Libyans Picked the Wrong New York City Realtor to Try to Dupe

New York has a new hero in the form of 32-year-old realtor Jason Haber, the guy who told Moammar Khadafy’s representatives that he would only find them a lavish Upper East Side New York abode, if they returned the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to Scotland and the prison he was sentenced to for life. (Megrahi was given a hero’s welcome in Libya when released by the Scots on compassionate grounds on August 20th, as part of an alleged oil deal between Britain and Libya.)

But thanks to Haber, when Khadfy arrives here for the UN General Assembly this week, the Libyan leader will have to make do with his more humble country’s mission on 48th Street.

Haber, 32, first received a call from someone in Khadafy’s entourage around Labor Day weekend. Haber had seen the footage of Megrahi’s welcome and, like most Americans was appalled. Still he made no connection at this point between his new client and the news as, strangely, the person claimed to be representing a senior person in the “Dutch” delegation.

This person said the “Dutch’ wanted a triplex on East 78th Street. They wanted it fully furnished with very high-end furniture. Haber explained there were problems with this, since the building in question has only one leasable floor – for $28,000 a month. Another floor is being renovated. And a third has just been leased.

The “Dutch” person on the phone was clearly not used to being told “no”. Haber was rudely told “sort it out, NOW” and the person hung up on him.

More phone calls in this vein continued – until Haber, to his shock, suddenly found himself on the phone to “some person in Washington” at the Libyan embassy.

All sorts of alarm bells rang.

If the Libyans hoped to strong-arm a young ignorant realtor they’d missed their mark. Haber happens to hold a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia; as an undergrad he majored in political science at George Washington University and – oh – he ran for City Council in New York in 2001.

The Libyans gave him the opportunity to play politics. “I will find you a house if you return Al-Megrahi to Scotland,” he told the person on the phone in Washington. The phone went dead.

“At least I consider I did my part for the victims’ families,” Haber told me yesterday, referring to all those who lost their lives on flight Pan Am 103.

Next time perhaps the Libyans will check more carefully into the background of a New York realtor they want to bully.

And I think Haber should run again for political office.

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President Obama, Gordon Brown, Deaths in Afghanistan and More British Deception Over Lockerbie

Earlier today the White House put out a press release noting that President Obama spoke with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and expressed his “disappointment” over the Lockerbie affair. (In case anyone has been under a rock these past few weeks, Brown has been at the center of a controversy over allegations that the Scottish government’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber, the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 57, on compassionate grounds, was linked to Britain’s fears that not releasing him would block oil deals with Libya worth hundreds of billions of dollars).

Brown has consistently denied the charges — only to have members of his own government — and Libya’s — contradict him. As I blogged last week, the British media then reported that the American’s professed outrage on the affair was “disingenuous.”

Well, speaking of disingenuous, Brown did not mention the fact that the American President had expressed his disapproval to the British press, who first learned of the conversation with Brown thanks to a White House briefing.

Further, the London press — both left and right — are reporting of great anger in the British army about Brown’s personal order to send in British commandos for a pre-dawn raid to rescue the British New York Times journalist, Stephen Farrell, who had been captured in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately for Brown, as we know, the rescue did not go smoothly. Both a British paratrooper and Farrell’s interpreter, Sultan Munadi, were killed. Top hostage negotiators have told the London Times they are furious — that they were days away from securing Farrell’s release. Even the Queen, it’s been reported, has recently read Brown the riot act over lack of equipment in Afghanistan.

The Guardian‘s Robert Fox writes:

Was the daring rescue of the New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell a risk too far, for all concerned?

Today we are hearing that the brass in the British Army are angry that valuable special forces troops had to be tasked to rescue the reporter from the Taliban in Kunduz, and that one of their own troopers died in the operation as well as the reporter’s colleague and two Afghans.

Questions are now being raised whether Farrell should have heeded warnings not to go to northern Kunduz. Since he dared to do so, shouldn’t he have been left to reap the consequences? Furthermore, wasn’t Gordon Brown, who took the ultimate decision to send the special forces in, too trigger-happy — in the clear hope that by daring to order such a bold move, he would win much-needed public applause?

