Who Wins the Award?

Kenneth Starr vs. Bernie Madoff

NY financial advisor Kenneth Starr (not special prosecutor Kenneth Starr of the Whitewater and Lewinksi scandals) is being dubbed the “Madoff of Celebrities” -- let’s compare the two.

Total Financial Damages

Madoff - Former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, estimated the actual net fraud to be between $10 and $17 billion.

Starr - The US Attorney’s Office, charged Starr with running a $30 million Ponzi scheme.

Charges

In a Department of Justice (DOJ) complaint, Starr was charged with the following:

• Wire Fraud
• Investment Advisor Fraud
• Money Laundering
• False Statements in an IRS Filing
• False Statements to a Federal Officer


Madoff plead guilty to 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. These charges carry maximum terms totaling 150 years.

Clients

Kenneth Starr has ‘Starr’-power, his celebrity clients include Hollywood A-listers:

• Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, Judge Dredd)
• Uma Thurman (Kill Bill, The Avengers)
• Al Pacino (The Godfather, Scarface)
• Ron Howard (Happy Days, Apollo 13)
• Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York, Casino)
• Annie Leibovitz (celebrity photographer)

Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, was an affinity scam, which means most of his clients/victims were Jewish.

*Harry Markopolos, a Certified Fraud Examiner and the person credited with busting Madoff had the following to say in an interview for 60 Minutes.

“An affinity scam is when you prey on groups that are similar in nature to yourself. So I'm Greek. If I was gonna run an affinity scam, I would run it on the Greek American community
here. Bernie was Jewish, so he ran it on the Jewish community in the United States.”

AND THE WINNER IS

They are both awful human beings, so it’s hard to say that either one is a winner. But, I will say that they are both "winners" with respect to the following.

The Overall Evilness Award goes to Bernie Madoffs because his reach was further and the damage more life-shattering.

The Most Tabloid-worthy Award goes to Kenneth Starr with; an ex-stripper wife, A-list celebrity clients, and a political scandal, Kenneth Starr is a dream-come-true for tabloid reporters.