The Trust Said "No" to Investing with Madoff

The Trust's communications director, Ani Hurwitz, is quoted in a Dec. 20th, 2008 New York Times piece by Diana B. Henriques on the after-effects of the Madoff ponzi scheme.

Madoff Scheme Kept Rippling Outward, Across Borders
...He became a generous donor, then a courted board member and, finally, the money manager of choice for many prominent regional charities.

A spokeswoman for the New York Community Trust, Ani Hurwitz, recalled a Long Island couple who asked the trust in 1994 to invest their proposed $20 million fund with Mr. Madoff. "We have an investment committee that oversees all investments, and they couldn't get anything out of him, no information, nothing," Ms. Hurwitz said. "So we told the donors we wouldn't do it."

But many charities did entrust their money to Mr. Madoff, to their eventual grief. The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, for instance, reported that it had lost $5.7 million on an investment with Mr. Madoff that was made at the donor's behest. (That donor has pledged to cover the loss for the hospital system, its spokesman said.)

To read the full piece, please click here.