Billions For Madoff Victims!

The area from Palm Beach Gardens to Jupiter and Jupiter Island has long been known for big money and I post frequently about it. You can see it on display everywhere from the exotic cars to huge sport-fishing boats and the country clubs. In fact, the estate of an Admirals Cove resident recently made a gift of $10 million to the Jupiter Medical Center in the largest single gift ever. His son lives in a nearby waterfront estate where the tax bill is $50,000 per year.

And now with Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan moving into the area, we are getting big celebrity money. But the big money, the really big money is on the island of Palm Beach across from West Palm Beach. The yachts moored there run well over 150 feet and come from all over the world.

And the big money on Palm Beach lives along Ocean Boulevard.  Donald Trump has his Mar-a-Lago club there, John Lennon owned a home there, the old Vanderbilt estate, and Rush Limbaugh has his compound on the north end. The house Trump sold for $85 million was on Ocean Boulevard, too.

So when it was announced that the estate of one of Madoff’s victims was giving $7 BILLION to help other victims, it came as no surprise that Jeff Picower lived on Ocean Boulevard. The tax bill on his $24 million, 18,000 square foot home is over $200,000 per year. Picower drowned in 2009.

I’m glad that he did this, not because he had anything to do with the Ponzi scheme, but rather I ask what good will it do him now? As the accountant said to the reporters when they asked him how much money John D. Rockefeller left behind, he answered, “He left it all.”