposed. It is hypocrisy.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20150505/NEWS/150508332

Guest column: Permit more housing in Cambridge to slow rising costs
By Mark Boyes-Watson
Posted May. 5, 2015 at 10:49 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Hedge Fund Manager Who Lost $100 million, "I'm Sorry."

Photo: Getty Images

[From article]
Owen Li is the founder of hedge fund Canarsie Capital, which grew to some $100 million.
His job got a lot less complicated after he lost all but $200,000 of it.
But Li did send investors a letter saying he was “truly sorry” for acting “overzealously,” according to CNBC.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/21/hedgie-who-lost-100m-tells-investors-hes-sorry/

Hedgie who lost $100M tells investors he‘s ‘sorry’
By New York Post Staff Report
January 21, 2015 | 10:49pm

World's Super Rich Own $3 trillion in Homes

Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani (C) and wife Nita Ambani (R) with cricketer Piyush Chawla (L) on April 3, 2011. The Ambanis live in one of the most lavish urban residences in the world: a 27-story, 400,000 square foot home in Mumbai.
[From article]
In fact, those with inherited wealth hold 17% of their net worth in luxury residential real estate, compared with just under 9% for self-made multi-millionaires. Some $16 trillion of global wealth will be transferred over the next three decades, mostly to family members, according to a separate survey released last month by Wealth-X found.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-worlds-superrich-now-own-3-trillion-in-homes-2015-02-04

The world’s superrich now own $3 trillion in homes
By Quentin Fottrell
Published: Feb 4, 2015 11:48 a.m. ET

Harvard University Invests in California Wine Country Land

[From article]

Harvard University has quietly become one of the biggest grape growers in California’s drought-stricken Paso Robles wine region, securing water well drilling permits to feed its vineyards days before lawmakers banned new pumping, according to records reviewed by Reuters.
The investment, which began as a bet on the grape market, has turned into a smart water play as the wells boosted the value of its land in the up-and-coming wine region of Paso Robles. But it has also raised questions about the role of big investors in agriculture in the midst of a water crisis.
“It remains to be seen what commitment they have to the business of agriculture,” said Susan Harvey of environmental advocacy group North County Watch, which has been following the drought closely. “Is Harvard going to keep pumping ground water, or cut back on returns to protect water quality and quantity?”
Brodiaea Inc, wholly owned by the secretive $36 billion Harvard endowment fund, has spent more than $60 million to purchase about 10,000 acres in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties since 2012, making it one of the top 20 growers in Paso Robles.

[. . .]

The company got permits for seven 800-foot wells on Aug. 21, 2013, six days before a ban on new pumping from the hardest-hit part of the basin took effect, according to previously unreported data from the records.
[. . .]
Harvard’s investment arm, often a pioneer in new asset classes, has faced criticism in the past for some of its timber and energy investments and last year the school signed on to U.N.-backed principles for responsible investment.

http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/01/harvard-buys-water-rights-drought-hit-wine-country

Harvard Buys Up Water Rights in Drought-Hit Wine Country
January 27th, 2015
[NOTE: The Harvard’s endowment fund has also been a key owner of Aurora Dairy, the nation’s largest factory farm producer of “organic milk.”]
Reuters
by Richard Valdmanis

Anti Facebook Social Network, Ello, Gets More Funding

[From article]
Flush with a reported $5.5 million in fresh funding, upstart social network Ello on Thursday legally changed its corporate standing to back a promise to remain ad-free.
[. . .]
Ello's policy states that the practice of collecting and selling personal data and mapping your social connections for profit "is both creepy and unethical."
"Under the guise of offering a 'free' service, users pay a high price in intrusive advertising and lack of privacy."
Based in Vermont, Ello was launched by a group of artists and programmers led by Paul Budnitz, whose previous experience includes designing bicycles and toys.

http://news.yahoo.com/anti-facebook-social-network-gets-fresh-funding-180500117.html