Well, if applause is what Gordon Brown wants, he’s not getting it. What he’s got, instead, is blood on his hands and the stink of corruption all around him. One hopes there will be investigative reporting into what happened and why in Afghanistan — and if necessary, accountability for several tragic deaths.

The attempted cover-up over Brown’s less-than-cordial conversation with Obama is just one more signal that the truth is considered an inconvenience for this British premier. When, for the sake of his country, is he going to do the decent thing — and resign?

Follow Vicky Ward on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VickyPJWard

Outrageous Claims of American “Disingenuousness” Over Lockerbie by Britain Must Be Stopped – and Real Facts Found

Yesterday I wrote how Britain’s Sunday Telegraph claimed that Libya paid three doctors to give the Scottish government medical evidence that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 57, the convicted Lockerbie killer had only two or three months to live, when in fact he may have more.

The British Mail on Sunday meanwhile queried America’s outrage over Megrahi’s release as being “disingenuous,” suggesting that of course Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had known all along what was cooking – as had the Department of Justice and President Obama. The paper quoted Whitehall sources as being annoyed at what they perceive as the faux reaction this side of the Atlantic. They thought it was being overdone.

My column endorsed Tory Leader David Cameron’s call for an investigation into what smells like a pyramid of intricate double-dealing, with the defiant British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on its top.

Every day that passes, with Brown refusing to acknowledge that Britain’s interests in Libya’s oil had anything to do with Megrahi’s release – while his aides leak otherwise – the more tenuous his position atop Britain looks.

I got so many emails about this column, some agreeing with the Mail, that the Americans must have known, that I made some calls this morning to the US State department, the US Justice Department and Kenny MacAskill’s office. I found some answers to the allegations thrown out by the British press over the weekend. All of them contradicted what had been reported.

First, to deal with the Mail: According to MacAskill’s parliamentary office, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill on the phone a week before he made his decision about Megrahi on August 20th. MacAskill told Sec. Clinton he had not yet made up his mind what to do. She reiterated to him that the American position was clear. Megrahi must not be released. He had American blood on his hands. Enough to drown in. He must serve his sentence in a Scottish jail.

The two had no further contact until the day of Megrahi’s release., says MacAskill’s office. (It being a holiday here, the State department said they’d have to call back tomorrow to confirm this). MacAskill’s office says on August 20th he called the US embassy in London to say he’d be speaking in ten minutes and what he would say. Secretary Clinton publicly and privately expressed her outrage. So too did President Obama.

MacAskill has written back to Sec. Clinton. So far the contents of that letter are private.

Then to the Telegraph: MacAskill did not receive the reports of the three Libyan doctors stating Megrahi had only three months to live until after he had released Megrahi, says MacAskill’s office, so whatever they said was in vain. “He based his decision on prison services doctors,” says MacAskill’s office. Those letters didn’t even get here on time.”

Finally, to all those who would love to think that the Americans are secretly endorsing the British on this: I refer you to the spokesman in the US Justice Department this morning. “We most certainly did not know what they’d decided,” he said. He told me of a female FBI officer who had “worked very closely with the victims families and still does… when she found out, as MacAskill was speaking, that Megrahi was being released, what she had to say was unprintable.”

So once again, I reiterate what I wrote yesterday. David Cameron must be allowed to hold the swift investigation he wants and retrieve the facts about this whole messy affair. And perhaps Britain’s Mail on Sunday should look for “disingenuousness” within its own country’s government – before pointing fingers over here.

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The Lockerbie Cover-Up Must Be Investigated

In Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, the British reporter, Andrew Alderson claims that Libya paid three doctors to give the Scottish government medical evidence that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 57, the convicted Lockerbie killer had only two or three months to live.

In fact, other doctors, according to Alderson’s report, said in June that Megrahi who suffers from prostate cancer could have nine months – or more – to live. But the three doctors whom Libya allegedly paid had their diagnoses included in the sealed files that Scotland refuses to open to the public, citing “privacy concerns.’

Alderson reports:
“Professor Karol Sikora, one of the examining doctors and the medical director of CancerPartnersUK in London, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The figure of three months was suggested as being helpful [by the Libyans].

