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Picard Picks on Pontificators: Journalist in the Cross Hairs

One of my favorites! Given how bored I am, I thought I'd republish it!

BLM

To: E. Arvedlund
From: I. Picard, Esq.

Dear Ms. Arvedlund:

You're a very pretty young lady, and I appreciate your sending me an autographed and free copy of your book.

I'm also hoping that you have a good attorney. It seems that you've managed to cull information from sources that should have been provided to our office. This stuff about protecting sources doesn't fly with me, so don't be surprised if you get a subpoena from my office before the end of the day.

Yes, we've been paid close to $15 million for the work we did from December thru April of this year (not including the 3% recovery fees that we'll be invoicing the court for), and you've been paid what so far? An advance of a maybe $25,000?? And you're getting how much in royalties? 10%? If you're lucky.

I don't know how many hours that you put in doing your research, but I'm willing to bet $50k, right here, right now, that we're making a lot more on an hourly basis than you ever will. And our work product speaks for itself.

I saw that excerpt of your book in Barron's this weekend. That lawyer of your's had better be prepared to respond to the other "Dimes"---that kid Jamie Dimon.

You and these nick names--Mikey "Beans" Bienes, "Dimes Dipascali"; and my least favorite, "Nose Picker Picard"---its just not nice to put nicknames on people like that.

There's a reason why we haven't gone after JPMorgan and that $250 million. Getting money out of them is like getting AIG to pay out on a claim! Its not just because Dimon sent over that autographed picture of himself, this is a kid that's connected.

Listen, young lady; unlike you "journalists", we don't like to rock boats in this office, although we like to throw rocks if we think it will accomplish something.

So throwing rocks at little old Italian ladies named Bongiorno isn't going to help us recover real money. Not like the kind of money that MAXAM redeemed, anyway.

I need another Bentley with dings on it like I need another hole in my head. What do I look like, a used car salesman?? Is it my job to investigate who knew what?? No dear, its not. That's why those people with badges sitting on the 17th floor go visit Bernie's Blog 5x a day so they hope they can find more crumbs than what's in their box of donuts.

Yes, I think that in maybe 20 years or so, we'll ultimately prevail in the litigation that we've filed against the people over at Fairfield Greenwich, the Picowers, the Cohmad Clan, Ezra, and all of the others. If Chais lives that long, we might get something out of him too, or maybe his estate.

But you have to understand, we've spent 5000 hours filing law suits. These things don't happen over night. This is what nobody understands. There's lots of microfiche to evaluate. This is painstaking work.

In the meantime, I've already said that we'll try to pick up the pace paying out claims. But as you know, Mary Shapiro over at SEC has already said that there won't be enough to pay out everyone, even if Steve Harbeck said back in March that there was plenty of cash on hand. Things change, and Steve is on vacation for the rest of August, so my hands are tied for the time being.

Speaking of hands being tied--tell your friends that I have no control over the people at FDA. Just like I have no control over the people SEC. These are government agencies, and if they selectively prosecute people to make examples for everyone else, or if they prosecute people that they've been tipped off to go after by competitors, what am I supposed to do about it?? If your friends' received some stupid warning letter, and their competitors do exactly the same thing, but haven't received anything, maybe your friends should hire a lobbyist or two?

And no, I don't know if Eric Swanson does that kind of work, or if Linda Thomsen would be interested in the job, even they understand how the system works.

I have no idea why the FDA is singling out your friend's company for telling people about the independent lab tests they have, when everyone else that makes hand sanitizers talks about their independent lab tests.

And that stuff the FDA told them about "no hand sanitizer maker is allowed to use the word Swine Flu on a website, or to use the phrase H1N1 within meta tags, even if they have supporting documentation..", I'm not an expert in this area, but if Purell has those words on their webiste, and their meta tags include the phrases as well, then either the makers of Purell are violating the rules, or maybe they've paid someone off to look the other way. This is America, sweetheart. Your friends need to understand how things work.

I just don't know about the legal issues on this particular issue, I'm busy inventing my own legal claims. But if you'd like, they can contact one of the partners at our firm, We're a bit flush right now, so we can probably offer a discounted hourly rate.

We're not representing GOJO or J&J at the moment, so there wouldn't be any conflict of interest. But if one of those comapnies offers a higher hourly rate, we might need to figure out how to handle it.

Besides, we're already stocked up with that alcohol-free stuff and we love it. Who in their right mind would rub alcohol onto their hands to protect against flu? That stuff destroys skin cells, which actually increases the chances of catching something swiney!

Last--I heard that you were seen scouring the beach in front of Bernie's place in Montauk with a metal detector. Just to remind you, anything that you might have found has to be turned in. You have my number, and my email address.

Irv

Full post as published by Bernard Madoff on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).