By Catherine Austin Fitts
Melissa Millan, Executive Vice President of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co (“MassMutual,”) was stabbed to death on November 20th. This raised more than a few eyebrows as Ms. Millan had management responsibility for MassMutual’s business selling life insurance to banks who collect on the policy if the insured executive dies.
As a result of more than a few reports of sudden and unexpected banker deaths this year, the notion that a bank would be protecting its fraudulent operations by offing an executive and then collecting on his or her life insurance policy – thus making it good business to “shred documents” by profitably shredding bankers is unnerving to contemplate. Yet, contemplate we must.
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What most intrigues me about Ms. Millan’s unfortunate demise was the fact that only a few weeks later the Second Circuit issued a landmark decision affirming dismissal of Madoff’s Trustee’s Six Year Transfer and Preference Claims.
What that means is that people who withdraw funds from their Madoff funds before December 2006 got to keep those assets.
December 2006 is a highly intriguing date.
It was approximately one year subsequent to an offer that I received from the Department of Justice to settle a case in the Court of Claims brought by my company against the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). During my pursuit of the litigation, I had been highly vocal regarding mortgage fraud and billions going missing from HUD.
When I received the offer to settle, involving a pay out by insurer AIG of several million dollars, I said to myself, “They are ready to bring the financial coup d’etat to a close – the housing and mortgage market bubbles are going to end and the “dump” phase of the “pump and dump” is going to begin.”
Indeed, the “dump” of the housing market did start 1 year later, in December 2006. This is when Goldman Sach’s “big short” began.
That meant someone planned and organized a year to get their ducks all in a row.
Did that include getting all of their money out of Madoff ahead of the two years they needed to protect them against clawbacks and preferences in bankruptcy?
I believe it is worth contemplating the possibility.
So what does that have to do with Mellissa Millan?
Millan was a member of the senior management group at MassMutual. MassMutual had lost significant investor funds in Madoff and had been sued over those losses. That means MassMutual’s management would have been more than familiar with the Madoff litigation and efforts by the Madoff trustee and investors to recoup their losses.
Ms. Millan, however, would have been in a position to connect the patterns of bankers deaths – it being her business to track insuring of executives by their financial institution employers – to the financial institutions involved with the withdrawals. It is a very important unanswered question as to how those deaths related to the investors who got their money out between December 2005 and December 2006 when Goldman Sachs pulled the plug on the mortgage market.
If I was investigating Millan’s death, the first thing I would do is get a list of everyone who withdrew principal from Madoff from January 1, 2005 – January 1, 2007. Then I would see what financial institutions handled the withdrawals and the subsequent management of those funds. I would compare that to the list of bankers who have mysteriously died in recent years and the executive policies managed by Mass Mutual or by MassMutual and their competitors for JP Morgan.
Of course, it would not be a bad idea – if possible- to put the judges on the Second Circuit on a lie detector machine to see if they believed in their decision.
It is entirely possible that they just did not want to end up stabbed to death on a jogging path in Simsbury Connecticut.
CHRONOLOGY
I invite you to review a small part of the chronology involved in these events and see if you believe there may be a connection.
December 8, 2014
Second Circuit ruled December 8th, 2014, affirming dismissal of Madoff Trustee’s Six-Year Transfer and Preference Claims
The result is that SIPC gets to look at withdrawals back for six years (thus significantly reducing their liability) but that the trustee can only claw back for two years.
Interesting double standard. What it means is that anyone who was tipped off to take his or her money out of Madoff before December 2006 got away free and clear.