[Sikora said] “To start with I said it was impossible to do that [give a three-month life expectancy estimate] but, when I looked at it, it looked as though it could be done – you could actually say that.”

He said that he and a second doctor, a Libyan, had legitimately then estimated Megrahi’s life expectancy as “about three months”. A third doctor would say only that he had a short time to live.”

The piece goes on to acknowledge what we already know – that though Britain’s government refuses to accept responsibility for Megrahi’s release – that Jack Straw, Britain’s Justice Minister has now stated on the record that the British were keenly aware that if Megrahi was not released trade deals worth billions, including a massive one with BP, would be cancelled.

Alderson writes: “British businessmen were also told that plans to open a London office of the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign fund with $136billion (£83billion) to invest, would be jeopardised if Megrahi died in jail.

Britain provided aid for Libya, believed to be the first since the Lockerbie bombing, when the release of Megrahi was being discussed. The £146,000 grant – which senior Tories suspect was a “sweetener” to Libya – was provided by the British Embassy in 2007-08 at the behest of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The piece continues:
There were strong suggestions from Libya yesterday that it felt Britain had played a significant role in pressing for Megrahi’s release.

Abdul Majeed al-Dursi, the regime’s chief spokesman, said: “This is a brave and courageous decision by the British, which shows its understanding of Libyan culture by allowing a sick man to be at home when he dies.

“It showed the relations between Britain and Libya are strong and deep. We in Libya appreciate this and Britain will find it is rewarded.”

All this makes Gordon Brown’s denials of his government’s involvement in Megrahi’s release look deeply troubling. David Cameron, the young British Tory leader who looks likely to sweep Brown out of office by next May has called for an immediate inquiry. Understandably, Cameron wants to get to the bottom of this stinking business as fast as possible.

Meanwhile the US is still reeling from what it sees as outright betrayal from its oldest ally. When I spoke to the Justice Department last week I could almost hear the fury down the phone line. Was it true, I asked, that though the American government knew the Scots were making some sort of decision about moving Megrahi- against strong protests from FBI director Mueller, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder – they were only actually apprised of MacAskill’s final decision ten minutes before he stood up to make the announcement on August 20th, the response I got was terse. “We won’t deny that.”

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D) of Maryland, from where eight people died in the bombing, has written to the British Ambassador to the US, Sir Nigel Sheinwald. She does not mince her words: “How dare any one official in the Scottish government substitute their judgment to award freedom to a murderer for the careful deliberation of their courts…?”

Of course, given the Sunday Telegraph’s reports, and all the other leaks coming out of Whitehall about Britain’s ties to Libyan oil, increasingly it doesn’t look like “one official in the Scottish government” made this decision in isolation. Far from it. “We are going v. hard on this,” someone wrote me from Cameron’s office.

Frankly, David Cameron “can’t go hard” enough in retrieving all the facts. Meanwhile the air hanging over Britain and Scotland stinks of something rotten.

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The Truth About Lockerbie May Now Never Come Out Thanks to Gordon Brown’s Thirst for Libyan Oil

A few weeks ago, in July, US families of the Lockerbie victims gathered in front of a TV screen in both the British embassy in Washington, DC and in the consulate in New York.

They were connected via video conference with Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill, who discussed with them both the options of prisoner transfer for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, and a compassionate release, since the 57-year-old was suffering from prostate cancer.

According to Frank Duggan, a former Chairman of the National Mediation Board who serves as president of the group of American victims of flight Pan Am 103, the conference was civilized and the Americans were direct with MacAskill. “We told him in no uncertain terms we did not want Megrahi transferred back to Libya. MacAskill did mention compassionate release as another option for him, but never in such a way as to make us believe it would actually happen. We view what subsequently happened as nothing short of betrayal,” Duggan tells me.

The shock in the wake of Megrahi’s release, his hero’s welcome in Libya — and now the leak of two letters from Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign minister, insinuating that the British told the Scottish that it was OK to transfer the convicted terrorist, since to keep him blocked a $30 billion oil exploration deal between BP and Libya — have led to proposals to boycott Scotland, a rally in New Jersey protesting Muammar Qaddafi’s plans to camp there (now canceled) during the upcoming UN General Assembly — and now calls in both Britain and the US for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to stop evading the issue and tell the truth about his government’s involvement.

