Ripples of Madoff scandal spread everywhere

The money couldn't come soon enough. The sharp downturn in the economy had put Schwartz's group--working to improve treatment of teen offenders with mental illnesses--under very tight budget pressure. At least the check was a promise he could count on.

By that Thursday, though, events were unfolding 160 miles away that would upend those assumptions and assurances. In a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, a Wall Street wizard stood before a judge, charged with running a $50 billion fraud that targeted scores of wealthy and powerful investors.

The name of the accused, Bernard L. Madoff, meant nothing to Schwartz and why should it? He'd never heard of the money manager with the beachfront mansion and the 55-foot yacht. They'd certainly never met. There was no reason to think they had anything in common.

Except, it turned out, the money.

In the days since Madoff's Dec. 11 arrest, the tale has repeatedly been told of wealthy victims who, perhaps naively, invested their trust in a man who promised financial miracles.

But the scale of the Madoff scandal can just as well be measured in its still-widening ripples, reaching far-flung people and causes--from a group helping just-released inmates find jobs in Rhode Island to another working to provide fresh food in poor neighborhoods in Detroit and Oakland, Calif.

Their future is now in jeopardy--a painful reminder of the financial web linking very different worlds.

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Signing up companies for office space in Manhattan skyscrapers made Norman F. Levy a very rich man.