Walter & Monica Noel: The Millions Didn't Go to Charity
Monica Noel, the wife of disgraced hedge fund manager, protested this week to the Post that she and her husband aren't really all that rich, notwithstanding the $500 million her husband's firm is estimated to have collected just by steering clients to invest with Bernie Madoff: "You write [that] our five daughters were brought up in the lap of luxury in their Greenwich estate. We don't live in an estate. We live in a normal house that was a cottage on two acres." That the "cottage" is just one of five properties that the Noels call home—there's also an apartment on Park Avenue, homes in Southampton and Palm Beach, and a "tropical retreat" in Mustique—Monica's claim doesn't seem to hold much water. But you wouldn't mistake the Noels for heavy-hitting philanthropists, at least judging by the couple's charitable donations in recent years. In 2006 (the last year for which info is available), the Walter and Monica Noel Family Foundation handed out a grand total of $169,000, most of it distributed in amounts of $250 or $500 to organizations like Americares, the YMCA of Greenwich, and the International Rescue Committee. After the jump, the complete list of non-profit groups that benefited from Noel's lucrative relationship with Bernie Madoff.