I have communicated with Duggan repeatedly over the weekend. “In our view the British have behaved worse than the Scots,” was his view on receiving the news about Straw’s leaked correspondence. We also discussed the op-ed that appeared in the New York Times under the byline of the Libyan dictator’s son, Saif Al-Islam El-Qaddafi; Qaddafi fils insists there was no “hero’s welcome” for Megrahi on his return to Tripoli, explaining away the hundreds of cheering, flag-waving supporters as members of Megrahi’s “extended family,” and makes the O.J. Simpson-like assertion that the “truth about Lockerbie will come out one day.” Call me skeptical, but when it comes to credible track records, even the British government, who wrote to their buddy Qaddafi asking that Megrahi enter the country quietly, by now must doubt the veracity of what comes out of the mouths and word processors of Libya’s leaders.

Many of those who have protested Megrahi’s innocence have ties to Libya, including having been paid or promised payments by the Libyan government — something that may come as news to all those busy protesting Megrahi’s innocence. In some cases the Megrahi apologists have some hidden reason to blame others — ranging from the Iranians or Americans, who some claim tampered with evidence or bribed witnesses to suit their own purposes.

First among the Megrahi defenders is Dr. Jim Swire, an English doctor who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing. Apparently Swire is a plausible, decent man — but according to people who have known him a long time, he was never pro-America; in fact, quite the reverse. He was upset that Flora was planning to marry an American just before she died, according to sources. This fact, obviously, is not mentioned when he is quoted by the media. Duggan is reluctant to criticize another victim’s family member, but says that Dr. Swire’s mind was made up before Megrahi’s trial.

Then there is Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who worked for Mebo, the company that manufactured the bomb-timer and whose office was next door to Megrahi. He has said repeatedly that Megrahi is innocent and that evidence was suppressed at the trial. He has good reason to say all this. Last year it emerged that Libya offered him $200 million if he could help set Megrahi free. Bollier contributes almost daily to the blog maintained by Professor Robert Black, a Scottish law expert, calling for a new trial.

Then there is Dr. Hans Koechler, one of six UN observers — and the only one to believe that the trial in front of judges, rather than a jury because of all the publicity — was a travesty. Hans Koechler is a teacher at Innsbruck University; he heads something called “the International Progress Movement.” He holds himself out as having some official position with the UN, which appears to give him credibility. His view of the trial, in which Megrahi was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by eight Scottish judges — three trial judges and five appellate judges who came to a unanimous verdict — does not appear to be shared by the other five UN observers.

Finally we come to Professor Robert Black, the Scottish lawyer whose opinion perhaps carries the most weight because he was one of the architects who devised the judge trial instead of a jury trial. He has since said he regrets this because he believes that the verdict was based on weak circumstantial evidence that he believes would not have persuaded a jury. He is frustrated that other judges and lawyers — including those who denied the first appeal — just do not agree with him. He is like a dog with a bone and he will not give it up.

Why has the West been so slow to refute these conspiracy theorists? Duggan reminds me that other than a now-retired FBI agent, Richard Maquise (who is firmly of the opinion that though Megrahi did not act alone, he is guilty) all the other government officials involved in the case are unable to talk about it because they are still working and cannot comment. The strongly-worded letter from FBI Director Robert Mueller to MacAskill, calling MacAskill’s decision a miscarriage of justice, was unprecedented — a fact that seems to have been overlooked.

Ultimately however it is not the job of journalists to prove or disprove Megrahi’s innocence. That is for the courts. An appeal didn’t work once. It’s easy for protesters to say it would work a second time, but Megrahi is running out of time.

By releasing him, the Scots have ensured we will never know the truth. Kenny MacAskill has indeed betrayed the American families. And as for the British government, when are they going to tell the truth? If Gordon Brown continues to hide and to lie, then he is just the same as Muammar Qaddafi, whose oil he covets, apparently at any price. New Jersey should ban him too.

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Why Britain Should Apologize for Releasing the Lockerbie Killer – and Why it Won’t.

I just received an email from a Madoff victim who is still reeling from the double-whammy of having watched his wealth vanish, and learning that the soft-spoken financier he considered a friend is in fact a crook – possibly it’s now been reported – with cancer. (Prison authorities deny this).