December 7, 2014
With the death of Belgian banker Geert Tack, Zero Hedge counts 36th bankers dead in 2014:
1) David Bird, 55, long-time reporter for the Wall Street Journal working at the Dow Jones news room
2) Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG
3) William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank
4) Ryan Henry Crane, age 37, JP Morgan
5) Li Junjie, 33, Hong Kong JP Morgan
6) Gabriel Magee, 39, age JP Morgan employee
7) Mike Dueker, 50, who had worked for Russell Investments
8) Richard Talley, 57, was the founder and CEO of American Title (real estate titles)
9) James Stuart Jr. 70, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO was found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz
10) Jason Alan Salais, 34 year old IT Specialist at JPMorgan since 2008
11) Autumn Radtke, 28, CEO of First Meta, a Singapore-based virtual currency trading platform
12) Eddie Reilly, 47, investment banker, Vertical Group, New York
13) Kenneth Ballando, 28, investment banker, Levy Capital, New york
14) Joseph A. Giampapa, 55, corporate bankruptcy lawyer, JP Morgan Chase
15) Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, voormalig topbestuurder ANB/AMRO, Laren, Nederland
16) Juergen Frick, 48, CEO Bank Frick & Co AG, Liechtenstein
17) Benoît Philippens, 37, directeur BNP Parisbas Fortis Bank, Ans, België
18) Lydia…, 52, bankier Bred-Banque-Populaire, Parijs
19) Andrew Jarzyk, 27, bankier, PNC Bank, New York
20) Carlos Six, 61, Hoofd Belastingdienst en lid CREDAF, België
21) Jan Winkelhuijzen, 75, Commissaris en Fiscalist (voormalig Deloitte), Nederland
22) Richard Rockefeller, 66, achterkleinzoon elitebankier John D. Rockefeller, Amerika
23) Mahafarid Amir Khosravi (Amir Mansour Aria), 45, bankeigenaar, zakenman en derivatenhandelaar, Iran
24) Lewis Katz, 76, zakenman, advocaat en insider in de bancaire wereld, Amerika
25) Julian Knott, Directeur Global Operations Center JP Morgan, 45, Amerika
26) Richard Gravino, IT Specialist JP Morgan, 49, Amerika
27) Thomas James Schenkman, Managing Director Global Infrastructure JP Morgan, 42, Amerika
28) Nicholas Valtz, 39, Managing Director Goldman Sachs, New York, Amerika
29) Therese Brouwer, 50, Managing Director ING, Nederland
30) Tod Robert Edward, 51, Vice President M & T Bank, Amerika
31) Thierry Leyne, 48, investeringsbankier en eigenaar Anatevka S.A., Israël
32) Calogero Gambino, 41, Managing Director Deutsche Bank, Amerika
33) Shawn D. Miller, 42, Managing Director Citigroup, New York, Amerika
34) Melissa Millian, 54, Senior Vice President Mass Mutual, Amerika
35) Thieu Leenen, 64, Relatiemanager ABN/AMRO, Eindhoven, Nederland
36) Geert Tack, 52, Private Banker ING, Haaltert, België
November 20, 2014
Melissa Millan, Executive Vice President of Mass Mutual, is found stabbed to death on a jogging path in Simsbury Connecticut.
Milan is a member of the senior management team with management responsibility for BOLI and Executive Group Life. BOLI is shorthand for Bank-Owned Life Insurance, a where banks purchase life insurance on the lives of their workers. The death benefit pays to the bank instead of to the family of the deceased. According to industry publications, MassMutual is considered one of the top ten sellers of BOLI in the United States.
Slain MassMutual Executive Held Wall Street “Trade Secrets”
Banker Death Update: Slain MassMutual Executive Held Wall Street “Trade Secrets”
August 2014
Attorney’s Helen Davis Chaitman and Lance Gotthoffer publish JP Madoff: The Unholy Alliance Between America’s Biggest Bank and America’s Biggest Crook
March 2014
A newly obtained government document implicates JP Morgan’s complicity in Madoff scheme.
A Standoff of Lawyers Veils Madoff’s Ties to JPMorgan Chase
October 2012
ING, Mass Mutual and John Hancock beat one of the investor lawsuits.
ING, Others Beat Out Investor’s $15M Madoff Loss Suit
December 2, 2010
Madoff trustee files motion describing JPMorgan complicity in Madoff case.
JP Morgan Chase, Bernie Madoff’s $64.8 Billion Ponzi Scheme and Crime on Wall Street
April 2009
Boston Globe reports that investors in Madoff have filed 18 lawsuits against Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. to recoup $3.3 billion that MassMutual’s hedge fund lost in the scandal.
MassMutual sued in Madoff scandal
December 22, 2008
The WSJ publishes MassMutual Burned by Madoff.
December 11, 2008
Federal agents arrest Bernard Madoff, thus notifying investors that their savings may be gone
December 2006
Goldman Sachs begins its big bet against the US mortgage market.
How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash.
January 2006
The Department of Justice settles Court of Claims litigation with Hamilton Securities, with the housing swap maven AIG funding monies owned to Hamilton.
Their push to settle starting in late 2005 after appealing the Court of Claims case won by Hamilton indicated to Catherine Austin Fitts that plans were underway to end the mortgage market bubble.
Hamilton Securities Litigation
Related reading:
List of investors in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities
