Deadline: Bizarre Bernie Madoff link to Melbourne’s John Adams Ponzi scandal
A bizarre snippet of information may link the financial scandal of Ivanhoe lawyer John Bernard Adams to the Prince of Ponzis, Bernie Madoff.
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Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.
‘Madoff the musical’: Who dunnit?
The oldest rule in the news business is that if something seems too good (or bad) to be true then that’s exactly what it is: untrue.
Despite that golden rule, Deadline is fascinated by a snippet of information that may link the Ponzi scheme scandal promoted by Ivanhoe lawyer and North Melbourne football identity John Bernard Adams to the infamous Prince of Ponzis, Bernie Madoff.
(Madoff was, of course, the financial fraudster exposed in 2008 for the world’s biggest fraud. He vaporised billions of dollars over more than 20 years — hurting thousands of innocent victims including showbiz celebrities such as filmmaker Steven Spielberg, radio and TV host Larry King and actors Kevin Bacon and John Malkovich.)
So what has the infamous Bernard Madoff to do with our own homegrown Ponzi schemer, John Bernard Adams, apart from a shared given name?
It turns out that the satirical play “Madoff the Musical” (one of several about Madoff) is by one Kate Ingber. Which is interesting because John Adams’ married daughter happens to be called … Kate Ingber.
We hasten to add that John’s daughter, the former Kate Adams, is a highly respected in-house lawyer for a respected sports administration body.
The odds against there being another Kate Ingber writing something about a Ponzi scammer would seem to be huge, although coincidences do happen and a strange coincidence may well have occurred in this case.
The Madoff the Musical author is shown in copyright and trademark documents as Katherine Mary Ingber — but is that John Adams’ daughter or does our Aussie Kate have a doppelganger?
Interestingly, a version of the show was produced by an amateur theatrical group in Singapore in 2011. And Aussie Kate Ingber worked in Singapore in 2010, having had a string of high profile legal and commercial jobs in London and elsewhere.
Either way, it’s extraordinary.
The playwright invents a character named Henry, “a young trader” who wants to learn the secret of Madoff’s strategy. When Henry finds out the awful truth, he faces a dilemma — should he blow the whistle on Madoff?
Rumour and hearsay is rarely to be trusted. But someone who knows the Adams family and who also knows various underworld identities claims that a cashed-up gangster once jokingly referred to John Adams as “Bernie Madoff”.
If true, that’s also extraordinary because the gangster in question was allegedly Tony Mokbel. Someone who, potentially, once had a lot of funny money he might have fancied investing with a flexible mortgage loan lender promising regular interest payments …
No butts!
Not everyone is happy with a recent police operation in Ballarat which zeroed in on the illicit tobacco sector.
Officers from the newly formed Lunar taskforce descended on the city where their colleagues from VIPER visited eight stores as part of a crackdown in regional centres.
They seized a mountain of vapes, stick cigarettes and leaf tobacco.
The word on the street in the ‘Rat is that the previously thriving shops have found themselves unable to cater for their customers.
Customers who have had to forgo a product which is cheap because it is being shipped into Australia or grown here illegally by organised crime syndicates.
Some are even making runs to Melbourne because, despite the high price of fuel, it’s still cheaper that way.
It’s fair to say they aren’t accustomed to paying full price and are most unhappy at having to outlay twice the price or worse from major legal retailers.
If they want someone to blame, they need look no further than the gangs who run the illicit tobacco caper.
The industry was largely ignored by law enforcement bodies preoccupied with other issues until the middle of this year when shady tobacco shops started getting firebombed by those fighting for market control.
That threat to life and limb led to the Lunar taskforce — and some real headaches for the syndicates.
“As long as people’s lives remain at risk due to this heightened criminal activity, we will continue to do absolutely everything we can to deter, disrupt and dismantle these syndicates,” says Supt. Jason Kelly of the Victoria Police’s anti-gangs division.
More proof that there are no winners in war.
Gangland phwoaarrrr!
Wanna buy a piece of TV gangland-soft porn history?
Anyone willing to stump up big dough can move into the mansion used as Mark Moran’s home in the original Underbelly series.
Anyone wanting to pay the asking price primarily for that reason would have to be quite a fan of the Channel 9 show of which one sly critic noted: “They seem to think it’s illegal to have sex in the missionary position.”
Missionaries are among those unlikely to afford “Rosina”, in Ardmillan St, Moonee Ponds, which is commanding an estimated selling price of between $7.8 million and $8.5 million.
It was where some racy scenes involving Callan Mulvey as Moran and Madeleine West as Danielle McGuire were filmed for the 2008 production.
In one of them, Mulvey spanked the bottom of a lingerie-clad West.
Deadline cannot confirm whether such corporal punishment was one of the real-life Moran’s predilections before his murder in 2000 at Aberfeldie back when he was described as a suburban footballer and former pastry chef.
Anyway, back to the 16-room house which is described as one of the area’s finest Italianate mansions.
The Nelson Alexander Real Estate website says it is on 1455 square metres of land a short stroll from private schools and Moonee Ponds railway station.
Five fingers discounted?
Deadline informed readers some time ago about a Latrobe Valley character known to one and all as Edward Scissorhands, who fancies himself as something of a badass.
Edward the would-be standover man got the nickname because he lost a couple of fingers when a potential victim went off-script and turned him into an amputee.
There are now dark mutterings that he may now have lost another digit or two after coming off second-best with someone else who turned out tougher than Ed first thought.
The joke in the Valley is that if he continues to upset the local underworld, he’ll end up named after another movie character, Chubs Peterson.
Fans of Happy Gilmore will remember Chubs is the golf pro whose career was ruined when an alligator took off his entire hand.
Just saying
In these volatile times, it’s probably best not to blurt out the home address of a major public figure during an event.
That’s especially so if the occasion is being streamed on the web.
What can follow are some major security problems, as happened in Melbourne recently. Problems heightened by the current ugly clashes between supporters of Palestinians and Israelis following Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities of October 7.
Footage emerges of wild Waverley Gardens alleged bottle stabbings
Brave witnesses performed a citizen’s arrest on a man who allegedly slashed two shoppers with a broken glass bottle at Waverley Gardens shopping centre. See the video.
Cop’s alleged road rage attack on ‘lane filtering’ motorcyclist
A motorbike rider claims he was the victim of a road rage attack by an off-duty cop in Melbourne, that involved the officer “screaming profanities”, tailgating and trying to force him off the road.