He wrote me: “I hope the government is smart enough not to do what Scotland did and give him compassionate release to fight his cancer.”

Ouch.

I am not Scottish but I am British – which, in terms of the disgraceful release of the Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, 57, jailed for killing the 270 people, mostly Americans, who died in the Lockerbie bombing – on “compassionate” grounds on account of his terminal cancer – is just as bad. No one I’ve spoken to in Britain believes that the Scots would have handed over a massive murderer who is a global symbol of state-sponsored terrorism, without checking it out with the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is, after all, Scottish. (And no, I do not buy the argument that the Scottish National Party was just following its “normal” legal trajectory in releasing him – there is nothing “normal” about the scope of this man’s crime; nor do I buy the argument that his conviction was about to be squashed, so they decided to let him out anyway. If that were actually true there would – and should – be a public detailed report showing the world, particularly the victims’ relatives, exactly what was unjust about locking him up in the first place.)

Then there are those damning insidious remarks of Libyan dictator Col Muammar Gaddafi thanking, among others, the Queen, Prince Andrew (a so-called “Special Representative” for British trade) and Brown for their assistance, as well as open admissions by British trade experts as to the “helpfulness” of the release, leaving many to conclude, despite denials, that the deal was done in exchange for Libyan oil.

As a Briton who has lived in the US for twelve years, I feel strongly that we should apologize unreservedly to all families who lost their loved ones in the bombing. This, however, is unlikely to happen. Instead the British government will lay all the responsibility at the feet of the Scots and find a diversion as fast as possible. (Am I the only one sufficiently cynical to find it utterly fascinating that Gordon Brown should choose this moment, above all others, to pontificate here on the Huffington Post about how much he cares about promoting Womens’ rights – particularly in Africa?)

I hate to admit it, but the truth is my country has an appalling record when it comes to choosing between trade and moral principles.

For exhibit A, I give you the sudden closure in 2006 of the investigation by the British Serious Fraud Office into the alleged bribery of Saudi officials by executives at British Aerospace (BAE) in the 1988 $64 billion arms deal known as Al Yamamah (The Dove).

Though then British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted the inquiry was not closed for “economic” reasons – (“national security” was cited instead) – most people believed that the chief reason the investigation, which was honing in on relevant Swiss bank accounts, suddenly stopped, was because the Saudis threatened to back out of a new arms deal with BAE, known as Typhoon, for 72 fighter planes and billions of dollars. Last year it was revealed that the Saudis had also threatened to withdraw cooperation in terrorism matters – but who is to know what mattered most in the eyes of the British government? As the late Robin Cook, who had served as Foreign secretary to Blair, wrote sarcastically in his 2003 memoir: “ I never once knew No 10 [home of the British Prime Minister] to come up with any decision that would be incommoding to British Aerospace. ”

Because the BAE investigation was largely a localized British (and obviously Saudi) issue the national press reacted angrily for a while but then the brouhaha died down. (The US Justice Department is said to be picking through the alleged money laundering aspect – supposedly done through the now defunct DC bank, Riggs Bank – but when was the last time we heard about that?)

From England, my father tells me that the release of the Lockerbie bomber will soon too be forgotten. “I think the government thinks there will be a ten-day fuss and then everyone will move on,” he said. He added with a resigned tone. “You have to remember we are run by a bunch of complete incompetents.”

Incompetents who don’t even put something as tumultuous and divisive as releasing a mass murderer who also happens to be a global political hot potato, to a vote? …Americans may either be weary of or sickened by the current healthcare reform uproar – but at least this side of the Atlantic there is a public debate about things that matter.

Imagine if Bernie Madoff were to have cancer and as my acquaintance, his victim, put it, he were to be released like the Lockerbie killer? There would, no doubt, rightly be outrage in the streets.

Americans should be proud that they live in a place where protest is still vibrant and, unlike my father, they don’t feel hopelessly repressed and depressed. And as for me? On behalf of my countrymen, I apologize – unreservedly.

