Actors, baseball legends on Madoff client list

NEW YORK — Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax. Broadcaster Larry King. World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein.

All three have at least one thing in common: Their names appear on a list of several thousand clients of disgraced financial wizard Bernard Madoff. The list has been made public in a court filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

The list emerged late Wednesday, testament to the sweeping nature of Madoff's alleged fraud. The 162-page list includes Madoff's relatives, prominent business people, celebrities, and charitable institutions. Each page carries 84 single-spaced lines. Some customers are listed multiple times, presumably because they had multiple accounts.

The list does not say how much money the customers may have lost, nor does it spell out their specific connection to Madoff.

The list, compiled for a court-appointed trustee in the Madoff case, includes thousands of people and entities listed in the money manager's records as account holders during the 12-month period leading up to his arrest in December. It also includes scores of others who called an investor hotline set up by the Securities Investor Protection Corp. While many of those listed likely lost money with Madoff, it is not clear that all of those on the list were victims, or that all of the victims have been identified.

Many of the people who lost money with Madoff did so through investment "feeder" funds, who turned that money over to the New York money manager. Their names would not have been listed individually in Madoff's books and would only be included in the court's list if they have stepped forward to make claims.

The client list was released shortly after a whistle-blower in the case, Harry Markopolos, told House lawmakers at a hearing that he had discovered that additional funds had relayed investments to Madoff in Europe — and that the managers of these "feeder" funds may have ignored signs of the massive fraud scheme.

He planned to present his findings to the Securities and Exchange Commission's inspector general. If proven, they would substantiate the assertions of many analysts that the alleged fraud was far too large for Madoff to have conducted alone.

House lawmakers on Wednesday also sparred with SEC officials, accusing them of impeding their probe into how the agency failed to uncover the alleged fraud.

Prosecutors say Madoff admits he lost more than $50 billion belonging to investors. Defense lawyers say he has cooperated with authorities to help identify assets.