Former Hadassah Exec Says She Had an Affair With Madoff

By JTA August 13, 2009

A former chief financial officer at Hadassah is claiming that she had an affair with Bernard Madoff.

Sheryl Weinstein reportedly makes the claim in her book “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me,” which is set to be published Aug. 25 by St. Martin’s Press.

Weinstein, an accountant, has said previously that she lost her family’s savings by investing with Madoff and claimed to have first met the confessed swindler when working at Hadassah. The Jewish women’s organization has said that it invested $40 million with Madoff from 1988 to 1997.

By the time federal authorities exposed the Ponzi scheme last year, Hadassah believed the value of the portfolio had grown to $90 million, not including $130 million that it had pulled out over the years.

Both Weinstein and Hadassah have said that the first $7 million the organization invested with Madoff in 1988 came from a donor who insisted the money be handled that way. Hadassah invested another $33 million with Madoff by 1996, the year before Weinstein left the organization.

Hadassah continued to maintain a portfolio with Madoff after Weinstein’s departure, but never put additional money into the account, according to the organization.

Weinstein served on the Hadassah committee that decided to invest with Madoff, but a spokesperson for the organization said she was one of many members on the committee.

According to the spokesperson, the organization did not know of the alleged affair during Weinstein’s tenure at the organization, and her departure was unrelated to Madoff.

Hadassah is “moving on” from Madoff, the spokesperson said, noting that the organization recently received a $1 million gift and is close to securing two more.

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