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Some Much-Needed Truths About Lehman

I have not yet finished David Wessel’s In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic – mostly because – full disclosure – I’m scribbling away on my own book: The Great Mistake: The Fall of Lehman Brothers and the Weekend That Changed The World for John F Wiley & Sons, due this Winter.

However, there are things expressed in the review of Wessel’s book by Robert Teitelbaum that, I know from my own research into the reasons why Lehman fell, need to be addressed – fast, before they seep into the consciousness of the reading public, as fact.

Both Wessel’s book and the far more risible account of Lehman’s demise by Lawrence McDonald, which is a misleading-bordering-on-hallucinatory account of what happened, contain certain key errors.

1) Hank Paulson did not dislike Dick Fuld. Quite the contrary.
2) Teitelbaum’s take on Wessel: “When Paulson finally decides the government can’t save Lehman, the decision remains opaque. He mentions politics and Moral Hazard. But Wessel has already slyly suggest that perhaps his disdain for Lehman fed the decision.”
This is also not true. Nobody tried harder to save Lehman Brothers than Hank Paulson and his team at Treasury.
3) Hank Paulson did not, as Teitlelbaum summarizes Wessel, “fail to understand the implications of Lehman’s failure.” Possibly, other people did. Read my book to see who.
4) Dick Fuld was not uninvolved in Lehman’s negotiations with KDB, the Korean bank. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about Dick Fuld’s character would know that he would never let Lehman engage in major merger talks without inserting himself into the process.

Finally, apologies for being so opaque myself. But I cannot stand to let these inaccuracies enter the public realm without resistance! I will hurry up and write my book which tells a rather different story.

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Exclusive: Andres Piedrahita Shamed By Media Into Leaving Mega-Yacht

Never let it be said that journalism doesn’t reap results!

Last week I wrote how Andres Piedrahita, 50, the major shareholder of Fairfield Greenwich, the feeder fund that lost $7 billion of investors’ money to Bernie Madoff, was summering on his new $30 million yacht, Oxygen. His publicist, Tom Mulligan insisted he was only on board to sell the boat to raise funds for a settlement pool for the fund’s ruined investors — which, as I pointed out, on both CNBC and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, seemed like a ludicrous excuse. Everyone knows you don’t need to be on a boat to sell it.

Turns out that Piedrahita’s lawyers and publicists secretly agreed with me and advised him to get off it pronto! Though, of course, they claim to have not.

Still the facts are these: Ten days ago or so, Piedrahita had planned to pick up friends in Dubrovnik harbor to take them aboard Oxygen on a cruise of the Dalmatian coast. At the last moment he aborted the mission. “Vicky Ward has made my presence on the boat too embarrassing,” he told them, according to my source. “My lawyers are livid with me. Some of my relatives (the Noel family, also the shareholders of FG) are livid with me. So instead why don’t you join me instead on my farm in Palma?”

He explained to a potential guest he had a plane coming to pick him up the next day, since you cannot fly directly from Dubrovnik to Palma commercially. Perhaps someone with a cooler head suggested that flying privately might not be the best way to assuage FG investors, already infuriated about his summer cruise — so, according to Mulligan he flew commercially from Split, Croatia to Mallorca, with a stop in Zurich.

Currently Piedrahita is now in Mallorca with just his family, according to Mulligan.

My post, Mulligan says, had no bearing on Piedrahita’s itinerary, which is odd because I actually heard about the change of plans and the reasons for them indirectly from one of the would-be guests of Mr Piedrahita, who dropped out once they heard there would no longer be a cruise.

Someone close to Piedrahita says that he has told people he hopes, despite FG’s ongoing litigation with investors, to give up none of his wealth, gained from fees from FG investors (with the exception, obviously, of the now infamous boat, Oxygen). I wonder how his lawyers will explain his alleged attitude to FG’s ruined investors. I look forward to hear what they have to say on this point… Meanwhile, anyone, do send in pictures of Piedrahita’s Palma estate — I’m sure FG investors want a long hard look at what it might be worth.

And as for you, Mr. Piedrahita, you can run, fly, or indeed sail the globe but you cannot hide…

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Madoff’s Chief Feeder Fund Exec Shamelessly Sails the Seas in His New $30 Million Yacht

I have unwelcome news of Andres Piedrahita, the brash Columbian chief shareholder of Fairfield Greenwich, the investment group mostly owned by the Noel family, that gave half their money under management – 6.9 billion dollars- to Bernie Madoff, and yet who took one per cent of clients fees and twenty percent of their returns for supposedly doing “due diligence”.

