UD loves this shit. A hugely influential, venerated, and privileged MIT professor spends years and years stealing more than a hundred million dollars from clients. He did business with Bernard Madoff.
The Bitrans [this was one of those adorable father/son things] paid themselves as much as $16 million in management fees over the life of the businesses and recovered $12 million of their own investments when the funds were doing poorly, the U.S. said in court filings, adding that the two discussed their scheme in e-mail exchanges.
In addition to defrauding investors, the Bitrans lied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and sought to hide assets by transferring property to a relative without the relative’s permission, prosecutors said.
And a fellow professor gets up during sentencing (three years and nine months) to anguish over his suffering during the long ordeal of running a Ponzi scheme, and to praise his excellent character.
And how does his colleague know firsthand how he’s suffered? Because for all of those “past few years” – in fact, since 2009, long after his Madoff connection and wrongdoing were publicly known – he remained an influential, venerated, and privileged MIT professor. He was even an associate dean. He finally left the school in 2013.
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MIT has said nothing and done nothing in all this time. UD doubts that even now – with Bitran suiting up for prison – MIT will say anything about having for years retained on its faculty a massive fraudster.
Meanwhile, all over MIT websites there are statements like this one:
Deputy Dean Gabriel Bitran discussed [with the Financial Times the importance of] producing leaders with a social conscience.
Like Bernard Madoff’s Yeshiva University, you can direct your IT people to erase all images and mentions of Bitran on the school website. I mean, I’m sure MIT is busy scrubbing scrubbing scrubbing right now.
When you ask yourself why so many people detest professors, think of MIT and the way it protected Gabriel Bitran.
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Oh by the way. How were the thieves caught?
The scheme was uncovered by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission when, while investigating potential victims of the Bernie Madoff fraud, SEC officials asked for documentation to support the Bitrans’ returns claims. The Bitrans then made false statements to the SEC examiners and provided fabricated records.
Here’s a management tip direct from the Sloan School:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:24PM
Suffering? Now that is hilarious. As my old clients used to say, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. When I worked at a public defenders office I represented people with real problems. These two clowns? Not so much.
December 21st, 2015 at 4:16PM
With clowns you get a song, a dance, a little seltzer down the pants. With these two, you just get pantsed…
December 22nd, 2015 at 12:22PM
Professor Inconsolata?
December 22nd, 2015 at 1:20PM
Derek: LOL. Absolutely.
December 22nd, 2015 at 4:51PM
for someone with Gabriel’s character getting caught is a huge punishment…
December 22nd, 2015 at 6:11PM
john: Yes. Hasn’t he suffered enough?
February 6th, 2022 at 11:49AM
[…] “I know Gabriel has been suffering immensely over the past few years during this whole ordeal,” … Margaret Soltan, February 6, 2022 11:49AM Posted in: beware the b-school boys […]