Tag: earned

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Politics

Bernie Madoff earned $710 in jail after Ponzi fraud conviction

Bernie Madoff earned $710 in prison after Ponzi fraud conviction

Bernie Madoff is leaving federal court in New York on March 10, 2009.

Jin Lee | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Some people might argue that Bernie Madoff was massively overpaid even at just 24 cents an hour to work as a jailer.

Madoff, the late king of the Ponzi scheme who ripped off thousands of people for billions of dollars, earned just $ 710 after working nearly 3,000 hours while in a federal prison in North Carolina for 12 years before dying of kidney failure in April, as newly published records show.

And when he died at the age of 82, Madoff didn’t leave much of his personal belongings: eight AAA batteries, four religious paperback books, a Casio calculator, four packets of popcorn, a packet of ramen soup, a box of filtered fish, and not much more.

Bureau of Prison records, first reported by online publication The City, also show that while Madoff received generally positive reviews for his performance as a carer, at some point a supervisor stated that he was “more closely monitored than most of the others need “and” not “very reliably.”

This was certainly the case when Madoff ran Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in New York, where for decades he led a luxurious lifestyle and satisfied clients with constant investment returns on their portfolios.

These returns turned out to be a deception.

In 2008, federal prosecutors accused Madoff of running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, using money from some investors to distribute alleged profits to others.

Madoff’s sons, Mark and Andrew, had told authorities that he had confessed to them that his business was an outright fraud.

Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 crimes in Manhattan federal court in 2009 and was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Mark Madoff killed himself in 2010 at the age of 46, two years from the day this father was arrested. Andrew Madoff died of lymphoma four years later at the age of 48.

While in custody in Butner, North Carolina, Madoff served as the first vigilante in a section of the detention center dedicated to educational programs. He later asked to be transferred to work in the chapel area, The City noted in its report.

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Last year, Madoff’s attorney revealed in court records that the sociopathic con man was terminally ill with kidney disease when he asked a judge to release Madoff early on compassionate grounds.

Manhattan federal judge Denny Chin dismissed the motion in June 2020, ruling that Madoff had “committed one of the most egregious financial times of all time” and that “many people are still suffering from it.”

About 500 victims wrote to oppose Madoff’s release.

One of Madoff’s victims had written to Chin, “I wholeheartedly believe that my husband would be alive today if he did not deal with the stress and emotional distress that the loss of almost all of our money has meant to our family. “

In December, the Justice Department announced that the Madoff Victim Fund had distributed a total of $ 3.2 billion to nearly 37,000 people betrayed by Madoff. This dollar amount represents more than 80% of the total casualty losses.

The fund’s money comes from recovering assets associated with Madoff. The fund predicts that it will ultimately return more than $ 4 billion in total assets.

Categories
Health

How Emergent BioSolutions Earned Earnings However Delivered Disappointing Vaccine Returns

How Emergent BioSolutions Earned Profits But Delivered Disappointing Vaccine Returns

After placing the no-bid contract with Emergent, the Trump administration reverted to traditional contract rules and looked for competitive proposals for additional fillings and packaging, known in the industry as fill-finish work, the documents show. Ology Bioservices, based in Alachua, Fla., Agreed to provide essentially the same services as the Camden and Rockville Emergent plants for three quarters to nearly one third the cost, according to a contract-based calculation.

According to an agreement made in August, Ology would collect state fees of $ 6.83 per vial. By comparison, Emergent’s existing lines would cost between $ 9.03 and $ 18.40 per vial.

A health department spokeswoman said Ology is cheaper in part because it can fill more than 100,000 vials in a single batch, which is five times that of Emergent. This “lowers the price per bottle by spreading the fixed costs over more bottles,” she said in an email.

Even after the launch of Ology, the government continued its higher-cost agreement with Emergent to ensure “additional capacity is available when or when it is needed to fill vaccines or therapeutics,” she said. At the time of the deal, former and current federal officials said the government wanted to secure as much manufacturing capacity as possible before commercial companies buy it out.

Over the years, Emergent has grown by funding the expansion of its manufacturing facilities and the accumulation of product reserves.

In November 2019, the company announced that it would double its sales, including by expanding its contract manufacturing business. A senior vice president, Syed Husain, outlined a “game plan” that would “cross-sell additional services” to existing customers, including the federal government. Six months later, Emergent signed the contract that expanded its existing government contract to include work in its Camden and Rockville locations.

