Bob Jaffe Goes Down
A couple of weeks ago, we pointed out that Robert Jaffe, the car-collecting clotheshorse who raised hundreds of millions for Bernie Madoff, had returned to a life of leisure and was back hitting balls at the Palm Beach Country Club. He probably isn't golfing this afternoon—and that's not because there are reports of scattered thunderstorms in Palm Beach today. The SEC just filed civil fraud charges against Jaffe and two other executives affiliated with Cohmad Securities for marketing Madoff investments while "knowingly or recklessly disregarding facts indicating that Madoff was operating a fraud." The SEC also filed charges against Stanley Chais, who helped raise as much as $1 billion for Madoff from the Hollywood crowd, but has since left LA to move to NYC. [NYT/Dealbook, WSJ]