By now, the name Bernard Madoff should be know to you as the N.Y. money manager that has been charged with running the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world. 

So far the list of people that were taken by Madoff are either well known celebrity types or people assumed to be well off. The truth of the matter is not so. 

I mean, who cares if a bunch of rich people get ripped off by another rich person that was just a little more greedier then they were….right? 

WRONG! The scale of the Madoff scandal can be measured by the still-widening ripples, reaching far-flung people and causes - from a group helping just-released inmates find jobs in Rhode Island to another working to provide fresh food in poor neighborhoods in Detroit and Oakland, Calif. 

Here is one story that illustrates the impact that this thief has had on many people that were, and still are, in dire need of the financial assistance the money provided. 

Norman F. Levy a very rich man who became successful in the tight-knit world of New York commercial real estate in New York City. 

When he died in 2005 at 93, he was hailed as an elder statesman of the trade, that was matched by his generosity with both friendship and money. 

"Your spirit and love of life have touched and changed all who knew you," one friend of 40 years wrote in a paid death notice for Levy that ran in The New York Times. "You taught me so much. I’ll cherish our relationship forever." 

The friend was Bernard Madoff. 

The Levy and Madoff families had formed a friendship reinforced by shared interests, social circles and trust. 

Levy and Madoff were active in some of the same organizations, like New York’s Yeshiva University and donated their money to many of the same causes.   

For more than 30 years, the Levys also entrusted their personal investments to Madoff. When they chartered the Betty and Norman F. Levy Foundation which had reported assets of $244.4 million last year they again put their trust in their longtime friend. 

"My father believed in Bernie Madoff," said Norman Levy’s son, Francis, adding that, "The one thing he said about Bernie was, "If there’s one honorable person, it’s Bernie." 

The Levy Foundation continued donations to longtime favorite charities. But its biggest checks went to a new set of organizations created by Norman Levy’s children to champion causes they embraced. 

In 2000, Jeanne set up the JEHT Foundation, whose name is an acronym for Justice, Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance - originally to work on criminal justice reform, an area where funds are scarce. Last year, the Levy family financed JEHT to the tune of $29.9 million. 

Francis Levy co-founded the Philoctetes Center, a group dedicated to fostering discussions of everything from literature to economics. In 2007, the Levy Foundation financed Philoctetes with $950,000. Last year, Francis Levy invited his family’s longtime friend, Madoff, to appear on a panel at the center to talk about the workings of Wall Street. 

The Fair Food Foundation, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., was another group they formed which set out to find ways to get fresher, healthy food to residents of poor city neighborhoods starting with Detroit and Oakland, Calif. 

At the walk-in counseling office run by Rhode Island Family Life Center in a poor neighborhood in South Providence, a JEHT grant of $500,000 over two years paid staffers who help inmates just released from prison find housing and jobs. In 2007, the group provided services to 1,000 people. 

A New Orleans group, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, used a grant from JEHT to pursue a lawsuit charging "environmental racism" in the predominantly black Louisiana town of Mossville, where the soil and water are polluted by 14 surrounding factories. 

The JEHT grant accounted for 26 percent of the Center for Public Representation’s annual budget. Its importance became even more clear this fall when a state tax on real estate transactions that provides nearly as much of the group’s funding dropped sharply with the collapse of the housing market, Schwartz said. 

Crane, the director of the JEHT Foundation, was working late that Thursday evening when his cell phone rang. His benefactors, Jeanne and Kenneth Levy Church, were on the line. 

"Are you sitting down?" they asked. 

The couple told him they’d just come across a story online about the arrest of a New York money manager whose name soundly vaguely familiar to Crane. All the Levy Church’s money was invested with Bernie Madoff. If it was gone, so was the foundation. 

On Monday morning Crane sent an e-mail to people at nearly 150 groups around the country that count on his foundation for $25 to $30 million in funding each year. The checks they had been expecting would not be coming, he told them, and JEHT would close by the end of January. 

Francis Levy’s group, the Philoctetes Center, also announced it could not continue without a cash infusion. The Fair Food Foundation, announced it would close, delivering what its president, Oran Hesterman called "a stinging blow" to activists working to improve nutrition in poor neighborhoods. 

Leaders of some of the groups funded by the foundations said they had not even been aware that their money came from the Levy family. Nor had they ever heard of Madoff. 

Some groups, like the Rhode Island center that finds jobs and housing for former inmates, were relatively lucky. JEHT provides a third of its annual budget, but the check for 2009 had already been cashed. The impact will become clear next year when the group tries to replace that money in an economy that has made fundraising increasingly difficult, Executive Director Sol Rodriguez said. 

For others, the impact was immediate. Between the JEHT closure and the drop in tax revenues, Schwartz’s group has seen 48 percent of its budget vanish. On Wednesday, he called an emergency meeting with his staff. They’ve put juvenile justice projects in Texas and Alabama on hold. But those are emergency measures, not a solution. 

"We don’t have any money," he said. "I’m not sure what we’re going to do." 

The repercussions of the Madoff swindle will be felt for some time to come as his deceit is unraveled and revealed. 

So, the question must be asked even though the answer may remain a mystery. Does Bernard Madoff give a damn about the wreckage he has caused? I THINK NOT! 

However there is one thing for certain…..I’M PISSED OFF. Pissed off and saddened for the people that did benefit by the generosity of all of those people that were taken by this low-life scumbag. And I didn’t personally lose a dime!

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