Dr. Robert Kadlec, a former Trump administration official who oversaw the agency that awarded Covid-19 contracts, had previously worked as a consultant for Emergent. Dr. Kadlec has said that he did not negotiate the emergent deal but approved it. Emergent said it negotiated the agreement with professional government officials.

Categories
Business

Belief in pictures must be earned after mistreatment of Blacks and Latinos

Trust in shots needs to be earned after mistreatment of Blacks and Latinos

Dr. Torian Easterling is the First Assistant Commissioner and Chief Equity Officer for the New York Department of Health

There is one essential element to the success of a vaccination program: people’s trust in the vaccine and the institutions that give it. Trust in the Covid-19 vaccine is just as valuable as our vaccine supply. But after decades of racist divestment and medical abuse, the black and Latin American communities have every reason to be skeptical.

A recent CDC vaccine reluctance survey yielded disappointing – if not surprising – results. In September, 56% of black Americans said they would get vaccinated, and by December – after the FDA approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for emergency use – that percentage had dropped to 46%. By comparison, 70% of white Americans responded that they intend to receive the vaccine in December. Another Kaiser Foundation survey found a similar trend among Hispanic Americans that only 42% would like to receive the vaccine.

But more revealing in these polls is exactly why blacks and Latinos aren’t ready to get the shot. The main reasons were side effects concerns, the vaccine being developed too quickly, and many said they don’t trust the government.

It is clear that much remains to be done. To win the trust of New York Black and Latino people we need to be inclusive, reach communities, hear voices, values ​​and opinions. The responsibility cannot lie with the individual. It must be up to institutions and public health officials to treat people with respect so that they have a reason to trust and make informed decisions. Imagine we put our arms around communities and let them know we have them.

In the past few months, I have participated in dozens of listening sessions with ward groups, faith leaders, and local health care providers in black and Latin American churches. We talked about misconceptions and fears about the Covid-19 vaccine and how decades of racism and poor treatment by the medical community have created suspicion.

When comparing the medical experiences of Black, Latino, and White, the contrast is unsettling and begins literally from the moment we are born. As we know, there are persistent and intolerable differences in maternal health outcomes.

Unfortunately, the unequal treatment continues into adulthood. People of color are less likely to receive the same treatment for everything from palliative care to treating chronic diseases. In many large cities, there is also unequal access to quality healthcare and, often, hospital segregation.

In my own conversations with New Yorkers, trust in government and medicine has been an ongoing issue. And while they are painful, they give us the opportunity to move into a place of healing.

Last summer we heard the call for change when hospital stays and deaths in Covid-19 exposed the health impact of racism and the murder of George Floyd exposed structural racism in our country. The movement prompted the health department to declare racism a public health problem and the city to set up the task force on racial inclusion.

Now we are maintaining that commitment as we introduce vaccines to the city. To build confidence in the vaccine, New York City unveiled a share plan rooted in 33 neighborhoods with high Covid-19 case and death rates, and historical inequalities such as disease burden and crowded living conditions.

Our central topic is community-oriented public relations work at the neighborhood level. Townhalls and webinars provide information about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. However, empowering people to make their own decisions needs to be done in small groups with trustworthy voices. That’s why we partner with hundreds of community-based organizations to be trusted ambassadors. We need to meet people where they are – on the phone, at home, online, or door to door – in the languages ​​New Yorkers speak. Communication must – and was – be open, honest and clear.

We also use data to inform our work. We sent a letter to health care providers across the city asking them to collect the race and ethnicity of the Covid-19 vaccine recipient and report it to the citywide vaccination registry. We’re releasing race and ethnicity data on Covid-19 tests and positivity, and we’ve just added postcode-level data.

We want to know who is receiving the vaccine and where there are gaps so we can get the vaccine to the right places. As the vaccine supply grows, we are working with community partners to identify the best locations for people to be vaccinated and to ensure connection with resources and services. The majority of our city vaccination sites are already in the 33 priority neighborhoods, but we are growing and prioritizing communities with longstanding inequalities that need the vaccine the most.

As we move forward with our vaccine rollout, racial justice will remain our most enduring core value. We know that we have to identify racism, take responsibility and do the necessary work to instill trust in everyday people for our vaccination strategy to be successful.