The “world’s largest Ponzi scheme” allegedly perpetrated by Bernard Madoff gets more and more interesting as it unfolds. For those of you that thought that Madoff will spend the rest of his life behind bars….think again! That’s just how bizarre this whole things is becoming.

Michael D. Sullivan, a local accountant and founder and managing partner of S & P Investment Group, collected tens of millions of dollars from friends, colleagues and fellow church members and invested it with Bernie Madoff.

Yesterday he tried to explain what went wrong with Madoff at a meeting he called at the Westin Hotel, speaking to about 150 South Florida investors, many irate at Madoff and all far poorer than they ever dreamed.

Several investors interviewed this week said they were referred to Sullivan by local accountants Frank Avellino and Michael Bienes or met him through his membership at Christ Church in Fort Lauderdale.

In 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission shut Avellino and Bienes down for operating an unregistered securities firm and made them repay a half-billion dollars invested with Madoff. That same year, Sullivan began putting investor money into funds controlled by Madoff.

Madoff, considered a Wall Street financial wizard with decades of remarkably high returns, admitted in early December it was all a giant fraud. Prosecutors said Madoff orchestrated a $50 billion Ponzi scheme in which all investors were wiped out.

On Friday, Sullivan and his attorneys would not comment, but people present at the meeting said the Fort Lauderdale resident was contrite and badly shaken. In an agenda given to all of the investors before the meeting, attorneys said "the managing partners and their families … have invested and suffered losses just as you have."

Nearly all of the dozen people interviewed before and after the meeting said they believe Sullivan had been a victim and held no animosity.

NOTE: So, in essence that are saying he’s not a crook, just stupid and a dumb schmuck!

State business records show Sullivan and partner Greg Powell opened S & P Investment Group in 1991 and closed it two years later. Sullivan, Powell and accountant Steven F. Jacob opened SPJ Investments in 1999, contributing $100 million into the venture at start up, according to records filed with the Secretary of State.

There is no record of the other entities in the Secretary of State’s database.

For more than two decades, Bienes and Avellino collected hundreds of millions of dollars from South Florida investors and fed them to funds controlled by Madoff, earning large commissions and becoming extremely wealthy in their own right, according to SEC records.

They also became prominent philanthropists, donating at least $30 million to local hospitals, libraries, schools and arts and cultural organization. The men set up several nonprofit organizations and contributed heavily to local churches, according to the charities’ tax returns.

Sullivan and Avellino were active in Christ Church in Fort Lauderdale, and culled many investors from its ranks.

NOTE: It’s nice to know that they didn’t limit their theivery to the Jewish population and did allow the gentiles to get f*cked with equal measure.

Avellino in turn donated heavily to the church, contributing more than $280,000 from 2000 to 2004 through various nonprofit groups he controlled, according to IRS tax returns filed by the charities.

Christ Church Pastor Alex Shanks said this week that the church had lost money invested with Madoff in the early 1990s but had no involvement with Madoff since. Shanks acknowledged that he personally had invested in Sullivan’s partnerships, but stressed the church had no investments.

"In the early 1990s, the church received a gift from a single donor that included conditions that required the funds to be invested in a specific fund, which we now understand was connected to Mr. Madoff," Shanks wrote in a statement to the Sun Sentinel. "Other than this original restricted gift, no other church funds or assets were ever invested directly or indirectly with Mr. Madoff."

Friday afternoon, victims of Madoff’s fraud left Sullivan’s meeting worried about their futures.

"I’m poor now," one woman said. "Fortunately, we own our house and have no debt. My husband has a real estate license and I work doing guardianships, so I guess we’ll just keep working."

RUINED LIVES …..and there is talk of Madoff avoiding jail if he can cut the right deal with Federal prosecutors!

WATCH THIS VIDEO

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