You’d think the family – Mr Piedrahita, 50, is FG’s founder, Walter Noel’s oldest son-in-law – might be lying low, given the outrage of their ruined clients and the morass of lawsuits they face. For most of them, this is so.
For Mr Piedrahita?

Au contraire.

Look no further than the website of luxury yacht sellers, Camper and Nicholsons to see pictures of “Oxygen” the new Euros 22,000,000.00 custom-made boat that Piedrahita, took possession of in June. He is now cruising the Adriatic with wife Corina Noel and their children. I am told he has plans to cruise around the Dalmatian coast and Corfu.

Recently he has been spotted in St Tropez and in Venice. Over the weekend I was with financiers who say they’ve seen him out and about as if nothing ever went awry in his life. Acquaintances believe this blatant vacationing is “a tremendous risk” – no doubt referring to the very angry Latin Americans who allegedly gave him money to invest and could not legally declare it. I have heard he would be unwise to set foot in certain places around the globe, people are so furious with him.

Having written the piece “Greenwich Meantime” for Vanity Fair magazine about Piedrahita and his family– I’d call his current ostentatious act, stupid, shameless – and deeply offensive to all those ruined by the Fairfield Greenwich investment group.

A mutual friend told me while I was reporting the Vanity Fair piece that Piedrahita used to boast he’d “ruin his own mother if he needed to in order to make money.” He is exactly the type of man who gives financiers an appalling identity at the worst possible time.

Just as the government and business leaders worldwide are doing their best to steady the seas and fix the economy, uniting the fragile bond between Wall St and Main St, the last thing they need is this icon of unadulterated greed and pomposity displaying his allegedly ill-gotten wealth like a peacock displaying his feathers. Recently I interviewed the chairman of one of the world’s biggest banks. “We do not own a single corporate plane” he said with great pride.

I can only hope that the legal system does its work thoroughly but swiftly, and that we never have to hear about Mr. Piedrahita and his planes or his yachts ever again. Alas, I expect to be proved wrong.

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Manhattan’s latest parental punishment

I have seldom been as relieved to read an article as one that appeared last week by New York Times writer Andrew Das. It began: “In the moments after I felt the pop in my left shoulder, the sensation I felt was not pain. It was panic. How exactly does a 40-year-old man explain to his wife that he might have torn his rotator cuff during a midnight game of Wii tennis?”

I had often wondered, since we gave our twin six-year-old sons a Nintendo Wii at Christmas, why it is not just the children but my husband who looks utterly wiped out on a Sunday morning?

The answer I discovered recently, late on a Saturday night, way past the boys’ bedtime: both children and father were all involved in a furtive golf marathon which had lasted for hours as they played all 18 holes.

They stood in their pyjamas, eyeing up their shots. The amount of yelling and jumping up and down that accompanied a triumphant putt was disturbing. I wondered if they thought they really were playing the Masters in Augusta, rather than making pretend gestures before a TV screen in a small bedroom in Manhattan.

This suspension of belief is only part of the intoxicating power of the Nintendo Wii, by far the bestselling computer game on the market. (Last year more than 10 million Wiis were sold in the US.) The rest of its appeal lies in the fact that it requires participants to move as they hit virtual balls, and it engages all ages.

So far, so good. Except doctors have seen an alarming rise in Wii-related injuries, either because players play too often, causing the equivalent of repetitive strain injury, or in a space too restricted for the movements they need to make. Doctors now diagnose ailments called “Wii shoulder” or “Wii knee”.

What to do to ensure one’s spouse and children do not join this epidemic? I was considering this when I got an email from one child’s teacher.

He had misbehaved on the school bus and as punishment, she had warned him, she would enter his bedroom and confiscate his Nintendo Wii.

Seldom has a child returned home more penitent. Seldom has a father been so shocked by the proposed punishment.

The result? Limits have been set as to when and how the Wii should be used. And no one gets to play it after the children’s bedtime – father included.

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