"So is this easy money you were making with Madoff, would you say?"

"Easy. Easy, peasy...."

"Did you ever think to yourself this is just too easy, this is too good?"

"I said I'm a little too lucky. Why am I so fortunate? Then I came up with the answer, my wife and I came up with the answer. God wanted us to have this, God gave us this." - Michael Bienes interview, "The Madoff Affair", PBS Frontline video trailer  (Show airs May 12th)

Michael and Dianne Bienes are thoroughly delightful people who are being most unfairly attacked. - Seen in the comment section of Business Insider, Broward New Times and other websites. 

Bienes' $7 million 35,000 sq. ft. estate on the

Intracoastal in Fort Lauderdale bought with

"easy peasy" money .
 

Bienes apparently is oblivious to the fact that everyone only liked him for his money in the first place and now they hate his guts. A 3/9/2009 Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel article by Harriet Johnson Brackey starts out "Michael Bienes, once a high-profile philanthropist whose name is plastered on buildings across South Florida..."

Brackey goes on to say "Bienes, 72, broke his silence about Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme and explained how over the years he funneled $454 million of investors' money to Madoff..."

I think even his attorney, Mark F. Raymond, managing partner at Broad & Cassel, a high-powered Miami law firm, hates him. What attorney with a half a brain would put an unsympathetic moron like Michael Bienes in the spotlight and let him talk about how he is a Madoff victim like everyone else?

 Bienes told the Sun-Sentinel that "Madoff is the enemy. He's a swindler. He's a crook. He stole our money." Our money?

And what's with the God stuff? Bienes is a Jew who converted to Catholicism as an adult and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he converted to expand his market reach. LOL - If G-d tells Lev Dassin, Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of NY, to throw Bienes' sorry ass in prison for the rest of his miserable life, what's Bienes going to say?

Michael Stanley Bienes has been a licensed New York State certified public accountant since April 18, 1969.  He knew he was selling unregistered securities illegally and he knew Bernie's returns were too good to be true.

Hopefully, the PBS Frontline special will shed some light on how Bienes and his partner, Frank Avellino, have been making money since they got busted by the SEC in 1992.

It is unlikely Bienes is anywhere near broke. He claims to have lost about $10 million with Bernie but before the scandal broke, he had already pledged $6 million to charity. If Bienes could handily commit $6 million in charitable contributions, he had a lot more than $10 million in net assets.

In a previous post, I touched  briefly on the $41 million Avellino & Bienes pension plan. The plan name is the Mayfair Pension Plan and it is sponsored by Mayfair Bookkeeping Services, Inc. c/o Frank J. Avellino on Coral Lane in Palm Beach.   

Frank Avellino's $10 million Nantucket estate
bought with more "easy peasy" money. 

The Mayfair Pension Plan's 5500s filed with the IRS are available online for free at freeERISA.com (registration required).

The Plan has four participants, presumably Frank and Nancy Avellino and Michael and Dianne Bienes.

At 12/31/2007, the Plan has $40,954,931 in assets, up $5,597,138 from 2006.

Was the $41 million invested with Bernie?

Although the Plan does not describe the nature of its assets, the 2007 5500 states in Part II on Line i that the Plan did not hold 20% or more of its assets in any single security, debt, mortgage, parcel of real estate or partnership/joint venture interest.

If the Plan was invested with Bernie, it would have presumably held $41 million in treasury bills at 12/31/2007 but I don't know if treasury bills are covered in the 20% question. If they are, then not all of the $41 million in plan assets was invested with Bernie at 12/31/2007.

In 2006, the Plan reported that it held assets in the form of employer real property which  is evidence that not all of the Plan's assets were invested with Bernie at 12/31/2006. Maybe none of it was.

In a fabulous story, "How Bernie Did It", Fortune reported that Frank Avellino was one of the Madoff investors who requested profits in his Madoff account be rigged up or down. For example, Frank Dipascali would change the profit to a loss on Avellino's account statement if
Avellino needed a tax deduction.

The problem is that if Frank Avellino was filing phony 1040s, there is no reason to believe he was filing legitimate 5500s. Avellino and Bienes may have been claiming phony contributions to the Mayfair Pension Plan since its inception.

Michael Bienes is a liar. He told the Sun-Sentinel that he did not know what his partner did after the SEC shut down the Avellino & Bienes racket in 1992.

A cruise through the Florida Secretary of State corporate database at sunbiz.org easily disproves that assertion.

Avellino & Bienes Accounting Services, Inc. was registered on 1/8/1993 which was after the SEC case against Frank Avellino and Michael Bienes was closed. The name was changed to Mayfair Bookkeeping Services, Inc. on 1/20/2000 and the amended articles of incorporaton were signed by one Michael Stanley Bienes, Secretary and Treasurer.

Mayfair Management Inc., registered on 1/28/1993, is still active although Bienes was removed as a director in May 2006.

In 1996, Frank Avellino, Michael Bienes and their respective wives signed the Grosvenor Partners, Ltd. partnership agreement as general partners of Mayfair Ventures, G.P.

Like everyone else in the Madoff cast of characters, you can't believe a word that comes out of the mouth of Michael Bienes. He is an unrepentant predator who is pedaling furiously to stay out of prison.

Next up: How close were the prinicipals in Avellino & Bienes to the principals in Konigsberg Wolf? Thisclose.

Footnote: The only record I know of online that references audits performed by Avellino & Bienes, Inc., a New York certified public accounting firm, is an appeals case named Avellino & Bienes v. M. Frenville Co. (In re M. Frenville Co.):

"The facts of this case are undisputed. A & B is a certified public accounting firm located in New York City. From 1977 to 1979 A & B was engaged by M. Frenville Co., Inc. as an independent auditor and accountant. As part of its duties, A & B prepared certified financial statements of the company for fiscal years 1978 and 1979...

The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., the Fidelity Bank, Fidelity International Bank and Girard International Bank (the banks) filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York on November 16, 1981, against A & B. The complaint alleged that A & B negligently and recklessly prepared the Frenville financial statements, that the statements were false, and that because of their reliance on the statements, the banks had collectively suffered losses in excess of five million dollars..