When Mort Zuckerman first revealed that he'd lost a bundle to Bernie Madoff via money manager Ezra Merkin, he seemed to brush it off, suggesting he'd only entrusted a small part of his charitable trust to Merkin. A few days ago, he revealed that it wasn't just his charitable foundation that fell victim; he lost $15 million of his own money, too. But the scandal may have cost him a good friend as well. Zuckerman's lawsuit, which you can view below, says Zuckerman had forged "a close relationship" with Merkin up until news of the scheme came to light.

It's shaping up to be a particularly bad day for Ezra Merkin. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued the money manager this morning for steering more than $2 billion to Bernie Madoff. Now real estate mogul/Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman is suing for fraud, too, over the $25 million he handed to Merkin as part of his charitable trust as well as another $15 million he says he invested personally. [Bloomberg]

The snowstorm didn't stop art and society scenesters from stopping off at the New York Academy of Art on Monday night. Guests at the Tribeca Ball included Liev Schreiber, Justin Timberlake, and event co-chair Eileen Guggenheim (left), along with Bill Clinton, Andre Balazs, Andy and Kate Spade, Adam Weinberg, Jason Wu, Nicole Miller and Kim Taipale, Monet Mazur, Alek Wek, Bettina Zilkha, Poppy de Villeneuve, Jennifer Creel, Jean-Pierre Roy, Ludwig Kuttner and Beatrix Ost, stylist Ric Pipino, Heather Mnuchin, Liam McMullan, Antoine and Maureen Chiquet, and artist Will Cotton. [PMc, Wireimage, VF, FWD, Style.com]

• Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the son of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., is joining the paper next week as a Metro reporter. [NYO]
• Following a huge fourth quarter loss, Playboy says it's now up for sale. [Folio]
• It's rumored that Viacom is laying off staff today. [Gawker]
• Newsweek staffers are unhappy about recent changes at the mag. [NYP]
• Sean Delonas is in hot water for his cartoon in the Post today. [E&P]
• Mort Zuckerman says he can fix the Daily News by printing it in color. [MM]
• Vanity Fair is shutting down its German edition. [WWD]

Mort Zuckerman is in pretty good shape for a man his age; he even mixes with the ladies a fair amount, an impressive feat considering he's in his 70s. But Zuckerman has named a successor at the New York Daily News anyway. His 11-year-old daughter. (On the bright side, if she ended up taking over tomorrow, it's unlikely she could really do any more damage to an industry that's already on its last legs.) The clip from Zuckerman's appearance on Charlie Rose's show earlier this week is above.

Madonna wishes Alex Rodriguez was crying on her shoulder. Meanwhile, a Los Angeles woman is offering her support to hundreds of thousands of traumatized Miley Cyrus victims.

• Madonna is supposedly furious with Alex Rodriguez for returning to his ex-wife Cynthia after the steroid scandal broke a few days ago; we're guessing she won't be too happy with the pics of A-Rod partying with a group of girls in the Bahamas the weekend before, either. [NYDN, NYP]
• Mandy Moore and Ryan Adams are engaged. [People, P6]
• Cops will reinterview Rihanna and Chris Brown in the coming days. [NYDN]
• Mort Zuckerman had a nice, long, expensive lunch at the Four Seasons right after slashing benefits at the Daily News. [P6]
• Prince Harry has been ordered to undergo "sensitivity training." [People]

• Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is cutting employee benefits. [NYP]
• Former Self editor and Bernie Madoff victim Alexandra Penney has landed a book deal with Voice, an imprint of Disney's Hyperion Books. [NYT]
• A few photos of Michelle Obama from the new issue of Vogue. [HP]
• How SI's Selena Roberts landed the Alex Rodriguez steroid story. [NYO]
• Former NYDN editor Michael Cooke is leaving Chicago for Toronto. [CT]
• John Grisham is close to signing a big e-book deal with Random House. [WSJ]
• The Justice Department plans to investigate the proposed (and controversial) merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. [AP]

Last October, Maureen White, the former finance chair for the Democratic National Committee and wife of Steve Rattner, was arrested for drunk driving. According to the police report, White was pulled over in her Mercedes at the Throgs Neck Bridge and failed a field sobriety test, registering a blood-alcohol level that was twice the legal limit. (She subsequently pleaded guilty to the charges, paid a fine, and had her driver's license suspended for 90 days.) That the Democratic fundraiser and wife of one of the city's most prominent financiers had been arrested was certainly news, and the Daily News covered the arrest a day later in an article titled "Democratic Money Queen in Booze Bust." But the paper pulled the article down soon after—it was originally located here—and now we know why. A source inside the News tells us the order came from "the very top," namely Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman.