'Anti-Facebook' social network gets fresh funding

October 23, 2014

Former MIT Dean and Harvard Son Guilty in $500M Scam

Son


Gabriel Bitran, father

[From article]
Two Boston-area hedge fund managers were charged Aug. 12 with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and obstruction of justice, according to U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.
Gabriel Bitran, 69, of Newton, a former professor and associate dean of the MIT Sloan School of Business, and his son, Marco Bitran, 39, of Brookline, a Harvard Business School graduate and money manager, were charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and obstruction of justice in connection with their hedge fund businesses, GMB Capital Management and GMB Capital Partners.
Both Gabriel Bitran and Marco Bitran have agreed to plead guilty to the charge.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20140819/NEWS/140816869

Former MIT dean and Harvard son plead guilty in $500M hedge fund scam
Posted Aug. 19, 2014 @ 8:30 am
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

US Ambassador to UN Has Investments With Companies Doing Business in Iran

http://freebeacon.com/susan-rices-enrichment-program/

Susan Rice’s Enrichment Program
U.N. ambassador has investments in companies doing business with Iran,
disclosure forms show
BY: Adam Kredo
November 29, 2012 4:32 pm

Romney's Right: Obama's Pension is Bigger, and With Foreign Investments

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49450057

Pension Envy: Who Has More—Obama or Romney?
Published: Wednesday, 17 Oct 2012 | 2:37 PM ET
By: Jeff Cox
CNBC.com Senior Writer

Incest Report Almost Censored by Hedge Fund Manager

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/10/memo_to_bruce_m.php

MEMO TO BRUCE McMAHAN, DAUGHTER-SEDUCER (UPDATED)
By Tony Ortega,
Village Voice
Thu., Oct. 7 2010 @ 8:00AM

Harvard Denies Political Sale of Israeli Investments

[From article]
"One of divestment's leading opponents at Harvard, Professor Alan Dershowitz, said he had checked with those involved in the decision to sell the shares and was satifisfied it was purely technical. "There will be some irresponsible anti-Israel extremists who will try to portray this economic decision as an attack against Israel," Dershowitz said."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/16/harvard-israeli-shares-sale-boycott

Harvard University has insisted that the sale of shares in Israeli companies is not driven by pro-Palestinian boycott and divestment campaign. Photgraph: Eamonn McCabe/Guardian

Harvard insists Israeli shares sale not driven by boycott

Routine financial decision, says university spokesman, but pro-Palestinians claim Gaza aid conflict behind move

• Ewen MacAskill in Washington
• guardian.co.uk,
• Monday 16 August 2010 21.39 BST

Harvard Sells All Israeli Holdings

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000581912

Harvard University fund sells all Israel holdings

No reason for the sale was mentioned in the report to the SEC.

15 August 10 17:15,
Hillel Koren

Extortion Plot, Boston Investor

[from article]
"a sex-related extortion plot involving a member of a Boston-based investment firm."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/sextortion_plot_bared_NChG6KgEfMBHylTH0g5EBO

Sextortion plot bared
By FREDRIC U. DICKER
New York Post
Last Updated: 11:06 AM, July 8, 2010 Posted: 3:31 AM, July 8, 2010

Poor Little Rich Girl

Poor Little Rich Girl

Alexandra Penney lost her savings after investing with Bernie Madoff. She laments that she will have to ride the subway. Many readers have criticized her lack of awareness for her privileged situation. Is she a CEO of a automobile company, or a investment firm?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-17/the-bag-lady-papers/

The Bag Lady Papers
By Alexandra Penney
Daily Beast Blog
December 17, 2008

* * * * *

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-22/the-bag-lady-papers-contd/


The Bag Lady Papers Cont'd
By Alexandra Penney
Daily Beast
December 22, 2008

* * * * *

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-06/the-bag-ladys-papers-part-iii/

The Bag Lady's Papers, Part III
Daily Beast
by Alexandra Penney

* * * * *

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-04/penney-ruth-madoff/

The Bag Lady Returns
The Daily Beast
by Alexandra Penney
March 4, 2009