The U.S. District court for the Southern District of New York seems intent on keeping ex-NASDAQ chairman and $50 billion Ponzi scheme swindler Bernard Madoff confined to his Upper East Side Manhattan luxury home and not in a federal lock-up.

Two judges in the New York federal circuit, Theodore Katz and Ronald Ellis, have ruled that Madoff should stay in his town house and out of prison.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, whose son Marc Mukasey of the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani represents Frank DiPascali, one of the Madoff cronies, once served on the federal bench with Katz and Ellis in New York. Katz was appointed by George H. W. Bush while Ellis, an African American, was appointed by Clinton.

WMR previously reported that Madoff is suspected of transferring much of his ill-gotten gain to Israeli banks, including one, Bank Leumi, that Madoff associate J. Ezra Merkin bought from the Israeli government when Ariel Sharon was prime minister and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was finance minister.

Almost forgotten in the Madoff scandal is another scandal in which Morris “Moshe” Talansky, a New York businessman, admitted that he gave Olmert $150,000 in cash contained in envelopes. The scandal forced Olmert to announce that he was stepping down as prime minister but not before he launched a genocidal attack on Gaza.

Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is a major donor to the Republican Party, has also given generously to Likud chief and prime minister-hopeful Binyamin Netanyahu, who hopes to succeed Olmert as prime minister.

Madoff, Talansky, Merkin, Olmert, Netanyahu, Adelson, one-time top GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associate Adam Kidan, Rahm Emanuel, and all their comrades in Washington, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, London, Ottawa, and Paris brings to mind the Hebrew saying “ba’al ha’mea ba’al ha’dea” or “the one with the money calls the shots” or even more telling, “he who has the gold makes the rules.”

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.