Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

A couple of weeks ago, we pointed out that Robert Jaffe, the car-collecting clotheshorse who raised hundreds of millions for Bernie Madoff, had returned to a life of leisure and was back hitting balls at the Palm Beach Country Club. He probably isn't golfing this afternoon—and that's not because there are reports of scattered thunderstorms in Palm Beach today. The SEC just filed civil fraud charges against Jaffe and two other executives affiliated with Cohmad Securities for marketing Madoff investments while "knowingly or recklessly disregarding facts indicating that Madoff was operating a fraud." The SEC also filed charges against Stanley Chais, who helped raise as much as $1 billion for Madoff from the Hollywood crowd, but has since left LA to move to NYC. [NYT/Dealbook, WSJ]

• The market is kicking off the week on a positive note. [CNN, WSJ]
• The investigation into Bernie Madoff's scheme is now focused on some of his biggest investors: Jeffry Picower, Stanley Chais, and Carl Shapiro. [WSJ]
• Bradley Ruderman, the founder of LA-based Ruderman Capital Partners, has been arrested and is charged with bilking investors out of $44 million. [DB]
• Steve Rattner is making waves again, although it has nothing to do with the unfolding pension fund scandal. It's his construction of a $15 million summer home on Martha's Vineyard that is now angering neighbors. [P6] More

• Alexander Belopolsky, a financial whiz who has worked for Jim Simons and Israel Englander's hedge funds, has paid $5.026 million for a four-bedroom condo at the Visionaire in Battery Park. [NYO]
• Ed Stevenson, co-founder of the investment firm Renewable Capital, and his wife Lorin, have sold their one-bedroom condo at Trump World Tower for $5.65 million. [Cityfile]
• Goldman Sachs exec Valentino Carlotti, who moved to São Paulo last year to head up Goldman's Brazil-based operations, has sold his two-bedroom condo at 119 Fulton Street for $1.2 million. [Cityfile]

• New York Times public editor Byron Calame and his wife Kathryn have sold their three-bedroom, 16th-floor co-op at 670 West End Avenue for $2.4 million. The buyer is Bill Bermont, a vice president at Citigroup, and his wife Lynne. [Cityfile]
• Joseph Kohls, a Bank of America managing director, and his wife Christin paid $5.2 million for an apartment at the Tribeca Summit at 415 Greenwich Street. [Cityfile]
• Stanley Chais, the notorious money manager who helped collect millions for Bernie Madoff, has put his LA condo on the market for $4.7 million. Why? Because he's moved to New York. Welcome, Stanley! [WSJ]

Eric Roth has a lot to be thankful about. The award-winning writer of Forrest Gump and Munich, this morning Roth was nominated for an Oscar for his adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The bad news? Whatever money he made from Benjamin Button—or any of his other movies—is long gone. In late December, Roth revealed that he'd lost "all his retirement money" to Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Now Roth has filed suit against Stanley Chais, the LA-based money manager who helped collect an estimated $250 million for Madoff. So if Roth ends up winning on Oscar night and his acceptance speech strikes you as a little overly emotional (or you're just outraged that Button won), you should probably cut him a little slack.