Bernie Madoff's Celebrity Victims Include Kevin, Kyra and Spielberg
Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick
Convicted financier Bernie Madoff, sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison, counted a who's who of celebrities among his victims.
Kevin Bacon and his wife, The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick, confirmed in December that they were among the thousands duped by Madoff, who was convicted of hatching a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The couple did not specify their loss, but Bacon said he was searching for projects because, "I need to work, for obvious reasons."
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Last month, Sedgwick said the couple was hurt, but not "destroyed" by the scam, which didn't destroy her sense of humor on the situation either. "I think the interesting thing about it was that I always thought, 'We're so boring. We should be in the tabloids more. C'mon honey, let's have a scandal,'" she told the Associated Press.
DreamWorks partners Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg also fell victim to Madoff. Spielberg's charity, WunderKinder Foundation, was hit, as was Katzenberg's family trust. "This is extremely painful and humiliating for me," Katzenberg told Bloomberg News. "It has done extraordinary damage to my philanthropy."
Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel called Madoff "one of the greatest scoundrels, thieves, liars, criminals" after the scandal broke. The Holocaust survivor said Madoff gained his trust that he invested all of his nonprofit's $15.2 million with the disgraced money manager.
Other famous victims, prosecutors said, include John Malkovich, baseball hall of famer Sandy Koufax, Ringo Starr's wife Barbara Bach, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, who may have lost as much as $10 million.