Lawyers vs. real-estate developers? It's a fight almost everyone else wins. Boston Properties, the real-estate empire of U.S. News publisher Mort Zuckerman, has given up on a 39-story tower in Hell's Kitchen.

Mort Zuckerman's foundation lost $30 million when he handed over funds to money manager Ezra Merkin, who in turn invested the money with Bernie Madoff. So has Mort had any words with Merkin, who he's publicly promised to bury in a legal avalanche? Indeed he has! "I had one brief conversation," he tells the Financial Times. "I would describe it as intense." [FT]

Real estate mogul and Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman had a rep as quite the ladies' man when he was younger. His conquests over the years have included Nora Ephron, Diane von Furstenberg, Gloria Steinem, Arianna Huffington, and Patricia Duff. (And just because he's 71 doesn't mean he's slowing down any; he welcomed a daughter into the world in late December, although he didn't disclose who the mother is.) But it's safe to say that his many paramours haven't been drawn to him for his sense of style. Click here for a look back at a few of Zuckerman's most unfortunate fashion moments over the past three decades.

The voicemail message at Mort Zuckerman's East Hampton home.

Mazel tov to Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman who at the spry age of 71 welcomed his second daughter, Renee Esther, into the world last Friday. Now, just who's the mother?

• Jeffrey Epstein is a free man—sort of. The billionaire money manager, who was sentenced to 18 months for soliciting a minor for prostitution, is now working at the office of his non-profit foundation five days as a week as part of a work-release program. [P6]
• Mort Zuckerman became a dad for the second time on Friday with the birth of a daughter named Renee Esther. [NYDN]
• Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey's frosty relationship has turned into "outright contempt" since Baldwin mocked Fey's scar at a recent photo shoot and told the photographer to "get ready to do a lot of airbrushing." [Star]
• Suri Cruise gets 100 fan letters each day, you'll be creeped out to learn. [Star]

It's not just elderly Jews and the odd billionaire real estate mogul who will go down as victims of Bernie Madoff's mammoth $50 billion Ponzi scheme. There are a few blonde, beautiful, non-Jewish socialites who are suffering the consequences, too, such as the "five stunning daughters" of Walter Noel, who handed over a staggering $7.5 billion to Madoff. The most public of the five girls: Marisa Noel Brown (left), who has appeared in recent years Hampton Style and Town & Country, and, somewhat ironically, was last featured in the now-defunct magazine 02138. [GoaG]

Real estate tycoon and Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman would like you to know that, contrary to earlier reports, he was not really a victim of Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme. First of all, the $30 million he'd invested with Madoff was part of a charitable trust and didn't have anything to do with his personal fortune. And he'd never even heard of Madoff before last week; the money was invested with Madoff via a third party. Please also note that he hasn't worried about the Madoff mess for a moment. "I spent the weekend taking my daughter to see the Jonas Brothers, so I haven't been thinking about this, and after that concert I'm trying to regain my hearing, which I've barely done." [NYM]

• The list of companies, charities and individuals who lost massive sums in connection with Bernie Madoff continues to grow: Mort Zuckerman, Elie Wiesel, Sen. Frank Lautenberg and a charity tied to Steven Spielberg are just a few of the latest victims. [WSJ, NYT]
• Many of Madoff's victims were located in Palm Beach, where the mood is especially grim as wealthy retirees account for their losses. [NYT, WSJ]
• The Madoff saga isn't the only outrageous scheme to have been revealed in recent days, of course. The Times' report over the weekend on how Marc Dreier duped the likes of Sheldon Solow and the bank Perella Weinberg. [NYT]

Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman is the latest billionaire revealed to have fallen prey to ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. How many of Rupert Murdoch's papers does it take to cover the story?

A few weeks ago, Mort Zuckerman was doing his darndest to prop up an ailing Citigroup. The real estate kingpin (and Daily News owner) may have taken time out of his schedule to appear on MSNBC four times in one day because he was worried about the impact a Citi bankruptcy would have on the global financial markets—or it may have had something to do with the fact that the bank has long been one of his largest tenants. (You decide!) Whatever it was, though, it appears his mood has shifted. Zuckerman's Boston Properties announced that it now plans to strip the bank's name from the Citigroup Center on Lexington Avenue early next year. "We're tired of the fact that every time Citibank has a problem all of the TV cameras come and photograph the Citigroup Center sign on the front of our building," a Zuckerman lieutenant told a reporter today. The exec didn't indicate what the new name of the building would be—and it's doubtful any company in its right mind would shell out millions for naming rights given the current state of the economy—but if you have any clever suggestions, send them along. We'll pass them along to Mort tout de suite!